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Show I Pird!Bcftniras IF WW End All Fmilwcii - problem of thct duration of D tho great war continues the ab-Gorblng ab-Gorblng subject of thought. Long : i and of variant color is the list of un- Hed prophecies to date, from that of 1 H, G. Wells, who, immediately after ' the outbreaks In 101 1, looked for the falllcc to occupy Berlin within sixty ri&y3, to the lately oxprcBscd prcdic-' prcdic-' tlon of a widely known editor that "no- ; . body now living will sec the real end " of tho war." : , Secretary Soward said at the opening ; f the Civil "War that it was only a tempest in a teapot which would blow ; cvcr In nlnoty days. 1 About this time, writes Isaac Mark-J Mark-J 'ns in the New York Sun, Senator s Hammond of South Carolina predicted ; the downfall of England for want of T-mcrIcan cotton and Senator WIgfall t 1 of Texas Insisted .that Queen Victoria's 4 crown would not remain on her head r j If cotton shipments were slopped. ; Horace Greeley, after tho defeat of jl tho Union army at Bull Run, said that I I public sentiment was everywhere gath-l'j gath-l'j lng and deepening against prosecution i Hot tho war and even hinted at a pos-I pos-I TMble dlsbandment of our forces, j Jhn C. Brecklnrldgo of Kentucky, 1 - encouraged by Bull Run, predicted tho success pf the Confederate cause and the creation of four separate nations within a year. JEFFERSON DAVIS, only nlno months before tho fall of tho Confederacy, Con-federacy, said the war must go on "till the last man of this generation rails In his track and his children taJtc up his musket." Ho saw so little of peace, r.heatl after the complete collapso of his government that ho had announced that the Confederates had entered upon a new phaso of the struggle. Gen, Sherman, too, approhonded that tho dispersed Confederate armies would ' form numberless bands to be dealt with beforo tho final establishment of peace. Governor Alston of South Carolina predicted as the outgrowth of secession seces-sion an empire that would defy all L'uropo, grander than tho world had teen since tho ago of Pericles and Including In-cluding within Its borders Mexico and Cuba. On the question of peace, President Lincoln, in his many wartlmo utterances, utter-ances, wa3 Invariably cautious and njn-commlttal. njn-commlttal. however. Tho most Ji) would say after tho victories at Gcttycbunj and VickBburgn 18U0, wao "Peace docs not appear so distant as it did." Nino ' months later ho confessed that neither sldo had expected that tho war would last till then. Three months later he said nobody could tell tho day, month or year when it would end. In the summer of ISO I he admitted having hoped for a huppy termination termina-tion long before, and during the winter following ho could see no end of the war until It waa brought about by those who began It. In his second inaugural address he hoped that tho mighty scourge of war might speedily pass away. Only when Richmond fell did )io vonturo to aay that ho looked for z. righteous and speedy peace. r EX. GRANT. like Seward, expected war of only ninety days' duration when it commenced. Not before the balllc of Shlloh, a year after, did ho tco a long, righteous and speedy peace. That nobody of the civil war period could approximate tho probablo dura-lion dura-lion of the conflict despite undersla'.ul-lntr undersla'.ul-lntr of the alma and resources of both sides and common knowledge of actlvo disunion conspiracy for four years preceding pre-ceding I far more surprising. th&:i many speculations,, conjectures and prophecies already exploded in connection connec-tion with tho present world war.- |