hen they urged him to assume this
great responsibility; and that he was very sorry he had ever
consented to accept it. His conversation disarmed all criticism,
while his evident honesty decidedly pleased me. It was a sad
thought, while standing on the banks of the Rappahannock, that here
were more than a hundred thousand men on either side of a narrow
river, brethren and kindred, and naturally owing each other nothing
but good will, who were driven by negro slavery into the wholesale
slaughter of each other. But General Burnside told me our men did
not feel toward the rebels as they felt toward us, and he assured
me that this was the grand obstacle to our success. Our soldiers,
he said, were not sufficiently fired by resentment, and he exhorted
me, if I could, to breathe into our people at home the same spirit
toward our enemies which inspired them toward us. As I approached
one of the principal hospitals here, I was startled by a pile of
arms and legs of wounded soldiers, and on entering the building I
found scores of men in the last stages of life, stretched on the
floor with nothing under them but a thin covering of hay, and
nothing over them but a coarse blanket or quilt, and without a
spark of fire to warm them, though the weather was extremely cold
and they were literally freezing to death. Some of them were too
far gone to speak, and looked at me so pleadingly that I can never
forget the impression it made. Arrangements were made for their
comfort as soon as it was possible.

On New Year's day I joined the immense throng of callers at the
White House, but did not enjoy the delay of the President in issuing
his Proclamation of Emancipation. It came late in the day, and
brought relief to multitudes of anxious people. Perhaps no subject
has ever been more widely misunderstood than the legal effect of
this famous document, and the circumstances under which it was
issued. Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed to the measure, and when
he very reluctantly issued his preliminary proclamation in September,
he wished it distinctly understood that the deportation of the
slaves was, in his mind, inseparably connected with the policy.
Like Mr. Clay and other prominent leaders of the old Whig party,
he believed in colonization, and that the separation of the two
races was necessary to the welfare of both. He was at that time
pressing upon the attention of Congress a scheme of colonization
in Chiriqui in Central America,