Sherman meantime was fighting his way to Georgia. His task was as difficult as Grant’s. The country was wild, and well adapted for concealing the enemy. It was impossible for him to communicate with the rest of the army. After an expedition into Alabama, Sherman started on his “March to the Sea.” Johnson disputed every inch of the way. There was incessant skirmishing, but Sherman advanced step by step. While Sherman and Grant were thus slowly wearing down the resistance of the enemy, the Unionists were once more encouraged by a brilliant naval success. In August Farragut came victorious out of a terrific fight in Mobile Bay. Entering the harbour in spite of the line of mines, he “plucked victory out of the very jaws of defeat.” Sherman was now besieging Atlanta, which he captured on September 1. About the same date Sheridan defeated Early at Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley. These successes decided the presidential election. Lincoln had been unanimously nominated as the Republican candidate, “not,” as he said, “because they have decided I am the greatest or best man in America, but rather they have concluded that it is not wise to swop horses while crossing a river, and have further concluded that I am not so poor a horse that they might not make a botch of it in trying to swop.” Against him the Democratic party, whose main principle was opposition to the war, supported ex-General M’Clellan, declaring “the war is a failure.” The Democrats found their main supporters among those (and they were fairly numerous) who disliked Lincoln’s Emancipation proclamation. Lincoln made no efforts to secure his re-election. He had been before the nation as President for four years: his policy was tried, his opinions known. Even M’Clellan did not dare to propose to abandon the Union. On that point the North was now united, and that being so the successes of September made Lincoln’s re-election practically certain. Out of 233 electoral votes Lincoln received 212; he had a majority in every free State save one. The election was a complete triumph for the President. The noble words of the address which he delivered on taking up his duties for a second time mark the spirit in which he celebrated that triumph. “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan--to do all that may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”