ceanus_,
and we went down to witness the impressive ceremonies in Sumter. We
found Charleston a scene of wretched desolation, and General Sherman,
who had once resided there, said he had never realized the horrors of
war until he had seen the terrible ruins of that once beautiful city. At
the time of my writing, now, Charleston is crowded every day with
visitors to its industrial Exposition, and the President is received
with ovations by its people.

Our party went over to Fort Sumter in a steamer commanded by a negro,
who was an emancipated slave, but very soon became a member of Congress.
The broken walls of Sumter, brown, battered and lonely in the quiet
waves were hopelessly scarred, and all around it on the narrow beach lay
a stratum of bullets and broken iron several inches deep.

The Fort that day was crowded with an immense assemblage. Among them
were the Hon. Henry Wilson, afterwards Vice-President, and
Attorney-General Holt, Judge Hoxie, of New York, William Lloyd Garrison
and George Thompson, the famous member of the English Parliament, who
had once been mobbed for his anti-slavery speech in this country.
General S.L. Woodford was in command for the day. Dr. Richard S. Storrs
offered an impressive prayer, and the oration was delivered by
direction of the Government, by Henry Ward Beecher. When the speech was
completed, Major Anderson drew out from a mail bag the identical bunting
that he had lowered four years before, and attached the flag to the
halyards, and when it began to ascend, General Gilmore grasped the rope
behind him, and, as it came along to our part of the platform several of
us grasped it also. Mr. Thompson shouted, "Give John Bull a hold of that
rope." When the dear old flag reached the summit of the staff, and its
starry eyes looked out over the broad harbor, such a volley of cannon
from ship and shore burst forth that one might imagine the old battle of
the Monitors was being fought over again.

The frantic scene inside the Fort beggars description. We grasped hands
and shouted and my irrepressible old friend, Hoxie, of New York, with
tears in his eyes, embraced one after another, exclaiming: "This is the
greatest day of my life!" In the rainbow of those stars and stripes we
read that day the covenant that the deluge of blood was ended, and that
the ark of freedom had rested at length upon its Ararat.

On the next day I addressed a thousand negro children, and when I
enquired, "May I send