upon military success. It was declared that
the rebellion must be speedily put down or it would destroy the
resources of the country, as $2,000,000 a day were then required to
maintain the army in the field. Hon. Mr. Dawes compared the country to
a man under an exhausted receiver gasping for breath, and said that
sixty days of the present state of things must bring about an
ignominious peace. Hon. Geo. W. Julian declared that the country was
in imminent danger of a foreign war, and that in the opinion of many
the great model Republic of the world was in the throes of death. The
credit of the nation was then so poor as to render it unable to make
loans of money from foreign countries. The treasury notes issued by
the Government were falling in the market, selling at five and six per
cent. discount. Mr. Morrill, in the Senate, gave it as his opinion
that in six months the nation would be beyond hope of relief.

England was anxiously hoping for our downfall. _The London Post_, Lord
Palmerston's paper, the organ of the English Government, prophesied
our national bankruptcy within a short time. _The London Times_
denounced us in language deemed too offensive to be read before the
Senate. It urged England's direct interference; counseled the pouring
of a fleet of gun-boats through the St. Lawrence into the lakes with
the opening of spring, "to secure, with the mastery of these waters,
the mastery of all," and declared that three months hence the field
would be all England's own. At that time the British Government had
already sent some thirty thousand men into its colonies in North
America, preparatory to an assault upon our north-western frontier.
The nation seemed upon the point of being lost, and the hopes of
millions of oppressed men in other lands destroyed by the
disintegration of the Union. The war had been waged six months, but
with the exception of West Virginia, the battle had been against the
Union. The fact that military success alone could turn the scale,
though now acknowledged, seemed to Congress as far as ever from
consummation. Our military commanders, quite ignorant of both the
geographical and topographical outlines of our vast country, were
unable to formulate the plan necessary for a decisive blow.

Such was the situation at the time Miss Carroll sent her plan of the
Tennessee campaign to the War Department. Fortunately for civilization
this plan was adopted, and with the fall of Fort Henry, the enemy's