the right direction. The insurgents confidently claimed a
strong support from north of Mason and Dixon's line, and the friends of
the Union were not free from apprehension on the point. This, however,
was soon settled definitely, and on the right side. South of the line
noble little Delaware led off right from the first. Maryland was made to
_seem_ against the Union. Our soldiers were assaulted, bridges were
burned, and railroads torn up within her limits, and we were many days
at one time without the ability to bring a single regiment over her soil
to the capital. Now her bridges and railroads are repaired and open to
the Government; she already gives seven regiments to the cause of the
Union, and none to the enemy; and her people, at a regular election,
have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate
vote than they ever before gave to any candidate or any question.
Kentucky, too, for some time in doubt, is now decidedly and, I think,
unchangeably ranged on the side of the Union, Missouri is comparatively
quiet, and, I believe, can not again be overrun by the insurrectionists.
These three States of Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, neither of which
would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not
less than 40,000 in the field for the Union, while of their citizens
certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful
whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against us. After a
somewhat bloody struggle of months, winter closes on the Union people of
western Virginia, leaving them masters of their own country.

An insurgent force of about 1,500, for months dominating the narrow
peninsular region constituting the counties of Accomac and Northampton,
and known as Eastern Shore of Virginia, together with some contiguous
parts of Maryland, have laid down their arms, and the people there have
renewed their allegiance to and accepted the protection of the old flag.
This leaves no armed insurrectionist north of the Potomac or east of the
Chesapeake.

Also we have obtained a footing at each of the isolated points on the
southern coast of Hatteras, Port Royal, Tybee Island (near Savannah),
and Ship Island; and we likewise have some general accounts of popular
movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and Tennessee.

These things demonstrate that the cause of the Union is advancing
steadily and certainly southward.

Since your last adjournment Lieutenant-G