you, Julius! When they find your torn and mangled body on the
field of Death, don't you sit up and blame me!"

"Don't yer worry, sah. Dey ain't gwine fin' me dar, an' ef dey do, dey
ain't gwine ter be nuttin' tore er mangled 'bout me, I see ter dat,
sah!"

Three weeks later Burnside's army received a stalwart recruit. Few
questions were asked. The ranks were melting.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE USURPER

The answer which the country gave the President's Proclamation of
Emancipation was a startling one, even to the patient, careful
far-seeing man of the people in the White House. For months he had
carried the immortal document in his pocket without even allowing his
Cabinet to know it had been written. He had patiently borne the abuse of
his party leaders and the fierce assaults of Horace Greeley until he
believed the time had come that he must strike this blow--a blow which
would rouse the South to desperation and unite his enemies in the North.
He had finally issued it with grave fears.

The results were graver than he could foresee. More than once he was
compelled to face the issue of its repeal as the only way to forestall a
counter revolution in the North.

Desertions from the army became appalling--the number reached frequently
as high as two hundred a day and the aggregate over eight thousand a
month. His Proclamation had provided for the enlistment of negroes as
soldiers. Not only did thousands of men refuse to continue to fight when
the issue of Slavery was injected, but other thousands felt that the
uniform of the Republic had been dishonored by placing it on the backs
of slaves. They refused to wear it longer, and deserted at the risk of
their lives.

The Proclamation had united the South and hopelessly divided the North.
How serious this Northern division was destined to become was the
problem now of a concern as deep as the size and efficiency of General
Lee's army.

The election of the new Congress would put his administration to a
supreme fight for existence. If the Democratic Party under its new
leader, Clay Van Alen of Ohio, should win it meant a hostile majority in
power whose edict could end the war and divide the Union. They had
already selected in secret George B. McClellan for their coming standard
bearer.

For the first time the question of Union or Disunion was squarely up to
the North in an election. And it came at an unlucky moment for the
President. The army in the West had ceased