The ensuing twelve or fifteen months to the close of the war were equally uneventful. Long before they ended I had got back to the South Atlantic coast. To this I was indebted for the opportunity of being present when the United States flag was ceremoniously hoisted again over what then remained of Fort Sumter, by General Robert Anderson, who, as Major Anderson, had been forced to lower it just four years before. Henry Ward Beecher delivered the address, of which I remember little, except that, citing the repeated question of foreigners, why we should wish to re-establish our authority over a land where the one desire of the people was to reject it, he replied, "We so wish, because it is ours." The sentiment was obvious enough, one would think, to any man who had a country to love and objected to seeing it dismembered, but to many of our European critics it then seemed monstrous in an American; at least they said so. The orator on such an occasion has only to swim with the current. The enthusiasm is already there; he needs not to elicit it. Here and again a blast of eloquence from him may start the fire roaring, but the flame is already kindled. The joy of harvest, the rejoicing of men who divide the spoil, the boasting of them who can now put off their harness, need not the stimulation of words. The exact coincidence of raising the flag over Sumter on the anniversary of its lowering was artificial, but the date of the surrender of Charleston, February 18th, was just opportune to complete the necessary arrangements and preparations without holding back the ceremony, on the night of which--Good Friday--within twelve hours, President Lincoln was murdered. Joy and grief were thus brought into immediate and startling contrast. A perfectly natural and quite impressive coincidence came under my notice in close connection with these occurrences. I was at this time on the staff of Admiral Dahlgren, commander-in-chief of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the last two years of the war, and accompanied him when he entered Charleston Harbor, which he had so long assailed in vain. The following Sunday I attended service at one of the Episcopal churches. The appointed first lesson for the day, Quinquagesima, was from the first chapter of Lamentations, beginning, "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!... She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!" Considering the conspicuous, and even leading, part played by Charleston in the Southern movement, "the cradle of secession," her initiation of hostilities, her long successful resistance, and her recent subjugation, the words and their sequence were strikingly and painfully applicable to her present condition; for the Confederate troops in evacuating had started a large destruction of property, and the Union forces on entering found public buildings, stores, warehouses, private dwellings, and cotton, on fire--a scene of