and enrolled herself
as one of the Free States of the American Union. (_Cheers._) And now as
to Maryland. The last steamers bring us the news of the recent elections
in Maryland, which have not only sustained the Union, but have sent an
overwhelming majority to Congress and to State Legislature in favor of
immediate emancipation. (_Applause._) Tennessee also is ours. From the
Mississippi to the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, from Knoxville, in
the mountains of the east, to Nashville, the capital, in the centre, and
Memphis, the commercial metropolis in the west, Tennessee is wholly
ours. So is Arkansas; so is Louisiana, including the great city of New
Orleans. So is North Alabama; so is two thirds of the State of
Mississippi; and now the Union troops hold Chattanooga, the great
impregnable fortress of Northwestern Georgia. From Chattanooga, which
may be regarded as the great geographical central pivotal point of the
rebellion, the armies of the republic will march down through the heart
of Georgia, and join our troops upon the seaboard of that State, and
thus terminate the rebellion. (_Loud cheers._) Into Georgia and the
Carolinas nearly half a million slaves have been driven by their
masters, in advance of the Union army. From Virginia, from Kentucky,
Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and North
Alabama, nearly all these slaves have been driven and huddled together
in the two Carolinas and Georgia, because, if they had been left where
they were, they would have joined the Northern armies. They preferred to
be freemen rather than slaves; they preferred to be men and women,
rather than chattels; they preferred freedom to chains and bondage; and
just so soon as that Union army advances into the Carolinas and Georgia
will the slaves rush to the standard of freedom, and fight as they have
fought, with undaunted courage, for liberty and Union. (_Loud
applause._) But how is it with the South? Why, months ago they had
called out by a levy _en masse_, all who were capable of bearing arms.
They have exhausted their entire military resources; they have raised
their last army. And how as to money? Why, they are in a state of
absolute bankruptcy. Their money, all that they have, that which they
call money, according to their own estimation as fixed and taken by
themselves, one dollar of gold purchases twelve dollars of confederate
paper. The price of flour is now one hundred dollars a barrel, and other
articles