of Antietam,--for,
although the Confederates afterwards claimed that it was a drawn battle,
they immediately retired,--but even then failed to pursue his advantage,
and allowed Lee to recross the Potomac and escape, to the deep disgust
of everybody and the grief of Lincoln. Encouraged by McClellan's
continued inaction, Lee sent his cavalry under Stuart, who with two
thousand men encircled the Federal army, and made a raid into
Pennsylvania, gathering supplies, and retired again into Virginia,
unhindered and unharmed. The President now deprived McClellan again of
his command, and that general's military career ended. He retired to
private life, emerging again only as an unsuccessful Democratic
candidate for the presidency against Lincoln in 1864.

It was a difficult matter for Lincoln to decide upon a new general to
command the Army of the Potomac. He made choice of Ambrose E. Burnside,
the next in rank,--a man of pleasing address and a gallant soldier, but
not of sufficient abilities for the task imposed upon him. The result
was the greatest military blunder of the whole war. With the idea of
advancing directly upon Richmond through Fredericksburg, Burnside made
the sad error of attacking equal forces strongly intrenched on the
Fredericksburg Heights, while he advanced from the valley of the
Rappahannock below, crossing the river under a plunging fire, and
attacking the enemy on the hill. It was a dismal slaughter, but Burnside
magnanimously took the whole blame upon himself, and was not disgraced,
although removed from his command. He did good service afterwards as a
corps-commander.

It was soon after Burnside's unfortunate failure at Fredericksburg,
perhaps the gloomiest period of the war, when military reverses saddened
the whole North, and dissensions in the cabinet itself added to the
embarrassments of the President, that Lincoln performed the most
momentous act of his life, and probably the most important act of the
whole war, in his final proclamation emancipating the slaves, and
utilizing them in the Union service, as a military necessity.

Ever since the beginning of hostilities had this act been urged upon the
President by the antislavery men of the North,--a body growing more
intense and larger in numbers as the war advanced. But Lincoln remained
steady to his original purpose of _saving the Union,_---whether with or
without slavery. Naturally, and always opposed to slavery, he did not
believe that he ha