to his hold on the people.

"We must fight to win," he firmly declared. "Grant is the ablest general
we have yet developed. His losses have been appalling--but the struggle
is now to the bitter end. Our resources are exhaustless. The South can
not replace her fallen soldiers--her losses are fatal, ours are not."

In the face of a political campaign he prepared a call by draft for five
hundred thousand more men and issued a proclamation appointing a day of
Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer.

The spirits of the people touched the lowest tide ebb of despair.

The war debt had reached the appalling total of two thousand millions of
dollars and its daily cost was four millions. The paper of the Treasury
was rapidly depreciating and the premium on gold rising until the value
of a one dollar green-back note was less than fifty cents in real money.
The bankers, fearing the total bankruptcy of the Nation, had begun to
refuse further loans on bonds at any rate of interest.

The bounty offered to men for reenlistment in the army when their terms
expired amounted to the unheard of sum of one thousand five hundred
dollars cash on signing for the new term. Bounty jumping had become the
favorite sport of adventurous scoundrels. Millions of dollars were being
stolen by these men without the addition of a musket to the fighting
force. Grant was hanging them daily, but the traitor's work continued.
The enlisted man deserted in three weeks and reappeared at the next post
and reenlisted again, collecting his bounty with each enrollment.

The enemies of the President in his own party, led by Senator Winter, to
make sure of his defeat before the convention, which was about to meet
in Baltimore, held a National convention of Radical Republicans in
Cleveland and nominated John C. Fremont for the Presidency. Their
purpose was by this party division to make Lincoln's nomination an
impossibility. Fremont's withdrawal was the weapon with which they would
fight the President before the regular Republican convention and after.
Senator Winter voiced the feeling of this convention in a speech of
bitter and vindictive eloquence.

"I denounce the administration of Abraham Lincoln," he declared, "as
imbecile and vacillating. We demand not only the crushing of Lee's army,
but a program of vengeance against the rebels, which will mean their
annihilation when conquered. We demand the confiscation of their
property, the overthrow of every trace of local