n the
road towards Hagerstown, beyond Fairfield," and is not to move until it is
ascertained that the rebels intend to evacuate Cumberland Valley.

These things appear to me to be connected with a purpose to cover
Baltimore and Washington and to get the enemy across the river again
without a further collision, and they do not appear connected with a
purpose to prevent his crossing and to destroy him. I do fear the former
purpose is acted upon and the latter rejected.

If you are satisfied the latter purpose is entertained, and is judiciously
pursued, I am content. If you are not so satisfied, please look to it.

Yours truly,

A. LINCOLN.

RESPONSE TO A SERENADE,

JULY 7, 1863.

FELLOW-CITIZENS:--I am very glad indeed to see you to-night, and yet I
will not say I thank you for this call; but I do most sincerely thank
Almighty God for the occasion on which you have called. How long ago is it
Eighty-odd years since, on the Fourth of July, for the first time in the
history of the world, a nation, by its representatives, assembled and
declared as a self-evident truth "that all men are created equal." That
was the birthday of the United States of America. Since then the Fourth
of July has had several very peculiar recognitions. The two men most
distinguished in the framing and support of the Declaration were Thomas
Jefferson and John Adams, the one having penned it, and the other
sustained it the most forcibly in debate--the only two of the fifty-five
who signed it and were elected Presidents of the United States. Precisely
fifty years after they put their hands to the paper, it pleased
Almighty God to take both from this stage of action. This was indeed an
extraordinary and remarkable event in our history. Another President, five
years after, was called from this stage of existence on the same day and
month of the year; and now on this last Fourth of July just passed, when
we have a gigantic rebellion, at the bottom of which is an effort to
overthrow the principle that all men were created equal, we have the
surrender of a most powerful position and army on that very day. And not
only so, but in the succession of battles in Pennsylvania, near to us,
through three days, so rapidly fought that they might be called one great
battle, on the first, second, and third of the month of July; and on the
fourth the cohorts of those who opposed the Declaration that all men are
created equal, "turned tail" and run.

Gen