Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three--A Popular Prophecy--Gen. Burnside relieved and Gen. Hooker appointed--Battle of Chancellorsville--The Rebels invade Pennsylvania--Battle of Gettysburg--Lincoln’s Speech at Gettysburg--Grant takes Vicksburg--Port Hudson--Battle of Chattanooga--New York Riots--The French in Mexico--Troubles in Missouri. There was, during the rebellion, a popular rhyme declaring that “In Sixty-one, the war begun; in Sixty-two, we’ll put it through; in Sixty-three, the nigger’ll be free; in Sixty-four, the war’ll be o’er--and Johnny come marching home.” The predictions were substantially fulfilled. On January 1st, 1863, nearly 4,000,000 slaves who had been merchandise became men in the sight of the law, and the war, having been literally “put through” with great energy, was beginning to promise a definite success to the Federal cause. But the Union owed this advance less to its own energy than to the great-hearted, patient, and honest man who was at its head, and who was more for his country and less for himself than any one who had ever before waded through the mud of politics to so high a position. That so tender-hearted a man should have been so firm in great trials, is the more remarkable when we remember that his gentleness often interfered with justice. When the rebels, by their atrocities to the black soldiers who fell into their hands, caused him to issue an order (July 30th, 1863), declaring that “for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war a rebel soldier shall be executed, and for every one sold into slavery a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labour,” it seemed as if vigorous retaliation was at last to be inflicted. “But,” as Ripley and Dana state, “Mr. Lincoln’s natural tender-heartedness prevented him from ever ordering such an execution.”