The Land We Live In | Page 4

Defeats the
Mexicans--Buena Vista--Mexicans Four to One--"A Little More Grape,
Captain Bragg!"-- Glorious American Victory--General Scott's
Splendid Campaign--A Series of Victories--Cerro
Gordo--Contreras--Churubusco--Molino del Rey--Chapultepec--Stars
and Stripes Float in the City of Mexico-- Generous Treatment of the
Vanquished--Peace--Cession of Vast Territory to the United
States--The Gadsden Purchase, 264
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Union in 1850--Comparative Population of Cities and Rural
Districts --Agriculture the General Occupation--Commercial and
Industrial Development--Growth of New York and Chicago--The
Southern States-- Importance of the Cotton Crop--Why the South Was
Sensitive to Anti-Slavery Agitation--Manufactures--Religion and
Education--The Cloud on the Horizon, 272
THE SLAVERY CONFLICT.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Aggressiveness of Slavery--The Cotton States and Border States--The
Fugitive Slave Law--Nullified in the North--Negroes Imported from

Africa--The Struggle in Kansas--John Brown--Abraham Lincoln Pleads
for Human Rights--Treason in Buchanan's Cabinet--Citizens Stop Guns
at Pittsburg--Conditions at the Beginning of the Struggle--Southern
Advantages--The Soldiers of Both Armies Compared--Conscription in
the Confederacy--Southern Resources Limited--The North at a
Disadvantage at First, but Its Resources Inexhaustible--Conscription in
the North-- Popular Support of the War--Unfriendliness of Great
Britain and France--Why They Did Not Interfere, 277
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Confederate Government Organized--Fort Sumter--President
Lincoln Calls for 75,000 Men--Command of the Union Forces Offered
to Robert E. Lee--Lee Joins the Confederacy--Missouri Saved to the
Union--Battle of Bull Run--Union Successes in the West--General
Grant Captures Fort Donelson--"I Have No Terms But Unconditional
Surrender"--The Monitor and Merrimac Fight--Its World-wide
Effect--Grant Victorious at Shiloh --Union Naval Victory Near
Memphis--That City Captured--General McClellan's Tactics--He
Retreats from Victory at Malvern Hill--Second Bull Run Defeat--Great
Battle of Antietam--Lee Repulsed, but Not Pursued--McClellan
Superseded by Burnside--Union Defeat at Fredericksburg --Union
Victories in the West--Bragg Defeated by Rosecrans at Stone
River--The Emancipation Proclamation, 287
CHAPTER XXXV.
General Grant Invests Vicksburg--The Confederate Garrison--Scenes in
the Beleaguered City--The Surrender--Hooker Defeated at
Chancellorsville-- Death of "Stonewall" Jackson--General Meade
Takes Command of the Army of the Potomac--Lee Crosses the
Potomac--The Battle of Gettysburg--The First Two Days--The Third
Day--Pickett's Charge--A Thrilling Spectacle --The Harvest of
Death--Lee Defeated--General Thomas, "The Rock of
Chickamauga"--"This Position Must Be Held Till Night"--General
Grant Defeats Bragg at Chattanooga--The Decisive Battle of the West,
295

CHAPTER XXXVI.
Grant Appointed Lieutenant-General--Takes Command in
Virginia--Battles of the Wilderness--The Two Armies--Battle of Cedar
Creek--Sheridan's Ride--He Turns Defeat Into Victory--Confederate
Disasters on Land and Sea--Farragut at Mobile--Last Naval Battle of
the War--Sherman Enters Atlanta--Lincoln's Re-election--Sherman's
March to the Sea--Sherman Captures Savannah--Thomas Defeats Hood
at Nashville--Fort Fisher Taken--Lee Appointed
General-in-Chief--Confederate Defeat at Five Forks--Lee's
Surrender--Johnston's Surrender--End of the War--The South
Prostrate--A Resistance Unparalleled in History--The Blots on the
Confederacy--Cruel Treatment of Union Men and Prisoners--Murder of
Abraham Lincoln--The South Since the War, 301
THIRTY YEARS OF PEACE.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Reconstruction in the South--The Congress and the President--Liberal
Republican Movement--Nomination, Defeat and Death of
Greeley--Troops Withdrawn by President Hayes--Foreign Policy of the
Past Thirty Years--French Ordered from Mexico--Last Days of
Maximilian--Russian America Bought--The Geneva
Arbitration--Alabama Claims Paid--The Northwest Boundary--The
Fisheries--Spain and The Virginius--The Custer Massacre--United
States of Brazil Established--President Harrison and
Chile--Venezuela--American Prestige in South
America--Hawaii--Behring Sea--Garfield, the Martyr of Civil Service
Reform--Labor Troubles-- Railway Riots of 1877 and 1894--Great
Calamities--The Chicago Fire, Boston Fire, Charleston Earthquake,
Johnstown Flood, 308
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The American Republic the Most Powerful of Nations--Military and
Naval Strength--Railways and Waterways--Industry and

Art--Manufactures--The New South--Foreign and Domestic
Commerce--An Age of Invention--Americans a Nation of Readers--The
Clergy--Pulpit and Press--Religion and Higher Education--The
Currency Question--Leading Candidates for the Presidency --A
Sectional Contest Deplorable--What Shall the Harvest Be? 322
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
No Classes Here--All Are Workers--Enormous Growth of
Cities--Immigration --Civic Misgovernment--The Farming
Population--Individuality and Self-reliance--Isolation Even in the
Grave--The West--The South--The Negro--Little Reason to Fear for
Our Country--American Reverence for Established Institutions, 327

The Land We Live In.
FIRST PERIOD.
The Foothold.
CHAPTER I.
A Land Without a History--Origin of the American Indians--Their
Semi-civilization--The Spanish Colonial System--The King Was
Absolute Master--The Council of the Indies--The Hierarchy--Servitude
of the Natives--Gold and Silver Mines--Spanish Wealth and
Degeneracy-- Commercial Monopoly--Pernicious Effects of Spain's
Colonial Policy-- Spaniards Destroy a Huguenot Colony.
America presented itself as a virgin land to the original settlers from
Europe. It had no history, no memories, no civilization that appealed to
European traditions or associations. Its inhabitants belonged evidently
to the human brotherhood, and their appearance and language, as well
as some of their customs, indicated Mongolian kinship and Asiatic

origin, but in the eyes of their conquerors they were as strange as if
they had sprung from another planet, and the invaders were equally
strange and marvelous to the natives. To the Spanish adventurer the
wondrous temples of the Aztecs and the Peruvians bore no significance,
except as they indicated wealth to be won, and rich empires waiting to
be prey to the superior prowess and arms of the Christian aggressor;
while the Englishman, the Frenchman, Hollander and Swede, who
planted their colors on more northern soil, saw only a region of
primeval forests inhabited