ouch with Meade's advancing hosts. He
not only crossed the Potomac with his army in perfect fighting form with
every gun he carried, but with thousands of fat cattle and four thousand
prisoners of war captured on the field of Gettysburg.

The President's day of rejoicing was brief. As Lee withdrew to his old
battle ground with his still unconquered lines of grey, the man in the
White House saw with aching heart his dream of peace fade into the
mists of even a darker night than the one through which his soul had
just passed.

Slowly but surely the desperate South began to recover from the shock of
Gettysburg and Vicksburg and filled once more her thinning battle lines.
General Lee, sorely dissatisfied with himself for his failure to win in
Pennsylvania, tendered his resignation to the Richmond Government,
asking to be relieved by a younger and abler man. As no such man lived,
Jefferson Davis declined his resignation, and he continued his
leadership with renewed faith in his genius by every man, woman and
child in the South.

General Meade, stung to desperation by the bitter disappointment of the
President and the people of the North, also tendered his resignation.

For the moment the President refused to consider it, though his eyes
were fixed with growing faith on the silent figure of Grant. One more
victory from this stolid fighter and he had found the great commander
for which he had sought in vain through blood and tears for more than
two years.

The first task to which he must turn his immediate attention was the
filling of the depleted ranks of the Northern armies. Volunteering had
ceased, the terms of the enlisted men would soon expire, and it was
absolutely necessary to enforce a draft for five hundred thousand
soldiers.

The President had been warned by the Democratic Party, at present a
powerful and aggressive minority in Congress, that such an act of
despotism would not be tolerated by a free people.

The President's answer was simple and to the point:

"The South has long since adopted force to fill her ranks. If we are to
continue this war and save the Union it is absolutely necessary, and
therefore it shall be done."

The great city of New York was the danger point. The Government had been
warned of the possibility of a revolution in the metropolis, whose
representatives in Congress had demanded the right to secede in the
beginning of the war. And yet the warning had not been taken seriously
by