53 once." Those rebel guns inaugurated the war against the Flag and the Constitution and the Union of the United States. We have been, ever since, waging a defensive war a war to defend, to protect and to maintain the Union and Constitution of our country, and thus to preserve our life as a nation. At this particular crisis, the war has become a question of honor or dishonor, of liberty or slavery, of death or of life, to you and your children. I waive all debate as to foregone points of policy or of party, of mistake, of fraud, and whatever things soever have irritated and divided the Free States, and I say that a crisis is upon us, when every patriot, whether he be father or mother, son or daughter, must lay the offering of his dearest possession upon the altar, in obedience to the command of God and of the State. Let our Isaac be ever so closely knit to our hearts and our hopes, we must be the faithful Abraham to give him up in sacrifice. [Cheers.] I have served our country in her army for ten years, and I speak to you as a military man. And I tell you that we have not lost an equal battle in this whole war ; even at Bull Kun, we beat the army opposed to us. Beauregard, in his official report of that battle, says to Davis, that he had reluctantly given orders to retreat that when he saw the columns approaching in his rear, he did not know whether they belonged to Patterson or to Johnson ; but when he found that they were reinforcements, and not opponents, then he began to hope for victory. In every action since Bull Run (except, perhaps, Ball's Bluff) the loyal army of the United States has conquered the rebels, in fair fight and often against odds, causing them to evacuate and " skedaddle " after their first elan and onslaught. In proof of this, look at Bowling Green and Corinth, and the previous battles which delivered Missouri ; look at the evacuation of Columbus, of Manassas, of Yorktown, of Norfolk, and the defeat at Williamsburg, to say nothing of what our army and navy combined, have accomplished at Port Royal, and Fort Donelson and New Orleans. But what chiefly demonstrates the superiority of the Union forces over the rebels, are the late series of victories of McClellan [cheers] in his march from the Pamunkey to the James River, in the last week of June and the first two days of July. McClellan conquered the rebels in seven successive battles on seven successive days ; wherever he encountered the rebels he overthrew them, and is nearer Richmond now than ever he was before. [Cheers.] With the strong right arm of the country supporting him on James River the navy I say he is nearer to Richmond than ever. Though in the change of front to the new base of operations on James River, our army lost ten thousand men, yet the enemy lost (as they confess) thirty thousand ; while we succeeded, in that manoeuvre, in concentrating the power of our forces, and the rebels were defeated in their attempt to prevent it. Fellow-citizens, there are some among us who echo the rebels' boast, and misname McClellan' s change of front, a retreat, and his casualties, a defeat. Nothing, in a military point of view, is more false than this aspect of the late battles before Richmond. What are the facts of the case ? The James River is the natural avenue to Richmond ; McClellan
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