From that day onward our cause, under God, was saved; but that proclamation saved the Union.

No foreign power dared to oppose us after that, and Gettysburg sealed the righteous act of Lincoln, the Liberator, and decided the victory.
At the beginning of this chapter I described the thrilling scenes at the opening of the conflict; let me now narrate a still more thrilling one at its termination.

The war began by the surrender of Fort Sumter by Major Anderson, April 13, 1861; the war virtually ended by the restoration of the national flag by the same hand in the same Fort, on April 14, 1865.
I joined an excursion party from New York, on the steamer _Oceanus_, and we went down to witness the impressive ceremonies in Sumter.

We found Charleston a scene of wretched desolation, and General Sherman, who had once resided there, said he had never realized the horrors of war until he had seen the terrible ruins of that once beautiful city.

At the time of my writing, now, Charleston is crowded every day with visitors to its industrial Exposition, and the President is received with ovations by its people.
Our party went over to Fort Sumter in a steamer commanded by a negro, who was an emancipated slave, but very soon became a member of Congress.
The broken walls of Sumter, brown, battered and lonely in the quiet waves were hopelessly scarred, and all around it on the narrow beach lay a stratum of bullets and broken iron several inches deep.
The Fort that day was crowded with an immense assemblage.