with Andrew Johnson as vice-president. The Democratic convention had declared that, after four years of failure to restore the Union by war, during which the constitution had been violated in all its parts under the plea of military necessity, a cessation of hostilities ought to be obtained, and had nominated M‘Clellan (p. 789) and Pendleton. Farragut's victory in Mobile Bay (August 5), by which he sealed up the last port, except Wilmington, of the blockade-runners, and the evidently staggering condition of the Confederate resistance in the east and the west, were the sharpest commentaries on the Democratic platform; and its candidates carried only three of Admission of Nevada. the twenty-five States which took part in the election. The thirty-sixth State—Nevada—had been admitted in 1864.
Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas.300. Sherman began (November 16, 1864) the execution of his own plan,—to “send back his wounded, make a wreck of the railroad, and, with his effective army, move through Georgia, smashing things to the sea.” He had been drawing supplies from a point 500 miles distant, over a single railroad. He now destroyed the railroad and the telegraph, cut off his communication with the North, and moved towards the Atlantic coast. The sea was reached on December 12, and Savannah was taken on the 20th. He had threatened so many points, and kept the enemy in so much doubt as to his objects, that there had hardly been men enough in his front at any one time to make a skirmish line. On January 15, 1865, the army moved north from Savannah, through Columbia, to Fayetteville, N.C. The march had forced the evacuation of Charleston and the other coast cities, and their garrisons had been put by Davis under command of Johnston as a last hope. Wilmington, which had been captured by a land and sea force on the day when Sherman left Savannah, was an opening for communication with Washington; and it would have been possible for Sherman, with Wilmington as a base, to crush Johnston at once. All that he cared to do was to hold Johnston where he was while Grant should begin his final attack on Lee.
301. During the opening days of March 1865 Sheridan, with a body of cavalry, moved from the Shenandoah Valley along the James river to a junction with Grant (§ 296). On the way he had ruined the canal and railroad communication directly west from Richmond, and had reduced Lee to dependence on the two railroads running south-west. Grant resumed his attempts to work his lines farther round to the south of Petersburgh; and, with each successful advance, Lee was compelled to lengthen his thin line of men. Sheridan was put in command on Five Forks. the extreme left; he pushed forward to Five Forks, destroyed the Southside Railroad (April 1), and held his ground. Giving Lee time to lengthen his line to meet this new danger, Grant gave the signal for a general advance the next day. It was successful everywhere; Petersburgh was taken, and Richmond the next day; Davis and the other political leaders fled to North Carolina; and Lee retreated westward, hoping to join Surrender of Lee. Johnston. The pursuit was too hot, and he surrendered (April 9). All the terms of surrender named by Grant were generous: no private property was to be surrendered; the men were even to retain their horses, “because they would need them for the spring ploughing and farm-work”; and both officers and men were to be dismissed on parole, not to be disturbed by the United States Government so long as they preserved their parole and did not violate the laws. It should be stated, also, to Grant's honour that, when the politicians afterwards undertook to repudiate some of the terms of surrender, he personally intervened and used the power of his own name to force an exact fulfilment. Johnston surrendered on much the Surrender of Johnston. same terms (April 26), after an unsuccessful effort at a broader settlement. All organized resistance had now ceased; Union cavalry were ranging the South, picking up Government property or arresting leaders; but it was not until May that the last detached parties of Confederates, particularly beyond the Mississippi, gave up the contest.
Death of Lincoln.302. Just after Lee's surrender President Lincoln died by assassination (April 15), the theatrical crime of a half-crazed enthusiast. Even this event did not impel the American people to any vindictive use of their success for the punishment of individuals. In the heat of the war, in 1862, Congress had so changed the criminal law that the punishment of treason and rebellion should no longer be death alone, but death or fine and imprisonment. Even this modified punishment was not inflicted. There was no hanging for treason; some of the leaders were imprisoned for a time, but were never brought to trial. The leader and president of the Confederate States is living (1887) quietly at his home in Mississippi; and the vice-president, before his death, had returned to the Congress of the United States as an efficient and respected member.
303. The armies of the Confederacy are supposed to The opposing armies. have been at their strongest (700,000) at the beginning of 1863; and it is doubtful whether they contained 200,000 men in March 1865. The dissatisfaction of the Southern people at the manner in which Davis had managed the war seems to have been profound; and it was only converted into hero-worship by the ill-advised action of the Federal Government in arresting and imprisoning him. Desertion had become so common in 1864, and the attempts of the Confederate Government to force the people into the ranks had become so arbitrary, that the bottom of the Confederacy, the democratic elements which had given it all the success it had ever obtained, had dropped out of it before Sherman moved northward from Savannah; in some parts the people had really taken up arms against the conscripting officers. On the contrary, the numbers of the Federal armies increased steadily until March 1865, when they were a few hundreds over a million. As soon as organized resistance ceased, the disbanding of the men began; they were sent home at the rate of about 300,000 a month, about 50,000 being retained in service Cost of the war. as a standing army. The debt reached its maximum August 31, 1865, amounting to $2,845,907,626.56. Some $800,000,000 of revenue had also been spent mainly on the war; States, cities, counties, and towns had spent their own taxation and accumulated their own debts for war purposes; the payments for pensions will probably amount to $1,500,000,000 in the end; the expenses of the Confederacy can never be known; the property destroyed by the Federal armies and by Confederate armies can hardly be estimated; and the money value ($2,000,000,000) of the slaves in the South was wiped out by the war. Altogether, while the cost of the war cannot be exactly calculated, $8,000,000,000 is a moderate estimate.
Results of the war.304. In return for such an expenditure, and the death of probably 300,000 men on each side, the abiding gain was incalculable. The rich section, which had been kept back in the general development by a single institution, and had been a clog on the advance of the whole country, had been dragged up to a level with the rest of the country. Free labour was soon to show itself far superior to slave labour in the South; and the South was to reap the largest material gain from the destruction of the Civil War (§ 314). The persistent policy of paying the debt immediately resulted in the higher taxation falling on the richer North and West; and the new wealth of the South will for ever escape the severe taxation which the other sections have been compelled to feel. As a result of the struggle the moral stigma of slavery was removed. The
