all those meaner elements that fish in troubled waters when the
dregs are well stirred up. There were sinister signs in the big
cities, in the press, and in financial circles. The Union dollar
once sank to thirty-nine cents. To make matters worse, there was
a good deal of well-founded discontent among the selfsacrificing
loyalists, both at the home and fighting fronts, because the
Government apparently allowed disloyal and evasive citizens to
live as parasites on the Union's body politic. The blood tax and
money tax alike fell far too heavily on the patriots; while many
a parasite grew rich in unshamed safety.

Mobile was won in August. But the people's eyes were mostly fixed
upon the land. So a much greater effect was produced by Sherman's
laconic dispatch of the second of September announcing the fall
of Atlanta. The Confederates, despairing of holding it to any
good purpose, had blown up everything they could not move and
then retreated. This thrilling news heartened the whole loyal
North, and, as Lincoln at once sent word to Sherman, "entitled
those who had participated to the applause and thanks of the
nation." Grant fired a salute of shotted guns from every battery
bearing on the enemy, who were correspondingly depressed. For
every one could now see that if the Union put forth its full
strength the shrunken forces of the South could not prevent the
Northern vice from crushing them to death.

September also saw the turning of the tide on the still more
conspicuous scene of action in Virginia. Grant had sent Sheridan
to the Valley, and had just completed a tour of personal
inspection there, when Sheridan, finding Early's Confederates
divided, swooped down on the exposed main body at Opequan Creek