1 T The difficulties in the path of an army in national wars are very great, and render the mission of tie general conducting them very arduous.* ' The invader has only, an army; his adversaries have an army and a people wholly or almost wholly in arms, and making means of resistance out of everything. Each individual conspires against the common enemy—even the non-combatants have an interest in his ruin, and accelerate it by every means in their power. Each armed inhabitant knows the smallest paths and connections-—he find* everywhere a relative or friend who aids him ; the commanders also know the country, and learning immediately the slightest movement on the part of the invader can adopt the best measures to defeat his projects.” These embarrassments, enormously increased by the prodigious extent of the theatre of war, the topography of which is all against the offensive and in favor of the defensive (as witness the immense depth of the lines of communicationsin any great aggressive movements, the impossibility of supplying our armies from the country as is done in Europe, etc.,) entered into the portentous problemwhich the administration had to solve; and yet, in face of this accumulation of difficulties, forming a task the gravest that ever met an Executive, the war has been pushed successfully through to the splendid results we witness —the armies of the rebellion havebeen driven from the vast extent of territory the rebels claimed till now the one is shut up in the States bordering on the Gulf, and the other is besieged without ope of * cape to Richmond. in. THE UPRISING OF THE NATION. ^The response of the people to the call of President Lincoln for men with which* to execute the authority of the Government will always remain one of the grandest manifestations of the spontaneous energy of a free people in the vindication of free institutions. It was then we saw that sublime “ uprising” of the people, when all party dif- ferencies were merged in enthusiastic devotion to the Union—or rather when armed loyalty cowed and quelled secret traitors who, driven to their lurking places, saw the prudence of awaiting some other opportunity to show their hands. After Bull Run had shown that an arduous and protracted war was before us, Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation for 300,000 men. The response of the North to the call was without a parallel in the history of the world, and it was soon evident that more troops would be in the field than the act of Congress authorized. Within fifteen days it is estimated that 350,000 volunteers offered themselves in*defense of our national flag. And from first to last, under the different calls, more than a MILLION AND A HALF of men have been under arms in the war for the Union. There is in history but one example of a similar uprising of the people in defense of its nationality, and that is the rushing to arms of the French during the great revolution when threatened by the eoalitaon. And yet the comparison only serves to show how far even that fell short of what we have witnessed ; for modern historians have proved that, notwithstanding all the exaggerations in regard to the number of men raised by France at that epoch, the figure never exceeded 500,000 men. Yet we have trebled that number. The task now before the Government was herculean, and suchas might have made even Jfapqlgon stand aghgpt. To raise and fit for
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