ing most of the summer
of 1864 Chase stood aside, sullen and envious, watching the progress of
Lincoln toward a second election. So much did his bitterness affect his
judgment that he was capable of writing in his diary his belief that
Lincoln meant to reverse his policy and consent to peace with slavery
reestablished.

CHAPTER XI. NORTHERN LIFE DURING THE WAR

The real effects of war on the life of nations is one of those old and
complicated debates which lie outside the scope of a volume such as
this. Yet in the particular case of the Northern people it is imperative
to answer two questions both of which have provoked interminable
discussion: Was the moral life of the North good or bad in the war
years? Was its commercial life sound?

As to the moral question, contemporary evidence seems at first sight
contradictory. The very able Englishman who represented the "Times",
William H. Russell, gives this ugly picture of an American city in 1863:

"Every fresh bulletin from the battlefield of Chickamauga, during my
three weeks' stay in Cincinnati, brought a long list of the dead and
wounded of the Western army, many of whom, of the officers, belonged to
the best families of the place. Yet the signs of mourning were hardly
anywhere perceptible; the noisy gaiety of the town was not abated one
jot."

On the other hand, a private manuscript of a Cincinnati family describes
the "intense gloom hanging over the city like a pall" during the period
of that dreadful battle. The memories of old people at Cincinnati in
after days--if they had belonged to the "loyal" party--contained only
sad impressions of a city that was one great hospital where "all
our best people" worked passionately as volunteer assistants of the
government medical corps.

A third fact to be borne in mind in connection with this apparent
contradiction in evidence is the source of the greater fortunes of
Cincinnati, a large proportion of which are to be traced, directly or
indirectly to government contracts during the war. In some cases the
merciless indifference of the Cincinnati speculators to the troubles
of their country are a local scandal to this day, and it is still told,
sometimes with scorn, sometimes with amusement, how perhaps the greatest
of these fortunes was made by forcing up the price of iron at a time
when the Government had to have iron, cost what it might.

Thus we no sooner take up the moral problem of the times than we find
oursel