uld win and take Atlanta,
Lee's army will starve and the end is sure. I can't listen to this
clamor. I will not remove Grant--though I've reasons for believing at
this moment that he may vote for McClellan for President.

"Don't think, my son, that all this blood and suffering is not mine. It
is. Every shell that screams from those big guns crashes through my
heart. The groans of the wounded, the sighs of the dying, the tears of
widows and orphans, of sisters and mothers--all--blue and grey--they are
mine. I see and hear it all, feel all, suffer all.

"No man who lives to-day is responsible for this war. I could not have
prevented it, nor could Jefferson Davis. We are in the grip of mighty
forces sweeping on from the centuries. We are fighting the battle of the
ages.

"But our country's worth it if we can only save it. Out of this agony
and tears will be born a united people. We have always been cursed with
the impossible contradiction of negro slavery.

"There has never been a real Democracy in the world because there has
never been one without the shadow of slavery. We must build here a real
government of the people, by the people, for the people. It's not a
question merely of the fate of four millions of black slaves. It's a
question of the destiny of millions of freemen. I hear the tread of
coming generations of their children on this continent. Their destiny is
in your hand and mine--a free Nation without a slave--the hope, refuge
and inspiration of the world.

"This Union that we must save will be a beacon light on the shores of
time for mankind. It will be worth all the blood and all the tears we
shall give for it. The grandeur of our sacrifice will be the birthright
of our children's children. It will be the end of sectionalism. We can
never again curse and revile one another, as we have in the past. We've
written our character in blood for all time. We've met in battle. The
Northern man knows the Southerner is not a braggart. The Southerner
knows the Yankee is not a coward.

"There can be but one tragedy, my boy, that can have no ray of
light--and that is that all this blood should have flowed in vain, all
these brave men died for nought, that the old curse shall remain, the
Union be dismembered into broken sections and on future bloody fields
their battles be fought over again----"

He paused and drew a deep breath:

"This is the fear that's strangling me! For as surely as George B.
McClellan is elec