What was thus taking place at Lawrence happened elsewhere, so that by October, 1854, that part of Kansas along the Missouri River was held by the slave-state men, and the part south of the Kansas River by the free-state men.[1]

[Footnote 1: The proslavery towns were Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton, Kickapoo. The antislavery towns were Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan, Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie.]

In November of the same year the struggle began. There was to be an election of a territorial delegate[1] to represent Kansas in Congress, and a day or two before the time set for it the Missourians came over the border in armed bands, took possession of the polls, voted illegally, and elected a proslavery delegate.

[Footnote 1: Each territory is allowed to send a delegate to the House of Representatives, where he can speak, but not vote.]

%388. Kansas a Slave Territory.%—The election of members of the territorial legislature took place in March, 1855, and for this the Missourians made great preparations. On the principle of popular sovereignty the people of Kansas were to decide whether the territory should be slave or free. Should the majority of the legislature consist of free-state men, then Kansas would be a free territory. Should a majority of proslavery men be chosen, then Kansas was doomed to have slavery fastened on her, and this the Missourians determined should be done. For weeks before the election, therefore, the border counties of Missouri were all astir. Meetings were held, and secret societies, called Blue Lodges, were formed, the members of which were pledged to enter Kansas on the day of election, take possession of the polls, and elect a proslavery legislature. The plan was strictly carried out, and as election day drew near, the Missourians, fully armed, entered Kansas in companies, squads, and parties, like an invading army, voted, and then went home to Missouri. Every member of the legislature save one was a proslavery man, and when that body met, all the slave laws of Missouri were adopted and slavery was formally established in Kansas.

%389. The Topeka Free-State Constitution.%—The free-state men repudiated the bogus legislature, held a convention at Topeka, made a free-state constitution, and submitted it to the popular vote. The people having ratified it (of course no proslavery men voted), a governor and legislature were chosen. When the legislature met, senators were elected and Congress was asked to admit Kansas into the Union as a state.

%390. Personal Liberty Laws; the Underground Railroad.%—The feeling of the people of the free states toward slavery can be seen from many signs. The example set by Vermont in 1850 was followed in 1854 by Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Michigan, and in 1855 by Maine and Massachusetts, in each of which were passed "Personal Liberty laws," designed to prevent free negroes from being carried into slavery on the claim that they were fugitive slaves. Certain state officers were required to act as counsel for any one arrested as a fugitive, and to see that he had a fair trial by jury. To seize a free negro with intent to reduce him to slavery was made a crime.

Another sign of the times was the sympathy manifested for the operations of what was called the Underground Railroad. It was, of course, not a railroad at all, but an organization by which slaves escaping from their masters were aided in getting across the free states to Canada.

%391. Breaking up of Old Parties.%—Thus matters stood when, in 1856, the time came to elect a President, and found the old parties badly disorganized. The political events of four years had produced great changes. The death of Clay[1] and Webster[2] deprived the Whigs of their oldest and greatest leaders. The earnest support that party gave to the Compromise of 1850 and the execution of the fugitive-slave law estranged thousands of voters in the free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill, opposed as it was by every Northern Whig, completed the ruin and left the party a wreck.

[Footnote 1: June 29, 1852.]

[Footnote 2: October 24, 1852.]

But the Democrats had also suffered because of the Kansas-Nebraska law and the repeal of the Compromise of 1820. No anti-extension-of-slavery Democrat could longer support the old party. Thousands had therefore broken away, and, acting with the dissatisfied Whigs, formed an unorganized opposition known as "Anti-Nebraska men."

%392. The Movement against Immigrants.%—Many old Whigs, however, could not bring themselves to vote with Democrats. These joined the American or Know-nothing party. From the close of the Revolution there had never been a year when a greater or less number of foreigners did not come to our shores. After 1820 the numbers who came each twelvemonth grew larger and larger, till they reached 30,000 in 1830, and 60,000 in 1836, while in the decade 1830-1840 more than 500,000 immigrants landed at New York city alone.

As the newcomers hurried westward into the cities of the Mississippi valley, the native population was startled by the appearance of men who often could not speak our language. In Cincinnati in 1840 one half the voters were of foreign birth. The cry was now raised that our institutions, our liberties, our system of government, were at the mercy of men from the monarchical countries of Europe. A demand was made for a change in the naturalization law, so that no foreigner could become a citizen till he had lived here twenty-one years.

%393. The American Republicans or Native Americans.%—Neither the Whigs nor the Democrats would endorse this demand, so the people of Louisiana in 1841 called a state convention and founded the American Republican, or, as it was soon called, the Native American party. Its principles were

1. Put none but native Americans in office.

2. Require a residence of twenty-one years in this country before naturalization.

3. Keep the Bible in the schools.

4. Protect from abuse the proceedings necessary to get naturalization papers.

As the members would not tell what the secrets of this party were, and very often would not say whom they were going to vote for, and when questioned would answer "I don't know," it got the name of "Know-nothing" party.[1]

[Footnote 1: Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. II., pp. 51-58; McMaster's With the Fathers, pp. 87-106.]

For a time the party flourished greatly and secured six members of the House of Representatives, then it declined in power; but the immense increase in immigration between 1846 and 1850 again revived it, and. somewhere in New York city in 1852 a secret, oath-bound organization, with signs, grips, and passwords, was founded, and spread with such rapidity that in 1854 it carried the elections in Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware. Next year (1855) it elected the governors and legislatures of eight states, and nearly carried six more. Encouraged by these successes, the leaders determined to enter the campaign of 1856, and called a party convention which nominated Millard Fillmore and Andrew Jackson Donelson. Delegates from seven states left the convention because it would not stand by the Missouri Compromise, and taking the name North Americans nominated N. P. Banks. He would not accept, and the bolters then joined the Republicans.

%394. Beginning of the Republican Party.%—As early as 1854, when the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was before Congress, the question was widely discussed all over the North and West, whether the time had not come to form a new party out of the wreck of the old. With this in view a meeting of citizens of all parties was held at Ripon, Wisconsin, at which the formation of a new party on the slavery issue was recommended, and the name Republican suggested. This was before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.

After its passage a thousand citizens of Michigan signed a call for a state mass meeting at Jackson, where a state party was formed, named Republican, and a state ticket nominated, on which were Free-soilers, Whigs, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Similar "fusion tickets" were adopted in Wisconsin and Vermont, where the name Republican was used, and in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.

The success of the new party in Wisconsin and Michigan in 1854, and its yet greater success in 1855, led the chairmen of the Republican state committees of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Wisconsin to issue a call for an informal convention at Pittsburg on February 22, 1856. At this meeting the National Republican party was formed, and from it went a call for a national nominating convention to meet (June 17, 1856) at Philadelphia, where John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton were nominated.

The Free-soilers had joined the Republicans and so disappeared from politics as a party.

The Whigs, or "Silver Grays," met and endorsed Fillmore.

The Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and carried the election. The Whigs and the Know-nothings then disappeared from national politics.



%395. James Buchanan, Fifteenth President; the "Bred Scott Decision."%—When Buchanan and Breckinridge were inaugurated, March 4, 1857, certain matters regarding slavery were considered as legally settled forever, as follows:

1. Foreign slave trade forbidden.

2. Slave trade between the states allowed.

3. Fugitive slaves to be returned.

4. Whether a state should permit or abolish slavery to be determined by the state.

5. Squatter sovereignty to be allowed in Kansas and Nebraska, Utah and New Mexico territories.

6. The people in a territory to determine whether they would have a slave or a free state when they made a state constitution.

Now there were certain questions regarding slavery which were not settled, and one of them was this: If a slave is taken by his master to a free state and lives there for a while, does he become free?

To this the Supreme Court gave the answer two days after Buchanan was inaugurated. A slave by the name of Dred Scott had been taken by his master from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois, and then to the free soil of Minnesota, and then back to the state of Missouri, where Scott sued for his freedom, on the ground that his residence on free soil had made him a free man. Two questions of vast importance were thus raised:

1. Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves become a citizen of one of the states in the Union? For unless Dred Scott was a citizen of Missouri, where he then lived, he could not sue in the United States court.

2. Did Congress have power to enact the Missouri Compromise? For if it did not then the restriction of slavery north of 36 deg.30' was illegal, and Dred Scott's residence in Minnesota did not make him free.

From the lower courts the case came on appeal to the Supreme Court, which decided

1. That Dred Scott was not a citizen, and therefore could not sue in the United States courts. His residence in Minnesota had not made him free.

2. That Congress could not shut slave property out of the territories any more than it could shut out a horse or a cow.

3. That the piece of legislation known as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was null and void. This confirmed all that had been gained for slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and opened to slavery Oregon and Washington, which were free territories.

%396. Effect of the Dred Scott Decision.%—Hundreds of thousands of copies of this famous decision were printed at once and scattered broadcast over the country as campaign documents. The effect was to fill the Southern people with delight and make them more reckless than ever, to split the Democratic party in the North; to increase the number of Republicans in the North, and make them more determined than ever to stop the spread of slavery into the territories.



%397. Struggle for Freedom in Kansas.%—We left Kansas in 1856 with a proslavery governor and legislature in actual possession, and a free-state governor, legislature, and senators seeking recognition at Washington. In 1857 there were so many free-state men in Kansas that they elected an antislavery legislature. But just before the proslavery men went out of power they made a proslavery constitution,[1] and instead of submitting to the people the question, Will you, or will you not, have this constitution? they submitted the question, Will you have this constitution with or without slavery? On this the free settlers would not vote, and so it was adopted with slavery. But when the antislavery legislature met soon after, they ordered the question, Will you, or will you not, have this constitution? to be submitted to the people. Then the free settlers voted, and it was rejected by a great majority. Buchanan, however, paid no attention to the action of the free settlers, but sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress and urged it to admit Kansas as a slave state. But Senator Douglas of Illinois came forward and opposed this, because to force a slave constitution on the people of Kansas, after they had voted against it, was contrary to the doctrine of "popular sovereignty." He, with the aid of other Northern Democrats, defeated the attempt, and Kansas remained a territory till 1861.

[Footnote 1: The convention met at the town of Lecompton; in consequence of which the constitution is known as the "Lecompton constitution."]

%398. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates.%—The term of Douglas as senator from Illinois was to expire on March 4, 1859. The legislature whose duty it would be to elect his successor was itself to be elected in 1858. The Democrats, therefore, announced that if they secured a majority of the legislators, they would reelect Douglas. The Republicans declared that if they secured a majority, they would elect Abraham Lincoln United States senator. The real question of the campaign thus became, Will the people of Illinois have Stephen A. Douglas or Abraham Lincoln for senator?[1]

[Footnote 1: The Republican state convention at Springfield, June 16, 1858, "resolved, that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the successor of Stephen A. Douglas."]

The speech making opened in June, 1858, when Lincoln addressed the convention that nominated him at Springfield. A month later Douglas replied in a speech at Chicago. Lincoln, who was present, answered Douglas the next evening. A few days later, Douglas, who had taken the stump, replied to Lincoln at Bloomington, and the next day was again answered by Lincoln at Springfield. The deep interest aroused by this running debate led the Republican managers to insist that Lincoln should challenge Douglas to a series of joint debates in public. The challenge was sent and accepted, and debates were arranged for at seven towns[1] named by Douglas. The questions discussed were popular sovereignty, the Dred Scott decision, the extension of slavery to the territories; and the discussion of them attracted the attention of the whole country. Lincoln was defeated in the senatorial election; but his great speeches won for him a national reputation.[2]

[Footnote 1: One in each Congressional district except those containing Chicago and Springfield, where both Lincoln and Douglas had already spoken. For a short account of their debates see the Century Magazine for July, 1887, p. 386.]

[Footnote 2: Rhodes's History of the United States, Vol. II., pp. 308-339. Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. II., Chaps. 10-16. John T. Morse's Life of Lincoln, Vol. I., Chap. 6.]

%399. John Brown's Raid into Virginia%.—As slavery had become the great political issue of the day, it is not surprising that it excited a lifelong and bitter enemy of slavery to do a foolish act. John Brown was a man of intense convictions and a deep-seated hatred of slavery. When the border ruffianism broke out in Kansas in 1855, he went there with arms and money, and soon became so prominent that he was outlawed and a price set on his head. In 1858 he left Kansas, and in July, 1859, settled near Harpers Ferry, Va. (p. 360). His purpose was to stir up a slave insurrection in Virginia, and so secure the liberation of the negroes. With this in view, one Sunday night in October, 1859, he with less than twenty followers seized the United States armory at Harpers Perry and freed as many slaves and arrested as many whites as possible. But no insurrection or uprising of slaves followed, and before he could escape to the mountains he was surrounded and captured by Robert E. Lee, then a colonel in the army of the United States. Brown was tried on the charges of murder and of treason against the state of Virginia, was found guilty, and in December, 1859, was hanged.



%400. Split in the Democratic Party.%—Thus it was that one event after another prolonged the struggle with slavery till 1860, when the people were once more to elect a President.

The Democratic nominating convention assembled at Charleston, S.C., in April, and at once went to pieces. A strong majority made up of Northern delegates insisted that the party should declare—"That all questions in regard to the rights of property in states or territories arising under the Constitution of the United States are judicial in their character, and the Democratic party is pledged to abide by and faithfully carry out such determination of these questions as has been or may be made by the Supreme Court of the United States."

This meant to carry out the doctrine laid down in the Dred Scott decision, and was in conflict with the "popular sovereignty" doctrine of Douglas, which was that right of the people to make a slave territory or a free territory is perfect and complete. The minority, composed of the extreme Southern men, rejected the former plan and insisted

1. "That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal principles on the subject of slavery in the territories: First, that Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the territories. Second, that the territorial legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any right to destroy or impair the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever."

2. That the Federal government must protect slavery "on the high seas, in the territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority extends."

Both majority and minority agreed in asserting

1. That the Personal Liberty laws of the free states "are hostile in their character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect."

2. That Cuba ought to be acquired by the United States.

3. That a railroad ought to be built to the Pacific.

Their agreement was a minor matter. Their disagreement was so serious that when the minority could not have its way, it left the convention, met in another hall, and adopted its resolutions.

The majority of the convention then adjourned to meet at Baltimore, June 18. 1860. As it was then apparent that Douglas would be nominated, another split occurred, and the few Southern men attending, together with some Northern delegates, withdrew. Those who remained nominated Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson.

The second group of seceders met in Baltimore, adopted the platform of the first group of seceders from the Charleston convention, and nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon.



%401. The Constitutional Union Party.%—Meanwhile (May 9) another party, calling itself the National Constitutional Union party, met at Baltimore. These men were the remnants of the old Whig and American or Know-nothing parties. They nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, and declared for "the Constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws."

%402. Election of Lincoln.%—The Republican party met in convention at Chicago on May 16, and nominated Abraham Lincoln, and Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. It

1. Repudiated the principles of the Dred Scott decision.

2. Demanded the admission of Kansas as a free state.

3. Denied all sympathy with any kind of interference with slavery in the states.

4. Insisted that the territories must be kept free.

5. Called for a railroad to the Pacific, and a homestead law.

The election took place in November, 1860. Of 303 electoral votes cast, Lincoln received 180; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; and Douglas, 12.

SUMMARY

1. The Compromise of 1850 did not settle the question of slavery in the territories, and an attempt to organize Kansas and Nebraska brought it up again.

2. In the organization of these territories a new political doctrine, "popular sovereignty," was announced.

3. This was applied in Kansas, and the struggle for Kansas began. The first territorial government was proslavery. The antislavery men then made a constitution (Topeka) and formed a free state government. Thereupon the proslavery men formed a constitution (Lecompton) for a slave state. This was submitted to Congress and rejected, and Kansas remained a territory till 1861.

4. In the course of the struggle for free soil in Kansas the Whig party went to pieces, the Democratic was split into two wings, and the Know-nothing or Native American party and the Republican party arose.

5. The Republican party was defeated in 1856, but the Dred Scott decision in 1857 and the continued struggle in Kansas forced the question of slavery to the front, and in 1860 Lincoln was elected.



CHAPTER XXVI

PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES BETWEEN 1840 AND 1860



%403. The Movement of Population.%—The twenty years which elapsed between the election of Harrison, in 1840, and the election of Lincoln, in 1860, had seen a most astonishing change in our country. In 1840 neither Texas, nor the immense region afterwards acquired from Mexico, belonged to us. There were then but twenty-six states and five territories, inhabited by 17,000,000 people, of whom but 876,000 lived west of the Mississippi River, mostly close to the river bank in Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The great Northwest was still a wilderness, and many a city now familiar to us had no existence. Toledo and Milwaukee and Indianapolis had each less than 3000 inhabitants; Chicago had less than 5000; and Cleveland, Columbus, and Detroit, each less than 10,000. Yet the rapid growth of cities had been one of the characteristics of the period 1830 to 1840.

The effect of new mechanical appliances on the movement of population was amazing. The day when emigrants settled along the banks of streams, pushed their boats up the rivers by means of poles, carried their goods on the backs of pack horses, and floated their produce in Kentucky broadhorns down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, was fast disappearing. The steamboat, the canal, the railroad, had opened new possibilities. Land once valueless as too far from market suddenly became valuable. Men grew loath to live in a wilderness; the rush of emigrants across the Mississippi was checked. The region between the Alleghanies and the great river began to fill up rapidly. During the twenty years, 1821 to 1841, but two states, Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837), were admitted to the Union, and but three new territories, Florida (1822-23), Wisconsin (1836), and Iowa (1838), were established.

So few people went west from the Atlantic seaboard states that in each one of them except Maine and Georgia population increased more rapidly than it had ever done for forty years. From the Mississippi valley states, however, numbers of people went to Wisconsin and Iowa.

In consequence of this, Iowa was admitted to the Union in 1846, and Wisconsin in 1848. Minnesota and Oregon were made territories. Florida and Texas had been admitted in 1845, and the number of states was thus raised to thirty before 1850. The population of the country in 1850 was 23,000,000. Two states in the Mississippi valley now had each of them more than a million of inhabitants.

%404. The First States on the Pacific.%—Until 1840 the people had moved westward steadily. Each state as it was settled had touched some other east, or north, or south of it. After 1840 people, attracted by the rich farming land and pleasant climate of Oregon, and after 1848 by the gold mines of California, rushed across the plains to the Pacific, and between 1850 and 1860 built up the states of California and Oregon (1859), and the territory of Washington (1853). Minnesota was admitted in 1858. The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,000,000.



%405. Immigration to the United States since 1820.%—The people whose movements across our continent we have been following were chiefly natives of the United States. But we have reached the time when foreigners began to arrive by hundreds of thousands every year. From the close of the Revolution to 1820, it is thought not more than 250,000 of the Old World people came to us. But the hard times in Europe, which followed the disbanding of the great armies which had been fighting France and Napoleon from 1789 to 1815, started a general movement. Beginning at 10,000, in 1820, more and more came every year till, in 1842, 100,000 people—men, women, and children—landed on our shore. This was the greatest number that had ever come in one year. But it was surpassed in 1846, when the potato famine in Ireland, and again in 1853, when hard times in Germany, and another famine in Ireland, sent over two immense streams of emigrants. In 1854 no less than 428,000 persons came from the Old World; more than ever came again in one year till 1872.

%406. Modern Conveniences.%—When we compare the daily life of the people in 1850 with that of the men of 1825, the contrast is most striking. The cities had increased in number, grown in size, and greatly changed in appearance. The older ones seemed less like villages. Their streets were better paved and lighted. Omnibuses and street cars were becoming common. The constable and the night watch had given way to the police department. Gas and plumbing were in general use. The free school had become an American institution, and many of the numberless inventions and discoveries which have done so much to increase our happiness, prosperity, and comfort, existed at least in a rude form.

Between 1840 and 1850 nearly 7000 miles of railroad were built, making a total mileage of 9000. This rapid spread of the railroad, when joined with the steamboats, then to be found on every river and lake within the settled area, made possible an institution which to-day renders invaluable service.

%407. Express Companies.%—In 1839 a young man named W.F. Harnden began to carry packages, bundles, money, and small boxes between New York and Boston, and thus started the express business. At first he carried in a couple of carpet bags all the packages intrusted to him, and went by boat from New York to Stonington, Conn., and thence by rail to Boston. But his business grew so rapidly that in 1840 a rival express was started by P. B. Burke and Alvin Adams. Their route was from Boston to Springfield, Mass., and thence to New York. This was the foundation of the present Adams Express Company. Both companies were so well patronized that in 1841 service was extended to Philadelphia and Albany, and in 1844 to Baltimore and Washington. Their example was quickly followed by a host of imitators, and soon a dozen express companies were doing business between the great cities.

%408. Postage Stamps introduced.%—At that time (1840) three cents was the postage for a local letter which was not delivered by a carrier. Indeed, there were no letter carriers, and this in large cities was such an inconvenience that private dispatch companies undertook to deliver letters about the city for two cents each; and to accommodate their customers they issued adhesive stamps, which, placed on the letters, insured their delivery. The loss of business to the government caused by these companies, and the general demand for quicker and cheaper mail service, forced Congress to revise the postal laws in 1845, when an attempt was made to introduce the use of postage stamps by the government. As the mails (in consequence of the growth of the country and the easy means of transportation) were becoming very heavy, the postmasters in the cities and important towns had already begun to have stamps printed at their own cost. Their purpose was to save time, for letter postage was frequently (but not always) prepaid. But instead of fixing a stamp on the envelope (there was no such thing in 1840), the writer sent the letter to the post office and paid the postage in money, whereupon the postmaster stamped the letter "Paid." This consumed the time of the postmaster and the letter writer. But when he could go once to the post office and prepay a hundred letters by buying a hundred stamps, any one of which affixed to a letter was evidence that its postage had been paid, any man who wanted to could save his time. These stamps the postmasters sold at a little more than the expense of printing. Thus the postmasters of New York and St. Louis charged one dollar for nine ten-cent or eighteen five-cent stamps. This increased the price of postage a trifle: but as the use of the stamps was optional, the burden fell on those willing to bear it, while the convenience was so great that the effort made to have the Post-office Department furnish the stamps and require the people to use them succeeded in 1847.



%409. Mechanical Improvements.%—No American need be told that his fellow-countrymen are the most ingenious people the world has ever known. But we do not always remember that it was during this period (1840-1860) that the marvelous inventive genius of the people of the United States began to show itself. Between the day when the patent office was established, in 1790, and 1840, the number of patents issued was 11,908; but after 1840 the stream poured forth increased in volume nearly every year. In 1855 there were 2012 issued and reissued; in 1856, 2506; in 1857, 2896; in 1858, 3695; and in 1860, 4778, raising the total number to 43,431. An examination of these inventions shows that they related to cotton gins and cotton presses; to reapers and mowers; to steam engines; to railroads; to looms; to cooking stoves; to sewing machines, printing presses, boot and shoe machines, rubber goods, floor cloths, and a hundred other things. Very many of them helped to increase the comfort of man and raise the standard of living. Three of them, however, have revolutionized the industrial and business world and been of inestimable good to mankind. They are the sewing machine, the reaper and the electric telegraph.



%410. The Sewing Machine.%—As far back as the year 1834, Walter Hunt made and sold a few sewing machines in New York. But the man to whose genius, perseverance, and unflinching zeal the world owes the sewing machine, is Elias Howe. His patent was obtained in 1846, and he then spent four years in poverty and distress trying to convince the world of the utility of his machine. By 1850 he succeeded not only in interesting the public, but in so arousing the mechanical world that seven rivals (Wheeler and Wilson, Grover and Baker, Wilcox and Gibbs, and Singer) entered the field. To the combined efforts of them all, we owe one of the most useful inventions of the century. It has lessened the cost of every kind of clothing; of shoes and boots; of harness; of everything, in short, that can be sewed. It has given employment to millions of people, and has greatly added to the comfort of every household in the civilized world.



%411. The Harvester.%—Much the same can be said of the McCormick reaper. It was invented and patented as early as 1831; but it was hard work to persuade the farmer to use it. Not a machine was sold till 1841. During 1841, 1842, 1843, such as were made in the little blacksmith shop near Steel's Tavern, Virginia, were disposed of with difficulty. Every effort to induce manufacturers to make the machine was a failure. Not till McCormick had gone on horseback among the farmers of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and secured written orders for his reapers, did he persuade a firm in Cincinnati to make them. In 1845, five hundred were manufactured; in 1850, three thousand. In 1851 McCormick placed one on exhibition at the World's Fair in London, and astonished the world with its performance. To-day two hundred thousand are turned out annually, and without them the great grain fields of the middle West and the far West would be impossible. The harvester has cheapened the cost of bread, and benefited the whole human race.

%412. The Telegraph.%—Think, again, what would be our condition if every telegraph line in the world were suddenly pulled down. Yet the telegraph, like the reaper and the sewing machine, was introduced slowly. Samuel F. B. Morse got his patent in 1837; and for seven years, helped by Alfred Vail, he struggled on against poverty. In 1842 he had but thirty-seven cents in the world. But perseverance conquers all things; and with thirty thousand dollars, granted by Congress, the first telegraph line in the world was built in 1844 from Baltimore to Washington. In 1845 New York and Philadelphia were connected; but as wires could not be made to work under water, the messages were received on the New Jersey side of the Hudson and carried to New York by boat. By 1856 the telegraph was in use in the most populous states. Some forty companies, but one of which paid dividends, competed for the business. This was ruinous; and in 1856 a union of Western companies was formed and called the Western Union Telegraph Company. To-day it has 21,000 offices, sends each year some 58,000,000 messages, receives about $23,000,000, and does seven eighths of all the telegraph business in the United States.

%413. India Rubber.%—The same year (1844) which witnessed the introduction of the telegraph saw the perfection of Goodyear's secret for the vulcanization of India rubber. In 1820 the first pair of rubber shoes ever seen in the United States were exhibited in Boston. Two years later a ship from South America brought 500 pairs of rubber shoes. They were thick, heavy, and ill-shaped; but they sold so rapidly that more were imported, and in 1830 a cargo of raw gum was brought from South America for the purpose of making rubber goods. With this C. M. Chaffee went to work and succeeded in producing some pieces of cloth spread with rubber. Supposing the invention to be of great value, a number of factories[1] began to make rubber coats, caps, wagon curtains, of pure rubber without cloth. But to the horror of the companies the goods melted when hot weather came, and were sent back, emitting so dreadful an odor that they had to be buried. It was to overcome this and find some means of hardening the gum that Goodyear began his experiments and labored year after year against every sort of discouragement. Even when the secret of vulcanizing, as it is called, was discovered, five years passed before he was able to conduct the process with absolute certainty. In 1844, after ten years of labor, he succeeded and gave to the world one of the most useful inventions of the nineteenth century.

[Footnote 1: At Roxbury, Boston, Framingham, Salem, Lynn, Chelsea, Troy, and Staten Island.]

%414. The Photograph; the Discovery of Anaesthesia.%—But there were other inventions and discoveries of almost as great or even greater value to mankind. In 1840 Dr. John W. Draper so perfected the daguerreotype that it could be used to take pictures of persons and landscapes. Till then it could be used only to make pictures of buildings and statuary.

The year 1846 is made yet more memorable by the discovery that whoever inhaled sulphuric ether would become insensible to pain. The glory of this discovery has been claimed for two men: Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson. Which one is entitled to it cannot be positively decided, though Dr. Morton seems to have the better right to be considered the discoverer. Before this, however, anaesthesia by nitrous oxide (laughing gas) had been discovered by Dr. Wells of Hartford, Conn., and by Dr. Long of Georgia.

%415. Communication with Europe; Steamships%.—Progress was not confined to affairs within our boundary. Communications with Europe were greatly advanced. The passage of the steamship Savannah across the Atlantic, partly by steam and partly by sail, in 1819, resulted in nothing practical. The wood used for fuel left little space for freight. But when better machinery reduced the time, and coal afforded a less bulky fuel, the passage across the Atlantic by steam became possible, and in 1838 two vessels, the Sirius and the Great Western, made the trip from Liverpool to New York by steam alone. No sails were used. This showed what could be done, and in 1839 Samuel Cunard began the great fleet of Atlantic greyhounds by founding the Cunard Line. Aided by the British government, he drove all competitors from the field, till Congress came to the aid of the Collins Line, whose steamers made the first trip from New York to Liverpool in 1850. The rivalry between these lines was intense, and each did its best to make short voyages. In 1851 the average time from Liverpool to New York was eleven days, eight hours, for the Collins Line, and eleven days, twenty-three hours, for the Cunard. This was considered astonishing; for Liverpool and New York were thus brought as near each other in point of time in 1851 as Boston and Philadelphia were in 1790.

%416. The Atlantic Cable%.—But something more astonishing yet was at hand. In 1854 Mr. Cyrus W. Field of New York was asked to aid in the construction of a submarine cable to join St. Johns with Cape Ray, Newfoundland. While considering the matter, he became convinced that if a cable could be laid across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, another could be laid across the Atlantic Ocean, and he formed the "New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company" for the purpose of doing so. The first attempt, made in 1857, and a second in 1858, ended in failure; but a third, in 1858, was successful, and a cable was laid from Valentia Bay in Ireland to Trinity Bay in Newfoundland, a distance of 1700 geographical miles. For three weeks all went well, and during this time 400 messages were sent; but on September 1, 1858, the cable ceased to work, and eight years passed before another attempt was made to join the Old World and the New.

%417. Condition of the Workingman%.—Every class of society was benefited by these improvements, but no man more so than those who depended on their daily wages for their daily bread. Though wages increased but little, they were more easily earned and brought richer returns. Improved means of transportation, cheaper methods of manufacture, enabled every laborer in 1860 to wear better clothes and eat better food than had been worn or consumed by his father in 1830. New industries, new trades and occupations, new needs in the business world, afforded to his son and daughter opportunities for a livelihood unknown in his youth, while the free school system enabled them to fit themselves to use such opportunities without cost to him. When our country became independent, and for fifty years afterwards, a working day was from sunrise to sunset, with an hour for breakfast and another for dinner. After manufactures arose, and mills and factories gave employment to thousands of wage earners, fourteen, fifteen, and even sixteen hours of labor were counted a day. Protests were early made against this, and demands raised that a working day should be ten hours. At last, late in the thirties, the ten hours system was adopted in Baltimore, and in 1840, by order of President Van Buren, was put in force at the navy yard in Washington and in "all public establishments" under the Federal government. Thus established, the system spread slowly, till to-day it exists almost everywhere. Indeed, in many states, and in all departments of the Federal government, eight hours of work constitute a day. Thus, by the aid of machinery, not only are articles, formerly expensive, made so cheaply that poor men can afford to use them, but the wage earners who operate the machinery can make these articles so quickly that they to-day earn higher wages for fewer hours of work than ever before in the history of the world. Not only did wages increase and the hours of labor grow shorter between 1840 and 1860, but the field of labor was enormously expanded. In 1810, when the first census of manufactures in the United States was taken, the value of goods manufactured was $173,000,000. In 1860 it was ten times as great, and gave employment to more than 1,000,000 men and women.

%418. Few Manufactures in the Slave States%.—From much of the benefit produced by this splendid series of inventions and discoveries, the people of the slave-owning states were shut out. They raised corn, tobacco, and cotton, and made some sugar; but in them there were very few mills or manufacturing establishments of any sort. While a great social and industrial revolution was going on in the free states, the people in the slave states remained in 1860 what they were in 1800. The stream of immigrants from Europe passed the slave states by, carrying their skill, their thrift, their energy, into the Northwest. The resources of the slave states were boundless, but no free man would go in to develop them. The soil was fertile, but no free laborer could live on it and compete with slave labor, on which all agriculture, all industry, all prosperity, in the South depended. The two sections of the country at the end of the period 1840-1860 were thus more unlike than ever.

SUMMARY

1. Between 1830 and 1850 the rush of population into the West continued, but, instead of moving across the continent, most of the people settled in the states already in existence.

2. This was due to the effect of such improved means of communication as steamboats, railroads, canals, etc.

3. As a consequence, but six new states were admitted to the Union in twenty-nine years, and one of them was annexed (Texas).

4. The period is also noticeable for the number of foreigners who came to our shores.

5. After 1849 the existence of gold in California brought so many people to the Pacific coast that California became a state in 1850.

6. As population grew denser, and transportation was facilitated by the expansion of railroads and steamboats and canals, business opportunities were increased, and new markets were created.

7. Labor-saving and time-saving machines and appliances became more in demand than ever, and a long list of remarkable inventions and business aids appeared.

8. The South, owing to its own peculiar industrial and labor condition, was little benefited by all these improvements, and remained much the same as in 1800.

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY, 1840-1860.

The People.

Immigration Causes. Number of immigrants.

No. of people in 1840. 17,000,000 U. S. 1850. 23,000,000 1860. 31,000,000

Movement New States Arkansas, 1836. Slave. Westward .. Michigan, 1837. Free. Florida, 1845. Slave. Texas, 1845. Slave. Iowa, 1846. Free. Wisconsin, 1848. Free. California, 1850. Free. Minnesota, 1858. Free. Oregon, 1859. Free.

Territories New Mexico, 1850. Utah, 1850. Washington, 1853. Kansas, 1854. Nebraska, 1854.

New Social and Business Conveniences.

Gas. Plumbing. Paved streets. General use of anthracite. Free schools. Railroad expansion. Express. Postage stamps. Ocean steamships.

New Inventions.

Number of patents. The sewing machine. The harvester. The telegraph. India rubber. Daguerreotype. Anaesthesia. Atlantic cable.

The South.

Little affected by new industrial conditions. Few manufactures. Increase of the cotton area. No immigration.



CHAPTER XXVII

WAR FOR THE UNION, 1861-1865

%419. South Carolina secedes%.—The only state where in 1860 presidential electors were chosen by the legislature was South Carolina. When the legislature met for this purpose, November 6, 1860, the governor asked it not to adjourn, but to remain in session till the result of the election was known. If Lincoln is elected, said he, the "secession of South Carolina from the Union" will be necessary. Lincoln was elected, and on December 20, 1860, a convention of delegates, called by the legislature to consider the question of secession, formally declared that South Carolina was no longer one of the United States.[1]

[Footnote 1: "We the people of the state of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain ... that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."]

%420. The "Confederate States of America."%—The meaning of this act of secession was that South Carolina now claimed to be a "sovereign, free, and independent" nation. But she was not the only state to take this step. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had also left the Union. Three days later, February 4, 1861, delegates from six of these seven states met at Montgomery, Ala., formed a constitution, established a provisional government, which they called the "Confederate States of America," and elected Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens provisional President and Vice President.

Toward preventing or stopping this, Buchanan did nothing. No state, he said, had a right to secede. But a state having seceded, he had no power to make her come back, because he could not make war on a state; that is, he could not preserve the Union. On one matter, however, he was forced to act. When South Carolina seceded, the three forts in Charleston harbor—Castle Pinckney, Fort Sumter, and Fort Moultrie—were in charge of a major of artillery named Robert Anderson. He had under him some eighty officers and men, and knowing that he could not hold all three forts, and fearing that the South would seize Fort Sumter, he dismantled Fort Moultrie, spiked the cannon, cut down the flagstaff, and removed to Fort Sumter, on the evening of December 26, 1860.



This act was heartily approved by the people of the North and by Congress, and Buchanan with great reluctance yielded to their demand, and sent the Star of the West, with food and men, to relieve Anderson. But as the vessel, with our flag at its fore, was steaming up the channel toward Charleston harbor, the Southern batteries fired upon her, and she went back to New York. Anderson was thus left to his fate, and as Buchanan's term was nearly out, both sides waited to see what Lincoln would do.

%421. Why did the States secede?%—Why did the Southern slave states secede? To be fair to them we must seek the answer in the speeches of their leaders. "Your votes," said Jefferson Davis, "refuse to recognize our domestic institutions [slavery], which preexisted the formation of the Union, our property [slaves], which was guaranteed by the Constitution. You refuse us that equality without which we should be degraded if we remained in the Union. You elect a candidate upon the basis of sectional hostility; one who in his speeches, now thrown broadcast over the country, made a distinct declaration of war upon our institutions."

"There is," said Howell Cobb, of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, "no other remedy for the existing state of things except immediate secession."

"Our position," said the Mississippi secession convention, "is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery. A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union."

Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice President of the Confederacy, asserted that the Personal Liberty laws of some of the free states "constitute the only cause, in my opinion, which can justify secession."

The South seceded, then, according to its own statements, because the people believed that the election of Lincoln meant the abolition of slavery.

%422. Compromise attempted%.—The Republican party in 1861 had no intention of abolishing slavery. Its purpose was to stop the spread of slavery into the territories, to stop the admission of more slave states, but not to abolish slavery in states where it already existed. A strong wish therefore existed in the North to compromise the sectional differences. Many plans for a compromise were offered, but only one, that of Crittenden, of Kentucky, need be mentioned. He proposed that the Constitution should be so amended as to provide

1. That all territory of the United States north of 36 deg. 30' should be free, and all south of it slave soil.

2. That slaves should be protected as property by all the departments of the territorial government.

3. That states should be admitted with or without slavery as their constitutions provided, whether the states were north or south of 36 deg. 30'.

4. That Congress should have no power to shut slavery out of the territories.

5. That the United States should pay owners for rescued fugitive slaves.

As these propositions recognized the right of property in slaves, that is, put the black man on a level with horses and cattle, the Republicans rejected them, and the attempt to compromise ended in failure.

%423. A Proposed Thirteenth Amendment%.—One act of great significance was done. A proposition to add a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution was submitted to the states. It read,

"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said states."

Even Lincoln approved of this, and two states, Maryland and Ohio, accepted it. But the issue was at hand. It was too late to compromise.

%424. Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President%.—Lincoln and Hamlin were inaugurated on March 4, 1861, and in his speech from the Capitol steps Lincoln was very careful to state just what he wanted to do.

1. "I have no purpose," said he, "directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists."

2. "I consider the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care ... that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states."

3. "In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority."

4. "The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government and to collect the duties and imposts."



%425. Civil War begins.%—One of the places Lincoln thus pledged himself to "hold" was Fort Sumter, to which he decided to send men and supplies. As soon as notice of this intention was sent to Governor Pickens of South Carolina, the Confederate commander at Charleston, General Beauregard (bo-ruh-gar'), demanded the surrender of the fort. Major Anderson stoutly refused to comply with the demand, and at dawn on the morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederates fired the first gun at Sumter. During the next thirty-four hours, nineteen batteries poured shot and shell into the fort, which steadily returned the fire. Then both food and powder were nearly exhausted, and part of the fort being on fire, Anderson surrendered; and on Sunday, April 14, 1861, he marched out, taking with him the tattered flag under which he made so gallant a fight.[1] The fleet sent to his aid arrived in time to see the battle, but did not give him any help. After the surrender, one of the ships carried Anderson and the garrison to New York.[2]

[Footnote 1: "Having defended Fort Sumter for thirty-four hours, until the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the gorge walls seriously injured, the magazine surrounded by flames, and its door closed from the effect of heat, four barrels and three cartridges of powder being available, and no provisions remaining but pork, I accepted terms of evacuation offered by General Beauregard . . . and marched out of the fort on Sunday afternoon, the 14th instant, with colors flying and drums beating . . . and saluting my flag with fifty guns."—Major Anderson to the Secretary of War.]

[Footnote 2: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I., pp. 60-73.]

%426. The Life of the Republic at Stake%.—Thus was begun the greatest war in modern history. It was no vulgar struggle for territory, or for maritime or military supremacy. The life of the Union was at stake. The questions to be decided were: Shall there be one or two republics on the soil of the United States? Shall the great principle of all democratic-republican government, the principle that the will of the majority shall rule, be maintained or abandoned? Shall state sovereignty be recognized? Shall states be suffered to leave the Union at will, or shall the United States continue to exist as "an indestructible Union of indestructible States"? As Mr. Lincoln said, "Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish."

%427. The South better prepared%.—For the struggle which was to decide these questions neither side was ready, but the South was better prepared than the North. The South was united as one man. The North was divided and full of Southern sympathizers. She knew not whom to trust. Officers of the army, officers of the navy, were resigning every day. The great departments of government at Washington contained many men who furnished information to Southern officials. Seventeen steam war vessels (two thirds of all that were not laid up or unfit for service) were in foreign parts. Large quantities of military supplies had been stored in Southern forts. All the great powers of Europe save Russia were hostile to our republic, and would gladly have seen it rent in twain. The South, again, had the advantage in that she was to act on the defensive.



%428. Results of firing on the Flag.%—Not a man was killed on either side during the bombardment of Sumter. Yet the battle was a famous one, and led to greater consequences:

1. Lincoln at once called for 75,000 militia to serve for three months.

2. Four "border states," as they were called, thus forced to choose their side, seceded. They were Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

3. The Congress of the United States was called to meet at Washington, July 4, 1861.

4. After Virginia seceded, the capital of the Confederacy, at the invitation of the Virginia secession convention, was moved from Montgomery to Richmond, and the Confederate Congress adjourned to meet there July 20, 1861.

%429. West Virginia.%—The act of secession by Virginia was promptly repudiated by the people of the counties west of the mountains, who refused to secede, and voted to form a new state under the name of Kanawha. They adopted a constitution and were finally admitted in 1863 as the state of West Virginia[1].

[Footnote 1: A state made out of part of another state cannot be admitted into the Union without the consent of that state first obtained. But as Congress and the people of West Virginia considered that Virginia consisted of that part of the Old Dominion which remained loyal to the Union, the people practically asked their own consent.]

%430. The Call to Arms.%—Lincoln held that no state could ever leave the Union, and that therefore no state had left the Union. Those which had passed ordinances of secession were to his mind states whose machinery of government had been seized on by persons in insurrection against the government of the United States. When, therefore, he made his call for 75,000 militia to defend the Union, he apportioned the number among all the states, slave and free, north and south, east and west, according to their population. Those forming the Confederacy paid no attention to the call. The governors of the border slave states (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri) returned evasive or insulting answers.

But the people of the loyal states responded instantly, and tens of thousands of troops were soon on their way to Washington. To get there was a hard matter. Baltimore lay on the most direct railroad route between the Eastern and Middle States and Washington. But Baltimore was full of disloyal men, who tore up the railroads, burned bridges, cut the telegraph wires, and as the Massachusetts 6th regiment was passing through the city from one railroad station to another, attacked it, killing some and wounding others of its soldiers. This forced the troops from the other states to go by various routes to Annapolis and then to Washington, so that it was late in April before enough arrived to insure the safety of the city.

Though none of the border and seceded states sent troops, the response of the loyal states to Lincoln's call was so hearty that more than 75,000 men were furnished. The President decided to turn this outburst of patriotism to good purpose, and May 3, 1861, asked for 42,034 volunteers for three years unless sooner discharged, and ordered 18,000 seamen to be enlisted, and 22,714 men added to the regular army. Baltimore was now occupied by Union troops, and communication with Washington through that city was restored and protected.

On July 1, 1861, there were 183,588 "boys in blue" under arms and present for duty. These were distributed at various places north of the line, 2000 miles long, which divided the North and South. This line began near Fort Monroe, in Virginia, ran up Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac to the mountains, then across Western Virginia and through Kentucky, Missouri, and Indian Territory to New Mexico.

This line was naturally divided into three parts:

1. That in Virginia and along the Potomac.

2. That occupied by Kentucky, a state which had declared itself neutral.

3. That west of the Mississippi.

%431. The Battle of "Bull Run" or Manassas%.—General Winfield Scott was in command of the Union army. Under him, in command of the troops about Washington, was General Irwin McDowell. Further to the west, near Harpers Ferry, was a Union force under General Patterson. In western Virginia, with an army raised largely in Ohio, was General George B. McClellan. In Missouri was General Lyon, aided by all the Union people in the state, who were engaged in a desperate struggle to keep her in the Union.

In northern Virginia and opposed to the Union forces under General McDowell, was a Confederate army under General Beauregard, and these troops the people of the North demanded should be attacked. "The Confederate Congress must not meet at Richmond!" "On to Richmond! On to Richmond!" became the cries of the hour. General McDowell, with 30,000 men, was therefore ordered to attack Beauregard. McDowell found him near Manassas, some thirty miles southwest of Washington, and there, on the field of "Bull Run," on Sunday, July 21, 1861, was fought a famous battle which ended with the defeat and flight of the Union army[1].

[Footnote 1: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I., pp. 229-239.]

General George B. McClellan, who had defeated the Confederate forces in western Virginia in several battles, was now placed in command of the troops near Washington, and spent the rest of 1861 and part of 1862 in drilling and organizing his army. Bull Run had taught the people two things: 1. That the war was not to end in three months; 2. That an army without discipline is not much better than a mob.

%432. Fort Donelson and Fort Henry%.—While McClellan was drilling his men along the Potomac, the Union forces drove back the Confederates in the West. The Confederate line at first extended as shown by the heavy line on the map on p. 390. In order to break it, General Buell sent a small force under General Thomas, in January, 1862, to drive back the Confederates near Mill Springs. Next, in February, General Halleck authorized General U. S. Grant and Flag Officer Foote to make a joint expedition against Fort Henry on the Tennessee. But Foote arrived first and captured the fort, whereupon Grant marched to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, eleven miles away, and after three days of sharp fighting was asked by General Buckner what terms he would offer. Grant promptly answered,



No terms excepting unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to receive immediately upon your word. I am Sir: very respectfully your ** ** U. S. Grant Brig. Gen.

Buckner at once surrendered (February 16, 1862), and Grant won the first great Union victory of the war.[1]

[Footnote 1: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I., pp. 398-429; Grant's Memoirs, Vol. I., pp. 285-315.]

%433. The Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing.%—After the fall of Fort Donelson, the Confederates, abandoning Columbus and Nashville, hurried south toward Corinth in Mississippi, whither Halleck's army followed in three parts. One under General S. E. Curtis moved to southwestern Missouri, and beat the Confederates at Pea Ridge, Ark. (March 6-8). The second, under General John Pope, cooeperated with Flag Officer Foote, from the west bank of the Mississippi, in the capture of Island No. 10 (April 7). Pope then joined Halleck in the movement against Corinth, while the fleet went on down the river, attacked Fort Pillow three times, captured it (June 4), and two days later took Memphis.

Meanwhile the third part of Halleck's army, under Grant, following the Confederates, had reached Pittsburg Landing, where (April 6) he was suddenly attacked by General A. S. Johnston and driven back. But General Buell coming up with fresh troops, the battle was resumed the next day (April 7), when Grant regained his lost ground, and the Confederates fell back to Corinth.[1]

[Footnote 1: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol., pp. 465-486.]



At this point General Henry Halleck arrived and took command, and at the end of May occupied Corinth. Memphis then fell, and the Mississippi River was opened as far south as Vicksburg. After the capture of Memphis, Halleck went to Washington to take command of the armies of the United States.

%434. Bragg's Raid into Kentucky.%—The Confederate line which in January, 1862, had passed across Kentucky had thus by June been driven southward to Chattanooga, Iuka, and Holly Springs. The Union line ran from near Chattanooga to Corinth and Memphis. Against this the Confederates now moved, with the hope of breaking through and driving it back. Gathering his forces at Chattanooga, General Bragg rushed across Tennessee and Kentucky toward Louisville. But General Buell, perceiving his purpose, outmarched him, reached the Ohio, and forced Bragg to fall back. At Perryville (October 8, 1862), Bragg turned furiously on Buell and was beaten.

%435. Iuka and Corinth.%—While Bragg was raiding Kentucky, Generals Price at Iuka and Van Dorn at Holly Springs, knowing that Grant's army had been greatly weakened by sending troops to Buell, prepared to attack Corinth. But Grant, thinking he could fight them separately, sent Rosecrans to Iuka (September 19). Price was not captured, but retreated to Van Dorn, and the two then fell upon Rosecrans at Corinth (October 4), only to be beaten and chased forty miles.

%436. Murfreesboro.%—For these successes Rosecrans (October 30) was given command of Buell's army, then centering at Nashville. Bragg went into winter quarters at Murfreesboro, and thither Rosecrans advanced to attack him. The contest at Murfreesboro (December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863) was one of the most bloody battles of the whole war. Bragg was again defeated, and retreated to a position farther south.

%437. Arkansas%.—In January, 1862, the Confederate line west of the Mississippi extended from Belmont across southern Missouri to the Indian Territory. Against the west end of this line General Curtis moved in February, 1862, and after driving the Confederates under Van Dorn and Price out of Missouri, beat them in the desperate battle at Pea Ridge, Arkansas (March 6-8, 1862), and moved to the interior of the state. Price and Van Dorn went east into Mississippi (see Sec. 435), and when the year closed the Union forces were in control north of the Arkansas River, and along the west bank of the Mississippi. On the east bank the only fortified positions in Confederate hands were Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, and Port Hudson.

%438. Farragut captures New Orleans.%—While Foote was opening the upper part of the Mississippi, a naval expedition under Farragut, supported by an army under Butler, had cleared the lower part of the river. These forces had been sent by sea to capture New Orleans. The defenses of the city consisted of two strong forts almost directly opposite each other on the banks of the river, about seventy-five miles south of the city; of two great chain cables stretched across the river below the forts to prevent ships coming up; and of fifteen armed vessels above the forts. New Orleans was thought to be safe. But Farragut was not dismayed. Sailing up the river till he came to the chains, he bombarded the forts for six days and nights, while the forts did their best to destroy him. Then, finding he could do nothing in this way, he cut the chains, ran his ships past the forts in spite of a dreadful fire (April 24, 1862), destroyed the Confederate fleet (April 25), and took the city. General Butler, who had been waiting at Ship Island with 15,000 men, then entered and held New Orleans.[1]

[Footnote 1: Farragut, after taking New Orleans, went up the river and captured Baton Rouge and Natchez.]

%439. The Peninsular Campaign against Richmond.%—The signal success of Grant and Farragut in the West was more than offset by the signal failure of McClellan in the East. The wish of the administration, and indeed of the whole North, was that Richmond should be captured. Against it, therefore, the Army of the Potomac was to move. But by what route? The government wanted McClellan to march south across Virginia, so that his army should always be between the Confederate forces and Washington. McClellan insisted on moving west from Chesapeake Bay. The result was a compromise:

1. Forces under Fremont and Banks were to operate in the Shenandoah valley and prevent a Confederate force attacking Washington from the west.

2. An army under McDowell was to march from Fredericksburg to Richmond.

3. McClellan was to take the main army from Washington by water to Fort Monroe, and then march up the peninsula to Richmond, where McDowell was to join him.



This peninsula, from which the campaign gets its name, lies between the York and James rivers. Landing at the lower end of it, McClellan was met by General Joseph E. Johnston, who caused a long delay by forcing him to besiege Yorktown. McClellan then advanced up the peninsula, fighting the battle of Williamsburg on the way. At White House Landing he turned toward Richmond, extending his right flank to Hanover Courthouse, where McDowell was expected to join him. But this was not to be, for General T. J. Jackson ("Stonewall" Jackson) rushed down the Shenandoah valley, driving Banks over the Potomac into Maryland, and retreated south before Fremont or McDowell could cut him off; during this campaign he won four desperate battles in thirty-five days. Jackson's success alarmed Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia. McClellan's army, meanwhile, advanced on both sides of the Chickahominy River to within eight miles of Richmond. At Fair Oaks and Seven Pines (May 31) his left flank was almost overwhelmed by Johnston; but the latter was wounded and his troops defeated. Johnston was then succeeded by R. E. Lee, who, joined by Jackson, attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and Games Mill, and forced him to fall back, fighting for six days (June 26 to July 1, 1862)[1] as he retreated to Harrisons Landing, on the James River. There the army remained till August, when it was recalled to the Potomac.

[Footnote 1: The "Seven Days' Battles" are these and one fought June 25.]

%440. Lee's Raid into Maryland; Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg.%—While the Army of the Potomac was at Harrisons Landing, a new force called the Army of Virginia was organized, and General John Pope placed in command. At the same time General Halleck was recalled from the West and made general in chief of the Union armies. Pope intended to move straight against Richmond. But when McClellan in obedience to orders left Harrisons Landing and took his army by water to the Potomac, near Washington, the Confederate army was left free to act as it pleased. Seeing his opportunity, Lee moved at once against Pope's army, whose line stretched along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers to the Shenandoah valley in western Virginia. Near the Rapidan at Cedar Mountain was General Banks. He was first attacked and beaten; after which Lee fell upon Pope on the old field of Bull Run, and put the army to flight. Pope fell back to Washington, where his forces were united with those of McClellan. Pushing northward, Lee next crossed the Potomac and entered Maryland. But he was overtaken by McClellan at Antietam Creek, near Sharpsburg, where, September 17, 1862, a great battle was fought, after which Lee went back to Virginia.

McClellan was now removed and the command of the army given to General Burnside. He was as reckless as McClellan was cautious, and on December 13 threw his army against the Confederates posted at Fredericksburg Heights and was beaten with dreadful slaughter. Thus at the end of 1862 Richmond was not captured, and the two armies went into winter quarters with the Rappahannock River between them.

%441. Emancipation of the Slaves%.—More than two years had now passed since South Carolina had seceded, and during this time a great change had taken place in the feeling of the North towards slavery. When Lincoln was inaugurated, very few people wanted the slaves emancipated. But two years of bloody fighting had convinced the North that the Union could not exist part slave, part free. As Lincoln said in his speech at Springfield in 1858, "It must be all one thing, or all the other." Seeing that the people now felt as he did, Lincoln, in 1862 (March 6), asked Congress to agree to buy the slaves of the loyal slave states, and urged the members of Congress from those states to advise their constituents to set free their slaves and receive $300 apiece for them. This they would not do; whereupon he decided to act upon his own authority, and declared all slaves within the lines of the Confederacy to be freemen.

For this he had two good reasons: 1. So far the war had been one for the preservation of the Union. By making it a war for union and freedom the North would become more earnest than ever. 2. The rulers of England, who wanted Southern cotton, were only waiting for a pretext to acknowledge the independence of the South. If, however, the North engaged in a war for the abolition of slavery, the people of England would not allow the independence of the Confederacy to be acknowledged by their rulers.

The time to make such a declaration was after some victory gained by the Union army. When McClellan and Lee stood face to face at Antietam, Lincoln therefore "vowed to God" that if Lee were defeated he would issue the proclamation. Lee was defeated, and, on September 22, 1862, the proclamation came forth declaring that if the Confederate States did not return to their allegiance before January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves" within the Confederate lines "shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free." The states of course did not return to their allegiance, and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued setting the slaves free.[1]

[Footnote 1: Nicolay and Hay's Life of Lincoln, Vol. VI., Chaps. 6, 8.]

Now, there are three things in connection with the Emancipation Proclamation which must be understood and remembered:

1. Lincoln did not abolish slavery anywhere. He emancipated or set free the slaves of certain persons engaged in waging war against the United States government.

2. The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to any of the loyal slave states,[1] nor to such territory as the Union army had reconquered.[2] In none of these places did it free slaves.

[Footnote 1: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri.]

[Footnote 2: Tennessee, thirteen parishes in Louisiana, and seven counties in Virginia.]

3. Lincoln freed the slaves by virtue of his power as commander in chief of the army of the United States, "and as a fit and necessary war measure."

%442. The Battle of Gettysburg.%—After Burnside was defeated at Fredericksburg, in December, 1862, he was removed, and General Hooker put in command of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker—"Fighting Joe," as he was called—led it against Lee, and (May 1-4, 1863) was beaten at Chancellorsville and fell back. In June Lee again took the offensive, rushed down the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac, crossed Maryland, and entered Pennsylvania, with the Army of the Potomac in pursuit. On reaching Maryland, Hooker was removed and General Meade put in command. The opposing forces met on the hills at Gettysburg, Penn., and there, July 1-3, Lee attacked Meade. The contest was a dreadful one; no field was ever more stubbornly fought over. About one fourth of the men engaged were killed or wounded. But the splendid courage of the Union army prevailed: Lee was beaten and retired to Virginia, where he remained unmolested till the spring of 1864. Gettysburg is regarded as the greatest battle of the war, and the Union regiments engaged have taken a just pride in marking the positions they held during the three awful days of slaughter, till the field is dotted all over with beautiful monuments. On the hill back of the village is a great national cemetery, at the dedication of which Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg address.



%443. Vicksburg%.—The day after the victory at Gettysburg, the joy of the North was yet more increased by the news that Vicksburg had surrendered (July 4) to Grant. After the defeat, of the Confederate forces at Iuka and Corinth in 1862, the Confederate line passed across northern Mississippi, touched the river from Vicksburg to Port Hudson, and then swept off to the Gulf. As the capture of these river towns would complete the opening of the Mississippi, Grant set out to take Vicksburg. Failing in a direct advance through Mississippi, Grant sent a strong force down the river from Memphis, and later took command in person. Vicksburg stands on the top of a bluff which rises steep and straight 200 feet above the river, and had been so fortified that to capture it seemed impossible. But Grant was determined to open the river. On the west bank, he cut a canal through a bend, hoping to divert the river and get water passage by the town. This failed, and he decided to cross below the town and attack from the land. To aid him in this attempt, Porter ran his gunboats past the town one night in April and carried the army over the river. Landing on the east bank, Grant won a victory at Port Gibson, and occupied Grand Gulf. Hearing that Johnston was coming to help Pemberton, Grant pushed in between them, beat Johnston at Jackson, and turning westward, drove Pemberton into Vicksburg, and began a regular siege. For seven weeks he poured in shot and shell day and night. To live in houses became impossible, and the women and children took refuge in caves. Food gave out, and after every kind of misery had been endured till it could be borne no longer, Vicksburg was surrendered on July 4.



Five days later (July 9, 1863), Port Hudson surrendered, and the Mississippi, as Lincoln said, "flowed unvexed to the sea." It was open from its source to its mouth, and the Confederacy was cut in two.

%444. Driving the Confederates eastward; Chickamauga and Chattanooga%.—While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans by skillful work forced Bragg to retreat from his position south of Murfreesboro; then in a second campaign he forced Bragg to leave Chattanooga and retire into northwestern Georgia. Bragg here received more troops, and attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September 19 and 20, 1863), where was fought one of the most desperate battles of the war. So fierce was the onset of the Confederates that the Union right wing was driven from the field. But the left wing, under General George H. Thomas, a grand character and a splendid officer, by some of the best fighting ever seen held the enemy in check and saved the army from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of "the Rock of Chickamauga."

Rosecrans now went back to Chattanooga. Bragg followed, and taking position on the hills and mountains which surround the town on the east and south, shut in the Union army and besieged it. For a time it seemed in danger of starvation. But Hooker was sent from Virginia with more troops; the Army of the Tennessee under Sherman was summoned from Vicksburg; Rosecrans was superseded by Thomas, and Grant was put in command of all. Then matters changed. The forces under Thomas, moving from their lines, seized some low hills at the foot of Missionary Ridge, east of Chattanooga (November 23). On the 24th, Hooker carried the Confederate works on Lookout Mountain, southwest of the city, in a conflict often called the "Battle above the Clouds"; and Sherman was sent against the northern end of Missionary Ridge, but succeeded only in taking an outlying hill. On the 25th Sherman renewed his attack, but failed to gain the main crest, whereupon Thomas attacked the Ridge in front of Chattanooga, carried the heights, and drove off the enemy. Bragg retreated to Dalton, in northwestern Georgia, where the command of his army was given to Joseph E. Johnston.

%445. "Marching through Georgia"; "From Atlanta to the Sea."%—As the Confederates had thus been driven from the Mississippi River, and forced back to the mountains, they had but two centers of power left. The one was the army under Lee, which, since the defeat at Gettysburg, had been lying quietly behind the Rapidan and Rappahannock rivers, protecting Richmond. The other was the army at Dalton, Ga., now under J. E. Johnston.



Early in the spring of 1864 General U.S. Grant—"Unconditional Surrender Grant," as the people called him—was made lieutenant general (a rank never before given to any United States soldier except Washington and Scott), and put in command of all the Federal armies. General Sherman was left in command of the military division of the Mississippi.

Before beginning the campaign, Grant and Sherman agreed on a plan. Grant, with the Army of the Potomac, was to drive back Lee and take Richmond. Sherman, with the armies of Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield, was to attack Johnston and push his way into Georgia. Each was to begin his movement on the same day (May 4, 1864).

On that day, accordingly, Sherman with 98,000 men marched against Johnston, flanked him out of Dalton, and step by step through the mountains to Atlanta, fighting all the way. Johnston's retreat was masterly. He intended to retreat until Sherman's army was so weakened by leaving guards in the rear to protect the railroads, over which food and supplies must come, that he could fight on equal terms. But Jefferson Davis removed Johnston at Atlanta, and put J. B. Hood in command.

Hood, in July, made three furious attacks, was beaten each time; abandoned Atlanta in September, and soon after started northwestward, in hope of drawing Sherman out of Georgia. But Sherman sent Thomas and a part of the army to Tennessee, and after following Hood for a time, he returned to Atlanta, tearing up the railroads as he went. Then, having partly burned the town, in November he started for the sea with 60,000 of his best veterans.



The troops went in four columns, covering a belt of sixty miles wide, burning bridges, tearing up railroads, living on the country as they marched. Early in December the army drew near to Savannah; about the middle of the month (December 13) Fort McAllister was taken; and a few days later the city of Savannah was occupied. During all this long march to the sea, nothing was known in the North as to where Sherman was or what he was doing. Fancy the delight of Lincoln, then, when on the Christmas eve of 1864, he received this telegram:

SAVANNAH, Georgia, December 22, 1864.

To His EXCELLENCY, PRESIDENT LINCOLN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.

W. T. SHERMAN, MAJOR GENERAL.

Sherman had sent the message by vessel to Fort Monroe, whence it was telegraphed to Lincoln.

%446. Sherman marches northward.%—At Savannah the army rested for a month. Sherman tells us in his Memoirs that the troops grew impatient at this delay, and used to call out to him as he rode by: "Uncle Billy, I guess Grant is waiting for us at Richmond." So he was; but he did not wait very long, for on February 1, 1865, the march was resumed. The way was across South Carolina to Columbia, and then into North Carolina, with their old enemy, J. E. Johnston, in their front. Hood, in a rash moment, had besieged Thomas at Nashville; but Thomas, coming out from behind his intrenchments, utterly destroyed Hood's army. This forced Davis to put Johnston in command of a new army made up of troops taken from the seaport garrisons and remnants of Hood's army. In March, Sherman reached Goldsboro in North Carolina.

%447. Grant in Virginia.%—Meantime Grant had set out from Culpeper Courthouse on May 4, 1864, crossed the Rapidan, and entered the "Wilderness," a name given to a tract of country covered with dense woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. The fighting was almost incessant. The loss of life was frightful; but he pushed on to Spottsylvania Courthouse, and thence to Cold Harbor, part of the line of fortifications before Richmond. He would, as he said, "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," and went south of Richmond and besieged Petersburg.

%448. Early's Raid, 1864.%—Lee now sent Jubal Early with 20,000 soldiers to move down the Shenandoah valley, enter Maryland, and threaten Washington. This he did, and after coming up to the fortifications of the city, he retreated to Virginia. A little later, Early sent his cavalry into Pennsylvania and burned Chambersburg.

Grant thought it was time to stop this, and sent Sheridan with an army to drive Early out of the Shenandoah valley. "It is desirable," said Grant, "that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return."

Sheridan set out accordingly, and on September 19 he met Early in battle at Winchester, and a few days later at Fishers Hill, beat him at both places, and sent him whirling up the valley. Sheridan followed for a time, and then brought his army back to Cedar Creek, after burning barns, destroying crops, and devastating the entire upper valley.

%449. Sheridan's Ride.%—And now occurred a famous incident. About the middle of October Sheridan went to Washington, and while on his way back slept on the night of October 18 at Winchester. At 7 A.M. on the 19th he heard guns, but paid no attention to the sounds till 9 o'clock, when, as he rode quietly out of Winchester, he met a mile from town wagon trains and fugitives, and heard that Early had surprised his camp at daylight. Dashing up the pike with an escort of twenty men, calling to the fugitives as he passed them to turn and face the enemy, he met the army drawn up in line eleven miles from Winchester. "Far away in the rear," says an old soldier, "we heard cheer after cheer. Were reinforcements coming? Yes, Phil Sheridan was coming, and he was a host." Dashing down the line, Sheridan shouted, "What troops are these?" "The Sixth Corps," came back the response from a hundred voices. "We are all right," said Sheridan, as he swung his old hat and dashed along the line to the right. "Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall sleep in our old quarters to-night." And they did.[1] Early was defeated.

[Footnote:1] Read Sheridan's account in his Personal Memoirs, Vol. II., pp. 66-92.

%450. Surrender of Lee.%—At the beginning of 1865 the situation of Lee was desperate, and in February, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy, met Lincoln and Secretary Seward on a war vessel in Hampton Roads to discuss terms of peace. Lincoln demanded three things: 1. That the Confederate armies be disbanded and the men sent home. 2. That the Confederate States submit to the rule of Congress. 3. That slavery be abolished. These terms were not accepted, and the war went on. Sherman marched northward through the Carolinas and was reenforced from the coast; every seaport in the Confederacy was soon in Union hands; Sheridan finally dispersed Early's troops, and joined Grant before Petersburg; and the lines of Grant's army were drawn closer and closer around Petersburg and Richmond.

Plainly the end was near. On April 2 Lee announced to Davis that both Petersburg and Richmond must be abandoned at once. The rams in the James River were immediately blown up, and on the morning of April 3 General Weitzel, hearing from a negro what was going on, entered Richmond and found that Lee was in full retreat. Grant followed, and on April 9 forced Lee to surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, seventy-five miles west of Richmond. Grant's treatment of Lee was most generous. He was not required to give up his sword, nor his officers their side arms, nor his men their horses, which they would need, Grant said, "to work their little farms." Each officer was to give his parole not to take up arms against the United States "until properly exchanged"; each regimental commander was to do the same for his men; and, "this done, each officer and man will be allowed to return to his home." Immediately after this surrender 25,000 rations were issued to Lee's men.



%451. End of the Confederacy.%—What little was left of the Confederacy now went rapidly to pieces. On April 26 Johnston surrendered to Sherman near Raleigh, North Carolina. A few days later the victorious army started for Richmond, and then went on over battle-scarred Virginia to Washington. May 10, Jefferson Davis was captured. When Lee fled from Richmond, Davis hurried to Charlotte, N.C., with his cabinet, his clerks, and such gold and silver coin as was in the Confederate Treasury. But the surrender of Johnston forced Davis to retreat still farther south, till he reached Irwinsville, Ga., where the Union cavalry overtook him.

%452. The Grand Army disbands.%—As this was practically the end of the Confederacy, the great Union army of citizen soldiers, numbering more than 1,000,000 men, was called home from the field and disbanded. Before these veterans separated, never to meet again with arms in their hands, they were reviewed by the President, Congress, and an immense throng of people who came to Washington from every part of the loyal states to welcome them. During two days (May 23 and 24, 1865) the soldiers of Grant and Sherman, forming a column thirty miles long, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue, and then, with a rapidity and quietness that seems almost incredible, scattered and went back to their farms, to their shops, to the practice of their professions, and to the innumerable occupations of civil life.

Of the Confederates not one was molested, not a soldier was imprisoned, not a political leader suffered death. Davis was ordered to be imprisoned at Fort Monroe for two years, but he was soon released on bail, was never brought to trial, and died at New Orleans in 1889.

SUMMARY

1. After the election of Lincoln seven states seceded from the Union, and formed the "Confederate States of America."

2. Four other states joined the Confederacy later.

3. The refusal of the United States to recognize the right to secede led to the refusal to give up Federal forts in Charleston harbor. The attempt to take Sumter by force led to the appeal to arms.

4. The line which separated the troops of the two governments ran from Chesapeake Bay, across Virginia, and through Kentucky and Missouri, to New Mexico.

5. While the Union troops held the Confederates in check on the eastern end of the line, they broke through the line in the West, and, aided by the Union fleet, opened the Mississippi River.

6. The Confederates were thus driven from the Mississippi and forced back to the mountains of Georgia. Sherman was sent against them, and in 1864 marched eastward through the heart of the Confederacy to the Atlantic.

7. Marching north from Savannah, across Georgia and South Carolina, to Goldsboro in North Carolina, he was now in the rear of the Confederate army in Virginia.

8. Grant, meantime, with the Army of the Potomac, had fought a series of battles with Lee, and had besieged Richmond and Petersburg; and Sheridan had cleared out the Shenandoah valley.

9. Lee was thus forced, early in 1865, to leave Richmond, and while retreating westward he was forced to surrender.

SECESSION AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION - The South The North The cotton states secede. Attempts to compromise. The Confederacy formed. Buchanan's attitude. A constitution adopted. The Crittenden Compromise. Unites States property seized. A Thirteenth Amendment proposed. - Buchanan attempts to provision Fort Sumter Star of the West fired on. - Lincoln inaugurated. - Lincoln attempts to provision Fort Sumter The fort bombarded. The surrender. Arkansas, North Carolina, The call to arms. Virginia, and Tennessee secede. The march to Washington Richmond made the capital Fight in the streets of of the Confederacy. Baltimore. - The war opens - - Fighting in the West. Fighting along the Potomac and in Virginia 1861-1862. Breaking the 1861. The attempt to take Richmond. Confederate line. Battle of Bull Run. -

1. Line broken at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson and driven out of Kentucky and West Tennessee.

2. Driven out of Missouri and North Arkansas.

3. New Orleans taken.

4. Mississippi River nearly open.

1863. 1. Vicksburg and Port Hudson taken, and Mississippi River open to the Gulf.

2. The Confederacy cut in two.

3. Arkansas and East Tennessee recovered.

1864. Driving the Confederate line eastward.

1. Sherman's march to Atlanta; to the sea.

2. The Confederacy again cut in two.

1865. Driving the Confederate line northward.

1. Sherman marches northward from Savannah to Goldsboro.

2. Surrender of Johnston to Sherman.

1862 The attempt on Richmond renewed. 1. Fremont and Banks to 2. McDowell to move from 3. McClellan to move up hold the Shenandoah Fredericksburg. Peninsula from Fort valley. - Monroe. - - - - Jackson's success in the - Defeated by Jackson. Shenandoah valley leads McClellan, left without to recall of McDowell. support of McDowell, is defeated, changes base to James River, and in August is recalled north. - Removal of McClellan's army leaves Lee free to act. He attacks Pope and defeats him on old field of Bull Run. After defeat of Pope, he rushes into Maryland, where, at Antietam, he is defeated, and goes back to Virginia. 1. Union victory at Antietam leads Lincoln to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. 2. McClellan relieved of command and Burnside put in his place. 3. Burnside attacks Lee's army and is beaten at Fredericksburg. - 1863. 1. Burnside removed and 1864. Grant in command. Hooker in command. 1. The Wilderness and other battles. 2. Hooker defeated at Chancellorsville. 2. Early sent into the Shenandoah 3. Lee runs past and enters Pennsylvania. valley, where Sheridan defeats him. 4. Meade put in command. Battle of 1865. Richmond taken. Gettysburg. 1. Lee evacuates the city. 5. Lee beaten and goes back to Virginia. 2. Surrenders to Grant. 6. The turning-point of the war. - %END OF THE WAR.%



CHAPTER XXVIII

WAR ALONG THE COAST AND ON THE SEA

%453. State of our Navy in 1861.%—On the day our flag went down at Sumter, the navy of the United States consisted of ninety vessels of every sort. Fifty of these were sailing ships. Forty were propelled by steam. Of the steam fleet one was on the Lakes, five were unserviceable, seventeen were in foreign parts, and nine laid up in navy yards and out of service. Eight steam vessels (one a mere tender) and five sailing vessels (a fleet of thirteen) made up the naval force of the United States that was available for actual service on April 15, 1861.

%454. The Work before the Navy.%—The duty of the navy was to

1. Blockade the coast from Norfolk in Virginia to the Bio Grande in Texas.

2. Capture the seaports and forts scattered along this coast.

3. Acquire control of the sounds and bays, as Chesapeake, Albemarle, Pamlico, Mobile, and Galveston.

4. Assist the army in opening the Mississippi, Arkansas, and other rivers.

5. Destroy all Confederate cruisers and protect the commerce of the United States.

To accomplish this great work, most of the vessels abroad were recalled (a slow process in days when no ocean cable existed), more were hastily built, and in time 400 merchantmen and river steamboats were bought and roughly adapted at the navy yards for war service.

%455. %The Blockade of the Southern Coast.%—The war on sea was opened (April 19-27,1861) by two proclamations of Lincoln declaring the coast from Virginia to Texas blockaded. This meant that armed vessels were to be stationed off the seaports of the South, and that no ships from any country were to be allowed to go into or out of them. To stop trade with the South was important for three reasons:

1. The South had no ships, no great gun factories, machine shops, or rolling mills, and must look to foreign countries for military supplies.

2. The South raised (in 1860) 4,700,000 bales of cotton, almost all of which was sold to England and the North, and if this cotton should be sent abroad, the South could easily buy with it all the guns, ships, and goods she needed.

3. England was dependent on the South for raw cotton, and would sell for it everything the South wanted in exchange.

The blockade, therefore, was to cut off the trade and supplies of the South, and so weaken her. But as England, a great commercial nation, wanted her cotton, it was certain that unless the blockade were rigorous and close, cotton would be smuggled out and supplies sent in.

%456. Blockade Runners%.—This is just what did happen. The blockade in the course of a year was made close, by ships stationed off the ports, sounds, and harbors. In some places the hulks of old whalers were loaded with stone and sunk in the channels, and to get in or out became more difficult. As a result the price of cotton fell to eight cents a pound in the South (because there was nobody to buy it) and rose to fifty cents a pound in England (because so little was to be had). Then "running the blockade" became a regular business. Goods of all sorts were brought from England to Nassau in the West Indies, where they would be put on board of vessels built to run the blockade. These blockade runners were long, low steam vessels which drew only a few feet of water and had great speed. Their hulls were but a few feet out of water and were painted a dull gray. Their smokestacks could be lowered to the deck, and they burned anthracite coal, which made no smoke. They would leave Nassau at such a time as would enable them to be off Wilmington, N.C., or some other Southern port, on a moonless night with a high tide, and then, making a dash, would run through the blockading vessels. Once in port, they would take a cargo of cotton, and would run out on a dark night or during a storm. During the war, 1504 vessels of all kinds were captured or destroyed.[1]