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SEEING THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY.

Here I leave this mighty Race Problem, over which I have been brooding for months, but which I make no pretence to have solved. No man on earth is wise enough to solve it. But when we are in darkness, we must grope towards the light, and even then the light comes only by degrees. One thing I hold to be fixed: that the Problem, however difficult, is to be wrought out and to be settled here. We are not to get rid of it by shipping off a whole people to die miserably on some distant shore. This is their home as much as it is ours; and it is written in the book of fate, that the two races are to remain on the same soil, inhabitants of the same country, and sharers of the same destiny. So it ought to be. The two races are not natural enemies on the contrary, they are indispensable to each other; and as they are the nearest neighbors, they ought to be the best friends.

We have seen that the African race, which we have been wont to regard as doomed to inferiority, is capable of elevation, and that under the stimulus of education, it is steadily rising, so that, even if it should not become the equal of our boasted white race, it may yet attain to an honorable place among the races of the world. As to the social and political antagonisms, which are complicated by race antipathies, by jealousies and hatreds, if we cannot extinguish them, we can relieve the strain of the situation by a strict regard to justice and humanity; by kindness and gentleness. Thus we can soften bitterness, and slowly removing obstacles out of the way, may "turn the hearts" of the two races towards each other. But when we have done all, we have still to confess that there hangs over the future a veil through which no human eye can see. The final solution must be left to God and to time.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN.

When I left Atlanta, and turned northward, it was delightful to feel that, at last, after two months absence, I was homeward bound. My friend, Mr. Cunningham, who had met me on my way South at Chattanooga, now met me again, and accompanied me to Nashville. Our last day together had been on Lookout Mountain, and now we were to pass over other historic scenes. Middle Tennessee is full of war memories. Here is the field of Murfreesboro, which tells its story silently in thirty thousand graves. As we approach Nashville, the crumbling remains of old earthworks that once girdled the city, remind us how two great armies were once camped on these hills. But just now my eyes were turned in another quarter, to the town of Franklin, a few miles south of Nashville, that had been the scene of a battle near the close of the war, which, though less in the number of those engaged than some others, was contested with the most desperate courage on both sides, and was one of the most important in its results to the Union cause. In this battle Mr. Cunningham had borne a part as a Confederate soldier, and he had told me so much about it, with such details as

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VISIT TO FRANKLIN.

brought it all vividly before me, that I had it in mind, if I came this way again, to pay a visit to the historic ground, that from a study of its geography, and of the position of the contending armies, I might be able to appreciate the tremendous conflict, and do full justice to the brave men on both sides who perished in it.

Accordingly we fixed a day for the visit, when he brought a friend, Major Vaulx (pronounced Voss), who was Inspector-General to Cheatham's Division, which bore a leading part in the battle. Franklin is but eighteen miles from Nashville, and a half hour's ride brought us to the station. As we entered the town, we had the good fortune to meet Col. McEwen, an old resident, who was here when the battle was fought, and from his front door witnessed it all, and who now kindly consented to accompany us over the field, and give us the benefit of his personal observations. Later we had also Mr. Carter, whose house was such a centre of fire from both sides, that he and his family fled to the cellar for safety. Of these four persons, three were eyewitnesses of the battle; and the fourth, if he did not see so much, it was only because the roar of conflict was going on over his head; but as soon as the battle was ended, he had the fullest opportunity to visit the field while it was yet covered with the dead and wounded, and his observations will come in in the proper place.

As the points to be visited were at some distance from each other, my first step was to engage a carriage with two horses, with a negro following on an extra horse in case any of our party preferred to make his observations from the saddle. Thus provided with the best of guides, we set out on our morning's ride, driving directly to the line of entrenchment, along which General Schofield, who commanded the Union army, drew up his line of battle.

THE CRISIS OF THE WAR.

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To make the description intelligible, we must recall the general position of the armies in the South in the Fall of 1864. That was the crisis of the war. While Lee held Richmond, he could do nothing to sustain the fortunes of the Confederacy in any other part of the field, lest he should leave the Capital to his vigilant and powerful enemy. Hence the active campaign was transferred to the farther South, where Sherman in a series of battles had pushed Johnston back to Atlanta- -a movement which created such alarm that he was removed, and the command given to Gen. Hood, who had shown his courage on many fields, having lost an arm at Gettysburg and a leg at Chickamauga, but who in his mutilated body still carried the heart of a lion. He inaugurated his campaign by a new system of tactics. Instead of manoeuvering and retreating, he believed that battles were to be gained by hard fighting, and at once took the offensive, and fought three bloody battles, but could not save Atlanta from surrender. Failing to shake the hold of his adversary by direct attack, he undertook a movement in the rear. Leaving Sherman in Atlanta, he crossed the Chattahoochee with an army of more than forty thousand men, and struck into Tennessee, intending to cut his adversary's communications, and thus compel him to retreat in selfdefence. It was a brilliant plan of campaign, and might have been successful if the Confederate leader had not been dealing with a wary old soldier. But Sherman was then planning his march to the sea, and did not mean to be diverted from it. That was a bold stroke, but not without its danger, for the farther he got away, the more he left the enemy free to sweep the country; and so it might have been that while Sherman was marching through Georgia to the sea, Hood should be marching through Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio! The let

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GENERAL SCHOFIELD.

ters of Grant written at the time, show that he was full of anxiety as to the result.

To guard against the danger from that quarter, it was necessary that Sherman should leave in his rear a sufficient force to deal with such a movement. Accordingly, Thomas was left in command at Nashville, and Schofield*

*If proof were needed of the great value of institutions for the training of officers who are to be at the head of armies, it would be afforded by the late Civil War, in which the same Military Academy furnished the leaders on both sides. In the battle that is here described, the opposing commanders were not only both graduates of West Point, but members of the same class, entering on the same day, and had spent four years together, little dreaming that they should ever be arrayed against each other in the field.

General John McAllister Schofield is a son of the State of New York, having been born in Chautauqua county, Sept. 29, 1829. He graduated at West Point in 1853-when General Robert E. Lee (then only a Captain of Engineers, though a Colonel by brevet for his services in the Mexican War) was Superintendent, and General George H. Thomas Instructor of Artillery and Cavalry--in the same class with General Hood, and also with General McPherson and General Sheridan; while in the next class were 0. O. Howard and Thomas H. Ruger, afterwards Generals in the Union Army, and on the Confederate side Generals G. W. Custis Lee, John Pegram, J. E. B. Stuart, the famous cavalry officer, and Stephen D. Lee, who commanded a corps at Franklin. On his graduation, Schofield was assigned to the Second Artillery, and yet such was his standing as a student that for five years he was retained at West Point as Instructor in Natural Philosophy; and then obtained leave of absence from the army, that he might go to St. Louis, and there fill the same chair in Washington University. But at the breaking out of the war, he returned to the army with the rank of Captain, and was almost immediately promoted to be Major of the First Missouri infantry. He subsequently became chief-of-staff to Gen. Lyon. In November, 1861, he had been promoted to be brigadier-general, and was assigned to the command of the Missouri militia, and in April, 1862, became commander of the district of Missouri. In

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