only asking for one iron-clad after another.  The canal at Vicksburg was of no account, and he wondered how any sensible man could favor it.  He feared the favorable state of public expectation would pass away before anything was done.  Then he leveled a couple of jokes at the doings at Vicksburg and Charleston.”  No wonder the sympathetic Dahlgren, witnessing the sufferings of the tortured President, should exclaim:  “Poor gentleman!  How thin and wasted he is!”

The gloomy outlook in the Spring of 1862 was relieved by the substantial victories of General Burnside in North Carolina and of General Grant in Tennessee.  The President was cheered and elated by these successes.  It is related that General Burnside, visiting Washington at this time, called on the President, and that “the meeting was a grand spectacle.  The two stalwart men rushed into each other’s arms, and warmly clasped each other for some minutes.  When General Burnside was about to leave, the President inquired, ’Is there anything, my dear General, that I can do for you?’ ‘Yes! yes!’ was the quick reply, ’and I am glad you asked me that question.  My three brigadiers, you know; everything depended on them, and they did their duty grandly!—­Oh, Mr. President, we owe so much to them!  I should so much like, when I go back, to take them their promotions.’  ‘It shall be done!’ was Lincoln’s hearty response, and on the instant the promotions were ordered, and General Burnside had the pleasure of taking back with him to Foster, Reno, and Parke their commissions as Major-Generals.”

Our brightening prospects impelled the President to issue, on the 10th of April, the following proclamation, breathing his deeply religious spirit: 

It has pleased Almighty God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and naval forces engaged in suppressing an internal rebellion, and at the same time to avert from our country the dangers of foreign intervention and invasion.  It is therefore recommended to the people of the United States that at their next weekly assemblages in their accustomed places of public worship which shall occur after the notice of this Proclamation shall have been received, they especially acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings; that they then and there implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all those who have been brought into affliction by the casualties and calamities of sedition and civil war; and that they reverently invoke the Divine guidance for our national counsels, to the end that they may speedily result in the restoration of peace, harmony, and unity throughout our borders, and hasten the establishment of fraternal relations among all the countries of the earth.

     ABRAHAM LINCOLN.