CHAPTER II.
From saddening associations with the tragical death of Mr.Lincoln, popular attention was turned three weeks after his interment to a great military display in the Capital of the Nation in honor of the final victory for the Union.

The exigencies of the closing campaign had transferred the armies commanded by General Sherman from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic coast.

The soldiers of Port Hudson and Vicksburg, the heroes of Donelson, Chattanooga, and Atlanta, had been brought within a day's march of the bronzed veterans whose battle-flags were emblazoned with the victories of Antietam and Gettysburg and with the crowning triumph at Appomattox.

It was the happy suggestion of Secretary Stanton which assembled all these forces in the National Capital to be viewed by the Commander-in-Chief.
Through four years of stern and perilous duty, there had been no holiday, no parade of ceremony, no evolution for mere display, either by the troops of the East or of the West.

Their time had been passed in camp and in siege, in march and in battle, with no effort relaxed, no vigor abated, no vigilance suspended, during all the long period when the fate of the Union was at stake.