eneral Johnston.

On the fourth of May, 1864, each general began his task. Sherman
attacked Johnston, and step by step drove him through the mountains to
Atlanta, where Johnston was removed, and his army from that time was
led by General Hood. After trying in vain to beat Sherman, he turned
and started toward Tennessee, hoping to draw Sherman after him. But he
did not succeed; Sherman sent Thomas, the "Rock of Chickamauga," to
deal with Hood, and in December he destroyed Hood's army in a terrible
battle at Nashville. Meanwhile Sherman started to march from Atlanta
to the sea, his army advancing in four columns, covering a stretch of
country miles wide. They tore up the railroads, destroyed the bridges,
and finally occupied Savannah. There Sherman stayed for a month,
during which his soldiers became impatient. Whenever he passed them
they would shout: "Uncle Billy, I guess Grant is waiting for us in
Richmond!" And on the first of February they resumed their march to
North Carolina.

Grant, meanwhile, had begun his attack on Lee, on the same day that
Sherman had marched against Johnston. Starting from a place called
Culpepper Court House, Grant's army entered the Wilderness, a tract of
country covered with a dense growth of oak and pine, and after much
hard fighting closed in around Richmond, laying siege to Petersburg.
Bravely Lee and his gallant men resisted the Union forces until April,
1865, when, foreseeing the tragic end ahead, Lee left Richmond and
marched westward. Grant followed, and on the ninth of April Lee
surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. Johnston surrendered
to Sherman near Raleigh, in North Carolina, about two weeks later, and
in May Jefferson Davis was taken prisoner.

This ended the war. The Confederacy fell to pieces, and the Union was
saved. "In the hearts of all Union sympathizers was a passionate
exultation that the United States was once again under one government;
but what a day of sorrowing was that for loyal Southerners!"

It is said that on Sunday, the second of April, when the end was in
sight, children took their places in the Sunday Schools, and
congregations gathered as usual in the churches, united in their
fervent prayers for their country and their soldiers. The worshipping
congregation of St. Paul's Church was disturbed by the sight of a
messenger who walked up the middle aisle to the pew where Jefferson
Davis was sitting, spoke hastily to him, then went briskly out of t