The improved condition of public affairs, and the increasing cheerfulness of the President, after the victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, are exhibited in a letter written by him a few weeks later to friends at Springfield, Illinois, who had urgently invited him to attend “a mass-meeting of Unconditional Union men” at his old home.  In this letter he took occasion to declare his sentiments on various questions paramount at the time.  Among these was the subject of a compromise with the South, against which he argued with great force and feeling.  Again, he defended the Emancipation Proclamation, a measure to which many Union men were still unreconciled.  He referred also to the arming of the negroes as a just and wise expedient; finally concluding with these expressive and felicitous words: 

The signs look better.  The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.  Thanks to the great Northwest for it; nor yet wholly to them.  Three hundred miles up they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left.  The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a helping hand.  On the spot, their part of the history was jotted down in black and white.  The job was a great national one, and let none be slighted who bore an honorable part in it.  And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all.  It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and on many fields of less note.  Nor must Uncle Sam’s web-feet be forgotten.  At all the watery margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp they have been and made their tracks.  Thanks to all.  For the great Republic—­for the principle it lives by and keeps alive—­for man’s vast future—­thanks to all.  Peace does not appear so distant as it did.  I hope it will come soon and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time.  It will then have been proved that among freemen there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost.  And there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they have striven to hinder it.  Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph.  Let us be quite sober.  Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in His own good time, will give us the rightful result.

In a public proclamation, issued October 3, the President gives more formal expression to his satisfaction and gratitude, and calls upon the loyal people of the Union to unite in a day of thanksgiving for the improved prospects of the country.