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History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6)
by E. Benjamin Andrews
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Americanism had its greatest run after 1850, when the Whigs saw their organization going to pieces, and, mistakenly in part, attributed democratic success to the immigrant vote. A secret fraternity arose, called the "Know-nothings," from "I don't know," the ever-repeated reply of its members to inquiry about its nature and doings. "America for Americans" was their cry, and they proposed to "put none but Americans on guard." At first pursuing their aims through silent manipulation of the old parties, by 1854 the Know-nothings swung out as a third party. From this date they lustily competed with the Republicans for the hosts of whig and democratic stragglers jostled from their old ranks by the omnibus bill legislation, the Kansas-Nebraska act, and the "Crime against Kansas" committed by Pierce and his slavocratic Senate. In 1855 this party assumed national proportions, and worried seasoned politicians not a little; but having crystallized around no living issue, like that which nerved Republicanism, it fell like a rocket-stick, its sparks going over to make redder still republican fires. Henry Wilson became a Republican from the status of a Know-nothing; so did Banks, Colfax, and a score of others subsequently eminent among their new associates. Some had of old been Democrats, though most had been Whigs.

Notwithstanding many appearances to the contrary, the Democracy had begun to lose its hold upon the North from the moment of Polk's nomination in 1844. In that act it showed preference, on the score of availability, for a small man as presidential candidate. Harrison's election and Van Buren's defeat in 1840 doubtless had something to do with this. The same disposition was revealed in 1852, when Pierce was made candidate. What harmed the party still more was swerving from strict construction in declaring for the annexation of Texas, which in this case did not imply enlargement of view in reading the Constitution, but simply subserviency to the slave power. In this way Van Buren was alienated and the vote of New York lost in 1848, insuring defeat that year.

[1856-1860]

This particular breach was pretty well healed, but the evil survived. Then came the compromise repeal, wherein the Democracy stood by the South in casting to the winds, the moment it promised to be of service to the North, a solemn bargain which had yielded the South Florida, Arkansas, and Missouri as slave States. Northern Democrats, especially in the rural parts, unwilling longer to serve slavery, drew off from the party in increasing numbers. Northern States one by one passed to the opposition. The whole of New England had gone over in 1856, also New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa—Buchanan having six votes outside those of Pennsylvania, where he won, as many believed, by unfair means. In 1860, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and Oregon crossed to the same side.



CHAPTER VII.

THE CRISIS

[1850]

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was politically a remarkable epoch. It not only consolidated old anti-slavery men, but cooled, to say the least, many "silvergray," or conservative Whigs, as well as many "hards" and "hunkers" among the Democrats. But the slavocrats were blind to the risk they were running, and grew bolder than ever. There were now propositions for renewing the foreign slave-trade. Worse black laws were enacted. There was increased ferocity toward all who did not pronounce slavery a blessing, prouder domineering in politics, especially in Congress, and perpetual threat of secession in case the slave power should fail to have its way.



Abraham Lincoln. After a rare photograph in the possession of Noah Brooks. (Only five copies of this photograph were printed.)

There were also plans for foreign conquest in slavery's behalf, which received countenance from public and even from national authorities. The idea seemed to be that the victory and territorial enlargement consequent upon the Mexican War might be repeated in Central America and Cuba. The efforts of Lopez in 1850 and 1851 to conquer Cuba with aid from the United States had indeed been brought to an end through this adventurer's execution in the latter year by the Cuban authorities. Pierce put forth a proclamation in 1854, warning American citizens against like attempts in future. Defying this, the next year William Walker headed a filibustering expedition to the Pacific coast of Nicaragua, conquering the capital of that state and setting up a government which proceeded to re-establish slavery and invite immigration from the United States. Driven out by a coalition of other Central American states against him, Walker at once organized a new raid, and landed at Punta Arenas, Nicaragua, November 25, 1857; but he was seized by Commodore Paulding of our navy and brought to New York. He made a similar effort the next year, and another in 1860, when he captured Truxillo in Honduras, only to be soon overwhelmed, tried and shot.

[1852]

If the Government at Washington was not openly implicated in any of these movements, no more, surely, did it heartily deprecate them. Fillmore's administration had in 1852 declined to enter into an alliance with Great Britain and France disclaiming intention to secure Cuba. In 1854, inspired by Pierce, our ministers at London, Paris, and Madrid, met at Ostend and put forth the "Ostend Manifesto." The tenor of this was that Spain would be better off without Cuba and we with it, and further, that, if Spain refused to sell, the United States ought as a means of self-preservation to take that island by force, lest it should become a second San Domingo. This proposition, like everything else relating to the great Repeal, was under umbrage in 1856; but in 1858 the southern Democrats in Congress brought in a bill to purchase Cuba for $30,000,000, and the democratic platform of 1860 spoke for the acquisition thereof at the earliest practicable moment, by all "honorable and just means."

[1854]

Thus an institution, barbarous, anti-democratic, sectional, an unmitigated curse even to its section, not so much as named in the Constitution, beginning with apology from all, by the zeal and unscrupulousness of advocates, the consolidation of political power at the South, and apathy, sycophancy, divided counsels, and commercial greed in the North, gradually amassed might, till, at the middle of Mr. Buchanan's term, every branch of the national Government was its tool, the Supreme Court included, enabling it authoritatively to mis-read the Constitution, declare the Union a pro-slavery compact, and act accordingly. But justice would not be mocked, and, though advancing upon halting foot, dealt the death-blow like lightning at last.

We have seen the feeble efforts of the old Liberty Party to make head against slavery, Birney and Earle being its candidates in 1840, Birney and Morris in 1844. In 1848 these "conscience Free-soilers" were re-enforced by what have been called the "political Free-soilers" of the State of New York, led by ex-President Van Buren. This astute organizer, aware that his defeat in the democratic convention of 1844 had resulted from southern and pro-slavery influences, led a bolt in the New York Democracy. His partisans in this were known as the "Barn-burners," while the administration Democrats were called the "Hunkers." In the democratic convention of 1848 at Baltimore appeared representatives of both factions, and both sets were admitted, each with half the state vote. This satisfied neither side. The Barn-burners called a convention at Utica in June, and put Van Buren in nomination for the presidency. The Liberty Party men had the preceding year nominated Hale for this office, but now, seeing their opportunity, they called a new convention at Buffalo for August 9, 1848, to which all Free-soilers were invited; and this convention made Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams its candidates for President and Vice-President. The platform declared against any further extension of slavery. The party was henceforth known as the "Free-soilers," the name coming from its insistence that the territory conquered from Mexico should forever remain free. Its platform denounced slavery as a sin against God and a crime against man, and repudiated the compromise of 1850. It also laid special emphasis upon the wickedness of the new fugitive slave law, of which it demanded the repeal. By 1852 the regular Democracy in New York had won back a large proportion of the Barn-burners or free-soil revolters, so that the free-soil prospect in this year was not encouraging. Only 146,149 free-soil votes were polled in all the northern states.

[1856]

What quickened this drooping movement into new and triumphant life was the revocation of the Missouri Compromise. This rallied to the free-soil standard nearly all the northern Whigs, many old Barn-burners who since 1848 had returned to the democratic fold, and vast numbers of other anti-Lecompton Democrats. Most of the Know-nothings throughout the North also joined it, while of course it had in all its anti-slavery measures the hearty co-operation, directly political or other, of the Abolitionists. The first national convention of this new party, fortunately styling itself "Republican," was in 1856. Whig doctrine early appeared in the party by the demand for protection, internal improvements, and a national banking system; in fact, Republicanism may be said to have received nearly entire the whig mantle, as the Whigs did that of Federalism.

But the living soul and integrating idea of the party was new, the rigid confinement of slavery and the slave power to their narrowest constitutional limits. It denounced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. In the election of this year, 1856, eleven States chose Republican electors, viz.: all New England, also New York, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Evidently the Democracy had at last found a foe at which it were best not to sneer. The Dred Scott decision immensely aided the growth of this new political power, as it was now quite generally believed in the North that the whole policy of the South was a greedy, selfish grasping for the extension of slavery.

[1858]

Out of this conviction, apparently, grew the John Brown raid into Virginia in 1858. John Brown was an enthusiast, whom sufferings from the Border Ruffians in Kansas, where one of his sons had been atrociously murdered and another driven to insanity by cruel treatment as a prisoner, had frenzied in his opposition to slavery. He had dedicated himself to its extirpation. The intrepid old man formed the purpose of invading Virginia, and of placing himself with a few white allies at the head of a slave insurrection that should sweep the State. Friends in the North had contributed money for the purchase of arms, and on October 16th, Brown, with fourteen white men and four negroes, seized the United States Armory at Harper's Ferry. He stopped the railway trains, freed some slaves, and assumed to rule the town. United States troops were at once despatched to the scene, when the misguided hero, with his devoted band, fortified themselves in the engine house, surrendering only after thirteen of them, including two of Brown's sons, were killed or mortally wounded. Brown and the other survivors were soon tried, convicted, and hung. This insane attempt was deprecated by nearly all of all parties; but the fate of Brown, with his resolute bravery, begot him large sympathy, and the false assumption of the South that he really represented northern feeling made his deed helpful to the anti-slavery movement, of which the Republican Party was now the centre.



John Brown.

[1860]

Notwithstanding all this the Democracy might still have elected a president in 1860 had it been united. But it was now desperately at feud with itself, the cause of this, beautifully enough, lying back in that very device of Repeal which was intended to make Kansas a slave State and so to perpetuate the democratic sway. Judge Douglas, and most of the northern Democrats with him, had insisted so long and earnestly upon the doctrine of squatter sovereignty that they could not now possibly recede from it even had they desired to do so. The great majority of them did not so desire, but sincerely believed in that doctrine as part and parcel of the true democratic faith. But it was now obvious that the working out of the Douglas theory was absolutely sure to make free all the western States henceforth to be formed. This would, of course, remove the Senate from the domination of slavery. Hence the South was irrevocably opposed to it, and insisted with all its might upon the Calhoun-Taney contention that the national Government must protect slavery in all the Territories to which it pleased to go. In a passage at arms with Douglas as they were stumping Illinois for the senatorship in 1858, Lincoln keenly forced upon him the question whether under the Dred Scott decision any Territory could possibly be kept free from slavery. "If," said he, "Douglas answers yes, he can never be President; if no, Illinois will not again elect him senator." Douglas replied in the affirmative, and, as his antagonist prophesied, became in the South a doomed man.

The schism was fully apparent when, on April 23d, the democratic convention of 1860 began its session in Charleston. A majority of the delegates were for Douglas, voting down the Calhoun-Taney view, though willing that the party should bind itself to obey the Dred Scott decision. When the Douglas platform was adopted the delegations from Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, with parts of those from Louisiana, North and South Carolina, Arkansas, and Delaware, seceded. Douglas had a majority vote as presidential candidate, but not two-thirds. The convention adjourned to meet at Baltimore June 18th, and when it met there Douglas was nominated by the requisite two-thirds vote. The seceders met at Richmond, June 11th, where, imitating some new seceders at Baltimore they nominated Breckenridge and Lane. The so-called Constitutional Union Party also had in the field its ticket, Bell and Everett, which secured votes from a few persistent Whigs and Know-nothings still foolish enough to suppose that further clash between the powers of slavery and freedom could somehow be averted.

The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine. Lincoln was already a marked man in his party, especially in the West, his brilliant joint debate with Judge Douglas during some months in 1858 having brought out his matchless good sense and good nature, his rare knowledge of our history and law, and his high quality as thinker and speaker. Born in Kentucky in 1809, removing to Indiana in 1816, to Illinois in 1830, reared in extreme poverty and wholly self-educated, this man had risen by his wits, his sturdy perseverance and industry, his extraordinary ability, and his proverbial honesty, to be the acknowledged peer of the "Little Giant" himself. He began political life a Whig and ably represented that party in the national Congress from 1847 to 1849, making his voice heard against the high-handed procedure of the Administration in the Mexican War. But as with Seward, Greeley, Fessenden, Thaddeus Stevens, Sherman, Dayton, Corwin, and Collamer, subsequent events had intensified his anti-slavery feeling, convincing him, as he avowed, that the Union could not "permanently continue half slave and half free." He was thus drawn to unite his fortunes with the Republicans. His nomination was received coolly in the East, where Seward had been preferred; but as men studied Lincoln's record they were convinced of the wisdom which had made him the party's leader. He swept New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, and Oregon, having 180 electoral votes to Breckenridge's 72, Bell's 39, and Douglas's 12.



William H. Seward. From a photograph by Brady.



CHAPTER VIII.

MATERIAL PROGRESS

[1860]

The population of the United States in 1860 was 31,443,321. In spite of the threatening political complications between 1840 and 1860, these years were characterized by astonishing economic prosperity. The decade after 1848 was, indeed, in point of advance in material weal, the golden age of our history. Between 1850 and 1860, the wealth of the nation swelled 120 per cent., the value of its farms 103 per cent., its total manufacturing product 87 per cent., its manufactured export 171 per cent., its railroad mileage 220 per cent. Making all due allowance for the rise of prices during the period, this is still a remarkable exhibit.

The great West continued to come under the hand of civilization. Between 1850 and 1860 our centre of population made a longer stride westward than during any other decade—from east of the meridian of Parkersburg, W. Va., to the meridian of Chillicothe, O. Florida and Texas having been admitted to statehood in 1845, Iowa followed next year, Wisconsin in 1848, California in 1850, Minnesota, which had been an organized Territory since 1849, in 1858, and Oregon in 1859. Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and Washington Territories were organized before 1860. By this date there were settlements far up the Rio Grande. The Pacific coast was sought for lands and homes as well as for gold. Fremont's expeditions in 1842, 1844, and 1848 had done much to show people the way thither. In 1853 the Government sent out four different parties to survey suitable routes for a Pacific railway, a work followed up by three other parties the next summer. The settlements in Oregon had, by 1845, in places become dense.



Elias Howe.

Immigration hither was unfortunately checked a little later by Indian hostilities, the gravest attacks being in 1847 and 1855. In the latter year Major Haller, leading an exploring party, was surrounded by the savages and cut off from food and water, only making his escape by a fight of two days against overwhelming odds. He and his party at last hewed their desperate way through, losing their entire outfit, besides one-fifth of their number. The whole territory was harassed by Indians on the war path, and General Wool had to be sent up from San Francisco to restore peace. This done, immigration was renewed. A thousand new inhabitants came to Oregon in 1852, and its northern half was organized as Washington Territory the following year. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company had been chartered in 1848, and four years earlier a newspaper started, the first in English on that coast. Its seat was Oregon City, its name the Flumgudgeon Gazette.



The old West prospered, notwithstanding the drain which it, in common with the East, experienced in favor of parts farther toward the setting sun. The first lake propeller was launched at Cleveland in 1847. The same year the Tribune was started in Chicago. In 1850 the city had its theatre and its board of trade. The Chicago streets began this year to be lighted with gas. The first bridge across the Mississippi was built in 1855 at Minneapolis; that at Rock Island, 1,582 feet long, in 1856. The Niagara suspension bridge was finished in 1855.

The increase of railways did not at once end the opening of canals. The Miami Canal, between Cincinnati and Toledo, 215 miles, begun in 1825, was finished in 1843, and the Wabash and Erie, between Evansville and Toledo, opened in 1851; but the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts was, in 1853, abandoned and filled up from the loss of its business to railroads. In 1857 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company purchased from the State the canal and railway line from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, and soon after extended the railway portion to cover the whole. A traveller from Boston to the West could get to Rochester by rail in 1841. Next year he could go on to Buffalo by the same means. In 1842, Augusta, Ga., was connected by rail with Atlanta, Savannah with Macon, and the Boston & Maine Railway finished to Berwick.



The first railway out of Chicago—it was the first in Illinois—was built in 1850, to Elgin. Chicago had no railway connection with the East till two years later, when the Michigan Southern was opened. The Michigan Central was finished soon after the Southern, and the Rock Island before the end of the year. The Michigan Central had direct connection east across Canada to Niagara Falls by 1854. In 1856 the Burlington route reached the Mississippi and the Rock Island went on to Iowa City. This year witnessed the opening of the first railroad in California—from Sacramento to Folsom. In 1857 Chicago and St. Louis were joined by rails, as also the latter city with Baltimore, over the Parkersburg branch of the Baltimore & Ohio.



Birthplace of S. F. B. Morse, at Charlestown, Mass. Built 1775.



S. F. B. Morse.

We now come to an improvement of which the preceding period knew nothing, the magnetic telegraph, introduced by Professor Morse in 1844. In this year Morse secured a congressional appropriation of $30,000 for a line from Washington to Baltimore. The wires were at first encased in tubes underground. In spite of the success of the project, further governmental patronage was refused, the Postmaster-General advising against it under the conviction that the invention could not become practically valuable. Morse appealed for aid from private capitalists. Ezra Cornell, of New York, soon opened a short line in Boston for exhibition, following this with a similar enterprise in New York City. The admission fee was twelve and a half cents. Few cared to pay even this trifle, so that the undertaking was hardly a success in either city.

Amos Kendall then engaged as Morse's agent, and by dint of great effort secured subscriptions for a line from New York to Philadelphia, being obliged to sell the shares for one-half their face value. Incorporation was secured from the Maryland Legislature, under the first American charter, for the telegraph business. The line was completed in 1845 to the Hudson opposite the upper end of Manhattan Island, and an effort made to insulate the wire and connect with the city along the bottom of the river. This failed, and for some time messages had to be taken over in boats. In 1846 the wire was carried on to Baltimore. In the same year Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were connected by telegraph, New York and Albany, New York and Boston, Boston and Buffalo. The first line in California was erected in 1853.



In 1850 Hiram Sibley embarked in the telegraph business. He bought the House patent, and next year organized the New York and Mississippi Valley Telegraph Company. By 1853 or 1854, some twenty companies had started, with a capital of $7,000,000—too many for good management or high profits. Accordingly, Sibley and Cornell united in buying them up, and thus formed, in 1856, the Western Union, which Sibley's energy extended all over the country east of the Rocky Mountains. In 1860 he went to Washington with a scheme for a transcontinental telegraph line, and secured from Congress a subsidy of $40,000 for ten years. Just then the Overland Telegraph Company was started in San Francisco. It and Sibley united, breaking ground July 1, 1861, and proceeding at the rate of nearly ten miles of wire per day. On October 25th, telegraph wire stretched all the way between the two oceans. In 1864 this line was amalgamated with the Western Union.



Calenders heated internally by Steam, for spreading India Rubber into Sheets or upon Cloth, called the "Chaffee Machine."

Still more wonderful, ocean telegraphy was broached and made successful during these years. Tentative efforts to operate the current under water were made between Governor's Island and New York City so early as 1842. A copper wire was used, insulated with hemp string coated with India rubber and pitch. In 1846 a similar arrangement was encased in lead pipe. This device failed, and sub-aqueous telegraphy seems to have been for the time given up.

In 1854 Mr. Cyrus W. Field, of New York, with Peter Cooper and other capitalists of that city, organized the New York, Newfoundland, and London Telegraph Company, stock a million and a half dollars, and began plans to connect New York with St. Johns, Newfoundland, by a cable under the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Little progress was made, however, till 1857, when it was attempted to lay a cable across the Atlantic from Newfoundland. The paying out was begun at Queenstown and proceeded successfully until three hundred and thirty-five miles had been laid, when the cable parted. Nothing more was done till the next year in June. Then, in 1858, after several more unsuccessful efforts, the two continents were successfully joined. The two ships containing the cable met in mid-ocean, where it was spliced and the paying out begun in each direction. The one reached Newfoundland the same day, August 5th, on which the other reached Valencia, Ireland. No break had occurred, and after the necessary arrangements had been effected, the first message was transmitted on August 16th. It was from the Queen of Great Britain to the President of the United States, and read, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and good will to men." A monster celebration of the event was had in New York next day.



The Great Eastern Laying the Atlantic Cable.

Although inter-continental communication had been actually opened, the cable did not work, nor did ocean cabling become a successful and regular business till 1866, when a new cable was laid. This event attracted the more attention from the fact that the largest ship ever built was used in paying out the cable. It was the Great Eastern, 680 feet long and 83 broad, with 25,000 tons displacement.



Sounding Machine used by a Cable Expedition.

Street railways became common in our largest cities before 1860, the first in New England, that between Boston and Cambridge, dating from 1856. Sleeping-cars began to be used in 1858. The express business went on developing, being opened westward from Buffalo first in 1845. A steam fire-engine was tried in New York in 1841, but the invention was successful only in 1853. Baltimore used one in 1858. Goodyear triumphantly vulcanized rubber in 1844, making serviceable a gum which had been used in various forms already but without ability to stand heat. Elias Howe took out his first patent for a sewing machine in 1846, being kept in vigorous fight against infringements for the next eight years. The anaesthetic power of ether was discovered in 1844. Gutta-percha was first imported hither in 1847. The first application of the Bessemer steel process in this country was made in New Jersey in 1856, the manufacture of watches by machinery begun in 1857, photo-lithography in 1859. New York had a clearing house in 1853, Boston in 1855. The petroleum business may with propriety be dated from 1860, although the existence of oil in Northwestern Pennsylvania had been long known, and some use made of it since 1826. For several years experiments had been making in refining the oil. The excellence of the light from it now drew attention to the value of the product, wells began to be bored and oil land sold for fabulous prices.



Cyrus W. Field.



Paying out Cable Gear. From Chart House.

We close this chapter with a word about the painful financial crisis that swept over the country in the autumn of 1857. Its causes are somewhat occult, but two appear to have been the chief, viz., the over-rapid building of railroads and the speculation induced by the prosperity and the rise of prices incident to the new output of gold. Interest on the best securities rose to three, four, and five per cent. a month. On ordinary securities no money at all could be had. Commercial houses of the highest repute went down. The climax was in September and October. The three leading banks in Philadelphia suspended specie payments, at once followed in this by all the banks of the Middle States, and upon the 13th of the next month by the New York banks. Manufacturing was very largely abandoned for the time, at least thirty thousand operatives being thrown out of work in New York City alone. Prices even of agricultural produce fell enormously. Tramps were to be met on every road. Easier times fortunately returned by spring, when business resumed pretty nearly its former prosperous march.



Shore End of Cable-exact size.



PERIOD IV.

CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION

1860-1868

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES OF THE WAR

[1861]

It were a mistake to refer the great Rebellion, for ultimate source, to ambiguity in the Constitution or to the wickedness of politicians or of the people. It was simply the last resort in an "irrepressible conflict" of principle—in the struggle for and against the genius of the world's advance. Economic, social, and moral evolution, resulting in two radically different civilizations, had enforced upon each section unfaithfulness to the spirit and even to the letter of its constitutional covenant. The South was not to blame that slavery was at first profitable; and if it deemed it so too long and even thought of it as a good morally, these convictions, however big with ill consequences to the nation, were but errors of view, not strange considering the then status of slavery in the world.

The South's pride, holding it to the course once chosen, was also no indictable offence. Nor could the North on its part be taxed with crime for its "higher law fanaticism," which was simply the spirit of the age; or for seeing early what all believe now, that slavery was a blight upon the land. Much as was "nominated in the bond" of the Constitution, neither law nor equity forbade free States to increase the more rapidly in numbers, wealth, and other elements of prosperity; and northern congressmen must have been other than human, if, seeing this increase and being in the majority, they had gone on punctiliously heeding formal obligation against manifest national weal. And when, in 1854, the great sacred compact of 1820 was set aside by the authority of the South itself, the North felt free even from formal fetters. All talk of extra-legal negotiations and understandings touching slavery was now at an end. The northern majority was at last united to legislate upon slavery as it would, subject only to the Constitution. The South too late saw this, and fearing that the peculiar institution, shut up to its old home, would die, sought separation, with such chance of expansion as this might yield.

The South had come to love slavery too well, the Constitution too little. Upon conserving slavery all parties there, however dissident as to modes, however hostile in other matters, were unconditionally bent. The chief argument even of those opposing disunion was that it endangered slavery. Our new government, said Alexander H. Stephens, soon to be vice-president of the Southern Confederacy, is founded, its cornerstone rests, upon the great physical, philosophical, and moral truth, to which Jefferson and the men of his day were blind, that the negro, by nature or the curse of Canaan, is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is, by ordination of Providence, whose wisdom it is not for us to inquire into or question, his natural and normal condition. As the apostle of such a principle the South could not but abjure the old establishment, whose genius and working were inevitably in the contrary direction. Many confessed it to be the essential nature of our Government, and not unfair treatment under it, against which they rebelled.

Slavery had also bred hatred of the Union indirectly, by fostering anti-democratic habits of thought, feeling, and action. "The form of liberty existed, the press seemed to be free, the deliberations of legislative bodies were tumultuous, and every man boasted of his independence. But the spirit of true liberty, tolerance of the minority and respect for individual opinion, had departed, and those deceitful appearances concealed the despotism of an inexorable master, slavery, before whom the most powerful of slave-holders was himself but a slave, as abject as the meanest." Over wide sections, untitled manorial lords, "more intelligent than educated, brave but irascible, proud but overbearing," controlled all voting and office-holding. Congressional districts were their pocket-boroughs, and they ignored the common man save to use him. The system grew, instead of statesmen, sectionalists, whom love for the "peculiar institution" rendered callous to national interests.

The vigorous secession movements in the South at once after Lincoln's election, raised a question of the first magnitude, which few people at the North had reflected upon since 1833, viz., whether or not non-revolutionary secession was possible. Almost unanimously the North denied such possibility, the South affirmed it. This was at bottom manifestly nothing but the old question of state sovereignty over again. The South held the Union to be a state compact, which the northern parties thereto had broken. To prove the compact theory no new proof was now adduced. Rather did the southern people take the assertion of it as an axiom, with a simplicity which spoke volumes for the influence of Calhoun and for the indoctrination which the South had received in 1832.

Not alone Calhoun but nearly every other southerner of great influence, at least from the day of the Missouri Compromise, had been inculcating the supreme authority of the State as compared with the Union. The southern States were all large, and, as travelling in or between them was difficult and little common, they retained far more than those at the North each its original separateness and peculiarities. Southern population was more fixed than northern; southern state traditions were held in far the deeper reverence. In a word, the colonial condition of things to a great extent persisted in the South down to the very days of the war. There was every reason why Alabama or North Carolina should, more than Connecticut, feel like a separate nation.

This intense state consciousness might gradually have subsided but for the deep prejudices and passions begotten of slavery and of the opposition it encountered from the North. Their resolution, against emancipation led Southerners to cherish a view which made it seem possible for them as a last resort to sever their alliance with the North. It was this conjunction of influences, linking the slave-holder's jealousy and pride to a false but natural conception of state sovereignty, which created in southern men that love of State, intense and sincere as real patriotism, causing them to look upon northern men, with their different theory, as foes and foreigners.

A very imposing historical argument could of course have been built up for the Calhoun theory of the Union. The Union emerged from the preceding Confederacy without a shock. Most who voted for it were unaware how radical a change it embodied. The Constitution, one may even admit, could not have been adopted had it then been understood to preclude the possibility of secession. Doubtless, too, the gradual change of view concerning it all over the North, sprung from the multiplication of social and economic ties between sections and States, rather than from study of constitutional law. We believe that the untruth of the central-sovereignty theory in no wise follows from these admissions, and that its correctness might be made apparent from a plenitude of considerations.

Champions of the northern side deemed it the less necessary to expatiate upon this question, since, admitting the South's basal contention, the right in question depended upon sufficiency of grievance. As, in the South's view, the case was one of sovereigns one party of whom, without referee, was about to break a compact without the other's consent, the adequacy of the grievance should, to excuse the step, have been absolutely beyond question. On the contrary it was subject to the gravest question.

The South's only significant indictment against the North was the one concerning the personal liberty laws. Moderates like Stephens, indeed, stoutly condemned this plea for secession as insufficient; but, believing in the State as sovereign, they had perforce to yield, and they became as enthusiastic as any when once this "paramount authority" had spoken. "Fire-eaters," at first a small minority, saw this advantage and worked it to the utmost. On its complaint touching the personal liberty legislation the South's case utterly broke down, theorizing the Union into a rope of sand, not "more perfect" but far less so than the old, which itself was to be "perpetual." According to the Calhoun contention States were the parties to a pact, and it was a good way from clear that any northern State as such, even by personal liberty legislation, had broken the alleged pact. The liberty laws were innocent at least in form, and at worst had never been endorsed in any state convention. Buchanan himself testified that the fugitive slave law had been faithfully executed, and its operation is well known never to have been resisted by any public authority.

It was suspicious that no State ventured upon secession alone. It was equally remarkable that the Gulf States were the readiest to go, and made most of the personal liberty laws as their pretext, accounting this cry, as was ingenuously confessed, a necessary means for holding the border States solidly to the southern cause. Weak enough, indeed, was the complaint of "consolidationist" aggression, of which certainly no party to the so-called pact was or could have been guilty. But the deeps of folly were sounded when northern "persecution" of the South was mentioned, or Lincoln's election as threat of such. This was simply the election as President, in a perfectly constitutional way, of a citizen, honest and unambitious, who was pledged against touching slavery in States. Having become President, he was unable to procure minister, law, treaty, or even adequate guard for his own person save by the consent of the party hitherto in power. Lincoln had failed of a popular majority by a million. Both Houses of Congress were against him at the time of his election, and, but for the absence of southern members, they would, it is likely, have continued so through his entire term. It was the South's bad logic on these points which gave the war Democrats their excellent plea for drawing sword on the northern side.

But even supposing secession technically justifiable, how strange that it should have been judged rational, prudent, or in the long run best for the South itself. Could aught but frenzy have so drowned in Americans the memories of our great past; or launched them upon a course that must have ended by Mexicanizing this nation, wresting from it the lead in freedom's march, and crushing out, in the breast of struggling patriotism the world over, all hope of government by and for the people! The South ought at least to have spared itself. Either its alleged horror at the advance of central-sovereignty sentiment at the North was sheer pretence, or it should have been certain that this section would not hesitate, as Buchanan so illogically did, to coerce "rebellious" state-bodies. If the North believed the totality of the nation to be the "paramount authority," Lincoln would surely imitate Jackson instead of Buchanan, and in doing so he would not seek military support in vain.



James Buchanan. From a photograph by Brady.

Quite as sure, too, must the final result have appeared from the census of 1850, had people been calm enough to read this. By that census the free States had a population fifty per cent. above the population of the slave states, slaves included, and the disparity was rapidly increasing. Their wealth was even more preponderant, being, slaves apart, nearly one hundred per cent. the larger. Their merchant tonnage was five times the greater—even young inland Ohio out-doing old South Carolina in this, and the one district of New York City the whole South. The North had three or four times the South's miles of railway, all the sinews of war without importation, and mechanics unnumbered and of every sort. And while champions of the Union would fight with all the prestige of law, national history and the status quo on their side, Europe's aid to the South, or even that of the border slave States, was more than problematical, as was a successful career for the Confederacy in case its independence should chance to be won. Events proved that the very defence of slavery had best prospect in the Union, and it seems as if this might have been foreseen by all, as it actually was by some.



CHAPTER II.

SECESSION

[1861]

Secession was no new thought at the South. It lurked darkly behind the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798-99. It was brought out into broad daylight by South Carolina in the nullification troubles of 1832. "Texas or disunion!" was the cry at the South in 1843-44. In 1850 South Carolina declared herself ready to secede in the event of legislation hostile to slavery. Two years later the same State solemnly affirmed that it had a right to secede, but that, out of deference to the wishes of the other slave States, it forbore to exercise such right.

It must be admitted that in early years the North had helped to make the thought of secession familiar. In 1803, in view of the great increase of southern territory by the Louisiana Purchase, and again in 1813, when New England opposition to the war with England culminated in the Hartford Convention, there had been talk of a separate northern confederacy. But from that time on the thought of disunion died out at the North, while the South dallied with it more and more boldly. During the presidential campaign of 1856, threats were made that if Fremont, the republican candidate, should be elected, the South would leave the Union. In October of that year a secret convention of southern governors was held at Raleigh, N. C., supposed to have been for the purpose of considering such a contingency. Governor Wise, of Virginia, who called the convention, afterward proclaimed that had Fremont been chosen he would have marched to Washington at the head of 20,000 troops, seized the Capitol, and prevented the inauguration. This threatening attitude in 1856 may have been chiefly an electioneering device; but during the next four years the gulf between North and South widened rapidly, and the southern leaders turned more and more resolutely toward secession as the remedy for their alleged wrongs.

No sooner had the presidential campaign of 1860 begun than deep mutterings foretold the coming storm. "Elect Lincoln, and the South will secede!" cried the campaign orators of the South, while the halls of Congress rang with threats similar in tenor. As the campaign went on and republican success became probable, the southern leaders began to nerve up their hosts for the conflict. In October the governor and congressmen of South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if others would promise to follow. The governors of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi replied that their States would certainly do this. Georgia proposed to wait for some overt act by the National Government. North Carolina and Louisiana, it was learned, would probably not go out at all.

But the enthusiasts in South Carolina had got all the encouragement they wanted, and bided their time. Their time was at hand. The presidential election fell on November 6th. Next day the tidings flashed over the land that Abraham Lincoln had been elected President by the vote of a solid North against a solid South. The wires had scarcely ceased to thrill with this message of death to slavery-extension, when South Carolina sounded a trumpet-call to the South. Her Legislature ordered a secession state convention to meet in December, issued a call for 10,000 volunteers, and voted money for the purchase of arms. Federal office-holders resigned. Judge Magrath, of the United States District Court, laid aside his robes, declaring, "So far as I am concerned, the temple of Justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is now closed." Militia organized throughout the State. The streets of Charleston echoed nightly with the tramp of drilling minute-men. Secession orators harangued enthusiastic crowds. Hardly a coat but bore a secession cockade. November 17th, the Palmetto flag was unfurled in Charleston. It was a gala day. Cannon roared, bands played the Marseillaise, and processions paraded the streets bearing such mottoes as "Let's Bury the Union's Dead Carcass!" "Death to All Abolitionists!" The whole South was beside itself with excitement. One State after another assembled its convention to decide the question of secession. Even the Georgia Legislature, within a week after the election of Lincoln, voted $1,000,000 to arm the State.

The South Carolina convention met at Charleston, and on December 20th unanimously adopted an ordinance declaring:

"The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved."

This action was hailed with wildest enthusiasm. Huge placards—"The Union is Dissolved!"—were posted throughout the city, while the clang of bells and the boom of cannon notified the country round. The sidewalks were thronged with ladies wearing secession bonnets made of cotton with palmetto decorations. A party of gentlemen visited the tomb of Calhoun, and there registered their vows to defend the southern cause with their fortunes and lives. In the evening the convention marched to the hall in procession, and formally signed the revolutionary ordinance. The chairman then solemnly proclaimed South Carolina an "independent commonwealth." The little State, whose white population was less than 300,000, began to play at being a nation. The governor was authorized to appoint a cabinet and receive foreign ambassadors, and the papers put information from other parts of the country under the head of "foreign news."



"One voice and millions of strong arms to uphold the honor of South Carolina 1776-1860"

The secession of South Carolina was greeted with joy in most of the other slave States. Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., each fired one hundred guns. At Richmond, Va., a palmetto banner was unfurled, while bells, bonfires, and processions celebrated the event all over the South. The other cotton States, spurred on by the bold deed of South Carolina, rapidly followed her lead. Mississippi seceded January 9th, Florida the 10th, Alabama the 11th, Georgia the 19th, Louisiana the 26th, Texas February 1st.

It is probable that only in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida were the majority of whites in favor of secession. The South was after all full of Union sentiment. The ordinance of secession proceeded in each State from a convention, and the election of delegates to this witnessed the earnest work. The noble efforts of those Union men in their fierce struggle have never yet been appreciated. But they fought against great odds, and were inevitably overborne. The opposition was organized, ably led, and white-hot with zeal. The political power and the wealth of the South lay in the hands of the secessionists. The clergy threw their weight on that side, preaching that slavery, God's ordinance, was in danger. Union proclivities were crushed out by force. Vigilance committees were everywhere on the alert. In the rougher States of the Southwest abolitionists were tarred and feathered. Some were shot. In all the States Union men were warned to keep quiet or leave the South. One of the most powerful agents of intimidation was the Knights of the Golden Circle, a vast secret society which extended throughout the southern States.

Yet, in spite of all, the vote was close even in several of the cotton States. The Georgia people wanted new safeguards for slavery, but did not at first desire secession. Alexander H. Stephens, who headed the anti-secession movement, declared that Georgia was won over to take the fatal step at last only by the cry, "Better terms can be made out of the Union than in it." Even then the first vote for secession stood only 165 to 130. In Louisiana the popular vote for convention delegates was 20,000 for secession and 17,000 against.

The border States held aloof. Kentucky and Tennessee refused to call conventions. So, for long, did North Carolina. The convention of Virginia and of Missouri each had a majority of Union delegates. When the Confederate Government was organized in February, only seven of the fifteen slave States had seceded. Their white population was about 2,600,000, or less than half that of the entire slave region. But Arkansas and North Carolina were soon swept along by the current, and seceded in May. Virginia and Tennessee were finally carried (the former in May, the latter in June) by the aid of troops, who swarmed in from the seceded States, and turned the elections into a farce. Unionists in the Virginia Convention were given the choice to vote secession, leave, or be hanged. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland resisted all attempts to drag them into the Confederacy, though the first two, after the United States began to apply force, appeared neutral rather than loyal.

The seizure of United States property went hand in hand with secession. Most of the government works were feebly garrisoned, and made no resistance. By January 15th the secessionists had possession of arsenals at Augusta, Ga., Mount Vernon, Ala., Fayetteville, N. C, Chattahoochee, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., of forts in Alabama and Georgia, of a navy-yard at Pensacola, Fla., and of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, commanding the mouth of the Mississippi. At one arsenal they found 150,000 pounds of powder, at another 22,000 muskets and rifles, besides ammunition and cannon, at another 50,000 small arms and 20 heavy guns. The whole South had been well supplied with military stores by the enterprising foresight of J. B. Floyd, of Virginia, Buchanan's Secretary of War, who had sent thither 115,000 muskets from the Springfield arsenal alone.



Major Robert Anderson.

Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, was held by Major Robert Anderson, of Kentucky, with a garrison of some seventy men. On December 27th the whole country was thrilled, and the South enraged, by the news that on the previous night Anderson had secretly transferred his whole force to Fort Sumter, a new and stronger work in the centre of the harbor, leaving spiked cannon and burning gun-carriages behind him at Moultrie. The South Carolina militia at once occupied the deserted fortress with the other harbor fortifications, and began to put them into a state of defence. At Pensacola, Fla., Lieutenant Slemmer, by a movement similar to Anderson's, held Fort Pickens.



Major Anderson removing his Forces from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, December 26, 1861.

The seizure of government property went on through January and February. In Louisiana all the commissary stores were confiscated, and the revenue cutter McClelland surrendered. The mint at New Orleans, containing over half a million in gold and silver, was seized. More than half of the regular army were stationed in Texas, under General Twiggs. In February, at the demand of a secessionist committee of public safety, he surrendered his entire force, together with eighteen military posts. The troops were sent to a Gulf port and there detained.

This wholesale seizure of government property, worth some $20,000,000, has brought down upon the South much scathing rebuke. The conduct of Floyd, stabbing his country under the cloak of a cabinet office, cannot be too strongly condemned; but with the seceding States the case was different. Having (so they thought) established themselves as independent republics, they could not allow the military works within their borders to remain in the hands of a foreign power. As to the Government's property right, they recognized it, and proposed to pay damages. The provisional constitution of the Confederacy, adopted in February, provided for negotiations to settle the claim of the United States.

The southern leaders were not more anxious to get the slave States out of the Union than to get them into a grand Southern Confederacy. Early in January a caucus of secession congressmen was held at Washington, and arrangements made for a constitutional convention.

February 4, 1861, delegates from the States which had left the Union met at Montgomery, Ala., and formed themselves into a provisional Congress. A temporary government, styled "The Confederate States of America," was soon organized. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen President by the Congress, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President. Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. He graduated at West Point, fought as colonel in the Mexican war, served three terms as congressman from Mississippi, the last two in the Senate, and was Secretary of War under Pierce. After Calhoun's death, in 1850, he became the most prominent of the ultra southern leaders. The new President was brought from Jackson, Miss., to Montgomery by a special train, his progress a continual ovation. Cheering crowds gathered at every station to see and hear him. February 18th Davis was inaugurated. In his address, which was calm and moderate in tone, he declared that reunion was now "neither practicable nor desirable;" he hoped for peace, but said that if the North refused this, the South must appeal to arms, secure in the blessing of God on a just cause.



Jefferson Davis.

The Confederate President was intrusted with very large powers, including supreme control of military affairs. He was authorized to muster into the service of the central government the regiments which had been forming in the various States. A call was issued for 100,000 volunteers, and provision made for organizing a regular army. President Davis appointed a cabinet, with state, treasury, war, navy, and post-office departments. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, a rabid secessionist, became Secretary of State.

March 11th the Confederate Congress adopted a permanent constitution. It reproduced that of the United States, with some important changes. State sovereignty was recognized in the preamble, which read, "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character," etc. Slavery was called by name, and elaborate safeguards fixed for it in the States and Territories. Slave-trade from beyond the sea, or with states not in the Confederacy, was, however, prohibited. Protective tariffs were absolutely forbidden. The president and vice-president were to serve six years, and the former could not be re-elected. Some valuable features were inserted. Members of the cabinet might discuss matters pertaining to their departments in either house of congress. The president could veto one part of an appropriation bill without killing the whole, and was required to lay before the senate his reasons for the removal of any officers from the civil service.



Alexander H. Stephens.

By the last of April all the seceded States had ratified this constitution. The other slave States were taken in as fast as they withdrew from the Union. The Southern Confederacy, now fairly launched, set sail over strange seas upon its short but eventful voyage. At the start the hopes of those it bore rose high. Few believed that the North would dare draw sword. Even if it should, the southern heart, proud and brave, felt sure of victory. King Cotton would win Europe to their side. Peace would come soon. Visions of a glorious future dazzled the imaginative mind of the South. A vast slave empire, founded on the "great physical, philosophical, and moral truth" that slavery is the "natural condition," of the inferior black race, would spread encircling arms around the Great Gulf, swallowing up the feeble states of Mexico, and rise to a wealth and glory unparalleled in the history of nations.



CHAPTER III.

THE NORTH IN THE WINTER OF 1860-61

[1860-1861]

At the beginning of the secession movement the North slumbered and slept. Even South Carolina's withdrawal from the Union caused little alarm. "She will be glad enough to come back before long," prophesied many. As the revolution progressed there was a gradual awakening, but division of opinion paralyzed action. Ultra Abolitionists, with a few others, urged that the South be let go in peace. Most Republicans favored the preservation of the Union by force of arms if necessary; but nearly all Democrats, with many Republicans, wished for compromise. Of the latter class a few prayed the prodigals to return on their own terms. More proposed a rigid enforcement of the fugitive slave law, the repeal of personal liberty legislation, and acquiescence in the Dred Scott decision, with all future like decrees of the Supreme Court. This may be called the northern-democratic position. The most pronounced Republicans, as Seward and Stanton, would gladly have voted to re-enforce the Constitution's guarantee to slavery in the slave States.

Throughout the North the feeling was strong against all efforts at coercion. Most democratic papers and many republican ones insisted loudly that use of arms was not to be mentioned, and that the South must be conciliated. A democratic convention met at Albany in January, to protest against forcible measures. The sentiment that if force were to be used it should be "inaugurated at home," here evoked hearty response. There were signs of even a deeper disaffection. An ex-governor of New Jersey declared that his State would join the Confederacy. Mayor Wood, of New York, proposed that if the Union were broken up, his city should announce herself an independent republic.

At Washington matters were still worse. President Buchanan, loyal but weak, feared to lift a finger. In his December message to Congress, he insisted that a State had no right to secede, but that the United States had no power to coerce a State which should secede. A majority of his cabinet were southern men, three of them zealous secessionists. His most intimate friends in Congress were southerners. These surrounded the vacillating Chief Magistrate, and paralyzed what little energy was in him, meanwhile taking advantage of his inaction to launch the Confederacy. Now and then, spurred on by loyal old General Scott and by the Union members of his cabinet, the President tried to break away from the toils which the conspirators had spun around him. The Star of the West was secretly sent with supplies and recruits to re-enforce Fort Sumter. But Secretary Thompson warned South Carolina, and when the vessel arrived off Charleston, January 9th, hostile batteries fired upon her and forced her out to sea again. Another plan to relieve the fort was half formed, but came to nothing. Buchanan's term was on the point of expiring, and he sat supinely looking on while the disruption of the Union proceeded apace.

The northern side in Congress showed little wisdom or spirit. Most northern congressmen truckled to the South or wasted their energies in fruitless attempts at compromise. Both houses, each by more than a two-thirds majority, recommended a constitutional amendment depriving Congress forever of the power to touch slavery in any State without the consent of all the States. In December the venerable Crittenden, of Kentucky, laid before the Senate his famous Suggestions for Compromise. These, besides embodying the above amendment, restored the Missouri Compromise, let each new State decide for itself whether it would be slave or free, and forbade Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia or interfere with the inter-state transportation of slaves. The United States was to pay for all fugitives whose capture should be successfully prevented, and slaves as slaves could be carried through free States. This measure, before Congress all winter, was finally lost only for lack of southern votes.

A peace congress, called by Virginia, met at Washington in February. Most of the northern States were represented and all the southern which had not seceded. It sat for three weeks, and adopted resolutions identical in substance with the Crittenden Compromise. These dangerously large offers of concession, mainly well meant, happily proved useless. The South had gone too far. She did not want compromise, but was bent upon setting up a slave empire.

Mr. Lincoln arrived safely in Washington on February 23d, having eluded a rumored plot to assassinate him in Baltimore. He accomplished this by assuming a slight disguise and taking an earlier train than the one in which he had been announced to go. He was duly inaugurated on March 4th. In his inaugural he disclaimed all purpose to interfere with slavery in the slave States, yet denied the right of secession, and proposed to regain and hold the property and places belonging to the United States in all parts thereof. There would be no bloodshed, he said, unless it were forced upon the Government. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," so ran his memorable words, "in your hands, not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. We are not enemies, but friends." This message, held out as an olive branch, the South denounced as a menace. Some northern papers condemned it as the "knell and requiem of the Union." But the general feeling it evoked at the North was one of rejoicing. People believed that a hand both moderate and firm had at length seized the helm.

The new President stood faced by an herculean task. Congress was not yet fully purged of traitors, while Washington still swarmed with their friends and agents. Floyd's treachery had tied Lincoln's hands. All the best munitions of war had been sent south. Of the rifled cannon belonging to the United States not one was left. Only a handful of regular troops were within call, and the resignations of their officers came in daily. The plight of the navy and treasury was no better. Amazing coolness and the absurd prejudice against coercing States largely possessed even the loyal masses. The attack on Sumter was thus a god-send.

April 8th, Governor Pickens received notice from President Lincoln that an attempt would be made to provision that fort. Thereupon General Beauregard, who had left the United States army to take charge of the fortifications at Charleston, was ordered by President Davis to demand its evacuation. Major Anderson replied that they should be starved out by the 15th, and would leave the fort then unless his Government sent supplies. This answer was held unsatisfactory, and at 3.20 on the morning of April 12th Beauregard notified Anderson that his batteries would open fire in one hour.

Fort Sumter stood on an artificial island at the entrance of the harbor. It was pentagonal in shape, the walls of brick, eight feet thick and forty feet high. The parapet was pierced for 140 guns, but only 48 were in condition for use. The garrison, including some 40 workmen and a band, numbered 128. Surrounding the fort on all sides except toward the sea, and distant from 1,300 to 2,500 yards, 19 Confederate batteries were in position, mounting 47 cannon and mortars, and manned by 3,000 or 4,000 volunteers. These works were provided with bomb-proofs made of railroad iron or of palmetto logs and sand.

The wharves, roofs, and steeples of Charleston were black with expectant crowds, straining their eyes down the harbor where the silent castle loomed up through the dim morning light. Boom! From a mortar battery to the south a bombshell rises high into the air, describes its graceful trajectory and falls within Sumter's enclosure. It is the signal gun. One battery after another responds, until in less than an hour the stronghold is girt by an almost continuous circle of flashing artillery. Shells scream through the air and explode above the doomed work, and great cannon-balls bury themselves in the brick walls. Still Sumter speaks not. Anderson is waiting for daylight. About six o'clock he breakfasts his garrison on pork and water, the only provisions left. An hour later the embrasures are opened, the black guns run out, and Sumter hurls back her answer to the voice of rebellion. The bombs making it unsafe to use the barbette cannons of the open rampart, Anderson was confined to his twenty-one casemate pieces, mostly of light calibre. The fire was kept up briskly all the morning. Sumter stood it well, but did little damage to the opposing batteries. At sunset the guns of both sides became silent, but the mortars maintained a slow fire through the night.

Early next morning the cannonade opened afresh, and in the course of the forenoon hot shot set fire to Sumter's wooden barracks. The flames soon got beyond control; the powder magazine had to be closed; and the heat and smoke became so stifling that the garrison was forced, in order to avoid suffocation, to lie face downward upon the floor, each man with a wet cloth at his mouth. Powder was at last exhausted. About one o'clock the flag was shot away. It was immediately raised again upon a low jury-mast, but could not be seen for the smoke, and Beauregard sent to ask if Anderson had surrendered. The latter offered to evacuate upon the terms named before the bombardment, to which Beauregard agreed, and all firing ceased. The next day at noon, after a salute of fifty guns to their flag, Major Anderson and his men evacuated the scene of their heroism, and soon after took passage for New York.

The disunion leaders had rightly calculated that an open blow would bring the border slave States into the Confederacy; but they had not anticipated the effect of such a deed beyond Mason and Dixon's line. When it was known that the old flag had been fired upon, a thrill of passionate rage electrified the North from Maine to Oregon. Then was witnessed an uprising unparalleled in our history if not in that of mankind. From every city, town, and hamlet, loud and earnest came the call, "The Union must be preserved! Away with compromise! Away with further attempts to conciliate traitors! To arms!" Slavery might do all else, so little did most northerners yet feel its evil, but it could not rend the Union. Pulpit, platform, and press echoed with patriotic cries. Everywhere were Union meetings, speeches, and parades. Union badges decked everyone's clothing, and the Stars and Stripes were kept unfurled as only on national holidays before. In New York City a mass-meeting of two hundred thousand declared for war. The New York Herald changed its sneer to a war-blast. Party lines were thrown down. Democrats like Butler, Cass, and Dickinson were in the Union van. Senator Douglas, lately Lincoln's antagonist, and at first strongly opposed to coercion, went through the West arousing the people by his patriotic eloquence. "There can be no neutrals now," were his words, "only patriots and traitors."



April 15th, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and each free State responded with twice its quota. Enlisting offices were opened in every town and hamlet, and the roll of the drum and the tramp of armed men with faces set southward were heard all over the North. First to march was the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. Forming on Boston Common it took cars for Washington on April 17th, reaching Baltimore on the morning of the 19th.

Maryland was trembling in the balance between Union and disunion. A determined disunionist minority was working with might and main to drag the State into secession. Baltimore was white-hot with southern zeal, determined that the Bay State troops should never reach Washington through that metropolis. Eight of the cars containing the soldiers were drawn safely across the city. The next was assailed by a hooting mob, and the windows smashed in by bricks and paving stones. Some of the soldiers were wounded by pistol shots, and a scattering fire was returned. Sand, stones, anchors, and other obstructions were heaped upon the track. The remaining four companies therefore left the cars and started to march. They soon met the mob, flying a secession flag. A melee ensued. The troops moved double-quick toward the Washington depot, surrounded by a seething mass of infuriated secessionists filling the air with their brick-bats and stones, while bullets whizzed from sidewalks and windows. The troops returned the fire, and several in the crowd fell. The chief of police with fifty officers appeared on the scene, who, by presenting cocked revolvers, held the rioters in check for a while, till the distressed troops could join their comrades. Baltimore was in the hands of this secessionist band for the rest of the day. The bridges north of that city were also burned, so that no more troops could reach Washington by this route.



Scene of the First Bloodshed, at Baltimore.

Meanwhile the capital city was in great peril, devotees of the South being each moment expected to make an attack upon it. Only fifteen companies of local militia and six of regulars were present at inauguration time, stationed by General Scott at critical points in the city. Pickets were posted continually on roads and bridges outside. Four hundred Pennsylvania troops happily arrived on April 18th, and the next day came the Sixth Massachusetts. But the city was not yet secure. There were reports that large bodies of men were gathering in Maryland and Virginia for a descent upon it. Washington was put in a state of siege, the public buildings barricaded and provided with sentinels. The Government seized the Potomac steamers and also all the flour within reach. Business ceased. Alarmed by rumors of a military impressment, hundreds of government clerks, besides officers in the army and navy, came out in their true colors and fled south. Enemies at Baltimore had cut off telegraphic communication between Washington and the North. Reports came that re-enforcements were on the way, but day followed day without witnessing their arrival. The President and all Unionists were in an agony of suspense.



The Routes of Approach to Washington. Russell & Struthers, Eng's, N. York.

On April 22d the Eighth Massachusetts, under General B. F. Butler, and the famous Seventh Regiment from New York City, met at Annapolis. Here they were delayed several days. Governor Hicks had warned them not to land on Maryland soil. The railroad to Washington had been torn up for many miles and the engines damaged. Among his troops Butler found the very machinists who had made the engines. Repairs were promptly effected, the track re-laid, and about noon of the 25th the gallant New Yorkers landed in Washington amid the joyful shouts of the loyal populace. Up Pennsylvania Avenue swept the solid ranks, bands playing and colors flying, to gladden the heart of the careworn President as he welcomed them at the White House. A sudden change came over the city. Secessionists slunk away, the faces of the loyal beamed with joy. The national capital was safe.



CHAPTER IV.

WAR BEGUN

[1861]

It was now apparent to both North and South that war was inevitable. Yet neither side believed the other in full earnest or dreamed of a long struggle. Sanguine northerners looked to see the rebellion stamped out in thirty days. The more cautious allowed three months.

The President, however, soon saw that more troops, enlisted for a longer term, would be necessary. At the outset the South certainly possessed decided advantages: greater earnestness, more men of leisure aching for war and accustomed to saddle and firearms, a militia better organized, owing to fear of slave insurrections, and now for a long time in special training, and withal a certain soldierly fire and dash native to the people. The South also had superior arms. Enlistments there were prompt and abundant. The troops were ably commanded, 262 of the 951 regular army officers whom secession found in service, including many very high in rank, joining their States in the new cause, besides a large number of West Point graduates from civil life.

Accordingly on May 3d Mr. Lincoln issued a new call for troops, 42,000 volunteers to serve three years or during the war, 23,000 regulars, and 18,000 seamen. It was of first importance to secure Maryland for the Union. On the night of May 13th, under cover of a thunderstorm, General Butler suddenly entered rebellious Baltimore with less than 1,000 men, and entrenched upon Federal Hill. Overawed by this bold move, the secessionists made no resistance. A political reaction soon set in throughout the State, which became firmly Unionist. Baltimore was once more open to the passage of troops, who kept steadily hurrying to the front.

Meanwhile the Confederate forces were getting uncomfortably close to Washington. From the White House a secession flag could be seen flying at Alexandria, which was occupied by a small pro-secession garrison. There was fear lest that party would occupy Arlington Heights, across from Washington, and thence pour shot and shell into the city. At two o'clock on the morning of May 24th, eight regiments crossed the Potomac and took possession of these hills as far south as Alexandria, and fortified them. The latter place was entered by Colonel Ellsworth with his famous New York Zouaves. No resistance was made, as the Confederates had retired, but Ellsworth was brutally assassinated while hauling down the secession flag.



Captain Nathaniel Lyon.

Upon the secession of Virginia the Confederate capital was removed to Richmond. The main armies of both sides were now encamped on Old Dominion soil, and at no great distance apart; but the commanders were busy drilling their raw troops, so that for a time only trifling engagements occurred. General Butler, with a considerable body of men, was occupying Fortress Monroe, at the mouth of the James River. June 10th, an expedition sent by him against the Confederates at Big Bethel, some twelve miles distant, was repulsed after a spirited attack, with a total loss of sixty-eight. A week later an Ohio regiment took the cars to make a reconnoissance toward Vienna, a village not far south of Washington. They were surprised by Confederates, who placed two guns on the track and fired on the train as it came around a curve. The Ohioans sprang to the ground, and after some fighting drove their opponents back.

All this time both North and South were struggling for possession of the neutral States. Governor Jackson, of Missouri, was straining every nerve to force his State into secession. Early in May two or three regiments of militia were got together and drilled in a camp near St. Louis. Cannon were sent by President Davis, boxed up and marked "marble." Captain Lyon, of the regular army, who held the St. Louis arsenal with a few companies, reconnoitred the secessionist camp in female dress. The next day, May 10th, assisted by local militia, he suddenly surrounded it and took 1,200 prisoners. A month later he embarked some soldiers on three swift steamers, sailed up the Missouri to Jefferson City, the state capital, and raised the Union flag once more over the State House. Governor Jackson fled. During the next month all the armed disunionists were driven into the southwestern part of the State.



General John C. Fremont.

The last of July a state convention organized a provisional government and declared for the Union. But the secessionists, under General Price, continued the struggle. The Union forces, after a brave fight against great odds at Wilson's Creek, August 10th, in which Lyon was killed, had to retreat north. General Fremont had shortly before been put at the head of the Western Department, which included Missouri, Kentucky, Illinois, and Kansas. His difficulties were great. He was unable to clear the State of secessionists, who besieged Lexington and took it on September 20th. Generals Hunter and Halleck, Fremont's successors, were equally unsuccessful, and the State was harassed by a petty warfare all the year.

In Kentucky, Governor Magoffin was inclined to secession. The Legislature leaned the other way, but preferred neutrality to active participation on either side. September 6th, Brigadier-General U. S. Grant occupied Paducah, an important strategical point at the junction of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. Next day the Confederate General Polk, advancing from below, took possession of Columbus on the Mississippi. With both hostile armies thus encamped on her soil, Kentucky could no longer be neutral. Her decision was quickly taken. The Legislature demanded of President Davis to withdraw Polk's forces, at the same time calling upon General Anderson, the hero of Sumter, who had been placed in charge of the Department of the Cumberland, to take active measures for the defence of this his native State.

The mountain portion of Virginia belonged to the West rather than to the South. It contained only 18,000 slaves, against nearly 500,000 in Eastern Virginia. Union sentiment was therefore strong, and when the old State seceded from the Union, Western Virginia proceeded to secede from the State. General Lee sent troops to hold it for the Confederacy. Thereupon General McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio, threw several regiments across the river into Virginia, and defeated the foe in minor engagements at Philippi, Rich Mountain, and Carrick's Ford. By the middle of July he was able to report, "Secession is killed in this country." Later in the year the Confederates renewed their attempts, but were finally driven out. West Virginia organized a separate government, and was subsequently admitted to the Union as a State by itself.



Bull Run—the Field of Strategy.

While these struggles were going on in the border commonwealths, the Union soldiers lay inactive along the Potomac. Constant drill had changed the mob into some semblance of an organized army, but the careful Scott feared to risk a general engagement. The hostile forces stretched in three pairs of groups across Virginia from northwest to southeast. In the southeastern part of the State, at Fortress Monroe, Butler faced the Confederate Magruder. At Manassas, opposite Washington, and about thirty miles southwest, lay a Confederate army under General Beauregard. General Patterson, a veteran of the War of 1812, commanded considerable forces in Southern Pennsylvania. About the middle of June he advanced against Harper's Ferry, which had been abandoned by the Unionists the latter part of April and was now occupied by General Joseph E. Johnston. Johnston evacuated the place upon Patterson's approach, and retreated up the Shenandoah Valley, in a southwesterly direction, to Winchester. Patterson followed part way, and the two armies now lay watching each other.

Anxious to see the rebellion put down by one blow, the North was becoming impatient. "On to Richmond!" was the ceaseless cry. Yielding to this, Scott ordered an advance. July 16th, General McDowell, leaving one division to protect Washington, led forth an army 28,000 strong to attack the enemy at Manassas. He advanced slowly and with great caution. The enemy were found posted in a line eight miles long upon the south bank of Bull Run, a small river three miles east of Manassas, running in a southeasterly direction. Several days were spent in reconnoitering. Meanwhile, Johnston, whom Patterson was expected to hold at Winchester, had stolen away to join Beauregard, their combined forces numbering about 30,000. McDowell was ignorant of Johnston's movement, supposing him still at Winchester.



General Irvin McDowell.

On the morning of the 21st McDowell advanced to the attack. Beauregard held all the lower fords, besides a stone bridge on the Warrenton turnpike which crosses the river at right angles. Two divisions, under Hunter and Heintzelman, were set in motion before sunrise to make a flanking detour and cross Bull Run at Sudley's Ford, some distance farther up. To distract attention from this movement, Tyler's division began an attack at the stone bridge. This was held by a regiment and a half, with four guns, under General Evans. He replied vigorously at first, but perceiving after a while that Tyler was only feigning, and learning of the flank movement above, he left four companies at the bridge and drew up the rest of his forces on a ridge north of Warrenton turnpike to await Hunter and Heintzelman's approach down the Sudley road.



General Samuel P. Heintzelman.

The fight began about ten o'clock. Both sides were soon re-enforced. After two hours' stubborn fighting the Confederates were driven back across the pike, beyond Young's Branch of Bull Run, and took up a second position on a hill each side of the Henry House. The whole Union force had now crossed Bull Run. Griffin's and Ricketts' powerful batteries were posted in favorable positions, whence they poured a deadly fire upon the Confederates. The whole Union line advanced to the turnpike. About two o'clock the Confederates were forced to abandon their second position and fall back still farther.

Early in the morning Beauregard and Johnston had given orders for an attack upon the Union forces across the river, not knowing that McDowell had assumed the offensive. These orders were now countermanded, and all available troops hurried up the Sudley road toward the Warrenton pike front. Till after noon the prospect for the Confederates looked gloomy. They had been steadily driven back. Some of their regiments had lost heavily, while all were more or less demoralized. Johnston and Beauregard gave their personal direction to re-forming the line upon a second ridge to the south of the Warrenton pike, under cover of a semicircular piece of woods. Twelve regiments, with twenty-two guns and two companies of cavalry, concentrated in this favorable position and awaited the Union advance.



Bull Run-Battle of the Forenoon.

McDowell had fourteen regiments available for the attack. He decided to hurl them against the Confederate centre and left. About half-past two Griffin's and Ricketts' batteries took up an advanced position on Henry Hill. The Confederate guns opened fire, and a short artillery duel took place. A Confederate regiment now advances to capture the exposed batteries. They are mistaken for Union re-enforcements and allowed to come within close range. The muskets are levelled. A terrible volley is poured into the batteries. The gunners are stricken down. The frantic horses dash madly down the hill. After a little confusion the Union troops boldly advance and retake the batteries. The battle surges back and forth. The guns are three times captured and lost again. The fight becomes general along the Confederate centre and left. The Union generals are getting alarmed. So far they have been confident of victory. Now regiment after regiment is going to pieces in this terrific melee, and still the "rebels" hold their ground. About half-past four o'clock General Early arrives by rail with three thousand more of Johnston's army, and, assisted by a battery and five companies of cavalry, bursts upon the extreme right flank and rear of McDowell's line.



Bull Run—Battle of the Afternoon.

This manoeuvre decided the day. The Union ranks waver, break, flee. The centre and left soon follow, though in better order. Union and Confederate generals alike were astonished at the sudden change. McDowell found it impossible to stem the tide once set in, and gave orders to fall back across Bull Run to Centreville, where his reserves were stationed. As the retreat went on it turned to a downright rout. The Confederates made only a feeble pursuit, but fear of pursuit spread alarm through the flying ranks, demoralized by long marching and hard fighting. Baggage and ammunition-wagons, ambulances, private vehicles which had been standing in the rear, joined the sweeping tide, adding to the confusion and in some places causing temporary blockade. Frightened teamsters cut traces and galloped recklessly away. Panic and stampede resulted, soon reaching the soldiers. Flinging away muskets and knapsacks, they sought safety in flight. The army entered Centreville a disorganized mass. Fugitives could not be stayed even there, but streamed through and on toward Washington. McDowell gave the order to continue the retreat. The reserve brigades, with the one regiment of regulars, covered the rear in good order. All that night the crazy hustle to the rear was kept up, and on Monday the hungry and exhausted stragglers poured into Washington under a drizzling rain, the people receiving them with heavy hearts but generous hands.



General Joseph E. Johnston.

The Union loss was 481 killed, 1,011 wounded, 1,460 prisoners. Twenty-five guns were lost, thirteen of them on the retreat. The Confederate loss was 387 killed, 1,580 wounded. The numbers actively engaged were about 18,000 on each side. General Sherman pronounced Bull Run "one of the best planned battles of the war, but one of the worst fought." The latter fact was but natural. The troops on both sides were poorly drilled, and most of them had never been under fire before. Precision of movement, concert of action on any large scale, were impossible. Neither side needed to be ashamed of this initial trial.

The North was at first much cast down. The faint-hearted considered the Union hopelessly lost, but pluck and patriotism carried the day. On the morrow after the battle Congress voted that an army of 500,000 should be raised, and appropriated $500,000,000 to carry on the war. General McClellan, whose brilliant campaign in West Virginia had won him easy fame, was put in command of the Army of the Potomac. The young general was a West Point graduate and had served with distinction in the Mexican War. An accomplished military student, a skilful engineer, and a superb organizer, he threw himself with energy into the task of fortifying Washington and building up a splendid army. Many of the three-months volunteers re-enlisted. Thousands of new recruits came flocking to camp, and before long companies, regiments, and brigades amounting to 150,000 men were drilling daily on the banks of the Potomac, while formidable works crowned the entire crest of Arlington Heights. In October the aged General Scott resigned, and McClellan, at the summit of his popularity with army and people, became commander-in-chief.



General George B. McClellan.

For several weeks after Bull Run it was feared that Beauregard and his men would descend upon Washington, then in a defenceless condition; but they were in no state to attack. They too felt the need of preparation for the coming struggle, whose magnitude both sides now began to realize.

A disheartening affair occurred in October. On the night of the 20th two Massachusetts regiments crossed the Potomac at Ball's Bluff, a few miles above Washington, to surprise a hostile camp which according to rumor had been established there. A large force concealed in the woods attacked and forced them to retreat. They were re-enforced by 1,900 men under Colonel Baker. The enemy were also re-enforced. Baker was killed and the Union soldiers driven over the bluff into the river. The boats were totally inadequate in number, and the men had to make their way across as best they could, exposed to the Confederate fire. The total Union loss was 1,000.

On the whole, then, the South had reason to be gratified with the aggregate result of the first year of war. Bull Run gave the Confederates a sense of invincibility, and the ready recognition by the foreign powers of their rights as belligerents, offered hope that England would soon acknowledge their independence itself. And they thought that the North had been doing its best when it had only been getting ready.

END OF VOLUME III.

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