The moment the rival forces march upon the field, the dullest marks the superiority of the General's. With that, Statesman Clay--in the war saddle for Statesman Adams, whose battle is his battle and whose defeat means his downfall--loses his head. He accuses the General of every offense except that of theft, calls him every name save that of coward. The accusations fail; the epithets fall harmless to the ground; the people know, and draw the closer about the General's standards. The latter's popularity rises as might a hurricane, and sweeps away opposition like down of thistles! Statesman Clay becomes frantic. Possessed as by a demon, he issues instructions to assail the blooming Rachel. His hound-pack obey the call. From that moment the General's marriage is the issue. He is charged with “stealing another's wife,” and every shaft of mendacious villification is shot against the unoffending bosom of the blooming Rachel. Those are fire-swept moments of anguish for the General, who feels the pain the more, since his hands are tied against what saw-handle methods silenced the dead Dickinson one May Kentucky morning in that poplar wood. The blooming Rachel, for her wronged part, says never a word. She goes the oftener to the little church, but that is all. And yet, while she seems so resigned and patient beneath the slandrous lash, the thong is biting always to her soul's source. The election takes place, and now the people speak. They set the grinding heel of their anger upon those slanders; they throw down that ladder of lies by which Statesman Adams hopes to climb. Wizard Lewis, Burr-guided, foils Statesman Clay at every point; the General rides down Statesman Adams like a coach and six. New England is tribal and narrow, with the reeking taint of old Federalism in its veins; it gives itself for Statesman Adams, unredeemed save by a single district in Maine. There, indeed, rises up one electoral vote for the General. It shows in the gray waste of Adams sentiment about it, like a green tree and a fountain against the gray wastes of Sahara. New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland follow in New England's dreary wake for Statesman Adams; while New York gives him sixteen electoral votes out of thirty-six. That offers the round circumference of his Clay-collected strength--an electoral vote of eighty-three!