as in several other battles, the field was won, General Bragg and his army in full retreat, the siege of Chattanooga raised, and all that valley and virtually those Southwestern States had passed out from under the control of tho Confederacy. This victory was followed by a movement to relieve Burnside at Knoxville. Sherman led it, but Longstreet did not wait for his arrival and abandoned the siege before his arrival. General Grant sums up the situation in these words: "Knoxville was now relieved, the anxiety of the President was removed, and the loyal portion of the North rejoiced over the double victory, the raising of the siege of Knoxville and the victory at Chattanooga." It is in his account of this campaign that he declares: "There was no time during the rebellion that I did not think and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by defeat than the North." The annual Thanksgiving, observed in New England and spreading among the Northern States, was observed this autumn more extensively and with new significance. It was appointed by the proclamation of the several governors, and generally observed the last of November. This year it came on the 26th, the day after the Chattanooga victory. It came too soon to have the completeness of that victory known, but the prospect of it, following so soon Gettysburg and Vicksburg, giving so much more hopeful an aspect to the Union cause, caused the day to be more generally observed and with a deeper significance than ever. The President had issued for the first time a proclama * The battle of Chickamauga, which was only a month earlier, and in which Rosecrans was in command, and badly defeated and then shut up in Chattanooga, is an illustration of this kind. Our army is estimated to have been 56,965 strong, and the Confederate, 71,551. And in that four-days' fighting, we lost 16,000, while the enemy lost 17,000. In this battle at Chattanooga, our loss was 5,815 out of a force of 60,000, which was probably greater than that of Bragg's, as we were the attacking party, while the Confederate loss is estimated at 6,687 out of somewhat near the same force, though not likely to have been so great.-[" War Book," Vol. III, pp 670-678. tion,* recommending its universal adoption, to be followed by the several governors endorsing the same, and it was characterized by so much of Mr. Lincoln's reasonableness, and reverence, and dependence upon the divine favor for the success of our cause, that it was met with a more general and deeper response than was ever known before. Indeed, we had reached that point in the history of the war, when under its rigid discipline, its repeated rebukes of our selfconfidence, and self-righteousness and vain reliance upon statesmen, generals and editors, we were glad of divine aid, and were not ashamed to pray for it or to give public and loud thanks when it came. We thought of our sins, and especially of that great crime against God and man, which had been too long tolerated, and which had now lifted its parricidal hand against the most parental government the world had ever seen. It seemed as if for these three years God's hand had been holding the whole land, North and South, as by a thread of tow over the very fires of perdition. And who would not think of his sins, and cry for forgiveness as well as for deliverance? Those of us who can remember our Sunday services during the war, can recall the effect produced by such a state of things. The telegraph reached every important town and many of the villages, and we went to church as liable to hear of some sad defeat as of an important victory, and if not of such wholesale joy or sorrow, to learn that After our victory at Gettysburg, President Lincoln called upon the people to assemble in their churches and bless God for his interposition and mercy. So also after the news came of Vicksburg's fall, he summoned them again to observe a day of national thanksgiving, praise and prayer, and "render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things he has done in the nation's behalf;" and still again when Chattanooga was relieved and the Confederate forces driven out of Tennessee, he called upon the people to come together in their Christian assem. blies and "render special homage and gratitude to Almighty God for his great advancement of the national cause." But it was especially in that proclamation for the usual Thanksgiving that his humility and reverence toward God, and spirit of tender pity toward all who were suffering by the war, however misguided they may have been, that the religious character into which he had been growing was most distinctly showing itself. some family had lost a father, son or brother, and that the remains were on the way home for burial. And when they came, with what tender religious services, and universal and deepest sympathy, we laid our boy to his rest among his kindred and neighbors. We remember as one feature of those services-never known before and almost forgotten now the use we made of the old "Battle Song of the Reformation." It seemed written for the times, and especially when the minister read the second verse as it was originally written: "Fear not! be strong! your cause belongs instead of that vaguer and less suggestive version of it, found in our hymn books. The justness of this criticism * The hymn as usually printed runs thus, and is found in Lowell Mason's "Sabbath Tune Book " and sung to the tune of "Ganges" : "Fear not, O little flock, the foe Who madly seeks your overthrow; Dread not his rage and power ; What though your courage sometimes faints, Lasts but a little hour. "Fear not! be strong! your cause belongs Leave all to him, your Lord! He girdeth on his sword! As sure as God's own promise stands, Not earth, nor hell, with all their bands, Against you shall prevail! The Lord shall mock them from his throne; God is with us, we are his own; Our vict'ry cannot fail! will be seen, when it is remembered how long the Army of the Potomac was in finding its proper commander. Sure we are that the influence of the war upon the people at home, and the community at large, was a distinctively religious one. It not only summoned the people to a great duty, and called them to make sacrifices never required before, and by motives the most momentous, and many of them the most religious, and gave them a depth and breadth of sympathy with all classes who shared in the hardships and sufferings of the war; but it brought to view, as never before, the God of heaven as the God of nations, who had given them their location on the earth and their place in history, and holding them responsible as communities for their wrong doings, and redress of wrongs, and ready to make them either the guides or the warnings of history. So that under such discipline, it was not strange, before the war was over, the crowds that gathered in Wall street to hear the announcements from the front of some victory, could only find expression for their joy in singing the Doxology of the sanctuary, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." In this connection we may well call to mind the spirit of Mr. Lincoln, whose official documents, and public and private utterances, while they showed no pretentious piety, nor made appeals for effect to the Christian sentiment of the people, were eminently reverential and devout, recognizing the dependence of the nation for success in their struggle, upon our righting the wrongs-now that we had the opportunity-of those whom we had held for generations in slavery; his kindly feeling toward those whom war had made enemies, and his incessant endeavor to save them Amen! Lord Jesus, grant our prayer: Thy church with strength defend; So shall all saints and martyrs raise A joyful chorus to thy praise, Through ages without end!" from all unnecessary loss and sorrow; his almost superhuman patience with those who misrepresented and vilified and hated him; and the spirit in which he went calmly forward from the first, toward threatened assassination, and to final martyrdom. But it is in the President's personal and deepest experiences, that we find most reason to respect and sympathize with his piety. "I have been driven many times to my knees," he said to a friend," by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." And to another he said: "I should be the most presumptuous blockhead upon this footstool, if I for one day thought that I could discharge the duties which have come upon me since I came into this place, without the aid and enlightenment of One who is wiser and stronger than all others." "If it were not for my firm belief in an over-ruling Providence," he said, in reply to a clergyman who referred to the encouragement we have to trust in the good Providence of God, "it would be difficult for me, in the midst of such complications of affairs, to keep my reason on its seat. But I am confident that the Almighty has his plans, and will work them out, and whether we see it or not, they will be the wisest and the best for us. I have always taken counsel of him, and referred to him in my plans, and have never adopted a course of proceeding without being assured, as far as I could be, of his approbation. To be sure he has not conformed to my desires, or else we should have been out of our trouble long ago. On the other hand, his will does not seem to agree with our enemy over there (pointing across the Potomac). He stands as a judge between us, and we ought to be willing to accept his decisions. We have reason to anticipate that it will be favorable to us, for our cause is right." It was, however, in his family anxieties and bereavement, that his faith and submission were most severely tested. When he lost one of his boys by death, |