me a dirge. All business ceased.
Every wheel in every mill stopped. The roar of the great city was hushed,
and Greed for a moment forgot his cunning.

The army only moved with swifter spring, tightening its mighty grip on the
throat of the bleeding prostrate South.

As the day wore on its gloomy hours, and men began to find speech, they
spoke to each other at first in low tones of Fate, of Life, of Death, of
Immortality, of God--and then as grief found words the measureless rage of
baffled strength grew slowly to madness.

On every breeze from the North came the deep-muttered curses.

Easter Sunday dawned after the storm, clear and beautiful in a flood of
glorious sunshine. The churches were thronged as never in their history.
All had been decorated for the double celebration of Easter and the
triumph of the Union. The preachers had prepared sermons pitched in the
highest anthem key of victory--victory over death and the grave of
Calvary, and victory for the Nation opening a future of boundless glory.
The churches were labyrinths of flowers, and around every pulpit and from
every Gothic arch hung the red, white, and blue flags of the Republic.

And now, as if to mock this gorgeous pageant, Death had in the night flung
a black mantle over every flag and wound a strangling web of crape round
every Easter flower.

When the preachers faced the silent crowds before them, looking into the
faces of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and lovers whose dear ones
had been slain in battle or died in prison pens, the tide of grief and
rage rose and swept them from their feet! The Easter sermon was laid
aside. Fifty thousand Christian ministers, stunned and crazed by insane
passion, standing before the altars of God, hurled into the broken hearts
before them the wildest cries of vengeance--cries incoherent, chaotic,
unreasoning, blind in their awful fury!

The pulpits of New York and Brooklyn led in the madness.

Next morning old Stoneman read his paper with a cold smile playing about
his big stern mouth, while his furrowed brow flushed with triumph, as
again and again he exclaimed: "At last! At last!"

Even Beecher, who had just spoken his generous words at Fort Sumter,
declared:

"Never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell rocks and groans,
will it be forgotten that Slavery, by its minions, slew him, and slaying
him made manifest its whole nature. A man cannot be bred in its tainted
air. I shall find saints