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DEPOSITED BY THE
LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY

THE CIVIL WAR AND
THE CONSTITUTION

THE AMEBICAN HISTORY SEBIES
Seten volumet, 12mo, with map» and plant.
THB COLONIAL ERA.- By Rev. Gbobqb P. PisHBB,
D.D., LL.D., FrofesBor of Ecclesiastical History in
Tale University.
THE FRENCH WAE AND THE REVOLUTION.— By
WmiAM M. Sloamb, Ph.D., Professor of History in
Colnmbia University.
THE MAKING OF THE NATION.— By General Fbanoib
A. WAI.KEB, LL.D., late President of the MassachnsettB
Institute of Technology.
THE MIDDLE PERIOD.— By John W. Bunaiiss, Ph.D.,
LL.D., Professor of Political Science and Constitational
Law in Colombia University.
THB CIVIL WAR AND THB CONSTITUTION.- By
John W. Bdbgbss, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political
Science and ConstitnUonal Lavr in Colnmbia University.
2 vols.
RECONSTRUCTION AND THE CONSTITUTION.— By
John W. Bubobss, Ph.D., LL.O., Professor of Political
Science and Constitational Law in Colnmbia University.

THE AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES
THE CIYIL WAR AND
THE CONSTITUTION 1859-1865

JOHN W. BUEGESS, Ph.D., LL.D.
PB07S8S0R or POLITICAL 8CIBNCB AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, AND DBAM O?
THE PAODLTT OF POLITICAL SOIENCB, EN COLTHttBIA ITNITEBSITT

VOLUME I

CHARLES SCRIBNEE'S SONS
NEW YOKK CHICAGO BOSTON

Copyright, 1901, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Printed in the United States of America
D

To the memory
of
SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, LL.D.,
for many years one of the most prominent of the
Trustees of Columbia College,
to whose efforts,
more than to those of any other smgle man,
the Faculty and School of Political Science
in Columbia University owe their foundation,
these two volumes
are reverently and affectionately inscribed
by the Author

PREFACE

The preface to " The Middle Period " was intended to
serve for all the volumes of this series proceeding from
my pen. I do not feel inclined to interfere with that
arrangement now, and I shall not do so. Perhaps,
however, it is due to my readers that I should make
some explanation in regard to the delay in the appear
ance of these volumes after the publication of " The
Middle Period." I can do this in a single sentence. I
found the task of going carefully through the immense
mass of Congressional debates. Executive orders, diplo
matic correspondence and military reports so prolonged
that, in the midst of the exactions of my University
labors, I was unable to complete them earlier.
I desire, further, to express in these introductory lines
my continued obligation to my friend and former pupil,
and now, I rejoice to say, my colleague. Dr. Harry A.
Gushing, for his invaluable aid in the preparation of
these volumes. JOHK W. BUBQESa.
ClOLUHBU. UinVKBSITr«
June 12, 1901.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I

CHAPTER I PAor
Davis, Lincoln and Donoi.A8 . . . . . i

CHAPTER II
Anti-slatebt Sentiment in the South between 1857 and
I860  28
CHAPTER III
The Pbesidential Election of 1860  46
CHAPTER IV
Secession  ,74
CHAPTER V
The Inadgubation of Lincoln and the Condition of the
OOTBBNMENT Hb WaS CaLLED TO AdmINISTEB . . 138
CHAPTER VI
The Attempt of the Southern CoNFEDEBAcr to Negotiate
with the Government of the United States . . 151
is

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII VAsa
The Capture of Eobt Sumter and the Call to Abms • 167

CHAPTER VIII
The Thbeb Months' War  206
CHAPTER rX
Preparations for the Three Years' Wab ... 226
CHAPTER X
Thb Military Movements in the Late Summer and Au*
TCMN OF 1861  243
CHAPTER XI
Mill Spbinqs, Fort Henrt, Donelson, Shiloh, Pea Ridge,
AND Island No. 10  „ . 276

LIST OF MAPS

TAOING FASX
Charleston Habbob  92
The Blockaded Coast  . 184
The West Virginia Battles . . . . 208
The Manassas Campaign  216
The Field of Operations in Missouri and Northern
Arkansas  248
Field op Operations in Virginia . , . 260
New Madbid and Island Number Ten .... 314
Mississippi Valley — Helena to Vicksburg . . . 318

THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS
The Need of New Leaders — Davis, Lincoln and Donglas — Re
semblances of the Three Men in Character — Differences
between the Three Men — In Personal Appearance — Circum
stances of Birth and Edncation — And Mind and Character —
The Political Differences between Davis, Douglas and Lin
coln in 1860.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott decision,
and the anti-Lecompton triumph had brought the poli
tics of the country into a nebulous condition. ,j^ „ggj ^
New centres of cohesion must be developed ""^ leaden.
around which the vapors should become solidified and
clarified, in order that the conflicting forces might ap
pear distinct in principle and purpose. It was a situa
tion which required the advent of strong personalities,
and their advance to the front, personalities who should
rear their heads above the dead level of democracy, and
around whom the people must gather for the great
struggle. Between the years 1857 and 1860 these appeared.
They were Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, and
Stephen Arnold Douglas. The first and last ^^^^ j^^_
were then, by no means, new names to the coin and
country, and the bearer of the second had
already before 1857 won an enviable local reputation.
Vol. I.— 1 1

3 THE CIVIL WAB
Davis was the oldest and Douglas the youngest of tli»
three, while Lincoln, who stood between the two in the
chronology of birth, was strangely, not to say fatefuUy,
connected with both in the events of his career.
Davis and Lincoln were born upon the soil of the same
Commonwealth, Kentucky, the one in June of 1808, and
the other in February of 1809. It has been said that they
met for the first time at Dixon, in Illinois, in the year
1831, and that then and there, Davis, at that time a
Lieutenant in the regular army, administered to Lincoln
the oath of allegiance to the United States, as Captain of
a company of Illinois volunteers mustered into the service
of the United States for the Black-Hawk War. They
met again in Congress between 1846-48, both members
of the House of Representatives, when Davis upheld the
cause of his country against Mexico, and then proved his
patriotic devotion by resigning his seat and going to the
front, as Colonel of the first Mississippi regiment, where
he distinguished himself as a brave and successful soldier
and commander on the fields of Monterey and Buena
Vista; while Lincoln joined with the Northern Whigs in
denouncing the war, and thereby ruined his political
prospects in Illinois for several years afterward. They
never met again personally, but as commanders-in-chief
of the great hosts, who struggled through the bloodiest
war of modern times, they became the commanding
figures of our history in the first half of the seventh
decade of the century.
Likewise Lincoln and Douglas, though born as far
apart in place as Kentucky and Vermont, and in time as
1809 and 1813, met early upon the prairies, and became
rivals in courtship, rivals in law practice, and rivals in
politics, until at last their rivalry culminated in the great
presidential contest of 1860, in which Lincoln triumphed,
and Douglas pledged him allegiance in upholding the

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 3
Union in the conflict of arms which Davis was inaugu*
rating against it.
In two things these three great characters resembled
one another, viz., in personal bravery and in loyal te
nacity to conviction. Nobody has disputed b e § e m -
the former quality to either of them, but in SJ^'m^'ta
regard to the latter there is, and has always "''"»'=*«''•
been, difference of opinion. At this time it may be
said that it is more universally attributed to Lincoln
than to either of the others, and less so to Douglas.
There was undoubtedly a difference in degree between
them in this respect, but that is probably to be ascribed
to the fact that Lincoln saw farther than Davis, and
both farther and more clearly than Douglas. It would
be difficult, if not impossible, to find any act in Davis's
life which proves any lack of devotion to the truth,
as he saw it, or any lack of readiness to sacrifice himself
for it. And certainly the unbending attitude which
Douglas preserved in the two great crises of his polit
ical career, the Lecompton struggle and the presiden
tial nomination of 1860, and his ready and unreserved
declaration of loyalty to his great rival at the outset of
the struggle for the preservation of the Union, can be
explained on no other satisfactory theory than that of
self-sacrificing adherence to principle. If it was not
always so with Mr. Donglas, it came to be so in the latter
years of his great life. While as to Lincoln, so many of
his old foes have come to recognize the correctness of
the opinion of his friends, that absolute truthfulness
was the fundamental principle of his character, that
there is no need of adducing instances of his conduct in
proof of it.
In most other respects, however, the three men were
very different. In personal appearance, the contrast was
very striking. Davis was tall, well-formed, erect, hand-

4 THE CIVIL WAR
some, dignified, and graceful. He bore all the marks of
a well-born, well-bred, cultured gentleman. Lincoln
was very tall, lank, ungainly, homely, and
between the awkward, but dignified and grave even to
Pereonai ap- melancholy. No one could doubt, after a lit-
pearance. ^j^ contact with him, that he was on the inside
a true gentleman, although the outward polish failed
him almost completely. Douglas was rather short and
thick-set, with a massive head, well-developed forehead,
and deeply planted brilliant blue eyes, which in moments
of excitement seemed to emit electric sparks. He was,
withal, good-looking and very genial and courteous.
The circumstances of their birth and education differed
also very widely. Davis was descended from Welsh an-
oircum- cestors on his father's side and Scotch-Irish
bWhmiVedn- o^ ^^^ mother's. His father was a country
cation. gentleman of considerable property, who
resided first in Georgia, then in Kentucky, afterward
moved to Louisiana, and finally settled in Mississippi.
His mother was said to have been a lady of rare beauty
and intelligence. He received his preparatory education
in the ordinary schools about his home, was then sent to
Transylvania University, at Lexington, Kentucky, and
when near graduation from that institution, had a West
Point cadetship conferred upon him. He graduated
from the Military Academy in July of 1828, and
immediately entered the regular army, as a second lieu
tenant, and was assigned to service on the western fron
tier. After seven years of arduous and well-performed
duty, he resigned from the army, married the daughter
of Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterward President of the
United States, and settled down at Briarfield, in Missis
sippi, as a planter. The sudden death of his young wife,
a few months after their marriage, broke his health and
deranged his affairs. A severe illness, and a long tour

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 6
of travel necessitated by it, occupied the better part of
the next two years of his life. From 1837 to 1845, he
directed the cultivation of his plantation, won wealth,
and read widely in political philosophy, political econo
my, and public law. In February of 1845, he married the
accomplished daughter of W. B. Howell, of Natchez, and
with her founded one of those typical Southern homes
so justly noted for refinement and hospitality. In 1844,
he was elected a presidential elector on the Polk ticket,
and in 1845, he was elected Representative to Congress
from the district in which he resided. From this time
forward he was almost continuously in public life until
the downfall of the Southern Confederacy in 1865.
No greater contrast to this brilliant preparation and
education for political leadership can be imagined than
the lowly and humble course through which Mr. Lin
coln worked his way. His father was a dull, ignorant,
lazy, shiftless, poor white, of Kentucky backwoods life,
the son of a man of the same sort, who immigrated into
Kentucky from Virginia, about the year 1790 ; and his
mother was the daughter of one Lucy Hanks, whose fam
ily belonged likewise to the class of "poor white trash."
Lincoln's childhood, boyhood, and young manhood,
were spent in the most abject poverty, and amid sur
roundings of the most humble, demoraliz- Lincoln's
ing, and common character. About the time *"'y history.
he reached his seventh year, his worthless father had
taken care of his family as long as he could in a
country which had become somewhat civilized, and
moved onward into a newer region. The more fertile
maiden lands of Indiana seemed to offer richer winnings
to the stupid, thriftless Kentuckian. Thither he took
his family, and in a miserable cabin in the wilderness
he housed them. For ten years now Abraham Lincoln
worked for his father under greater severity than the av-

6 THE CIVIL WAB
erage slave of the South worked for his master. During
this time he received altogether not more than one year
of schooling. He had no books, except the Bible and a
copy of -(3Esop's Fables, and could get none. He was
thoughtful, meditative, thirstful for knowledge, and
ambitious, and the uncongeniality and hopelessness of
his surroundings induced in him a dejection of spirit
and a settled melancholy, which immediately impressed
everyone who came into contact with him as one of his
chief peculiarities. He had, indeed, already revealed his
rich vein of humor, which was not exactly the humor of
pessimism, but very much like the humor of despair. His
tree-felling, rail-splitting, digging, ploughing and lifting,
had made him a full-grown, powerful man at seventeen.
At nineteen he took his first journey into the great
world as a "hand" on a flat-boat, destined for New
Orleans. Upon this journey, and a subsequent one to
the same place, made some three years later, he saw
slavery under some of its most forbidding aspects, and
conceived thus early in his life a deep hatred for the
institution. In the spring of 1830, just as he had at
tained his majority, and his legal freedom from his
father's control, the family moved again in search of
EemoTai to richer lands. They settled this time upon a
niinoiB. bluff overlooking Sangamon River, in Macon
Countv. Illinois. Lincoln now went to work at all
kinds of jobs for himself. He was a great rail-splitter,
and was occupied chiefly with such employment until ho
fell in with one Denton Offut, a bluff, sanguine, enter
prising fellow, without much capacity for making a
success of anything, but with indefatigable genius for
planning, who hired him to go upon his second journey
to New Orleans, and, on his return, gave him employ
ment m a siore a'l. New Salem. Offut'e almost imme
diate failure in the mercantile business set Lincoln

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 7
afloat again, not, however, until the slovenly clerk had
made many acquaintances among Offut's customers, and
some reputation as a good story-teller and a promising
politician among the loafers who congregated every
evening in the back-room of Offut's store.
Lincoln now tried military life in the Black-Hawk
War, to which reference has already been made, and
owing to the popularity which he had acquired, and to
his great physical powers, he was elected Captain of his
company. At the close of this service, (vhicli lasted only
a few months, he returned to New Salem, and in 1832
tried to secure an election to the Legislature. Defeated
in this first political effort, he turned again to store-
keeping, bought the stock of the Herndon Brothers, and
set himself up, with one William Berry for partner, as a
merchant. In less than a year, this venture proved a
failure. Lincoln was now involved in debt, and scarcely
knew which way to turn. He worked around at odd
jobs, earning a bare pittance, and reading borrowed law
books at every spare moment. At this juncture the
Surveyor of the county, one John Calhoun, made him
Deputy Surveyor. He now studied his mathematics
with great assiduity, and soon became proficient in the
work of his office. At the same time he secured the place
of Postmaster of New Salem. The two positions gave
him the means of livelihood, and from this time forward
he was able to exist without being compelled to employ
any considerable portion of his time in manual labor.
He allied himself politically with the Whig party, and
developed his political opinions under the influence of
its national creed. In 1834, he was elected,
as a Whig, to the Illinois Legislature, and first political
again in 1836. In 1837, he migrated from ^^p*"™'=^°-
New Salem to Springfield, to which latter place the
capitol of the Commonwealth had just been removed.

8 THE CIVIL WAR
in some degree through his influence and efforts. He
was still so poor that he could not pay the sum of seven
teen dollars for the necessary furnishings of a room in
which to sleep, and was literally compelled to accept the
hospitality of Joshua F. Speed, who offered to share
room and bed with him. He was now twenty-eight
years of age, and certainly this was a bad showing from
the point of view of worldly success. He now began
the practice of law, as the partner of John T. Stuart,
but broke away from this career almost immediately for
another term in the Legislature.
It was one of Lincoln's traits that he liked the society
of men better than that of women. Nevertheless he was
not blind to feminine attractions, and was not unsuc
cessful in his suits. In 1835, he entered into an engage
ment of marriage with a charming young girl of New
Salem, Annie Rutledge, by name, who died before the
consummation of vows. This sad event deepened greatly'
the habitual melancholy of his life. In 1840, he sought
successfully the hand of Miss Mary Todd, a bright, vi
vacious, pretty, and, in comparison with himself, highly
Lincoln's bom and highly bred Kentucky girl. The
marriage. strange conduct of Lincoln in not appearing
on the evening appointed for the wedding, when the
bride and guests were awaiting anxiously his coming,
and the still stranger conduct of Miss Todd in marry
ing him nearly two years afterward, despite the morti
fication and chagrin which he had caused her, are
scarcely subjects to be treated in a constitutional history
of the United States, and yet these things had their in
fluence in shaping the course of that history. They had
their part in creating that domestic incompatibility be
tween Mr. Lincoln and his wife, which drove him so
constantly from the seclusion of his own fireside into
the haunts of men, thus widening his acquaintance

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 9
among men and increasing his influence with them,
and which helped to cultivate in him that sense of
aloneness, the twin of self-reliance, and that silent pa
tience, which were such marked ingredients of his great
personality. Lincoln's nearest friend, Herndon, says that Lincoln
finally married Miss Todd simply because he felt that
he was bound in honor to do so ; and that Miss Todd so
far condoned the offence which he had given her by ab
sconding upon the date originally set for the wedding as
to marry him nearly two years later, because she had
discerned his coming greatness, and because she desired
the satisfaction of an ultimate triumph over the man
who had so shamefully left her in the lurch upon the
evening of January 1st, 1841. It was certainly a very
bad beginning, and it resulted most disastrously to the
peace and comfort of Mr. Lincoln's domestic life, but it
is altogether probable that such discipline as his con
stant unhappiness at home imposed upon him chastened
his character, developed his self-reliance, his patience
and his conciliatory spirit, and thus fitted him all the
better for the great work which lay before him in the
hidden future. The year following his marriage to
Miss Todd, Lincoln associated with himself, in the
practice of law, William H. Herndon. This arrange
ment proved most advantageous to both parties. Hern
don was faithful to Lincoln's political fortunes to the
end, and their business union was dissolved only by the
shot of the assassin Booth.
Mr. Lincoln began his political career upon the
broader stage of national politics at the same time and
in the same manner with Mr. Davis. That ^ ^^^^
is, he was a candidate for presidential elec- national poii-
tor in the campaign of 1844. He canvassed
the Commonwealth of Illinois for Mr. Clay and won

10 THE CIVIL WAR
considerable reputation by his speeches. He also en
tered Congress at very nearly the same time as Mr.
Davis, and they were both members of the House of
Representatives at the period of the Mexican war.
Lincoln's attitude toward the war was almost the very
opposite of that taken by Davis. While Davis support
ed the war policy, and shed his blood upon the battle
field in its execution, Lincoln denounced it, and discour
aged its execution as far as he could without actually
voting to withhold the necessary supplies. The splen
did triumph of the American arms damaged greatly the
political prospects of many of the men who opposed
the war, and among them those of Mr. Lincoln. At the
expiration of his term he returned to private life, and
for the next five years devoted himself to the practice of
his profession. The agitation over the Kansas-Nebraska
Bill, and the repeal of the restriction upon slavery in the
Louisiana territory above the line of thirty-six degrees
and thirty minutes, called him again into the political
arena. From this time onward to 1860 he was develop
ing in his thought and utterances that "body of Repub
lican doctrine" which led to the final triumph of his
party and to his own election to the presidency. He
was chosen again to the Legislature in 1854, but almost
immediately resigned his seat, in order to improve his
chances, as he thought, for the United States senatorship,
which was to be filled at that session. In this plan he
was disappointed by the sharp practice of the five Free-
soil Democrats of the Legislature, who persisted in vot
ing for Trumbull until it became manifest to Lincoln and
his supporters that they must go for Trumbull or see a
"Nebraska Democrat" elected, when Lincoln himself
gave the word to elect Trumbull. It was probably un
derstood at the time that the friends of Trumbull, the
Free-soil Democrats, would assist to put Lincoln in tho

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 11
?eat then occupied by Mr. Douglas, at the close of the
latter's term in 1858. Whether or not it was so planned,
it so happened, and the summer and autumn of that
year witnessed the ever-memorable debate between the
two "Giants," in which the doctrines of the Douglas
democracy and the Lincoln republicanism were quite
distinctly formulated. Mr. Lincoln was again defeated
for the senatorship, but his nobly fought campaign made
him the nominee of his party for the presidency in 1860,
and destroyed the chances of Donglas for uniting the
Democratic party of the South with that of the North
in the great struggle of that year.
Mr. Douglas, finally, was a descendant of very dif
ferent stock from the ancestry of Mr. Lincoln. He was
as highly born as Mr. Davis. To be exact
upon that point it must be said that he was
even more highly born than Mr. Davis. On his father's
side he came from the Douglases of Scotch fame, and
on his mother's from that William Arnold, of Rhode
Island, who was the associate of Roger Williams in the
founding of that Province, and whose son was appointed
by King Charles II. its flrst governor under the royal
charter. Mr. Douglas's father was a respectable, not to
say distinguished, physician of Brandon, Vermont.
Dr. Douglas died on the 1st day of July, 1813, when
the subject of this sketch was about two months old.
He was poor at the time of his death, and his wife and
two children were provided for during the next fifteen
years by Mrs. Douglas's brother, a well-to-do farmer
of Vermont, by the name of Fisk. The inability of Mr.
Fisk to defray the expenses of an academic education
for young Stephen caused him to begin life for himself.
He was only fifteen years of age, but went forth bravely
to meet the hardships of the struggle for existence. He
walked from Brandon to Middlebury with all of his pos-

12 THE CIVIL WAR
sessions in a little pack upon his back, and apprenticed
himself to a cabinet maker. For two years he worked
industriously at his trade until his health failed. He
then attended Brandon Academy for a year, devoting
himself with great enthusiasm to classical study. Mean
while his mother had married Mr. Gehazi Granger, of
Canandaigua, New York, and had removed her residence
to that place. Thither young Douglas now went by the
invitation of his step-father, and became a student in the
once famous Canandaigua Academy. For three years
he pursued the courses of instruction in that institution
with great avidity and success, and, during a portion of
the time, also read law in the office of the Hubbells.
He here began to develop his talent for extemporaneous
debate and political management.
In June of 1833 he started westward, locating first in
Cleveland, Ohio, as a clerk in the law office of the Hon.
S. J. Andrews. His health soon suffered here from the
malaria of the country, and by the advice of his physician
he left Cleveland, but instead of returning to the East
he went farther westward. He tried Cincinnati, Louis
ville, and St. Louis, with no success. He then pushed
on to Jacksonville in Illinois, arriving there in the last
days of November (1833), with only thirty-seven cents in
his pocket. He found nothing here to do, and was ob
liged to sell some of his books for bread. In a few days
he was again compelled to face hunger. To attempt to
practise law, at such a moment, was out of the question.
He would starve before he could find a client. He heard
of a chance to organize a school at a place called Win
chester, a few miles distant from Jacksonville, and one
November morning he walked over to the little town
and set himself up as a teacher of a three months' school.
He now had bread and shelter, and could devote a little
spare time to continuing his law reading.

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 13
On the 4th of March, 1834, when not yet quite
twenty-one years . of age, he received his license to
practise before the Supreme Court of the Common
wealth. He was a successful practitioner from the
first. The same month in which he obtained ad
mission to the bar was signalized by his entrance into
political life. He made a strong political speech at
Jacksonville in support of President Jackson's Anti-
bank policy. It was considered by those who heard it
and many of his subsequent efforts as among his
best. It was upon this occasion that he was hailed
for the first time as the "Little Giant." The re
sult of this immediate success at the bar and on
the hustings was his election, in February of 1835,
as prosecuting attorney for the flrst judicial district of
the Commonwealth over the highly accomplished and
much respected John J. Hardin. He was an able,
fearless and successful prosecutor, and his services in
this capacity contributed greatly to the establishment
of law and order in the then comparatively new com
munity. In the winter of 1835-36, he began the work of or
ganizing the Democratic party in Illinois. Down to
that time it had been customary in Illinois
for candidates for .public place to present apartyorgan-
themselves, or be presented by a small
number of political friends, and to conduct their
own canvasses, either alone or with the aid of a
few such friends. Douglas now conceived the plan of
winning Morgan County, the county of his residence,
from the Whigs by a strict organization of the Demo
cratic party in county convention, which should
nominate candidates, and plan and control the cam
paign for their election. He would thus be able to op
pose a regular ticket, with only a single candidate for

14 THE CIVIL WAE
each place, to the loose methods of the Whigs. He suc
ceeded in his purpose, and although the Whigs were
driven by this movement also to unite upon a single
ticket, yet they were beaten by the Douglas organiza
tion, and the county passed under the control of the
Democratic party for a long period. This was the be
ginning of the " Douglas Machine " in Illinois. In this
election Mr. Douglas himself was chosen to the Legislat
ure, and on the first Monday of December, 1836, when
only a little over twenty-three years of age, he began his
career as a legislator. In four months from this date
his fame had reached Washington, and he received from
the new President, Mr. Van Buren, the appointment to
the office of Land Register at Springfield, in Illinois.
Mr. Douglas held this office for a little longer than one
year, and during this time, he was working upon the
problem of organizing the Democratic party in the Con
gressional districts and in the Commonwealth, after th*
model of the Morgan County organization.
In November of 1837, he was nominated by the
Democratic district convention of the northern district
in the Commonwealth as candidate for the House of
Representatives of the National Congress. His oppo
nent was the Hon. John T. Stuart, Lincoln's former
partner, and one of the ablest and most popular citizens
of Illinois. Mr. Donglas was defeated by only five
votes, and it was a question whether this was not at
tributable to an error in the making up of the ticket.
For the next two years he devoted himself to the
practice of his profession, but in the presidential con
test of 1840, he again mounted the hustings, and, pitted
against Cyrus Walker and Mr. Lincoln, opened the
campaign in Illinois. This was the beginning of his
political rivalry with Mr. Lincoln which was to culmi
nate in the great struggle of 1860. Probably it was owing

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 16
to his efforts more than to those of any other one man
that the Commonwealth of Illinois chose Democratic
electors. In January of 1841, he was appointed Secre
tary of State of Illinois, and, in a little over one month
afterward, he was elected by the Legislature a judge of
the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth. He was not
yet twenty-eight years of age, but he made an able,
fearless and just magistrate. In December of 1842 he
was put forward by his friends as a candidate for
United States Senator, although he had not completed
his thirtieth year. He came within five votes of an
election in a total of one hundred and eleven votes
cast by the Legislature in joint session.
In the spring of 1843, he was again nominated as a
candidate for a seat in the National House of Repre
sentatives. His competitor this time was DongiaB in
the Hon. 0. H. Browning, a man of great Congress.
ability and popularity. He immediately resigned his
judicial office, and in a most hotly waged contest
won the election. From this time forward to the
end of his life, he was a member of the National
Congress. He served in the House until 1847 and
after that in the Senate. He was early appointed
chairman of the House committee on Territories, and,
upon his transfer to the Senate, was soon elected chair
man of the Senate committee on the same subject. In
these positions he developed those peculiar doctrines
about Territorial government and relations entitled
" Popular Sovereignty," or " Squatter Sovereignty,"
which led to the unsettling of the customary views upon
these subjects, and to the rupture of the old agree
ments and understandings in regard to the question of
slavery in the Territories which have been recounted
and described in the preceding volume of this work.
Such waB the origin and such the education of the

16 THE CIVIL WAR
three great personalities around whom and whose doc
trines the history of the country chiefly turned in those
momentous years from 1857 to 1861, and around two of
whom it continued to turn for four years more as the
chiefs of the mighty hosts of war, who decided at last
by the issue of arms what could not be settled by peace
ful adjustment.
These differences of origin, surroundings, and educa
tion account, in large degree, for the differences in mind
Differencee ^^d character obtaining between them.
iharMto 'blf- The Celtic blood, military education, and
ilocoin^and slavc-holding experiences of Mr. Davis will
Douglas. easily explain the chief points in his intel
lectual and moral constitution. He saw very clearly,
but not deeply. He was logical rather than intuitive,
and possessed little real imagination. From given prem
ises he reasoned with great exactness, but had neither
the inductive power nor the power of insight necessary
to the discovery of the principles or axioms upon which
he based his syllogisms. The letter of the Constitution,
as the fathers made it and understood it, was his politi
cal bible, and he manifested nowhere the slightest appre
ciation of the consideration that the fathers might have
failed to give exact expression, in the instrument, to the
political and social conditions of the country, or of
the consideration that those conditions might have so
changed through the natural course of human develop
ment as to require either a revision of the instrument,
or the employment of methods of liberal interpretation,
such as would enable the political forces and ideas, exist
ing at any given moment, to find some expression through
it. He ridiculed the idea of the " higher law," which is
only an unfortunate name for a profound truth, the truth
that jurisprudence has its basis in ethics, and must de
velop with the unfolding of the common consciousness

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 17
of right and wrong. Mr. Davis's rhetoric corresponded
in character closely with his logic. It was pure, perspic
uous, and rather terse. It must have been a great relief
to the Senate, after listening to the ornate sentences,
mixed metaphors, and far-fetched similes of most of the
Southern members, to have Mr. Davis tell them briefly,
plainly, and distinctly, just what it was all about. As
discussion and debate approach the point of action such
personalities are indispensably necessary to formulate the
creeds for which men fight and die. His bearing and
conduct were likewise in accord with the character of
his thought and speech. He was dignified, grave, almost
severe, and decided even to imperiousness. He was
rather impatient, and rather inclined to suspect those
who differed with him in opinion of being influenced by
wrong motives. But withal he was noble, kind, generous
in his feelings, if not in his intellect, brave, self-sac
rificing, and grandly devoted to duty as he understood
it. It was not accident that such a mind
and character stood as the representative, resentative
in 1860, of that narrow but distinct view "''"*"'"•
of the Constitution, which claimed that the "States"
were copartners in the Territories, and that the
emigrant from any " State " into a Territory carried
with him the law of the " State " from which he emi
grated with reference to property, and the represen
tative of that imperious demand which claimed the
protection of the rights based upon such law by
the Government of the United States for so long as
the Territorial status should continue. Mr. Davis had
advanced this theory as far back as 1848 in his
famous 12th of July speech upon the question of the
organization of Oregon Territory. Mr. Calhoun had
given utterance to it before Mr. Davis, and so had
Mr. Rhett ; but Mr. Calhoun died ten years before the
Vol. I.— a

18 THE CIVIL WAB
matter was ripe for the trial by battle, and his mantle
fell upon Mr. Davis ; while Mr. Rhett was too extravagant
in his notions and expressions, too utterly lacking in
the elements of commandership, to rival Mr. Davis as the
chief representative of the Southern view and purpose.
The Celtic component in Mr. Douglas's blood also was
clearly manifested in his intellectual constitution. He
was more superficial than Mr. Davis in his
traitao/noug- mental action, and also less clear. On the
^^' other hand, his volubility was extraordinary.
In fact, his tongue frequently ran away with his brain.
He was always the readiest man in debate, whether he
had studied the subject under discussion or not, al
though it cannot be said that he did not study carefully
his subject. He was vacillating concerning the details
of his opinions, but he clung to the general principles
involved in them with great tenacity, though not with
the fanaticism of Mr. Davis. He differed greatly from
Mr. Davis in feelings and disposition. He was always
brim full of good cheer, hail fellow well met with every
body, and perfectly adored by the young men who sur
rounded him. He was a thorough believer in the wis
dom and capacity of the people, especially of the
people of the great West, and in their innate fitness for
self-government. He was a real thorough-going, boast
ful, vainglorious Democrat, while Mr. Davis, though pro
fessing democracy and believing himself to be a Demo
crat, was a high-toned, reserved, aristocratic gentleman
of the old school. Mr. Douglas was impulsive, but not
quick to anger, generous with his assistance to everybody
who sought it, honest and upright in all private deal
ings, but decidedly inclined to the Celtic view that all
things are fair in politics. He was constantly on the
lookout for some new thing, and made a great point of
never being left behind. It was not at all accidental

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 19
that the doctrine that the people resident within a Ter
ritory should be entrusted with about the same degree
of self-government as those residing within a Common
wealth found its chief exponent in him. He was just
the man to believe that the Western adventurers, hunt
ers, and cowboys were as fully equipped for states
manship as the transcendentalists of Boston or the gold
bugs of New York, and needed no period of pupilage or
guardianship under the Washington Government to pre
pare them for civilization and the customs of settled life.
He was also just the man to fall into helpless confusion
when it came to the work of distinctly fixing and formu
lating the practical details of this doctrine, and to bury
the real question at issue under a mountain of verbiage.
He was never able to give a clear and satisfactory
answer to Mr. Lincoln's noted question, in the famous
joint debates in Illinois in the year 1858, ^^ ^^^^^j^
whether there was any way, under the doc- between un-
trine of " Popular Sovereignty," for the peo- Douglas in
pie in a Territory to prohibit the exist
ence of slavery during the Territorial period. He had
declared his adherence to the Dred Scott decision, and
that decision was considered by him and his party to
hold that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in
the Territories. Of course, if Congress had no power
to do it, neither the Territorial legislature nor the peo
ple resident within a Territory could do it, since a Ter
ritory is a purely Congressional creation, and can have
no powers except such as are conferred upon it by Con
gress, and Congress is not authorized to confer upon a
Territory any powers which Congress itself cannot exer
cise, or empower the President of the United States to
exercise. Lincoln's famous question, as he finally formulated it,
was : " Can the people of a United States Territory,

20 THE CIVIL WAE
under the Dred Scott decision, in any lawful way, against
the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude
slavery from its limits, prior to the formation of a State
constitution ? " Douglas's intellectual insight was not
clear enough and penetrating enough to discover the
inconsistency between the dictum of the Dred Scott
opinion and his doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty," or
really to appreciate it after it had been pointed out to
him. This is very evident from the fact that there was
a way out of the difficulty, simply to hold, as the best
lawyers do now and did then, that the point decided
in the Dred Scott case was only that a negro descended
from a slave mother was not, and could not be, a citizen
of the United States, and that the declaration in the
opinion about the inability of Congress to prohibit slav
ery from the Territories was mere dictum obiter. Under
this view of the case there was no necessary inconsistency
involved in professing allegiance both to the decision
and to the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty." But
Douglas did not take this way out. There is no evi
dence in anything he said that he saw this way out. His
very superficial answer was that the people within a
Territory might, despite the Dred Scott decision, under
his doctrine of " Popular Sovereignty," exclude slavery
from the Territory, prior to the forming of a " State "
constitution, by failing to enact the police regulations
for the protection of slave property therein, and by
Territorial legislation unfriendly to the maintenance of
such property. It did not take Lincoln five minutes to
show that slavery could exist without any police regula
tions in its favor, that it did so exist in the earliest
period of its history in the country, that Dred Scott
himself was held in slavery in Minnesota Territory with
out any such regulations, that under the Dred Scott
decision, as Judge Douglas and the Democrats under-

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 21
stood it, the enactment by any Territorial legislature
of regulations unfriendly to slave property would be in
violation of the Constitution of the United States itself,
and that the failure of a Territorial legislature to enact
regulations for the protection of slave property would
be the transgression of a duty laid upon it by the Con
stitution of the United States.
After this, Douglas did get down deep enough in
thought to obtain some faint glimmerings of the in
consistency in which he was involved. He Douglas's
subsequently stated his answer in different n^ds ottde*
language. He said that the Constitution of vision.
the United States, as interpreted by the Dred Scott de
cision, " did not carry slavery into the Territories beyond
the power of the people of the Territories to control it
as other property." It did not take Mr. Lincoln five
minutes more to show that, since the Constitution of the
United States contained the provision that no one should
be deprived of his property without due process of law,
and since the Dred Scott decision held, according to Mr.
Douglas's understanding, that slave property was recog
nized by the Constitution, the Territorial control of
slave property, as other property, could never mean a
power in the people of a Territory to destroy slave prop
erty, but must mean only a power to protect it for the
benefit of the owner. Mr. Douglas was never able to
comprehend fully the self-contradiction under which he
labored, nor to extricate himself from the political em
barrassments resulting therefrom. His answer, prob
ably, saved him from defeat in the Senatorial contest of
1858, but it lost him the nomination of the Democratic
party, as a whole, for the presidency in 1860, and, of
course, it thereby destroyed his chances of election to
the presidency.
Superficial as he always was when compared with Lin-

22 THE CIVIL WAE
coin, yet he had a most effective way, to the ordinary
mind, of stating, pressing, and refuting things. He would
His method take a point advanced by an opponent, de-
of argument, yelop it into a general proposition, which car
ried falsehood on its very face, and would then attack it
savagely and demolish it triumphantly. It was in this
manner that he dealt with Lincoln's famous dictum that
the Union could not permanently exist half slave and
half free, but must ultimately become all slave or all free.
Douglas developed this into the proposition that there
must be uniformity of law and custom in all respects in
the several Commonwealths in order to the perpetuity of
the Union, and then proceeded to show how this idea
would bring about the establishment of a centralized em
pire upon the ruins of the federal republic. Mr. Douglas
really believed that he had completely answered Mr. Lin
coln's proposition, and he made a vast number of his
hearers believe likewise. Many of the critics of Mr.
Douglas incline to the view that this habit was a bit of
conscious sophistry on his part, but it is far more prob
able that it was the natural result of his superficial
mental processes, of the rough and ready character of
his thinking.
In very decided contrast with the intellectual power
and methods of Mr. Davis and Mr. Douglas, stood those of
Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln was slow in his mental move
ments, and phlegmatic and melancholy in his tempera
ment, but his thinking was unceasing and progres
sive, and it went down, down, down into depths of
which neither Davis nor Douglas had ever dreamed.
Lincoln's in- He was Conservative and law-abiding in
pSiif^aVd h.is instincts and conduct, fully as much
methods. go a3 gitj^g^ ^f the others, but law with
him must be based on ethical right in order to be
perpetual, and in order to command permanent

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 23
obedience. One of his maxims was that "he who
moulds public opinion goes deeper than he who makes
statutes or pronounces decisions ; he makes the execu
tion of statutes and decisions possible." The care, pa
tience, and thoroughness with which he worked out his
political science and his constitutional law are the high
est evidence of the power and incessant persistence of
his thought. With him it was quite possible that a de
cision of the Supreme Court might be erroneous, yea,
that a constitutional provision itself might be erroneous ;
and while he would yield obedience to such a decision
or provision as being subject to the jurisdiction of the
Government, he saw no treason in endeavoring to expose
the error in it to the people, or in urging the people to
rectify it in the legally appointed way. He not only saw
no treason in such conduct, but he saw positive politi
cal duty in it. The legalism of Davis and of Donglas
would, according to Lincoln's view, have prevented all
reform in the law itself. While Davis and Douglas took
the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court
to be the sole and original basis of all there was of the
United States, and saw only anarchy back of the Consti
tution, Lincoln was able to see the Nation behind the
Constitution, with its ideals of law and justice, and its
plastic power to mould law and justice into the forms of
these ideals.
Notwithstanding the depth of his philosophy, he did
not lose himself in transcendental politics. He had
thought out his constitutional law as care- Lincoln a« a
fully and as thoroughly as he had his politi- constitutional
cal ethics. He was the master both of Davis
and of Douglas upon the ground of positive law and
constitutional history, as well as upon the ground of
public morality. When Douglas in loud triumphant
accents proclaimed that Lincoln had taken the posi-

24 THE CIVIL WAB
tion that the Union could not permanently exist half
slave and half free, as the fathers made it, Lincoln
quietly reminded him that the fathers never made
the Union half slave and half free, but found it so,
or rather, found it almost entirely slave, and by
authorizing Congress to prohibit the African slave-
trade after . 1808 to any part of the United States,
and by prohibiting slavery from going into the North
west Territory, gave unmistakable evidence that
they regarded slavery as a temporary status, and in
tended to put it on the course of ultimate extinction,
and thought they had done so. In a few of his terse,
logical sentences, he showed that Mr. Douglas's " Popu
lar Sovereignty " doctrine was the innovation, the de
parture from the ideas and purposes of the fathers of
the Constitution, while the Republican doctrine of pre
venting the extension of slavery by Congressional statute
was in strict accord therewith. Nothing ever exceeded
the vigor and the clearness with which he exposed the
sham of " Popular Sovereignty " in the Territories when
taken with the Dred Scott decision, as the Democrats
understood the decision. He summed the whole miser
able sophism up in a single sentence, and called it the
doctrine which taught " that a thing may be lawfully
driven away from where it has a lawful right to be."
The soundness of Mr. Lincoln's distinctions between
the social sphere, the political sphere, and the sphere of
civil liberty, are to-day unquestioned by any true jurist
and political scientist. But when he made them, they
were to most minds very much like discoveries. Mr.
Douglas never seemed able to comprehend them. As
Lincoln humorously remarked, Douglas seemed to
think that a man must have a negro woman for his wife,
if he did not want her for his slave.
The most surprising thing about Mr. Lincoln's mental

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 25
constitution was his real conservatism. His low birth,
his common, even vulgar rearing, and his poverty, are
conditions which have for their results, in ,„ .,,„
' Mr. Lin-
most cases, radical, reckless hatred of vested 'o'"^ <=on.
interests and readiness to embrace revolu
tionary methods. But Mr. Lincoln never once recom
mended anything except that wise reform which is
necessary in this imperfect, changing world to preserve
what is sound in existing conditions ; and he never
once recommended revolutionary methods to attain
such reform. Extraordinary patience, forbearance and
conciliatoriness were chief elements in his thinking and
his conduct. Mr. Douglas exerted himself to the ut
most to show that Lincoln's famous utterance at Spring
field on June 17th, 1858, in the presence of the conven
tion which nominated him as the candidate of the
Republican party of Illinois for United States Senator,
was revolutionary. Lincoln said : " A house divided
against itself cannot stand. I believe this Government
cannot endure half slave and half free. I do not expect
the Union to be dissolved ; I do not expect the house to
fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will
become all one thing or all the other. Either the op
ponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it,
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the be
lief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or its
advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike
lawful in all the States, old as well as new. North as well
as South."
Mr. Douglas at once made this proposition his chief
point of attack, and declared that it meant the ex
tinction of slavery in the " States " where it existed
by revolutionary means. But Mr. Lincoln first re
minded him that it was rather of the nature of a
prophecy than of a party platform, and that it did not

26 THE CIVIL WAE
even express a preference for a free republic over a slave
empire. He said, however, that he was willing to give
Judge Douglas the advantage, if such it might be, of
the assumption that he preferred the extinction to the
extension of slavery ; but he contended that this was
the spirit of the Constitution itself, and that the trend of
our history had been toward this consummation, at least
down to 1850. He showed plainly that constitutional
means might be employed for this purpose, among them
the prohibition of slavery in the Territories, and the
prevention of foreign importation of slaves, means that
had been employed down to 1850. And he solemnly
averred that he intended the employment of no other
means than those which were lawful. It is true that
the proposition was a little in advance of what the Re
publicans in Middle and Southern Illinois were prepared
for, but it had no necessary element of revolution in it.
In fact it was a conservative proposition in the truest
sense of the word. Had it been accepted by the slave
holders, and supported by them, it would probably have
preserved slavery in the Commonwealths where it then
existed for many years beyond the actual date of eman
cipation. The absence of prejudice and the love of
truth can alone explain this quality of Mr. Lincoln's
mental constitution. Though one of the "plain
people," he had not the slightest tinge of the dema
gogue in him. He was ambitious; but his ambition was
rather of the altruistic sort. To attain a power and an
influence which might be effective in producing some
great good for humanity, was his own interpretation of
his ambition, and it can scarcely be questioned that he
read himself correctly.
It was not adventitious that three such characters as
those just described were the exponents of the doctrines
which met in the famous contest of 1860, and it was no

DAVIS, LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 27
more adventitious that each stood for what he did —
Davis, lucid but superficial, insisting that the letter of
the law as interpreted by courts should be lived up to,
as both right and politic, and demanding that ^^^ ^,jj._
since the Constitution carried slavery into the <=ai diSerences
Territories, under the latest judicial inter- vis, pongias
pretation, as he understood it. Congress and iseo summed
the President must protect it there, as other "'''
property ; Douglas, less lucid and more superficial,
endeavoring to hold to the same literal legalism with
one hand, and to his Democratic panacea, his " Popular
Sovereignty " doctrine, with the other, and perishing at
last from their inconsistency ; and Lincoln, equally lucid
in thought and language with either, but far more pro
found, truthful, and self-forgetful, holding that Con
gress was empowered by the Constitution to exclude
slavery from the Territories, and contending that the
ethics of the nineteenth century required that Congress
should so use the power as to purify every foot of them
from the great curse. While founding powers upon
law, he thus founded policy upon morality. In this he
differed , toto ccelo, from the others, both of whom made
interests the basis of policy.
When the political contest became acute the Douglas
doctrine was virtually swept from the field, and the op
posing forces were . ranged under the principle of Con
gressional prohibition of slavery from the Territories,
on the one hand, or Congressional protection of slavery
in all the Territories, on the other. This was clear,
exact, and comprehensive, and the triumph of the first
at the polls in 1860 was the earnest of its triumph on
tbe battle-field in 1865.

CHAPTER II
ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH BETWEEN
1857 AND 1860
Statistics of Slave-ownership, in 1860— Eeasons for the Lack of In
quiry into the Sentiments of the non-Slaveholders in the South
in Regard to Slarery — Hostility to Slavery and to the Slave
owners at the South, in 1860, Chiefly Social — Social Hostility
Was Leading, however, to Political Differences — The Leader
ship of the Southern Whigs After the Death of Henry Clay —
Hinton Rowan Helper, and His Book — Anti-Slavery Sentiment
at the South, in 1858, Estimated— The Commou Fear of Slave
Insurrection — The Harper's Ferry Catastrophe, and Its Results
— The Leaders of the South and Slave Insurrection — The Har
per's Ferry Outrage and the Solid South — End and Means in
Civilization.
The most generous estimate that can be made will
show that not over two millions of the eight millions of
whites inhabiting the slaveholding Common-
siave- owner- Wealths, in the sixth decade of the century,
8 p. in 86 . -^Qj-Q (jirectly interested in slave property.
The usual statement, as derived from the Census of 1850,
is that there were about three hundred and twenty-five
thousand slave owners in the South at that date. Count
ing each one of these as the head of a family of five or
six white persons, we obtain about the number above
stated as directly interested in such property. Some
six millions of whites then had no such interest, and
the inquiry as to what their sentiments were in regard
to slavery is one of the most neglected parts of our his
tory. 28

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 29
There are reasons for this, of course. The first of
these is the great difficulty of discerning any such senti
ments, since the press of the South was geaaonsfor
either in the hands of, or under the pay of, the lack of to-
^ J ' quiry into the
the slaveholders. That is, the anti-slavery sentiments oj
sentiments in the South left no such literary holders in the
IJ. ij 1, T South in re-
results as would enable succeeding genera- gard to siav-
tions to gain any satisfactory knowledge of ^'^'
their character or their extent. The second reason is
that the development of these sentiments received a
rude shock, in 1859, by the Harper's Ferry massacre,
before they had gained sufficient strength and clearness
to make a manifestation, before, really, the mass of those
who entertained them knew that they were anti-slavery
sentiments. But that such sentiments did exist and
were becoming formidable, no one who had any accurate
personal acquaintance with the South during that
period will dispute.
The hostility to slavery, or rather to the slave-owners
at the South in 1860, was chiefly social, but in some
degree also political. In some portions of Hostility to
the South a certain town civilization had the™7ve°own°
been developed, which had become conscious, t^^]|^o*cMefly
to say the least, of its lack of full sympathy social-
with the plantation order of life. Large cities were
indeed few in number, but throughout the whole
of Kentucky and Tennessee, and in the major part
of all of the other Southern Commonwealths, a very
large number of handsome and fairly enterprising and
prosperous county towns had grown up where there
resided lawyers, merchants, bankers, teachers, and some
mechanics, men who had little property interest in the
perpetuation of slavery, who felt their own intellectual
superiority to the country squires and their fox-hunting,
horse-racing, quarrelsome sons, and who consequently

30 THE CIVIL WAE
asserted social independence of them and social equality
with them. There were constant social feuds between
the young men of the towns and the young squires of
the country in athletic contests, and sometimes in intel
lectual jousts, but chiefiy over the fair ones of the towns,
who, in spite of their urban residence, rather inclined to
look with more favor upon the dashing knights of the
country. So high did this hostility run at times, and
so constant had it become in the years between 1845
and 1860, that a tolerably fair picture of the condition
of the Middle Ages was obtainable from the state of so
ciety which prevailed in these parts of the South. It
needed only a clear consciousness on the part of this
young bourgeoisie that the power of their country rivals
lay in the institution of slavery to have turned their en
mity against that institution. In fact, the merchants
in these towns had already begun to see that their pecu
niary interests were suffering from the system of plan
tation slavery. The masters of these great plantations
had developed the practice of purchasing their supplies
immediately from the wholesale dealers in Northern
cities, and the smaller slaveholders had begun, by
threats of doing likewise, to secure from these Southern
town merchants special low rates of charges for their
supplies. These merchants had thus been made to see
that a large population of small farmers and towns
people would be far more advantageous to their inter
ests than the oligarchy of plantation lords with their
retinues of slaves.
While, as above indicated, this hostility between the
bourgeoisie and the planters was mainly social, still it
had influence in determining political preferences. Those
who would express their hostility politically to the slave-
holding planters went with the Whig party, and then the
so-called Know-nothing party, and lastly the American

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 31
Union party. The great leader of the Whig party in
the South, especially in the Southwest, to the time of
his death, was, of course, Henry Clay. He
J X il i • . . • . Social hos-
was opposed to the extension of slavery into tuitywasiead-
the Territories, and in favor of gradual tojomfcYi
emancipation in the slaveholding Common- «"°™^-
wealths. Had he lived in 1860, there is little ques
tion that he would have been a Republican in principle.
The Whig party in the Southwest was not, and could
not be, a pro-slavery party in the same sense as was the
Democratic party in that section. It looked upon
slavery as a temporary necessity, and entertained the
hope and the purpose of its ultimate extinction. Its
strength was in the towns, and its members were chiefly,
though not exclusively, from among the developing
bourgeoisie already described. The large slaveholders
who belonged to it were generally men of superior intel
ligence and tender hearts, who ruled their slaves in
mercy and kindness, felt compassion for their condition,
and were not averse to considering plans for their im
provement, and for their ultimate emancipation.
The death of Clay left the party momentarily without
a chief. The rivalry for the leadership was, however,
soon narrowed down to John J. Crittenden, The leader-
of Kentucky, and John Bell, of Tennessee. 8'o1it°he?n
At the time of Clay's death, Crittenden was S?'leat" of
Attorney-General in President Fillmore's Henry ciay.
Cabinet, and Bell was a Senator in Congress from Ten
nessee. Bell's noble stand against the repeal of the
Missouri Compromise, in 1854, made him the Whig
leader in the South, especially in the Southwest, as was
clearly manifested by his nomination for the presidency
in 1860 ; but the fact that almost all of the Whig mem
bers from the South, in the Congress of 1853-54, voted
in favor of the repeal, while all of the Whig members

32 THE CIVIL WAE
from the North voted against it, caused the absorption
of the Whig party in the North by the Republican party,
and threw it into great confusion in the South. Had
Bell possessed the power and influence of Clay, he might
have reorganized the Whig strength in the South, and
have held it true to its quasi-anti-slavery principle. He
did succeed to a considerable degree in so doing, and
except for the untoward events of 1859 in Northern Vir
ginia, his success would have been much larger, if not
complete. The signs were certainly quite favorable in
1858. At that juncture there appeared a most significant
expression of the feelings of the bourgeoisie of this sec'
Hinton tiou f rom a native of North Carolina, one
S'™d°h'?s Hinton Rowan Helper. It is true that the
book. Senators in Congress from North Carolina,
Mr. Biggs and his successor, Mr. Clingman, repudiated
the North Carolina citizenship of Mr. Helper, and un
dertook to brand him as a disreputable character. On
the 5th of April, 1858, Mr. Biggs, who had been irritated
by a reference made by Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts,
to Mr. Helper's book, as a true representation of Southern
conditions, gave the Senate an account of Mr. Helper,
which, while it was an extravagant exaggeration of
Helper's youthful faults, manifested the intense hostil
ity of the slaveholders to the publication of the differ
ences in political opinion in reference to slavery obtain
ing at the South.
It is quite evident from all that came out that Helper
was an exceedingly intelligent, brave, and resolute fel
low for his years. He had certainly discovered, before
he was thirty years of age, what most of the statesmen
of the South gave no evidence of understanding until
driven thereto by four years of disastrous war, name
ly, the immense superiority of the resources of the

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 35
North over those of the South. Helper described hir»'
self as a native of the South, born and bred in North
Carolina, of slaveholding parents, although he himself
had engaged in mercantile pursuits in the town of Salis
bury, a Southerner in instinct, thought, and habit, and
having the desire and purpose to live and die in the
South. He was in the North somewhere at the time his
book appeared. In the preface of this book, entitled
the " Impending Crisis of the South," which gave such
mortal offence to the slaveholders of the South, Mr.
Helper addressed himself with great earnestness to his
Southern brethren, besought them to read his book with
out prejudice, and declared that an irrepressible desire
" to do something to elevate the South to an honorable
and powerful position among the enlightened quarters
of the globe " had been the principle which had actuated
him in the preparation of the work.
The language of the book is generally too violent ;
some of the conclusions reached were exaggerations ; and
threats were indulged in with a frequency Theimnend-
and to a degree that gave the composition ing crisis.
an incendiary flavor ; but the statistics were reliable, and
proved satisfactorily the vast superiority of the wealth,
resources, and civilization of the North over those of the
South ; the history was correct, and demonstrated the
apostacy of the slaveholders from the principles of their
ancestors in the establishment of the Republic ; the con
clusion as to the moral sense of the modern civilized
world upon the question of slavery was truthful ; and
the expressions of opinion by the world's great thinkers
and actors, upon which the conclusion was based, were
numerous, well chosen, and convincing ; while the hostile
class-spirit manifested throughout the book against the
"Oligarchs," " Slaveocrats," "Lords of the Lash,"
"Terror Engenderers of the South," was in large degree
Vol. L— 3.

34 THE CIVIL WAR
participated in by the classes to which the name bour
geoisie has been above given. It is, in fact, probably
quite true that Helper's denunciations of the great slave
holders were an approximately fair expression of a quite
general feeling among them, or, at least, a large part of
them. Left entirely to themselves, this hostility to the
class of large slave-owners would probably have developed
into an attack upon slavery itself, as it did in Mr. Helper's
mind. Any pressure from without, however, for the
hastening of such a development would, on the other
hand, call forth a spirit of resentment, the Southerner's
besetting sin, that would allay internal strife and con
fuse the mind in the work of getting at the secret of the
feeling which was slowly creating this anti-slavery class
in the Middle South.
Mr. Helper's plan for the abolition of slavery was
the natural outcome of the class hostility just de
scribed. He recommended the political organization of
the non-slaveholders, with the slaveholders in favor of
abolition, for the purpose of capturing the Common
wealth governments, the social boycott of the slavehold
ers by this class, and the levy of such heavy taxes upon
slave property by the regenerated governments as would
make it entirely worthless. Mr. Helper's scheme also
contemplated the removal of the negroes from the South,
and a great immigration of whites from the Northern
section of the Union and from Europe. In all of this
he was giving expression to impulses and feelings ex
isting throughout the Middle South that had almost
risen to the stage of mental consciousness. And, on the
whole, it may be said that, in 1858, slavery had little
Anti-slavery strength in Delaware and Maryland, and no
the'Sh, fn great strength in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mis-
I8s8,e8timated. gonri, Western Virginia, North Carolina,
Northern Georgia, Northern Alabama, and Northern

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 35
Texas, and that its strength in these parts was on the
decline. These facts were not then appreciated at the
North. The North then judged the sentiments of the
South only, or almost only, by the speeches and votes of
the Southern •Senators and Representatives in Congress,
and by its slavery-subservient press. The great slave
holders were, however, cognizant of them, and were
anxious to bring matters to a crisis before the hostile de
velopment close around them should proceed further.
There was one feeling, however, which the white popu
lation in the South of all classes shared in common, and
that was the fear of slave insurrection. It was
a curious trait in the character of the slaves fear of slave
that what hostility they manifested against the ™^ "*°
whites was directed chiefly against the non-slaveholders
and the poorer slaveholders. It was, however, fully as
significant as curious, since it is entirely intelligible.
The richer slaveholders lived in greater state, of course,
wore finer raiment, rode in more splendid equipages, had
more courtly manners. Such a master had only to ex
ercise a little friendly condescension in order to win the
respect, reverence, and good- will of the slave. More
over, the patrol duty was imposed chiefly upon the com
moner whites. Thus, while the master granted the pass
to the slave, it was the poor white who held him up,
examined it, and, if it was not satisfactory, imposed the
stripes. Hence the non-slaveholders and the smaller
slaveholders knew well that a servile insurrection would
be to them and to their families an even more terrible dan
ger than to the great masters. If, therefore, the fear of
" negro rising," as they were accustomed to call it, could
be excited and sustained in their breasts, the developing
social conflict between them and the great slaveholders
would be repressed, and, instead of it, they would be
come conscious of a solidarity of interest with the slave-

36 THE CIVIL WAta,
holders against the negroes, which would grow more iu"
tense as the fear which produced it increased, and sub
ordinated all other sentiments to itself. The great
slaveholders understood this, and were not so very
greatly disturbed by the existence of any such excite
ment, as they would otherwise have been. It was a
capital string for them to play upon, especially if the
original impulse to hostile plans and movements among
the slaves could be imputed to the wickedness of the
inhabitants of the non-slaveholding Commonwealths.
Seen from the point of view of the influence of such
fears upon the growth of the still half-conscious anti-
TheHarper's slavery spirit existing throughout large sec-
pbel^UK- tions of the South, nothing could have been
suits. more untoward, wickedly harmful, and posi
tively diabolical than the John Brown raid on Harper's
Ferry on the night of the 16th of October, 1859. If the
whole thing, both as to time, methods, and results, had
been planned by His Satanic Majesty himself, it could
not have succeeded better in setting the sound conserva
tive movements of the age at naught, and in creating a
state of feeling which offered the most capital opportu
nities for the triumph of political insincerity, radicalism,
and rascality over their opposites. No man who is ac
quainted with the change of feeling which occurred in
the South between the 16th of October, 1859, and the
16th of November of the same year can regard the Har
per's Perry villainy as anything other than one of the
chiefest crimes of our history. It established and re
established the control of the great radical slaveholders
over the non-slaveholders, the little slaveholders, and
the more liberal of the larger slaveholders, which had
already begun to be loosened. It created anew a soli
darity of interest between them all, which was felt by all
with an intensity which overcame every other sentiment.

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THB SOUTH 37
It gave thus to the great radical slaveholders the willing
physical material for the construction of armies and na
vies, and for the prosecution of war.
There was, indeed, little in the exact facts of the
event which strictly necessitated these results. The
long and thorough examination made by the The con-
Senate committee did not reveal the con- gressionai in-
, VSBtL^SililOIl Ox
scious complicity of anybody in the atrocity >'•
outside of the twenty-one villains who followed Brown.
This committee was composed of Senators Mason of
Virginia, Davis of Mississippi, Pitch of Indiana, Colla-
mer of Vermont, and Doolittle of Wisconsin. It is no
reproach to the memories of the two gentlemen ' first
named to say that they sought diligently to find some
connection between Brown and influential men at the
North in the commission of this great crime. The
facts of the case as drawn from the two reports of
this committee, the majority report signed by Sena
tors Mason, Davis, and Fitch, and the minority report
signed by Senators CoUamer and Doolittle, were, briefly
told, that Brown, after having been cut short in his
nefarious career in Kansas by the triumph of the
"Free State" party, which repudiated him, had or
ganized a little force of his Kansas desperadoes at
Springdale in Iowa ; had instructed them in military
tactics ; had taken them to Chatham in Canada, in the
spring of 1858, where he claimed to have organized a
provisional government, as a first step toward an attack
upon some Commonwealth of the Union in which slavery
was lawful ; had then gone with his party into Ohio,
where he permitted them to separate subject to his
call ; had sent one of them, John E. Cook by name, to
Harper's Ferry with instructions to remain there, find
out everything, and report to him ; had appeared him
self, under the assumed name of Smith, with two sons

38 THE CIVIL WAE
and a son-in-law, in the neighborhood of the place about
July of 1859, and taken a farm some five miles from
the town on the Maryland side of the Potomac ; and
had here secretly gathered his followers, his arms, and
his ammunitions. From this point he, with seventeen
of his gang, sneaked into Harper's Perry on the night of
the 16th of October, between the hours of eleven and
twelve, when the little village was wrapped in peaceful
slumber. They seized upon the railroad bridge across
the river, the engine house, the watch house, the arsenal
and the rifle works ; held up a train on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad which was attempting to cross the
bridge ; and shot to death a free negro named Hayward,
a porter on the train, whose only offence was that he
fled in terror when ordered to halt and stand. They
employed the remainder of the night in going to the
homes of prominent Virginia gentlemen, such as Colonel
Lewis Washington, Mr. AUstadt, and Mr. Byrne, mak
ing prisoners of them, assuming to free such of their
men-slaves as they could flnd, and forcing the newly
emancipated into their ranks. As day broke, they seized
all the white men who appeared in the streets, and con-
flned them in the watch house and the engine house.
News of the outrage having by this time reached
Charleston and Martinsburg, the citizens of these towns
armed themselves, proceeded to the scene of action, at
tacked the watch house in which most of the prisoners
were confined, and succeeded in liberating them. By
this time a company of marines, commanded by Colonel
Robert E. Lee, arrived, stormed the engine house, lib
erated the rest of the prisoners, and captured Brown and
the survivors of his band, with the exception of a single
man. The Virginia negroes, who had been pressed into
the service, threw doWn their arms and deserted their
liberator at the first opportunity.

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THB SOUTH 39
The whole attempt was a complete fiasco, and was to
any calm and judicious mind satisfactory proof both
of the impotence of secret insurrectionary
movements prepared in the North, and of of compucft?
the lack of any insurrectionary spirit among p°r'sFeriyta-
the slaves themselves. But there were some '''^^''*'
suspicious things connected with the affair which even
calm and judicious people required to have explained.
Where, for example, did Brown get the money to sup
port his band of twenty-two men for so long a period,
and to procure arms for fifteen hundred men, as he had
done, and have them transported to his Maryland farm
house. He was a notorious dead beat himself, had never
succeeded in any legitimate business, had never earned
any money, had had two wives and some twenty chil
dren, and had left them to shift for themselves in
penury and misery, while he was careering around re
forming things. Somebody had assisted him, that was
certain ; and it was probable that a good many persons
had helped him. It was possible, of course, that they
did so with full knowledge of his purpose, but this was
by no means a necessary conclusion.
The evidence taken by the Senate committee showed
that a large number of men and some women were in
the habit of going about through the North, giving
abolition lectures and sending the net proceeds from
the sale of tickets or the voluntary contributions to
Brown. No statement of plans or account of expendit
ures was required of him. He always resisted any ap
proach toward anything of the kind. Brown had gotten
into his first paying business, and he was determined not
to have it ruined by publicity. And it certainly did seem
that some of the people with whom he had gotten in
were so anxious to keep out of sight that they were
quite contented not to know what he was doing. The

40 THE CIVIL WAE
evidence before the committee also showed that such
men as Gerritt Smith, Dr. Samuel G. Howe, and Mr.
George L. Stearns had given Brown large sums of money
without requiring from him any information in regard
to the use of it. Mr. Stearns went so far in his testi
mony before the committee as to say that, while he
would have disapproved of the Harper's Ferry plan
had he known of it before it was undertaken, he had
come to view it as one of the greatest events in our his
tory, that he thought it would free America. Finally,
the evidence before the committee showed that the most
important and expensive weapons which Brown had, the
two hundred Sharp's rifled carbines, were the property of
the "Massachusetts State Kansas Committee," and that
the two hundred pistols had been bought and paid for
by Mr. Stearns. It appeared that the "Massachusetts
State Kansas Committee " had, some time before, trans
ferred the carbines to the "National Kansas Aid Com
mittee," and that this latter committee had sent them to
Chicago ; that Brown had asked the National Committee
for them, but that this Committee had required of him
some information in regard to his purposes, and that,
having received no satisfactory reply, had refused his
request, and had voted to return the arms to the Massa
chusetts Committee ; and that Mr. Stearns, then chair
man of the Massachusetts Committee, had delivered
them to Brown at Tabor, in Iowa, for safe keeping. It
also appeared that one Forbes, whom Brown had em
ployed to teach military tactics to his band at Spring-
dale, but who subsequently quarrelled with Brown, had
revealed to Senator Henry Wilson and Dr. Howe some
thing of the dangerous character of Brown's plans, and
that these gentlemen had communicated with Mr.
Stearns about them, and had expressed their uneasiness
that Brown should have been entrusted with the arms

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 41
belonging to the Massachusetts Committee, and that Mr.
Stearns did nothing for their reclamation.
It was certainly a most reckless and reprehensible
thing, to call it by the mildest name, in Mr. Stearns
and the Massachusetts Committee to entrust Disquieting
those arms to a man of Brown's antecedents, ae^re^eu-
They had been procured to furnish the " Free ^''^¦
State" settlers in Kansas with the means of defence
against attack upon their persons and their homes. Dis
order in Kansas had been quelled by the triumph of the
" Free State " party, and the arms were not needed there
or anywhere else for any lawful purpose. They should
certainly have been returned to the immediate custody
of the Committee, and given into the charge of some
person whose character was a guarantee that they would
not be put to any unlawful use. There is no question
that these revelations were a little disquieting even to
cool and impartial minds. They seemed to show that
there were many respectable people at the North who
were willing to put the means of doing mischief into the
hands of desperate men, and then designedly keep them
selves in ignorance of how these means were being em
ployed. They were immensely disquieting to Southern
minds that were not cool and impartial, and it must be
conceded that a majority of Southern minds of that
day belonged to this class, and, as for that, a majority
of minds everywhere.
Long, however, before the reports of this Senate com
mittee were published to the world, even before the
motion for its appointment had been made, pemonstra-
rauch more disquieting things in connection tions of sym-
with the outrage had occurred than the rev- Brown at the
elations of the report would have been had
they been made in November of 1859, instead of in
June, 1860. These were the demonstrations indulged in

42 THE CIVIL WAE
throughout many parts of the North on the day of the
execution of Brown. Brown and his band had mur
dered five men and wounded some eight or ten more in
their criminal movement at Harper's Ferry. If they
had done nothing more than kill the free negro Hay
ward, they had made themselves common murderers,
and were deserving of nothing but the punishment for
murder and the execration of all decent men. Add to
this the consideration that Brown certainly intended
the wholesale massacre of the whites by the blacks in
case that should be found necessary to effect his pur
poses, and it was certainly natural that the tolling of
the church bells, the holding of prayer-meetings for the
soul of John Brown, the draping of houses, the half-
masting of flags, etc., in many parts of the North, should
appear to the people of the South to be evidences of
a wickedness which knew no bounds, and which was
bent upon the destruction of the South by any means
necessary to accomplish the result. It was reported
throughout the South that the Senate of Massachusetts
came within three votes of passing a resolution for ad
journing on the day of the execution.
It was of course possible for people far removed from
any peril to make a distinction between approval of
Brown's act and commiseration for his fate, and to attrib
ute all of these demonstrations to the latter feeling ; but it
was simply impossible for those surrounded by all the
dangers which Brown's movements threatened to call up
to appreciate any such distinctions. To them they ap
peared the veriest cant and hypocrisy. Especially did
terror and bitterness take possession of the hearts of the
women of the South, who saw in slave insurrection not
only destruction and death, but that which to feminine
virtue is a thousand times worse than the most terrible
death. For those who would excite such a movement
or sympathize with anybody who would excite such a

ANTI-SLAVEEY SENTIMENT IN THE SOUTH 43
movement, the women of the South felt a hatred as un
dying as virtue itself. Men might still hesitate, and
consider, and argue, but the women were united and
resolute, and their unanimous exhortation was : " Men
of the South, defend the honor of your mothers, your
wives, your sisters, and your daughters. It is your
highest and most sacred duty ! "
It has been often said that the leaders among the
slaveholders knew that there was no such danger of
slave insurrection as the masses believed there The leaders
was, and also knew that the sympathy at the and"li!ave'"in'-
North for any such movement, or for any- B°rrection.
body who would take part in any such movement, was
not one thousandth part as great as the masses believed it
to be, but designedly kept this knowledge to themselves,
and either remained silent when they might have quiet
ed fears, or by wicked misrepresentations increased these
fears and intensified the hatred born thereof. This was
probably true in many cases, but not to the extent and
degree generally supposed at the North. The leading
slaveholders had no such clear knowledge of the charac
ter and impulses of their slaves, or of the intentions of
the North, as subsequent opinion has attributed to them.
They themselves were not wholly free from the fear which
possessed the masses, and they could not have created
this terror among the masses except for the actual at
tempt to excite slave insurrection, and the apparently
widespread sympathy for the same in many parts of the
North. From the Harper's Ferry outrage onward the
conviction grew among all classes that the ^j^^ ^^^
white men of the South must stand together, per's Ferry
.._, outrage and
and must harmonize all internal differences the solid
in the presence of the mortal peril, with
which, as a race, they believed themselves threatened.
Sound development in thought and feeling was arrested.
The follies and the hatreds born of fear and resentment

44 THE CIVIL WAE
now assumed the places of common sense and common
kindliness. And war and bloodshed became a necessity
for the relief of burning hearts.
A sound philosophy will undoubtedly hold that there
is a plan of world civilization, and that man cannot
thwart its ultimate realization ; but it will
means in civ- also hold that man can and does, in large de-
zation. gree, at least, determine the nature of the
means employed in the attainment of the predestined
results. Whether they shall be destructive or construc
tive, or more or less destructive, whether they shall be
vicious or virtuous, honorable or degrading, these are
things which are within the power and control of man.
Here lies his responsibility. Here is his realm of duty.
It is from this point of view that the event at Harper's
Ferry must be judged. And from this point of view it
was crime, and nothing but crime, common crime and
public crime, crime that made violent and destructive
means possible and actual, and seemingly necessary for
the attainment in the United States of that principle of
the world's civilization which has decreed the personal
freedom of all men. Unless we are fatalists or Jesuits in
philosophy, we are bound to condemn this crime to the
end of time, and execrate the committers of it, even
though we should ascribe to it the emancipation of the
bondmen. It is an affront to Divinity itself to assert
that the world's civilization cannot be realized except
through violence and destruction, blood, crime, and sin.
It is the cardinal fallacy of orientalism to hold that what
has happened must have been inevitable, not only as to
the end secured, but also as to the means by which the
end was secured. It is the passionate haste of sinful
man which dares to hurry the plans of Providence by
the employment of means which rob tlie plans of their
glory and their divinity.

CHAPTER III
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860
The Cincinnati Platform of 1856 and the Dred Scott Doctrine of
1857 — Buchanan and Douglas After the Dred Scott Decision —
Threatened Breach in the Democratic Party — The Davis Reso
lutions of February 2, 1860— The Revised Draft of Mr. Davis's
Resolutions — The Purpose of These Resolutions, and of Others
Like them — Criticism and Debate upon Mr. Davis's Resolutions
— Assembly of the National Convention of the Democratic
Party — The Platform as Proposed by the Majority of the Com
mittee — The Platform as Proposed by the Minority of the Com
mittee — The Resistance of the Northern Democrats to the
Platform of the Majority of the Committee — Secessions from
the Convention — The Failure to Make a Nomination, and the
Adjournment of the Convention — The Seceders' Convention^
Advance in the Slaveholders' Demands — The Events of the In
terim between the Adjournment and Reassembly of the Demo
cratic Conventions — Adoption of the Davis Resolutions — The
Republican National Convention — The Republican Platform
— The Doctrine of the Platform Concerning Slavery in the Ter
ritories — The Tariff Plank — Its Connection with the Question
of Free Territories — The Nomination of the Candidates by the
Republican Convention — The Constitutional Union Party, and
Its Convention — The Nomination of John Bell for the Presi
dency by It— The Danger to the Slaveholders in the South
from This Party — Reassembly of the Convention of the South
ern Democracy — Reassembly of the Convention of the North
ern Democracy — Work of the Two Conventions — The Political
Campaign of 1860 — The September and October Elections —
llie Election of November, 1860.
45

46 THB CIVIL WAR
The fundamental doctrine of the Cincinnati plat
form of 1856, the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty"
The cincin- in the Territories, had, as we have seen, been
Sffsi^a^X contradicted by the Dred Scott opinion of
dofctr1ne°of 1^57. Notwithstanding this fact, however,
1867. the Northern Democrats led by Mr. Donglas
continued to hold, as we have also seen, that in some
way or other, either by unfriendly police regulation,
or by refusing friendly police regulation, the people of
a Territory might make the existence of slavery in it
impossible, if- they so willed, during the Territorial
period, and prior to the formation of a Commonwealth
government. Except for this claim Mr. Douglas could
not have secured the election of a majority of Demo
crats as members of the Illinois Legislature in 1858,
and his own election by that Legislature as United
States Senator, against the combined efforts of the Re
publicans and the Buchanan' Democrats.
President Buchanan had, after the Dred Scott decision,
given up the doctrine of "Popular Sovereignty" in
Buchanan the Territories entirely, and for this reason,
Sterthe^red together with the defeat of his Lecompton
Scott decision, plan foj Kansas, effected chiefly by the op
position of Mr. Douglas, he and the wing of the Demo
cratic party which he represented had developed a bitter
hostility to Mr. Douglas, which was manifested flrst in
the senatorial contest in Illinois in 1858, and then upon
the larger field of the presidential contest in 1860. Mr.
Lincoln had foreseen the latter result during the sena
torial contest, and had said that Mr. Douglas could not
so answer the famous Freeport question as to secure
both the senatorship in 1858 and the presidency in 1860.
He did so answer it as to secure the senatorship. tl
now remained to be tested whether the answer would
prevent his attainment of the presidency.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 47
During the year 1859, the contradiction between the
"Popular Sovereignty" doctrine and the Dred Scott
opinion became more and more clear and Threatened
more and more generally appreciated, until Dem'oc°atte
by the opening of the spring of the year p"*^-
1860 it was evident that the Democratic party would, in
the coming campaign, probably split upon this issue, the
Northern Democrats holding to the former doctrine,
and the Southern Democrats to the latter. If this
should actually come to pass the Democratic party, as a
national party, would be disrupted, and the last bond of
party unity between the two sections would be severed.
The outlook was most portentous. Not many men recog
nized the greatness or the imminence of the danger, and
the mass of men went forward to meet it with a light
ness of heart which can be attributed only to ignorance.
Meanwhile the agitation of the slavery question in Con
gress was kept up with ever-increasing excitement in
the Senate over the question of investigating the Har
per's Ferry outrage, and in the House over the resolution
introduced by Mr. J. B. Clark, of Missouri, in condem
nation of Mr. Helper's book and of those members of
Congress who had approved of it and recommended its
perusal to the people.
Such was the state of feeling and opinion in Congress
and throughout the country, when, on the 2d day of
February, 1860, Mr. Jefferson Davis intro- The Davis
duced into the Senate of the United States FetoS2^°° t
the noted resolutions which indicated the ^^''¦
doctrines upon which the Democrats of the South
would stand in the coming contest. These resolutions
were six in number. The first affirmed the sovereignty
of the " States," and the subordinate character of the
United States Government, and denounced the inter
meddling of one " State," or a combination of the citi-

4« THE CIVIL WAE
zens of one " State " with the domestic institutions of
another. The second proclaimed negro slavery to be an
important domestic institution in fifteen " States " of
the Union, recognized and protected by the Constitution
of the United States, and declared any attack upon it
by any " State" of the Union, or by the citizens of any
" State" of the Union, to be a manifest breach of faith,
and a violation of the most solemn obligations. The
sixth asserted the constitutionality of the existing Fugi
tive Slave law and denounced the attempts of " State"
Legislatures to defeat its purpose by the passage of the
so-called " personal liberty bills," or in any other man
ner. The third, fourth, and fifth of the series contain,
however, the real gist of the questions at issue, and must,
therefore, be quoted verbatim. They ran as follows :
" Resolved, that the unity of these States rests on the
equality of rights and privileges among its members,
and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which
represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to re
sist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to
person or property, so as, in the Territories — which
are the common possession of the United States — to give
advantages to the citizens of one State which are not
equally secured to those of every other State : "
"Resolved, that neither Congress nor a Territorial
Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of
an indirect and unfriendly nature, possesses the power to
annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen
of the United States to take his slave property into the
common Territories ; but it is the duty of the Federal
Government there to afford for that, as for other species
of property, the needful protection ; and if experience
should at any time prove that the judiciary does not
possess power to insure adequate protection, it will then
become the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency : "

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 49
" Resolved, that the inhabitants of an organized Ter
ritory of the United States when they rightfully form a
constitution to be admitted as a State into the Union
may then, for the first time, like the people of a State
when forming a new constitution, decide for themselves
whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be sus
tained or prohibited within their jurisdiction ; and if
Congress shall admit them as a State, they shall be re
ceived into the Union with or without slavery, as their
constitution may prescribe at the time of their admis
sion." Mr. Davis asked that these resolutions should be
printed and made a special order for the following
Wednesday, which was agreed to. Their consideration
was, however, postponed from time to time, until on the
1st of March Mr. Davis asked to be allowed to withdraw
them and offer them anew in a somewhat modified form,
since conference with friends had convinced him that a
slight change in them was desirable.
An examination of the revised draft shows that the
only change of any importance was in the fourth reso
lution, which in the revision was divided The revised
into two resolutions, the first of which Davfs'sres^-
read : " Resolved, that neither Congress nor "o"^-
a Territorial legislature, whether by direct legislation,
or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character,
possesses power to annul or impair the constitutional
right of any citizen of the United States to take his
slave property into the common Territories and there
hold and enjoy the same while the Territorial condition
remains : " and the second of which reads . " Resolved,
that if experience should at any time prove that the
judiciary and executive authority do not possess means
to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights
in a Territory, and if the Territorial government shall
Vol. L— 4

60 THE CIVIL WAE
fail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for the
purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply the
deficiency." No objection was made to the substitution
of this revision of the resolutions for the original draft,
and they were so substituted.
The purpose of these resolutions was the construction
of a creed for the Democratic party in the rapidly ap
proaching presidential election, and the de-
of these^reso- feat of Mr. Douglas's candidacy. Some five
ofothCTsYke other sets of resolutions, having the like pur-
"'®™' pose, had been already offered when Mr. Da
vis presented these. Among them, those brought forward
by Mr. Davis's colleague in the Senate, Mr. Brown,
were most noted for their radical character. They pro
vided for positive and immediate action by Congress
for the protection of property in slaves in every Terri
tory already organized, or to be organized in the future.
Mr. Brown criticised Mr. Davis's resolutions as being
weak and worthless. Evidently there were already peo-
pie in Mississippi more advanced than Mr.
and debate Davis himself On the subject of the claimed
VIS'S resolu^ constitutional duty of the United States Gov
ernment to protect slave property in the Ter
ritories. The debate upon Mr. Davis's resolutions began
on April 3d, and from that time forward the other sets
of propositions having the same purpose, in whole or
part, dropped out of consideration. Mr. Davis was anx
ious to get a vote so soon as possible upon his decla
ration of principles, and, for this reason, discouraged
extended debate upon them ; but the Senators kept up
the battle of words, and the Democratic National Con
vention met before a single one of the resolutions had
been put to vote.
This convention assembled at Charleston, South Car
olina, on the 33d day of April. Delegates were present

THB PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OP 1860 61
from every Commonwealth in the Union, then thirty-
three in number, Minnesota having been admitted in
May of 1858, and Oregon in February of
1859. Counting by heads, it was well known the'l^tioiMi
that Mr. Douglas and his now fatally modi- the DemoCTat-
fied " Popular Sovereignty " doctrine prepon- '° ^*'^^'
derated ; but the convention appointed its committees
by Commonwealths, and as the Democrats of California
and Oregon adhered to the Southern party, the majority
in the committees fell to Mr. Douglas's opponents. The
committee on the platform being so constituted naturally
reported a party creed upon which Mr. Douglas could
never stand without the grossest stultification, and upon
which, in so far as it referred to slavery in the Territo
ries, he had declared he would not stand even for the
presidency. Moreover, the presiding officer of the con
vention, the Hon. Caleb Gushing, was a Dred Scott de
cision Democrat, and a warm personal friend of Senator
Jefferson Davis. The infiuence of the chair was thus
against Mr. Douglas.
The platform, as finally perfected by the majority of
the committee, and presented by its chairman, Mr.
Avery, of North Carolina, to the convention, Thepiat-
declared, " that the government of a Terri- form as pro-
. , , , , /~i • posed by the
tory organized by an act of Congress is pro- majoritycf the
..?-,. J J • -J. • i committee.
Visional and temporary, and during its exist
ence all citizens of the United States have an equal
right to settle with their property in the Territory with
out their rights either of person or property being de
stroyed or impaired by Congressional or Territorial
legislation ; that is, it is the duty of the Federal Gov
ernment, in all its departments, to protect, when neces
sary, the rights of person and property in the Terri
tories, and wherever else its constitutional authority
extends ; that when the settlers in a Territory having an

52 THE CIVIL WAE
adequate population form a State constitution, the right
of sovereignty commences, and, being consummated by
admission into the Union, they stand on an equal foot
ing with the people of the other States, and the State
thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal
Union, whether its constitution prohibits or recognizes
the institution of slavery." It also contained provisions
favoring the annexation of Cuba, the construction of a
railway to the Pacific, and the protection of the rights
of naturalized citizens, and denouncing the acts of the
Commonwealth Legislatures of the North passed for the
purpose of defeating the execution of the Fugitive Slave
law. The minority of the committee also presented, through
the Hon. Henry B. Payne, of Ohio, the draft of a plat-
, , form to the convention. It differed from the
form 88 pro- report of the majority only in the article
nority.of*™e Upon the Subject of slavery in the Territo-
commlttee. . m, .i • i: j.i • l • j
ries. The proposition of this report in refer
ence to that all-absorbing matter was as follows : "Inas
much as differences of opinion exist in the Democratic
party as to the nature and extent of the powers of a
Territorial Legislature, and as to the powers and duties
of Congress, under the Constitution of the United
States, over the institution of slavery within the Terri
tories : Resolved, that the Democratic party will abide
by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United
States on the questions of constitutional law."
Mr. Avery stated, in presenting the report of the ma
jority of the committee, that " Popular Sovereignty" in
Mr. Avery's *^^ Territories was as dangerous to Southern
statement In interests as the Wilmot proviso itself, be
connection i^ '
with the ma- causc experience had shown that the South
]onty report. ,^ ^
could not compete successfully with the
North in the settlement of the Territories, since it was

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 53
costing the emigrant aid societies of the North only
about two hundred dollars to place a voter in the Terri
tories, while it cost a Southern man about fifteen hundred
dollars to place himself in a like position. Of course, he
meant a Southern man encumbered with a retinue of
slaves. Mr. Avery went on to attack the proposition of
the minority to hold to the Cincinnati platform as mod
ified and interpreted by the proposed pledge to "abide
by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court
on the questions of constitutional law," and also the prop
osition of Mr. Benjamin P. Butler to reaffirm the Cin
cinnati platform without any explanations or modifica
tions. He declared that the Cincinnati platform was
susceptible, of two meanings, and told his Northern
brethren plainly that the South was no longer to be be
fooled and befogged with ambiguous statements, but was
now determined to have something which would mean
the same thing everywhere. It was in vain that the
Northern Democrats pleaded that they should not be
weighted down with a platform which meant certain de
feat of the party in the North, and, therefore, in the
whole country. The great slaveholders preferred the
chances of defeat to any further uncertainties about
their rights in the Territories, or about the disposition
of the North concerning them. They knew that a soli
darity of feeling between them and the lesser slavehold
ers and the non-slaveholders had been, at last, attained,
which had not before existed, and which might be lost
again. They felt instinctively that now was the time to
take the firm stand, and bring their Northern friends
squarely up to the mark.
To their surprise the Northern Democrats developed
an independence and a resoluteness which they had
never before manifested. Under the leadership of Mr.
Henry B. Payne and Mr. George E. Pugh, they trium-

64 THE CIVIL WAR
phantly carried the report of the minority of the com
mittee on the platform in the convention by a vote of
The resist- One hundred and sixty-five to one hundred
NS^rt'her''n and thirty-eight. All the Northern Demo-
Sie""?iaMom c^ats, excopt the delegates from California
i? of the'com- ^^^ Oregon, and part of the delegates from
mittee. Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Pennsyl
vania, voted for the report. Twelve delegates from the
border Commonwealths of the South also voted for it.
So soon as the result was made known the Southerners
began to secede from the convention. The Alabama
men led off. The chairman of the delegation,
SecesB ions o ^
from the con- Mr. L. P. Walker, informed the convention
that the "State" of Alabama in convention
assembled had instructed her delegates not to submit to a
"squatter sovereignty" platform, but to withdraw from
the general convention, if such a one should be adopted.
The Mississippians immediately followed. Then the
delegations from South Carolina, Florida, and Texas
went out. Finally, all but two of the Louisiana dele
gates, all but one of the Arkansas delegates, and twenty-
six of the thirty-four Georgians, withdrew.
There still remained, however, in the convention, a
substantial majority of the whole number of delegates
The failure chosen from all of the Commonwealths. They
to make a proceeded to ballot for candidates for Presi-
nomination, and the ad- dent and Vice-President upon the two-
theconven- thirds rule adopted by the Convention. Mr,
Douglas received a good majority, but could
not reach a majority of two-thirds of all of the votes
cast. After fifty-seven unsuccessful ballots, the conven
tion adjourned. May 3d, to reassemble in Baltimore on
the 18th of the following June. Before adjourning, it
passed a resolution recommending the party organiza
tions, in the several Commonwealths, whose delegates

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 55
had withdrawn from the convention, to elect and send
forward new members to occupy the seats of the seceders.
The seceding delegates had assembled in separate
convention under the presidency of Senator James A.
Bayard of Delaware. They adopted the
resolutions reported by the majority of the ers' c'on'v^-
committee of the general convention on the "*"''
platform, the Avery principles, talked for four days,
and then adjourned to meet on the second Monday of
the following June at Richmond, Virginia. The division
of the Democratic party on sectional lines was now an
accomplished fact. It remained to be seen whether it
was final, or whether six weeks of reflection would bring
wisdom and conciliation.
To the historian there is no question that the slave
holders had demanded an advance upon the Cincinnati
doctrine of 1856, which was then universally
accepted as a finality. That doctrine was, the siavehoid-
as we know, non-intervention by Congress,
either in the Commonwealths or the Territories, upon
the subject of slavery. The slaveholders now said that
by non-intervention in the Territories upon that subject
they understood, both in 1860 and 1856, the same sort
of neutrality which Congress observed toward slavery
in the District of Columbia, which was that Congress,
having found slavery an existing institution in the Dis
trict, could, as a neutral body toward it, legislate only
for its protection. If Congress should fail to do this,
they now said. Congress would be acting against it,
and would thus violate neutrality with regard to it.
In a very concise and able speech upon Mr. Davis's
resolutions, made in the Senate Chamber on April Zd,
preceding. Senator Wigfall of Texas had developed this
idea in a most subtile juristic manner. He took the
ground that no legislature merely in the political syS'

56 THE CIVIL WAE
tern of the United States, whether it were Congress or
the Legislature of a Commonwealth of the Union, could
^ J determine in what property should consist ;
fall's reason- that that could be done only by the sovereign
ing upon the . ., , j xi ^ j.i i
meaning o f in the System ; and that the only powers
Congressional . . . i i t i i i
nentrauty in which government had, or could have, m a
ver^ in ^the republican system, in reference to property,
Temtones. .^^^.g pQ^gj.g ^q protect that which the sov
ereign had defined to be property. Hence the conclu
sion, that if government failed to protect property it
was attempting to thwart the will of the sovereign
power, was disobedient, and thus really intervening
against the organic law. This reasoning was sound, in
respect to the question of slavery in the Territories,
provided the sovereign in the Territories was sovereign
over the Government of the United States, and had
established property in slaves in the Territories.
Now, this doctrine was not held by the Democratic
party in 1856. It appeared first in the Dred Scott opin
ion in 1857, and what the slaveholders proposed at
Charleston was to make the Bred Scott opinion the
platform of the party. Whatever may be said about
the rightfulness or wrongfulness, the wisdom or unwis
dom of this, it was certainly a new thing, and it cer
tainly marked an advance by the slaveholders beyond
their position in 1856. It was an encroachment upon
the North. The slaveholders said, and with some show
of reason, that they asked only what the Supreme Court
had declared to be their constitutional right, a right
which was, therefore, as old as the Constitution, and of
which they had been deprived by Congressional legisla
tion. But it was at least questionable whether the
Supreme Court had decided the point contended for by
the slaveholders. Justice Curtis asserted that it had
not, as we have seen, and the consensus of opinion

THE PRE.SIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 57
among the best constitutional lawyers of this day is that
he was correct. Admitting, however, for the sake of
argument that the Court had decided the point, the
whole duty of Congress would have been discharged by
furnishing the courts and the executive with the general
power to execute judicial decisions. The nullification
of an act of Congress by a judicial decision does not
obligate Congress to pass any other act. The proposi
tion of the minority of the committee on the platform
met the case entirely in pledging the Democratic party
to abide by the decisions of the Supreme Court in ques
tions of constitutional law. The demand of the slave
holders that the opinion of the court should be incorpo
rated in the platform was, under the most generous
aspect in which it can be viewed, a demand that the
duty of obedience to judicial decision in a specific case
should be so magnified and exaggerated as to make the
decision a binding rule of political action — an irrefutable
principle of political opinion. This was certainly a new
demand. It was a demand to which the Democrats of
the North could not accede, unless they were willing to
make the Supreme Court the determiner of policy and
opinion as well as of law, unless they were willing to
acknowledge sovereignty itself as belonging to the Su
preme Court, unless they were willing to accept an
oligarchic state as the form of the American system.
Between the date of the adjournment of ^^^ ^^^^^^
the two Democratic conventions in early of the interim
between the
May and their reassembling in the middle adjournment
« T .1.1 . ¦ S'lfl reassem-
of June, events which were to exercise an wy of the
influence upon their flnal action crowded conventions.
in thick and fast.
In the first place, the discussion in the Senate upon
the Davis resolutions continued and grew more earnest
and excited. On the 7th of May Mr. Davis himself

58 THE CIVIL WAR
made a powerful effort to crush Mr. Douglas and his
" Popular Sovereignty " doctrine to earth. On the 15th
Mr. Douglas undertook to answer and controvert the
main points of Mr. Davis's resolutions and speech. To
the historian it appears that he did do so conclusively,
but to the Democratic Senators it manifestly appeared
that he did not. The vote was taken upon the resolu
tions separately beginning on the 34th and
the DavisrM- ending on the 35th. Mr. Douglas aside of
ointions. course, every Democratic Senator, except Mr.
Pugh, voted for all of the resolutions, and they were all
adopted by a majority of almost two to one, and without
any modification in principle. So far as the Democratic
members of the Senate of the United States could make
it so, the confederatization of the political system of the
United States was complete. They had also thrown
themselves upon the side of the Southern Democracy,
which signified their encouragement to the seceders from
the Charleston convention to persevere in the division
of the party and dissolve the last bond of political party
unity between the North and the South.
The second great event of the interim was the assem
bly of the Republican National convention at Chicago,
on the 16th day of May. It was called a
lican National national Convention, although, in fact, it was
Convention. i . 11 x* 1 -1 1 j^ j.
geographically sectional, no delegates from
the slaveholding Commonwealths being present, except
from what were then called the " border States." The
organization of the convention was quickly accomplished,
and the platform was promptly drafted and unanimously
adopted. It was evident that there was no disposition
to allow differences of opinion upon points of minor
importance, or even points of considerable importance,
to interfere with success at the polls. The enthusiasm
of a new party, composed chiefly of comparatively young

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 59
men, determined upon the arrest of a great evil, gave
forceful unity to feeling, thought, and action, and prom
ised victory from the outset.
The platform was something of a pronunciamento both
in length and style of composition. It reaffirmed the
Declaration of Independence. It denounced
disunion. It anathematized Buchanan's ad- iican* p i^a"t -
ministration for its Kansas policy, its finan- *°™''
cial extravagance and corruption, and its inhuman con
ception of the relation of slave and master. It pro
nounced for a homestead law, for a railroad to the
Pacific, for river and harbor improvements, for the
full and efficient protection of the rights of naturalized
citizens, etc.
But the two subjects of transcendent importance
with which it dealt were slavery in the Territories and a
protective tariff. In regard to these it will be best to
quote verbatim the resolutions. They ran as follows :
" Resolved, that the new dogma that the Constitution,
of its own force, carries slavery into any or all of the
Territories of the United States is a dangerous political
heresy, at variance with the explicit provisions of that
instrument itself, with contemporaneous exposition, and
with legislative and judicial precedent ; is revolutionary
in its tendency and subversive of the peace and harmony
of the country ; that the normal condition of all the
territory of the United States is that of freedom ; that,
as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished
slavery in all our national territory, ordained that ' no
person should be deprived of life, liberty or property
without due process of law,' it becomes our duty by
legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to
maintain this provision of the Constitution against all
attempts to violate it ; and we deny the authority of
Congress, of a Territorial legislature, or of any indi-

60 THE CIVIL WAE
viduals, to give legal existence to slavery in any Terri-
tory of the United States :
"Resolved, that, while providing revenue for the
support of the general government by duties upon im
ports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these
imposts as to encourage the industrial interests of the
whole country ; and we commend that policy of national
exchanges which secures to the workingmen liberal
wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics
and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill,
labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial pros
perity and independence."
There was no doubt about the meaning of this plat
form in respect to the question of slavery in the Terri-
The doc- tories, no ambiguity in the statement of the
piatfo^n^^con^ principle. The Republicans agreed with the
v^ery'^in^ the Southern Democrats that property is a f nnda-
Temtories. mental conception, that the definition of prop
erty, the determination of what it shall embrace, is, there
fore, a subject of constitutional law. They differed from
the Southern Democrats, on the other hand, differed as
widely as direct contradiction can, in regard to the
status of the individual in the Territories, as fixed by
constitutional law. The Republicans held that the
Constitution not only did not carry slavery into the
Territories, but that it made the freedom of every
human being the nominal status in the Territories, ly
not expressly legalizing slavery, and by providing that
" no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property
without due process of law."
The Southern Democrats held, as we have seen, that
property in slaves existed everywhere in the country at
the time of the formation of the Constitution of the
United States, that it was recognized as lawful every
where by that instrument, and that its abolition or

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 61
prohibition anywhere rested in every case upon some
positive enactment to that effect. The Southern Demo
crats were nearer right in their constitutional history
than the Republicans, and both were wrong in their
constitutional law. The Republicans were Theantithe-
wrong in holding that Congress could not li^ ^^m-
legalize property in slaves in the Territories ; o™ hc^ °^iS"
and the Democrats were wrong in holding ^o^^.
that Congress could not abolish or prohibit property in
slaves in the Territories. Where a constitution creates
a government of general powers, as distinguished from
one of enumerated powers, that government can, so far
as constitutional power is concerned, do anything which
the sovereign can do, unless forbidden by the sovereign
in some provision of the Constitution. Such a govern
ment can determine in what property shall consist,
unless restrained from so doing by an express provision
of the Constitution. The Government of the United
States was a government of general powers in the Ter
ritories, and the Constitution of the United States did
not then prohibit it from defining property therein,
either generally or specifically. The Republican inter
pretation of the clause in the Constitution relied upon
by the Republicans for disabling Congress from legaliz
ing property in slaves in the Territories, viz., that "no
person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property with
out due process of law," was as far-fetched as the doctrine
of the Southern Democrats, that the United States had
no sovereignty at all, and, therefore, could not define
property, was false. No definition which the Supreme
Court had to that time given or indicated of the phrase
" due process of law," would have deprived Congress of
the power of legalizing slavery in the Territories ; while
the Democratic doctrine that the United States had no
sovereignty, and, therefore, could not determine in what

62 THE CIVIL WAE
property should consist anywhere, and that the separate
"States" alone had that power in our political system,
and could themselves exercise it only as a constituent
power, can stand the test neither of historic fact nor of
the sound principles of political science. Every tyro in
American constitutional history knows that property in
slaves was legalized, and abolished, in many Common
wealths of the Union by mere legislative enactments,
and that the Commonwealth Legislatures have from the
first been defining and redefining the rights to property
within the general limitations of constitutional law.
And even Mr. Jefferson Davis himself said, in his 7th
of May speech, " I admit that the United States may
acquire eminent domain. I admit that the United
States may have sovereignty over territory ; otherwise
the sovereign jurisdiction which we obtained by con
quest or treaty would not pass to us. I deny that their
agent, the Federal government, under the existing Con
stitution can have eminent domain. I deny that it can
have sovereignty." Here is certainly a distinction be
tween the United States as sovereign and the United
States as government, and the attribution of that power
to the United States which could define property. Had
Mr. Davis been called upon to explain what he meant
by the phrase " United States as sovereign," he would
probably have said that he meant the separate "sov
ereign States" in partnership. It does not matter,
however, how he might have explained it, here was an
admission from the chief of the Southern Democracy
that there was another kind of sovereignty in our sys
tem than that of the separate " States," which he, for
this once, called the sovereignty of the United States.
It was sufficient to show that the theory upon which
the Southern Democrats rested to prove that Congress
could not prohibit slavery in the Territories would not

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 63
hold in all the cases which occurred to the minds of
those same Democrats themselves.
While thus it is easily seen that the doctrines of both
of these platforms respecting the power of Congress
over the subject of slavery in the Territories were
erroneous, yet they contained the advantage of a direct
issue. The one distinctly and fiatly contradicted what
the other asserted, and vice versa.
The other very important provision of the Republican
platform, the advocacy of a protective tariff, was ex
pressed in a crude, half -hesitating, though The tariff
politic, manner. The country had been ^'epubUcan
since 1857 passing through a period of piafonn-
financial panic and business stagnation, chiefiy in con
sequence, as it was thought, of the lowering of the
duties by the Act of 1857. The tariff law of 1846
had brought a surplus of revenue into the Treasury,
which the Congress of 1857 thought to curtail -by re
ducing the duties. The immediate effect of the reduc
tion was, however, largely increased importation, and a
steady drain upon the specie of the country. The panic
followed with its inevitable attendant, long business
depression. From the autumn of 1857, the protection
feeling was growing, especially throughout the North,
and when the Republican convention met a great num
ber of the leading men of the country were of the opin
ion that a revival of prosperity could be effected only by
an increase of the duties up to the protective point.
The Whig element in the Republican party was naturally
easily won for it, but the Freesoil Democrats of the party
were attached to the principle of free trade, and had to
be led up gently to a protective policy. Hence the
moderation and almost ambiguity of the tariff provision
in the platform.
The doctrine advanced was very cleverly connected

64 THE CIVIL WAE
with the question of freedom in the Territories. It in
dicated that the two things which stood in the way of
better pay for free labor in the North, were
tion with the the Unpaid labor of the slave at the South,
freeVerritor- and the low wages of labor in Europe. In
'*"¦ its endeavor to neutralize or minimize the
influence of both of these forces, the Republican party
now represented itself as the true friend of the laboring
man of the North. Some of the shrewdest of the Re
publican leaders, among them Mr. James G. Blaine,
have affirmed that the Republican party could not have
carried the election of 1860 without this provision of the
platform. Pennsylvania, they think, would not have
gone Republican on the slavery question alone. If their
view is correct, it demonstrates most decidedly the po
litical cleverness of the leaders in the convention at
Chicago. The unanimity of the convention, expressed in the
enthusiastic vote upon the platform, manifested itself
The nomi- again in the choice of the candidates. Down
canSdatls'by to withiu a few months before the meeting
cal ^nven- °^ the Convention, Mr. Seward, on account
*^°^- of his activity in the organization of the
party, and his leadership of it in Congress, and in the
great Commonwealth of New York, as well as on account
of his great ability as a statesman and a politician, had
been generally regarded as the man for the first place on
the ticket. But the wiser heads had, by the opening of
the year 1860, begun to see that Mr. Seward was not the
surely available candidate necessary to success. It was
thought that his opinions upon all points, secondary as
well as cardinal, were too well known, and that, conse
quently, too many differed with him upon one subject
or another. It was also thought that he was too radical,
and his " higher law " doctrine was interpreted to mean

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 65
that he would disregard the Constitution in his hostility
to slavery. And it was thought, finally, that he lacked
in conciliatoriness of spirit toward the South, and that
he was especially hated by the slaveholders. Still more
weighty, however, were the considerations that Mr.
Greeley had turned against him, and was doing every
thing in his power to defeat his candidacy, and that the
leaders in Pennsylvania and Indiana were asserting that
he could not carry these Commonwealths. The East
had, however, no other candidate of great strength, and
it was not, under the circumstances, unnatural that the
West should claim the prize, and, with the advantage of
western surroundings about the convention, win it.
Lincoln has sometimes been represented as a sort of
"dark horse," but this claim manifests very little ap
preciation of his qualities, or of the great shrewdness
with which his candidacy was managed. His speeches
from 1858 to 1860 contain the best, most concisely
stated, conservative body of Republican doctrine to be
found in all our political literature, and his candidacy
for the nomination had been an established fact for at
least a year before the meeting of the convention. His
managers, chief among whom were the Hon. David
Davis, the Hon. 0 . H. Browning, and Governor Richard
B. Oglesby, three of the most astute politicians that the
country has ever produced, presented him, not as the
rival of Seward, but as a substitute for Seward, in
case Seward should be found unavailable. They were
greatly aided, and at no point embarrassed, by Lincoln
himself, who was also an old and skilled hand in poli
tics. They furthermore had the advantage of the en
tourage. About all Illinois had assembled in and around
the locus of the convention, cheering and shouting and
singing just at the right moment to advance Lincoln's
cause. There was also shrewd trading in his behalf.
Vol. L— 5

66 THE CIVIL WAE
The Pennsylvanians were asked the price of their sup-
port, and a place in the cabinet was pledged for it to
Mr. Cameron. Lincoln knew nothing of this, at the
moment, of course. He was at his home in Springfield,
and was telegraphing David Davis to make no contracts
that would bind him. Davis, however, paid no atten
tion, of course, to Lincoln's directions.
On the first ballot Seward led, but fell sixty votes
short of the nomination. On the second Lincoln came
up even with him, within three and a half votes. On
the third Lincoln was nominated. It was something of
a surprise to the country, and the abolitionists were not
happy over it. Wendell Phillips inquired : " Who is
this huckster in politics, who is this county court advo
cate ? " But the nomination was no mistake. The con
vention had builded better than it knew itself. Lincoln
was not only more available than Seward, but he had
sounder morals and better judgment than Seward, or
any of the others. He was far better equipped than any
of them to meet the great emergency.
After the nomination of the candidate for the presi
dency, a very important question confronted the con-
Theques- vcution. It was the long-settlod custom of
ond'piace^on the Republic that the two names upon the
the ticket. ticket should come from the two sections.
North and South. The national character of the parties
was thus indicated. The question now was whether
the Republican party would follow this precedent or
would manifest its sectional nature by abandoning it.
There were delegates present in the convention from
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri ;
and there were able men from some of these Common
wealths who were sound anti-slavery men, good Repub
licans in principle, and already affiliated with the party.
Among them were Edward Bates and the Blairs

THE PEESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 67
of Missouri, Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, and the
brilliant Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland. It does
seem as if it would have been judicious as well as con
ciliatory to have nominated one of these men for the
second place on the ticket. It would have enabled the
Republicans to represent themselves as a national party.
There is little doubt that the nomination of Hannibal
Hamlin for the vice-presidency, from the extreme north
eastern Commonwealth of the Union, gave far more of
fence to the South than the nomination of Lincoln for
the presidency. It certainly appeared to stamp the Re
publican party aa a sectional party. It seems to have
been thought that it was necessary in order to make
sure of the East. It is certainly true that under no
combination of candidates which could have been made
would the Republicans have carried any slaveholding
Commonwealth, and, if the East was in any danger of
disaffection, it was good policy, from the point of view
of success in the election, to strengthen the line in
that quarter. Of course it can never be known whether
the nomination of Mr. Hamlin saved any Northern
Commonwealth at the polls or not. One cannot, how
ever, help feeling that the purposes of the Republican
party would have been better understood at the South
had a man of known intelligence and probity from
the South been selected for the second place on the
ticket. Of even greater importance than the movements of
the Republican party in determining the course which
the Democratic leaders would take upon re- The consti-
assembling in nominating convention was 'p^^™S°
the attitude now assumed by the remnant of convention.
the old Whig party, which had, after its disruption in
1855, taken the name of " the American Party," and
now manifested its obsoleteness by calling itself " the

68 THE CIVIL WAE
Constitutional Union Party." All the parties, except
perhaps the abolitionists, were as yet Constitutional
Union parties. They all proposed to stand on that
general ground. The question had progressed, however,
far beyond that general statement of principles. The
question now at issue was as to the meaning of the
Constitutional Union in reference to a given point, viz.,
slavery in the Territories. Upon this specific question
the " Constitutional Union Party " was silent. Its
platform was expressed in a single line. It was : " The
Constitution of the country, the Union of the States
and the enforcement of the laws." Undoubtedly the
party conceived, in May of 1860, that it had a timely
object in view. Undoubtedly it meant to say that
under no circumstances whatever would it yield to dis
union sentiments ; that the Union, with or without
slavery, but always the Union, was its cardinal principle.
But, as we shall see further on, it did not stand by its
colors when the fire grew hot and near.
The convention of the party met in Baltimore, on the
T.9th day of May, and nominated John Bell, of Tennes-
. see, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts,
The nomi- f t i » .
nation of John as its Candidates for the presidency and the
presidency by vice-presidoncy. Both of these statesmen
were "old-line Whigs," and gentlemen of
the "old school," courteous, kind, conciliatory, patri
otic, and high minded. They had both served the
country long and nobly, and everybody knew that their
characters were guarantees of peace, union, mutual re
gard of rights, deference in matters of opinion, temper- -
ance in speech, and gentleness in manners. But the
age was passed for all these virtues. In their place
vulgar radicalness in thought, belligerency in feeling,
coarseness in language, and brutality in conduct were
to be found on all sides.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 69
There was not from the first the slightest chance of
their election. They were formidable from but a single
point of view— from the point of view of the The danger
necessity to the slaveholders of the unity of ae'sfavehoid*
the South under the rule of the Southern %^^ }? J-^^
South from
Democracy. The South must be made solid *^^ p*"^-
and kept solid. The slaveholders must not risk the loss
of a single Southern Commonwealth for the chance of
winning a Northern one. They must beat Mr. Bell in
all the Commonwealths of the South, and they knew
they could not do this with any Northern man for their
candidate. Such was their conviction when their leaders reassem
bled, on the 11th of June, at Richmond. They mani
fested no disposition whatever to compromise
with their Northern brethren on the question of the conven-
of the platform, and now was added the southern De-
danger of losing control of some of their ™°"'*''y-
own communities by the success of Mr. Bell at the
polls. They remained some days in Richmond revolv
ing plans, and then adjourned to meet on the 38th in
Baltimore. The regular convention of the Democratic party met,
pursuant to adjournment, at Baltimore, on the 18th of
June. In place of any approach of the two , .
bodies, however, toward each other, the del- of theconven-
egates to the regular convention from Dela- Northern De-
ware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, ™°"*'^^'
Tennessee, and Missouri withdrew, in whole or part, and
went over to the other side. The Hon. Caleb Gushing,
of Massachusetts, resigned the presidency of the regular
convention, and was made the presiding officer of the
seceders' body, when its members reassembled on the
28th. The regular convention then nominated Mr. Donglas

70 THE CIVIL WAE
for the presidency and Mr. Fitzpatrick, of Alabama, for
the vice-presidency, and upon the refusal of Mr. Fitz
patrick to accept the nomination, substi-
two"conven- tuted the Hon. Herschel V. Johnson, of
tions. Georgia, in his place.
The seceders organized their convention on the 28th,
consisting of delegates from twenty-one Commonwealths,
under the presidency of the Hon. Caleb Gushing, adopt
ed by a unanimous vote the platform proposed by Mr.
Avery at Charleston, and nominated John C. Brecken-
ridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon, as
candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. Mr.
Yancey pronounced the valedictory in a style which can
be described by no more appropriate title than "fire-
eating," and they went forth to their mad work, which
resulted in their own destruction.
The campaign was earnest and serious. It was a bat
tle of principles as well as of candidates. Mr. Douglas
. led his own hosts, speaking both in the North
cal campaign and in the South, and endeavoring to inspire
his followers, his hearers, and the readers of
his speeches, with some of his own enthusiasm. The
greatest debaters of the country went on to the hustings,
and everywhere the issues were discussed with great
force. The machinery for rousing the feelings of the
masses, not given to decision by judgment, was also put
in motion. Music, parades, torchlight processions, fire
works, etc., were seen and heard on all sides.
As the campaign advanced two things, at least, be
came manifest. The first was the fact that Lincoln was
gaining in the North at the expense of Douglas. The
obstinacy of the Southern Democrats at Charleston and
Baltimore had greatly angered many of the Northern
Democrats and was operating to drive them into the
Republican ranks. The second was the increasingly

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 71
threatening attitude which the slaveholders were assum
ing toward the Union in case of the election of Lincoln.
It came to be generally believed before October that
they would not submit to a Republican administration.
The Republicans, however, refused to be intimidated by
the situation and were determined to test the question
whether a constitutionally elected President would be
refused recognition by any part of the country. In sev
eral of the Northern Commonwealths, the other parties
betrayed much more agitation. In New York, New
Jersey, and Rhode Island, they arranged a fusion ticket,
dividing the number of electors assigned to each of these
Commonwealths between them in the proportion of
their relative voting strength in each, thus uniting their
strength against Lincoln. In the Southern Common
wealths, the adherents of Breckenridge were as tena
cious as the Republicans in the North. They would
not fuse with the Douglas Democrats, even to rescue the
" border States " from the " Constitutional Unionists."
Their purpose to rule or ruin became more and more
manifest from day to day.
As the October elections in Pennsylvania and Indi
ana approached, the tension became almost unbearable.
Everybody knew that these elections would The sep-
indicate the result of the presidential election octSbe^eiee*
in the next month. Maine and Vermont *^°^^-
had, in September, gone Republican by large majorities.
Still uncertainty, as to the two pivotal Commonwealths,
was not wholly dispelled. It was well known that the
Republicans could not carry Pennsylvania upon the
question alone of slavery prohibition in the Territories.
The managers in Pennsylvania, therefore, shrewdly
brought the question of protection to the front and
made it a principal, if not the principal, issue of the
campaign. Mr. Curtin himself, the Republican candi-

72 THE CIVIL WAE
date for Governor, made protection the chief subject of
his addresses, and the shrewdest among the Republican
politicians have attributed his success in the campaign
to that fact. Both Pennsylvania and Indiana were won
by safe majorities, and it was now reasonably certain
that Mr. Lincoln would receive the electoral vote of al]
the Northern Commonwealths, except perhaps New
Jersey and Rhode Island, and would be elected Presi-
dent. When the news of the results of the elections in Penn.
sylvania and Indiana reached the South, it .was received
Th terror- ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^*^ sinister delight, but despon.
izing of the dcncy and terror mastered the minds and
South by their wills of most. It was said, and by the masses
believed, that such men as John Brown and
Hinton Rowan Helper would be appointed to the
United States offices in the South, and that every offi
cial bureau would become a rendezvous for conspirators
against the peace and security of the South, and a hatch
ing-place of negro insurrections. If such was really the
intention of the administration, which now seemed on
the eve of being chosen to power, it was said, and largely
believed, that there was no way of escape from murder,
rape and pillage, except by withdrawal from the Union.
Never did a nation go to the ballot-box with a more
serious spirit than did the people of these United States
_ , on that noted November day of 1860. The
The elec- rT^ -,,.•,¦, .
tion ot No- luesday following the first Monday fell that
vember, i860. •\, • ,, , ,, .
year on the sixth, and on the morning of the
seventh it was known that the Republicans had won a
complete victory in every Northern Commonwealth, ex
cept New Jersey, and had elected four of the seven elec
tors in New Jersey. Lincoln and Hamlin would have
one hundred and eighty of the three hundred and three
electoral votes. The two Northern candidates, for

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1860 73
whom no tickets had been put in the field in any of
the Southern Commonwealths, except those along, the
Northern border, had been chosen. .The Northern sec
tion of the Union had, at last, got the Government, and
the question became now the query whether it could
administer it throughout the whole Union.
An analysis of the popular vote will show that the Re
publican Electors had received only about two-fifths of
the popular vote, 1,857,610 out of 4,645,390. It will
also show that the Southern Democracy had not carried
the South, counting by the popular vote. The Bell elec
tors had received in the South 515,973 votes, the Doug
las electors 163,525 votes, and the Breckenridge electors
571,871 votes. That is, the Union candidates, as we
may call them, had received together 679,498 votes
against 571,871 for the candidate whose following con
tained the disunion elements. Such figures indicated
that the Republican party was not strong enough to un
dertake a radical programme, and that the slaveholders
were not powerful enough to refuse recognition to the
Republican Administration. The prospect of an under
standing and an arrangement seemed fair, and good and
wise men resolved to lend their influence and their ener
gies to the accomplishment of the same. A little pa
tience, calmness, good judgment and patriotism seemed
all that was necessary to preserve the country in its ac
customed course of action.

CHAPTER IV
SECESSION
The Secession Theory — South Carolina and Secession — Georgia
and Secession — President Buchanan's Message of December
3, 1860, in Regard to Secession — The President's Solution of
the Question of Slavery — Acceptability of the Message to the
Southern Leaders— Consideration of the Message in Congress
— The Secession of South Carolina — The President in the
Face of the Emergency — The South Carolina Commissioners
and the President — The North Encouraged by the President's
Stand — The Crittenden Resolutions — The Position of the Re
publicans — Mr. Seward's Propositions — Failure of the Senate
Committee to Agree upon a Proposition — Mr. Toombs's Ad
dress to the People of Georgia — The Proceedings in the House
Committee — The Caucus of Southern Senators of January 5,
1861— The President's Special Message of January 8, 1861—
The Seizure of the Forts— The " Star of the West " Affair-
The Effect of the Failure to Relieve Major Anderson — Mr.
Clark's Resolution in the Senate — Withdrawal of the Southern
Senators and Representatives from Congress — The Formation
of the Southern Confederacy — The Election of the President
of the Confederacy, and the Organization of the Confederate
Government — The Vice-President— The First Confederate
Cabinet — Texas Joins the Confederacy — The Inauguration of
President Davis — The Peace Convention and Its Work-
Failure of the Propositions of the Peace Conference — Last
Attempts in the Senate to Save the Union by Compromise —
Republican Attitude toward Pacification — Confederate Prep
arations for War.
The theory upon which the claimed right of secession
was based was that the United States were a confedera-
74

SECESSION 75
tion of sovereignties, connected with each other by an
agreement, from which each might recede at its own
pleasure, without any legal power on the ^he seces-
part of the others to prevent it. It was »'™ '•'^•"7-
held by most of those who espoused this doctrine that
secession was both a sovereign and a legal right. In
support of the view that it was a sovereign right, they
argued that a sovereign is not subject to law, and that
there can be, therefore, no limitation upon a sovereign's
rights. In support of the view that it was a legal
right, they cited that clause of the Constitution, the
tenth amendment, which provides that powers not dele
gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by ^it to the " States," are reserved to the
"States" respectively or to the people, and argued
from it that, no power having been delegated to the
United States to forbid secession, and no prohibition
having been placed by the Constitution on the right
of the " States " to secede, the right was reserved
to the " States " or to the people by the Constitution
itself. It would be strange indeed if the fathers of the Union
did intentionally legalize disunion and anarchy, and it
was unfortunate that they used words which criticism
could be tortured into such a meaning. It °* 't
is altogether incredible that they attached any such sig
nification to the language of the tenth amendment, and
there is not the slightest grammatical necessity for the
invention of any such by their successors. For, in the
first place, that provision of the Constitution which de
clares that the " Constitution of the United States, and
the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall
be made, under the authority of the United States,
shall be the supreme law of the land," undoubtedly con-

76 THE CIVIL WAR
tains the prohibition of the power of any Common
wealth of the Union to withdraw itself from the juris
diction of that "supreme law of the land." And, in
the second place, the reservation of powers not dele
gated to the general government nor prohibited to the
"States," is not to the "States" alone, but "to the
States respectively or to the people." Unless the last four
words of the provision mean the same as the flrst three,
that is, unless they are tautologic, why may not the
clause be interpreted to mean that if any power to de
termine the question of disunion is reserved to anybody
by the Constitution, that reservation is to the people
of the whole United States ? This is certainly the
more natural interpretation. It is, however, entirely
evident to any impartial mind that the Congress
which proposed this amendment never intended to
reserve by it the power of disunion or secession to
anybody. They were evidently thinking only of the
powers of local government in the Commonwealths,
and the civil rights of the citizens, when they drafted
this article.
The argument of the secessionists from the constitu
tional provision was, from every point of view, a mere
jugglery with words. Some of the better thinkers
among them made no use of it at all, but fell back upon
the doctrine that secession was a sovereign right alone.
They sought to distinguish between a sovereign right
and a right of revolution. There is a certain distinc
tion. The right of revolution is the right of a body
claiming sovereignty, of a body which is, at the given
moment, in the process of organizing, establishing,
and vindicating its sovereignty by successful violent
resistance to existing legal power. It is what the Ger
mans would call the right of a sovereignty im Werden
begriffen, and which Mr. Emerson would have trans-

SECESSION 77
lated, the right of a sovereignty in the making. The
secessionists denied that secession was this kind of a
sovereign right. They held it to be the right of an
already established and recognized sovereign. Here Is
certainly a very important distinction. It would de
liver secession entirely from the stage of rebellious
experiment, the stage of hazarded right between the
outbreak of resistance to existing legal power and the
triumph of that resistance, provided the seceding body
were acknowledged to be already a sovereign body, as
the secessionists claimed the "States" of the Union
were. If revolution should be committed in such a
case, it would not be by the seceding sovereign, but by
the body defeating the attempted secession, and thereby
subjecting the old sovereignty to a new sovereignty de
veloped in and through the struggle.
It is from this point of view that the secessionists
still contend that secession was right in principle, a
"lost cause," although the attempt to realize it was
overcome by superior power ; a result which, in sound
political science, stamps violent resistance to existing
order as rebellion. The secessionists can be shown
to have been in the wrong, legally, only by demon
strating that the "States" of the Union were not, at
the time they attempted secession', sovereign bodies,
which, indeed, can be easily done. But, ethically, the
triumph of the principle of the sovereignty of the
nation over the doctrine of " State sovereignty," in
the appeal to arms, establishes the presumption of the
righteousness of the former and the unrighteousness of
the latter, no matter whether the sovereignty of the
nation was the already recognized legal order, or only
became such through the course and result of the
struggle. We have become generally conscious of these distinc-

78 THE CIVIL WAE
tions, however, chiefiy through our experiences since
1860. At that date a large majority of the people
of the country confounded sovereignty with the pow
ers of residuary government, and recognized what
they conceived to be a certain kind of sovereignty
as belonging to the " States." Many of the secession
ists honestly befooled themselves, as well as befooled
others, by their sophistries based upon these confused
premises. The majority of the secession leaders were
undoubtedly sincere in the belief that they were right
in principle.
Naturally the Commonwealth in which the doctrine
of " State sovereignty " had been elaborated into a sys-
south caro- ^^™ '^^ positivc scicuce, so to speak, and had
linaandseces- been SO generally embraced as to have be
come the political creed of its inhabitants,
assumed the rdle of leader in the secession movement.
Chance seemed also to favor South Carolina with the op
portunity. It was the only Commonwealth in which
the presidential electors were still chosen by the Legis
lature. This occasioned the meeting of the Legislature
on November 5th, several weeks earlier than it would
otherwise have assembled, and several weeks before the
meeting of the Legislature of any other Common
wealth except that of Georgia. The South Carolina
Legislature remained in session to learn the result
of the election, and in the height of the first excite
ment throughout the South over the choice of Mr.
Lincoln, issued the call for the convention of the
people of the "State," the sovereign body, accord
ing to the South Carolina doctrine, in our political
system. The chief secessionists of the Commonwealth had
reached an understanding upon the subject some ten
days previous to the assembly of the Legislature. The

SECESSION 79
Governor, Mr. Gist, United States Senators Hammond
and Chesnut, the members of the delegation to the na
tional House of ^Representatives, and several others of the
leaders were present at the conference held at Senator
Hammond's house, and all joined in the opinion that,
in the event of Mr. Lincoln's election, the convention
should be called, and should pass a secession ordinance ;
or, as they expressed it, should resume the exercise of
the powers delegated by South Carolina to the United
States. There were many members of the Legislature who
desired to avoid precipitation, and to consult with
the political leaders in the other Commonwealths of
the South, and await co-operation, but the secession
ist chiefs paid no attention to their remonstrances,
which were indeed feeble and hesitating. Senator Ches
nut and the United States judicial officers in South
Carolina resigned their positions before the Legislature
had even voted to call the convention, and Senator
Hammond did the same thing immediately after the
vote, anticipating, thus, and prejudicing, the work of
the convention.
The Legislature passed the act calling the conven
tion on the 12th day of November. It appointed the
6th day of the following December for the election of
the delegates to it, and the 17th for their assembly
in convention. On the next day, the 13th, the Leg
islature elected Francis W. Pickens Governor, who
immediately proceeded to form a cabinet or minis
try, after the manner of the executives of sovereign
nations. Meanwhile the Legislature of Georgia had assembled
and was debating the question of calling a convention.
On the 14th day of the month (November), Mr. Alex
ander H. Stephens made his noted speech against the

%0 THE CIVIL WAE
proposition of Mr. Robert Toombs to refer the question
of secession immediately to the voters by submitting
Georgia and to them for ratification a resolution of the
lecession. Legislature not to submit to the rule of the
Abolitionists. Mr. Stephens carried the day, and the
convention was called to meet on the 17th of the fol
lowing January.
President Buchanan was naturally greatly disturbed
by these movements in South Carolina and Georgia,
and on the 17th of the month (November), he
opinion con- addressed an inquiry to his legal adviser, At-
^werfof the torney-Geueral Black, concerning the Pres-
prevent'seces" ideut's powei in case a "State" should un-
"''"¦ der take secession, or resistance to the laws of
the United States.
The opinion sent by Mr. Black to the President,
under date of November 20th, is one of the most unfort
unate state papers of our history. It was the founda
tion of the President's even more unfortunate message
of December 3d. Mr. Black instructed the President
that the President had the power to take such measures
as he might deem necessary to protect the public prop
erty of the United States, and to recapture it when
unlawfully seized by anybody ; and that he had the power
to use the army and the navy and the militia to assist
the civil officers of the United States in the execution
of the laws " whenever the laws of the United States
shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed in
any State by combinations too powerful to be suppressed
by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by
the power vested in the marshals " ; but that in case
there were no civil officers of the United States within
the supposed " State " to execute the laws of the United
States, the President could not use the military to uphold
the powers of the United States Government in such

SECESSION 81
"State" at all. "If," said Mr. Black, "troops may
be sent to aid courts and marshals, there must be courts
and marshals to be aided. The existing laws put and
keep the Federal Government strictly on the defensive.
You can use force only to repel an assault on the public
property, and aid the courts in the performance of their
duty." Mr. Black did not, however, content himself
with reducing the President to impotence in case the
United States civil officers in any "State" should
resign, and no persons could be found to succeed them,
which would be the situation produced by secession ; but
he argued that if Congress should undertake to authorize
the President to send the military into such a " State"
to enforce the laws of the United States, Congress would
thereby simply declare war upon that " State," a thing
which Congress had no power, under the Constitution,
to do, and that the attempt to do it would amount to
the expulsion of such a "State" from the Union, mak
ing it a foreign enemy, between whom and the United
States all future relations would be regulated by the
principles and customs of international law. He declared
that "there was undoubtedly a strong and universal
conviction among the men who framed and ratified the
Constitution, that military force would not only be use
less, but pernicious, as a means of holding the States
together." Had Mr. Black been a secessionist himself, he could
not have stated the case more strongly against the
Government of the United States. He was, ^^ Black's
on the other hand, a stanch Union man, a reputation
' . and influence
great jurist, a man of letters, a pure patriot, as a man and
and a man of high moral and religious char
acter. He was, however, a Pennsylvania Democrat of
the "States-rights" school, and he believed that the
Abolitionists and the Republicans were the enemies of
Vol. I.— 6

82 THE CIVIL WAE
the Union. He was evidently not averse to pointing
out, with great emphasis, the danger which the country
had, as he thought, unrighteously incurred by allowing
the triumph of the Republican party.
President Buchanan had the very highest respect and
regard for Mr. Black's learning, judgment, and integrity.
President They were also close personal friends, and
message* of shared each other's feelings concerning the
December 3. critical situation into which the country had
ISbO, in regard •'
to secession, been brought. It was natural, then, that
the President's message to Congress should, in deal
ing with the secession movement, contain the same
destructive doctrines, and that the weaker intellect of
the President should have accentuated them in higher
degree. The President began the message with a declaration
that the threatened danger to the Union was caused by
"the long-continued and intemperate interference of
the Northern people with the question of slavery in the
Southern States." He said that the immediate peril
arose neither from the claims that Congress or the Ter
ritorial Legislatures might control the question of slavery
in the Territories, nor from opposition to the execution
of the Fugitive Slave Act, but "from the fact that the
incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question
throughout the North for the last quarter of a century
had at last produced its malign influence upon the slaves
and inspired them with vague notions of freedom." In
short the President asserted that the sense of domestic
security at the South had been attacked by the intem
perate and incessant agitation of the question of slavery
at the North, and that union between the North and
the South could not continue, if the people of the South
should come generally to feel that the security of their
homes and flresides could not be preserved under it.

SECESSION 83
He said that if the people of the North would only let
the people of the Southern " States " alone in regard to
their domestic institutions, and would obey the Consti
tution and laws of the United States in respect to sla
very, the existing peril would pass away. He declared
that no "State" had any constitutional right to with
draw from the Union, but he conceded that the people
of any " State " or section have the revolutionary right
to resist intolerable oppression, and relieve themselves
of it if they can. He insisted, however, that the elec
tion of a sectional President, if accomplished in accord
ance with the Constitution and the laws, was not op
pression, and did not necessarily lead to oppression.
He stated that the duty of the President was " to take
care that the laws be faithfully executed," but he con
tended that the laws could be executed only by civil
officers, and, if there were no civil officers in a "State,"
that the President could not undertake to have the
laws of the United States executed by the military forces,
since according to the laws enacted by Congress the
military power could be used only in aid of the United
States marshals, and then only after the inability of the
posse comitalus of the marshal had been demonstrated.
He concluded, however, that he might hold the prop
erty of the United States by force, if attacked. He
simply stood upon the ground, in respect to his powers,
furnished him in Mr. Black's opinion.
It would have been better had he stopped with the
confession of his own impotence to cope with secession,
bad as that was. It could have been re- criticism of
garded as an appeal to Congress for larger and sStemlnt
means and a freer hand in the discharge of des't'/uctive
his duty to see to the faithful execution of propositions.
the laws ; but, like Mr. Black, he went on to declare
the impotence of Congress also in the face of secession.

84 THE CIVIL WAE
He repeated with emphasis Mr. Black's proposition
that the coercion of a "State" attempting secession
was the making of war upon that " State," a power not
confided by the Constitution, according to his view, to
Congress or to any department of the Government. He
evidently intended to convey the view that an act of
Congress vesting the President with the power to use the
military for the enforcement of the laws in any "State"
in which there were no United States civil officials was
tantamount to a declaration of war by Congress upon
such "State." He deprecated the exercise of any such
power, even if the Government possessed it, as destruc
tive of the Union, which, he declared, rested upon pubhe
opinion, and could never be cemented by the blood of
its citizens shed in civil war.
He concluded his message upon this subject by rec
ommending the settlement of the differences between
The Presi- the North and the South by a constitutional
ofthequSiKon amendment, which should include "an ex-
of slavery. press recognition of property in slaves in
the States where it now exists or may hereafter exist,"
an express declaration of " the duty of protecting this
right in all the common Territories throughout their
Territorial existence, and until they should be admitted
as States into the Union, with or without slavery, as
their constitutions may prescribe," and " a like recog
nition of the right of the master to have his slave, who
has escaped from one State to another, restored and
delivered up to him, and of the validity of the Fugitive
Slave law enacted for this purpose, together with a
declaration that all State laws impairing or defeating this
right are violations of the Constitution, and are conse
quently null and void."
President Buchanan was a man of fair judgment, of
pure patriotism, and of fine feeling. He was well-read

SECESSION 85
in history and political science, and was a good lawyer.
How he could have written such a message is to the men
of the present almost past comprehension. It was the
greatest encouragement to secession which could have
possibly been given. It meant, whether the President
80 intended it or not — and he certainly did not intend it
— that the secessionists should have until the 4th of the
following March to withdraw their " States " from the
Union, and organize a new government of their own
without any serious impediment from the Administra
tion at Washington. The President undoubtedly hoped
to appease the secessionist leaders, and induce them to
refrain from destroying the Union, but he had wofully
misread the real character of the men whose courtly
manners had enlisted his sympathies. The message
was the most convincing demonstration of the inherent
error and viciousness of the " States-rights " theory of
the Union, which had to that moment appeared. It
was to be surpassed only by secession itself.
It has been said in justification of the President that
he had the letter of the old law with him, and that his
sense of duty as well as his conservative nature led him
therefore in the direction which he pursued. But what
was there in the letter of the old law that prevented the
President from sending true Union men from the loyal
Commonwealths into a Commonwealth attempting seces
sion to occupy the civil offices of the United States with
in the latter, and then sustaining their authority by the
aid of the military forces of the Union ? And what was
there in the letter of the old Constitution that prevented
Congress from authorizing the President to use the mili
tary officers for the immediate execution of the laws of
the United States ? Clearly the President was befooled
by his " States-rights " theories, his timid nature, and
his personal regard for the Southern leaders.

86 THE CIVIL WAE
These leaders were overjoyed by the tone of the mes
sage, not that they thought it might lead to compromise
and conciliation, but because it pronounced
ityofthemes- the impotence of the United States Govern-
southemiead* ment to prevent them from destroying the
*"" Union. Some of them had been consulted
by the President in regard to its contents, and he cer
tainly had accepted their representation of the state of
feeling at the South.
Of all men the President stood in the position to defeat
secession by simply filling the civil offices of the United
Probable in- States with loyal men, and then sustaining
mT thrp^al- these officers by his military power, but he
such 'a me^ w'^l'l have regarded the sending of citizens
sage- of one Commonwealth into another to occupy
the United States offices in the latter, as such a departure
from long-established usage as to amount almost to a
violation of the Constitution. Moreover, he was old and
timid, and was surrounded by disloyal advisers, who not
only misled him, but who, in some way or other, roused
the fear of assassination in his mind if he crossed too far
their purposes. There was undoubtedly one other con
sideration which moved the President, and that was the
feeling that those who had brought the danger upon the
country, the Abolitionists and Republicans, as he thought,
should shoulder the responsibility of meeting it. He
thought it was fair to leave the problem for his succes
sor to wrcfede with. When, then, his trusted friend and
legal counsellor, Mr. Black, whom he knew to be able
and loyal, took the same view of the impotence of the
Government in the event of secession that his secession
ist advisers did, it is hardly to be marvelled at that he
struck the suicidal blow. He did not go quite as far
as they wanted him to go. They asked that he would
acknowledge secession to be a constitutional right of each

SECESSION 87
"State," and some of them even suggested that he
ought to justify its exercise in the existing contingen
cies. But he went far enough to encourage them in
high degree, and to fill the souls of loyal men with
gloomy forebodings.
Between the communication of Mr. Black's opinion
and the presentation of the President's message to the
Houses of Congress, the Legislatures of Miss- consider .
issippi and Florida had met, and passed acts ^e s s'*aVe"in
calling conventions to consider the question congress.
of secession. The spirit manifested in both of them was
hostile to the Union, and it was evident that danger
ous movements threatened. When, therefore. Congress
came to the consideration of the President's message, its
members were entirely aware of the serious nature of the
work before them. Motions were immediately made
in both Houses to refer that part of the message treating
of the perilous state of the country to a special commit
tee in each. In the House of Representatives the motion
was quickly adopted, with but little debate. In the
Senate, on the other hand, the debate upon it lasted for
nearly two weeks, during which it became entirely evi
dent that the members from the "planting States"
had made up their minds for secession. Six of the
Southern Legislatures, those of South Carolina,
Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana,
had now called conventions ; and the members of the
Senate of the United States from these Commonwealths
simply informed the Senate that the question of the
"federal relations "of their "States" was now to be
decided in these conventions, and no longer by any branch
of the United States Government. One of the Senators
from Georgia, Mr. Iverson, said that all the Southern
" States " would decide this question in the sovereign
conventions of their people, and that nothing could pre-

88 THE CIVIL WAE
vent the following of this course. Referring to the re
fusal of Governor Houston of Texas to permit the call
of a convention in that " State," he said : " Some Texan
Brutus will arise to rid his country of the hoary-headed
incubus that stands between the people and their sover
eign will." Senator Wigfall, of Texas, immediately re
pudiated this imputation of barbarism to his commun
ity, and said that Texas would find means of seceding
from the Union, without having recourse to assassina
tion. Mr. Jefferson Davis said that the difficulty was
deeper than any acts of Congress could reach, that it
was the fact that a Union of hostile sections had taken
the place of a Union of friendly " States." He declared
that a change of view and feeling among the Northern
people was the only remedy for the case. It was, thus,
manifest that nothing which Congress could do would
be satisfactory to the secessionists. It was equally man
ifest that the Northern Democrats, and a large number
of the Republicans, would go almost any length to con
ciliate them.
The passage of the ordinance of secession by unani
mous vote in thp South Carolina convention, on the
20th of the month (December), brought
sion of South matters to the direct issue, and caused great
alarm in Congress and throughout the coun
try, much as some of the Northern journals jeered at
it. The thing which had been threatened for thirty
years, threatened so often indeed as to have lost some
of its terrors, had now come at last, when men had
almost ceased to expect it. It is true that the causes
alleged for it by the South Carolinians were false and
puerile, and that the manner of its realization was a
travesty of dignity and a mockery of statesmanship,
but there it was, and must be dealt with as a stern
fact.

SECESSION 89
First of all, what would the President do about it ? He
was bound to execute the laws in South Carolina, as else
where in the Union. He had no power to tj,^ p^ggj.
recognize the independence of South Caro- Jr'the^emer-
lina. He must proceed as though no ordi- eency.
nance of secession had been passed. It is true that he
had no judges and marshals in South Carolina, as we
have seen, but he could appoint them, and he had col
lectors of the revenue, and was in possession of the forts.
He had delayed strengthening the garrisons so as not to
excite the secessionists ; and General Cass, his Secretary
of State had, on the 13th of the month (December), re
signed his position on account of difference of opinion
with the President on this subject. This action on the
part of the venerable statesman was so popular through
out the North as to make the President feel that he had
committed a grave error. The new Secretary of State,
Mr. Black, also felt the force of the popular approval of
General Cass, and realized that he himself had made a
serious mistake, both as regalrded his views of the con
stitutional powers of the President, and of the temper
of the people of the North, and also of the temper of
the people of the South. In addition to this, the suC'
cesser of Mr. Black in the office of Attorney-General
Mr. Edwin M. Stanton, proved to be a powerful sup.
port to the stronger view of the President's powers
He, Mr. Black and Mr. Holt, the Postmaster-General
who though a Southerner, was a stanch Union man,
now displaced the Southerners in the confidence of the
President, and roused the Administration to the dis
play of more courage and firmness. It was well that
this happened when it did. If these changes had been
deferred a few days, it is probable that Mr. Buchanan
would have committed himself irretrievably to the seces
sionists.

90 THE CIVIL WAE
On the 26th (December), the three commissioners,
Messrs. Adams, Barnwell, and Orr, appointed by the
The South South Carolina convention to treat with the
m"sioneSand Government of the United States for the de-
the President, liyery of the forts, lighthouses, magazines,
and other United States property in South Carolina, to
the authorities of the now self-declared independent
nation of South Carolina, and for other purposes,
appeared in Washington. On the 28th, they sent to
the President the following extraordinary communi
cation :
" To the President of the United States : Sir : We
have the honor to transmit to you a copy of the full
powers from the convention of the People of South Car
olina under which we are authorized and empowered to
treat with the Government of the United States, etc.
. . . In the execution of this trust, it is our duty to
furnish you, as we now do, with an official copy of the
ordinance of secession, by which the State of South
Carolina has resumed the powers she delegated to the
Government of the United States, and has declared her
perfect sovereignty and independence. It would also
have been our duty to have informed yon that we were
ready to negotiate with you upon all such questions as
are necessarily raised by the adoption of this ordinance,
and that we were prepared to enter upon this negoti
ation with the earnest desire to avoid all unnecessary
and hostile collision, and so to inaugurate our new rela
tions as to secure mutual respect, general advantage,
and a future good- will and harmony beneficial
munication to to all parties Concerned. But the events of
the last twenty-four hours render such an as
surance impossible. We came here the representatives
of an authority which could, at any time within the past
sixty days, have taken possession of the forts in Charles-

SECESSION 91
ton harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a man
ner that we could not doubt, determined to trust to your
honor rather than to its own power. Since our arrival
here an officer of the United States, acting, as we are
assured, not only without but against your orders, has
dismantled one of the forts and occupied another, thus
altering, to a most important extent, the condition of
affairs under which we came. Until these circumstances
are explained in a manner which relieves us of all doubt
as to the spirit in which these negotiations shall be con
ducted, we are forced to suspend all decision as to any
arrangements by which our mutual interests might be
amicably adjusted. And, in conclusion, we would urge
upon yon the immediate withdrawal of the troops from
the harbor of Charleston. Under present circumstances
they are a menace which renders negotiation impossible,
and, as our recent experience shows, threatens speedily
to bring to a bloody issue questions which ought to be
settled with temperance and judgment."
The insolence of this communication is apparent
enough on its face. The representatives of a petty
power, as yet unrecognized, and destined never to be
recognized, announcing to one of the most powerful
governments in the world that they would not treat with
it was a ridiculous spectacle. But when we come to
consider what this power was which these men professed
to represent, and to inquire into the reasons for this
bantam audacity, we must conclude that they were not
far removed from stark madness.
It seems that on the 8th day of the month (December)
the members of the House of Representatives in Congress
from South Carolina had gone to the Presi- Theexpia-
dent and undertaken to give him some nation of a.
assurances about the matter of the forts in the harbor
at Charleston. The President asked them to put what

93 THE CIVIL WAE
they had to say in writing. They did so, and presented
the same to him on the 10th. This document read as
follows : " To his Excellency James Buchanan, Pres
ident of the United States : In compliance with our
statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our
strong conviction that neither the constituted author
ities, nor any body of the people of the State of South
Carolina, will either attack or molest the United States
forts in the harbor of Charleston, previously to the
action of the convention, and, we hope and believe, not
until an offer has been made, through an accredited
representative, to negotiate for an amicable arrangement
of all matters between the State and t'.u Federal gov
ernment, provided that no re-enforcements shall be sent
into those forts, and their relative military status shall
remain as at present."
When this document was read to the President by these
gentlemen he objected to the use of the word " provided,"
lest it should be held to imply an agreement on his part,
and said that he would not enter into any agreement with
them upon the subject. They replied to him that they
did not understand it as implying any agreement what
ever on his part. The next day Mr. John B. Floyd, the
Secretary of War, issued an order to Major Anderson, in
command of the forts in Charleston Harbor, of the fol
lowing tenor : " You are carefully to avoid every act which
would needlessly tend to provoke aggression ; and, for
that reason, you are not, without evident and immediate
necessity, to take up any position which could be con
strued into the assumption of a hostile attitude ; but you
are to hold possession of the forts in the harbor, and, if
attacked, you are to defend yourself to the last extremity.
The smallness of your force will not permit you, per
haps, to occupy more than one of the three forts ; but
an attack on, or an attempt to take possession of, either

"•^JA*^ rA«n«*

Cbarleston Harbor.

SECESSION 93
of them, will be regarded as an act of hostility, and yon
may then put your command in either of them which
you may deem most proper, in order to increase its
power of resistance. You are also authorized to take
similar defensive steps whenever you have tangible
evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act." This
order from Mr. Floyd was not brought to the notice of
the President until the 21st day of the month (De
cember). He saw no reason to disapprove it, and did
not do so. Major Anderson was at the moment in Fort
Moultrie with a very small force of men. He became
convinced that he was in a dangerous position, and be
lieved that an attack upon him by the South Carolinians
was imminent. On the night of the 26th he, therefore,
left Fort Moultrie and occupied Fort Sumter, which he
considered a stronger position.
These acts by Major Anderson were the events re
ferred to by Messrs. Adams, Barnwell, and Orr as preclud
ing any discussion in regard to the amicable adjustment
of the mutual interests of South Carolina and the United
States, since they held the same to be a violation of the
faith of the United States Government with South Car
olina, as pledged by the President.
The President would have been entirely justified in
consigning this communication from these gentlemen to
his waste-basket, but he took counsel of his .j^g ykbi-
fine sense of courtesy instead of a proper dent's answer.
sense of the dignity and prerogatives of his office, and
sent them an answer. Thanks, however, to the influ
ence of Black, Stanton, and Holt, the answer, though
most polite and kindly in its language, was a firm dec
lination to withdraw the United States troops from
Charleston Harbor or to have anything to do with the
commissioners except in the character of private gentle
men.

94 THE CIVIL WAE
The day after the transfer of the United States troops
from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, the South Carolin
ians seized Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie, and raised
the flag of the State of South Carolina upon them. On
the same day they raised their flag over the United States
Custom House and Post Office in Charleston, and took
possession of these properties. It was undoubtedly the
condition of readiness to accomplish these things into
which the South Carolinians had brought themselves
that had caused Major Anderson to conclude that an
attempt might be made at any time upon one or the
other of the forts.
The South Carolina gentlemen answered the Presi
dent's reply to them with a communication, which he,
with all his conservatism, kindliness, courtesy,
PreHd'ent'B conciliatorincss and timidity declined to re-
answer. ^^j^^^ rpj^^y ^j-g^e the President that they
had no solicitude about the character in which he might
recognize them. They accused him of misconceiving
and misconstruing their flrst note to him. They de
clared that he had made pledges to South Carolina,
impliedly if not expressly, and that he did not deny this
when they called upon him to redeem them. They
charged him with failing to redeem those pledges by not
ordering Major Anderson back to Fort Moultrie ; and
cited as proof, both of the giving of the pledges and their
violation, the action of the Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd,
who resigned his seat in the cabinet for the avowed
reason that the action of Major Anderson had violated
the plighted faith of the Government, and that the
failure of the President to restore the status in Charles
ton Harbor had dishonored him. They accused him of
seeking to escape from the obligations of his pledges by
misrepresenting the contents of their first communica
tion, and by exaggerating the import of what had been

SECESSION 95
done by the South Carolinians on the day following the
movement of Major Anderson.
The paper ended with the following pronunciamento :
" By your course you have probably rendered civil war
inevitable. Be it so. If you choose to force this issue
upon us, the state of South Carolina will accept it, and,
relying upon him who is the God of justice, as well as
the God of hosts, will endeavor to perform the great
duty which lies before her, hopefully, bravely and thor
oughly." The effect of this extraordinary communication upon
the President was most beneflcial. He saw now plainly
that the Southern members of his Cabinet The effect
had used their positions to betray the Gov- vLsy^riaV^
ernment, and to compromise him and his er°s'°upon''the
honor before the country ; and he saw that President.
the South Carolinians were traitorously bent upon seiz
ing the forts and property of the United States, which
he had declared he should defend with all the means in
his power. He began now to feel the bitterness against
them which follows the discovery of misplaced and
abused confldence ; while they, together with the
Southern Senators who had had his ear, now turned
upon him with the rage of men disappointed, at the last
moment, in the accomplishment of their purposes. Even
the self-contained and debonair Mr. Benjamin de
nounced Mr. Buchanan as "a senile executive under
the influence of insane counsels."
The people of the North were made to understand by
these attacks that the President had at last nerved him
self to break with the secessionists, and do his ^^e North
duty for the Union. Hope and encourage- ^1^°""^!%%^
ment now began to displace the despondency *^''''' 8'*"^-
and despair which had rested upon the mind and heart
of the North since the fatal message of December 3d.

96 THE CIVIL WAR
Meanwhile the Congressional committees of concilia
tion had been in session struggling with the great ques-
The Con- tion of paciflcatiou, under the form of propo-
committees of sitious amendatory of the Constitution. In
conciliation ^^j^g genatc Committee, composed of Messrs.
anatheir ^ ^
work. Davis, Douglas, Toombs, Hunter, Powell,
Bigler, Rice, Seward, Collamer, Doolittle, Wade,
Grimes, and Crittenden, seven Democrats, five Republi
cans, and one Independent, the Southern Democrats,
Davis, Toombs, and Hunter, took the ground that they
would accept nothing which the Republicans would not
support. They gave as their reason for this, their be
lief that any settlement effected without the concur
rence of the Republicans would prove futile. We must
credit them with sincerity, although it was gravely sus
pected that they sought in this way to prevent any
agreement at all, and at the same time to throw the
blame for the failure upon the Republicans. The de
mands which these men made of the committee as the
price of their further allegiance, and that of the South,
to the United States were formulated by Mr. Toombs.
They were, in his own language, " that the people of
the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate
to and settle in the present, or any future acquired. Ter
ritories, with whatever property they may possess, in
cluding slaves, and be securely protected in its peaceable
enjoyment until such Territory may be admitted as a
State into the Union, with or without slavery, as she
may determine, on an equality with all existing States ;
that property in slaves shall be entitled to the same pro
tection from the Government of the United States, in
all of its departments, everywhere, which the Constitu
tion confers the power upon it to extend to any other
property, provided nothing herein contained shall be
construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging

SECESSION 97
to every State to prohibit, abolish, or establish and pro
tect slavery within its limits ; that persons committing
crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing to
another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as
persons committing crimes against other property, and
that the laws of the States from which such persons flee
shall be the test of criminality ; that fugitive slaves
shall be surrendered under the provisions of the Fugi
tive Slave Act of 1850, without being entitled either to a
writ of Habeas Corpus, or trial by Jury, or other similar
obstructions of legislation in the State to which they may
flee ; and that Congress shall pass efficient laws for the
punishment of all persons in any of the States who shall
in any manner aid and abet invasion or insurrection in
any other State, or commit any other act against the
law of Nations, tending to disturb the tranquillity of the
people or government of any other State."
Mr. Toombs and his Southern associates required that
these propositions should be incorporated in the Consti
tution as irrepealable, unamendable amendments. In
respect only to one of them were they willing to accept
a modification. They agreed to compromise upon Mr.
Crittenden's proposition for a division of the Territories
between North and South on the line of thirty-six
degrees and thirty minutes. It was upon this point
chiefly' that Mr. Crittenden's famous resolutions differed
from the demands formulated by Mr. Toombs.
Upon other points the Crittenden resolutions were
but little more than a restatement of the Toombs propo
sitions. They proposed by irrepealable, un- ^^^ critten-
amendable amendments to the Constitu tion to den r e s o i u -
disable Congress from touching slavery in the '
" States," or the Territories, or in the District of Colum
bia so long as the institution should exist in Maryland
or Virginia, or in places subject to the exclusive jurisdic-
VOL. I.— 7

98 THE CIVIL WAE
tion of the United States Government in slaveholding
"States"; from interfering with commerce in slaves
between slaveholding "States" and Territories; and
from prohibiting members of Congress and United
States officers from bringing slaves with them into the
District of Columbia for domestic use.
The Crittenden resolutions also proposed by an irre
pealable, unamendable amendment to the Constitution
to secure payment by the Government to the slave-
masters for the loss of their slaves, whenever the loss
should be occasioned through interference with the
officers charged with the capture and rendition of such
slaves by the people of the community in which the ap
prehension was sought to be made, or in which the res
cue was effected.
These resolutions proposed further to make the ex
isting provisions of the Constitution in respect to the
rendition of fugitive slaves, and in respect to the count
ing of the slaves in the apportionment of the represen
tation in Congress and in the presidential electoral col
leges, irrepealable and unamendable. And they finally
pronounced the legality and sacred obligation of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and recommended to the
Northern Commonwealths the repeal of their personal
liberty laws, which were held to contravene it. Nat
urally Davis, Toombs, and Hunter were willing to take
this statement of their demands, although coupled with
a division of the Territories by the line of the thirty-six
degrees and thirty minutes to the Pacific, instead of rec
ognizing the legality of slavery in all of them. Of
course the other Democrats on the committee could ask
no more than the triumvirate named.
But the Republicans were obliged to answer non pos-
sumus. The cardinal principle of the Republican creed
was the arrest of the further extension of slavery. .It

SECESSION 99
was with them not simply a party platform, or a political
policy, which might be sacrificed without the violation
of any principle of justice or morality, but
it was the fundamental ethical principle of ofThe^'Repub'-
their existence. To agree to Mr. Toombs's ^"'™°'
demands, or to Mr. Crittenden's propositions, would
have been for the Republicans political and moral
suicide. Mr. Seward said that he was ready to vote for an ir
repealable, unamendable amendment to the Constitution
securing slavery in the "States" where it Mr.seward's
already existed ; that he was also ready to propositions.
vote for proper laws for the punishment of citizens of
one " State " invading another and stirring up insurrec
tion, or for aiding and abetting in the same ; and that
he disapproved of all " State " legislation in contraven
tion of the acts of Congress required by the Constitu
tion for the execution of the provision for the rendition
of fugitive slaves. The other Republicans considered
these propositions to be quite generous, but the South
erners regarded them so slightly as to affirm that the
Republicans never indicated by word or sign any con
cession which they would be willing to make.
The historians and publicists are bound to say that
Mr. Seward's propositions were not only generous, but,
upon one point, too generous. An irrepeal-
iTi J UI • • • n i-i Criticism of
able, unamendable provision in a Constitu- Mr. seward'a
tion in regard to anything is a rotten spot, p™p°°' ™°'
which threatens decay to the whole Constitution. It is
a standing menace to the peaceable development of any
political system. It is the most direct contradiction pos
sible of one of the most fundamental principles of politi
cal science, the principle that the amending power in a
constitution, the legally organized sovereign power in the
political system of a country, must be able to deal with

100 THB CIVIL WAR
any and every subject. If matters are excepted from
its jurisdiction, then they can be dealt with only by
revolution — that is, by the forcible intervention of su
perior physical power not recognized by existing law.
In other words, the withdrawal of any subject from the
amending power is the destruction of constitutional de
velopment as to that subject, and the destruction of
constitutional development in general will work the in
evitable overthrow of the Constitution and constitu
tional government. For, despite the sneers of Mr.
Toombs, politics are progressive, and if they cannot
progress through the regular forms of amendment, they
will do so through the violent course of revolution. It
was this consideration which moved the framers of the
Constitution to construct the regular method of amend
ment as a constitutional provision, the most important
provision of the Constitution ; and now the proposition
to withdraw from its operation the most serious and
burning question of our political ethics was a proposi
tion to set the clock of ages back a century and more,
so far as concerned the advancement of liberty and of
the science of government. It simply could not be ac
corded. It was an attempt to thwart the purposes of the
unseen but almighty power which conducts the devel
opment of man toward his ultimate destiny.
Naturally with such demands as those made by Mr.
Toombs, or with such propositions as those advanced by
Failure of ^^- Crittenden, and declared by the South-
committee*to ^^^^^^^ to be the ultimatum, no agreement
agree uijon a could be arrived at by the Senate committee.
The committee quickly recognized the situ
ation, and on the last day of the month (December), re
ported to the Senate their inability to agree.
When the committee had been sitting only a single
day. Senator Toombs telegraphed an address to the peo-

SECESSION 101
pie of Georgia through the Savannah News, in which he
declared to them that his demands had been received by
the Republican members of the committee Mr. Toombs's
with derision ; that they had rejected the ^^^tie 'of
Crittenden propositions, and had announced "eorgia.
that they themselves had no guarantees to offer ; that
they were, furthermore, fair representatives of the Re
publican majority of the House committee on the same
subject ; that, therefore, nothing was to be expected
from either of these committees or from Congress ; and
that he, therefore, advised the secession of Georgia be
fore the 4th day of the coming March. Mr. Toombs
undoubtedly thought that the moral impossibility of
the Republicans yielding to his demands was an impos
sibility which was created by the execrable immorality
of their principles. However that may be, he recog
nized very quickly that impossibility, and hastened to
advise his friends and constituents that they must hang
no hopes upon Republican concessions.
The Republicans of the House committee were more
yielding than their party brethren of the Senate com
mittee, and the prospect seemed for a time The proceed-
fairly good that this committee might be able House" com!
to agree upon a modus vivendi between the ™ttee.
North and the South. It had been at work, however,
for nearly a month, without attaining a final result,
when the Senate committee reported inability to agree.
There was indeed some ground for believing that it too
would fail to accomplish anything, certainly in the
minds of those who were indifferent to its failure or suc
cess. Five days more now passed after the Senate commit
tee's report without the reaching of any conclusion by
the House committee. Already on the 13th of Decem
ber, Mr. Reuben Davis, member of the committee from

102 THE CIVIL WAE
the Mississippi delegation, had procured from some
twenty of his Southern associates in Congress a man-
The mani- if esto to their constituents and to the people
Blube?D^B of the South generally, in which it was de-
»pd his asBo- clared that " all hope of relief in the Union,
South. through the agencies of committees, congres
sional legislation, or constitutional amendments, is ex
tinguished, and we trust the South will not be deceived
by appearances or the pretence of new guarantees. The
Republicans are resolute in the purpose to grant noth
ing that will or ought to satisfy the South. We are sat
isfied that the honor, safety, and independence of the
Southern people are to be found only in a Southern
Confederacy, a result to be obtained only by separate
State secession, and that the sole and primary aim of
each slaveholding State ought to be its speedy and ab
solute separation from an unnatural and hostile Union."
This was the tenor of almost all of the information
furnished the Southern people from their representa-
Hesitationof tivcs in Washington during that fateful
the Southern month. Still the Southern people hesitated.
people. ^ ^
Eight of the most reputable citizens of Geor
gia joined in a telegram to Senators Douglas and Crit
tenden, dated at Atlanta, December 26th, inquiring of
these Senators, if the advices from Mr. Toombs that
there were no hopes for Southern rights in the Union
were correct, and declaring that they were for the Union
if only their rights would be respected therein. These
loyal Senators replied that Southern rights, as the rights
of every " State" and section, could be protected in the
Union, and exhorted them not to despair of the Republic.
The progress of secession was evidently halting, and it
appeared still possible to arrest it peaceably, when the
Senators from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida,
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas held that fateful caucus

SECESSION 103
of January 5, 1861, and sent out from it the advice to
the people of these Commonwealths to secede from the
Union. The Republican historians generally
ascribe the passage of secession ordinances by of southern
these "States" to that advice. The seces- Janua""?!
sionist historians, on the other hand, regard ^^^'
this view as erroneous. These latter declare that seces
sion was a great popular movement, and that the influ
ence of the Southern members of Congress at Washington
was in restraint of it, rather than calculated or intended
to advance it. Mr. Davis, in his work upon the " Rise
and Fall of the Confederate Government," gives the text
of the resolutions adopted by this caucus and sent to the
constituents of its members. They read as follows :
"Resolved, that in our opinion, each of the States
should, as soon as may be, secede from the Union ; that
provision should be made for a convention to organize
a confederacy of the seceding States, the convention to
meet not later than the flf teenth of February, at the city
of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama ; that in view
of the hostile legislation that is threatened against the se
ceding States, and which may be consummated before the
fourth of March, we ask instructions whether the dele
gations are to remain in Congress until that date, for
the purpose of defeating such legislation ; and that a
committee, consisting of Messrs. Davis, Slidell, and Mal
lory, be and are hereby appointed to carry out the object
of this meeting."
Mr. Davis said, " the signiflcance of these resolutions
was the admission that we could no longer advise delay,
and even that was unimportant under the ^^^ Davis's
circumstances, for three of the States con- interpretationof the resolu-
cemed had taken final action on the subject tions of the
before the resolutions could have been com
municated to them." Mr. Davis referred, of course, to

104 THE CIVIL WAE
the passage of the secession ordinances by the conven
tions in Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama, which took
place on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of January, respectively.
Mr. Davis does not, it is true, explain why resolutions
adopted on the 5th of the month at Washington could
not have been communicated to the secession conven
tions at Jackson, Tallahassee, and Montgomery before
the 9th, 10th, and 11th of the month, with telegraphic
lines and postal service in full operation between Wash
ington and the principal cities in the South, nor does he
assert that they were not. He simply claimed that they
could not have been. In this he may have been mis
taken, although it is hardly probable.
Mr. Davis said again and again that the great mass of
the people of Mississippi considered him too slow, and
Mr. Davis that somc suspccted him of a stronger attach-
too slow, mgnt to the Union than to the rights of the
South. He certainly did take a more serious view of
the situation than did most of his Southern colleagues.
He expressed the opinion that war would follow, and
that the South was not well prepared for that eventual
ity. He declared, however, that, as a firm believer in
the doctrine of the sovereignty of his " State," he would
obey her decision.
While, then, it is probably true that the Republican
historians have somewhat exaggerated the importance of
True esti- the event of January 5th in making it the
CTOTto^jann! causc of the passage of the secession ordi-
"ysth. nances by all of the "Cotton States," ex
cept South Carolina, yet we must still hold that it re
moved the last obstacle out of the way of that course of
procedure. Had the advice of the caucus been the ex
act opposite to what it was, it is certainly very probable
that not another " State " would have joined South Car
olina in her mad project.

SECESSION 105
Whether the resolutions of this caucus became imme
diately known to the President, and whether, therefore,
they exerted any influence in provoking him
to his special message of January 8th (1861), dent's special
we are not able with certainty to say. The januaiy^ Ith,
suspicion, however, that such was the case ^^^'
is very natural, and there is internal evidence of it in
the message itself. The President was now fully under
the influence of the Unionist members of the reorgan
ized Cabinet, although General Dix did not come into
the Cabinet until the 11th. He evidently consulted only
the Unionist members in the preparation of this mes
sage. In it, he flrmly declared that he must execute the
laws of the United States throughout the entire extent
of the country with all the means, both civil and mili
tary, placed in his hands, and that he purposed to do so.
He appealed to Congress to settle the differences by
compromise and mutual concession, but at the same
time he affirmed that the right and duty of the Presi
dent "to use military force defensively against those
who resist the Federal officers in the execution of their
legal functions, and against those who assail the prop
erty of the Federal Government, are clear and unde
niable." He informed Congress that he had not, to that time,
sent any re-enforcements to Charleston Harbor, in order
not to arouse any excitement there, and he sent with
the message an extract from a communication from
Major Anderson, which contained information that,
contrary to assurances, the South Carolinians were pre
paring for a hostile movement, and also the statement
that the transfer of his command from Fort Moultrie to
Fort Sumter had been caused by the conviction that the
troops were in great danger of being captured in Fort
Moultrie. The President also transmitted with his

106 THE CIVIL WAE
message the communications which had passed between
him and the South Carolina commissioners.
At the date of this message all the forts and coast de
fences in South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, except
The seizure ^o^t Sumter, had been seized by the respec-
of the forts. tjyg "State" authorities, although Georgia
and Alabama had not yet enacted their secession ordi
nances. It is now a well-settled fact that these seizures
were made in Georgia and Alabama upon the advice of
the men who still sat in the Congress of the United
States, as Senators and Representatives from those
Commonwealths. It was evident from the tone of President Buchanan's
message that he had nerved himself to do something for
™^ ..„. the vindication of the authority of the Gov-
of the West'- emment. On the very day that the message
was read in Congress, it was revealed to the
world what it was. He had most naturally resolved
to strengthen Major Anderson's garrison in Fort Sum
ter su^ciently to enable it to hold the place against
attack. He had sent re-enforcements and supplies to
the Major from New York on the steamer " Star of
the West." This vessel reached Charleston Harbor on
the 9th (January), and attempted to approach Fort
Sumter. It was flred upon, by the South Carolinians,
from Fort Moultrie and Morris Island, and was struck.
It then put back, and returned to New York, without
having reached Fort Sumter at all. The South Caro
linians had raised the hand of violence against the Gov
ernment of the United States, and the whole military
power of the United States ought to have been sent at
once to the support of Fort Sumter, and for the recapt
ure of the United States property in South Carolina.
The firing upon the " Star of the West" was really the
beginning of the war of the rebellion. The United

SECESSION 107
States Government had just as much right to send troops
to Fort Sumter, as to keep troops in Port Sumter. The
constitutional right to do both was perfect, and firing
upon United States soldiers going to Fort Sumter, un
der orders from the President, was just as much a hos
tile act as firing upon United States soldiers in Fort
Sumter. The Administration simply chose not to so
regard it. President Buchanan was resolved to avoid
the issue of arms, if he possibly could do so. Congress
was not prepared for it, and it is not certain that the
people of the North would then have rallied to the
President's support. And so, a distinction was made be
tween resistance to the Government on its way to Fort
Sumter and resistance to the Government already in
Fort Sumter, in order to avoid accepting the gage of
battle thrown down by the South Carolinians. It does
seem, however, that a determined President, in com
mand of ten thousand good soldiers might, at the mo
ment, have nipped the rebellion in the bud. The legal
right to act, and the legitimate occasion for acting, were
both perfect. It was the physical means, and the dis
position to use them, that were lacking.
As it was, the ignominious backdown of the Adminis
tration encouraged the secessionists and humiliated the
North. The Secretary of the Interior, Mr. The effect of
Thompson, of Mississippi, and the Secretary reue'e'iitjor
of the Treasury, Mr. Thomas, of Maryland, Anderson.
now resigned, declaring that in attempting to re-enforce
Major Anderson the President had broken his pledges,
and that they could therefore remain no longer in con
nection with him. The appointment of General John
A. Dix of New York to the secretaryship of the Treas
ury, and the transfer of Mr. Holt to the War Department
now, however, placed the Administration upon much
firmer ground, so that, after all, the " Star of the

108 THE CIVIL WAE
West "affair was not wholly injurious. The Cabinet
was, at last, purged of the secessionist element and be
came solidly and sincerely loyal to the Union.
Two days after the repulse of the "Star of the West"
from Charleston Harbor, Governor Pickens demanded
The demand of Major Andcrsou the surrender of Fort
Hck^ns'To" Sumter. The Major refused, but suggested
of^FOTTs™- that, if the Governor would refer the matter
te"". to the President, he would send one of his
own subordinates to bear the communication. The
Governor immediately deputed his Attorney-General,
I. W. Hayne, to go to Washington and demand the sur
render of Fort Sumter. When Mr. Hayne arrived in
Washington, the Senators from Georgia, Alabama, Mis
sissippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas immediately met
him, and persuaded him not to make this demand of
the President until their " States " could form a con
federation with each other and with South Carolina.
They agreed with Mr. Hayne that, in consideration of
his delay, they would themselves jointly request the
President to give an assurance that the garrison in Fort
Sumter would not be re-enforced. They made the re
quest, and the President, through the Secretary of War,
immediately declined to give any such assurance, but
distinctly declared that, if Major Anderson's safety
should require re-enforcements, every effort would be
made to supply them. This happened on the 22d of
January. Meanwhile Congress had continued its efforts for
pacification. The House Committee had reported on
the 13th. It, too, had been unable to come
The contin- .
uance of the to any unanimous agreement. Two renorts
effortsofCon- ii. j. i -, , ,, ..
gress for paci- were therefore presented from the commit-
cation. j.gg_ rpjjg cbairman of the committee, Mr.
Corwin, presented the report of the majority. This re-

SECESSION 109
port denounced the acts of Northern "State" Legislat
ures for obstructing the execution of the Fugitive Slave
law, and the conduct of mobs and combinations of pri
vate persons for the same purpose, as contrary to the
Constitution, inconsistent with comity and good neigh
borhood between the " States," and dangerous to the
peace of the Union ; and recommended the repeal of all
such legislative acts, and in their stead the passage of
laws securing the rights of the citizens of each " State "
in every other, and requiring the punishment of all
persons guilty of attempting to set on foot the invasion
of any "State" or Territory, or aiding or abetting
therein. This report also declared the existence of
slavery in fifteen " States " of the Union, and affirmed
that no authority outside of the "State" concerned
could deal with the institution in that " State"; but
pronounced it to be "the duty of the Federal Gov
ernment to enforce the Federal laws, protect the Feder
al property, and preserve the Union of the States," and
denied that there was any sufficient cause, coming from
any quarter, for the dissolution of the Union.
The practical propositions of the report were, first,
an amendment to the Constitution, which should pro
vide against the initiation of any future amendment in
regard to slavery, except at the instance of a " State "
in which slavery existed, and against the ratification of
any such amendment when thus proposed, except by the
vote of every " State " of the Union ; second, an amend
ment to the Congressional act for the rendition of fugi
tives from justice, so as to give the "State" from
which the fugitive should escape full jurisdiction over
the case and secure the rendition by means of the United
States courts ; and, third, the immediate admission of
New Mexico as a " State" in^o the Union with such ter
ritorial dimensions as to ¦'^ almost all the domain of

110 THE CIVIL WAE
the Union south of the line of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes to slavery.
Seven of the Southern members of the committee
joined in a minority report, the propositions of which
were substantially the Crittenden scheme presented to
the Senate.
Finally, two of the Northern members, Mr. M. W.
Tappan of New Hampshire and Mr. G. C. Washburn
of Wisconsin, made another minority report, which con
cluded with a proposed resolution, reading as follows :
" Resolved, that the provisions of the Constitution are
ample for the preservation of the Union, and the pro
tection of all the material interests of our country ; that
it needs to be obeyed rather than amended ; and that
our extrication from our present difficulties is to be
looked for in efforts to preserve and protect the public
property and enforce the laws, rather than in new guar
antees for particular interests, or compromises, or con
cessions to unreasonable demands."
Before, however, these reports were debated at all in
the House, a resolution was passed in the Senate which
Mr Clark's ^PP^^^'^d to put an end to all attempts at any
resolution in compromise in which it should be necessary
for that body to participate. On the 3d day
of January, Mr. Crittenden had again presented in the
Senate his resolutions of December 18th, which, as we
have seen, were offered by the Southerners in the com
mittee of the Senate as the basis of a compromise. In
the midst of the discussion upon them in the Senate,
Mr. Clark, of New Hampshire, gave notice that he
should move a substitute for them whicli read : " Re
solved, that the provisions of the Constitution are ample
for the preservation of the Union, and the protection of
all the material interests of the country ; that it needs
to be obeyed rather than amended ; and that an extrica-

SECESSION 111
tion from the present dangers is to be looked for in
strenuous efforts to preserve the peace, protect the public
property, and enforce the laws, rather than in new guar
antees for particular interests, compromises for particu
lar difficulties, or concessions to unreasonable demands ;
that all attempts to dissolve the present Union, or over
throw or abandon the present Constitution, with the
hope or expectation of constructing a new one, are dan
gerous, illusory and destructive ; that in the opinion of
the Senate of the United States, no such reconstruction
is practicable, and therefore to the maintenance of the
existing Union and Constitution should be directed the
energies of all the departments of the Government, and
the efforts of all good citizens."
On the 15th (January), Mr. Clark moved the adoption
of this substitute for Mr. Crittenden's propositions ; and
on the 16th the motion was actually voted, by „
•i ' J Passage of
a majority of twenty-five against twenty- Mr. ciark's
three, through the abstention of six Southern
Senators, viz., Benjamin and Slidell of Louisiana, Hemp
hill and Wigfall of Texas, Iverson of Georgia, and John
son of Arkansas. The Senators from the " States "
which had passed secession ordinances had ceased to act,
and Mr. Toombs of Georgia was not present. Had he
been, he would no doubt have acted with the other six.
In fact, it is asserted on good authority that it was with
his knowledge and counsel that the six abstained from
voting, though in their seats, in order to be able to say to
the people of the South that the Senate had refused any
compromise whatsoever. It is certainly true that Mr.
Benjamin telegraphed to the people of Louisiana, imme
diately after this vote, the fateful words : "We cannot
get any compromise." Senator Andrew Johnson de
clared that he sat just behind Mr. Benjamin when the
vote was being taken, and that he asked Mr. Benjamin

112 THE CIVIL WAE
why he would not vote, and that Mr. Benjamin replied
that " he would control his own action without consult
ing me or anybody else." Mr. Johnson then and there
divined his purpose and retorted, " vote and show your
self an honest man."
On the 18th, Mr. Cameron moved to reconsider the
vote upon Mr. Clark's propositions, and the Senate passed
Reconsider- the motion, SO that the Crittenden measures
o?Mk'Bres"n- ^^'^^ restored to the calendar of the Senate.
tions. B^t the vote of the 16th had done the work
for the secessionists. The Georgia convention passed
its secession ordinance on the 19th, and the Louisiana
convention did likewise on the 25th, making thus the
original six that formed the Southern Confederacy.
The delegations from these " States " in the House of
Representatives withdrew from that body as the passage
Withdrawal ot the Secession ordinance in their respective
ern^senatoM " States " was officially announced to them.
Suve'^^srom They took their leave generally through the
Congress. form of cards, signed jointly by the mem
bers of each delegation, through which they informed
the House of the secession of their "States" from the
Union, and expressed the opinion that this act worked
the revocation of their own representative functions.
A few of them indulged in speeches, reproaching the
North, the Government and the Republicans, and bid
ding them defiance.
On the other hand, the Senators from Mississippi, Ala
bama, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana made farewell ad
dresses, each for himself. Mr. Toombs of Georgia and
Mr. Brown of Mississippi were the only exceptions. They
allowed themselves to be represented by their respective
colleagues, Mr. Iverson and Mr. Davis. Between the
21st of January and the 4th of February, the Senators
listened to the words of their departing colleagues.

SECESSION 113
One would naturally expect to find in these speeches
an enumeration of the grievances imposed upon the
•' seceding States " by the Government, from The fareweu
whose jurisdiction they now declared them- Jhe^^southem
selves withdrawn, but nothing of the kind 8enat<""«-
was offered. When reference was made to the tyranny
of the Government at all, it was tyranny anticipated,
not tyranny actually existing. To that moment all the
departments of the Government had accorded everything
which the slaveholders had demanded for the security
of their peculiar institution. It was impossible for
them to accuse it of tyranny in regard to any of its
measures whatever. These Senators were, therefore,
reduced to the necessity of proclaiming, as their only
grievance against the Government, the prospect that af
ter the 4th of the following March, the President and a
majority of the House of Representatives in Congress
would belong to a party which had declared that it would
resist by all lawful means the further spread of slavery,
because it thought that slavery was wrong.
In default of any actual grievances against the Gov
ernment of the United States, these men were obliged
to seek some elsewhere. They arraigned the Legislat
ures of the Northern Commonwealths for their per
sonal liberty laws in defiance of the fugitive slave pro
vision of the Constitution, and the Fugitive Slave Act
of Congress, and at last they presented as their oppressor
the anti-slavery spirit of the North. Against this some
of them were exceedingly bitter.
There is no doubt that the personal liberty laws of
some of the Northern Commonwealths, while intended
only, in most cases, to protect their own col- ^_ pergonal
ored citizens against kidnapping, did come uberty" laws
.,, ,, -r~, .,• Ol A J. i! IntheNorth.
into conflict with the Fugitive Slave Act of
Congress ; but the remedy for that in our system was a
Von. I.— 8

114 THE CIVIL WAE
decision of the United States Courts against the validity
of such laws, and the execution of the Fugitive Slave
law by the United States Government. In fact that
remedy had been applied, as we have seen, even to the
extent of employing the military power in the enforce
ment of that law, and nobody had spoken of this as the
coercion of a " sovereign State." The Supreme Court
of the United States had decided eighteen years before,
as we have seen, that the sole responsibility for exe
cuting the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution
rested upon the United States Government, upon Con
gress to provide the means and measures, and upon the
President and the courts to enforce them. Even though,
therefore, these personal liberty laws of some of the
Northern Commonwealths did come into conflict with
the Constitution and laws of the United States, they
could be regarded as violations of the "Compact" in
no other sense than any other Commonwealth law
which might be declared to be in this situation, and
they required no other remedy ; while as to the griev
ances against the anti-slavery spirit of the North, we
"an only say, as Lincoln said two years before this re
markable episode took place in the Senate chamber, that
they meant that the secessionists would not be satisfied,
except upon the condition that the people of the North
should think and feel and express themselves upon the
subject of slavery as they themselves did. Congress
and the President and the Courts had interpreted their
rights under the " Compact " as they themselves had
dictated. But this was not enough. The conscience of
the North must be forced, so as to make it certain that
the departments of the Government never would in
terpret and execute the " Compact " in any other way.
It is simply marvellous that the unnaturalness, the ab
surdity, and the monstrous character of such a demand

SECESSION 115
did not appear to the minds of these able men of the
South. If any of them saw it in the faintest degree in
its true light, they did not give the slightest evidence
of it. They all spoke with an air of sincerity, boldness,
and patronizing condescension, which is produced by a
consciousness of right and of power, mingled with an
imperious disposition. Not one of them manifested the
faintest suspicion that their project could fail. Not one
of them had any adequate appreciation of the energy and
determination which would be roused in the North in
behalf of the Union by the attempt to destroy it. Sen
ator Iverson, of Georgia, seemed to think that the North
would be paralyzed by his declaration that it would cost
the North one hundred thousand men and one hundred
millions of dollars to make conquest of the South.
On the other hand, the Republicans were so honest in
their assurances that they meant to obey the Constitu
tion to the letter in regard to slavery as in The seces-
regard to everything else, that they could ment'n™t°ap^
not believe the secessionists were sincere in fhe^'^pnbii^
their imputation of abolition purposes to '""'^•
them, to be effected by any and every means. And they
were incredulous in regard to the threats of breaking up
the Union on such flimsy pretexts. Mr. Slidell said that,
if the South should remain in the Union after the in
auguration of Mr. Lincoln, the slaves would revolt in
many parts of the South against their masters and cause
bloodshed. He said they had been taught that Lincoln's
Administration would lend them the hand in such work.
The reply of the Republicans to this was that nobody
but their own masters had taught them to expect such
things from the incoming Republican Administration,"
and for that the Republicans could not be held respon
sible, especially when they had constantly disavowed
any such purposes and had incorporated in their plat-

ll6 THE CIVIL WAR
form of 1860 a most scathing denunciation of the John
Brown raid.
In fact it seemed that Mr. Rhett correctly represented
the feelings of the secessionists when he affirmed that the
secession movement had been in preparation for thirty
years, and had at last only culminated on the occasion
of the election of Lincoln to the presidency.
On the day that the Louisiana Senators made their
adieus to the Senate, February 4th, the first step was
The forma- taken in the formation of the Southern
southemoon- Confederacy. The conventions in the six
federacy. " States," which had passed the secession or
dinance, had also elected delegates to meet in a general
convention at Montgomery, Alabama, on the 4th of
February following, for the purpose of forming a con
federation of these " States," establishing a provisional
government for the confederation, and electing a pro
visional executive.
The Republican and Abolitionist historians have in
dulged in certain criticisms upon the forms and meth
ods employed by the secessionists in passing the seces
sion ordinances and creating the new confederacy. The
gist of these criticisms is that these things were done by
" State" conventions instead of by the direct act of the
people, as our system of democracy would have required.
The criticism is not, however, well founded. The Con
stitution of the United States was framed by delegates
elected either by " State " Legislatures or by conventions
within the " States," and ratified by conventions within
the " States " ; and its provision for future amendment
speaks only of Congress, "State" Legislatures, and con
Ventions within the " States," as the bodies for effecting
changes in the organic law. The Constitution of the
United States knows nothing of a direct appeal to the
people in any of these cases. The secessionists, there-

SECESSION 117
fore, followed our constitutional precedents in passing
their secession ordinances and establishing their new
Confederacy by means of conventions in their "States."
They argued that, as they had confided powers to the
United States Government by the acts of conventions
within the several " States," they could withdraw them
in the same manner — yea, that they must so withdraw
them, if they withdrew them at all ; and that, as they
had withdravra themselves from the old Confederation of
1781 to form the Union of 1787, by the acts of conven
tions within the respective " States," they could with
draw themselves from the Union of 1787 in the same
manner — yea, must so withdraw themselves, if they
withdrew at all. The demands of their critics that these
movements should have been submitted to the direct
suffrages of the people are thus seen to be based, not
upon the precedents and analogies of our constitutional
law and practice, but upon the theories of an advanced
democracy. If the secessionists had any right to do
what they did do, the manner in which they accom
plished it cannot be successfully assailed.
The first problem with which the delegates from these
"State" conventions had to wrestle was, of course,
confederation. It required, however, only The provi-
three days to solve this problem. On the '^^^^ ^f J^^
8th day of the month (February) they or- confederacy.
dained and declared the union of the six "States"
represented in the convention under a provisional con
stitution, which was to continue in force for one year,
unless a permanent constitution should take its place
before the expiration of that period. This provisional
constitution was, in substance, the Constitution of the
United States, altered in a few points to fit the condi
tions of a provisory organization, to make express those
particular interpretations which the secessionists had

118 THE CIVIL WAE
put upon the old instrument, and to add such improve
ments as the experiences of these men under the work
ing of the old system had suggested to them.
They naturally declared in the preamble that the
provisory constitution was formed by delegates from
sovereign and independent " States " ; and they con
sistently changed the language of the provision of the
Constitution of the United States in regard to the tax
ing powers of the Government so as to prohibit the en
actment of a protective tariff, and also the language of
the provision concerning the rendition of fugitive slaves
so as to impose that duty upon the Governor of the
"State" in which the fugitive should be found.
The reasons for these changes and modifications lie on
the surface, and need no further examination. We find,
however, in Section 7 of Article I. of this provisory in
strument some divergencies from the provisions of the
Constitution of the United States upon the same sub
ject, for which the reasons are not apparent. This sec
tion of the constitution of the new Confederacy provides
that, "the importation of African negroes from any
foreign country, other than the slaveholding States
of the United States, is hereby forbidden " . . . and
" that Congress shall have power to prohibit the intro
duction of slaves from any State not a member of this
Confederacy." Apparently, the charge freely indulged in at the
North, that the " cotton States " were planning and in
triguing to reopen the African slave-trade, was here fully
and completely refuted. These provisions can, however,
be interpreted in another way, a less generous way in
deed, but perhaps more in accordance with the intentions
of their framers — that is, as an inducement to the other
slaveholding "States," which furnished the "cotton
States " with slaves, especially to Maryland and Virginia,

SECESSION 119
to join the Confederacy which the " cotton States " were
forming. The provisions were drawn, whether con
sciously or not, with most subtile adaptability to the
production of that result. Here was a constitutional pro
vision protecting the great profits of the slave-producing
"States" in the domestic slave-trade against foreign
competition, coupled with a provision giving the new
Confederate Congress the power to destroy these profits
altogether if these "States" should not enter the Con
federacy. Once within the Confederacy, and the inde
pendence of the Confederacy won, that clause in the
Confederate constitution prohibiting the foreign slave-
trade might be repealed. Was this one of the reasons
for making the process of amendment easier in the Con
federate constitution than it was in the Constitution of
the United States ? One would think that the " State
sovereignty " principle would have required it to be made
much more difficult.
On account of the necessity for speedy action, the con
vention made itself the legislative body of the provi
sional government, and conferred upon itself The election
in this capacity the power to elect the pro- d^ent*<?the
visional President and Vice-President. There Sidfteo^m:
was not much question in the provisional conTederSe
Congress as to who should be the President. Government.
Mr. Davis stood head and shoulders above all the others.
Besides being the prime representative of the doctrine
of " State sovereignty," and the clearest mind among
them, he had had the most varied experience in public
life. He, as we know, had been soldier, legislator, and
high executive officer. No one else was seriously con
sidered except Mr. Toombs ; and he, though a very brill
iant man, was thought of more on account of the claims
of his " State," as the " Empire State " of the Confeder
acy, than because of his own fitness for office. Of the

120 THE CIVIL WAR
two, Mr. Davis was far the calmer, more conservative,
more prudent and judicious. The choice was the best
that could have been made, although the downfall of the
Confederacy under his leadership has made many South
erners feel that it was a mistake. The historian knows,
however, that, in the great plan of history, there was
not the slightest chance for the success of secession in
these United States, and sees, from the point of view of
the world's history, that Mr. Davis might have done bet
ter, if only he had not done so well.
Mr. Davis denied ever having made any effort to se
cure the presidency, or ever having entertained any de
sire for it. He declared that he preferred the military
office, which had already been conferred upon him by
Mississippi, that of commanding general of her army.
He took no part in the convention at Montgomery,
and was at "Briarfield," his plantation home, when
he was elected President. He, however, accepted
proniptly the great burden, and started almost imme
diately for Montgomery to assume the functions of
the office.
On the other hand, the selection made for the vice-
presidency was more deserving of criticism. The chances
The Vice- ^0^ the succession of the Vice-President to
President. ^}^g gpg^ office by an accidental termination
of the life of the President, or by his capture in war, were
much greater than the average of chances in such cases.
The Vice-President ought, therefore, to have been a man
of the same character, equipment, and experience as the
President. Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia,
the man finally selected, was far from this. Physically
he was weak, and appeared insignificant. He was also
inclined to pedantry in his knowledge, and, therefore,
little fitted for executive office. Moreover, he was an
old-line Whig, and altogether half-hearted in his seces-

SECESSION 121
sionism. He had to prod himself continually to keep his
courage up. The reasons for his selection were almost
purely political. They were to attach the old Whigs to
the secession movement, and to satisfy the claims of
Georgia for office.
The selection of the members of the Cabinet was also
governed too largely by political considerations. One
portfolio was given to each " State " forming
the Confederacy, except Mississippi, which confederate
had the presidency, and one was given to ^'^'°®''
Texas, whose convention had passed the secession ordi
nance on the 1st of February, but on account of the
irregular method of its assembly, and for other less hon
orable reasons, had submitted the ordinance to the peo
ple, who had not yet voted upon it.
In anticipation of the popular ratification of the
ordinance, the Texas convention had voted to join the
Confederacy, and had elected delegates to „
,„•' . m Texas joms
the Confederate convention-congress. Texas the oonfed-
was, therefore, virtually a member of the ^'
Southern Confederacy, while her Representatives and
Senators were still in Congress at Washington, doing
what they could to embarrass the Government of the
United States, and revealing to the Confederate Gov
ernment at Montgomery everything taking place at
Washington. The way in which the Texan secession
ists proceeded was most dishonorable and reprehensible.
They insulted, threatened, and bullied their grand old
Governor, Sam Houston, the father of their country,
and when he would not yield to their demand to call
the Legislature together in extra session, they called it
themselves, without any regard to the provision of the
constitution of the Commonwealth vesting that power
solely in the Governor. After having in this irregular
manner assembled the Legislature, and then, through it.

122 THE CIVIL WAR
the convention, they referred the secession ordinance,
passed by the convention, to the voters, but, as we have
seen, resolved in the convention to join the Southern
Confederacy, and elected in the convention delegates to
the Confederate convention-congress. Finally, after the
voters had ratified the ordinance, the Senators and Rep
resentatives from the Commonwealth at Washington
still remained in their places, until the convention at
Austin could pass the formal act declaring the " State "
out of the Union. A period of one month and four days
thus elapsed between the first passage of the secession
ordinance and the flnal act of the convention, during a
part of which period the " State " of Texas was repre
sented both at Washington and Montgomery, and in
both places by secessionists, those at Washington keep
ing those at Montgomery fully informed of what any
honorable man would have regarded himself bound by
his solemn oath, as a member of the National Legis
lature, to have kept sacredly locked in his own bosom
against the enemies of the United States.
But to return to the composition of the flrst Confed
erate Cabinet. The principle of selection, as we have
The compo- Seen, was to give each " State " one place, and
caMnlt re^ then let the delegates from the " State" in
Bumed. {;}jg convention-congress designate the man.
The flrst Cabinet composed in this manner consisted of
Mr. Toombs of Georgia, Secretary of State ; Mr. Walker
of Alabama, Secretary of War ; Mr. Memminger of
South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury ; Mr. Mallory
of Florida, Secretary of the Navy; Mr. Benjamin of
Louisiana, Attorney-General, and Mr. Reagan of Texas,
Postmaster-General. Of these only two were men of
great ability, Toombs and Benjamin, and both of these
had grave faults. Toombs was too impulsive and Ben-
^min was too much given to intrigue.

SECESSION 123
On the 18th day of February, Mr. Davis was inaugu
rated and the machinery of the new Government put
into operation. The inaugural address was ,j,^^ ^^^
short, and hardly equal to the average efforts ration of Pres-
... Li Ti 1 ¦ •• . , , Ident Davis.
of its author. It contained no statement
of grievances, but it pronounced the doctrine that the
secession movement was an illustration of " the Ameri
can idea that governments rest on the consent of the
governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter
or abolish them at will whenever they become destruc
tive of the ends for which they were established." He
claimed that the " seceding States" had merely asserted
the right which the Declaration of Independence
defined as inalienable, and that each of them, as
sovereign, was the final judge for itself of the time and
the occasion for the exercise of this right. He drew
from these premises the conclusion that the act of
secession was not revolutionary, but that the " States "
forming the new Confederacy had simply changed "the
agent through which they communicated with foreign
nations," and that if the United States should still un
dertake to assert jurisdiction over the "seceded States"
the act would be offensive war. He expressed the hope,
but not the expectation, that they would be allowed to
go in peace. He evidently looked for war, and recom
mended the creation of a regular army and navy of the
Confederacy, and hinted at the advantages which the
legalization of privateering might produce. At this
day, the address impresses one as being weak and totally
fallacious, as containing a theory of government little
removed from anarchy, and a doctrine in reference to
the offensive and defensive entirely reversed from truth
and fact.
While these movements were in progress at Mont
gomery, the Union-savers were exerting themselves at

124 THE CIVIL WAR
Washington both within and without Congress, and
the Union-destroyers were at work in the other slave-
holding Commonwealths, those not yet in
tion of the ef- the ncw Confederacy, upon their counter
forts to save .
the Union at plan.
Washington. q^ ^.j^^ self-samc day that the Confederate
convention met at Montgomery, a Union Peace confer
ence assembled at Washington in answer to a call issued
by the Virginia Legislature on the 19th of January pre
ceding. All the non-slaveholding Commonwealths, ex
cept Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, and
Oregon, and all of the slaveholding Commonwealths
which had not passed secession ordinances, except Ar
kansas and Texas, were represented. That is, thirteen
non-slaveholding, and seven slaveholding. Common
wealths participated in the conference. The delegates
chosen by the Legislatures or Governors of these respec
tive Commonwealths were all men of the highest charac
ter, and of great influence in all conservative circles.
Such men as Fessenden and Morrill of Maine, Chitten
den and Harris of Vermont, Forbes, Crowninshield,
Boutwell, and Allen of Massachusetts, Hoppin and Ar
nold of Rhode Island, Baldwin and Battelle of Connect
icut, Dudley Field, Curtis Noyes, Wadsworth, Corning,
Dodge, King, and Wool of New York, Stockton, Pre-
linghuysen, and Price of New Jersey, Wilmot and
Franklin of Pennsylvania, Chase, Groesbeck, and Ewing
of Ohio, Smith and Orth of Indiana, Palmer and Stephen
Logan of Illinois, Harlan and Grimes of Iowa, Rodney
of Delaware, Howard and Reverdy Johnson of Maryland,
ex-President Tyler, Rives, and Seddon of Virginia, Ruf-
fin of North Carolina, Caruthers and Zollicoffer of Tenn
essee, Clay and Guthrie of Kentucky, and Doniphan of
Missouri, were sent upon this great mission of pacifica
tion. Certainly if there were not intellect and character

SECESSION 125
enough in such an assembly to effect a compromise of
interests between the warring sections of the country,
and invent a modus vivendi, it was to be feared that the
Nation did not possess them.
This body, under the chairmanship of the venerable
ex-President of the United States, John Tyler of Vir
ginia, wrestled with the mighty problem be
fore it from the 4th to the 27th of February, conyentfon
They were able to agree upon a series of rec- *" > » "or .
ommendations, which were offered to the two Houses of
Congress on the flrst and second days of March.
These recommendations provided : that slavery should
be prohibited in all the existing territory of the United
States lying above the latitude of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes ; that the existing slave status in the ter
ritory south of that line should not be changed ; that
neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature should
forbid or hinder the taking of slaves from any State into
the existing territory of the Union south of the latitude
thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes ; that neither
Congress nor a Territorial Legislature should pass any
law impairing the rights arising from the relation of
master and slave, but that the same should be subject to
judicial cognizance in the courts of the L^nited States,
according to the course of the common law ; and that
any Territory, north or south of said line, should, when
its population equalled that required for a Congressional
district within the " States," be admitted into the Union
as a " State," with or without slavery, as its constitution
might provide, on an equality with the original " States ":
That treaties by which territory should be annexed to
the United States, except for naval stations and depots,
or transit routes, must, to be valid, be ratified by a two-
thirds vote of the Senate, and that this two-thirds vote
must contain the votes of a majority of the Senators from

126 THE CIVIL WAR
the slaveholding "States," and also of a majority of
those from the non-slaveholding " States" :
That Congress should have no power to legislate in
regard to slavery in the " States," nor in those places
subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States,
but lying within the boundaries of slaveholding " States,"
nor in the District of Columbia, without the consent of
Maryland and the owners of the slaves within the Dis
trict, and the payment of damages to the non-consenting
owners ; that Congress should have no power to prevent
masters from bringing their-slaves into the District, re
taining them while there, and taking them away again ;
that Congress should have no power to prohibit the slave-
trade between " States " and Territories recognizing
slavery, nor, in case the traffic should be by water, pre
vent touching at points in non-slaveholding "States"
and Territories; and that Congress should have no
power to impose a higher tax on slaves than on land :
That the States should have the power to return,
through the operation of their own governmental instru
mentalities, fugitives from labor to the persons to whom
the labor was due ; and that Congress should pass eflB-
cient laws for carrying out faithfully the constitutional
prohibition on the foreign slave-trade.
The conference recommended that all of these pro
posed provisions should be made amendments to the
Constitution of the United States, and should be irre
pealable and unchangeable, except with the consent of
every " State " in the Union. The conference also rec
ommended that the existing provisions of the Constitu
tion in respect to fugitives from service or labor and in
respect to the counting of slaves in the apportionment
of Congressional representation and presidential electors
should be made irrepealable and unamendable, except
with the consent of every " State."

SECESSION 127
The conference recommended, finally, that the Consti
tution should be so amended as to require Congress to
provide for payment out of the Treasury of the United
States for escaped slaves whose rendition should be pre
vented by mobs or riotous assemblages, and to provide by
law for securing to the " citizens of each State the priv
ileges and immunities of citizens in the several States."
IDuring the first sittings of this conference its mem
bership had been increased by representatives from the
new non-slaveholding Commonwealth of Kansas, the act
for the admission of which was signed by the President
on the 29th of January preceding the assembly of the
conference. This made fourteen non-slaveholding Com
monwealths that were represented in this body to seven
slaveholding Commonwealths. The majority of the
non-slaveholding Commonwealths voted in the confer
ence against all of these recommendations, except only
those relating to the prohibition of the foreign slave-
trade and to the payment by the Government for slaves
whose rendition had been prevented by the action of
mobs or riotous assemblages. Delaware, Maryland, Ken
tucky, and Tennessee voted for all of them. North
Carolina voted against most of them. Missouri re
frained from voting on about half of them. And Vir
ginia finally declared her dissatisfaction with the series
as a whole, on the ground that it did not offer a sufficient
guarantee for all of her rights.
On the 27th of February the resolutions of the con
ference were laid before the Senate by the Vice-Presi
dent, Mr. Breckenridge. The Senate imme- Eesointions
diately referred them to a committee of five "nee b^°f'ore
persons, Mr. Crittenden, Mr. Bigler, Mr. the senate.
Thomson, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Trumbull, with instruc
tions to report on the next morning. On the 28th, Mr.
Crittenden reported to the Senate from the majority of

128 THE CIVIL WAR
this committee a resolution that the propositions of the
Peace conference should be recommended by Congress
to conventions in the several " States " for ratification
as amendments to the Constitution. Mr. Seward and
Mr. Trumbull offered an independent resolution that
Congress invite the " States " to apply for the calling of
a constitutional convention of the United States for the
initiation of such amendments to the Constitution as
would meet the existing emergencies. The resolution
from the majority was made a special order for the next
day, and when it was brought up Senator Douglas asked
that the resolutions from the House of Representatives
relative to amending the Constitution, just received in
the Senate, should be considered along with it. These
resolutions from the House of Representatives were the
propositions of the committee of thirty-three of that
body, already recited, which, with the exception of the
one in reference to the immediate admission of New
Mexico as a " State," and the one in reference to the
rendition of fugitives from justice, the House had, with
little change, adopted, on the 27th and 28th of Febru
ary. The Senate allowed the House resolutions to be
read, but laid them aside for the moment in order to
give its whole attention to the propositions of the Peace
conference and the resolution of its own committee in
reference thereto. Whereupon Senator Hunter, of Vir
ginia, immediately announced that he was not satisfied
with these propositions and moved to substitute Mr.
Crittenden's own series of resolutions, still on the calen
dar of the Senate, for them. Mr. Hunter's colleague,
Mr. Mason, sustained Mr. Hunter in the assertion that
the propositions of the Peace conference would not be
satisfactory to Virginia. With this it became entirely
manifest that their adoption by the Senate would be
useless.

SECESSION 129
While, thus, it may probably be truthfully charged
that Virginia rendered the work of the Peace conference
nugatory, and blocked the work of pacifica
tion upon that line, and while the motives the proposi-
in the minds of her leaders for so doing may Pe?ce confer*
have been reprehensible, still the historians ™''*'
and publicists of this day are not disposed to find much
fault with the result. The propositions of the Peace
conference ought to have failed, because they meant, in
the first place, the perpetuation of slavery as a perma
nent institution of the country, while the civilization of
the world was and is working toward the liberation of
all mankind ; because they meant, in the second place,
the prevention of the nationalization of our people by
confederatizing our political system, while the civili
zation of the world was and is making for the develop
ment of national states ; and because they meant, lastly,
the destruction of political and moral progress upon
many most important subjects, by withdrawing these
subjects from a possible method of constitutional amend
ment, while political science demands that the real
sovereign power in any political system shall be able
to change the constitution, through regular forms of
amendment, upon every subject. In a word, they would
have turned back the clock of the world's civilization an
entire century. They undertook to arrest the plans of
Providence in the evolution of the world's history.
After the attitude of the Virginia Senators had caused
the Senate to lay aside the propositions of the Peace
conference, Mr. Donglas succeeded in indue- ^^^^ ^^
ing the body to take up the resolutions trans- tempts in the
mitted from the House the day before. The the union by
chief one of these was the proposed constitu- """P"™*®-
tional amendment which provided that no future amend
ment to the Constitution should ever give Congress the
Vol. I.-9

130 THE CIVIL WAR
power to abolish, or interfere with, slavery within the
" States." This was the form which the recommenda
tion of the committee of thirty-three, that no future
amendment touching slavery should be initiated except
by a slave " State" or considered as ratified without the
approval of every " State," had taken on in its passage
through the House. It was now the 2d of March, and
it seemed that the adoption of these House resolutions
by the Senate was the only thing that Congress could do
for the pacification of the country. It was well known
that they did not satisfy the South. The Senators from
the "border States" declared that they were next to
nothing. Mr. Crittenden almost alone, under the per
suasions of Mr. Douglas, felt that they might exercise
some influence. These two patriotic men held the Sen
ate together through the long hours of the night of the
3d of March, and into the morning hours of the 4th, in
deliberation over the House resolutions, and, almost at
the last moment of the existence of that Congress, se
cured their adoption by the Senate. The last hours of
the Senate were passed in the attempt to pass the Crit
tenden resolutions also. This failed, as well as the
attempt to pass the proposition of the Peace conference
in the House.
What was offered to the South by Congress was a
proposition to disable the Nation from ever putting into
the hands of Congress the power to touch slavery within
the Commonwealths. From any point of view enough,
and from the point of view of sound political science
altogether too much.
However careful and desirous the impartial historian
may be to present the position of the secessionists in its
most favorable light, and however anxious he may be to
prevent the failure of their cause from prejudicing his
views of their motives and their reasoning, still he will

SECESSION 131
find it most difficult to understand why, in every sound
mind to-day, the Republican leaders are not to be con
sidered as having offered everything that
could have been expected from wise, honest, attitude tow
and sincere men for the pacification of the t f^n ^*su^
country, and, from the point of view of a "*'*™^-
sound political science, more than they ought to have
done. They always expressed themselves as ready to
vote for the calling of a national convention to consider
all grievances from whatever section coming, and thus
give time for passion and excitement to cool down, and
for misapprehensions to be corrected. They had not
yet taken the government of the Union into their hands,
and, therefore, they had done nothing to justify seces
sion, rebellion, or revolution, and they wanted to be
calmly heard as to what they proposed to do. The
secessionists, however, treated this proposition as a
mere subterfuge. It is difficult to believe that they
were moved to reject it from the conviction that it
was a subterfuge. It seems, rather, as if they wanted
to escape a plain statement of reasons and policies,
which the whole people might weigh and consider be
fore choosing the course which would lead to disunion
and war.
Again, the Republican leaders were ready to secure
slavery in the " States " where it was by an unchangeable
amendment to the Constitution, and they voted for the
proposed amendment providing that no future amend
ment to the Constitution should ever be made, which
would empower Congress to interfere with slavery in
the " States," and voted for it in such numbers as to
adopt it, by the requisite two-thirds majority, and that,
too, after the Senators and Representatives from six
of the Southern " States " had withdrawn from their
Seats.

132 THE CIVIL WAR
Still further, when the Crittenden, resolutions were
before the Senate, Mr. Anthony, speaking for the Re
publicans, on the 16th of January, offered to allow New
Mexico to be organized at once as a new slaveholding
" State," if the people of the Territory should so will it.
This Territory covered all the territory of the United
States south of the latitude of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes, except the Indian Territory, and its
northern boundary ran up at some points to the latitude
of thirty-eight degrees and a little higher. The Terri
tory did not. contain a population sufficient, under the
existing law of apportionment, to send one member to tha
House of Representatives in Congress, but the Repub
licans were willing to waive this requirement. The Re
publicans thought this virtual offer of New Mexico a fair
equivalent for the Crittenden measure dividing all the
existing Territories of the United States between the
North and the South by the line of thirty-six degrees and
thirty minutes. They preferred this form, because they
thought to escape thereby the reproach of having helped
to extend slavery by Congressional legislation, a thing
which they could not do without destroying the raison
d'etre of their party. But the Crittenden proposition
was not acceptable to the secessionists, unless amended,
as proposed by Mr. Powell, so as to cover all territory
then possessed, or thereafter to be acquired, by the
United States. From the point of view of the designs
on Cuba and Mexico, with slavery or without it, as their
inhabitants might decide, this did not appear to the seces
sionists an equivalent to the Crittenden-Powell proposi
tion. The Republicans, however, considered such an
incentive to foreign conquest as that contained in Mr.
Powell's amendment to be highly immoral, as it cer
tainly was.
Still further, the Republican leaders in Congresj

SECESSION 133
agreed, during the month of February, to the organiza
tion of the Territories of Colorado, Nevada, and Dakota
without any provision in the bills excluding slavery.
These three Territories covered almost all of the terri
tory of the United States north of the latitude of thirty-
six degrees and thirty minutes. They were therefore
open to slaveholders with their slaves, if they chose to
go into any of them ; and the United States Supreme
Court had, in its Dred Scott opinion, positively declared
the right of the slaveholders to go with their slaves into
any Territory of the Union.
Lastly, the Republican leaders acknowledged the peo.
pie of the North to be obligated by the Constitution to
return, or pay for, every fugitive slave that came into
their hands, and, also, acknowledged the duty of Con
gress to pass laws to punish the citizens of any Com
monwealth for going into any other for the purpose of
exciting, or attempting to excite, insurrection therein.
They were not willing, as individuals, to aid in the
execution of the Fugitive Slave law, but they declared
that all Commonwealth laws which contravened the
pledge in the Constitution for the rendition of fugitive
slaves ought to be repealed, and they were ready to em
power the Treasury of the United States to pay damages
to the slaveowner, whenever the officers of the Govern
ment should be prevented by popular violence from re
turning the fugitive.
To the historian, who regards the course of world
events from the vantage ground of the present, and to
the modern political scientist, these offered Criticism of
concessions of the Republicans appear alto- the Repubu-
gether too generous. They should never
have been willing to consent to the extension of slavery
over one foot of free territory, either by a positive act of
Congress, or an act omitting the restriction on slavery, or

134 THE CIVIL WAE
by an act encouraging the people of any Territory where
slavery already nominally and legally existed to make it
real and permanent. And they never should have been
willing to withdraw anything from the amending power
in the Constitution. This meant nothing less than the
confederatizing of the political system of the United
States, and the prevention of political progress by law
ful peaceable means. It meant a return to the system of
1781, as to the excepted subjects. It meant the reversal,
in principle, of the chief advance which we had made in
the development of our constitutional law from the sys
tem of 1781 to that of 1787. No publicist who has per
ceived the movement of modern political history toward
the development of national states can, for one moment,
approve of such a reactionary course. Instead of this,
he would demand that existing exceptions from the
amending power be expunged from the Constitution,
and that the amending power itself should be so formu
lated as only to guard the sovereign power of the Nation
from hasty and inconsiderate action, but never so as to
thwart its deliberate and well-determined purpose.
When now we consider that there was another great
party at the North, numbering almost as many adher
ents as the Republican party itself, which was ready to
yield to almost any demand, as the price of union, that
the secessionists might make, it is indeed difficult to ex
plain the irrationality, as well as the passionate precipi
tancy, of the secessionists, except upon the old Greek
maxim that "whom the gods would destroy they first
make mad."
We know now that the spirit of civilization was work
ing for much more advanced results than the Republicans
themselves consciously intended. Immediate abolition
of slavery in the Commonwealths, and thorough nation
alization of our political system, were consummations

SECESSION 135
far beyond their hopes. Their hearts had to be fired to
these results by the madness of the secessionists, who,
upon the basis of their "State sovereignty" theory,
sought to destroy the Union for the sake of perpetuat
ing and extending the institution of African slavery.
Not until then did the Republicans see that both slavery
and " State sovereignty " must go, and in their places
universal freedom and national sovereignty must be en
throned. This then was, in the plan of universal history, the
meaning of secession : The hastening of emancipation
and nationalization. The United States were lagging in
the march of modern civilization. Slavery and " State
sovereignty" were the fetters which held them back,
and these fetters had to be screwed down tight in order
to provoke the Nation to strike them off at one fell blow,
and free itself, and assert its supremacy, forevermore.
While the Government at Washington was thus wast
ing its time and energies in fruitless efforts at compro
mise and conciliation, the Confederate Gov- „ , , ,
. Confederate
ernment at Montgomery was securing and preparations
preparing the sinews of war. Every fort,
arsenal, navy yard, custom-house, post-office, and mint
within the boundaries of the seven " States," which had
by the 4th of March passed the secession ordinance, had
been seized by the troops of these respective " States,"
except only Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens and the forti
fications upon Key West and the Dry Tortugas. Presi
dent Buchanan's Secretary of War, Mr. John B. Floyd,
had sent large shipment of arms to these Southern arse
nals, and had taken care to place the larger part of the
regular army within the Southern "States." Conse
quently the " State " governments of the Confederacy,
and the Confederate Government found themselves fairly
well supplied at the outset with implements of war of

136 THE CIVIL WAE
the latest pattern possessed by the United States Gov
ernment ; and when, during the latter part of February,
General Twiggs, in command of about half of the United
States army, surrendered his troops, with all their arms,
munitions, and equipments to the Texan military au
thorities, the seven "States" of the Confederacy had in
their possession fully half of the military property of the
United States. It was calculated that they had seized
some thirty millions of dollars' worth of the property of
the United States.
The North regarded this as sheer robbery. The se
cessionists said that they had only taken their share,
and that they held it subject to future disposition by
agreement with the Government of the United States.
From the point of view of their doctrine, that the Gov
ernment at Washington was only the general agent em
ployed by the several "States" to administer the joint
affairs and property of a confederacy of sovereigns, they
had, perhaps, sufficient moral justification for calling
it a division rather than a robbery, had they taken only
a fair share, but they went far beyond that. From the
legal point of view, on the contrary, they had not the
slightest right to any part of it. From the legal point
of view these seizures were pure and simple robberies, and
could be cleared of the criminal character only by the
successful maintenance of the possession. In most cases
they had not even the justification of secession, since
they were made before the Commonwealths in which the
seized property was located or deposited had passed the
secession ordinance. It was the separate " State " gov
ernments rather than the Confederate Government upon
whom the immediate responsibility for these seizures
rested, but the chiefs of the Confederate Government,
while still in their seats, as members of Congress at
Washington, had advised their "States" to do these

SECESSION 137
things, and the Confederate Government became the
subsequent receiver of most of the property which these
" State " governments had seized. Throw the best light
upon it we may, it is still a dark spot for the Confeder
ates in the history of their movement.
The Government at Montgomery lost no time in work
ing up its military preparations. It simply adopted the
laws of the United States en bloc, except only such as
were inconsistent with the constitution of the Confed
eracy, and continued the existing United States officials
in office as Confederate officials, and then had free hand
to attend to its finances and its military organization.
Already before the end of March, it could have met the
Republican Administration at Washington with a mili
tary power greater than the United States had under
command, in better discipline, and possessed with a
better understood and more resolute purpose. When
Mr. Lincoln took his oath upon the Constitution, he
found himself called upon to meet a condition instead
of a theory.

CHAPTER V
THE INAUGUEATION OF LINCOLN AND THE CON
DITION OF THE GOVERNMENT HE WAS CALLED
TO ADMINISTER
Laws Give no Special Protection to the President-elect— Mr. Lin
coln's Journey to Washington — Mr. Lincoln in Washington as
President-elect — General Scott's Preparations for the Safety of
the Capital — The Inaugural Address — Review of the Address —
Criticism of a Part of the Address — ^Faint-heartedness at the
North — Democratic Attitude at the North — Lack of Support in
the Cabinet.
The Government of the United States does not
concern itself in the slightest degree about the personal
security of the President-elect of the conn-
Laws give "
no special pro- try. It Icavcs him to find his own Way to the
President- Capital and to the place of his inauguration.
Before he is invested with the powers of the
office to which he has been chosen, he must take care of
himself like any private citizen. After he is so invested,
he may, of course, take care of himself by public means.
The theory of this is that the people will do no harm to
him whom they have freely chosen to rule over them.
If this theory is sound in ordinary times and under ordi
nary conditions in elective governments, it certainly is
not so when passion runs to an extraordinary height,
and when large numbers of men declare their purpose
to resist the government of the chosen magistrate.
Mr. Lincoln could not but have felt that he took his
life in his hand when he set out upon his journey from
138

THE INAUGUEATION OF LINCOLN 139
Springfield to Washington. He was obliged to pass
through country where the inhabitants were, in large
numbers, intensely hostile to his election, and Mr Lin-
to his accession to power. He knew well to'^wasUn*'
enough that Southern men had, in 1856, ^¦o^
threatened, in the event of the election of Fremont, to
proceed in force to Washington, and prevent Fremont's
inauguration by any means necessary to the result ; and
before he had completed much more than the half of his
journey, rumors that an attempt of the same kind would
be made against his own inauguration reached his ears.
When he arrived in Philadelphia, he was met by the
skilful detective Allan Pinkerton, who told him that
there was evidence that an attack upon his person in
Baltimore had been arranged. The President of the
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, Mr.
Felton, had suspected that violence might be offered to
Mr. Lincoln in passing through Baltimore, because of
the secession spirit which prevailed there, and becanse
of the great opportunity which the slow passage of the
trains through the city, drawn, as they then were, by
horses, would offer. He had put Mr. Pinkerton upon
the scent, and both he and Pinkerton had become con
vinced that there was great danger to Mr. Lincoln in
going through Baltimore at a known time. They tried
to dissuade him from carrying out the announced plan
of his journey from Harrisburg to Washington, via Bal
timore, on the 23d of February ; but he decided to ad
here both to route and time. A few hours later Mr.
Frederick Seward, son of the incoming Secretary of
State, arrived in Philadelphia, and sought an imme
diate audience with Mr. Lincoln. He delivered to Mr.
Lincoln a message from his father, and one from Gen
eral Scott, both of whom were in Washington, to the
effect that his life would be endangered in passing

140 THE CIVIL WAE
through Baltimore at a known hour. Mr. Lincoln was,
however, a brave man, and he shrank from stealing into
the capital into which he had the right of a triumphal
entry. He realized, however, that for the sake of the
country he was in duty bound not to run any unnecessary
risks. He wanted still to go on, with an escort, but no
escort was provided or volunteered. At the last moment,
he yielded to the persuasions of his friends, and took
the night train of the 22d from Philadelphia instead
of the day train of the 23d from Harrisburg. This
brought him to Washington in the early morning of the
23d, some five hours before he was expected in Balti
more. During his night journey, he had worn a travel
ling-cap instead of his customary " beaver," and was at
tended only by his friend Colonel Lamon. These were
the facts upon which was founded the story that Mr.
Lincoln had sneaked unannounced, terror-stricken and
disguised, into the city which was the seat of the Gov
ernment that he had been chosen to administer.
From the 23d of February to the 4th of March, he
remained in his hotel as quietly as it is possible for a
Mr. Lincoln President-elect, within ten days of his inau-
ton a8*^M- guration, to do. The most important event
dent-elect. Qf }^[g jjfg during this period was a visit from
the members of the Peace conference. The Southerners
especially were curious to see the strange creature from
the " wild and woolly West," and divine, if they could,
his governmental policies. They found a homely man,
a plain man, but a man who understood himself and the
crisis which he had been called upon to meet. He is re
ported to have said to Mr. William C. Rives, of Virginia :
"My course is as plain as a turnpike road. It is marked
out by the Constitution. I am in no doubt which way
to go." They had heard nothing with that kind of a
ring from the outgoing President. It had to them an

THE INAUGUEATION OF LINCOLN 141
ominous sound. It gave them something to think about,
and to talk about with their friends at home.
General Scott had made ample preparations for the
safety of the capital on inauguration day. The old war
rior had been a good deal angered by the
rumors which had come to him of intended Scott's prepa-
violent resistance to the inauguration of the safe"" ot the
lawfully elected President, and he proposed "^p"*'-
to crush any such movement with an iron hand. He had
gotten together a couple of batteries of artillery, nearly
a thousand men of the regular infantry and marines, and
a good strong detachment of the city volunteers. He
planted his batteries so as to control the grounds on the
east front of the capitol, and marched his infantry in
parallel streets with the presidential procession from
Willard's Hotel to the Capitol. If any violence had
been intended, this display of military power and vigor
repressed it. The inauguration took place without any
unusual incident, and Mr. Lincoln took possession of
the official mansion as the lawfully elected and lawfully
installed President of the United States.
The inaugural address was a calm, plain statement
of the President's intention to preserve the Union, and
to execute the laws of the United States Theinaugu-
throughout the whole country. It was not rai address.
an anti-slavery address. It was not even an anti-slavery-
extension address. Mr. Lincoln went even so far as to
say in it that he would have no objection to an irrevo
cable amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the
United States Government from ever interfering with
slavery in the " States." And he repeated the assertion,
which he had, as a private citizen, already made, that he
had no purpose of interfering, directly or indirectly,
with the institution of slavery in the " States" where it
existed, and that he did not believe that he had any

142 THE CIVIL WAR
lawful right to do so. Moreover he said nothing about
what the policy of his administration concerning slavery
in the Territories would be ; and he disclaimed any as
sault upon the Supreme Court of the United States in
his views of the extent of its authority in determining
constitutional questions.
Why Mr. Lincoln, whose reputation, and whose elec
tion to the presidency, rested upon his anti-slavery-ex-
Review of tcusion principles, should have shifted the
the address, whole issue to the question of saving na
tional unity and preserving the Government was a query
in the minds of many of his party friends at the mo
ment, and, too, of many of their successors. A broad
view of the subject will, however, quickly and clearly
reveal the reason. The situation required the power
and universal supremacy of the Government to be well
settled and maintained before the acts of the Govern
ment could be of any general value as laws of the land ;
and Mr. Lincoln always went for one thing at a time
and the big things first. There is no need of going any
further than this in explanation of the tone of the ad
dress. It was certainly a very wise proclamation of policy.
It was the only policy upon which he could hope to
unite the North and divide the South, which was his
well-considered purpose. A pronounced anti-slavery
policy, or even anti-slavery-extension policy, would have
produced the directly opposite effect. A much duller
man than Mr. Lincoln could not have failed to see that.
Mr. Lincoln knew he must speak strongly and in no un
certain language. This he could do in reference to the
maintenance of the Union and the Government, and
reckon upon general approval at the North and some ap
proval at the South. He affirmed that the Union was
older than the Constitution, and was not, therefore, the

THE INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN 143
product of the Constitution, but was an historical de
velopment. And from this perfectly so and and true
premise, he drew the conclusion that "no State upon its
own mere motion" could "lawfully get out of the
Union ; that resolves and ordinances to that effect "
were "legally void; and that acts of violence, within
any State or States, against the authority of the United
States " were " insurrectionary or revolutionary accord
ing to circumstances." He declared that the Union was,
despite the secession ordinances passed in seven of the
"States" and the formation of the Confederate Govern
ment at Montgomery, still unbroken, and that he should
take care that the laws of the Union should be faithfully
executed in all the "States." And he announced his
determination to hold, occupy, and possess the property
and places belonging to the United States Government,
and to collect the duties and the imposts everywhere.
Here was certainly a definite policy, and one in the sup
port of which all but the secessionists could unite.
The secessionists understood well enough that it made
the issue with them plain and direct, and that they
must yield or fight. They seized, however, upon some
unfortunate expressions in the address, and twisted them
into a quasi admission of the correctness of their seces
sion theory. The exact words of Mr. Lincoln which
were subjected to this interpretation ran as follows :
" Beyond what may be necessary for these objects," —
that is, holding the property and places belonging to the
United States and collecting the duties and imposts —
" there will be no invasion, no using of force among the
people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States
in any interior locality shall be so great and universal
as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding
the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force
obnoxious strangers among the people for that object;,

144 THE CIVIL WAE
While the strict legal right may exist in the Govern-
ment to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt
to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticar
ble withal, that I deem it better to forego for the time
the uses of such offices. The mails, unless repelled, will
continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So
far as possible the people everywhere shall have that
sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm
thought and refiection. The course here indicated will
be followed unless current events and experience shall
show a modification or change to be proper, and in
every case and exigency my best discretion will be ex
ercised according to circumstances actually existing,
and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the
national troubles and the restoration of fraternal sym
pathies and affection."
This language was certainly a little confusing to the
minds of Union men, and by so much encouraging to the
secessionists. Mr. Jefferson Davis subse-
a part of the quently cited these passages of the address as
among the things which encouraged the hope
at the South that the North would allow the South to go
in peace. Mr. Lincoln should never have used the word
invasion to describe the presence of the National Gov
ernment in any " State " of the Union, or the entrance,
so to speak, of the National Government into any
"State "of the Union. The National Government is
as much at home in any " State " organized within the
boundaries of the United States as the " State" govern
ment, and the idea that the entrance of the United
States soldiers into any "State" is an invasion rests
upon the most radical misconception of the distinctions
between international law and constitutional law.
Mr. Lincoln also made a mistake in announcing that
he would not, for the time being, fill the United States

THE INAUGUEATION OF LINCOLN 145
offices, and cause the execution of the United States
laws, in the interior of hostile communities. This en
couraged still further the hope and belief among the
masses of the people in the Southern "States" that
peaceable disunion was even probable. It would have
been far better for them to have clearly understood at
this critical moment, that all the dangers of rebellion
must be risked by them in their attempt to break up the
Government. It is true that Mr. Lincoln put in a sav
ing proviso, of which they ought to have taken more
distinct notice, but it was natural that they should mag
nify what was favorable to them as they did.
Taken all together the address certainly shows that
even Mr. Lincoln's mind was not entirely clear as to the
national character of our political system, but it also
shows that it was clearer than that of any of his contem
poraries. The whole country. North and South, was
more or less tainted with the doctrine of " States-
rights." The difference between almost all of the public
men of the day was a difference in degree more than a
difference of kind. It is wonderful that Mr. Lincoln
should have been, in the midst of such surroundings, so
clear as he was.
It is difficult for the present generation to realize how
confused in mind and purpose and how faint-hearted the
men of the North were at the moment when
Mr. Lincoln assumed the reins of govern- edness at the
ment. All through the winter preceding his °^ '
inauguration the evidences of demoralization in the Re
publican party had become increasingly manifest. It
seemed as if the party had become frightened at its own
victory and at the consequences entailed by it. The
municipal elections following the National and Common
wealth elections showed a great falling off from its ranks.
Its journalists appeared utterly at sea without compass or
Vol. L— 10

146 THE CIVIL WAB
rudder. Mr. Greeley himself, the leader among them,
seemed never to that moment to have considered what
must be the principle of his party in regard to the ques
tion of sovereignty, the deepest question of any and every
political system. The after-world will never cease to
wonder at that famous editorial of his, of November 9,
1860, in the chief organ of his party, his own Tribune,
in which he wrote : " We hold, with Jefferson, to the
inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish
forms of government that have become oppressive or
injurious ; and, if the cotton States shall decide that
they can do better out of the Union than in it, we
insist on letting them go in peace. The right to secede
may be a revolutionary right, but it exists nevertheless ;
and we do not see how one party can have a right to
do what another party has the right to prevent. We
must ever resist the right of any State to remain in the
Union and nullify or defy the laws thereof ; to with
draw from the Union is quite another matter. And
whenever a considerable section of our Union shall
deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive
measures designed to keep her in. We hope never to
live in a Republic whereof one section is pinned to the
residue by bayonets." In this view Greeley frater
nized with Davis and Stephens instead of with Lincoln.
In his work on the " American Conflict," published three
years and a half later, he endeavors to explain that his
object in this strangely inconsistent editorial was to in
duce the Southerners to go into National convention for
the settlement of all grievances and differences. Be this
as it may, the Southerners cared nothing about his pur
poses. They had here the indorsement of their seces
sion doctrine by the leading journalist of the Republican
party, and they made the most of it. Many of the Re
publican journals followed the lead of the Tribune; and

THB INAUGUEATION OF LINCOLN 147
it is needless to say that the Democratic newspapers of
the North vied with each other in justifying the actions
of the secessionists and throwing the whole blame for
the situation upon the Republican party. It is true that
in the chagrin of defeat, they said much that was not
really meant. But the secessionists did not understand
that, or would not. They were only encouraged there
by in their extravagant estimate of the injuries they
thought they were suffering at the hands of the Repub
lican party, and in their hope that a divided North
would prevent the Republican Administration from at
tempting to exercise its jurisdiction in the " seceding
States " by force.
Still further, the people themselves held meetings,
in which many Republicans participated, where nothing
but conciliation and compromise were preached. The
existence of such a state of feeling in the metropolitan
city of New York is nothing surprising, even to the men
of this generation. It rose, however, to a higher degree
than we, of to-day, can well understand. The secession of
the city itself from the Commonwealth of New York was
recommended by Mayor Fernando Wood to the Common
Council ; and Mr. Daniel E. Sickles, afterward one of
the bravest of the Northern soldiers who fought for the
maintenance of the Union by military power, declared,
in his notorious speech of December 10, 1860, upon the
floor of Congress, that, in the event of secession in the
South, New York City would free herself from the hated
Republican " State " Government of New York, and
throw open her ports to the free commerce of the world.
Not only Democrats spoke thus, in New York and for
New York, but old Whigs lent their voices to the en
couragement of disunion. At the peace meeting of the
aist of January, 1861, in New York City, Mr. James S.
Thayer, one of the most respected and influential of the

/48 THE CIVIL WAE
old line Whigs, said : " If the incoming Administration
shall attempt to carry out the line of policy that has been
foreshadowed," i.e., the policy of enforcing the laws in
" States " which had declared their independence of the
Union, "we announce that, when the hand of Black
Republicanism turns blood red, and seeks from the frag
ments of the Constitution to construct a scaffolding for
coercion, another name for execution, we will reverse
the order of the French Revolution, and save the blood
of the people by making those who would inaugurate a
reign of terror the flrst victims of a national guillo
tine." But if the attitude of Democratic New York at that
juncture is surprising, what is to be thought of Repub
lican Philadelphia, whose Republican Mayor was highly
applauded, at a peace meeting, for saying that the criti
cisms upon Southern slavery indulged in at the North
should cease, that " the misplaced teachings of the pul
pit, the unwise rhapsodies of the lecture-room, the ex'
citing appeals of the press, on the subject of slavery,
must be frowned down by a just and law-abiding
people." The Abolitionist wing of the Republican party was
never noted for strong Unionism, and it was only to be
expected that the attitude of its members, at this junc
ture, would be an additional embarrassment to the Pres
ident. How disloyal they were can be, perhaps, best
illustrated by an extract from Mr. Wendell Phillips's
New Bedford address of April 9, 1861 : * Here are,"
he said, " a series of States, girdling the Gulf, who
think their peculiar institutions require that they should
have separate government They have a right to decide
that question without appealing to you or me. . . .
Standing with the principles of '76 behind us who can
deny that right. . , . Abraham Lincoln has no

THE INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN 149
right to a soldier in Fort Sumter." The Abolitionists
seemed to have no conception that the great movement
of the world's history which lay just in front of them was
the solution of the problem of national sovereignty as
well as that of personal liberty, and that the attainment
of abolition was possible only through the vindication of
the sovereignty of the Nation.
Of course the Breckenridge Democrats at the North
gave Mr. Lincoln no support. Nor were the Douglas
Democrats much more to be relied on at the
moment. Mr. Douglas himself said that the attitiSe^aTthe
United States Government could not be jus- ¦^°''^'
tified in holding forts in the " seceding States," much
less in retaking them, unless the intention was to reduce
these " States " to subjection, which, af that time,
seemed to him not to be seriously considered.
And lastly, Mr. Lincoln found, at flrst, no adequate
support in his own Cabinet of advisers for the policy ex
pressed in his inaugural address. Mr. Sew-
j T. , .... , Lackofsup-
ard was bent upon maintaining peace, at port in the
almost any sacrifice. So were Cameron, * ""*''
Bates, and Smith. Chase had " States-rights " views
that were troublesome. Only Welles and Blair were in
nearer sympathy with the President. It was Seward
who gave the President the greatest embarrassment.
He, as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was
the person to whom the Confederate Government, in
its assumed character of a foreign nation, would address
itself; and much, very much, almost everything, de
pended upon his discretion, firmness, and loyalty in
meeting such approaches.
This was the situation in the Government, and among
the people of the North, when Mr. Lincoln's Adminis
tration was called upon to face the demands of the
Southern Confederacy for the recognition of its inde-

150 THE CIVIL WAR
pendence. The problem was one of so great difficulty,
and the manner in which it was treated is so little un
derstood, that the whole subject requires to be dealt
with in considerable detail, and with no little patience
and impartiality.

CHAPTER VI
THE ATTEMPT OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY
TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF THE
UNITED STATES
The Appearance of the Confederate Commissioners in Washington
and Their Mission — Justices Nelson and Campbell at the State
Department — The Sumter Situation — Justice Campbell and the
Confederate Commisaioners^The Alleged Pledge of Evacua
tion — Mr. Lincoln's Plan for Relieving Sumter — The Embar
rassment of Mr. Seward^Rumors of the Preparations to Relieve
Sumter — President Lincoln's Notice to Governor Pickens —
Mr. Davis's View of the Alleged Pledges — The Departure of
the Expedition from' New York — The Confederate Commis
sioners and the Memorandum of Mr. Seward— The Demand
for the Evacuation of Sumter.
Mb. Seward had not been in office more than a week
when he was confronted with the question of the atti
tude which the United States Government
„ The appear-
should take toward the Southern Confeder- mce of the
acy. In compliance with a resolution of the Commission-
Confederate Congress, passed in the middle fngton and
of February, the Confederate President had *"'" ™'"°°-
appointed three highly respectable citizens of the Con
federacy, as he called them, Mr. Martin J. Crawford of
Georgia, Mr. John Forsyth of Alabama and Mr. A. B.
Roman of Louisiana, as commissioners from the Confed
erate Government to the Government of the United
States for the purpose of instituting negotiations with
the United States Government for " the settlement of
all matters between the States forming the Confederacy
151

162 THE CIVIL WAR
and their other late confederates of the United States,
in relation to the public property and the public debt at
the time of their withdrawal from them." One of these
gentlemen, Mr. Crawford, had arrived in Washington
several days before the expiration of President Buchan
an's term. He was provided with a letter of recommen
dation to Mr. Buchanan from Mr. Jefferson Davis. Mr.
Davis did not attach his official title to his signature,
from which we may fairly conclude that the letter was
meant to be quasi-confidential. Mr. Davis explained
years afterward that Mr. Buchanan had intimated to
him, through Mr. Hunter of Virginia, " that he would
be happy to receive a commissioner from the Confeder
ate States, and would refer to the Senate any communi
cation that might be made through such a commission."
It is certainly difficult to believe that President Bu
chanan could have consciously authorized Mr. Hunter
to make such a statement to Mr. Davis, after having re
fused to have anything to do with the South Carolina
commissioners, and after the castigation applied to him
by Mr. Davis, in the Senate of the United States, there
for. The President had, as we have seen, become stiffer
in his Unionism after that event, rather than more limp.
On the other hand, the attendant circumstances go to
prove the correctness of Mr. Davis's statement of Mr.
Hunter's communication to him. It is, of course,
possible, not to say probable, that Mr. Hunter, in
his great desire for a peaceable solution of the mighty
question confronting the whole country, had put an ex
aggerated interpretation upon what Mr. Buchg,nan had
said, persuading himself, if he was conscious of it at all,
that it could do no harm, and might be productive of
great good. Certain it is that President Buchanan
promptly refused to see Mr. Crawford, or to have any
thing to do with his commission. Mr. Crawford consid-

ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 153
ered this attitude of President Buchanan to be a violation
of a promise, and attributed it to the fact that " he had
become fearfully panic-stricken "bet ween the date of "his
promise " and the arrival of the commissioner. Despite
this rebuff, however, Mr. Crawford waited around Wash
ington, taking note of everything he saw, for the arrival
of his colleagues.
About a week after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln
Mr. Forsyth appeared ; and Crawford and Forsyth im
mediately applied verbally, through Senator Hunter, it
is supposed, to the new Secretary of State, Mr. Seward,
for an unofficial interview, which Mr. Seward promptly,
but respectfully, declined to grant. Whereupon the two
commissioners addressed to Mr. Seward a written request
for the appointment of a time when they might present
their credentials to the President of the United States
and explain to him the object of their mission. The
date of this letter was March 12th, and the contents of
it explained the general purposes of the mission, which
were, briefly, to officially inform the Government of the
United States of the withdrawal of seven " States " from
the United States and the formation by them of a new
Confederacy, and " to secure a speedy adjustment of all
questions growing out of the political separation," thus
effected " de facto and dejure."
Mr. Seward wrote his reply to this communication on
the 14th day of March. He put it into the form of a
memorandum, unsigned by him, and placed it in the
State Department to be called for by the commissioners.
The Confederate authorities professed to flnd Mr. Sew
ard's methods in this transaction inexplicable ; but if
they had only reflected that Mr. Seward was cautiously
seeking to meet them in a manner which could not in any
possible way be tortured into an official recognition of
them or their agents, they might have understood him.

lo4 THE CIVIL WAR
Mr. Seward's memorandum contained a full resume
of the contents of the letter of the so-called commis
sioners, and then went on to decline to fix any time for
receiving these gentlemen calling themselves commission
ers of the " Confederate States," or to have any official
intercourse whatsoever with them, on the ground of the
nullity of the whole movement, which they professed to
represent, from the point of view of the Constitution
and the political system of the United States. Mr. Sew
ard stated in his memorandum that he had submitted
his views as expressed therein to President Lincoln, and
that the President coincided with him in them, and
sanctioned his refusal of official intercourse with Messrs.
Forsyth and Crawford. He furthermore called the
attention of the so-called commissioners to President
Lincoln's inaugural address, a copy of which was en
closed with the memorandum.
On the same day that Mr. Seward filed this memo
randum in the State Department, there to be copied, and
the copy to be furnished to Messrs. Forsyth
Justices ^-' •"
Nelson and and Crawford, upon application, Mr. Justice
the state De- Nclson of the Supreme Court of the United
p men . gtates, a citizen of New York, presented him
self, of his own motion, before the Secretary of State,
the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Attorney-Gen
eral, Messrs. Seward, Chase and Bates, for the purpose
of infiuencing them by argument toward a pacific pol
icy, and of stating to them that, from a careful study of
the Constitution and laws of the United States, he had
reached the conclusion that, without very serious viola
tions of the same, coercion could not be successfully
effected by the Executive Department of the Govern
ment. Returning from his visit to the State Department, we
are told that he accidentally met one of his colleagues

ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 155
upon the Supreme Bench, Mr. Justice Campbell of Ala
bama, and communicated to him the fact and the pur
pose of his interview with the Secretaries and the gist
of the conversation with them. Mr. Seward had, of
course, regarded Justice Nelson as a friend to the
Union, and had conferred with him very frankly. He
told him that the Administration was face to face with
the secessionist Confederacy upon two issues ; that the
first was the question of holding or abandoning Fort
Sumter, and the second was the question of receiving
the Confederate commissioners ; and that the second
question, if pressed at the moment, would embarrass
the Administration in dealing with the first.
The situation in reference to Sumter was as follows :
On the 3d of March the Confederate General Beaure
gard had assumed command at Charleston The sumter
and had virtually invested Fort Sumter. On situation.
the 4th of March word had been received by the Presi
dent from Major Anderson that he had about one
month's rations in the Fort, and if not relieved within
that time, that he would be obliged to abandon the post or
starve. Upon the receipt of this message the President
immediately took counsel with General Scott, and was ad
vised by the General that evacuation was almost inevita
ble, and that at least four months would be necessary to
make ready an expedition to relieve the garrison.
Mr. Lincoln then turned to his Cabinet and put the
following question to each of its members : "Assuming
it to be possible to now provision Fort Sumter, under all
the circumstances is it wise to attempt it ?" Chase and
Blair replied affirmatively, but the other five thought it
would be unwise. Seward especially so expressed him
self. This occurred on the 15th of March, the very day
that Mr. Seward filed his memorandum in answer to the
letter of the Confederate commissioners in the State

156 THE CIVIL WAR
Department, and the very day of Justice Nelson's visit
to Mr. Seward. The Cabinet meeting had taken place
only a few hours before Justice Nelson's visit, and,
therefore, what had occurred at the meeting was fresh
in Mr. Seward's mind. It is true that Mr. Lincoln him
self had never expressed any other purpose than the one
declared in his inaugural in reference to Fort Sumter,
which was the determination to hold possession of all
the places belonging to the United States, and that he
did not, at the meeting on the 15th of March, commit
himself, in the slightest degree, to any other course or
view. But Mr. Seward had not yet learned that Mr.
Lincoln was not to be directed by his Cabinet, even
when the majority for or against a proposed policy was
five to two, with Mr. Seward himself among the five.
Knowing then what he did, at the moment of Justice
Nelson's visit, Mr. Seward felt quite certain that the
withdrawal of the troops from Fort Sumter would take
place within a fortnight. He very probably told Justice
Nelson what his impressions were in regard to the im
pending evacuation, and pointed out to him how the
demands of the Confederate commissioners for official
recognition, at that very juncture, had so crowded the
Administration as to force it to take a stand, which might
put an end to peace efforts altogether. That stand was
the reply to the letter of the Confederate commissioners,
which reply was, at the very moment, lying in the State
Department awaiting the call of the messenger from the
commissioners for it.
These were the facts and the impressions which Mr.
Justice Nelson imparted to Mr. Justice Campbell when
they accidentally met in the street just after Justice
Nelson's interview with the Secretaries. On the spur
of the moment Justice Nelson suggested that Justice
Campbell might be of service in the cause of peace, and

ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 157
Justice Calmpbell immediately expressed his willingness
to do anything within his power. Whereupon Justice
Nelson returned to the State Department, accompanied
by Justice Campbell, and sought Mr. Seward again.
Mr. Seward naturally supposed that Justice Campbell
was a Union man, holding as he did one of the highest
offices in the gift of the United States Government, and
felt, therefore, no hesitation in repeating before him
what he had already said to Justice Nelson. As a mat
ter of fact, if we may judge from the course of subse
quent events. Justice Campbell's heart was, at that mo
ment, with the secessionists, and he was anxious to induce
Mr. Seward to recognize the commissioners from the
Confederate Government and treat with them as the dip
lomatic representatives of an independent nation. He
saw, however, that what Mr. Seward had said to Justice
Nelson was true, namely, that the hands of the Adminis
tration were full with the Sumter matter, and that if the
commissioners should apply for the answer to their de
mand, that answer must be the memorandum which Mr.
Seward had just filed in the State Department. It was
also plain to Justice Campbell that any pressure brought
upon Mr. Seward by the commissioners might result in
a change of Mr. Seward's attitude on the question of
evacuating Fort Sumter.
Justice Campbell then took it upon himself to see the
Confederate commissioners, and persuade them to delay
sending their messenger for Mr. Seward's an- j g 1 1 c e
swer to their letter. In the interview be- campbeu and
, 1.1,1 1 . 1 1 'tie Confeder-
tween him and them, the notion was evolved ate Commis-
that the evacuation of Fort Sumter would be
ordered by Mr. Lincoln's Administration, provided they
would not ask for an immediate reply to their communi
cation of March 12th. The connection between the two
subjects having been thus established in their minds.

158 THE CIVIL WAR
they apparently soon began to think, and then to say,
that the evacuation of Fort Sumter had been promised
them, pledged them, provided they would delay their
demand for the answer to their letter to Mr. Seward.
Justice Campbell in a letter to Colonel Munford, pub
lished in the year 1874, stated that he said to Mr. Sew
ard, in the interview of March 15th, that he concurred
with him in the view that the Administration could not
undertake anything more at the moment than the, evac
uation of Fort Sumter, and that he would see the com
missioners and write to Mr. Davis himself ; that he asked
Mr. Seward what he should write Mr. Davis in regard
to Forts Sumter and Pickens, and that Mr. Seward au
thorized him to say that before the letter could reach its
destination Mr. Davis would learn by telegram that the
order for the evacuation of Sumter had been given, and
that no change would be made in the status of Fort
Pickens; that he communicated these "assurances"
given by Mr. Seward to the commissioners and to Mr.
Davis ; that Mr. Crawford objected to the delay in press
ing for recognition, and finally yielded only upon the
reduction of Mr. Seward's alleged statements to writing
and the personal assurance of the Justice that, as writ
ten down by him, they were correct and accurate ; and,
finally, that he (Justice Campbell) communicated in
writing to Mr. Seward the fact that he had furnished
Mr. Crawford with a written document, in which he had
expressed entire confidence in the evacuation of Fort
Sumter within ten days, and in the preservation of the
existing status by the United States Government toward
the " Southern Confederate States," and had advised
against the commissioners pressing for an immediate
reply to their note of March 12th to Mr. Seward as likely
to be productive of evil results.
These are the elements out of which the Confederate

' ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 159
Government constructed a ^pled^e by Mr. Seward, and
through Mr. Seward by Mr. Lincoln, to evacuate Fort
Sumter within ten days, provided the com- The alleged
missioners would not embarrass Mr. Lincoln's evaraltfon."*
Administration by pressing for an answer to their de
mand for recognition.
Five days subsequent to these interviews between Mr.
Seward and the Justices, and between the Justices and
the Confederate commissioners, the commissioners, we
are told by Mr. Justice Campbell, telegraphed to General
Beauregard at Charleston to know if Sumter had been
evacuated, or if anything indicating intention to evacu
ate had occurred ; and received immediate reply that
Major Anderson was still strengthening his defences.
Justice Campbell tells us, further, that he, accompanied
by Mr. Justice Nelson, sought Mr. Seward again, and
showed him the despatch from Beauregard, and that Mr.
Seward assured him that the delay in evacuating Sumter
was accidental, and promised that any change " in the
resolution in reference to Sumter or Pickens " would be
communicated to him. These statements by Mr. Seward
were then written down by Justice Campbell and the
paper ^was sent to Mr. Crawford, and Mr. Seward was
informed in writing by Justice Campbell of these facts.
The Confederate Government regarded this episode
as completely confirmatory of a pledge on the part of
Mr. Lincoln's Administration to evacuate Fort Sumter.
The actual facts did not warrant the conclusion, either
in regard to the making, or the confirming, of a pledge,
but they could easily be distorted so as to appear to do
so, and it was not unnatural that, in that time of anx
iety and confusion, this happened with good faith.
Down to this moment, that is, March 20th, the Pres
ident had communicated his thoughts, much less his
determination, if indeed he had reached any, to no one

160 THE CIVIL WAE
except Mr. Blair, who, he knew, agreed with him in
opinion, and in whom he had perfect faith. The
Mr. Lin- question of secession did not fall within the
rehiring s™- domain of any particular executive depart-
te'- ment, and the President felt himself at lib
erty to confide in that member of his Cabinet upon
whose sympathy he could most fully count. Through
Mr. Blair he came into' communication with a brave
and resourceful man, who had been in the naval ser
vice of the United States, Mr. G. V. Fox. Mr. Fox
was a brother-in-law of Mr. Blair. He was the man
who had proposed to Mr. Buchanan, during the pre
ceding February, to undertake an expedition for the
relief of Sumter. Mr. Fox laid substantially the same
plan before Mr. Lincoln a day or two before the first
interview between Mr. Seward and the two Justices oc
curred. Mr. Lincoln now acquainted General Scott
with his communications with Mr. Fox, and then laid
the proposition of Mr. Fox before the Cabinet for con
sideration. General Scott discouraged the plan, and
only two members of the Cabinet favored it. Chase
and Blair. The President then sent Fox to Sumter,
and Hurlbnt and Lamon to Charleston, to examine the
condition of things on the spot before making his de
cision. Fox arrived in Charleston on the 21st of the
month (March), and immediately applied to Governor
Pickens for a permit to visit Fort Sumter, which was
granted, according to the Governor's statement, upon
the assurance that his purposes were pacific. Mr. Fox
and President Lincoln undoubtedly considered a proj
ect for sending provisions to the hungry men in Fort
Sumter as containing no hostile purpose. Governor
Pickens also stated, in his message to the South Car
olina Legislature, at the beginning of its session in
November of 1861, that Mr. Lincoln's other emissary.

ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 161
Colonel Lamon, appeared in Charleston a few days after
Mr. Fox, and told the Governor that he had come " to
try to arrange for the removal of the troops" from
Sumter, and that he hoped to return to Charleston in a
few days for that purpose.
Colonel Lamon did not, however, return to Charles
ton, and at the end of the month. Governor Pickens
sent an inquiry to the Confederate commissioners in
Washington in regard to him and his mission. This
despatch from Pickens reached Washington on the 30th.
The day before it came, Mr. Lincoln had again laid the
question of relieving Fort Sumter before his Cabinet.
This time Chase, Blair and Welles expressed themselves
in favor of making the attempt, and Bates wavered in
his opposition to it. The President had still kept his
own counsel, but Mr. Seward now saw that evacuation
could no longer be counted on, although he still gave his
voice for it. When, then. Justice Campbell brought Gov
ernor Pickens's inquiry of the Confederate commission
ers to Mr. Seward, as he did so soon as it was received in
Washington, Mr. Seward had been disabused of the idea
that the evacuation of Fort Sumter was certain, or even
probable. Mr. Seward immediately made known to the
President the contents of Governor Pickens's despatch,
and Mr. Lincoln promptly disavowed Lamon's authority
to promise what Pickens claimed he did in the despatch.
On the 1st day of April Mr. Seward saw Justice
Campbell and informed him what the President had
said in regard to Governor Pickens's telegram ,^^ ^^^ ^
of inquiry. Justice Campbell now began to rassment o f
reveal his sympathy with the secessionists,
and Mr. Seward became more cautious in his utterances.
He fell back now on the President, and ceased to ad
vance opinions of his own in regard to what the Admin
istration would determine to do. President Lincoln
,, Vol. L-11

162 THE CIVIL WAR
allowed him to assure the commissioners, through Jus
tice Campbell, " that the Government would not attempt
to supply Fort Sumter without giving notice to Governor
Pickens." This is the only assurance which President
Lincoln ever gave, or authorized to be given, and it is
an exaggeration to make a pledge even out of this.
During the next few days rumors of the preparations
to relieve the beleaguered and hungry troops at Sumter
Enmors of began to float about Washington. On the
Bonsto'reh"ve '^th (April) Justice Campbell addressed an-
sumter. other Communication to Mr. Seward, asking
if his assurances still held ; to which Mr. Seward re
plied : " Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait and see."
On the next day, Mr. Crawford sent a despatch to Gen
eral Beauregard at Charleston, which ran as follows :
" Accounts uncertain because of the constant vacillation
of the Government. We were reassured yesterday that
the status of Sumter would not be changed without pre
vious notice to Governor Pickens, but we have no faith
in them. The war policy prevails in the Cabinet at this
time." It would appear from this language that the
only pledges or assurances which the Confederate com
missioners considered as having been made to them by
the United States Government were contained in Mr.
Seward's communication to them, through Justice Camp
bell, on April 1st, viz., that the United States Govern
ment would not undertake to supply Fort Sumter
without giving notice to Governor Pickens.
On the same day that Beauregard received this de
spatch, Mr. Chew, one of the subordinates of the State
sident Department at Washington, accompanied by
Lincoln's Lieutenant Talbot, appeared in Charleston,
emor Pick- and sought both Govcmor Pickens and Gen
eral Beauregard. When admitted to au
dience, Mr. Chew read to the Governor and the General

ATTEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 168
the following notice : " I am directed by the President
of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt
will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only ;
and that if such an attempt be not resisted, no attempt to
throw in men, arms, or ammunition will be made, without
further notice, except in case of an attack upon the
Fort." In commenting upon this communication to Governor
Pickens, the ex-President of the Confederacy wrote,
twenty years later : " Thus disappeared the
last vestige of the plighted faith and paciflc view' of the
pledges of the Federal Government." There ^° ^*°'
is no doubt that the Government at Montgomery held
this view at the time. Nevertheless it is difficult to
understand how they could have done so. The Govern
ment of the United States gave but one assurance, name
ly, that it would not undertake to supply Fort Sumter
without giving notice to Governor Pickens, and this it
fulfilled to the letter. And President Lincoln gave this
assurance, not for the purpose of delaying any answer
to the Confederate commissioners on the question of rec
ognizing them, but for the purpose of delaying an at
tack upon the Fort until he could get his relief expedi
tion in readiness.
The transports bearing the means of relief to the
Sumter garrison left port on April 7th, and if not hin
dered might have been expected to arrive in The depart-
Charleston Harbor on the 9th or 10th. There ^tfoi'^om
was no war vessel with them. The Secretary "^^ ^"''•
of the Navy, Mr. Welles, intended to send the war-ship
Powhatan from New York with them, but the President
ordered the Powhatan, at the last moment, to go to Pensa
cola for the relief of Fort Pickens. The President issued
this order through Mr. Seward without the knowledge of
Mr. Welles, and saw his mistake too late to rectify it.

164 THE CIVIL WAR
When the Confederate commissioners at Washing.
ton learned of the notice to Governor Pickens and
Theconfed- General Beauregard, they sent their secretary
Biontrs°Tnd to the State Department for the official an-
fam^^i'm. s^®^ *° *^®^'" letter of March 12th. So soon
Seward. as they received and read the memorandum
of the Secretary of State, they immediately addressed a
communication to him, in which they declared that they
did not, in their letter of March 12th, " ask the Govern
ment of the United States to recognize the independ
ence of the Confederate States," but that " they only
asked audience to adjust in a spirit of amity and peace,
the new relations springing from a manifest and ac
complished revolution in the Government of the late
Federal Union," and that the refusal on the part of
the Government of the United States " to entertain
these overtures for a peaceful solution, the active naval
and military preparations of this Government, and a
formal notice to the commanding General in the harbor
of Charleston that the President intends to provision
Fort Sumter by forcible means, if necessary, are viewed
by the undersigned, and can only be received by the
world, as a declaration of war against the Confederate
States." They then declared that they, in behalf of the
Confederate Government, accepted the gage of battle.
They closed their communication with an explanation of
the delay in demanding the reply to their letter of March
12th. They said in reference to this that their secretary
called at the State Department for the answer on the
13th of March, and was informed by the Assistant Secre
tary of State that Mr. Seward had not had time to con
sider their note ; that he was asked by the Assistant Sec
retary for the addresses of Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford,
and was told by him that any reply which might be made
to their note would b^ sent to their lodgings ; that they

AITEMPT OF CONFEDERACY TO NEGOTIATE 165
consented to the delay of twenty-three days in receiving
an answer "not of their own volition and without cause,"
but because of the assurances of Mr. Seward, communi
cated to them by Justice Campbell, that Port Sumter
would be evacuated, and no attempt would be made to
provision it without previous notice to Governor Pick
ens ; and that " it was only when all these anxious ef
forts for peace had been exhausted, and it became clear
that Mr. Lincoln had determined to appeal to the sword
to reduce the people of the Confederate States to the
will of the section or party whose President he " was
" that " they " resumed the official negociations tempo
rarily suspended, and sent ' their ' secretary for a reply
to 'their' official note of March 12th."
Mr. Seward made no reply to the propositions and
assumptions of this document, beyond acknowledging
its reception. And the commissioners shook from off
their feet the dust of the wicked capital, as they con
sidered it, and turned their faces and their footsteps
southward. Meanwhile General Beauregard had telegraphed the
Confederate Secretary of War at Montgomery word of
the notice from President Lincoln to Govern- The demand
or Pickens of the intention on the part of Sjo^Sf^w
the United States Government to provision *«''•
Port Sumter. Beauregard's despatch was dated April
8th. The reply from the Confederate Secretary was not
made until the 10th. The Confederate Government is
thus seen to have acted with deliberation. The reply
was an order to General Beauregard to demand the evac
uation of Fort Sumter, and to reduce it, if the demand
should be refused. Beauregard immediately answered
that the demand for surrender would be made at noon
of the next day, the 11th. The Confederate War Sec
retary replied to this by advising an earlier hour, but

166 THE CIVIL WAR
Beauregard telegraphed him that he had special reasons
for the hour designated.
Accordingly, at about two o'clock in the afternoon of
April 11th, General Beauregard sent two of his aids. Col
onel Chesnut and Captain Lee, to Major Anderson with
the summons for evacuation. Major Anderson imme
diately replied, declining compliance. At about the
same time that Beauregard received Anderson's answer,
advices reached him from Montgomery directing him not
to bombard Sumter, if Anderson would flx a time when
he would evacuate, and agree not to use his guns against
the Confederate forces in the meantime, unless first fired
on by the Confederates.
In accordance with these instructions Beauregard sent
a second demand to Anderson, at about eleven o'clock in
the evening. Anderson replied to this in the early morn
ing of the 12th, and offered to engage to evacuate the
Fort at noon of the 15th, provided he should not receive
prior to that time controlling instructions from his Gov
ernment or additional supplies, and provided he should
be furnished with necessary and proper means of trans
portation. These conditions of surrender were not ac
ceptable to the Confederate commander, and his reply,
dated at twenty minutes past three in the morning of
the 12th, informed Major Anderson that fire would be
opened upon the Fort by the Confederate batteries in
one hour from that time.
Accordingly at half-past four o'clock in the morning
of the 12th of April, the Confederate guns began to
hurl their balls against the Fort covered by the flag of
the Union. The gates of Janus were flung open, and
the great question of the sovereignty of the Nation or the
sovereignty of the "States" was appealed from the
forum to the battlefleld.

CHAPTER VII
THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER AND THE CALL TO
ARMS
The Offensive and the Defensive in the Sumter Affair — Rebellion
or War — The Surrender of Sumter — The Union Driven to
Take Up Arms— The Call for Troops— The Refusals to Obey
the President's Call for Troops — Prompt Action of the Gov
ernors of the Northern States — The Attitude of Mr. Douglas
— The Peril of the Capital— Virginia Convention Passes the
Secession Ordinance — Seizure of Harper's Ferry and Gosport
Navy Yard — The Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore — The Ef
fect of These Events on the Country — The Attitude of John
Bell after the Fall of Sumter — Tennessee's Treaty with the
Confederacy — Tennessee's Secession — The Blockade Procla
mations — ^North Carolina's Secession — Secession in Arkansas —
Secession in Missouri Attempted — Secession in Missouri Foiled
— Attempts at Secession in Kentucky — The Attitude of the
Government and of the People — The President's Policy toward
Kentucky — William Nelson — Major Anderson Sent to Cincin
nati — L. H. Rousseau — Manifestations of Magoffin's Disloyal
Purposes — The Loyalty of the Legislature — The Unionists
Elect the Congressional Delegation — Northern Anger Aroused
by the Situation in Maryland — Rumors of Attack upon the Cap
ital — General Lee's Conduct — The Exodus of the Secession
ists from Wasliington — The Occupation of Maryland — The
Maryland Legislature at Frederick — The Isolation of Balti
more — Triumph of Union Cause in Maryland — The Defence
of Washington.
Me. Geeblbt wrote in his " American Conflict,"
that the Confederacy had no alternative to an attack
upon Fort Sumter except its own dissolution. If he
167

168 THE CIVIL WAR
meant by this that the Confederates acted defensively in
attacking Sumter he was still laboring under that bale-
ful confusion of mind which produced the
Bive and the strange editorial in the Tribune of Novem-
dpfpTl H i V 6 ID.
the Sumter ber 9, 1860. Such a proposition could only
***''¦ be defended upon the principle that the Com
monwealths were separately and completely sovereign
under the Constitution of the United States ; that the
United States was nothing more than a central govern
ment, and that this central government was nothing
more than a joint agent of these separate sovereigns,
which each of them might dispense with at its own
pleasure ; and, finally, that when a Commonwealth
should dispense with this agency, its presence there
after within the original territorial limits of the Com
monwealth, even in the places subject to its exclusive
jurisdiction, was the presence of a foreign invader. This
was the doctrine of the secessionists, but it found no
warrant either in the history of the formation of the
Constitution, or in any provision contained in the text
of it, or in the practice of the Government during more
than seventy years of existence under it. It was simply
a revolutionary claim which stamped its upholders as
rebels until they should succeed in establishing it by
physical force.
There can be no question in the mind of the historian
and constitutional lawyer to-day that the "States "claim
ing to have seceded from the Union were the aggressors.
The South Carolina authorities fired the first shot of the
conflict when they opened their batteries upon the Star
of the West, on the 9th of January, and the Confeder
ate agent of the "States" claiming to have seceded
fired the second shot in Charleston Harbor on the morn
ing of April 12th, and in both cases the shot fired was
against the supremacy of that law and authority to

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 169
which those who did the deed owed obedience and
allegiance. The more puzzling query is whether the result of these
acts was rebellion or war. It certainly was not a war be
tween independent nations. That was the Rebeuionor
deepest issue of the conflict, and the outcome ^"¦
proved the contrary. Neither was it in a strictly cor
rect sense civil war. It was not a struggle between two
parties for the possession of the Government, each claim
ing to be legitimate ; nor were the belligerent parties
composed generally of adherents resident within the
same localities. It was really the attempt of a section to
constitute itself a separate country, a separate nation,
a separate sovereignty. And the first step in such a
procedure is, and must be, rebellion, which, if success
ful, is then termed, in political nomenclature, revolu
tion. From a strictly legal point of view, every person
engaged in it makes himself subject to the criminal law
of the Government against which he rebels, but when
the spirit of rebellion becomes so general throughout a
large section of a country as to take possession of the
vast majority of the people within that section, and
when the rebels constitute responsible government and
regularly organized armies, and proceed to battle for
the recognition of their claims according to the meth
ods of regular war, then the practice of the world is
not to deal with them as traitors under the criminal
law, but as belligerents in quasi-war. That is, while
the government against which the rebellion is directed
in such a case may, in strict legality, treat every rebel
as a traitor under its criminal law, international prin
ciple and good public policy recommend to the gov
ernment, in such a situation, a quasi-international
treatment of the rebels, if not of the question of the
rebellion.

170 THE CIVIL WAR
We arrive at truth and justice, the basis of law, only
through the medium of human interpretation, and we
determine, in democratic countries, the correctness of
that interpretation by the power of conviction which it
exerts over the minds of great numbers of the people.
When, then, there is anything like a balance of numbers
in a division of the whole country, the employment of
criminal conceptions, and the application of the criminal
law, by the party in possession of the original govern
ment against the other party results, usually, in barbar
izing both parties. There are conceivable situations,
indeed, in which this must be done ; when, for example,
the question is government or anarchy. But when it
is, as it usually is in these cases, a question of one gov
ernment or another, then the world-ethic of a demo
cratic age recommends toleration of differences so far,
at least, as to ascribe a rational sincerity to all, and to
treat those in rebellion more as belligerents than as
traitors. This is not an entirely logical position, from the point
of view of either of the governments concerned. Both
are liable to confound the qualities of belligerency with
the rights of independence. And while one will deny
belligerency as involving a recognition of independence,
the other will claim independence as involved in a rec
ognition of belligerency. But if we regard the question
from the point of view of the world's progress in civil
ization, a progress in which so much has been accom
plished through antagonism, we may perceive the phi
losophy, if not the logic, of the proposition and the
practice. Major Anderson and his little band of loyal soldiers
defended Fort Sumter for thirty-four hours against the
shot and shell of the Confederate batteries, and when
its walls were beaten down upon them, and the barracks

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 171
set on fire by red-hot shot, surrendered the work on the
condition of being allowed to withdraw in possession of
their individual and company property, and The surren-
to salute the flag of the Union in depart- aerofsumter.
ing. The steamboat Isabel took them down the harbor,
and transferred them to the Baltic, which was lying in
wait for them outside the bar. On the 18th, they arrived
at the port of New York, and Major Anderson imme
diately made his official announcement of the surrender
to the Secretary of War.
If the Confederacy had no alternative to the attack
upon Fort Sumter but its own dissolution, the Union
had now no alternative to its dissolution but
the overthrow of the Confederacy. It is true driven to take
that no person had been killed on either side, "^ "™''
except by the bursting of a gun in the flnal salute to the
flag, but the sovereignty of the Union had been forcibly
expelled from territory which it had possessed for
decades, and over which it still claimed the rights of
property and dominion. That sovereignty must now re
possess itself of this territory and reassert and re-estab
lish the supremacy of its will, or else it must accept the
proposition that "discontented individuals too few in
number to control administration, according to organic
law," may, under any pretence they may desire, break
up their government by taking shelter under a claim
of sovereignty in the localities or communities in
which they reside, to which they may profess to owe
a paramount allegiance. Verily, it was the question
whether popular government should perish from the
earth. President Lincoln did not wait for Major Anderson's
official report. He recognized that the time for deliber
ation and discussion had now passed, and the time for
action had arrived. He saw clearly that he must now

172 THE CIVIL WAR
go forward with a firm hand and a determined purpose,
if he would save the Nation from dissolution, yea, if he
would even save its capital from those in rebellion
against its sovereignty.
On the day after the fall of Sumter he issued the call
to arms. This remarkable proclamation should be care-
The call for fiiHj studied, since it contained Mr. Lincoln's
troops. conception of the situation which confronted
him. In it Mr. Lincoln first declared that the execu
tion of the laws of the United States were, and for some
time had been, " obstructed in the States of South Caro
lina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana,
and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed
by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the
powers vested in the marshals by law." Mr. Lincoln
thus distinctly indicated the view, at the outset, that he
was dealing, not with nations or even with " States,"
but with private combinations of persons in rebellion
against the sovereignty of the United States, and the
constitutional and legal authority of the United States
Government ; that secession was an utter abortion ; and
that the claim of the rebels in South Carolina, Georgia,
and the other communities, to be the " States" of South
Carolina, Georgia, and the like, was an absolute impos
sibility in principle.
Dealing, according to this conception, with a domes
tic insurrection, and not with a foreign enemy, Mr.
, , Lincoln derived his duties and his powers
Lincoln's ¦•¦ , ,
theory of the from those clauses of the Constitution which
imposed upon him the obligation to see to
the faithful execution of the laws of the United States,
and conferred upon him the means of discharging the
trust. There was no difficulty, from his point of view,
in finding executive power to use the existing army
and navy to maintain the authority of the Government

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTEE 173
against insurgents, but it was not so easy to find the
executive power to increase the forces, and without this
the arm of fiesh would not be strong enough to deal
successfully with the situation. The Constitution gave
Congress the exclusive power to create armies and navies,
and to provide for bringing the militia of the "States"
into the service of the United States, that is, for bring
ing them under the command of the President of the
United States. By a statu te of sixty-five years' standing,
however. Congress had conferred upon the President,
under its power to provide for calling the militia of the
"States "into the service of the Union, the authority
to issue the call himself at his own discretion, and the
Supreme Court had decided, more than thirty years be
fore, not only that this statute was constitutional, but
that any militiaman refusing to obey the command of
the President calling him into the service of the United
States was subject to the process of a United States
court-martial. Here, then, was, without question, an
executive power to increase the military forces under
the command of the President to any extent which the
population and resources of the country would bear,
since every male citizen between the ages of eighteen
and forty-five was, at that moment, by another con
gressional statute, subject to militia service. As a
matter of fact, however, the general organization of the
militia on the basis of this law requiring universal
military service had fallen into desuetude. So far as
actual organization was concerned, the militia of 1861,
in the United States, was more a volunteer system than
a compulsory service. As organized, therefore, at that
date, its strength was far short of what the Congressional
statute provided and required.
President Lincoln was, of course, obliged to take
things as he found them. There was no time to spare

174 THE CIVIL WAR
in transactions with the " States," however loyally dis
posed they might be, for executing the Congressional
. act for the universal organization of the mil-
Hes of the situ- itia. The President must address himself,
first of all, to the existing organizations. He
despatched his commands to the Governors of all the
"States," except those in which the insurrection ex
isted. He addressed the Governors in their capacities
as the highest officers of the militia in their respective
"States." Good political science, and a sound construc
tion of the Constitution itself, made them his military
subordinates in the matter of bringing the militia into
the service of the United States, if no farther, and a
refusal by any one of them to obey his call ought to
have been considered an offence of the highest character,
to be dealt with by a court-martial of the United States.
The President stated that the first service to which
the seventy-five thousand militia thus called into the
service of the United States would probably be assigned
would be the repossession of the "forts, places, and
property" which the insurgents had seized. He did
not appear from this to be especially anxious about the
safety of the capital. The events of the next five
days, however, made it manifest that the first duty of
the new army must be the defence of Washington.
The proclamation contained, further, the command of
the President to the insurgents to disperse within twenty
days. And it closed with the summons to the two
Houses of Congress to meet in extraordinary session on
the 4th day of the following July. Whatever may have
been the President's reasons for deferring this meeting
for so long, it certainly showed strong nerve in him to
be willing to carry the great responsibility alone for such
a period. The Governors of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky,

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 175
Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas flatly and insolently
refused to obey the President's call for troops from those
Commonwealths, and the Governors of Dela- The refusals
ware and Maryland did not obey it. No ordi- presVd^en?!
nance of secession had as yet been passed in cau for troops.
any of these Commonwealths, and no one of them
claimed to be out of the Union. From a true juristic
point of view, as well as from the point of view of a
sound political science, these men made themselves, by
their military insubordination, subject to a United States
court-martial. They ought to have been arrested, tried,
and condemned by a military tribunal for one of the
most grievous offences known to public jurisprudence.
It was the physical power to carry out such a procedure
that was lacking ; and the fear of the effect of such an
unprecedented course upon the inhabitants of these
Commonwealths might have deterred the President
from using it, had he possessed it. At this day such an
attitude on the part of " State " Governors would be
regarded very differently from what it was then, and
might be dealt with very differently.
The Governors of the non-slaveholding Common
wealths, on the other hand, all answered with alacrity.
All of these Commonwealths east of the Prompt ac-
Rocky Mountains, except only Rhode Island, tion of the
j; . TH- T • 1 > L Governors of
had Governors of Mr. Lincoln s own party ; the Northern
States
and the Democratic Governor of Rhode Isl
and, Mr. William Sprague,was as prompt as any of these.
He even proposed to lay aside his civil functions and put
himself at the head of the contingent from his Common
wealth. And the great leader of the Northern Democ
racy, Senator Douglas, called immediately The attitude
upon the President, and assured him of his of Mr. Doug-
loyal sympathy and co-operation in the im
pending conflict. This great patriotic act of Mr. Doug-

176 THE CIVIL WAR
las made the North a unit substantially in the support
of the Administration. The divided North, upon which
the secessionists had counted, had now vanished like a
will-o'-the-wisp before the rising sun. The North viewed
the question now no longer as slavery against freedom,
but as national existence, as the maintenance of govern
ment, as the suppression of rebellion against lawful au
thority. With this consolidation of the public opinion
of the North in his support, Mr. Lincoln felt that the
most important field had been won. For this he had
worked and waited since the day of his inauguration,
and he viewed the realization of his hopes with supreme
satisfaction and sincere thankfulness.
The other chief object of his solicitude, however, the
preservation of the border slaveholding Commonwealths
The peril of against the passage of secession ordinances,
the capital. y^^^^ qq^ placed in extreme jeopardy, and with
it the safety of the capital was imperilled.
We have seen that the Governors of all these Common
wealths except only Delaware and Maryland, had refused
obedience to the President's call for troops, and in some
cases had threatened to array themselves against the
military power and authority of the Government, and
that the Governors of Delaware and Maryland did not
obey the call. While the action of these two function
aries was not positively hostile, it still gave the President
more anxiety than the more pronounced attitude of the
others, since these Commonwealths lay geographically
between the capital and the loyal North. General Scott
had collected a few companies of regulars, and seemed
to think that he could hold out against any attack until
the arrival of re-inforcements, provided they should be
promptly forwarded.
There was a general belief in Washington that a well-
matured conspiracy for the capture and destruction of

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTEE 177
the city existed, and the alarm over the situation for the
first few days after the capture of Sumter was genuine
and great. If the Marylanders would furnish no troops
for the relief of the city, and should resist the passage
of troops from the loyal Commonwealths through their
territory, it was manifest that such delay might be thus
caused in receiving re-inforcements at Washington as to
give the conspirators, if there were any, a fair opportu
nity to execute their purposes. The Confederate Secre
tary of War, Mr. L. P. Walker, proclaimed in his speech
of April 1 2th at Montgomery, that the Confederate fiag
would float over Washington City before the 1st of May.
And the secessionist leaders in Virginia considered the
capture of the city as one of the flrst movements which
Virginia should undertake after deciding to join the
Confederacy. It was now conjectured in Washington
that the plan of the conspirators was to have the Mary
landers prevent the passage of troops from the North
across their " State " ; gather Virginia troops along the
Potomac opposite Washington ; effect the secession of
Maryland ; then have Maryland reclaim possession of
the District of Columbia upon the same principle that
South Carolina claimed Fort Sumter, viz., by virtue of
her sovereign right to resume all of her grants to the
United States Government at her own pleasure ; and
finally enforce the claim, if the United States Govern
ment should refuse to surrender the District, by the mil
itary forces of the two " States."
The events of the next flvedays after the fall of Sum
ter seemed to justify fully these conjectures. On the
17th the convention at Richmond passed the
^ _ Virginia
secession ordinance by a secret vote. Less convention
than a fortnight before it had rejected the cession ordi-
proposition by a majority of two to one. It °™
now resolved to submit its vote approving secession to
Vol. L-13

178 THE CIVIL WAE
the people for ratification. It appointed, however, a
distant day for that purpose, the 23d of the following
month, and long before that time the old Common
wealth was occupied by the forces of the Confederacy.
The popular vote, when it was cast, was the merest
farce. The day following the passage of the secession ordi
nance by the convention, the Virginia secessionists
, seized Harper's Ferry, and sent their General
Seizure of_,,.„ ^ , ,-, , -, ,
Harper's Fer- Taliaferro to capture the great navy-yard of
porTnavy- the United States at Gosport near Norfolk.
^" ¦ This was also speedily accomplished, and
therewith the Confederacy obtained possession of ships,
cannon, arms, munitions, and military and "naval stores
to the value of some ten millions of dollars.
The events of the 19th were even more exciting and
threatening. Already in the afternoon of the 16th some
The Sixth four or fivc hundred Pennsylvania troops had
^tts'taBaiH- made their way across Maryland, and had
more. reached Washington without incident. A
few more arrived on the 18th. On the 19th the Sixth
Massachusetts regiment, uniformed and armed, under
took to go by rail to Washington, through Baltimore.
The cars containing seven of the companies were drawn
by horses from the Northern to the Southern station with
safety. The mob had by this time, however, gathered
in force, and began to obstruct the tracks in the streets,
and the other four companies were compelled to march
through the town. The mob fell upon them with all
kinds of missiles, even firing pistols at them. The
Mayor and the police endeavored to disperse the rioters,
but were unsuccessful. The soldiers were obliged to
take care of themselves. They at last cleared their way
with bullets and fixed bayonets. Four of the soldiers
were slain outright, a dozen or more of the rioters were

THE CAPTUEE OF FOET SUMTEE 179
killed, and a considerable number of them wounded.
The regiment reached Washington in the afternoon of
the same day, and with the eight hundred or more Penn
sylvanians, some city volunteers, and General Scott's
five or six companies of regulars, placed the capital out
of danger of a surprise.
The events of the week from the twelfth to the twen
tieth set the whole country in commotion. A wave
of passionate anger, presaging fearful war,
i. 4.1, AT f-u 4.1. o i.1. J i.1 The effect of
swept over the JNorth, the South, and the theseeventson
slaveholding Commonwealths which had not ®'=''™"7-
yet renounced their allegiance. From the vantage ground
of the present, we can easily comprehend the deep in
dignation of all loyal hearts. The fiag of their country
had been shot down ; the authority of their Government
had been defied, and expelled by force of arms from a
place which was the property of the Union ; and loyal
soldiers had been attacked, maimed, and killed upon the
soil of a Commonwealth where they had every kind of
right to be, and over which they were obliged to pass
in order to defend the capital of the Union against
capture and destruction. It would have been, indeed,
a base and cowardly people who would not have been
stirred to wrathful feeling and belligerent deeds by such
events. It is more difficult to see why the secessionists should
have experienced any increased resentment towafd the
Northern people and the Government of the United
States on account of them. These were outrages com
mitted by themselves. It is psychologically true that
the committers of outrages usually become greatly ex
cited against their victim in the execution of their work,
but the rational mind can see no reason or justice in it,
though it may discover the explanation of it. And it is
almost impossible to comprehend the mental processes of

180 THE CIVIL WAE
the professed' loyal men, in the slaveholding Common
wealths that had not before these events passed secession
ordinances renouncing their allegiance to the Union,
which led them to participate sympathetically in the
newly excited feelings of the secessionists. One would
think now that those events ought to have increased their
aversion toward the destroyers of the Union and have
made them more determined in their loyal attitude. They
did do so in Kentucky and Missouri very generally, and
in some notable instances in Tennessee. The wonder is
that they did not do so in all cases. And the wonder of
wonders is the unaccountable apostacy of John Bell.
Bell was the acknowledged leader-in-chief of the
Unionists of the South. He had almost evenly divided
The attitude the popular vote of the slaveholding Common-
Ster't'he fall ''healths with Breckenridge in the election of
of Sumter. I860. He made his campaign upon aplatform
whose only principle was : " The Union, the Constitu
tion, and the enforcement of the laws." A firm and de
cided stand on his part would probably have rallied
most of his followers in the slaveholding Commonwealths
that had not then passed secession ordinances to more
determined efforts for upholding the cause of the Union
in their midst. At least, it would most probably have
prevented Tennessee from casting her lot with the South
ern Confederacy. It was the grand opportunity of his life.
Had he clung to the principle of his platform, and used
his infiuence and his eloquence to inspire his friends and
followers with courage and patriotism, he would not now
be forgotten, as he is, but would be enthroned among
the heroes of our national history. Instead of this
he crept ignobly into the secessionist meeting in the
Court House at Nashville, just after the fall of Sumter,
and virtually gave in his adherence to secession, while
nominally disapproving it, and therewith sealed the fate

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 181
of the Union cause in Tennessee and his own everlasting
downfall. It was a sad ending of a noble career. He
had stood firmly against the repeal of the Missouri Com
promise — that is, against the extension of slavery into
the Territories north of thirty-six degrees and thirty
minutes. He had incessantly proclaimed that all differ
ences must be fought out and settled by discussion and
vote within the Union. And he had declared the Union,
the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws to be
the fundamental principle of his political creed. But
now he deserted the Administration and the Union at
the very first attempt made by the new President, not
even to enforce the laws against those defying them, but
only to protect the soldiers in the military posts of the
Union from starvation and capture. It is impossible to
describe the chagrin and dismay which overcame the
followers of this grand old man in his native Common
wealth and in many other quarters, when they learned
that he had surrendered his proud leadership in Ten
nessee, and had himself become virtually a follower of
the narrow-minded, passionate Governor of the Com
monwealth who was bending all his energies to commit
Tennessee to secession. They lost the courage to resist
the social persecution, which was now inaugurated in
Tennessee, as well as in Virginia, against all who would
not declare themselves unreservedly for secession ; and it
soon became the doctrine of the Tennessee secessionists
that those who would not join hands with them in de
stroying the Union must leave the " State."
The theory of cowardice is hardly a satisfactory one
upon which to account for the strange conduct of Mr.
Bell. He was conciliatory in his habit of mind, but had
not been considered cowardly. He undoubtedly reasoned
that a neutral position on the part of the slaveholding
Commonwealths, which had not yet declared secession.

182 THE CIVIL WAB
would avert war, and give opportunity for a peaceable
reconstruction of the Union. He thought that success
ful war against the Dnion by the Confederacy would lead
to permanent separation, and that successful war by the
Union against the Confederacy would lead to a change
of the Constitution, and the abolition of slavery in the
Commonwealths. He was for the Union under the exist
ing Constitution, not for the Union under any constitu
tion which the necessities of war might require. We
can see how he thus reconciled his conduct with the first
two elements in his platform-principle : " The Union,
the Constitution." But how he made it harmonize with
the third element — "the enforcement of the laws" —
is not so easy to comprehend, that is, not so easy from
a general point of view. If, however, we reflect that to
the Southern mind in 1860, this phrase meant especial
ly the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law, and the
Kansas-Nebraska Act as interpreted in the Dred Scott
opinion, we may help ourselves to understand how Mr.
Bell explained away, to his own satisfaction, that appar
ently loyal and patriotic principle for which he stood as
a presidential candidate in 1860. We must do him the
justice of believing he was convinced by his own sophis
tries. We must also do the Tennessee secessionists the
justice of believing that they thought themselves patriots
in now establishing a reign of terror over Union senti
ment in Tennessee. From the Governor down they were
men of narrow mind and unlimited passion. Embol
dened by the apostacy of Bell and the consequent timidity
of those whom he had left in the lurch, they now tram
pled under foot every dissent from their own views, and
every man who dared to express it.
A Confederate agent immediately appeared in Nash
ville, and the Democratic Legislature authorized Gov
ernor Harris to appoin.t commissioners to negotiate with

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 183
him a military alliance between Tennessee and the Con
federacy. The convention agreed upon between the two
parties provided for the transfer of the com-
mand of the military forces of the " State" treaj^withthe
to the Confederate authorities, and for the ° * *"^^'
ultimate transfer of all the munitions of war in the pos
session of the " State " to the Confederacy. This agree
ment was secretly ratifled by the Legislature on the 7th
of May.
On the day preceding this act, the Legislature passed
a secession ordinance, appended to it a provision adopt
ing the constitution of the Confederacy, and Tennessee
submitted both to a popular vote to be taken "ece^sion.
June 8th. When this day arrived, the " State " had
been already a month in the grasp of the Confederacy,
and the farce at the polls was proclaimed by the Gov
ernor to have been an overwhelming ratiflcation of the
ordinance and of the Confederate constitution. A few
brave men among the Union leaders, such as Johnson,
Etheridge, Maynard, Stokes, and Brownlow, stuck to
their principles and left the " State," but the great
majority of them felt compelled to seek service under
the Confederacy in order to prove the sincerity of their
ignominious conversion.
The secessionist Governor of North Carolina, Ellis,
also seized the opportunity offered by the excitement
over the fall of Sumter to dragoon that north caro-
Commonwealth into the secession movement. "°* "ecession.
The people had elected a large Unionist majority to a
convention on the 30th of the preceding January, and
at the same time had voted against holding any con
vention. Nevertheless a convention of the disunionist
minority assembled at Raleigh on the 22d of March, and
waited for the course of events to open a way for the
accomplishment of their purpose. It was probably

184 THE CIVIL WAR
with their approval, and perhaps upon their advice,
that the Governor proceeded, on the 20th of April, to
seize the United States mint at Charlotte, and, on the
22d, the United States arsenal at Fayetteville. He
had already more than three months before taken pos
session of the United States forts near Beaufort and
Wilmington. They were not, at the time, garrisoned,
and he gave it out that he feared their occupation by
irresponsible persons. Ostensibly he had held them
for the United States Government, not against it. No
such excuses, however, were now offered for the seiz
ures of the mint and the arsenal. They were taken
from the United States Government, and held against
that Government. The "State" had not as yet pre
tended to have seceded from the Union. Nothing
therefore distinguished the Governor in the commission
of these acts from a common robber, except that they
were executed by virtue of the abuse of his public pow
ers, and for what he considered to be the advantage of
the community over which he governed. On the 26th
he proceeded to call the Legislature for the purpose of
effecting the passage of a secession ordinance.
President Lincoln accepted these movements as put
ting the people of North Carolina in an attitude of
„,..,>,, rebellion to the Government of the United
The Block
ade proclama- States, and, on the 27th, he issued a proc
lamation, supplementary to that of April
19th blockading the ports of the seven "States" in
which conventions had passed secession ordinances, and
extended this inhibition of commerce to the ports of
Virginia and North Carolina.
The President's proclamation of the 19th had been
directly evoked by an order of the Confederate Govern
ment of the 17th proposing to use these ports for the
fitting out and commissioning of privateers to prey

Block

I Coast

THE CAPTURE OF FOET SUMTEE 185
upon the commerce of the United States. The Con
federates represented Mr. Lincoln's proclamation as in
volving a recognition of belligerent rights and of in
dependence. Mr. Seward, on the other hand, instructed
the ministers of the United States to foreign nations to
say that it was meant simply as a means of suppressing
insurrection. The text of the proclamation supports
this interpretation. It declares the amenability of
persons aqting under the letters of marque of the Con
federate President to the laws of the United States in
reference to the crime of piracy.
The North Carolina Legislature made a great ado
over the supplementary proclamation of the 27th, ex
tending the blockade to the ports in that North caro-
Commonwealth. It immediately issued the ^^ secession.
call for a convention, ordered the election of delegates
to the convention upon the 13th of the following
month (May), and fixed the date of its assembly for the
20th. It sent a representative to the Confederate Con
gress, and the lower house of the body passed a reso
lution declaring that the President of the United
States, in blockading the ports of North Carolina, had
assigned North Carolina to the position of a foreign
country, and had declared war upon her, and authoriz
ing the Governor " to use all the powers of the State,
civil and military," to protect its citizens and defend
its honor.
The view which the leaders in North Carolina then
imposed upon the people with every violence of speech
and act was that Mr. Lincoln had overturned the Con
stitution of the United States, assumed a military dic
tatorship, expelled them from the Union and from the
protection of its laws, and was proceeding to destroy
them by means of the ravages of war and slave insurrec
tion. The Union sentiment was thus suppressed and

186 THE CIVIL WAE
reduced to silence, and the convention accomplished its
mad work on the very day of its assembly, and with per
fect unanimity.
Arkansas was borne along even more swiftly by the
force of this insane excitement. The convention called
Secession in ^7 ^^^ Legislature to consider secession had
Arkansas. assembled in the early days of March, and
after having listened to propositions from the Confeder
ate President had voted not to pass a secession ordinance.
It had resolved, however, to submit its action to the peo
ple at the polls on the first day of the following August.
It had then adjourned to the 17th of August, to await
the decision of the voters upon the subject.
Upon the fall of Sumter and the call for troops to
suppress the rebellion, the convention immediately re
assembled. The Union sentiment was suppressed by the
same sophistries, expressed and impressed in the same
violent and brutal ways as obtained in Tennessee and
North Carolina. On the 6th of May the convention
passed the secession ordinance, with only a single voice
and vote raised against it.
It was the well laid, and, to a degree, well developed
plan of the secessionists to secure the passage of secession
Bsion in o^'dinauces in Missouri and Kentucky also by
MisBoim at- the help of the Sumter excitement. The
Governor of Missouri and a majority of the
Legislature were favorable to secession. They assisted
in the development of the movement through January
and February, and, when they thought the time was
ripe, the Legislature issued, on January 16th, its call for
the convention. To their great surprise an overwhelm
ing majority of the delegates chosen were Unionists. In
fact when the convention assembled, on the 28th of Feb
ruary, not a single one of the members declared for se
cession. It passed a resolution against secession, elected

THE CAPTUEE OF FORT SUMTER 187
delegates to the " border States " convention proposed
by the Legislature of Kentucky, and, on March 22d
adjourned to meet again in the following December,
unless called together earlier by the committee chosen
by it and vested by it with this power in any emergency
which might seem to its members to require immediate
action. During all this time the Governor, Mr. Jackson, had
been devising a scheme for getting hold of the United
States arsenal at St. Louis. But fortunately for the
Union cause there was a stanch loyalist in St. Louis at
this time who more than equalled the Governor in the
craft of politics, as well as in intelligence, courage, and
resoluteness. This was Francis Preston Blair, Jr., the
brother of Montgomery Blair, Mr. Lincoln's Postmaster-
General. As far back as January the Governor began an attempt
to corrupt the commandant of the arsenal. This was
quickly reported in Washington with the result that the
commandant was changed and the garrison at the arsenal
re-enforced. Then the secessionists began the organiza
tion of armed clubs, under the title of " Minute Men,"
for the purpose of capturing the arsenal. Blair and the
Unionists formed, in counter movement, a committee of
safety and proceeded to organize companies of "Home
Guards," for the defence of the arsenal.
Upon the incoming of the new Administration, with
his brother in the Cabinet, Mr. Blair was able to have a
most capable and patriotic man. Captain Na-
ii • 1 X T 1 i • Oi. Secession
thaniel Lyon, appointed commandant m St. in Missouri
Louis, and with Lyon in authority over the
military of the United States in the city, and his com
mittee of safety, and his influence in Washington, Blair
was able to foil the Governor and the Legislature and
their secessionist support in all their schemes for the

188 THE CIVIL WAE
capture of the arsenal, and the commitment of Missouri
to the Confederate cause.
The Unionists had, however, a very serious struggle
to maintain their ground when the excitement over the
fall of Sumter and the call for troops swept
gie between over the land. As we have seen, the Govern-
aud the Seces- or refused the Call in terms of insult to the
t'he'^faii of President, as well as disloyalty to the Union.
Sumter. Blair and the committee of safety went to
work, however, enlisting volunteers. The Governor, on
his part, began the establishment of a " State " camp in
the suburbs of the city under the direction of his " State "
Brigadier-General Frost. His purpose from the first
was, undoubtedly, the seizure of the arsenal. During
the last week of April he was in communication with
the Confederate President, asking for arms with which
to attack the troops of the United States in the arsenal.
In the night of the 8th of May, cannon, muskets, and
ammunition sent by order of the Confederate President
actually arrived in St. Louis by steamer from New Or
leans. Blair and the committee of safety allowed them
to be taken without opposition to Camp Jackson, in or
der to have certain proof of the treasonable designs of
the Governor and his General.
Meanwhile President Lincoln had authorized Blair
and his committee to proclaim martial law in St. Louis,
if they deemed it necessary, and to create a military force
of not more than ten thousand men under their com
mand, to act with Lyon and his regulars in the arsenal.
The day following the arrival of the arms. Captain
Lyon went out to Camp Jackson incognito. He saw
the arms sent by the Confederate Government, and other
most convincing proofs of the disloyalty of the Governor
and General Frost. On the next day. May 10th, Lyon
proceeded with his forces to surround the camp, and

THE CAPTUEE OF FOET SUMTER 189
demand its surrender. He had planned his attack so
well and so quietly that success was certain. Frost
surrendered without the firing of a single musket. On
the way back to the arsenal, however, with his prisoners,
Lyon was set upon by a secessionist mob, and it became
necessary to allow his troops to fire in self -protection.
Ten or fifteen persons were killed, and quite a number
wounded. The excitement in the city became very
intense. Unfortunately in the height of it. General
Harney, the commander of the military department in
which St. Louis was situated, arrived upon the scene.
General Harney was a genuinely loyal man, but he
was one of those mild, conservative, urbane gentlemen,
who are very slow to suspect deceit and treachery, and
very prone to attribute to all men the uprightness of
which they themselves are conscious in their own hearts.
Harney was Lyon's superior in command, of course, and
was a favorite with General Scott, the Commander-in-
chief of the United States army. He immediately man
ifested his disposition to listen to the representations
of Frost, Price and others of the opponents of Blair and
Lyon, who declared that they had no disloyal purposes
in assembling the militia around St. Louis.
Blair and Lyon knew that Harney was being deceived,
and when he began to speak of disbanding the " Home
Guards " which the President had authorized Buir, Lyon
them to organize, they sent a deputation to *°* Hamey.
Washington to confer with the President. The other
side also sent representatives. Blair's brother in the Cab
inet espoused the cause of the one faction, while Bates,
the Attorney-General, also a Missouri man, was inclined
to favor the other. Mr. Lincoln, with his unfailing sagac
ity, saw the situation as it was, and determined to sus
tain Blair and Lyon. He relieved Harney, raised Lyon
to the rank of a brigadier-general, and put him in com-

190 THE CIVIL WAR
mand at St. Louis. The President did not announce his
determinations to the public immediately, but sent them
in confidence to Mr. Blair, and wrote him to allow Harney
to remain in command unless or until it should become
necessary in his judgment to remove him. Mr. Blair
held the President's order from the 18th of May until
the 30th, during which period it became entirely mani
fest to Blair and his friends that Jackson, Frost, Price,
and the Missouri Legislature, then assembled at Jeffer
son City, were preparing for armed rebellion, and that
Harney was almost oblivious to the fact, and was allow
ing the moments during which their plans might be
frustrated to slip by unimproved. On the 30th of May
Blair determined to delay no longer, and delivered to
Harney the President's order of the 16th, relieving him
and putting Lyon in command.
Jackson and Price now sought an interview with
Blair and Lyon. This occurred at St. Louis, on the 11th
of June. Jackson demanded that the " Home Guards "
should be disbanded, and that no more United States
soldiers should be placed in Missouri. Lyon on the other
hand demanded the dissolution of the " State Guards "
and the abandonment of the project for organizing the
military dictatorship of the Governor over the Common
wealth. He also declared that the United States Gov
ernment would not yield its constitutional rights to march
its soldiers into or through the Commonwealth, and
station them therein, according to its own discretion.
The Governor and his attendant. General Price, pro
nounced the attitude assumed by Blair and Lyon to be
a declaration of war upon Missouri. They returned in
haste to Jefferson City, ordering the railroad bridges to
be burned behind them. Arriving there, the Governor
published the results of the interview at St. Louis and
called for fifty thousand men to take arms in the ser-

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 191
vice of the " State " against the United States Govern
ment. The Governor drew a distinction between the
constitutional requirements of the Federal Government,
which it was the duty of the citizens of Missouri to
obey, and " the unconstitutional edicts of the military
despotism " enthroned at Washington, which they were
obligated to resist. But no Unionist was deceived by
such contradictions, however much the Governor might
deceive himself by them. Lyon followed them with a
strong force by steamer up the Missouri River, and, on
the 15th (June), took possession of the capital of the
Commonwealth. Missouri was now in the hands of the
United States army.
The convention which had adjourned, as we have
seen, the preceding March, after having appointed a
committee with power to call its members together
again npon an emergency, was now summoned by this
committee. It assembled on the 22d of July and be
fore the end of the month it had established a loyal
Commonwealth government in Missouri. With this the
position of Missouri was definitely determined, and the
danger of the enactment of a secession ordinance by
any body of men entitled to claim to represent the
" State " was entirely averted.
It was the attitude of Kentucky, however, which,
next to that of Maryland, gave Mr. Lincoln the greatest
concern. Besides its inestimable value from .^^ , ^
Attempts at
political and strategic points of view, it was g^„%^^°^'"
the "State" of his nativity, and his strongly The attitude
sentimental nature made him regard its soil ment and of
and its inhabitants with particular affection. " ^^^ *'
The government of the Commonwealth, in both the
legislative and executive branches, was in the hands of
the Breckenridge Democrats at the moment of the at
tack upon Sumter, and the Governor, Beriah Magoffin,

192 THE CIVIL WAR
refused, in insulting language. President Lincoln's call
upon him for Kentucky's quota of the militia to sup
press insurrection and enforce the laws. The President
had faith, however, that the feeling of the great mass of
the people was with him, and he determined so to act as
to give time and opportunity for the Union sentiment
to develop into intelligent opinion and settled purpose.
The prevailing notion in Kentucky, at the moment,
was that the "State" should remain neutral in the
impending struggle, and refuse to allow the troops of
either the United States or the Confederate States to
enter its limits. Even the strongest Unionists did not
seem to perceive, at the moment, that this would mean
aid to the Confederacy, by defending the secessionist
" States " against the approach of the authorities of the
Union. Even John J. Crittenden reasoned, at first,
that, if Kentucky and the other " border States " should
assume this attitude, war between the two sections
would be averted, and the "Confederate States," after a
few years of trial with their experiment, would return
voluntarily to the Union. He went so far, at first, as to
approve of the Governor's refusal of the militia on the
President's call, although he took pains to explain his
position, and that of those who thought with him, to
the Government at Washington, with very different
reasons from those advanced by the Governor. He
wrote to General Scott that while Kentucky regret
ted the language of her Governor's answer to the Pres
ident, she " acquiesced in his declining to furnish the
troops called for, and she did so, not because she loved
the Union the less, but she feared that if she parted
with those troops, and sent them to serve in your ranks,
she would have been overwhelmed by the secessionists
at home and severed from the Union ; and it was to
preserve substantially and ultimately our connection

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 193
with the Union that induced us to acquiesce in the par
tial infraction of it by our Governor's refusal of the
troops required." The confusion of the thought in this
proposition is made very manifest in the confusion of
the grammar in which it is expressed. Still it held
sway over the minds of most, and of many of the best.
The President's policy toward Kentucky was, if not
dictated, very largely determined by these views of the
prominent Unionists in the Commonwealth. The Presi-
He saw that he must so shape the course of fawui ^^^
the Administration as to force the disloyal '"''^y-
men in Kentucky to show their hands. When they
should reveal their purpose, which the President fully
understood, of making Kentucky a bulwark and a bat
tle-ground for the Confederates, Mr. Lincoln had full
faith that the Unionists would then, themselves, call the
armies of the Union to their rescue. His idea was sim
ply to put himself in a position to answer the call,
promptly and vigorously. He did not, of course, con
sider himself under any legal obligation to await the
call, but only thought best to do so, unless it should be
too long delayed. Early in May, he selected a brilliant
young Kentuckian, William Nelson, at the wiiiiam
moment a capable naval officer, and, giving kelson.
him leave of absence from duty in the navy, sent him to
Louisville, with the understanding that he should un
dertake the military organization of the Unionists in
central Kentucky. Arms were sent to him for distribu
tion among them.
The President also sent another noted Kentuckian,
Major Robert Anderson, the late commander at Fort
Sumter, the best known military character ^^.^^ ^^
in the country, at the moment, to Cincinnati, ^g^^«'^"-
with the authority to receive volunteers from
Kentucky and Virginia into the United States service.
«%l. I.— 13

194 THE CIVIL WAR
A little later the President commissioned the brilliant
young Unionist of the Kentucky Senate, L. H. Rous-
L. H. Kous- seau, to raise and organize a brigade of Ken-
°^°' tuckians for the United States army. Gen
eral Rousseau established his camp, " Joe Holt," across
the Ohio River on Indiana soil.
While these movements were in progress the Legislat
ure was again in session, upon the call of the Governor,
Manifests- who now showed his disloyalty with distinct-
goffln'B°disi^- ness to all who would see it. He declared
al purposes, .(.j^g^^ ^j^g Union was already dissolved, and
that the Government at Washington was a usurpation.
He again recommended the arming of the militia, under
the "State Guard" organization, commanded by his
military man, Simon B. Bnckner, and the calling of
the " sovereign convention " of the " State," the body
which should determine, in his view, the attitude which
the " State " would take in the impending confiict. It
was charged that he applied to the Confederate Govern
ment at Montgomery for arms.
The Legislature, however, remained loyal ; repudiated
his pronunciamento against the Washington Govern-
ment ; refused to call a convention ; rejected
of the Legis- his demand for three millions of money with
which to purchase arms, accoutrements, and
ammunition for his " State Guards " ; and passed a law
requiring the oath of allegiance to the Union from every
member of the "State Guards," and authorizing the
organization of the loyal "Home Guards." It still pro
posed to use these only in defence of the neutrality of
the " State," it is true ; but these measures had the effect
of preventing the success of any attempt to pass a seces
sion ordinance, and of purging the " State Guards " or
ganization, and of organizing the militia in the loyal
" Home Guards."

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 195
The month of May passed while these movements were
being accomplished. The " border State " Peace con
ference, presided over by Mr. Crittenden,
was held. The Legislature adjourned. The of events™^
secessionists were gathering in the south- ^ '"'
western portion of the Commonwealth, and the Union
ists were getting complete control in the other portions.
Still no United States troops were on Kentucky soil, but
many Kentuckians had volunteered their services to the
Union, and were organizing and drilling in the camps
just across the Ohio. The conservative Unionists were
becoming convinced that the neutrality of Kentucky
would be an impossibility, and that Kentucky would be
obliged to fight on the one side or the other.
The election of members of Congress from Kentucky
for the special session of that body called by the Presi
dent to meet on the 4th of July was now at The trnion-
hand. All felt that the crisis in Kentucky's {?^?,g^resriona1
affairs had arrived. The Unionists went delegation.
boldly into the contest, and, after a three weeks' cam
paign of a most exciting character, won nine of the ten
seats. Kentucky might still, by the fortunes of war, be
made a temporary battle-ground, but there was now no
further danger of a secession ordinance, or of the dis
loyalty of her inhabitants. If any of them should choose
to throw in their lots with the Confederates, they would
have to do it without the justification or excuse of "going
with their State," that is, they would have to accept the
character of unmitigated rebels against their own de
facto and dejure " State " government, as well as against
the National Government. Mr. Lincoln was profoundly
gratified with the result, and now felt certain that the
northern boundary of the Confederacy could not be fur
ther advanced. He could now, at last, clearly estimate
the territorial extent of the rebellion.

196 THE CIVIL WAE
When the Massachusetts regiment left Baltimore in
the afternoon of April 19th, the city was virtually in the
hands of the secessionist mob. At about four
The situ fl"
Hon in Mary- o'clock they held a mass-meeting and mani-
" " fested such strength and determination that
the authorities, both of the city and the Commonwealth,
were terrorized into obedience to them, where they were
not already in sympathy with them. Even the Governor,
Mr. Hicks, though loyal to the Union and the Govern
ment, gave way before the storm of disunion so far as to
address the meeting, and to say : " I bow in submission
to the people. ... I will suffer my right arm to be
torn from my body before I will raise it to strike a sister
State." The Mayor had gone even further, and had in
formed the crowd that an understanding had been con
cluded between the Maryland authorities and the presi
dent of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad company
to the effect that no more troops would be brought over
the line without the consent of these authorities.
About midnight the Mayor, Mr. Brown, the Police
Marshal, Mr. Kane, and the Police commissioners held
a conclave, and resolved upon the destruction
of the railroad of the railroad bridges on the lines between
" ^*^' Baltimore and the North. Before daylight
three bridges on the Philadelphia line and three on the
Harrisburg line had been burned by their emissaries.
The party which did the work on one of the lines was
led by the Police Marshal himself, who in the midst of
his nefarious work sent a telegram to the notorious
secessionist of Frederick, Bradley T. Johnson, exhorting
him to " send expresses over the mountains and valleys
of Maryland and Virginia for the riflemen to come with
out delay," and declaring that " further hordes will be
down upon us to-morrow," and that " we will fight them,
and whip them, or die."

THE CAPTUEE OF FOET SUMTEE 197
The burning of these bridges, severing the National
Capital from the source of its defence against capture,
was an act of veritable treason, committed by the mu
nicipal authorities of Baltimore, and not simply by pri
vate persons. These authorities claimed that Governor
Hicks joined in the resolution. He denied it. If, how
ever, he did, then the Commonwealth government was
involved in the treason. Exact political and legal logic
would have required the immediate seizure of the city,
and all other necessary points by the troops of the United
States, the establishment of martial law over them, the
arrest of all persons concerned in the treasonable act,
and the trial of them under the processes of the crimi
nal law of the United States, if not under the processes
of martial law. But the Government at Washington did
not have, at the moment, the necessary physical power
to assert its just authority.
On the day following the rebellious outbreak in Bal
timore, Governor Hicks telegraphed to the Secretary of
War that the secessionists had the upper hand in the
city, and that he thought it prudent to decline, for the
time being, the President's call for the four regiments
of Maryland militia. He had no more power to do that
than a general in the regular army had to decline the
order of the President to bring his detachment to Wash
ington. His refusal to obey the President's command
in regard to this matter, no matter how mildly and
tentatively expressed, made him subject, in sound ju
risprudence, to the jurisdiction of the court-martial.
The demoralization, the perfect bewilderment, of
thought upon this subject, as well as upon almost every
other public relation, which obtained in the so-called
" border States," as well as in the " States " that had
passed secession ordinances, are a speaking testimony
of the growth of the Confederate theory of the Consti-

198 THE CIVIL WAE
tution during the forty years between 1820 and 1860.
It is doubtful if Mr. Lincoln himself and his chief ad
visers realized the enormity of the offence which these
" border State " governors had committed in refusing
to obey the President's order to send forward the troops
under their respective commands, and in assuming to
declare their respective " States " neutral in the strug
gle of the Government to maintain the Union and en
force the laws. And it is also doubtful if he and they
realized the character and extent of the President's
power in dealing with such conduct. The widespread
demoralization in thought and reasoning had not left
them entirely untouched. The President did, how
ever, upon hearing of the measures taken by the Mary
land authorities to prevent the passage of any more
troops across the Commonwealth, order a despatch to be
sent to the president of the Philadelphia and Wilming
ton Railroad, instructing him that Governor Hicks had
no authority to forbid the soil of Maryland to troops
coming to Washington under the orders of the Presi
dent of the United States, and commanding him to
send them on prepared to fight their way through, if
necessary. On the same day, the 20th, a committee of Balti-
moreans appeared in Washington bringing a request to
The request the President from Hicks and Brown that
m^™to°the no more troops should be led through Balti-
traopf^ho^d more. The President consulted General
ttoongh''Blfa' ®*^o** ^nd then replied that he would make
more. qq point of marching the soldiers through
Baltimore, but would order them to proceed around
the city. The committee apparently assented to this
proposition, but upon the return of its members to
Baltimore, they were repudiated by the secessionists
for not having refused their consent to the march of the

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 199
troops through any part of Maryland. The secession
ists then sent two new men to Washington to make fur
ther demands of the President. Mr. Lincoln preferred
to deal with the highest authorities, and sent a despatch
to Hicks and Brown requesting their presence at the
White House.
In the meantime the loyal and capable presidents of
the Philadelphia and Wilmington and the Pennsylvania
Central Railroads, Felton and Thomson, had The Presi-
devised a route by rail to Perry ville, at the dent's answer.
head of the Chesapeake Bay, thence by water to An
napolis, and thence by rail again to Washington ; and
when Brown with three friends. Hicks having excused
himself, arrived in Washington, the President told them
that the troops must come to Washington ; that they
would be brought either by the Perryville-Annapolis
route, or from Harrisburg and marched around Balti
more, provided no obstacles should be placed in their
way, but that if any should be, they would be ordered
to select their own route, and fight their way through,
if necessary. Brown and his friends were thus com
pelled to assent to the President's proposition.
This interview took place in the forenoon of the 21st,
and these gentlemen left the White House to return to
Baltimore. In less than two hours they were Bro w u B
back again with the story that three thousand second visit to
, i /-I 1 -n juti. the President.
troops were at Cockeysville, some fifteen
miles north of Baltimore, on the railroad to Harrisburg,
and that the people were rising to attack them. The
President sent an order to these troops to return to
Harrisburg, despite the fact of their sore need in Wash
ington. By this time the people of the North had become
thoroughly angered by the treasonable threats and deeds
of the Marylanders. The idea that the loyal soldiers

200 THE CIVIL WAE
should be forbidden to pass over any route in going to
the defence of the capital against seizure by rebels was in
tolerable. The people were fast approachina;
Northern ,, ., , . , . i ii •
anger aroused the resolution to go m a mass, of their own
by the situa- .. , , i. i. j
tion in Mary- motion, and march rough shod over any op-
*° ¦ position which might be placed in their way.
Already, however, on the 19th and 20th, the Eighth
Massachusetts regiment under Butler, and the Seventh
m.. ™ ^.o. New York under Lefferts, both crack regi-
The Eighth °
Massachusetts ments of good fighters, led by brave and cap-
seventh New able Commanders, had arrived at Philadelphia.
way to''wash- Butlcr proceeded with his men to Perryville,
mgton. ^^^-^ possession of the ferry-boat Maryland,
and, embarking his soldiers upon her, steamed down the
bay to Annapolis. Lefferts procured the steamer Boston
at Philadelphia, and went with his regiment down the
Delaware intending to proceed to Fortress Monroe and
up the Potomac to Washington. He found, however,
that the ascent of the Potomac might be hazardous, and
steamed up the Chesapeake to Annapolis. He arrived in
the harbor on the morning of the 22d, and found But
ler and his men there. They had been there for more
than twenty-four hours, but had not attempted to land.
Governor Hicks was in the city, and he and the Mayor
were endeavoring to dissuade Butler from landing.
Hicks wrote again to President Lincoln requesting that
no more troops be brought through Maryland, and that
those on the boats in the harbor of Annapolis be ordered
away. The President received this letter just after he
had learned that the secessionists in Baltimore had taken
possession of the telegraph offices in that city, and had
cut Washington off from telegraphic communication with
the North. At this same juncture another Baltimore
committee called upon him, and proposed to him to
solve the difficulties by acknowledging the independence

THE CAPTURE OF FORT SUMTER 201
of the Southern Confederacy. The President's indigna
tion was roused to a high pitch. He refused promptly
Hicks's requests, and told the committee that he should
bring the troops through Maryland, and that if they
should be attacked they would return the blow with
severity. On the afternoon of the 22d, Butler and Lefferts
disembarked their troops at Annapolis without resist
ance. They remained in the neighborhood of the city
during the next day, when four more regiments arrived
in the harbor. On the same day messengers from Gen
eral Scott made their way through to Annapolis. They
brought orders to Butler to hold possession of Annap
olis, but to send most of the troops to Washington.
In the morning of the 24th, the Eighth Massachusetts
and the Seventh New York regiments started for Wash
ington by way of Annapolis Junction on the Baltimore
and Washington railroad line. The railroad from An
napolis to the Junction had been destroyed by the seces
sionists, and the troops marched this distance, repairing
the road as they went. It was barely twenty miles, but
they were so delayed by their work upon the road that
twenty-four hours of time were consumed in the move
ment. Upon reaching the J auction a train of cars was
found in waiting. Colonel Lefferts and his men boarded
it, and by three o'clock that afternoon they were niarch-
ing with flying colors and martial music up Pennsylvania
Avenue, to the great relief of the President, the officials,
the scanty garrison, and the loyal population of the city.
For three days before their arrival rumors of attack
from Virginia had been rife. General Scott had re-
porteb to the President that two thousand
, , . . J, Eumors of
rebels were said to be at a point some four attack upon
miles below Mt. Vernon, that two thousand ° '^'''" * '
more were opposite Fort Washington, and that still two

202 THE CIVIL WAE
thousand more were marching from Harper's Ferry.
It was believed that Washington might be attacked at
any moment by a force of from eight to twelve thou
sand men. The General thought that he could defend
the city against the entrance of the rebel troops, but did
not feel hopeful of his ability to protect it against bom
bardment from the heights across the Potomac. It is
difficult to say what might have been the result of a
vigorous advance of the rebels upon the city at any time
before the 25th. There was a strong party in Richmond
in favor of it. The commander-in-chief of the insur
gent forces in Virginia, General Lee, on the contrary,
issued an order, dated the 23d, forbidding an attack on
Washington, and commanding his officers to act on the
defensive, and to collect men and provisions along the
line of the Potomac. Whether he did this from the be
lief that such an attack would be unsuccessful, or from
the point of view that the South must act upon the de
fensive in self-justification, is not positively known. It
is certainly probable, however, that the latter considera
tion had much weight with General Lee, at the moment
Only five days before the issue of this order Lee was
the Colonel of the First regiment of United States
General Regular Cavalry, and was in Washington
Lee's donduct. conferring with General Scott. Scott had
fixed his eye upon him for commander-in-chief of the
Union army in the field, and the President virtually
offered him the position on the 18th. The person
through whom the President made the offer thought
that Lee accepted it. Lee said subsequently that he
declined it. He went over to Arlington, his home, in
the morning of the 19th, and, on the 20th, wrote to
General Scott resigning his position in the regular army.
In this letter he wrote : " Save in defence of my native
State, I never desire again to draw my sword." On the

THE CAPTUEE OF FORT SUMTER 203
22d, he was chosen by the secessionist Governor and
convention at Richmond commander-in-chief of the Vir
ginia militia. On the 23d he assumed command, and
issued this order restraining the Virginians from attack
ing Washington or crossing the Potomac. After the
arrival of the troops from Annapolis, on the 25th, an
attack upon Washington could hardly have succeeded,
and in a few days more it was out of the question.
The secessionist sympathizers among the officials and
in the departments at Washington now gave up the hope
of seeing their friends in possession of the The eiodus
city, and quickly resigned their positions and "foMrts ^Irom
went southward. Among them were the Washington.
commandant of the Washington Navy Yard, Commo
dore Franklin Buchanan, and Captain John B. Magru-
der of the Regular Artillery.
The route from the North, by way of Perryville and
Annapolis, was now fully open and in the firm possession
of the Union troops. Butler was assigned ^
* The occnpa-
to its defence. A military department was tion of Mary-
now created by order of the President cover
ing the country for twenty miles upon each side of the
railroad line from Annapolis to Washington. It was
called the Department of Annapolis, and Butler was
placed in command of it.
At the same time troops were being gathered at Phila
delphia and Harrisburg under the command of General
Patterson for an advance upon Harper's Ferry and Bal
timore. General Patterson held his commission, at the
moment, from the Governor of Pennsylvania, but was
soon recognized by the President and General Scott as
being in command of the Department of Pennsylvania,
which was considered as comprehending, besides Penn
sylvania, all of Maryland north of the Department of
Annapolis.

204 THE CIVIL WAR
Governor Hicks had called the Maryland Legislature
to meet at Frederick, instead of Annapolis, because of
The Maiy- the presence of the Union troops in the latter
JUJ* 8t*??id- place. The body convened at Frederick, only
erick. about twenty miles distant from the rebel
forces at Harper's Ferry, on the 26th (April). Presi
dent Lincoln decided not to oppose the assembly of the
members, but ordered General Scott to watch their
movements, and to check any such as might appear
hostile to the Union by any means he should consider
proper and necessary.
The President also authorized General Scott to sus
pend the privileges of the writ of Habeas Corpus upon
Thesuspen- any of the military lines opened, at the mo-
privUeges' of ment, or subsequently, between Philadelphia
betrcOTp^t and Washington. By the end of the month,
Sn*of Baiu^ ^^^ Baltimoreans found themselves isolated
more. from the rest of the world, and surrounded
by Union armies. On the 4th of May, General Butler
moved up to the Relay House with two regiments of
soldiers, and severed the connection between Baltimore
and Harper's Ferry. The Maryland Unionists regained
courage to speak and to act.
Governor Hicks now declared his attachment to the
Union cause, and dismissed the secessionist militia
gathered in Baltimore. The railroad bridges
Union cause were rebuilt and the telegraphic lines re
paired. The Legislature broke down in its
attempt to introduce measures looking toward secession.
On the 9th, troops were led through Baltimore without
interruption. On the 13th, Butler took possession of the
city, and entrenched himself permanently on Federal
Hill. With this, railroad and telegraphic communica
tion between Washington and the North, through Balti
more, was completely restored. On the 14th the dis-

THE CAPTURE OP FORT SUMTER 206
heartened Legislature adjourned sine die, and Governor
Hicks now issued his call for the four regiments of
militia required of him by the President for the United
States service. The rebellion in Maryland was crushed,
and the Commonwealth was brought back to its proper
position as a participant in the struggle for the preser
vation of the Union. It had played a disgraceful part,
but it had served the National interests by rousing the
anger of the North to the fighting point.
During the remainder of the month troops to the
number of about fifty thousand poured into Washing
ton, and were organized and equipped for rpj^^^ j
action. At last on the 24th (May), they of washing-
crossed the Potomac, took possession of Ar
lington and Alexandria, and began establishing the
chain of fortifications reaching in semicircle from above
Georgetown to the mouth of Hunting Creek, which
made Washington impregnable from the south-west.
It was agreed, on all sides, that Washington must be
made safe before any forward movements should be
undertaken. All felt that the capture of Washington
by the Confederate forces would be about the greatest
disaster which could befall the National cause. It
would dishearten the Unionists, raise the courage of
the Confederates to the highest pitch of enthusiasm,
give the Confederacy prestige abroad, and transfer the
scene of the contest from rebellious to loyal soiL To
avoid such results everything else must, if necessary,
be held in abeyance. Consequently the first real ad
vance was made elsewhere, and the first real blow was
struck in a different quarter.

CHAPTER Vm
THE THREE MONTHS' WAR
George B. McClellan— McClellan's Operations in Western Virginia
—The Wheeling Convention— Attempt of the Virginia Au
thorities to Suppress the Unionist Movement in the Western
Counties— The Delay of McClellan in Crossing the Ohio—
McClellan's Advance — The Engagement at Philippi— Presi
dent Davis at Richmond, now Assumed the Direction of the
Military Movements of the Confederates in Virginia — Reas
sembly of the Unionists in Convention at Wheeling — Virginia's
Loyal Legislature, and its Election of United States Senator!!
— Governor Pierpont's Call for Aid to Suppress Rebellion in
Virginia — Laurel Hill and Rich Mountain — Carrick's Ford —
McClellan's Movements after the Battle of Rich Mountain —
The Haste for Military Movements on the Part of the North
ern People — The Military Situation on the Potomac — Big
Bethel and Vienna Station— The Council of War of the 29th
of June — Tlie Plan of the Campaign — The Advance on Ma
nassas — Patterson's Blunder — Johnston's March to Manassas
— McDowell's Movements — Change of McDowell's Plan of
Battle — McDowell's New Plan Revealed to the Enemy — The
Battle— The Rout of the Union Army— The Pursuit— The
Results of the Battle.
On the 23d of April, when all railroad communica
tion between Washington and the West had been sev-
oeoree B. ered, the Governor of Ohio, Mr. Dennison,
McClellan. appointed George B. McClellan commander-
in-chief of the Ohio militia, called into the service of
the United States, with the rank of Major-General.
McClellan had been a captain of artillery in the regu
lar army, had had the experience- of the Mexican War,
206

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 207
had witnessed the movements and operations of the Cri
mean War, as a member of the military commission
sent to Europe for the purpose of gathering military
knowledge, had resigned his captaincy in 1857, and was,
at the moment, president of the Ohio and Mississippi
Railroad company, with residence at Cincinnati. He
was well born, highly educated, only thirty-five years
of age, brave, capable and loyal. Upon receiving his
appointment from Governor Dennison, he immediately
resigned his railroad presidency, and addressed himself
to the work of organizing and equipping the Ohio troops.
Camp Dennison, near Columbus, was his centre of oper
ations, but he gathered troops along the north bank of
the Ohio River from Cincinnati to a point nearly oppo
site Wheeling.
Before Governor Dennison had appointed him to the
command of the Ohio troops, prominent citizens of Cin
cinnati had requested the Washington Government to
put him in command at Cincinnati with authority
to raise and organize an army. On the 3d of May, the
President appointed him Commander of the Military
Department of the Ohio, which was made to consist of
the Commonwealths of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.
Finally, on the 14th of May, the President made him a
major-general in the regular army.
McClellan's first work after the organization of his
forces was naturally the defence of the Ohio line, and
then the rendering of aid to the Unionists in Mccieiian's
Kentucky and Western Virginia. At the ^^t^\t
moment his chief forward movement must S""^-
be in Western Virginia. This part of Virginia was in
habited by a loyal population, and contained but few
slaveholders or slaves. It ran up like a wedge between
Ohio and Pennsylvania, commanding the great lines of
rail and telegraphic communication between the middle

208 THE CIVIL WAR
Atlantic section and the West, and lastly it had, by the
action of the secessionist convention at Richmond, been
declared out of the Union. The occupation of this por
tion of Virginia was thus immediately seen to be both a
military and a political necessity.
The West Virginians themselves took the initiative in
inviting the movement. So soon as the convention at
J Richmond passed its secret secession ordinance
ing Conven- on the 17th of April, most of the members
from the western counties went immediately
to their homes, and began an agitation for the assembly
of a convention of loyal men at Wheeling. They suc
ceeded in bringing representatives of thirty-five counties
together at that place on the 13th of May. This body
immediately opened communication with President Lin
coln, on one side, and General McClellan, on the other,
and received assurances of assistance from both.
Governor Letcher was soon made aware of the Union
ist movements in Western Virginia and sent Colonel
Attempts pf G. A. Porterfield with some East Virginia
authorile°to militia to Beverly, a spot well protected
uSTo'ni'^t on the north-west by the line of the Rich
thew™a™erS ^^^ Laurcl mountains, to organize an op-
connties. position to it. The secessionist forces soon
advanced northward to Grafton, the point where the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad line bifurcates, one branch
running to Wheeling and the other to Parkersburg.
The Wheeling convention adjourned on the 15th, af
ter having called for the election of members to another
The delay of Convention, the election to be held on the
JiSSfurth*? 26th, and the convention to assemble on the
o"*"- 11th of June. The vote of the people on
the secession ordinance passed by the Richmond con
vention was to be taken, as we have seen, on the 23d of
May. General McClellan desired to have these two

-y^"

fHuttqgsville

Tlie West Virginia Battles.

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 209
elections take place in Western Virginia without the
presence of Union soldiers therein. He felt sure of the
results in both cases, and he did not wish them falsely
attributed to the presence of his troops. The West
Virginians themselves, who had volunteered in the Un
ion service, were for this reason organized and encamped
in Ohio at Camp Carlile opposite Wheeling.
On the evening of the 26th McClellan at length
issued his orders to Colonels Kelly and Stedman to
cross the Ohio and occupy Wheeling and Mccieiian's
Parkersburg. These orders were success- »*'""=«•
fully executed in the morning of the 27th. On the SOth
they advanced to Grafton, Porterfield's troops having
retired to Philippi, about fifteen miles to the southward.
The railroad lines from Grafton to Wheeling and Par
kersburg were quickly put in order, and by June 1st
an army of six or eight thousand men was collected at
Grafton under the command of General Morris.
General McClellan now ordered Morris to press on to
Philippi and surprise Porterfield. On the morning of
the 3d of June the attack was made, and _
, The engage-
the rebel forces, numbering from six to eight ment at Phu-
hundred men were beaten and dispersed.
Porterfield with a few followers escaped to Beverly, and
then continued their flight to Huttonsville, where they
found refuge with another detachment of rebel troops.
The President of the Confederacy had, immediately
after the adjournment of the Confederate Congress in
the last days of May, repaired to Richmond, president
at which place the Confederate Congress had Davis at nich-
¦^ o mond now as-
voted to reassemble on the 20th of July, sumed the di-
Confederate troops had already been sent military move-
into Virginia and were gathered at Harper's confederates
Ferry, under the command of General Jo- *" '^"¦ehna.
seph E. Johnston ; at Manassas, under the command of
Vol. I.~14

210 THE CIVIL WAR
General P. G. T. Beauregard ; and at Yorktown, under
the command of General John B. Magruder. President
Davis found General Lee in command at Richmond.
He immediately sent Generals H. A. Wise and R. S.
Garnett into Western Virginia to succor Porterfield and
reorganize the secessionist forces there.
While they were engaged in this work at Lewisburg
and Beverly the Unionist convention assembled, ac-
cording to appointment, at Wheeling. Rep-
of the Union- resentatives from forty counties were pres-
vention at ent. The Convention restored loyal "State"
^' government in Virginia by electing Francis
H. Pierpont Governor, and constructing a legislature
composed of the existing members of the Virginia Leg
islature who would take the oath of allegiance to the
United States and of such other persons as might be
chosen in the places of such of the existing members as
would not do so. The convention adjourned, on the
25th of June, until August, and the newly constructed
Virginia's Legislature of loyal Virginia met almost iva-
mefmtit mediately. On the 9th of July it elected
niited' states "W". T. Willcy and J. S. Cariile United States
Senators. Senators, in the places of J. M. Mason and
R. M. T. Hunter ; and Messrs. Willey and Carlile were
on the 13th of July admitted by the Senate of the
United States to seats in that body as the Senators from
Virginia. Already on the 21st of June, Governor Pierpont had
made a regular demand upon the President for a force
Governor to Suppress the rebellion in Virginia. This
formdtorap- ^^^ ^^11 enough, but such juristic punctil-
ii"n°in"vi- io^suess was unnecessary. Thousands of
Bini»- United States troops were before that date
in Virginia, and many more were on the way thither.
General McClellan arrived in person at Grafton on the

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 211
23d of June, and by the 4th of July he had assembled
an army of thirty thousand men at that point. To nieet
this force the Confederate General Garnett had concen
trated in and around Beverly from six to ten thousand
men. Garnett threw forward, in the last days of June, a
detachment to the pass over Laurel Hill, between Bev
erly and Philippi, and another to the pass
over Rich Mountain, between Beverly and and Rich
Buckhannon ; entrusting the command of °°"
the latter to Colonel John Pegram, while leading the
former in person. He also left troops at Beverly to
cover his rear. The passes were thus held by not more
than five or six regiments, and the larger part of this
force was at Laurel Hill.
General McClellan now sent General Morris with five
regiments to attack Garnett, and led the expedition
against Pegram at Rich Mountain in person. He found
Pegram strongly entrenched on the western face of the
mountain, and decided to send General W. S. Rosecrans
around the Confederate forces by the south, with the
purpose of falling upon their rear and cutting them
off from their base at Beverly. The manoeuvre was not
so immediately successful as was hoped, but it finally
resulted in the dislodgment of Pegram and the surren
der of his troops. The battle occurred on the 11th of
July, and the surrender on the 12th.
Meanwhile General Morris was advancing upon Gar
nett at Laurel Hill. Upon learning of the disaster to
Pegram at Rich Mountain, Garnett retreated toward
Beverly ; but McClellan was too fast for him, and
reached Beverly from Rich Mountain before he had
made half the march from Laurel Hill. Garnett was
thus compelled to flee to the north-eastward. Morris
was in hot pursuit and overtook his rear guard about

212 THE CIVIL WAR
noon of the 13th of July, at Carrick's Ford over Cheat
River, some twenty-five miles from Laurel Hill. The
carriek'B Union troops immediately began the attack.
Ford. dispersed the enemy and killed General Gar
nett himself.
In these several engagements the Union army had
lost only about a dozen killed and forty wounded, while
the Confederates lost about ten times as many, together
with about one thousand taken as prisoners. The first
stage of the Western Virginia campaign was thus en
tirely successful, and the Confederate forces were swept
out of all parts of Western Virginia north of the Ka
nawha Valley. Viewed from the standpoint of subse
quent events these battles were mere skirmishes, but at
the time they were regarded as great victories, and the
results of them were certainly most important and sub
stantial. They gave Western Virginia to the Union
throughout the entire course of the great struggle,
made it possible to create the new Commonwealth of
West Virginia, placed the direct line of railway from
Washington through Virginia to the West in the hands
of the Government at Washington, and turned all eyes
upon McClellan as the coming man in case the war
should continue.
General McClellan himself was not in the engagement
at Carrick's Ford. He had, on the day of the affair,
M Cl 11 ' *^'"°^^ ^^^ ^^°^ southward. His purpose was
movements to form a junctiou with General J. D. Cox,
tie of Rich whom he had ordered to cross the Ohio at
Mountain. Guyandotte and advance up the Kanawha
Valley. With this movement he expected to drive the
Confederates out of the whole of Virginia west of the
AUeghanies. He had, however, already developed in his
own mind a far more comprehensive plan than this, a
plan with the correctness of which it is difficult to find

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 213
any well-grounded fault. It was, in a word, after his
junction with Cox, to cross the mountains to Wytheville
on the railroad running from Lynchburg in Virginia to
Knoxville in Tennessee, deliver East Tennessee and
Northern Georgia from the secessionists, and attack
Richmond from the rear. This would have been a
masterful stroke. It would have put a Union army of
fifty thousand men into the heart of the South, where
it would have been protected by the natural fortresses
of the mountains, nourished by a friendly population,
and increased to double its strength by the voluntary
enlistment of the hardy inhabitants of this loyal region.
The objection to the movement would have been that
he would be getting too far away from his base. But
would he not have had his base right under him in
this loyal region, which could have supplied his army
easily for at least a year, at that time, and would most
gladly have done so ? It is true that his way to the
Ohio would have been through a broken country and
over poor roads, but it would have been, all the way,
through a friendly population. If the authorities at
Washington could only have contented themselves with
the defence of the city, and have waited for the con
summation of the developments in the rear as planned
by McClellan, it does seem as if Richmond might
have been taken, and the backbone of the Confederacy
broken, in the summer and autumn of 1861.
The authorities at Washington were, however, not so
much to blame for the haste of the Manassas campaign
as the people of the North. The people The haste
were indignant at the bold effrontery with Lovements^
which the Government of their choice had J^l &Srthem
been treated and defied, and were restless P«"P'e-
under the patience of the Government in dealing with it.
They had answered the call of the Government promptly

214 THE CIVIL WAR
and generously, and had offered far more than the Gov
ernment had asked. Their representatives were now in
Washington in Congress assembled, and were urging the
Administration to strike a speedy and decisive blow.
The Confederate Congress was to meet on July 20th at
Richmond, and the Confederate President with his Cab
inet was already there, directing the military movements
of the Confederate forces in front of Washington and
elsewhere in Virginia. The meeting of that Congress in
that place must be prevented, and Virginia, which had
restored its loyal " State" government, must be rescued.
" On to Richmond ! " was the universal cry, and the
Government was obliged to yield to the popular clamor.
The military reason was obliged to give way to the politi
cal reason. There was, indeed, a military reason for the
advance, but it was not tactical. It was the fact that
the term of service of the militia called April 15th would
soon expire, and many of the men desired to return to
their homes. If any blow was to be struck with them,
it must be done at once.
The military situation in the beginning of July on
the Potomac and the lower Chesapeake was briefiy as
follows : General Patterson had marched
sitnaHon o'n down from his camp at Chambersburg with
the otomac. ^^ army of twenty thousand men, and had
threatened the Confederate General J. E. Johnston at
Harper's Ferry. Johnston's force did not equal Patter
son's and he, recognizing the weakness of the Harper's
Ferry position on the north-east, abandoned the place and
concentrated his army at Winchester, some twenty-five
miles to the south-west. Whereupon Patterson crossed
his forces over to the Virginia side, and fixed his head
quarters at Martinsburg, about twenty miles north-west
of Harper's Ferry. The two armies were, in a direct
line, about twenty-five miles apart.

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 215
The army at Washington, and encamped on the Vir
ginia side of the river from Alexandria to the bend above
Georgetown, numbered about forty-five thousand men,
under the command of General Scott and his chief sub
ordinate in the field. General Irvin McDowell. It was
confronted by a Confederate army of about fifteen thou
sand men, under the immediate command of General
Beauregard. Beauregard's base of operations was Ma
nassas Junction, a place some thirty miles from Wash
ington, where the railway from the lower Shenandoah
Valley joins the line leading from Alexandria to Rich
mond and to Lynchburg. The two Confederate armies
had thus the advantage of what is termed in military
language the interior lines of communication.
Finally, General Butler's force of about ten thousand
men, which had occupied York peninsula with head
quarters at Fortress Monroe, was opposed by Magruder's
army of about the same strength.
Two slight collisions had taken place, one at Big
Bethel, near Yorktown, on June 10th, and the other at
Vienna Station, some fifteen miles west from
Washington, on the 17th, in both of which and Vienna
the Union troops were worsted, results
which greatly increased the impatience of the North.
On the 29th of June, the President held his council
of war upon the subject of the advance of the Union
army from Washington upon Manassas. _Tne council
General Scott opposed the movement, but of war of the
expressed the opinion that the Union army
could vanquish the Confederates in a battle. His ob
jection was based upon the consideration that a victory
upon so small a scale would not amount to anything.
The politicians in the council, that is, the President and
the members of his Cabinet, felt that the people of the
North could not be satisfied without a military effort on

216 THE CIVIL WAR
the part of the Government, and the President decided
that the campaign must be undertaken. General Scott
had foreseen the result, and had caused General Mc
Dowell to draw up the plan for the movement. General
Scott now presented the plan to the council, with his
approval of it from the tactical point of view.
The main points of the plan were that General Mc
Dowell, with a force of thirty thousand men and a re-
The plan of scrve of ten thousand, should attack the
the campaign, main position of the Confederates at Manas
sas, and turn it upon the south, that is, upon the Con
federate right flank, while Patterson should hold John
ston's army at Winchester, and Butler should occupy
the attention of Magruder before Yorktown.
Scott and McDowell thus calculated that Beauregard
would be able to call to his assistance only the forces
under General Holmes around Aquia Creek. McDowell
thought that he would be obliged to fight not over
thirty-five thousand men. He estimated Beauregard's
army then at Manassas at twenty-five thousand. In
fact, Beauregard did not have over twenty-five thou
sand after calling up all that Holmes could furnish
him. Butler detained the forces in front of him by his
feints and manoeuvres, and had Patterson done his duty,
the Confederates under Beauregard might have been
overwhelmed by McDowell's army.
Patterson moved forward from Martinsburg to Bun
ker Hill on the 15th (July). He was now directly
north of Winchester and only nine miles away. He had
a fine army of fifteen thousand men, while his adversary
had not more than fifteen thousand, if so many.
On the 16th McDowell marched his forces out of
the entrenchments in front of Washington, and headed
them for Centreville, which place was to be his base of

The Manassas Campaign.

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 217
operations. The Confederate Commander at Manassas
and the Confederate President at Richmond were im
mediately informed of the advance by kind -me advance
friends in or about Washington, and, on the ^ Manassas.
17th, Mr. Davis informed Johnston, at Winchester, that
Beauregard was about to be attacked, and ordered him
to march his forces to Manassas if possible.
At the very moment when Johnston received this
despatch, Patterson was making it possible for him to
execute safely the fateful movement ordered Patterson's
by Mr. Davis. On the day before the order """^e'-
arrived in Winchester, General C. W. Sandford in com
mand of Patterson' s left wing, which was composed of
some eight thousand of his best troops, had advanced
from Bunker Hill some three or four miles in a south
easterly direction, with the purpose of placing this force
between Winchester and the Shenandoah River. Had
this movement been followed up, Johnston would have
been compelled either to remain in Winchester, or to
come out of his entrenchments there and fight Sandford
in the open fleld, with Patterson upon his exposed left
flank. In either case Johnston could not have made his
march to Manassas.
In the evening of the 16th Sandford had his troops
in line for the advance toward the south-east, when a
little after midnight, to his surprise and indignation,
he received an order from Patterson to move toward
Charlestown, a place some ten or fifteen miles due east
ward from his position, and about twenty-two miles
north-eastward from Winchester. On the 17th, Patter
son's whole army abandoned its position on the north
and north-east of Winchester, and virtually retreated to
Charlestown. Patterson gave out, as his reason for this
strange movement, that he had received reliable infor
mation that twenty thousand ^Confederate troops from

218 THE CIVIL WAR
Manassas had joined Johnston, and that Johnston was
about to fall upon him with an army of forty thousand
men. General Sandford, who was nearer to Winchestei
than Patterson, declared that he had received no such
information, and was almost in a mood to disobey
Patterson's order, and risk a battle between Winchester
and the Shenandoah without any support from Patter
son, and upon his own responsibility.
Johnston learned of Patterson's unaccountable blun
der on the 18th and immediately started with about two-
thirds of his army, some eight thousand men,
march"t°o°Ma- for Mauassas. He marched eastward, forded
nassas. ^^^ Shenandoah, passed through the gap in
the Blue Ridge, turned southward to Piedmont Station
on the Manassas railroad, took cars there, and on Satur
day morning, the 20tli, effected his junction with Beaure
gard at Manassas.
Meanwhile McDowell's army had reached Centreville,
driving the Confederate pickets before them. General
McDowell's Tyler, in command of the first division of
movements, ^j^g army, pursued the retreating enemy to
Blackburn's Ford over Bull Run Creek, some three
miles southward from Centreville, and became engaged
in a sharp skirmish in which the Union troops were
rather worsted. Tyler withdrew his detachment, instead
of supporting it, because McDowell had commanded
him not to bring on a battle at that juncture. The
strong resistance which the Confederates made here to
the farther advance of the Union army made it evident
to McDowell that they had taken position on the west
bank of Bull Run from the railroad bridge at Union
Mills, on the south, to the Stone Bridge, over which the
Centreville and Warrenton turnpike crossed the creek
on the north, a distance of seven or eight miles. The
creek was quite a formidable obstacle to the further ad-

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 219
vance of the Union army, since it was not generally
fordable, and since the bridges were few and easily
defendable, and the west bank was higher than the east
bank and covered with woods.
As we have seen, McDowell started out with the plan
of turning the Confederate right, but by a personal ex
amination of the roads in that direction,
made on the 18th, he decided that the plan mcDow^its
of the battle must be changed, and that he »'«"'"»"•«•
must undertake to turn the enemy's left. He im
mediately gave notice of this change to his division
commanders, Tyler, Hunter, Heintzelman, Miles, and
Runyon, and had he been able to make his attack on
the morning of the 19th, he would in all probability
have gained a decided victory. He could not, however,
find an unfortified ford or bridge. It was nearly forty-
eight hours before his engineers found the Sudley Ford
only three or four miles above the Stone Bridge.
Neither Patterson nor McDowell was aware of John
ston's march from Winchester to Manassas, and of the
increase thereby of the Confederate forces on the west
side of Bull Run. Consequently McDowell did not call
for any of Patterson's troops as a reserve in case of
necessity, and planned his battle with reference to
Beauregard's army only. In the night of the 20th, he
assembled his division commanders again and gave
them their instructions. Tyler, with the first division,
was ordered to advance to Stone Bridge, and make a
strong demonstration at that point, while Hunter and
Heintzelman, with the second and third divisions,
should march to Sudley Ford, cross Bull Run there,
come down on the west side, strike the Confederates at
Stone Bridge in their left flank, and open the way for
Tyler to cross the bridge. Miles, with the flfth divis
ion, was commanded to remain in reserve at Centre-

220 THE CIVIL WAR
ville, while Runyon, with the fourth, should guard the
communication with Washington.
McDowell ordered the movements from Centreville
to begin in the darkness of the night, and expected the
McDoweU's three divisions which were to flght the battle
?^el'tS tS to be at the Stone Bridge and Sudley Ford
enemy. j^y gjj o'clock in the momlng. Tyler's di
vision was prompt and commenced pressing the Con
federates around the bridge at about that hour. On
the other hand, the divisions marching to Sudley Ford
were so slow in their movements that they did not reach
their objective point until about nine o'clock. This de
lay not only occasioned the disadvantage of fighting the
battle in the heat of the July day, but it revealed the
plan of the battle to the Confederates. Beauregard sat
in his saddle for two hours on a hill top and watched
the clouds of dust moving toward Sudley Ford. He
divined at once that Tyler's attack on the bridge was
only a feint, and he hurried his regiments northward to
meet Hunter and Heintzelman at the Ford. Naturally
Johnston's men, in coming from Winchester, had
stopped on Beauregard's left, and the very first Con
federate troops to come into the battle on the side next
to the Ford were the men whom Patterson had engaged
to hold fast at Winchester.
The divisions commanded by Hunter and Heintzel
man crossed the creek successfully soon after nine
„ , o'clock, and the wearied soldiers, who had
mie bftttle. been moving since three o'clock in the morn
ing, went eagerly into the battle. They soon drove the
Confederates back across the Warrenton turnpike, and
opened the way for Tyler's division across the Stone
Bridge. Two of Tyler's brigades rushed across, and
about eighteen thousand victorious troops were now
driving the Confederate left out of the valley, through

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 221
which the Warrenton turnpike ran at this point, across
Young's creek, and up the southern ascent from the
valley. Upon the crest of this ascent, called Henry Hill, the
fleeing Confederates succeeded, at last, in making a halt
behind General T. J. Jackson's fresh brigade, which
stood, as they said, like a stone-wall, to cover them. Beau
regard himself hurried to this point and took command
in person. He soon gathered some ten thousand men and
several batteries of artillery npon this very advantageous
position, and prepared to make desperate resistance
against the Union advance. It was evident that the fate
of the day was to be decided at this point. For an hour
and a half the battle raged with great determination on
both sides. The scales of victory which, in the forenoon,
had dipped so decidedly in favor of the Union forces
now hung nearly even in the balance, inclining, if any
thing, to the advantage of the Confederates. One bri
gade of Tyler's division had not yet engaged in the
struggle and was just preparing to advance, when a
large column of Confederates was discovered moving
upon the right flank of the Union forces. It was the
remainder of Johnston's army from Winchester led by
Kirby Smith. They had come down from Piedmont
Station by train, and, on hearing the sounds of the battle,
had jumped from the cars, and, forming quickly, had
rushed upon the field exactly at the right moment and
in the right place to give the day to the Confederates,
and carry rout and panic through the Union ranks.
The Union forces now knew, for the first time, that
they had Johnston's army upon them, and seeing no
re-enforcements approaching with which to ^^ ^^j^^ ^^
meet it, they gave up the fight, and fled in ^ Union
confusion and dismay from the fleld. Down
the slope of Henry Hill, across Young's creek to the

222 THE CIVIL WAR
turnpike, over the Stone Bridge, through Centreville,
back to the Potomac, they poured, a disorganized, terri
fied mob, carrying and spreading consternation and
fright as they went.
The Confederates followed them across Bull Run, but
did not attempt to enter Centreville. Two fresh divis
ions of Union troops were at Centreville,
e pursm . ^^^ between that place and the Potomac,
/and the Confederate commanders were certainly justi-
jfied in thinking that the retreating forces might reform
behind these and return to the battle. They did not
realize the extent of the demoralization which had so
suddenly seized the Union army. Their own army was
also badly crippled and exhausted, and in no condition
to pursue. President Davis, who arrived on the field
just in time to see his forces victorious, was anxious for
an advance, but, in deference to Johnston and Beaure
gard, left the decision in their hands. They preferred
to rest their troops through the night, and go forward
by daylight, especially as the weather of the night fol
lowing the battle was most inclement. On the next
day they had free and open way clear back to the forti
fications in front of Washington. The Union com
manders had not thought of renewing the struggle, but
had marched the reserves back to the entrenchments
from which they had gone out on the 16th.
It had been a sanguinary battle. Nearly two thou
sand men were killed and wounded on each side. The
The results number of prisoners taken was not great.
of the battle, ^g ^j^g Confederates were victorious they
naturally had the advantage in this respect. Beaure
gard claimed to have captured between fourteen and
sixteen hundred men, many of whom, however, were
wounded. General McDowell had planned the battle well, and

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 223
up to the moment of the appearance of Smith's division
of Johnston's army on their right flank, the Union
forces had fought the battle well. The fates, however,
seemed to be on the Confederate side. First, Patterson
let Johnston give him the slip ; then the battle was de
layed at least one day by the stupidity of the engineers
in not finding an unfortified crossing ; then the delay
in the march of the divisions of Hunter and Heintzel
man from Centreville to Sudley Ford revealed to Beau
regard the plan of attack ; and lastly the appearance of
Kirby Smith and his division, at the most critical mo
ment and in the most dangerous quarter, turned a hard-
fought victory into a sudden and terrible defeat. In
view of this course of events, it is certainly not surpris
ing that religious natures among the Confederates should
have concluded that Providence was smiling upon their
cause, nor that such natures on the other side should
have felt that the wrath of the Higher Powers was be
ing poured out upon them.
It must be said further that the Confederate com
manders showed themselves skilful, energetic, and cour
ageous, and that they fought a good battle and won a
great victory. The movement of Johnston from Win
chester to Manassas was excellent strategy, and the suc
cessful defence of Henry Hill by Beauregard and Jack
son was a splendid achievement. The master-hand of
them all, however, was the Confederate President, who
planned the combination of the two Confederate armies,
and gave the order for the execution of the plan at ex
actly the right moment.
The immediate effects of this sudden and crushing
defeat of the Union army were most deleterious to the
Union cause. McClellan was called away from Western
Virginia to Washington, and his plan for seizing the
Knoxville and Lynchburg railroad, delivering East Ten-

224 THE CIVIL WAE
nessee, and approaching Richmond from the south-west,
was abandoned. The loyal men of East Tennessee, West
ern North Carolina and Northern Georgia were thus de
prived of the hope of assistance in their movements for
resisting the jurisdiction of the Confederacy over their
section, and were compelled to succumb to a long and
galling oppression. Confederate camps were established
at Cumberland Gap, Nashville, and Union City, and prep
arations were made for occupying Kentucky from these
points, so soon as the disunionists in Kentucky could
mature their plans. These leaders assembled and agreed
upon the main points in their programme. In Missouri,
Jaokson and Price, who had been driven by Lyon into
the south-western portion of the Commonwealth, took
new courage, and began the organization of a strong
force in that section for the purpose of regaining con
trol over the " State " and making it a member of the
Southern Confederacy. The Foreign Powers, which
had been led by the anti-coercion policy, or rather the
non-coercion policy, of President Buchanan into a par
tial recognition of the Confederacy, but had begun to
see more clearly after hearing Lincoln's instructions to
his diplomatic agents and reading his message to Con
gress, were again thrown into doubt and bewilderment
in regard to the position which they should assume be
tween the belligerents ; while panic reigned in Wash
ington, and despair rested its black cloud over the North.
It was now evident to all that a long and terrible
war would be necessary to quell the giant rebellion, and
that the Government must choose between such a war
and the dissolution of the Union. Not very many fa
vored the latter alternative. More were wavering and
undecided. The Government, however, and the great
mass of people at the North, soon recovered sufficiently
to express the determination that the last man and the

THE THREE MONTHS' WAR 226
last dollar should be expended in the defence of the
Union and of national existence. With stern resolve
they set about the colossal preparations for the three
years' war now about to follow.
The Confederates, upon their side, never seemed to
have considered at all that the victory placed them in a
most advantageous position to offer peace for a Union
reconstructed upon their own ideas, with half of the
Territories for slavery, and guarantees in the form of
unamendable amendments, which would secure them
forever, in so far as law could do it, in the possession of
their slave property. Their exaltation knew no bounds.
Their President told them that their enemy num
bered two to their one upon the field of Manassas, and
they naturally concluded that every battle in which the
Unionists would dare to engage could have only the
same result. They resolved to persist, or rather they
did not think of discontinuing to persist, in their work
for complete and permanent separation. Nothing, in
the long run, proved more disastrous to them than this
first great victory. It blinded them to the dangers
which lay before them. It maddened them for their
own destruction.
Vol. L— 16

CHAPTER IX
PREPARATIONS FOR THB THREE YEARS' WAR
Convictions as to the Length of the War after Bull Run — The Call
for Volunteers and Enlistments in the Regular Army and
Navy — The Powers of the President in Raising Armies and
Navies — Congressional Acts Enabling the President to Deal
with the Rebellion — The President as Military Dictator — The
Habeas Corpus Question — The Merryman Case — Mr. Bates's
Opinion on the War Powers of the President — The Raising,
Organizing, and Equipping of the Great Military Force Author
ized by Congress —McClellan at Washington— Fremont in the
West — Halleck at St. Louis — Increase and Organization of the
Navy— The Production of the Materials of War at the North-
Preparations for War in the Confederacy — The Centres of
Confederate Military Organization — The Problems Confronting
the Confederate Leaders.
The effect of the Confederate victory at Bull Run, as
to convictions concerning the length of the struggle,
. . was one thing at the South and the directly
as to the Opposite thing at the North. In the South
war after Bull the mass of men believed that one Southern-
™' er had actually whipped five Northerners,
could do it every time, and that the Northern cowards
would hardly dare to try another bout. In a word, they
thought that the war was practically over, and secession
practically established, and that, therefore, no further
preparations on their part were necessary.
On the other hand, the people of the North were
made to realize the magnitude of the undertaking in
which they were engaged, and which they must prose-
226

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 227
cute to a successful end. While deeply humiliated by
the disaster, they came quickly to understand that it
was no reflection upon the valor of Northern soldiers,
since the combatants were nearly evenly matched, as to
numbers, in the last hours of the battle, and the Con
federates had greatly the advantage as to position, and
to appreciate the fact that not one-third of the army
under the command of General Scott, on the Virginia
border, had participated in the engagement. While,
therefore, they lost no courage, they were forced to the
conviction that the struggle was to be protracted, obsti
nate and bloody, and they immediately set about making
preparations on a scale sufficient to accomplish the result
upon which they were more firmly resolved than ever.
On the day following the defeat, the House of Repre
sentatives voted : " That the maintenance of the Con
stitution, the preservation of the Union and the enforce
ment of the laws are sacred trusts which must be
executed ; that no disaster shall discourage us from the
ample performance of this most sacred duty ; and that
we pledge to the country and the world the employment
of every resource, national and individual, for the sup
pression, overthrow and punishment of rebels in arms."
And this sentiment was quickly and distinctly echoed
back from every city, village, hamlet and homestead of
the North.
The President had already in his message of July 4th
asked Congress to place at the disposal of the Govern
ment four hundred thousand men and four Ti,e eaii for
hundred millions of dollars. At the same I^d" 'enUst'-
time he informed Congress of his call of May r^^^t^
4th preceding for enlistments in the regular and Navy.
army and navy, and for volunteers to serve during the
war, and directed the attention of Congress to the report
of his Secretary of War that the regular army contained

228 THE CIVIL WAR
at that date, July 4th, in consequence of the call of May
4th, forty-two thousand men, and the volunteer force
one hundred and eighty-eight thousand men, and also to
the report of the Secretary of the Navy that the navy
contained, in consequence of the increase of force so
provided, eighty-two vessels, carrying eleven hundred
guns, and manned by some thirteen thousand men.
Here was a vast military force already at hand. It had
been recruited in response to calls, issued May 4th
preceding, for about eighty thousand men — forty-two
thousand volunteers, twenty-two thousand regulars, and
eighteen thousand seamen. The President acknowledged,
in his message, doubts as to his constitutional power to
make these calls, and said they "were ventured upon
under what appeared to be a popular demand and a
public necessity." He took the ground, however, that
while he might have usurped the powers of Congress, he
had not gone beyond that, and expressed the hope that
Congress would ratify his acts.
There is no question that, in increasing the army by
any other means than a call for militia, and in increas-
ing the navy by any means whatever, the
of the Presi- President had assumed powers not expressly
nd conferred upon him either by the Constitu
tion or the laws. It is certainly a fair query,
however, whether the President may not, in accordance
with the spirit of the Constitution, in time of invasion
or rebellion, and when Congress is not in session, ask his
fellow-countrymen to come to the armed support of the
Government and the country. It is certainly good
political science to acknowledge such a power to him,
and very bad political science not to do so. And he
certainly would be a bad President who would refuse to
assume such a responsibility under exigencies which, in
his own honest opinion, required him to do so. A Pres-

dentinraisini armiesnavies.

fBEPAEATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 229
ident who would let the Government go to pieces in an
armed attack upon it, either by foreign or domestic foes,
before he would ask the people to assist him in its armed
defence and in the maintenance of its supremacy, would
be a pitiable object, would be, a President far more mer
iting to be impeached and driven from office than the
President who should exceed his regular constitutional
powers in defending the country and maintaining the
enforcement of the laws.
It might be a dangerous thing to vest such a power in
the President by the express terms of the Constitution.
It might prove a strong temptation to ambitious and
imperious natures to expand unduly and unnecessarily
the executive power and prerogative. It is perhaps best
that the Constitution should recognize the power as
belonging to the President in so general and vague a
manner as to make him feel the great weight of the re
sponsibility which he assumes in its exercise, and thus
secure him against temptation to assume it lightly ;
but the constitution which permits the executive, un
der no exigencies, to call the people to his aid in up
holding government is an unscientific and an unpracti-
cable instrument of public law, one which invites, and
even requires, infraction in the most critical moments
of a nation's existence.
The Congress which assembled on the 4th of July,
1861, was evidently inclined from the outset to inter
pret the Constitution from its whole spirit rather than
from the letter of express provisions. On the very first
day of the session, Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts gave
notice in tho Senate that he should ask leave to intro
duce a bill for ratifying the President's acts. On the
next day he proposed to the Senate a joint resolution
which provided that all of the acts of the President in
increasing the army and navy, and in calling the militia

230 THE CIVIL WAR
and volunteers should be legal and valid, "with the
same effect as if they had been issued and done under
the previous express authority and direction of the
Congress of the United States." This precise resolution,
though reported back to the Senate favorably and with
out change by the committee to which it was referred,
was never voted on ; but by separate acts Congress
adopted substantially its contents and put the Adminis
tration upon the war footing.
By the acts of July 22d and 25th, the President
was authorized to call for and accept volunteers to the
congres- number of five hundred thousand men for a
en^lin^the maximum service of three years, or for the
delf'wi?h the P^^'iod of the War, to fix the number of gen-
rebeiuon. gpal officers nccessary to command this vast
force, and by and with the consent of the Senate to
appoint them, and to arm these troops according to his
own discretion. By the Act of July 29th he was author
ized to increase the regular army by nine regiments of
infantry, one regiment of cavalry, and one regiment of
artillery, and to use any part of the military power,
militia, volunteers, regulars, and marines, for suppress
ing rebellion against the Government of the United
States, and removing obstructions to its operations
which, in his opinion, could not be dealt with by the
ordinary course of judicial proceedings. By the act of
August 5th, he was authorized to enlist, through the
Secretary of the Navy, and for the period of the war,
any number of seamen and other persons necessary to
place the entire navy in a state of utmost efficiency for
active service. And finally by the Act of August 6th,
all the acts, proclamations, and orders of the President
relating to the army, navy, militia, and volunteers, is
sued after March 4th preceding, were approved and le
galized.

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 231
In the second place, by the Act of July 13th, Con
gress empowered the President to collect the customs at
the ports of delivery instead of the regular ports of
entry ; and, if he should find it impossible to enforce
the customs laws either at the ports of entry or of de
livery, to cause the custom-houses at such ports to be re
moved to other places in the respective customs districts
of these ports, or to be established on shipboard within
these ports or near them ; and if he could not enforce
these laws in either of these ways in such districts, to
close the ports of entry therein, and blockade such
ports against the entrance of any foreign vessels, and
make capture of any vessel undertaking to enter.
In the third place, by the Act of July 17th, Congress
authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow the
sum of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, on the
credit of the Government, by the issue of bonds and
treasury notes in such proportion as the Secretary might
find beneficial ; and by the Act of August 5th, Congress
increased the duties on imports, levied a direct annual
tax of twenty millions of dollars, and apportioned it
among the Commonwealths, and an annual income
tax of three per centum upon all incomes over eight
hundred dollars, increased to five per centum in case
the citizen assessed resided abroad, but reduced to one
and one-half per centum, in all cases, upon income de
rived from the securities of the United States. It was
calculated that these provisions would place very nearly
one million of dollars a day in the hands of the Govern
ment for the suppression of the rebellion and the re-
establishment of the supremacy of the laws of the
United States ; and to these ends Congress appropriated
the vast sums to be thus raised to the equipment and
maintenance of the army and navy.
In the fourth place, by the Act of August 6th, Con-

232 THE CIVIL WAR
gress authorized the President to seize, confiscate, and
condemn any property employed, or intended to be em
ployed, in aiding and abetting insurrection against the
Government of the United States or resistance to the
laws of the United States. This Act also declared any
slave emancipated who should be employed by his mas
ter, or be permitted to be employed by his master, in
any service hostile to the Government of the United
States. Finally, by the Act of July 13th, already referred to.
Congress authorized the President to declare the exist
ence of insurrection in all parts of the United States
where he could not execute the laws by the ordinary
processes, and to forbid commerce and intercourse be
tween the inhabitants of such parts and the rest of the
United States, and seize and confiscate to the United
States all property employed in such illicit traffic and
commerce. With these several enactments Congress placed the
Government on the war footing, ratified the President's
The Presi- assumption of War powers, and, on the 6th
^nt as mill- of August, adjoumcd, leaving the President
practically in the position of a military dic
tator. This was good political science, and good public
policy. It was also sound constitutionally. In periods
of extreme peril to the political life of a nation, individ
ual liberty, federalism in government, and even co-ordi
nation of governmental departments must give way
temporarily to the principle of executive dictatorship.
It is a desperate remedy, a remedy of last resort, but it
is one which every complete political system must con
tain, and under certain proper conditions employ. The
two most modern constitutions of federal government,
those of the German Empire and of Brazil, make ex
press provision for it. They authorize the Executive in

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 233
periods of extreme public danger to suspend the ordinary
law and establish martial law. There is no question
that the Constitution of the United States authorizes
the Congress and the President, acting together, to do
the same thing. The clauses of that instrument which
vest in Congress the power to raise armies, provide for
calling the militia into the service of the United States
for repelling invasion and suppressing insurrection, and
to declare war, and in the President the powers of a
commander-in-chief, certainly contain the principle of
the dictatorial power of the whole Government, if not of
the President alone, and it is altogether gratuitous to
concede that the Government of the United States over
stepped its constitutional powers, and acted on the
principle that necessity knows no law, in preserving
the Union by force against dissolution. It overstepped
its ordinary limitations, but it had, and has, the consti
tutional right to do that in periods of extraordinary
danger. The root of the error in denying this right lies in
the claim that the Constitution made the Union. The
truth is that the Union made the Constitution, and
that the physical and ethnical conditions of our terri
tory and population made the Union. The Union was,
and is, the Nation, and men did not make the Nation
by the resolutions of a convention. Men undertook to
interpret the requirements of the Union in political
and legal organization and to give them objective form
and authority, but behind all that they did, or could or
can do, was and is the Union, the Nation, whose pres
ervation is the supreme principle back of the Con
stitution, and the supreme law within the Constitution.
Any other view of these relations is unspiritual, is pure
ly arbitrary and mechanical. Any other view leads,
as it led in the South, to the loss of the ideal in our

234 THE CIVIL WAR
politics and jurisprudence, and consequently to disso.
lution, anarchy, and ultimate barbarism.
Congress passed, at this session, no formal resolution
in regard to the suspension of the privileges of the writ
of Habeas Corpus by the President's com-
The H&bfiftfi
Corpus ques- mand. It was doubtful whether the President
'"'"¦ needed any approval of his action in this
matter by Congress, or whether a disapproval by Con
gress would have been of any consequence from the
point of view of a sound interpretation of the Constitu
tion. The Constitution simply provides that " the
privilege of the writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be sus
pended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the
public safety may require it." It is not expressly desig
nated by whom the privilege of the writ may be in these
events suspended. The provision is found in the article
of the Constitution which treats of the powers of Con
gress, and it was argued that, from the textual connection,
it must be concluded that Congress is vested with the
power. But, from the point of view of a correct politi
cal science, it is easily perceived that the power belongs
more properly to the Executive, at least when it is to be
called into exercise upon or near the theatre of hostile
operations. It is the President whq must meet, and
conquer or suppress, such movements, acting in his
capacity of commander-in-chief of the military power.
The Congress may not be in session at the time when
these exigencies arise. Everything may depend upon
the President's promptness and vigor. There is no
question ]that a sound public jurisprudence would at
tribute such a power to him under such circumstances ;
and where the constitutional provision may be inter
preted in more than one way, the dictate of a sound
political science ought to determine which interpretation
shall prevail. The then Chief Justice of the United

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 235
States, Mr. Taney, took the view, however, that Con
gress alone had the power to suspend the privilege of
the writ, and that the power to suspend the privilege of
the writ did not carry with it the power to make arbi
trary arrest. ,
He gave this opinion in the Merryman case. One
John Merryman, accused of holding a rebel commission
and recruiting a rebel military force in Mary- T^g neirj-
land, was seized under a military order and ™™ "*"*•
incarcerated in Fort McHenry. Merryman applied,
through counsel, to Chief Justice Taney for a writ of
Habeas Corpus. The Chief Justice issued it. General
Oadwalader, the commander of the Fort, declined to
respond to it, on the ground that he had been authorized
by the President to suspend the privilege of the writ,
and had done so. The Chief Justice then issued a writ
of attachment for the body of General Cadwalader, but
the United States marshal, who undertook to serve it,
was stopped by the sentinel at the entrance to the Fort,
and sent away with no answer. The Chief Justice then
filed the opinion, referred to above, in the office of the
clerk of the Circuit Court of the United States for the
district of Maryland, and directed a copy of the same to
be transmitted to the President. These events occurred
during the latter part of May. The President did not,
however, order any return to be made to the writ of
Habeas Corpus, nor command the execution of the writ
of attachment, nor did he command the release of Merry
man. He submitted the question of his powers and du
ties in regard to these things to his Attorney-General,
Mr. Bates, and, on the 5th of July, Mr. ^^ Bates's
Bates instructed the President that he had opinion onthe
... T -T, ""^ powers
the constitutional power to make military of the Presi-
arrests, and suspend the privilege of the writ
of Habeas Corpus, in times of great public danger. The

236 THE CIVIL WAR
President followed tbe view of Mr. Bates, rather than
that of the Chief Justice, and the Congress, then in ses
sion, tacitly acquiesced in the President's course of ac
tion. Mr. Bates's doctrine was and is sound jurispru
dence, but Mr. Taney's propositions were, and still are,
the law of the land. The development of constitutional
law on the side of the temporary dictatorial powers of
the President is still an unsolved problem in our system.
After the adjournment of Congress, the Washington
Government, the Northern Commonwealth governments
The raising ^^^ ^^® pcoplc of the North settled down to
organizing the work of raising, organizing, arming,
and equipping . . - .. .° ,. . "-. ,
of the great equipping and disciplining a military and
military force ~1 .t-i" & . i i i.- * 4.1,
authorized by naval power of colossal proportions for the
ongress. purpose of Suppressing the giant rebellion
against the Union and the Government. The chief
centres of activity, if we may speak of chief centres
when every city, town, and hamlet was astir with mar
tial life and animated with a stern and resolute pur
pose, were Washington, Cincinnati, Louisville, Cairo,
and St. Louis.
In the latter part of July General McClellan was
called to Washington, and given command of the new
McClellan at military department of Washington and
Washington. North-eastem Virginia. He left General W.
S. Rosecrans in command in Western Virginia. General
John C. Fremont had already been appointed to the
command of the military district of the West, composed
Frfimont in °^ Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas,
the West. g.ni arrived in person at his head-quarters in
St. Louis at about the same time that McClellan as
sumed command in Washington. Subject to Fremont's
orders. General Robert Anderson was placed in com
mand at Louisville, General Benjamin M. Prentiss at
Cairo, and General Nathaniel Lyon at Springfield, Mis-

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEAKS' WAR 237
souri. General Anderson was superseded by General
W. T. Sherman early in October, and General Sherman
by General Don Carlos Buell in November. General Pren
tiss was superseded by General U. S. Grant early in Sep
tember. General Fremont was superseded by General
David Hunter early in November, and ten days later Gen
eral Hunter was removed from command in St. Louis and
General Henry W. Halleck was appointed in Haiieck at
his stead. It was under the superior direc- ^'- ^''™-
tion of these great chieftains that the vast army of six
hundred thousand volunteers was assembled, organized,
and disciplined during the late summer and autumn of
1861. The navy was organized in three squadrons. The
North Atlantic Squadron, which was authorized to oper
ate to the southern line of North Carolina, increase
was placed under the command of Captain ^ "1"'^
L. M. Goldsborough. The South Atlantic n*^-
Squadron was placed under the command of Captain S.
P. Du Pont. And the Gulf Squadron was entrusted to
the command of Captain W. W. McKean. By the 1st
of December (1861), the navy had been increased to two
hundred and sixty-four war-ships, carrying two thousand
five hundred and fifty-seven guns, and manned by over
twenty thousand seamen.
The people throughout the Northern Commonwealths
went earnestly and vigorously about creating the materi
als of war. Their genius for, and their ex-
r ,,1,1 i_ Theproduc-
perience in, manufacture enabled them to tion of the
, , ., . , . materials of
produce clothing, accoutrements, arms, am- war at the
munition, etc., without limit, while their
great grain fields and prairies furnished food without
stint. The only difficulty felt was in a sufficiently rapid
manufacture of arms at the outset. At the outbreak of
the war there was only one Government establishment at

238 THE CIVIL WAR
the North for the construction of these implements, the
armory at Springfield in Massachusetts. This plant
could at that time produce only about ten thousand
guns annually. There were, however, so many private
establishments for the manufacture of weapons of all
kinds that no need was felt for relying to any great ex
tent upon governmental production. The arsenals at
the North had been somewhat depleted by the orders of
Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War, Mr. Floyd, and the
Washington Government found it necessary to send to
Europe in the summer of 1861 for muskets. A few
rather poor ones were purchased, but were soon thrown
aside for the better models invented and manufactured
at home. Many of the iron and steel foundries were
changed into factories for the making of the heavy ord
nance, and the new naval armaments were chiefiy cre
ated at home.
Among the Confederates the preparations were by no
means so earnest, active, and productive. As has been
said, they generally thought that the struggle
for War in the had been virtually ended by their victory at
o e eracy. g^jj Run. There was, however, at least one
among them who was not thus deceived, and that one
was Mr. Davis himself. He was continually saying that
the contest would be long and bloody, and was contin
ually urging his Congress and the people of the South
to make adequate preparations to meet it.
Already before the battle of Bull Run, the Confeder
ate Congress had authorized the raising of sixty-six
millions of dollars by loans, and had laid an export tax
of one-eighth of a cent a pound upon cotton for the
purpose of securing sufficient specie to pay the interest
on the debt to be thus created. Before the end of the
year the raising of about one hundred and twenty-five
millions more by loan was authorized. According to

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 239
the statement of President Davis the expenditures of
the Confederate Government up to the beginning of
February, 1862, amounted to one hundred and seventy
millions of dollars. These loans were chiefiy in the
form of Treasury notes, convertible into twenty-year
eight-per-cent. bonds, the interest upon which was to be
paid in coin, the coin to be procured by customs duties
and internal taxes.
Down to the date of the battle of Bull Run, the Con
federate Congress had authorized the enlistment of one-
year men only, and to the number of one hundred thou
sand. As a fact there were more than two hundred
thousand men in the field before the 1st of August.
By the Act of the 8th of August that Congress author-,
ized the enlistment of four hundred thousand men to
serve for a maximum period of three years, and also au
thorized, a little later, additional volunteer forces for
local defence and special service.
The centres of organization around which these forces
were being gathered in the late summer and autumn of
1861 were Yorktown and Centreville in East- Tte centres
ern Virginia, Winchester in the Shenandoah ^j^*^"'!
Valley, Lewisburg and Valley Mountain in ganizaUon.
Western Virginia, Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis,
in Tennessee, Little Rock in Arkansas, and the section
of Missouri lying south-west from Springfield. The
military chieftains to whom the work of organization and
discipline was entrusted were Generals J. E. Johnston,
P. G. T. Beauregard, T. J. Jackson, R. E. Lee, H.
A. Wise, F. K. Zollicoffer, G. J. Pillow, S. B. Bnckner,
A. S. Johnston, Leonidas Polk, Benjamin McCulloch,
and Sterling Price. There is no question that here was
a great array of military talent, as subsequent events
fully proved.
The immediate problems which they had to face

240 THE CIVIL WAR
were certainly more difficult than those confronting
the Union Generals. The South was poor in manu
factures and in talent for invention. It was
lems con- also a sccond-rato food-producing section.
confelerate Speaking generally, it bought both food and
ea ers. clothes, tools and arms, and all of the finer
products of civilization from the North or from Europe,
and paid for them in cotton. How to arm, equip and
provision the first large armies from the existing store
of material in the South was a most serious problem for
the Southern statesmen and generals ; and, then, how to
change the agriculture of the South from the raising of
cotton to the producing of food, and divert part of the
labor of the South from agriculture al':ogether and em
ploy it in the development of manufactures were almost
equally difficult undertakings.
The first necessity was, of course, for arms. The
Confederate President estimated the number of muskets
and rifles in the arsenals of the " States " of the Con
federacy in the spring of 1861, at about one hundred
and fifty thousand. Of these, according to his statement,
about fifteen thousand were Mississippi rifles, and the
rest old muskets, recently altered from flintlocks to per
cussion locks. The United States officials, from the
President down, and the Unionist historians, have main
tained that the number of small arms in the " States "
that claimed to have seceded from the Union was, at
that time, much greater than this, owing to the treason
able acts of Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War, Mr.
Floyd, in sending too large a proportion of the arms
belonging to the United States into that section. It is
The sending probable that an exaggerated view of Mr.
soXby &! Floyd's doings has prevailed at the North,
Floyd. ijut, after making allowance for that, one
cannot help feeling that Mr. Davis's estimate was con-

PREPARATIONS FOR THE THREE YEARS' WAR 241
servative. He was not in the habit of overstating things,
and he knew better than anyone else in the Confeder
acy that the Southern people would be very apt to
estimate their wealth in military equipment much too
highly. Whatever may be the exact truth as to these
points, the seizure of Harper's Ferry, and the Navy
Yard at Norfolk with its two thousand pieces of artil
lery, the capture of arms at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff,
and in Missouri, and the purchases in Europe in 1861,
placed the Confederates in a fair condition to meet the
armies of the United States, in so far as the weapons of
war were concerned. It must also be remembered that
the people of the South owned and kept arms to a far
greater extent than the people of the North, except per
haps in the extreme West. In 1861, it would have been
rather difficult to find, in the country districts of the
South, a man, or even a boy of sixteen, who did not
possess a rifle, a double-barrelled shot gun and a pistol.
There was much greater poverty in ammunition than in
arms. Mr. Davis estimated the amount of powder on
hand on the 1st of June, 1861, at two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds, about one-fourth of what he thought
would be necessary for a single year. He stated further,
that, with the exception of two little private mills in
East Tennessee, there was no manufacture of the article
in the Confederacy. He also estimated the number of
percussion caps to be had at about two hundred and
fifty thousand, and claimed that there was almost no
lead to be found. Copper for the manufacture of caps
was, he stated, just beginning to be obtained in East
Tennessee, and there were a few lead mines in Virginia,
which were being worked in an indifferent manner.
There was no saltpetre and but little nitre in store, but
some four or five hundred tons of sulphur were found
in New Orleans. As to the accoutrements of an army.
Vol. I.— 16

242 THE CIVIL WAR
such as uniforms, blankets, knapsacks, bridles, saddles,
aarness, wagons, etc., the Confederate President figured
these at zero.
During the late summer and autumn of 1861, the
Confederates went earnestly about the manufacture of
Beginning the implements of war. Powder mills were
oi^fintht established in Virginia, North Carolina,
Confederacy, gouth Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.
Eight arsenals and four depots were supplied with
machinery for the manufacture of arms, munitions,
and equipments. Several good chemical laboratories
were put into operation. Foundries for the casting
of artillery were established at Richmond, Nashville,
and New Orleans. And cloth factories, tanneries, etc.,
were springing into existence in many places. The
blockade runners were also at work almost uninterrupt
edly between Wilmington, North Carolina, and Ber
muda, bringing in a vast quantity of war material. By
the end of the year 1861, the Confederates had between
two and three hundred thousand men in their armies,
and were fairly armed and equipped, in most places, for
battle. They were, moreover, in good spirits and were
confident of success. A majority of the engagements
following their signal victory at Bull Run had resulted,
as we shall see, favorably to them, and they generally
felt that the ultimate triumph of their cause was not
far off.

CHAPTER X
THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS IN THE LATE SUMMER
AND AUTUMN OF 1861
The Military Movements in Missouri— The Battle of Wilson's
Creek — The Secessionists in Missouri Encouraged to New
Efforts— The Securing of Cairo— Fremont's Line of Fortifica
tions through Missouri — Martial Law Proclaimed in Missouri-
Lincoln's Disavowal of Part of Fremont's Proclamation — The
Union Defeat at Lexington — Price's Retreat — Secession in
Missouri — Fr6mont'a Advance to Springfield — The Situation in
Kentuclcy and the Affair at Belmont — Belmont a Confederate
Victory — Hunter Abandons Fremont's Plan of a Campaign in
Arliansas — Halleck at St. Louis — The Military Movements in
Western Virginia after the Battles of Laurel Hill and Rich
Mountain— Carnifei Ferry — Cheat Mountain — Buffalo Hill —
Close of the Campaign of 1861 in Western Virginia — The Capt
ure of Romney — The Military Movements in Eastern Virginia
after Bull Run — The North Demands a New Advance — The
Disaster at Ball's Bluff— The Effect of the Disaster on the
Army and Navy and the People, and the Sacrifice of Stone —
McClellan Made Commander-in-Chief of all the Armies of the
United States — Naval Operations during the Summer and
Autumn of 1861— The Confederate Privateers — The Legal
Status of the Confederate Privateersman — The Blockade — The
Hatteras Expedition — Fort Pickens — Ship Island — The Capture
of Port Royal— The Trent Affair— Bird's-eye View of the Situ
ation at the Close of 1861.
After the affair at Booneville, in Missouri, on the
18th of June, General Price had retired hastily with his
forces toward the Southwest, gathering re-
., - , , ?• i i. Themilitary
crnits as he went, and expecting to meet movements in
Confederate reinforcements as he neared the
Arkansas line. On the 3d of July Lyon had, with a force
243

244 THE CIVIL WAR
of some three thousand men, begun pursuit. He haa
before this sent two regiments of infantry and a battery
of artillery, under the command of Colonel Franz Sigel.
to Rolla, and on the 23 d of June this force had entered
and taken possession of Springfield, the most important
town in Southwestern Missouri. Sigel had immediately
conceived the plan of intercepting Price on his retreat
from Booneville to Arkansas. On the 28th he had
advanced to Sarcoxie, and had found that Price had
already passed by with a part of his men, but that two
detachments were still to the north of him. These he
sought, and, on the 8th of July, found, some eight or
ten miles north of Carthage ; and on the next day he
attacked them, although they more than doubled his
force numerically, with the result that he was defeated
and compelled to retire to Springfield. Meanwhile
Lyon was advancing to his aid by forced marches. The
junction of their forces was effected at Springfield on
the 13th of July.
Lyon's total strength, after the junction with Sigel,
was only about six thousand men, while Price, reinforced
by McCulloch with a regular Confederate division, as
sembled at Cassville a force of about twelve thousand
men and fifteen guns.
On the 1st of August, this army of Confederates and
Missourians, under the command of McCulloch and
Price, began the advance on Springfield. On that day
the two armies were only thirty miles apart, and Lyon
felt that it would be most hazardous for him to under
take the long retreat to the railroad terminus at Rolla,
nearly one hundred miles away, since one-half of his
enemy's force was mounted and could easily overtake
him. He moreover feared the moral effect of a retreat
without a struggle upon the population of Southern
Missouri. He, therefore, resolved to risk a battle, and

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 245
he put his army in motion toward Cassville on the same
day that McCulloch and Price began their advance in
the opposite direction. On the second day of his march
he encountered Rains's detachment at Dug Springs and
drove it back upon McCulloch's division at Cave
Springs. The Confederates, believing Lyon to be much
stronger than he really was, moved toward the north
west in order to effect a junction with another column
coming from Sarcoxie, and Lyon returned to Springfield
with the hope of finding there reinforcements from
Rolla. In this he was disappointed, and he soon learned
that his enemy, in full force, had resumed the advance
upon Springfield.
Lyon now saw that his only chance of victory, and
perhaps of safety, was in surprising his adversaries, and
in infiicting such losses upon them as to dis- . The battle
able them, at least, from making pursuit, of wuson's
On the evening of the 9th of August, he set "^ "
out again from Springfield to fall npon his enemy en
camped, at the moment, on the west bank of Wilson's
Creek, ten miles to the south-west of Springfield. His
plan of battle was to send Sigel, with about a thousand
men and a battery of artillery, around the Confederate
right, with the order to assault their right flank, while
he, with the rest of his force, about four thousand men,
should attack in front. Both movements appear to have
been well executed in the beginning. At daybreak, on
the 10th, the Confederates were surprised, at about the
same moment, in front and on the right flank, and
the battle seemed to be turning in favor of the Union
army. The demoralization of Sigel's troops, however,
when they found themselves within the camps of the
Confederates, the treacherous use of the United States
colors by the Confederates, and at last the fall of Gen
eral Lyon, reversed the order of victory, and gave the

246 THE CIVIL WAR
triumph in the bloody battle of Wilson's Creek to the
Confederates. About one-fourth of the Union army
had been slain, wounded, or captured. The Confeder
ates lost an even greater number, though not so great a
proportion of their force. Lyon's death was a most
serious disaster to the Union army. Colonel Sturgis,
however, upon whom the chief command now devolved,
brought the army back to Rolla in a successful retreat.
The Confederates had been so badly crippled by the
battle that they did not undertake any serious pursuit.
As the news of the defeat and death of Lyon spread
through Missouri, the secessionists were greatly encour-
aged, and prepared themselves anew to join
sipnists i n the Standard of the Confederacy, whenever
couraged to the Opportunity should offer. The check,
new e or s. ^owever, which the Confederates and Missou
rians had received at Wilson's Creek, and the misunder
standings between McCulloch and Price, the one holding
commission from the Confederacy, and the other from
the routed government of Missouri, caused McCulloch
to retire with his troops into Arkansas. Whereupon
Price, thus left in full command of all the troops in Mis
souri operating against the United States, began to move
northwestward instead of pursuing the retreating Fede
rals to Rolla. On the 2d of September, he encountered
a body of Kansans under General Lane, at Drywood
Creek, near the boundary between Kansas and Missouri,
and drove them back into Kansas, taking possession of
Fort Scott.
Meanwhile Fremont had appeared in St. Louis, as we
have seen, and was gathering, equipping, and disciplin-
The secnr- ing a large force for the rescue of Missouri
tag of Cairo. ^^^ ^.^g iioi^ing of Cairo in Illinois at the
junction of the Ohio River with the Mississippi, a place,
therefore, of great strategic importance. Fremont's

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 247
opinion was that the holding of Cairo and of the river
communication between St. Louis and Cairo were matters
of much greater moment than sending aid to Lyon at
Springfleld. He had therefore left Lyon to shift for
himself, as we have seen, and had sent reinforcements
to Ironton, Cape Gerardeau, and Cairo, going himself,
the 1st of August, to Cairo. He found that he had not
acted any too promptly. The Confederate General Pillow
had already appeared in New Madrid, not many miles
below, with a force estimated by Fremont at twenty
thousand men. Having secured Cairo, Fremont had re
turned, on the 4th of August, to St. Louis, in order to
see what could be done for Lyon. Before he could re
lieve Lyon, however, the battle of Wilson's Creek was
fought and lost, and Springfield had to be temporarily
abandoned. The news of the disaster reached St. Louis on the
13th. Fremont immediately resolved to es- p ^ ,,
tablish a belt of fortifications reaching from Hne of for.
Cape Gerardeau on the Mississippi, through through mis-
Ironton and Rolla, to Jefferson City on the
Missouri, and set to work in good earnest upon the ex
ecution of his plan.
Besides being thus pressed by the enemy, Fr6mont
was harassed by difficulties with the new loyal " State "
government just established by the conven- ^^
tion at Jefferson City. The Governor chosen proclaimed ta
by the convention, Mr. Gamble, was a Demo
crat, and disposed to be quite conservative. Fremont,
on the contrary, was a radical Republican, if not an out
right Abolitionist. It was not unnatural, under the
circumstances, that he should come quickly to the con
clusion that he could save Missouri to the Union only
by the assumption of dictatorial power. On the 31st of
August, he issued his noted order proclaiming martial

248 THE CIVIL WAR
law throughout the " State " of Missouri ; designating
the line of military occupation as extending from Leaven
worth on the west, through Jefferson City, Rolla, and
Ironton, to Cape Gerardeau on the Mississippi ; com
manding all persons taken with arms in their hands
within this line to be tried by court-martial, and, if
found guilty, to be shot ; pronouncing the property of
all persons in the " State" who should be convicted of
having taken up arms against the United States, or of
having taken active part with the enemies of the United
States in the field, confiscated to the public use; and
declaring the slaves of such persons, if any, to be free
men. It was a drastic measure. It created great excitement.
In fact, it overshot the mark in one respect at least, viz.,
in declaring the emancipation of the slaves
disavowal of of all pcrsons in rebellion against the United
mont'sprocia- States. As WO havc seen. Congress had, by
ma on. ^^^ ^^^ ^£ August 6th, Ordained the emanci
pation of such slaves only as were employed, by com
mand or permission of their owners, or the lawful agents
of their owners, in any kind of military or naval service
against the United States. President Lincoln himself
was not prepared, at that moment, to go any further
than this, if indeed he had the power to do so. He,
therefore, promptly disavowed this part of Fremont's
order, and the misunderstandings between Fremont and
the Washington Government were thus begun, which
terminated two months later in the removal of Fremont
from the command of the military department of the
West. Fremont now sent Colonel Mulligan with a force of
three thousand men and a battery of artillery to occupy
and fortify Lexington, a place about one hundred and
twenty-five miles up the Missouri River from Jefferson

The Field of Operations in Missouri and Nortliern Arlcansas.

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 249
City. Mulligan reached the place on September 9th,
and immediately began fortifying College Hill. So soon
as Price learned of this movement he deter
mined to attack Mulligan before he could defeat a™™
be reinforced. He appeared before Lex- '"^'*'°'
ington on the 12th, with a large force which was soon
increased to about twenty thousand men. General Fre
mont at St. Louis and General J. C. Davis at Jefferson
City were deceived by the manoeuvres of the enemy into
the belief that Jefferson City was the point to be at
tacked. They, therefore, failed to undertake the relief
of Mulligan at Lexington until it was too late. Price
began the assault on the 18th, and pressed forward so
vigorously that Mulligan was compelled to surrender on
the 20th.
So soon as Fremont learned of the disaster at Lexing
ton, he started in pursuit of Price with an army of
about twenty thousand men. The old Mis- price's re-
sourian was too wary to be caught, however, ''^'•
and on the same day that Fremont set out from St.
Louis, he began his retreat southward. He reached
Neosho and formed a junction with McCulloch, who
had entered Missouri again with a strong Confederate
division. He also found Governor Jackson here, with a num
ber of the secessionist members of the old secession in
" State " Legislature. This rump assembly ^'O'"''-
went through the farce, at last, of voting Missouri out
of the Union.
Fremont's army pursued slowly, and reached Spring
field on the 27th of October. He established his head
quarters here, while Price occupied Cassville. prsmont's
His plan was to push the war into Arkansas, advance to
His ehief solicitude in regard to making this
movement sprang from the consideration that the Con-

260 THE CIVIL WAR
federate General Polk might send a force across from
the Mississippi River, and strike him in the left fiank.
He, therefore, ordered General Grant, who had super
seded General Curtis at Cairo, to make a demonstration
from Cairo sufficiently strong to hold Polk's forces on
the Mississippi.
The people of Kentucky had elected in August a
strong Unionist Legislature and were gradually abandon
ing the idea of neutrality in the conflict and
tion in Ken- preparing to fall into line against the Con-
aft a^ rat Bet federacy. The secessionists in the Common-
"°" ¦ wealth had observed this change of temper
and undertook to anticipate the occupation of Kentucky
by Union troops. On the 3d of September, General
Polk crossed the Kentucky line from West Tennessee
and took possession of Hickman, and on the 4th he
occupied Columbus. Just above this place is a high
bluff commanding the Mississippi River and the Mis
souri shore opposite. Polk proceeded to occupy this
bluff, and boastfully called it " the Gibraltar of the
West." So soon as General Grant, at Cairo, learned of Polk's
advance, he sent detachments of Federal troops across
the Ohio to Padncah and Smithfield, at the mouths of
the Tennessee and the Cumberland. With these move
ments, the farce of Kentucky's neutrality was played to
the end. It was now evident that her soil must furnish
the first battle-grounds between the Ohio and the Ten
nessee lines.
At about the same moment when Polk entered Ken
tucky, the Legislature of the Commonwealth assembled,
and the Senate sent a committee to Western Kentucky
to investigate the violation of Kentucky's neutrality by
both parties, and make report thereof. This committee
repaired to Columbus immediately, and, on the 9th of

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 251
September, requested Polk to withdraw his forces from
Kentucky. Polk answered at once, and offered to com
ply with the request, provided the " State " would agree
to the simultaneous withdrawal of the Federal troops,
and would engage to keep them out. He proposed to
give the like guarantee for the Confederate Government
in respect to the Confederate troops.
When Polk's answer was communicated to the Legis
lature, both Houses of that body immediately passed a
series of resolutions, declaring that Kentucky's peace and
neutrality had been wantonly violated, her soil invaded,
and the rights of her people grossly infringed by the
so-called Southern Confederate forces ; requesting the
Governor to call out the military forces of the Common
wealth to expel the invaders ; invoking the United
States Government to come to their aid and protection ;
calling upon General Anderson to enter upon the active
discharge of his military duties in Kentucky ; and ap
pealing to the people of Kentucky to stand firm in their
patriotism and in their devotion to the Union, and to
assist in the expulsion of the lawless invaders of their
soil. The Governor vetoed these resolutions, but they
were passed over his act by overwhelming majorities.
The relations of Kentucky were now entirely distinct.
The Confederacy must reckon with her as an enemy.
The Confederate General Zollicoffer, who had been
collecting troops on the line between East Tennessee
and Western Kentucky, now crossed the
line and occupied Cumberland Gap. On eratesatoum-
the 19th of September, he advanced to Bar-
boursville, and dispersed a regiment of Kentucky
Unionists. On the 20th, General Anderson established his head
quarters at Louisville and began the organization of the
Federal forces in Northern Kentucky. The Legislature

252 THE CIVIL WAR
issued a call for forty thousand volunteers, and passed
an Act making every Kentuckian who had voluntarily
joined the rebel forces invading the Common-
derson at Wealth incapable of inheriting any property
ouisvi e. j^ Kentucky, unless he should return to his
allegiance to the United States within sixty days. The
prompt action of the Legislature, and the arrest of one
of the most outspoken of the secessionists, ex-Governor
Morehead, and his confinement in Fort Lafayette, drove
the disunionist leaders, such as John C. Breckenridge,
William Preston, Humphrey Marshall, and John Mor
gan, into the Confederate ranks in Tennessee.
At last General Albert Sidney Johnston, appointed
September 10th Confederate commander-in-chief in
Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, ordered
Bton at Bowl- General S. B. Bnckner to advance from Mid-
mg reen. ^j^ Tennessee into Kentucky, and occupy
Bowling Green on the south bank of the Barren River.
This movement was consummated in early October, and
General Johnston himself established his head-quarters
at Bowling Green in the last days of the month.
General W. T. Sherman had meanwhile superseded
General Anderson at Louisville, and was demanding of
the Washington Government two hundred thousand
troops for the rescue of Kentucky from the Confederate
occupation. All Northern Kentucky was in great ex
citement and apprehension, and the Legislature at
Frankfort felt keenly that its own safety was imperilled.
Such was the situation in Kentucky when General
Fremont ordered General Grant to threaten Columbus
in order to prevent Polk from sending a column to the
aid of McCulloch and Price.
Grant prepared an expedition during the first days of
November, and although Fr6mont was superseded by
Hunter before the preparations were completed, pro-

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OP 1861 253
ceeded to carry out the instructions of Fremont. He
ordered General C. P. Smith to threaten Columbus with
a land force from Paducah, while he, with about four
thousand men, dropped down the Mississippi in trans
ports to a landing on the Kentucky shore some five
miles above Columbus, and the next morning, the morn
ing of the 7th of November, crossed over to Hunter's
Landing on the Missouri shore. Grant's purpose, as thus
revealed, was to attack a small Confederate garrison at
Belmont, a hamlet directly across the river from Co
lumbus. Polk was immediately informed of the debarking of
the Federal troops at Hunter's. He rightly concluded
that the threat from Paducah was a mere feint, and
promptly sent General Pillow across to Belmont with
three regiments of troops. They arrived at Belmont in
time to meet the Federal advance in front of the works.
The Federals had, however, gained such a momentum
of victory that they drove right on over the fortifications
into the camps of the Confederates and scattered the
enemy in every direction. Thinking the triumph com
plete the Federal regiments now virtually disbanded
to plunder the camps and hold high revel over their
success. General Polk was by this time relieved of any
anxiety about the approach of General Smith from "Pa
ducah, and he sent General Cheatham across to Belmont
with three more regiments, and then followed himself
with two or three more. These all landed above Bel
mont, where Pillow's scattered troops had begun to
collect. Grant now found himself threatened by a force double
his own, and in imminent danger of being cut off from
his transports at Hunter's Landing. He succeeded, how
ever, in reforming his men, and in cutting his way suc
cessfully through to the boats. He embarked his troops

254 THE CIVIL WAR
under the fire of the Confederates, and steamed back to
Cairo in the evening after the battle.
The Federal loss in the battle was between five and
six hundred, killed, wounded, and captured. The Con
federate commander stated officially the Con-
confederate federate loss at six hundred and forty-one
VIC ory. men. Belmont was certainly a Confederate
victory. It was claimed as such at the South, and rec
ognized as such at the North, in which section the event
created great depression of spirits. Still Grant had ac
complished the purpose for which he had set out. It
was now practically certain that Polk would not dare to
weaken his force at Columbus in order to aid Price and
McCulloch. It was, however, also true that Price and McCulloch
no longer needed his aid. Hunter did not share Fr§-
mont's sanguine views of the results of a cam-
do ns ¥Ti- paign in Arkansas. He found that he had
acampaignm great difficulty in subsisting his troops at
Arkansas. Springfield, and he imagined that he did not
possess the confidence of his soldiers. He determined
to fall back upon Rolla, where he could re-provision the
army through railway communication with St. Louis.
While Grant was fighting the battle at Belmont, Hun
ter was executing this movement, and Price was advanc
ing to Springfield, which now became his head-quarters.
He occupied the valley of the Osage for the purpose of
gaining both recruits and supplies for his army in that
fertile and more populous district.
McClellan had now, by the executive order of No
vember 1st, succeeded General Scott in the chief com-
Haiieck at mand of all the armies of the Union. By
St. Louis. jjjg advice. General Henry W. Halleck was
sent, about the middle of November, to St. Louis to
take command of the department of the West. While

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 255
Halleck was something of a martinet, he had a good
military education, and had formed a more adequate
conception of the magnitude of the work before him
than had any of his predecessors at St. Louis. He did
not, therefore, deem it wise to carry on a petty war with
Price, but rather to prepare himself for great move
ments, making it a point, however, to prevent Price
from receiving recruits from Northern and Middle Mis
souri. He was entirely successful in the latter purpose,
and this of itself forced Price to retire again to Spring
field, where, with an army of some ten thousand men,
he now established winter quarters, holding thus about
one-half of that part of Missouri which lies south of the
Missouri River.
As we have seen, the successes of McClellan at Laurel
Hill and Rich Mountain, had caused the Confederate
General Wise to fall back to Lewisburg in The military
the valley of the Greenbrier River, in order weste?™ v£
to protect his right flank against the possi- fittfes^iln*
ble advance of McClellan southward. After Ric™Mom^
Bull Run, and the call of McClellan to Wash- *""•
ington, the Confederate President resolved to make an
other attempt to occupy Western Virginia. He sent
General John B. Floyd to reinforce Wise and assume
command in the Kanawha Valley, and General Robert
E. Lee to take command of the remnants of Garnett's
forces at Valley Mountain, and to exercise superior di
rection of the campaign in all of Western Virginia.
Lee soon saw that he must give up operating so far to
the north as Valley Mountain, in order to maintain com
munication with Floyd and Wise, on the head waters of
the Kanawha. He, therefore, moved southward, and
took position in the upper part of the Greenbrier Valley
in front of the defiles of Cheat Mountain. General Rose
crans, who had succeeded McClellan in command of the

256 THE CIVIL WAR
Federal forces, had retired with the main body of his
troops to Clarksburg on the Baltimore and Ohio Rail
road, leaving the single brigade of General J. J. Rey
nolds to guard the passes of Cheat and Greenbrier
Mountains. Floyd began the offensive movement. His forces
greatly outnumbered those of General Cox in front of
him, and he easily compelled the Federals to fall back
upon New River, the south branch of the Kanawha. He
then left General Wise with a sufficient force to hold
Cox's little army in check, and marched northwestward
to Carnifex Ferry on the Gauley River, with the purpose
of intercepting any reinforcements coming from Rose
crans at Clarksburg. After crossing the river success
fully, he surprised the Seventh Ohio regiment at Cross
Lanes, a few miles from the Ferry, and scattered it, after
inflicting great loss upon it. This little battle took
place on the morning of the 26th of August, and after
his success, Floyd proceeded to fortify the heights about
Carnifex Ferry in order to be able to resist any force
coming from the North.
So soon as Rosecrans learned of Floyd's movements,
he set out from Clarksburg with about ten thousand
Carnifex ii^en, and, in about a week, he appeared be-
Ferry. fore Floyd's intrenchments. This was the
10th of September. Rosecrans immediately ordered
Benham's brigade to assault the works. The Federals
were repulsed with considerable loss, and before Mc-
Cook's brigade could come to their assistance, darkness
intervened, and the battle was suspended. During the
night, Floyd, who had only about two thousand men,
and had asked aid from Wise in vain, slipped away. He
retired to Sewell's Mountain and took up a strong posi
tion there. Rosecrans did not, however, follow. His
troops were tired out by the hundred miles march from

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 257
Clarksburg, and their exertions in the battle. He had
driven the Confederates back into the mountains, and
cleared the Kanawha Valley, and seemed to feel that he
had accomplished all that was practicable or necessary
at the moment.
So soon as General Lee learned of Rosecrans's march to
the Kanawha Valley, he resolved to capture the passes
into the middle section of Western Virginia cheat Monn-
held by the single brigade of General Rey- '"°'
nolds. On the 11th of September, he advanced north
ward from Huntersville with nearly ten thousand men.
From the 12th to the 15th, he manoeuvred about Rey
nolds with very great exertions to his troops, and with
no results. On the 15th, he made a feeble attack upon
Cheat Mountain, which was vigorously and successfully
repelled. Lee now drew his forces back into the valley
of the Greenbrier, leaving General H. R. Jackson with
a single brigade to guard the passes through the AUe
ghanies into Eastern Virginia against Reynolds. Jack
son intrenched himself on Buffalo Hill, from Greenbrier
which he could command, with his artillery, ^'®''-
the main road eastward over the AUeghanies. Reynolds,
having been reinforced, attempted to dislodge him by an
assault upon his works, October 3d, but failed.
General Lee had, meanwhile, proceeded southward,
and had joined Floyd and Wise, assuming command of
the entire force of about twenty thousand men. He did
not, however, attempt to meet Rosecrans, although his
army was much superior in point of numbers to the
Federal force. He sent a small detachment across New
River to Chapmanville, where, on the 25th of Septem
ber, they were surprised and routed by a small body of
Federals. In addition to these discouragements in the fleld. Gen
eral Lee had to deal with the quarrel between Floyd and
Vol. I.— 17

258 THE CIVIL WAR
Wise, which was presently appealed to Richmond, with
the result that Wise was withdrawn from his command.
Close of the ^^^ himself was recalled a little 'later, and
isM^to^west ^®°* *° South Carolina, and a part of the
em vkginia. army about Lewisburg was marched into the
Shenandoah Valley, to reinforce General Stonewall Jack
son at Winchester. Floyd made one more effort to re
gain the Kanawha Valley, but accomplished nothing
more serious than inflicting annoyance upon the Federal
supply trains. He was finally driven back into the
mountains about the middle of November. And the
expulsion of the Confederates from Huntersville, in the
Greenbrier Valley, a month later, closed the campaign
in Western Virginia, and left this section in the hands
of the Federals.
General Stonewall Jackson inaugurated a little cam
paign further to the northeast, with the purpose of re-
The capture Capturing Romney, occupied by the Federal
of Eomney. General Kelley for the protection of the Bal
timore and Ohio Railroad line. It was for the purpose
of this movement that Loring's brigade had been sent
from Floyd to Jackson, as we have seen. Jackson suc
ceeded in retaking Romney, but the troops with which
he garrisoned the place, coming as they did from a more
southern climate, found the winter in the mountains too
rigorous for them, and were finally allowed to abandon
the post and return to Winchester.
In Eastern Virginia the military movements during
the late summer and autumn were even less active than
^^ .... in Missouri, Kentucky, and Western Vir-
Themihtary . . j t ,
movementsin ginia, and resulted more unsatisfactorily to
Eastern Vir- f, t^ , , xi .^i l i ¦
rinia after the federal cause than those executed m
these quarters. Of course the discourage
ment of the defeat at Bull Run was more keenly felt
around Washington than elsewhere, and the necessity

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 259
for thorough preparation before making another trial
was more distinctly realized. The Administration and
the people of the North accepted promptly the situation,
and with practical unanimity settled down to the work
of organizing, equipping, and drilling a vast army. They
gave their new General, McClellan, carte blanche in almost
every respect. It is true that McClellan complained
of obstacles being thrown in his way, but it is now well
known that McClellan magnified difficulties and under
estimated advantages. The months of August and Sep
tember and the half of October were passed in organizing,
equipping, and drilling the new army, and in fortifying
Washington upon all sides.
By the middle of October McClellan's army numbered
over one hundred and fifty thousand men, with two hun
dred pieces of artillery. Deducting one-half of this num
ber for the garrisons at Washington, Baltimore, and
Annapolis, and on the upper and lower Potomac, and
for the disabled and absent, McClellan had a force of
at least seventy-five thousand men and one hundred and
fifty pieces of artillery with which to begin active opera
tions, while his enemy had not fifty thousand with which
to meet him.
During the first days of October the Union army, in
eleven divisions, lay along both sides of the Potomac
from above Georgetown to below Alexandria. They were
commanded by Generals Banks, Stone, McCall, Smith,
Fitz John Porter, McDowell, Blenker, Franklin, Heintz
elman, Keyes, and Hooker. The Confederates were
stretched along from Leesburg to Aquia Creek. Evans's
division was at Leesburg. The main army, under John
ston, was at and around Centreville. Their right occu
pied Aquia Creek, under the command of General Holmes.
And Magruder, with a small force, still faced Butler on
York peninsula.

260 THE CIVIL WAR
The Confederate outposts opposite Washington, on
Munson's Hill, were in plain view from the city during
August. The growth of the Federal army, so to speak,
on the west side of the river during September and Oc
tober, caused the withdrawal of the Confederates from
these advanced points. A few petty skirmishes had taken
place, in which both sides usually retired unpursued.
The Confederates had planted batteries along the west
bank of the lower Potomac, and had virtually cut Wash-
ington off from commerce by water with the
posite Wash- North and the outside world. The people
down the Po- of the North blamed the authorities for allow-
'°™*''- ing this to be effected, but it was soon un
derstood that the only way in which this could be suc
cessfully dealt with was the driving of the Confederate
army at Centreville and Aquia Creek back into the
interior. The temper of the Northern people began by October
to change again, and a decided impatience for another
The North advance became manifest. The weather was
a*°new ^&i- magnificent, the army was well organized,
vance. equipped, and drilled, and in fine spirits, and
the condition on the lower Potomac was insufferable.
McClellan, though still exaggerating in his own mind
and in his representations the strength of the enemy,
was made to feel that he must begin operations. On the
19th of October, he ordered a general reconnoissance along
his front in the direction of Centreville. General McCall,
who commanded the extreme right of the army on the
west bank of the river, marched his division through
Dranesville to within fifteen miles of Leesburg without
discovering any signs of the enemy. He returned to
Dranesville under order from McClellan, who feared that
Johnston might sally forth from Centreville and strike
the division in its exposed left flank.

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Field of Operations in Virginia.
THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 261
On the next day, McClellan's Assistant Adjutant-Gen
eral, A. V. Colburn, sent the following despatch to Gen
eral Stone at Poolesville on the Maryland The disaster
side of the river above Georgetown : " Gen- «'BairsBiufE.
eral McClellan desires me to inform you that General
McCall occupied Dranesville yesterday and is still there.
Will send out heavy reconnoissances to-day in all direc
tions from that point. The General desires that yon
keep a good lookout upon Leesburg, to see if this move
ment has the effect to drive them away. Perhaps a
slight demonstration on your part would have the effect
to move them." General Stone very naturally concluded
from the language of this order that he was commanded
to send a detachment of his troops across the river in
the direction of Leesburg. Leesburg was some miles
back from the river, and was concealed from Poolesville
^y a high point on the Virginia bank, called Ball's Bluff,
and by heavy intervening forests. There was, conse
quently, no way for Stone to keep any lookout upon
Leesburg, except by sending troops across the river, and
he certainly could make no demonstration against the
enemy there without crossing the river. In a word, Mc
Clellan's order was too vague and left too much to Stone's
discretion. In execution of McClellan's instructions. General
Stone ordered Colonel Devens of the Fifteenth Massa
chusetts regiment to take his regiment over to Harri
son's Island which lies about midway, in the river, be
tween Poolesville Landing and Ball's Bluff, and to send
a scouting party over to the Virginia shore to look for
the Confederates. Colonel Devens promptly executed
these orders, and at about nine o'clock in the evening
received a report from Captain Philbrick, the leader of
the scouting party, that he had discovered, a short dis
tance back from Ball's Bluff, a camp of Confederates

262 THE CIVIL WAR
which did not seem to be guarded at all. Devens im
mediately transmitted this information to General Stone.
An hour or so later he received a written order from
Stone to cross over, at once, from the island to Ball's
Bluff with five companies of his regiment and surprise
the camp discovered by Philbrick. Stone, at the same
time, ordered Colonel Lee of the Twentieth Massachu
setts to occupy Harrison's Island with four companies
of his regiment, and to throw one company over to Ball's
Bluff and hold it there after Devens's advance, as a cover
for his return. The exact order to Devens was to attack
the Confederate camp at daybreak, rout the enemy,
pursue them as far as he deemed prudent, destroy the
camp if possible and return to Harrison's Island, unless
he should discover a position on the Virginia side near
the river, which he could surely hold against large odds
until reinforced, in which case he should occupy sucfr'
position and report.
Despite the facts that the waters were high and swift,
and that Devens had but three little boats at his com
mand, not enough to carry over a single company at a
time, the brave Massachusetts Colonel had his five com
panies upon the top of Ball's Bluff before daylight in
readiness to advance. He marched forward toward
Leesburg, but found no camp and no enemy. Phil-
brick's discovery was evidently nothing but the lights
and shadows produced by a brilliant October moon.
Devens advanced to within a mile of Leesburg before he
saw any signs of his enemy. It was about seven o'clock
in the morning of the 21st, when he got his first sight of
them. He immediately sent back word to General Stone,
and fell back to the open space of some ten acres on the
top of Ball's Bluff. He reached there about nine o'clock
without incident. He had now about six hundred and
fifty men, in a greatly exposed position, surrounded as it

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 263
was by woods on all sides except the river side, and the
Confederates were advancing upon him, under the protec
tion of the forest, in numbers unknown to him. He
ought, in accordance with General Stone's directions, to
have recrossed immediately to Harrison's Island. Instead
of this, he remained quietly on Ball's Bluff waiting for
reinforcements. About noon the Confederates began to
fire upon his exposed troops from the woods, which were
within musket shot all around.
Meanwhile General Stone had gone down in person
to Edward's Ferry, a crossing of the Potomac some two
miles or more below the lower extremity of Harrison's
Island, and had ordered General Gorman to throw a
small force across the river at that point. He also sent
an order to Colonel E. D. Baker of the California regi
ment, in command at the moment of a brigade, to either
throw the California regiment across the river, or call
back the troops of Devens and Lee, as he might deem
the wiser movement. The order also authorized him to
assume the chief command on reaching the Virginia
side. On receiving these directions. Baker, who was at
Conrad's Ferry, a crossing at the upper extremity of
Harrison's Island, immediately crossed over with his
entire brigade, composed of the California regiment, the
New York Tammany regiment, and the remaining com
panies of the regiments of Lee and Devens. He arrived
at Ball's Bluff about two o'clock in the afternoon, when
Devens was being sorely pressed. Baker was a brave,
impulsive man, filled with glowing patriotism, but
void of prudence. He determined at once, without re
gard to the unfavorable character of the situation, to
fight. He was the ranking officer on the scene, and
also had Stone's order to assume the superior command.
This he did immediately, and formed his line of battle, the
Fifteenth Massachusetts with two little pieces of artillery

264 THE CIVIL WAR
on the right, the Twentieth Massachusetts with a small
rified cannon in the centre, and the California regiment
on the left, with the New York regiment in reserve.
He had not quite two thousand men. By this time the
Confederate General Evans had brought up his entire
brigade, consisting of four full regiments, numbering
about three thousand men. Protected by the woods,
the Confederates could simply shoot the Federals down,
without exposing themselves. They picked off the offi
cers, and the troops were thus soon thrown into inex
tricable confusion. At about four o'clock. Baker fell
pierced through the head by a musket ball. Cogswell,
the Colonel of the New York regiment, succeeded to
the chief command, and tried to execute a movement
for cutting his way out by his left flank toward Ed
ward's Ferry, where he thought he might find reinforce
ments. But the Confederate Commander had antici
pated this, and had blocked the way. It became now
simply a matter of sauve qui peut. The Federals fled
in every direction they could flnd open. Many jumped,
or were pitched, over the Bluff. A few reached the
little boats, which were soon overcrowded and sank.
More crept along the shore under the cover of the now
falling night, and straggled up to Conrad's Ferry, or
down to Edward's Ferry. The slaughter was appall
ing. About a thousand men of the little force of less
than two thousand were killed, wounded, or captured.
The Confederate loss was reported by Evans at less
than two hundred. Gorman, Stone, and even McClellan
hastened to the scene of action. They arrived, how
ever, too late. The work was over, and the Confeder
ates had safely retired.
The whole army was dispirited and the whole North
humiliated by the disaster, which everybody could see
had resulted from the blunders of the commanders.

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 265
The public opinion seemed to demand a sacriflce, or
more vulgariy speaking, a scapegoat. Who should it
be ? Baker was dead. Devens was not high
enough in rank to satisfy. It was obliged to ot the disaster
be Stone or McClellan. And so Stone, who aSd the"^^^
certainly seems to have been the least cul- t'^irie.tJa
pable of the four, was arrested by order of ^'°"^'
the Secretary of War, confined secretly in Fort Lafayette
for six months, and then released without trial or ex
planation. McClellan, on the other hand, was, ten days later, ap
pointed commander-in-chief of all the armies of the
Union, and now claimed further indulgence Mccieiian
in military inactivity in order to plan an ad- Sande'V°S-
vance for all the armies at the same time. A cWef of aiithe
armies of the
little unintentional brush at Dranesville, on ^^itei states.
the 20th of December, between Ord's brigade and J. E.
B. Stuart's Confederate brigade, in which the Federals
won the field, was all that happened of any importance
to disturb the quiet of the Potomac during the remain
der of the year.
The operations of the United States navy during this
period were, on the other hand, quite uniformly suc
cessful. At the beginning of May the navy „ ,
,,. .,,, „ Naval oper-
was as much disorganized as the army. Many ations during
, ,, 1. , mi 1 i t'ls summer
of the ships were far away. Those caught and autumn
in the Southern ports had been seized by the
Confederates. And over two hundred of the officers
had left the service to join their fortunes with those of
the Confederacy. President Davis had, as we have seen,
issued his proclamation authorizing privateering. And
such ships as the Confederates could lay their hands upon
were fitted out to prey npon the commerce of the United
States. On the other side. President Lincoln had de
clared a general blockade of the Southern ports. The

266 THE CIVIL WAR
newly organized navy had thus several serious problems
before it, any one of which would tax its powers to the
utmost. It met them all, however, most successfully. At
the outset, the Confederate privateers made
TheConfed- . ,. tit ^i i x
erate priva- many seizures of Northern merchantmen m
""' the Southern ports, or in the waters near
them. But before the end of the year the Federal navy
had captured most of the vessels fit for privateering
owned by or in the Confederacy, and the Confederates
were not in a condition to create any more. Except for
the ships secured later in Great Britain, the Confeder
ates would have scarcely been able to threaten the
commerce of the United States seriously again.
One very important legal point was brought to issue
by the capture of one of these privateers, the Savannah,
The legal as shc was Called. President Lincoln had de-
co'Sfe°derlte clared, in his proclamation of April 19th, that
privateersmen. any attempt to molest the commerce of the
United States, under claim of authority from the Con
federacy, would be treated as piracy. The Savannah
was captured on the 3d of June by the United States war
ship Perry, and the crew were taken to New York City
for trial. The question at issue greatly embarrassed
the United States Government. This Government had
declined to sign an agreement at the Congress of Paris
in 1856 with the Powers of Europe for making priva
teering piracy by international consent. Consequently,
it was forced back to the question whether it would
recognize the Confederates as belligerents or would deal
with them as criminals, as traitors. If the Government
should view them not only as rebels, but as traitors,
criminals, then it must assume the same attitude toward
the persons engaged in rebellion on land as on sea — that
is, all persons taken in arms against the United States
must be made subject to the ordinary criminal law of the

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 267
country, and could not be dealt with as prisoners under
the laws and usages of war. How the matter would
have been determined had no considerations except those
of juristic logic have been involved in it, is difficult to
say. The capture of Federal prisoners in the battle of
Bull Run was what settled the question. Mr. Davis put
Colonel Corcoran and a score of other officers in chains,
and informed the United States Government that he
would deal with them in the same manner as the Wash
ington authorities should deal with the crew of the
Savannah. The proceedings against the " pirates " were
immediately suspended, and the "pirates" themselves
were finally exchanged as prisoners of war. The principle
involved in this precedent was that during the appeal of
the questions between the United States and the Con
federacy to the trial of arms, the Confederate combatants
must be regarded and treated as belligerents. If they
should succeed in this trial, of course this temporary
status would be vindicated as permanent. But if they
should fail — fail without having secured any terms from
the United States — then they would be finally at the
mercy of the Government against which they had re
belled for anything more than the ordinary privileges of
the accused in criminal procedure.
The United States navy was also successful in estab
lishing the blockade before the end of the year. The
attempt to blockade a coast more than three The Block-
thousand miles long with its numerous bays, '^*'
inlets and harbors seemed, in the beginning, a hercu
lean task. But it was done with promptness and vigor.
There was considerable blockade-running between the
Bermudas and the North Carolina coast, and between the
Bahamas and the Florida coast, but it never reached pro
portions to relieve to any considerable degree the wants of
the Confederates. Several attempts were made during the

268 THE CIVIL WAR
last half of the year to break the blockade at particular
points, but they were unsuccessful. The first and most
promising one occurred in the mouths of the Mississippi
River. The New Orleans authorities had commissioned
a Captain HoUins, formerly of the United States navy,
to change a steamboat into an ironclad ram, which they
named the Manassas, and with that and some five ships
to drive the blockading squadron out of the river. He
did drive some of the United States vessels aground, and
proclaimed a victory, but these were all safely gotten off,
and the blockade was restored, as stringent as before,
within twenty-four hours. The other attempts were
even less worthy of notice.
It occurred early to the authorities at Washington
that the navy might be used for another purpose, one
The Hatteras more positive and offensive than protecting
expedition. commerce and maintaining the blockade,
viz., for the purpose of lodging troops at certain points
in the Confederacy, and establishing coast garrisons,
which would serve as bases of operations against the
vital interior points of the insurgent country, and as
rallying-places for the Union men of these sections.
After a good deal of thought and consultation, it was
determined to effect a lodgement at Cape Hatteras on the
North Carolina coast and at Port Royal about half way
between Charleston and Savannah.
The expedition for the occupation of Hatteras was
prepared during the month of August, and set out from
Newport News on the 26th. It consisted of six war ves
sels under the command of Commodore Stringham, and
several transports containing a land force of about one
thousand men commanded by General Butler. The
fleet arrived off Hatteras on the following day, and on
the morning of the 28th began the attack on the forts,
Clark and Hatteras. These forts mounted some fifteen

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 269
guns and were held by nearly a thousand men, under
the command of Commodore Barron, a former United
States naval officer. The attack was successful, and, on
the 29th, Barron surrendered forts and garrison. Rec
ognizing the strategic importance of the place, the Fed
eral commanders decided to occupy it permanently.
They left a small garrison in the forts, which was soon
increased, and Hatteras furnished the solid base for the
subsequent naval operations along that part of the coast.
It will be remembered that Port Pickens, which guards
the east side of the entrance to Pensacola Bay, had been
held by its Federal garrison, while Fort Mc- ^^^ pj^^.,
Rae, which is on the west side, had been seized ™'-
by the Confederates. On the 9th of October, the Con
federates threatened Fort Pickens by landing troops
from Pensacola on Santa Rosa Island to attack some
Federal troops in the rear of the fort, but the move
ment resulted in no attempt upon the fort. On the
22d of November the garrison of Fort Pickens, aided
by the war-ship Richmond, undertook to bombard Fort
McRae, but effected nothing. The status quo was pre
served during the remainder of the year.
Further westward, however, the Federal navy took
possession of Ship Island on the Mississippi coast, and
established here a base for naval operations
against Mississippi. Before the end of the ^ °
year, a permanent garrison of nearly two thousand men,
under the command of General John W. Phelps, was
settled here.
But the naval movement of greatest brilliancy and suc
cess during the year 1861 was the expedition against
Port Royal, and the occupation of the coasts The capture
and islands of this most important bay. The °* ^""^ ^^'^¦
expedition was prepared during the month of October.
It consisted of about twenty war vessels, under the com-

270 THE CIVIL WAR
mand of Commodore Samuel F. Da Pont, and an army
division of some ten to fifteen thousand men, under the
command of General T. W. Sherman, embarked on
about thirty transports. This large force started from
Fortress Monroe on the 25th of October. Its destina
tion was known only to the President and his Cabinet,
and to Du Pont and Sherman. The passage was stormy,
and a few of the transports were lost and others dis
abled. In the night of November 3d, the Commodore's
fiag-ship arrived off Hilton Head at the entrance to Port
Royal. He found two forts. Fort Walker on Hilton Head,
and Fort Beauregard on the opposite side of the inlet.
They were together defended by about fifty guns and two
thousand soldiers. There was also a little fleet within the
bay, commanded by Commodore Tatnall, formerly of the
United States navy. The soldiers in the forts were under
the immediate command of General T. F. Dayton.
Du Pont began the attack in the forenoon of Novem
ber 7th, and within six hours he had captured the forts,
and was landing Sherman's army. Tatnall burned his
vessels, and the Confederate soldiers fled in all directions
open to them. The war was thus early carried into
South Carolina. Before the end of the year the Federal
fleet and army had possession of the waters of the South
Carolina coast from North Edisto Bay to Warsaw Bay,
and of all the principal islands in these waters. They
also had possession of Tybee Island at the mouth of the
Savannah River. The Stars and Stripes had been again
raised in both South Carolina and Georgia, raised never
again to be lowered.
The Washington Government also managed, at this
time, most successfully, a very serious incident in foreign
The Trent relations. President Davis had commis-
°^^- sioned James M. Mason and John Slidell as
diplomatic representatives of the Confederacy to Great

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 271
Britain and France. These two men, bearing despatches
from the Confederate Government to the Governments of
Great Britain and France, and accompanied by their
families and secretaries, slipped out of Charleston Har
bor in the night of October 12th on the steamer Theo
dora, and landed safely in Cuba. On the 7th of the
following month they left Havana on the British
steamer Trent, destined for St. Thomas, whence they
intended to proceed to England. Captain Charles
Wilkes of the United States war-ship San Jacinto
happened to be with his vessel in Cuban waters looking
for the Confederate privateer Sumter. While in the
port of Havana he learned of the presence of Mason
and Slidell in the city, and of their destination.
Wilkes had read a good deal of international law in
British texts and decisions, and he concluded that he
had the belligerent right to visit any neutral vessel on
the high seas in search of contraband of war, and to
seize the persons and papers of diplomatic representa
tives of governments at war with his Government.
There is not much doubt that the British principles,
practices and decisions did seem to warrant this conclu
sion. Wilkes waylaid the Trent in the Bahama Channel
the day after her departure from Havana, and, upon
the refusal of her commander to heave to, flred a shot
across her bow. She yielded to force and stopped. She
was boarded by Lieutenant Fairfax and a detachment
of marines from the San Jacinto, who forcibly removed
Mason and Slidell and their secretaries from the Trent
to the San Jacinto, and brought them to Fortress Mon
roe, whence they were taken, by order of the Govern
ment, to Boston Harbor and conflned in Fort Warren.
The despatches carried by these gentlemen were not
secured, and their families, spurning the proffered hos
pitality of Captain Wilkes, proceeded to England.

272 THE CIVIL WAR
The news of the event of the 8th of November in the
Bahama Channel reached tv" Government at Washing
ton on the 16th, and the Gov. kiment at London on the
30th. At first the conduct of Captain Wilkes seemed
to be universally approved in the United States.
The people applauded it with enthusiasm everywhere.
The House of Representatives passed a vote of thanks.
Even the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Welles, declared
officially that " the prompt and decisive action of Cap
tain Wilkes on this occasion, merited and received the
emphatic approval of the Department."
In Great Britain the event was viewed both by the Gov
ernment and the people as an insult to their fiag, and re
lease of the prisoners with suitable apology or war seemed
to be the only alternatives which occurred to anyone as
proper demands to be made of the Washington Govern
ment. But there were two cool heads in Washington,
the President and the Secretary of State, and they had
a prudent envoy in London, Mr. Charles Francis Adams.
Moreover the British Ambassador to the United States,
Lord Lyons, was wise and just and friendly in his feel
ings toward the Government to which he was accredited.
Mr. Seward had put Mr. Adams in a position to meet
any embarrassments, by despatching him, on the day
that the news of the affair in the Bahama Channel
reached London, the information that Captain Wilkes
had acted without authority from Washington, and that
the Government was ready to discuss the matter with
the British Government.
The British Government made a good deal of bluster
before the despatch was communicated to it ; and was
so embarrassed by its own haste after receiving the com
munication from Mr. Adams that it delayed making the
same known to the public for some days. During this
time the arsenals rang with the noise of warlike prepa-

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 273
rations, and troops were sent on shipboard destined for
Canada. The law officers of the crown were appealed
to, and they advised the Ministry that the act of Wilkes
was illegal, since he did not take the Trent into port
and subject his capture to the jurisdiction of a regular
prize court of the United States. The infraction of in
ternational law made by Wilkes consisted, according to
their view, in taking the persons of the envoys out of
the British vessel without a preceding trial and judg
ment by a regular prize court of the United States au
thorizing the same. The opinion of the British jurists
was certainly sound and lawyerlike. It made the ques
tion of procedure precede, as it should, the argument
upon the merits.
Whether they so intended or not, their opinion, and
the demand of the British Government based on it,
opened to the United States Government the way of es
cape from danger and embarrassment without loss of
dignity. Mr. Seward saw at once his opportunity and
advised the President to yield on the point of procedure
and release the prisoners, which the President promptly
did. Mr. Seward took advantage of this occasion to assert,
that, in demanding the release of Mason and Slidell, the
British Government had placed itself upon principles in
regard to the right of visitation and search, and in re
gard to what constitutes contraband of war, always be
fore this denied by Great Britain, while long approved
by the United States and most of the states of Conti
nental Europe. Mr. Sumner took the same ground in
his famous speech upon the subject made in the Senate
on the 9th of January, 1862.
The contention in both cases appears, however, a little
strained, to say the least. As we have seen, the British
Government rested its whole case on the question of
Vol. I.— 18

274 THE CIVIL WAR
procedure. It declared simply that the forcible removal
of the envoys from the Trent was illegal because it had
not been preceded by a trial in a regular prize court of
the United States, and by a judgment from such a court
decreeing their removal. Both Mr. Seward and Mr.
Sumner were a little over anxious to appear as victors in
this diplomatic bout with Great Britain.
The Confederates were greatly disappointed and
chagrined at the result. They had been gleeful in their
joy at the prospect of the United States having a war
with the most powerful state of Europe in addition to
the internecine struggle. They now denounced as cow
ardice the prompt backing down of the Washington
Government before " the roar of the British lyon," and
scolded Great Britain for not carrying out her threats,
although her demands had been accorded. The amica
ble arrangement of this matter removed all danger of any
serious complications between the United States and
Great Britain, and solved thus early one of the main
problems with which the Washington Government was
confronted from the first.
If we cast a comprehensive glance over the situation
at the close of the year 1861, we shall indeed find some
Bird's-eye justification for President Lincoln's state-
uation af the ment in his message of December 3d to Con-
ciose of 18(51. gress, that the cause of the Union was "ad
vancing steadily and certainly southward," but we cannot
repress the feeling that this was fully as cheerful a view
of the state of things as the facts warranted. The Con
federates had, at last, established their line of defence
from Yorktown in the east along the southern Potomac
to Aquia Creek, thence to Centreville, Leesburg and
Winchester, thence along the AUeghanies south-west
ward to the headwaters of the Great Kanawha, thence
to the upper Cumberland Valley, thence westward to

THE MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861 275
Bowling Green, Russellville and Columbus, and thence
to Springfield and the Kansas border. Every slave-
holding Commonwealth, except Delaware and Maryland,
was thus wholly or partly within their jurisdiction. It
was a vast territory, and in it a great power was now fairly
organized and equipped for resistance. The authorities
at Washington and the people of the North could now
no longer deceive themselves with the idea of a speedy
termination of the struggle. Neither could they prom
ise themselves any more that success at a single point
upon this extended line would be decisive. They saw
that a powerful and united effort along the whole line
must be made in order to effect anything worth the ex
ertion and the cost. We pass now, therefore, from the
consideration of the petit war to that of the grand war
of the rebellion.

CHAPTER XI
MILL SPRINGS, FORT HENRY, DONELSON, SHILOH,
PEA RIDGE, AND ISLAND NO. 10
The President's Military Order of January 27th, 1862 — Anticipation
of the President's Order by the Western Armies — Attempts to
Relieve East Tennessee — ZoUicoffer's Move to Mill Springs —
The Battle of Mill Springs, or, More Correctly, of Logan's
Cross Roads — Grant's Manoeuvres from Cairo and Paducah —
Fort Henry — Fort Donelson — The Battle — The Surrender —
The Results of the Victory — Halleck, Buell, and Grant — Fail
ure of the Attempts to Prevent the Concentration of the Con
federates at Corinth — Concentration of the Federals at Pitts
burg Landing — The Advance of Buell — The Extension of
Halleck's Authority — Nelson's Forced March from Columbia to
Savannah— Johnston's Preparations for Battle — The Advance
of the Confederates to Shiloh — The Federal Position — The Plan
of Attack— The Battle— The Death of Johnston— Webster's
Battery — The Arrival of Nelson — Suspension of the Struggle—
The Two Armies on the 7th— The Renewal of the Battle—
The Piercing of the Confederate Centre — The Defeat of the
Confederates and their Retreat — The Losses — The Pea Ridge
Campaign — Retreat of Price — Curtis's Pursuit — The Position
at Pea Ridge— The Flanking Movements of the Confederates —
The Battle of Pea Ridge— The Second Day's Battle, and the
Defeat of the Confederates — The Losses — The Indian Brigade
— The Capture of Island No. 10— The Attack on New Madrid —
Preparations against Island No. 10 — The Capture of the Island
and the Confederate Army — The Beginning of Pope's Popular
ity — The Advance on Corinth — The Retreat of the C6nfeder-
ates from Corinth — The Pall of Memphis.
By the beginning of 1862, the Northern patience
with the work of preparation again manifested signs of
276

MILL SPRINGS 277
exhaustion. The President was made to feel that the
temper of the people required another early effort to
advance. He had himself become restless
under General McClellan's procrastinations, dent's muita-
At last he took matters into his own hands, january*2Tth.
and, on the 27th of January, issued that, ^^^'
from a military point of view, strange order for a forward
movement on the part of all the armies of the United
States, to be executed on the selfsame day, the 22d of
February following. More than once Mr. Lincoln
sought to make use of the mystical influence of the im
pressive events in our national history to inspire the
people and the soldiers with patriotic ardor. This mil
itary proclamation is intelligible from this point of view,
but from no other.
The two comprehensive objects of the intended move
ment were the capture of Richmond and the opening
of the Mississippi. Undoubtedly it was good military
judgment so to manoeuvre the armies as to prevent the
Confederates in the West from reinforcing those in the
East, and vice versa, but it is hardly to be supposed that
a general advance upon the selfsame day from points a
thousand miles apart would best effect these purposes,
or would even be a possibility.
The Western armies did not, however, wait for the
coming of Washington's birthday to enter Anticipation
npon the campaign. Already, in fact, before of the ^esi-
the issue of the President's order, they had by the west-
, . em armies.
begun operations.
As we have seen, the Union forces in Middle and
East Kentucky had early regarded East Tennessee as
their objective point. The strong Union j^^jg j, j^
sentiment of the people of East Tennessee reueve East
was well known in Kentucky and throughout
the North. Its occupation by the Union armies would

278 THE CIVIL WAR
rescue a loyal people from the tyranny of the Confeder
acy, would secure the resources of this section for the
Union cause, and would sever one of the main lines of
connection between Virginia and the western parts of
the Confederacy. During the autumn of 1861, two at
tempts were made to advance in the direction of East
Tennessee ; one by General Schcepf from the Federal
base at Wild Cat Camp in Garrard County, and the oth
er by General William Nelson from Lexington, up the
Licking River through Prestonbnrg and Piketon, and
then across the Cumberland Mountains into the valley
of Clinch River. Schoepf 's movement was stopped by a
rumor that the Confederates were advancing from Bowl
ing Green upon his right flank, and Nelson was checked
by the Confederates under Colonel Williams in a little
battle between Prestonbnrg and Piketon, and, although
he advanced afterwards to Piketon, he was convinced
that the way across the mountains was barred to him by
Williams and his forces at Pound Gap.
Nelson withdrew his forces from Piketon, whereupon
the Confederates, under the command of Colonel Hum
phrey Marshall, advanced again into Kentucky. General
Buell now sent Colonel James A. Garfleld, with the
eighteenth brigade of his army, to drive Marshall back.
Marshall retreated before Garfield's advance to Preston
bnrg, and in the morning of the 10th of January, 1862,
made a stand at Middle Creek, a little to the west of
Prestonbnrg. In the engagement which followed both
parties claimed the victory. Both parties, however,
withdrew from the position, the Confederates retiring to
Pound Gap and the Federals to Paintsville. The Con
federates thus abandoned extreme East Kentucky, and
the Federals left East Tennessee, for the moment, in
the grasp of the Confederacy. It was evident now to
them that they could not penetrate East Tennessee

MILL SPRINGS 279
through the mountains of South-eastern Kentucky, and
that they must choose their line of advance further west
ward. The Confederates saw this also, and in order both to
meet the possibility of an attempt of the Federals to ad
vance towards East Tennessee by the Kings
ton route further westward, and to put them- more'^to^mu
selves in a better position to invade Middle ^p™^°'
Kentucky, Zollicoffer abandoned Barboursville and
moved his troops westward to Mill Springs and Beach
Grove, the former on the south side and the latter on
the north side of the Cumberland River, directly oppo
site to each other. The Confederates now began to for
tify these two positions.
General Buell saw at once the necessity for dislodg
ing Zollicoffer from this new base of operations, and in
the last days of December, he ordered General Schcepf
to take a position at Somerset, a place about eighteen
miles to the north-east of Mill Springs, and there await
the advance of General George H. Thomas from Colum
bia, a place thirty-five miles north-west from Mill
Springs, who had been ordered to form a junction with
Schoepf, and then attack the Confederates on the Cum
berland. The Confederate Commander, now General
George B. • Crittenden, soon learned of the movement,
and saw at once that he could save himself only by pre
venting the junction of Thomas and Schoepf. The two
Union armies were to come together at a place called
Logan's Cross Roads, the place where the road from
Somerset to Mill Springs joined the road from Colum
bia to Mill Springs, and about ten miles northward
from Mill Springs. Crittenden's plan was to occupy
this place before either Thomas or Schoepf could arrive,
and beat the Union armies singly. It was a correct
conception, but Crittenden was too slow in executing it.

280 THE CIVIL WAR
The union of Thomas and Schcepf had been accom
plished for some hours before the Confederates arrived
in front of the Federal outposts.
The Confederates had, however, no choice of alterna
tives. They must attack. They endeavored to help
The battle of themselves by a surprise attack. In the
OT!"mo?e""cor: early morning of the 19th of January, they
Tan^s cro'ifs lif ^'Icd themsclves impetuously upon the
Boads. Federal troops. The Federals were at first
thrown into confusion, and the Confederates charged
forward with shouts of victory. But Thomas drew
them by his masterly manoeuvres into a position where he
turned their left flank, and, in the moment of their con
fusion while attempting to change front, threw a large
fresh regiment upon them in bayonet charge, which
routed them completely. The victory of the Federals
was decisive, but the darkness intervened before the
works at Beach Grove were reached. On the morning
of the 20th, the Federals entered the fortiflcations, only
to find that the Confederates had fied across the river to
Mill Springs, and were already in full retreat towards
Nashville. Some five thousand Confederates and eight or ten
thousand Federals had taken part in the engagement.
The Confederate loss was about five hundred men,
among them General Zollicoffer. The Federal loss, on
the other hand, was only about half as great. The
Federals also made capture of a large amount of arms,
ammunition and commissary stores, and of a consider
able number of animals and wagons. The Confederates
had, undoubtedly, suffered a most serious disaster. It
was the beginning of the chapter of disasters which
overtook their armies to the west of the AUeghanies
during the late winter and spring of 1862.
At the beginning of Thomas's movement against Mill

FORT HENRY 281
Springs, Buell requested McClellan to order General
Grant, at Cairo, to threaten Columbus, Fort Henry
and Fort Donelson, in order to prevent the Grant's ma-
Confederates at Bowling Green from sending cS?o"and^ p"
aid to Crittenden at Mill Springs, and to ^"''*''-
prevent Bowling Green from being reinforced from the
first-named points.
In obedience to an order from McClellan, transmitted
through Halleck, Grant sent General J. A. McClernand
from Cairo with a force of some six thousand men to
menace Columbus, and General C. P. Smith, from Pa
ducah, with a smaller force, to occupy the attention of
the Confederates about Fort Henry. Both of these
movements were successfully executed between the 10th
and 25th of January. No reinforcements were sent from
these points to Bowling Green, and the Confederates at
Bowling Green, being threatened on their front by Gen
eral Buell's main army, could do nothing for Critten
den at Mill Springs.
These reconnoissances were destined, however, to lead
to far more important results. General Smith found a
fort on the west side of the Tennessee River, just across
from Fort Henry, which, on account of its elevation
above the latter, really commanded it. General Smith
reported to General Grant that it was, in his opinion,
practicable to seize this point, called Fort Heiman, and
from it to reduce Fort Henry.
General Grant had already formed the view that the true
lines of operation for the Union forces in the West were
up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, j, ^ „ ^^
thus turning both Columbus and Bowling
Green, and forcing the evacuation of Kentucky. After
receiving Smith's report, he went to Halleck, at St.
Louis, with the plan. Halleck, at first, rebuffed him,
but with the help of Flag-Officer Andrew H. Foote, who

282 THE CIVIL WAR
had , gathered a little fleet of iron-clad boats, called
gun-boats, at Cairo, he at last prevailed on Halleck to
allow him and Foote to undertake the campaign. Hal
leck's order of January 30th was simply to make prepa
rations to take and hold Fort Henry, and his written
instructions only added the direction to occupy the
road from Fort Henry to Fort Donelson on the Cum
berland, so as to prevent reinforcement from Donelson
to Henry, or escape from Henry to Donelson. Grant's
army arrived on transports within striking distance of
Fort Henry in the evening of February 5th. He or
dered McClernand to disembark on the east side of the
river and occupy the roads leading from Henry to Don
elson, C. P. Smith to disembark on the west bank and
assault Fort Heiman, and Officer Foote to bombard the
Forts in front. The execution of these movements was
to take place at eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the next
day, the 6th. The Confederate Commander, General
Lloyd Tilghman, had, however, very cleverly divined
the plan, and, during the night, he effected the evacua
tion of Fort Heiman, and the escape of the garrison of
Fort Henry by the upper road to Fort Donelson. He
remained himself at Port Henry, with some eighty ar
tillerists, in order to occupy the attention of the Fed
erals until his little army of three thousand men could
escape. The advance of the Federals began as ordered. At a
little past noon the battle between the little band in the
Fort and Foote's seven gun-boats was opened. It lasted
an hour and a quarter, when the Confederates surren
dered. When Smith arrived at Fort Heiman, he found it
deserted, while McClernand failed to intercept the march
of the garrison to Fort Donelson. The loss in killed
and wounded was inconsiderable, and the prisoners capt
ured in Fort Henry numbered only about sixty, among

FORT DONELSON 283
them General Tilghman. But one of the great water
courses leading into the heart of the Confederacy was
now opened, and the first stage of the campaign for the
rescue of Kentucky and Tennessee from the power of
the Confederacy was successfully accomplished.
In his despatch to General Halleck announcing the
capture of Fort Henry, Grant declared that he would
take and destroy Fort Donelson on the 8th. In this
prediction he was too sanguine. He does not seem to
have taken sufficient account of the time it would require
to send the gun-boats down the Tennessee and up the
Cumberland, nor of the difficulties of the march across
from Henry in the torrents of rain which were falling,
nor of the strength and extent of the fortifications at
Donelson. On the day following the capture of Henry, however.
Grant with his staff and few companies of cavalry rode
to within a mile of the outer works around po^t Donei-
Fort Donelson and made a satisfactory recon- °°"-
noissance of the position. He found the fortifications
to consist of a strong Fort on the bank of the river
mounting a goodly number of heavy guns to defend the
approach by the river, and a line of rifle pits running
up the stream, and about a mile away from it, to a
slough of the river which lay almost at right angles with
the main current. A deep creek, called Hickman Creek,
ran around the base of the Fort, on the down-stream side
of it, and formed a strong barrier against an attack by a
land force moving up the river. Grant also found that
there was a range of hills outside of the ridge occupied
by the rifle pits, which were higher than any of the points
of the fortifications, and that a deep ravine running at
right angles with the line of rifle pits cut this line into
two parts near the centre. At a glance he saw that he
could command the Confederate works by artillery upon

284 THE CIVIL WAR
these higher points, and could pierce the line of fortifi
cations through the ravine.
By the 12th Grant and Foote were fairly prepared to
begin operations. Foote steamed up the Cumberland
with the gun-boats, and along with him, on transports,
went Colonel Thayer's brigade of infantry ; while Grant,
with an army of about fifteen thousand men, set out on
the march across the neck of land between Fort Henry
and Fort Donelson, about a dozen miles in width. The
army was in two divisions, under the command of Mc
Clernand and Smith, while Lew Wallace was left behind
with some two thousand men to hold Forts Henry and
Heiman. The Confederates had, during the six days since the
capture of Fort Henry, been receiving reinforcements.
After the disaster at Mill Springs, the Confederate com
mander at Bowling Green, General A. S. Johnston, had
decided to retire behind the Cumberland, in order to
avoid being flanked by Thomas on his right. He was
evacuating Bowling Green when Grant was starting from
Fort Henry to attack Donelson, and he sent Generals
Pillow, Bnckner, and Floyd with ten to twelve thousand
of his best troops to Donelson, having resolved to fight
his battle for the possession of Nashville and the south
bank of the Cumberland at Donelson.
About noon of the 12th the head of McClernand's col
umn encountered the Confederate pickets. Grant now
put his forces into position, the division under
McClernand forming the right wing, while
Smith's division formed the left wing, resting on the
heights nearly opposite the fort. Only one of the iron
clads had arrived, the Carondelet, commanded by Cap
tain Walke. He immediately fired a few shots at the
lower guns of the fort, but made no impression.
On the next day, the 13th, the Federal lines were

FORT DONELSON 285
drawn closer, and about one o'clock in the afternoon
General McClernand ordered Colonel Morrison's brigade,
supported by Haynie's regiment, to take advantage of
some confusion in the Confederate line caused by the
good artillery fire from the Federal batteries on the
heights behind them, and assault a redan in the middle
of that line which was causing the Federals a good deal
of annoyance. It was a rash and presumptuous thing on
the part of McClernand, and he forfeited Grant's respect
for his judgment thereby. Nevertheless, the brave II-
linoisans almost succeeded, and probably would have
succeeded had not their gallant leader. Colonel Morrison,
been stricken down at the most critical moment. Mor
rison was borne bleeding from the field, and Haynie
gave the order to withdraw. The victory of the Con
federates in the battle of the 13th gave them great en
couragement, and was in some degree dispiriting to the
Federals. In the night of the 13th Foote arrived before the Fort
with five gun-boats, and the transports bringing Thay
er's big brigade of six full regiments. General Lew
Wallace arrived also in the early morning of the 14th,
with the troops that had been left at Fort Henry. With
these large reinforcements. Grant's army now outnum
bered that of the Confederates, without the gun-boats,
and the courage of the men was completely restored.
Grant now formed a third division, composed chiefiy
of the newly arrived troops, put Lew Wallace in com
mand of it, and caused it to take position in the centre of
his line, between Smith and McClernand. His plan of
battle for the 14th was to have the army so threaten the
outer works as to hold the Confederate forces in them,
while the gun-boats should attack the batteries on the
river, pass above them, establish communication with
McClernand's right, and then take everything in reverse.

286 THE CIVIL WAR
The gun-boats began the attack about three o'clock in
the afternoon. They advanced to within about a thou-
Attack of sand feet of the lower batteries, pouring a
the gun-boats, vfell-directed fire into the Fort, when the
wheel of the fiag-ship, the St. Louis, was struck and
torn away and Foote was severely wounded. At about
the same moment another shot from the batteries car
ried away the tiller-ropes of the Louisville. These two
boats became immediately unmanageable, and drifted
down stream, followed by the others, all more or less
battered. The flagging zeal of the Confederates was
roused again by the victory of the 14th. Still the Fed
eral reinforcements continued to arrive, and the Federal
line kept approaching the river above the fortifications,
threatening to bar the way of retreat toward Nashville.
The Confederates were informed of these facts by their
scouts, and in the evening of the 14th their commanders
met in council to discuss the situation. Despite the tri
umph of the batteries over the gun-boats, it appeared to
them very serious. They at last resolved to assail the
Federal right, at dawn the next morning, with a division
of their troops commanded by Pillow, turn it, and drive
it back upon the centre, and then hurl the Confederate
right wing, led by Bnckner, upon the exposed fiank of
the Federals, and thus open the way for the Confederate
army to pass out and march by way of Charlotte toward
Nashville. Orders were sent in all directions to make
the necessary preparations. The weather had become
intensely cold, and the shivering Confederates spent
most of the dreary night putting themselves in readiness
for the deadly conflict, and the dangerous retreat which
was, according to the plan, to follow it.
General Grant did not anticipate any such movement
on the part of his enemy. He had been summoned by
the wounded Foote to a conference on board the St.

FORT DONELSON 287
Louis, which was lying disabled some five miles below
the Fort. He set out from his head-quarters, just behind
Smith's division, in the early morning of the 15th, to
answer Foote's call, all unconscious of the fact that the
Confederates were, at the very moment, moving in great
force upon the extreme right of his line. He had sent
word to his division commanders to hold their positions,
but not to bring on an engagement until ordered by him.
Returning from his visit to Foote, he was met by one of
his staff coming at full gallop, and informed that the
Confederates had turned McClernand's right and were
driving the entire right wing back upon the centre. He
rode rapidly forward to the scene of battle, and his mas
ter mind divined at once the plan of the Con- Grant's div-
f ederates to escape. He immediately ordered iiiaSon.
McClernand's broken regiments back into line across the
path which the Confederates were trying to open, and
rightly supposing that the mass of Buckner's troops had
gone out from the trenches in front of the Federal left
wing to join in the attempt of the army to cut its way
out, and that only a few remained to hold the Federals
at bay long enough to secure the retreat, he commanded
General Smith to assault and carry these works. Smith's
troops carried out this order with great promptness and
success, and quickly gained a lodgement in the Confeder
ate rifle pits near the Fort itself. The Confederates now
came rushing back to regain their works, but Smith held
them at bay, while the Federal right and centre regained
their positions of the preceding day. There was no
place within the Confederate position which Smith's
artillery did not command ; and when the sun went
down, darkness drew its protecting wing over a beaten
and demoralized army of Confederates, who had now to
meet the alternatives of slaughter or surrender.
At midnight their chiefs, Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner,

288 THE CIVIL WAR
were gathered in council in a little house in the hamlet
of Dover, on the bank of the slough of the Cumber-
The surren- ^^T^^ which hemmed the Confederates in on
'**'¦• the side looking up the river. Floyd was
bent upon making his own escape. He feared it might
go hard with him if taken. Pillow was a man who never
knew when he was down, and was naturally rather in
favor of further resistance. But Buckner, a better sol
dier and a better man in every way than either of the
others, saw the futility of any more fighting, and felt the
cruelty to the men of exposing them to any more hard
ships and suffering. He advocated surrender. Floyd
and Pillow at last assented, with the understanding that
Buckner should assume command and they should at
tempt to escape. It was now near the dawn of the 16th.
There were two little boats at the Dover landing. Floyd
and Pillow boarded these with as many soldiers as could
get on, chiefly the Virginians of Floyd's brigade, and
steamed for Nashville. Forrest, with his cavalry, swam
the slough and rode away along the south bank of the
river. At the same time, Buckner ordered the white
flag to be raised, and sent a messenger to Grant to open
parley. Grant replied that he should require immediate
unconditional surrender, and that he should begin the
attack at once if this demand were not accepted. Buck
ner felt obliged to yield, though he did so with very bad
grace, and in a rather undignified manner.
It was a magnificent Federal victory. The Confed
erates lost nearly two thousand men killed and wounded,
The results ^^^ from twelve to fifteen thousand taken
of the victory, prisoners, together with the entire equipment
of their army. But it was not a cheaply purchased vic
tory to the Federals. They lost between twenty-five
hundred and three thousand men killed and wounded.
The slaughter and the suffering had been frightful on

FORT DONELSON 289
both sides. The strategic results of the victory were the
evacuation of Middle Tennessee and of the fortress on
the Mississippi at Columbus by the Confederates, and
their retreat to Corinth and Chattanooga. So soon as
General Johnston learned of the disaster at Donelson he
marched the remnants of his army, which had retreated
from Bowling Green to the north bank of the Cumber
land, right on through Nashville to Murfreesborough,
at which point he was joined by Crittenden's troops
coming from Mill Springs through Carthage and Leba
non, and, after remaining a few days in Murfreesborough,
moved his whole force southward to the Memphis and
Charleston railroad line, and sent them over this road to
Corinth, in Mississippi, in order to form at that point a
junction with Beauregard, who had been transferred
from Virginia to take command of the defences of the
Mississippi Valley. During the same period the Con
federates withdrew from Columbus, the "Gibraltar of the
West." About one-half of them, commanded by Polk,
the Bishop-General, went direct to Corinth, while the
other half, led by Beauregard himself, retired to Island
No. 10 — an island in the Mississippi some forty-five
miles below Columbus, at the upper extremity of New
Madrid bend — a place where the great river makes a turn
so sudden and complete as to run for a few miles in a
direction exactly contrary to its general course.
The reaping of the results of the victory to the fullest
extent was now, however, hindered by questions of au
thority and precedence. Halleck was Grant's h « 1 1 e c k
superior, but he was not Buell's superior, g^^'^ ">*
The connection between Halleck and Buell
was McClellan. McClellan had, on the 15th of Febru
ary, ordered Buell to advance on Nashville, and had in
formed Halleck of this order. Before receiving this in
formation, Halleck had telegraphed McClellan that, in
Vol. L— 19

290 THE CIVIL WAB
his opinion, a direct move by Buell from Bowling Green
on Nashville would be bad strategy, and that the mass of
Buell's troops should be sent to him to help him take
Fort Donelson, and then operate up the Tennessee
River in the rear of the Confederates, forcing them thus
to evacuate Tennessee. And upon receiving Halleck's
despatch, McClellan replied that Buell must move in
force on Nashville as rapidly as circumstances would per
mit, but that if Grant must have help, three of Buell's
brigades and some artillery would be sent to him on the
next day. McClellan thus evidently ruled that the oper
ations against Nashville belonged in Buell's department.
Grant sent C. F. Smith's division up the Cumberland
to Clarksville, a place about one-third of the way from
Donelson to Nashville, and kept them there awaiting
orders from Halleck or McClellan to advance toward
Nashville, while, in accordance with McClellan's order,
Buell sent General William Nelson's division to Fort
Donelson to reinforce Grant, and marched with the rest of
his army direct upon Nashville. His advance arrived at
Edgefield, just across the river from Nashville, on the 23d
of February, and Nelson arrived at Donelson on the same
day. Having no use for Nelson's troops at the moment.
Grant ordered Nelson to proceed with his men on trans
ports, under convoy of a gun-boat, up the river to Nash
ville, and upon arrival, to put himself in communication
with Buell, provided Buell was there or was not far away,
but in case Buell was not within two days' march of the
place to return to a point below the city and wait for his
arrival. When Nelson approached Nashville, he found
Nelson and Bucll's forccs encamped on the north side of
vm™''^u^d the river with no means of crossing, the Con-
Edgefleia. federates having destroyed the bridges and
the river craft. He at once landed his troops, without
any orders from Buell or understanding with him, on

FORT DONELSON 291
the south bank of the river and took possession of the
city. Nelson was at the moment nominally under
Grant's orders, although Grant had not instructed him
to occupy Nashville, as we have seen. Buell seems to
have been disturbed, if not terrified, by the situation.
He had formed the opinion that the Confederates were
gathering in great force some ten miles below Nashville
and were on the point of attacking Nelson and repos
sessing themselves of the city. On the 25th, he sent a
message to General C. F. Smith at Clarksville, urging
him to bring his division as quickly as possible to Nash
ville, and informing him of the almost desperate situa
tion of the Federal army at Nashville and Edgefield, as
he viewed it. As a matter of fact, the entire Confeder
ate army was at Murfreesborough in a most demoralized
and disheartened condition, and did not number all told
over seventeen thousand men.
Grant had written to head-quarters in St. Louis several
days before, announcing his own intention of going in
person to Nashville unless restrained by an Grant in
order from General Halleck to the contrary Nashviue.
in the returning mail. Receiving no such order, he pro
ceeded to Nashville on the 27th. When he arrived at
Clarksville, he found Smith's division embarking to go
to Nashville in answer to Buell's request. Smith showed
Grant Buell's message of the 25th, remarking that he
considered Buell altogether over-anxious. Grant ordered
him, however, to join Buell. When Grant saw Buell in
Nashville, he told him that the Confederates were get
ting away as fast as possible, and that there was no dan
ger of an attack upon the Federal forces at Nashville,
but Buell asserted that fighting was at that moment go
ing on not a dozen miles away, and that Nashville was
in imminent danger. Grant returned to Donelson that
evening, leaving the over-cautious Buell in almost as

292 THE CIVIL WAR
nervous a condition as were the Confederates themselves
thirty miles to the south-east.
Grant and Buell together had a force of at least sixty
thousand men well armed, equipped, and disciplined, and
all flushed with victory. It is true that Grant's army had
fought a great battle, and Buell's army had made a long
march. But the battle was now ten days past, and mod
erate marching is much better for the health and spirit
of troops than entire rest. Opposed to them was the
mere caricature of an army at Murfreesborough, ready to
take to its heels at the appearance of a few good regi
ments. There is no doubt that General Grant was en
tirely correct in claiming, as he did in his " Memoirs,"
that if all the Federal troops west of the AUeghanies had
then been under the command of a single good general
in the field, they could have been marched, directly after
the fall of Donelson, to Chattanooga, Corinth, Memphis,
and Vicksburg, and have dealt the Confederacy its death
blow in the West. But the over-cautious Buell, acting
under the orders of the still more cautious McClellan,
and Grant held back by Halleck, who was altogether
over-anxious about the danger which he fancied threat
ened Cairo from Columbus, could not proceed in unison
to the completion of the great work which lay just before
them. It is true that McClellan was at the time Hal
leck's superior as well as Buell's, but he was far away,
and the time for prompt action was employed by him in
controversy with Halleck as to whether Murfreesborough
or Columbus should be the next point of attack, while
during the very moments when the wires between Wash
ington and St. Louis were occupied with these messages
the Confederates were evacuating both of these places,
and hastening to concentrate upon Corinth, in Missis
sippi, for the defence of the Memphis and Chattanooga
line.

SHILOH 293
Communication between Halleck and Grant was inter-
rupted for about a week after the 23d of February, and
the first order which Grant received from Haiieckand
his immediate superior after that time came ®^*°'-
to his hand on March 2d. It commanded him to march
his forces from Donelson back to Fort Henry, leaving a
small garrison at Donelson. This order was executed
on the 4th. On the day after his arrival at Port Henry
he received another order from Halleck, directing him
to send the bulk of his troops, under the command of
C. F. Smith, on an expedition up the Tennessee to East-
port, for the purpose of destroying the Memphis and
Charleston railroad bridges near that point, but to re
main himself at Fort Henry. Grant did not for the mo
ment understand why he should be superseded by Smith
in the command of this expedition. The reason was re
vealed to him the next day in a communication from
Halleck, in which Halleck wrote : " Your going to Nash
ville without authority, and when your presence with
your troops was of the utmost importance, was a matter
of very serious complaint at Washington, so much so
that I was advised to arrest yon on your return." Hal
leck did not, however, inform Grant that he himself,
and he alone, was the person who made the complaint.
Grant felt deeply injured by Halleck's censure, and asked
to be relieved from any further duty under him. Hal
leck had supposed that the interruption of communica
tions between Grant and himself was owing to Grant's
negligence, and that Grant's visit to Nashville was for
the purpose of a grand spree in celebration of his victory.
He now investigated these things, and found there was
no truth in his suspicions. He wrote to Grant on the
13th, refusing to relieve him of his command, and sent
a communication to Washington two days later exoner
ating him.

294 THE CIVIL WAR
In accordance with Halleck's order. General Smith
started from Fort Henry on the 9th of March with about
„ „ , twenty-five thousand men on transports, and
Failure of •' ,, . , „ i. tt t.
the attempt to steamed up the river to Savannah. He here
concentration disembarked the main portion of his troops,
federates "at but Sent General W. T. Sherman with his di-
oormth. vision farther up the river to Eastport, with
instructions to land there, and destroy the Memphis
and Charleston Railroad near luka, in order to prevent
Johnston's army from concentrating with the forces
gathering at Corinth and in the vicinity. On account
of the high water covering the bottoms, Sherman was not
able to reach the railroad. He returned down the river
to Pittsburg Landing, a place on the west bank of the
river, some ten miles above Savannah, which latter place
is situated on the east bank. Here, by order of General
Smith, Sherman debarked his men and set up his tents.
At the same time Smith sent Hurlbut's division across
from Savannah to join Sherman, and Lew Wallace's di
vision across to Crump's Landing, about five miles above
Pittsburg Landing. This was the disposition of the
troops on the west bank of the Tennessee when Grant
arrived at Savannah on the 17th of March, and took
command of the movements.
By this time the Confederates had gathered in con
siderable force at Corinth. The Confederate President
concentra- ^^^ Ordered General Braxton Bragg to go
tion of the from Pensacola with a fine division of troops
Pittsburg to Beauregard. These had arrived, as well as
^' Polk's men from Columbus, and A. S. John
ston's army was being rapidly transported from Decatur
over the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Grant saw,
at once, that the forces on the west bank of the river
must be immediately reinforced or withdrawn. He de
cided for the former alternative, and on the 18th ordered

SHILOH 296
all the troops at Savannah, except McClernand's divis
ion, to go over to Pittsburg Landing.
On account of the illness of their commander, General
Smith, these were formed into a division under the com
mand of General W. H. L. Wallace. Another division
was formed of the new troops arriving with and after
Grant, and placed under the command of General
B. M. Prentiss. By the 20th, Grant had an army of
about forty thousand men at Savannah, Crump's Land
ing, and Pittsburg Landing, and the Confederates had
about as many in and around Corinth, only twenty-five
or thirty miles away.
During all this time Buell had not been able to satisfy
his mind whether Johnston was going to join Beaure
gard at Corinth or would receive reinforce- T h e ft d -
ments at Chattanooga from Virginia and re- vance of
turn to attack Nashville. He had, therefore,
divided his army, sending a large division of some ten
thousand men or more, under General 0. M. Mitchell
to Murfreesborough, and marching slowly with the main
body, some forty thousand, toward Savannah, by way
of Columbia.
On the 11th of March, President Lincoln issued his
War Order, No. 3, according to which McClellan's au
thority was confined to the Department of The exten-
the Potomac, while the entire territory west 'e'ck's'^nthS-
of the longitude of Knoxville, Tennessee, ''?•
was placed under the superior command of Halleck, and
the district between the departments of Halleck and
McClellan was assigned to Fremont under the name of
the Mountain Department. The connection between the
three was now the War Department at Washington, that
is, the President and the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton.
So soon as Halleck was placed in superior command
over Buell, he ordered Buell to move his forces as rapidly

296 THE CIVIL WAR
as possible to the support of Grant. He repeated the
order a few days later with peremptoriness. Still Buell
was lingering at Colnmbia, only fifty miles away from
Nashville, as late as the 30th, while Savannah was more
than seventy-five miles farther on. Upon that day he
received another despatch from Halleck, urging him
to go on to Savannah and to dismiss all fear from his
mind in regard to Johnston's moving on Nashville from
Decatur. Buell's advance. General William Nelson's division,
had now been for twenty days at Columbia. The rea-
, son for the delay given by Buell was the high
forced march water in Duck River, the bridges over which
bia to savan- had been burned by the Confederates. The
"" ¦ impatient and impetuous Nelson was so irri
tated by the delay that he rode up and down the bank
of the river himself, plunging his horse in here and there
until he found a place over which he determined to ford
his division, and wait no longer for the completion of
the bridges. It was thus that Nelson put his division a
number of hours in advance of the main body of Buell's
army, and arrived at Savannah in time to reach the scene
of the great battle before the end of the first day.
Johnston had arrived in Corinth on the 23d, and on
the 29th he assumed the chief command of all the forces
_ in and about Corinth, and issued his orders
preparations dividing the entire force into three corps and
a reserve, and designating Polk, Bragg, Har
dee, and Crittenden as their respective commanders.
Crittenden was arrested a few days later on charge of
misconduct in the Mill Springs campaign, and the com
mand of the reserve was transferred to J. C. Brecken
ridge. Johnston also made Beauregard his second in
general command, and Bragg his chief of staff.
With the exception of Bragg's troops, from Pensacola,

SHILOH 297
the Confederates were in a bad state of demoralization,
and were greatly lacking in supplies and means of trans
portation. Bragg's judgment was that no offensive op
erations could be undertaken, but Johnston, smarting
under the denunciations which had been hurled at him
for yielding Tennessee without giving battle at Mur
freesborough, and grieving deeply at the displeasure of
his friend. President Davis — although this displeasure
had been very mildly, and only impliedly, expressed —
determined to attack the Federals gathering at Pittsburg
Landing, and to do it before Buell's army could reach
the scene of conflict. It may have been good tactics,
but there was a large element of desperation in it. Some
of the Southern historians are inclined to ascribe the
movement to Beauregard. Beauregard was probably in
favor of it, while Bragg was opposed to it. But John
ston was commander-in-chief, and his will was decisive.
There is no doubt that, on the 1st of April and there
after, the Federal commanders regarded an advance of
the Confederates from Corinth as so unmili- The Feder-
tary as to be without the range of probabili- pi?ed"fo?'the
ties. The fact that they had taken no pre- ^"^'^
cautions to meet an attack is convincing on this point.
They had not caused a single intrenchment to be thrown
up, and they had placed their raw troops farthest for
ward on the roads from Pittsburg Landing to Corinth.
The divisions of Sherman and Prentiss were in the front,
while those of McClernand and Smith were encamped
nearer the river, and Lew Wallace's troops were five or six
miles to the north. These three divisions were the vet
erans of the Donelson campaign, and if an attack by the
Confederates had been expected, some of these would in
all probability have been so placed as to assist in receiv
ing the first shock. In fact. General Grant acknowl
edges in his "Memoirs" that he had "no idea the enemy

298 THE CIVIL WAR
would leave strong intrenchments to take the initiative
when he knew he would be attacked where he was if he
remained." In the evening of the 2d of April, information reached
Johnston at Corinth, that Buell's forces were on the
The ad- march from Columbia to Savannah. He
cfonfe^rates must strike at once, if at all. He hastened
to Shiloh. tQ jgg^e his address to the army, informing
the commanders and the men of the plan of attacking the
Federals at Pittsburg Landing. His troops now num
bered about forty thousand, organized, as we have seen,
into three corps and a reserve. On the morning of the
4th the movement began. The cavalry were in the ad
vance. Hardee's corps followed, then Bragg's, then
Polk's, and lastly the reserve led by Breckenridge. John
ston expected to march his whole army from Corinth to
the Federal outposts in a single day, and to begin his
attack on the morning of the 5th. But the roads were
so narrow, and in such an execrable condition that he
was not able to reach the spot where his columns were to
be deployed in line of battle until the afternoon of the
5th. It was then determined to defer the attack until
the morning of the 6th.
The Federal forces were encamped upon the wooded
plateau bounded on the north by Owl and Snake Creeks,
The Federal ^¦^'^ ^^ *^^ south by Lick Creek, two water-
position, courses of considerable depth at that season,
running in a general parallel direction, some three miles
apart, toward the Tennessee River. This plateau was
intersected by three roads, one running from Pittsburg
Landing to Corinth, one from Hamburg Landing to
Corinth, and one from Hamburg Landing to Purdy, a
county town in Tennessee north of Corinth. There was
also a road leading from Pittsburg Landing to Crump's
Landing, which bowed westward and crossed Snake

SHILOH 299
Creek about a mile from its mouth in the Tennessee.
This road connected Lew Wallace's division with the
rest of the army.
The advanced line of the army on the morning of the
6th of April was composed of the divisions of Sherman
and Prentiss, all raw troops. Sherman's first brigade
was on the extreme right of the line and touched Owl
Creek at the bridge over which the road to Purdy passed.
His fourth brigade came next to the first, and the third
next to the fourth. These two brigades connected at
Shiloh church, on the road from Pittsburg Landing to
Corinth, some two and a half miles from the Landing.
Sherman's second brigade was placed on the extreme
left, and touched Lick Creek at the point where the
road from Hamburg Landing to Purdy crossed it. Be
tween Sherman's second and third brigades, Prentiss's
division was located, but it did not quite fill up the gap
between them. About half a mile to the rear of Sher
man's third brigade was McClernand's division, and
about the same distance in the rear of Prentiss was
Hurlbut's division. Finally W. H. L. Wallace's division
was in reserve in the rear of both McClernand and Hurl-
but. The Federals had a good position. Their flanks were
protected by the waters and marshes of the creeks, and
the topography of the plateau furnished good points of
defence. The Confederates were forced to attack directly
in front, and to depend npon human power, valor, and
endurance for success.
Johnston's plan was to turn the Federal left, by per
sistently advancing his own right, and thus drive the
Federals into the marshes of Snake Creek, The plan of
between the bridge over Snake Creek and the """"^
Tennessee River. Once huddled into this miry corner,
and thrown into confusion, there could be but one re-

300 THE CIVIL WAR
suit. The Confederate generals explained this plan to
their subordinates, and went into the battle with the
colonel of every regiment fully cognizant of it.
Before it was fairly light in the morning of the 6th,
they came storming forward in three lines of battle,
Hardee's corps in the advance, followed by
The battle ' j
Bragg's and then by Polk's, with Brecken-
ridge's in reserve. The Federals were not prepared to
meet the sudden and impetuous attack. They were
fairly surprised. The soldiers of Sherman and Prentiss
were, of course, the flrst to feel the shock. For raw
troops they did as well as could have been expected.
Their commanders behaved like heroes. Sherman de
veloped, at one stroke, that genius for strategy and com
mand which made him, in the opinion of many, the
greatest soldier produced by the war. He seemed to be
omnipresent. His towering form and ringing words im
parted strength and courage wherever he passed, and
his quick perception and sound judgment enabled him
to place his battalions just where they could do most
efficient work. Horse after horse was shot under him,
and twice he was struck. But begrimed and bleeding
and suffering, his uniform riddled with balls, his hat
even pierced, he never lost for one moment his courage,
coolness, or judgment. If any one man saved the Fed
eral army from irreparable disaster in the forenoon of
the 6th, it was certainly Sherman.
But no amount of personal bravery and military tact on
the part of one man, or a thousand men, could stem the
tide of the furious onset. The Confederates poured into
the intervals on the right and left of Prentiss's division,
turning the positions of both Prentiss and Sherman by
the left, at the same time, and almost surrounding Pren
tiss. The Federals yielded their ground, however, slowly.
McClernand, Hurlbut, and W. H. L. Wallace brought

SHILOH 301
up their divisions in support, and the battle raged with
great fury along the entire line. By this time Grant had
arrived on the field. He came up from Savannah, and
in passing Crump's Landing ordered Lew Wallace to put
his division in readiness to march, and await further
orders. On arriving at Pittsburg Landing, and finding
the real battle in progress there, he sent a messenger to
Wallace with an order for him to march his division to
Sherman's right. Grant then went on to the field, and
rode from regiment to regiment trying to preserve some
concert of action among the troops of his considerably
shattered and demoralized army. Again and again he
and his generals rallied the men, but the Confederates
still pressed victoriously forward. McClernand's division
formed no less than six lines of battle in retiring, and at
last, with the remnants of Sherman's troops, took posi
tion in front of the bridge across Snake Creek, resolved
to defend it at all hazards, since it was here that Lew Wal
lace, who had not yet come up, was expected to appear,
and since it was over this bridge and road alone that the
army could save itself from capture in case of ultimate
defeat. On receiving Grant's order to march to Sherman's
right, Wallace struck out for a point on Owl Creek
above its junction with Snake Creek, and about three
miles from the Tennessee River, supposing that Sher
man's right was about in that position, and not knowing
that Sherman had fallen back. About noon Grant sent
one of his aids to look for Wallace, and two hours later
he sent two more of them. About four o'clock in the
afternoon they found Wallace, and the aid first sent
out, leading the division back from its perilous wander
ings to the bridge across Snake Creek, to which point he
ought to have marched directly from Crump's Landing.
Had he done so he could have been on the battle-field by

302 THE CIVIL WAR
noon, as Grant intended. But as it was, he arrived too
late to be of any service on the first day of the great
conflict. Meanwhile the Confederates had made a desperate at
tempt to turn the Federal left entirely and drive the
The death of shattered army into the marshes of Snake
Johnston. Creek. Johnston himself led the charge.
The movement seemed to be on the point of success,
when Johnston fell mortally wounded, and expired amid
the shouts of victory. The Confederates passed onward.
W. H. L.Wallace's division was scattered, the commander
himself being killed. Prentiss was surrounded, and part
of his division with himself captured. Still Sherman
and McClernand held the bridge over Snake Creek, and
were resolved to sacriflce the last man in its defence.
Thousands of the Federals had fled from the field and
were huddled under the bank of the river. Bragg now
determined to carry the last position on the Federal left,
and drive the remnants of the divisions of Hurlbut,
Wallace, and Prentiss into the river. The almost ex
hausted Confederates rallied at the sound of his voice,
and made themselves ready for the final charge.
But at this critical moment, when victory seemed the
certain reward of one more grand effort, bitter disap-
w e b s t er's pointment was being prepared for them. The
battery. siege guns, whlch had been landed a few days
before, were lying on the heights just above the Landing.
It was up and over these heights from the other side
that Bragg's line must come. Colonel J. D. Webster, of
Grant's staff, perceived, at this moment, the extreme
danger to the Federal army, and the advantage which
might be gained from a proper employment of this heavy
artillery lying uselessly around. He hastily collected a
few gunners and threw this heavy ordnance into battery,
and, with a slight infantry support, likewise hastily

SHILOH 303
gathered from broken regiments, prepared to receive
Bragg's line, now pressing up out of the ravine in front
of the position. A well-directed fire from the artillery
sent the Confederates reeling backward, but the brave
and resolute General rallied them again, and they turned
and rushed up the slope before the Federal gunners
could reload their pieces. The weak infantry support
deserted, terror-stricken, the artillerists, and the capture
of the guns, and with them a large part of the army,
seemed the work of only five minutes more of resolute
advance. But before the half of that little period had expired
the intrepid Nelson, always in the advance of Buell's
army, came driving up from the Landing at The arrival
the head of the first brigade of his division, of Nelson.
and received Bragg's line within three hundred feet of
the battery. Instantly deploying right and left with
the precision of trained soldiers, they poured such a vol
ley at short range into the Confederate ranks as shat
tered them into fragments and drove them headlong
down into the ravine. The shells from the gun-boats
had also contributed in effecting the defence, but were
of more service during the retreat of the Confederates
than during their advance. The repulse of Bragg by
Webster's hastily constructed battery, supported at the
critical moment by Nelson's infantry, and the mainten
ance of the position on the extreme right in front of
Snake Creek bridge by Sherman and McClernand had
saved the army from disaster.
Night was rapidly approaching, and Beauregard, now
in chief command of the Confederates, called his ex
hausted soldiers back to the camps occu- ^^^ ension
pied by the Federals the night before, in of the stmg-
order to give them rest and refreshment and
reorganize them for the renewal of the contest on the

304 THE CIVIL WAR
morrow. He did not know that General Buell was him
self already at Pittsburg Landing, and that three divis
ions of his army were nearing the battle-field. Least of
all did he know that it was a brigade of Buell's army
which finally effected the repulse of Bragg.
During the night the remainder of Nelson's division
crossed over from the opposite bank of the Tennessee,
and the divisions of Crittenden and McCook
7ll6 two ftT-
mies on the arrived at that point. In the early morning
hours of the 7th these two divisions also
effected the crossing, and before the Confederates were
ready to renew the confiict twenty thousand men of
Buell's army, fresh and eager for battle, had formed
themselves in front of the position successfully held at
the close of the previous day. Nelson was on the ex
treme left, next came Crittenden, and then McCook. On
the right of McCook came the divisions of Grant's army,
now reduced to three — first McClernand's, then Sher
man's, and on the extreme right the troops commanded
by Lew Wallace. The whole Union army was thus, on
the 7th, drawn up for battle in two wings, the right
wing commanded by Grant, and the left by Buell. It
numbered scarcely less than fifty thousand, about one-
half of whom were fresh troops.
On the other hand, the Confederates had brought
their last man into action on the 6th. They had lost
by the casualties of the battle at least ten thousand men,
and, advancing as they did by the lines of entire corps,
the regiments, brigades, and divisions of the different
corps had become inextricably mingled. Moreover, the
spoils of the Federal camps had added greatly to their
demoralization. Their officers spent the whole of the
night in the vain attempt to reorganize their commands ;
and the shells from the gun-boats kept the soldiers from
obtaining the rest necessary for further exertion. In a

SHILOH 305
word, the Confederate army resumed its positions, on
the morning of the 7th, decimated, fatigued, and consid
erably disorganized.
The Federal commanders felt assured of victory. The
Confederate chiefs, unaware of the presence of Buell's
troops, also counted upon certain success. The Feder
als had in store for the Confederates, on the 7th, as great
a surprise as the Confederates had dealt out to them on
the morning of the 6th.
Before daylight the Army of the Ohio was in motion.
To the brave and restless Nelson was confided the duty
of opening the battle. He soon found the The renewal
Confederates in strong force directly in front of the battle.
of him, for they still adhered to their plan of battle of
the day before of turning the Federal left. The Con
federate commanders now quickly discovered that they
had a division of fresh troops to overcome before they
could accomplish this purpose. They drew reinforce
ments from their own centre and left in order to
strengthen their right in the work required of that part
of their army. They thus gave Nelson a severe battle
for several hours, driving him back at different points.
By this time, however, the Federal commanders had
discovered that the Confederate centre, resting on, or
near, the main road to Corinth, in the deep
forest about a quarter of a mile east of Shiloh of the confef
Church, had been weakened to support their
right in front of Nelson. McCook was therefore or
dered to break the Confederate line at this point. Beau
regard commanded here in person, and the first attempt
was repulsed. Then Rousseau's entire brigade, consist
ing of three battalions of regulars and three regiments
of volunteers, was hurled upon it. General Sherman
says, in his report, that he saw, from his position far
ther toward the Federal right, this superb brigade ad-
VoL. I.— SO

306 THE CIVIL WAR
vancing, and deploying, and entering "this dreaded
woods," and feeling entirely confident of its success,
ordered his own division to keep abreast of it in the
movement. It was now a little after two o'clock, and the Confed
erates knew that the crisis of the battle was at hand.
The defeat ^^^ ^7 Beauregard in person, they struggled
eUVe*^°'?n'd manfully and obstinately, but in vain. The
their retreat, wholc Federal line was now advancing sure
ly, steadily, and in perfect order. Calling Breckenridge
to him, Beauregard acknowledged defeat, and imposed
upon the brave Kentuckian the duty of covering the
retreat, charging him not to allow the retreat to be
turned into a rout.
Most faithfully did Breckenridge execute his trust.
The Confederates gave way at all points, but slowly and
in comparative order. The Federals, exhausted by their
tremendous efforts, advanced only about one mile far
ther, and then rested for the remainder of the day, in
possession of the battle-field, and but little more. On
the following day Sherman tried a little pursuit, and
had one of his regiments badly cut up by a cavalry
charge. After this the Confederates returned to Cor
inth unmolested.
The Federals had won the battle, but at a terrible
cost. The killed, according to their official report, num
bered 1,754, the wounded 8,408, and the capt-
TI16 I0BB6S 
ured and missing 2,885. The Confederates
acknowledged a loss almost as great, except in captured
and missing. It would be substantially correct to say that
the Confederates returned to Corinth about twenty-five
thousand strong. In less than a week from their return
they were reinforced by Van Dorn and Price, coming
from Arkansas after their defeat at Pea Ridge, which
will now be related, and could again muster an army of

PEA RIDGE 307
forty thousand men. It is not surprising then that the
authorities at Washington regarded the Federal victory as
rather barren, and demanded of Halleck to be informed
whether " the neglect or misconduct of General Grant
or any other officer contributed to the sad casualties" of
the battle of the 6th.
West of the Mississippi, in Missouri and Arkansas, the
Federals had been equally successful in the spring cam
paign of 1862. On the 26th of January, the ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Federal army, commanded by General S. R. mdge cam-
Curtis and about twelve thousand strong,
began to move from Rolla against Price, who was in
trenched at Springfield with about ten thousand men.
To the surprise of Curtis, Price evacuated his fortifi
cations at the approach of the Federals, retired into
Arkansas, and took refuge in the defiles of Entreat of
the Boston Mountains, some fifty miles south ^"'^¦
of the Missouri line. Here he was joined by reinforce
ments under McCulloch, Mcintosh and Pike, and on the
3d of March General Earl Van Dorn took command of
the entire force, and prepared to return and face Curtis.
Van Dorn estimated his strength at sixteen thousand
men. The Federal General reported him as having
almost double that number.
Curtis had pursued Priqe as far as Fayetteville, a town
in Arkansas some thirty miles south of the Missouri
line. His army had been reduced to less curtis'spnr-
than eleven thousand men during the march "'^'¦
from Rolla. When he learned of the increased force
under Van Dorn, and of its return movement, he was
convinced that he must not await an attack at Fayette
ville, but must retire into the Ozark hills, a few miles to
the north-west, where he could find a defensive position
which would offset, in some degree, the superior force of
the Confederates.

308 THE CIVIL WAR
These hills are cut from east to west by three deep
ravines, nearly equidistant from one another. The most
._ southerly one is called Cross Hollows, the
tion at Pea middle one Sugar Creek Valley, and the
northerly one Cross Timber Hollows. These
valleys are traversed almost at right angles by the post
road from Fayetteville to Springfield. The point where
it intersects Cross Hollows is called the village of Cross
Hollows, that where it intersects Sugar Creek Valley
is called Mottsville, and that where it intersects Cross
Timber Hollows is called Elkhorn Tavern. There is
also a road leading from Bentonville to Springfield along
the western slope of these hills, and at a point in this
road opposite Sugar Creek Valley a road branches off to
the east, runs up Sugar Creek Valley to a place called
Leetown, which is located about a mile and a half west
of Mottsville, and then crosses the ridge between Sugar
Creek Valley and Cross Timber Hollows, and finally runs
eastward up Cross Timber Hollows to Elkhorn Tavern.
General Curtis selected for his position the ridge be
tween Sugar Creek Valley and Cross Timber Hollows,
so as to cover both the post road from Fayetteville to
Springfield and the road from Bentonville to Elkhorn
Tavern via Leetown. In the afternoon of the 6th of
March Curtis's entire army took this position, after his
rear guard under Sigel had succeeded in cutting its way
through the swarms of Confederates around Bentonville.
The little army was organized into four divisions, com
manded by Generals Sigel and Asboth and Colonels Jeff
C. Davis and Carr. The line of battle faced southward,
of course. The divisions of Sigel and Asboth formed the
right, reaching out a little to the west of Leetown ; the
division commanded by Colonel Davis formed the cen
tre ; and the division led by Carr, reaching out a little
to the east of Mottsville, formed the left.

PEA RIDGE 309
It does not seem to have occurred to General Curtis
that the Confederates might pass up the road from Ben
tonville to Springfield beyond the point where The flank-
the road branches off to Leetown, and come ments™?''''"
up through Cross Timber Hollows, where confederates.*
there was no road at all, into his rear. But that was
exactly what they did do. They executed this move
ment during the night of the 6th, and on the morning
of the 7th Curtis found them pushing up this ravine to
Elkhorn Tavern and threatening to cut his connection
with Springfield. He immediately ordered his whole line
to change face from front to rear, making now Carr's
division his right, and the divisions of Asboth and Sigel
his left, with Davis, of course, still in the centre. It was
in this perilous position that he fought the battle of the
7th of March.
His plan was not to wait for the Confederates to at
tack, but to strike the centre of the Confederate line,
while the line was being formed, pierce it, jhe battle
drive one part of it eastward, and the other ofPeaEi^ge.
westward, and then when each part had its fiank ex
posed, throw his right upon one part, and his left upon
the other. With this purpose in view, he formed an
assaulting column from Davis's division, and placed it
under the command of the valiant Colonel Peter Oster-
haus. He then ordered Osterhaus to advance to the at
tack, and went himself to his right in order to hold it firm
while Osterhaus should break the Confederate centre.
Osterhaus pressed forward impetuously and, at first, suc
cessfully, but the Confederates soon moved strong rein
forcements from their right and repulsed him. Curtis
now ordered Davis to support Osterhaus with the re
mainder of his division. The Confederates felt, at this
moment, certain of victory. They had pressed the Fed
eral right slowly back, and had now full possession of

310 THE CIVIL WAR
Elkhorn Tavern and the road to Springfield. When
Osterhaus yielded, they rushed forward with great im
petuosity. But Davis's fresh troops brought them to a
halt. The Confederates were led at this point by Mc
Culloch and Mcintosh, who performed feats of most
extreme daring in order to encourage their men. The
battle was waged here most hotly, and it seemed as if the
Confederates were on the point of success, when both
McCulloch and Mcintosh were struck down. There was
no one among their survivors who could rally and lead
forward the soldiers accustomed only to their voices and
their chieftaincy. The Federal centre was now relieved
of the pressure upon it, but the right was continually
losing ground. Van Dorn himself was directing the
movement of the Confederates against the Federal right,
and he had brought many of the troops from his own
right to his left, to accomplish his purpose. Curtis now
learned that there were practically no Confederates in
front of his left, and he ordered Asboth to lead his di
vision to the support of Carr on the right, and Sigel to
go to the support of Davis. Both of these movements
were successfully accomplished, and the Federal right
was thereby enabled to hold its ground. It had how
ever been forced back about a mile from the position
held by it at the beginning of the day.
Night now intervened, and the Federal commander
found himself in a very precarious situation. The
Confederates were between him and Springfield, and the
alternatives for the morrow were victory or surrender.
In the darkness he formed his new line of battle, the
third since the beginning of the conflict. He now knew
that the Confederates were massing opposite Carr's
division. He, therefore, placed Asboth on Carr's right,
and ordered Davis and Sigel to move up nearer to Carr's
left, while Osterhaus remained about Leetown to pre-

PEA RIDGE 311
vent the Confederates from flanking the new Federal
left. Carr's division was now almost the centre of the
new Federal line. The Federal General knew well the
ground over which he must fight, since it had been his
own position of the day before.
The attack on the morning of the 8th was begun by
Davis. The Confederates returned his fire with terrible
effect from their new lines and batteries.
The Federal right centre was again sorely days battle,
pressed, and was retiring slowly, when Cur- rftheconfld-
tis suddenly threw forward his extreme right, "*'*°"
planting his cannon on eminences which commanded the
left fiank of the Confederates. At the same time Sigel
appeared on their right flank, advancing with irresist
ible force. The Confederates were caught in a cul de
sac, and were raked by the crossfires of the Federals
from both the right and the left. They broke and fled
in all directions. The main body of them went north
ward on the road from the Elkhorn Tavern toward
Springfield until they passed out of the gorge in the
hills, and then made for Huntsville in a south-easterly
direction. Sigel followed them for a short distance, but
they melted away before him in the defiles, and the Fed
eral soldiers were too much overcome with fatigue and
hunger to pursue them further at the moment.
Curtis had saved his army from surrender, and Mis
souri from another invasion, but at a terrible cost. He
reported a loss of nearly fifteen hundred, and ^ ,
'I '116 10B86B>
estimated the Confederate loss at a higher,
though not definite, figure. Van Dorn reported his loss
at eight hundred, and estimated the Federal loss at two
thousand. It is rather difficult to understand how he
could have known much about the Federal loss. He
also reported that he went into the battle with only
fourteen thousand men, while he estimated the Federal

312 THE CIVIL WAR
force at about twenty thousand. Van Dorn's commu
nication was addressed from Jacksonsport, some two
hundred miles south-eastward from the battle-field, and
was dated the 27th of March. It was addressed to Gen
eral Braxton Bragg at Corinth. It was evident that he
was moving to join the Confederate army gathering at
Corinth. Price with the Missourians followed him a
little later, and Curtis pursued Price across the entire
" State " of Arkansas, reaching finally the town of Hel
ena on the Mississippi River.
There are some facts about this battle of Pea Ridge
that are very painful for the historian to record, and for
The Indian the civilized world to learn. They relate to
brigade. ^j^g employment of Indians by the Confeder
ates, and the exercise of their savage methods of war
fare in this battle. General Curtis reported that they
tomahawked and scalped his men, and made bitter com
plaint of the utter demoralization which such practices
were bound to produce.
It is from some points of view to be regretted that the
questions involved in the great confiict were not fought
out by Americans of the white race on both sides. But
after the employment of Indians by the Confederates, it
certainly did not become them to object to the employ
ment of negroes by the Federals. Negroes were more
or less barbarians, but they were not savages, and their
conduct, on the whole, was that of a civilized soldiery.
It was especially exasperating to the Northern people
that the man who organized and commanded this Indian
brigade was a Bostonian by birth, and a Harvardian by
education, Albert Pike, and it was some relief to the con
science of the Confederates that such was the case. The
Indian soldiers were not, however, of much service to
the Confederates. The roar of heavy artillery fright
ened them so much that they could not be held in any

ISLAND NO. 10 313
regular order, and after the battle the brigade was not
again effectively reorganized.
At the very moment when Grant and Buell were win
ning the costly victory around Shiloh Church,
events were taking place a hundred and fifty of isto^i'sa
miles to the north-west on the line of the
Mississippi of a far more satisfactory character to the
Federal arms.
After the victory at Donelson and the evacuation of
Columbus, Halleck had ordered General John Pope to
proceed to Cairo, and organize an expedition against the
Confederate forces at New Madrid and Island No. 10,
to which places, as we have seen, about one-half of the
Confederates from Columbus had retired. On the 21st
of February, Pope went from Cairo up the Mississippi to
Commerce on the Missouri bank, having decided that
it was best to assemble his land force for the attack on
New Madrid there, and march them from that point.
By the end of the month he had collected an army of
twenty thousand men, and had set his column in motion
for the march through the dismal Mingo swamp which
lies between Commerce and New Madrid, fifty miles
apart. In five days it was accomplished, and on the 3d of
March the entire force deployed in front of New Ma
drid. Pope found the place fortified and defended by
twenty-one heavy guns and five regiments of infantry.
He also found six gun-boats, carrying from thirty to
forty guns, lying along the shore, and as the water of
the river was almost on a level with the bank, these
guns commanded the flat terrain back from the river to
a considerable distance. The Confederate force in the
fortiflcations was directed by General J. P. McCown and
the fleet of gun-boats by Flag-Officer George Hollins.
Pope decided immediately to delay the attack until
he could bring down some siege artillery from Cairo.

314 THE CIVIL WAR
While waiting for these guns he occupied Point Pleas
ant, a point twelve miles down-stream from New Ma
drid, cutting off thus water communication with New
Madrid and Island No. 10 from below. The Con
federate gun-boats made several attempts to silence the
Federal battery at Point Pleasant, and drive the Fed
erals away. The Federals, however, not only stood
their ground, but advanced their artillery nearer to the
river and made it impossible for transports to pass.
While the attention of the Confederates was occupied
with this movement in their rear, the siege guns sent
, from Cairo arrived before New Madrid. They
on New M a - were placed in position during the night of
the 12th of March, and flre was opened from
them on the fortiflcations and the gun-boats on the morn
ing of the 13th. The cannonade continued during the
entire day. Several of the gun-boats were disabled and
the earthworks were badly damaged. Night came on
before Pope was ready to assault the intrenchments
with infantry, and with it a terrible storm of rain and
electricity. When morning dawned, it was found that
the Confederates had abandoned New Madrid, leaving
all their heavy artillery, thousands of small arms, a vast
magazine of ammunition, and a large quantity of stores
of every description. The men had been transported
across the river, and ordered to make their way to Isl
and No. 10, and the gun-boats had withdrawn to a point
below Point Pleasant. Pope's entire loss in this brill
iant movement did not exceed sixty men. He estimated
the loss of the Confederates as much larger, but no ex
act report of the same was ever made by anybody.
Pope began at once his operations for the reduction of
Island No. 10. He dragged the heavy guns captured
from the Confederates down the river to a point oppo
site the extremity of dry ground on the Tennessee bank,

Gi'n.'J?Popo's y g
Pntry'-

New Madrid and Island Number Ten.

ISLAND NO. 10 316
and planted them here in battery, in order to prevent
any communication from below with Island No. 10 by
means of a road which led from this point
1 m 1 1 Prepara-
on the Tennessee shore up to a point on the Uons against
same shore opposite the island. On the
east side of this road lay the dismal Reelfoot Lake and
swamps, which cut off all land retreat from Island No.
10, except over the road, the lower extremity of which
Pope now closed by means of his artillery on the oppo
site bank. The Confederates saw the trap which Pope
was preparing, and their flve gun-boats attacked the bat
tery with great determination, but were driven off, with
the loss of one of the boats, and with much damage to
two others.
Upon the advice of his most capable engineer. General
Schuyler Hamilton, Pope now ordered his engineer regi
ment, commanded by Colonel J. W. Bissell, to cut a
canal across the neck of the first peninsula made by the
bend of the river at New Madrid, in order to enable him
to bring troops from Cairo on transports, and pass them
through the canal and down the river to the place on
the Tennessee shore mentioned above, without danger
from the guns on Island No. 10. This great work was
accomplished in less than twenty days, and on the 4th
day of April Pope had water communication between
Cairo, via the New Madrid canal, and his position below
Island No. 10 which commanded both the land and water
approaches to that island from the south. Daring this
time, however, the Confederates had lined the Ten
nessee shore between New Madrid and this position
with heavy guns in order to prevent the transports
from passing down from the lower end of the New Ma
drid canal. Pope found it necessary, therefore, to have
some gun-boats to precede his transports, and silence
these guns. He could not bring them through the

316 THE CIVIL WAR
canal. It was not deep enough. They must run past
the batteries at Island No. 10. Foote, whose fleet was
waiting just above the island, hesitated at flrst to haz
ard the experiment. But when it became clear to him
that the capture of the island required the risk, he
ordered Captain Walke to make the attempt with the
Carondelet. At ten o'clock in the night of the 4th, and
in the midst of a heavy thunderstorm, Walke started
on the perilous mission. Despite the Cimmerian dark
ness, his boat was discovered and flred upon from every
battery, but was not struck by a single ball. In the
night of the 6th, the Pittsburg ran the gauntlet also
untouched. During the forenoon of the 7th, these two
gun-boats cleared the way from New Madrid down the
river to, and below. Point Pleasant against the most
strenuous efforts of the Confederates to prevent it.
About midday Walke signalled to Pope that the Con
federate batteries were silenced. The transports con
taining the troops now came down and crossed over to
the Tennessee side and occupied the road, which was
the only outlet of escape from the island by land. Be
fore midnight of the 7th, almost the entire Federal army
was in this position.
The Confederate Commander, now General Mackall,
had left a small force in the works on the island, and
^ under cover of tbe darkness had attempted
The capture ^ ^ •
of the island to escapc With the main body of his troops
and of the ^. ^ i.x. rr r. j
Confederate by Crossing over to the Tennessee shore and
"™^' marching down this road. Foote soon dis
covered the movement and proceeded at once against
the works. The little force there surrendered without
resistance. Mackall, of course, found his way blocked
by a superior force. He surrendered also with but lit
tle resistance. The Federals had won a complete vic
tory, without the loss of a single man. Pope reported

ISLAND NO. 10 317
the capture of about seven thousand men, one hundred
and fifty-eight cannon, seven thousand stands of small
arms, and an immense quantity of ammunition and
stores. There is no question that this bloodless triumph was
planned and executed with remarkable ability. It stood
out in bold contrast with the bloody barren
T'ictory which was at the same time being ntogofPofe"s"
won at Pittsburg Landing. It is not at all p"?"'^*?-
astonishing that the Administration at Washington and
the people in the North were greatly impressed with the
difference between the two, and were moved thereby to
estimate Pope's ability and merits higher than those of
Grant, Sherman, or Buell, at that juncture. It must
not, however, be forgotten that except for the repulse of
the Confederates at Pittsburg Landing all that had been
won by the victories at Mill Springs and Fort Donelson
would have been lost again, and perhaps also all that
had been won at Pea Ridge and Island No. 10. Had
the Confederates been successful at Shiloh, they would
probably have been able to reoccupy Tennessee and Ar
kansas, and Southern Kentucky and Missouri. As it
was, the re-establishment of the Federal supremacy over
these four important Commonwealths was made secure
and substantially permanent by this great, though costly
and apparently indecisive, victory.
Halleck now gathered the armies of Grant, Buell and
Pope, with large reinforcements, together at Pittsburg
Landing for the capture of Corinth, and took The advance
command of the entire force in person. He <">Gorinth.
had all told, the latter part of April, about one hundred
thousand men. He put Thomas in command of the
Army of the Tennessee, and made Grant second to
himself in command of the whole force. On the 1st
day of May, he began his advance on Corinth. The

318 THE CIVIL WAR
Army of the Tennessee, led by Thomas, formed his
right wing, the Army of the Ohio, led by Buell, his
centre, and the Army of the Mississippi, led by Pope,
his left wing. Beauregard had been reinforced by the
troops of Van Dorn and Price from Arkansas, and by part
of Lovell's force from New Orleans. He could muster
about sixty thousand men. He had fortified the place
quite strongly, and Halleck was thoroughly convinced
that the great battle of the war was to be fought before
Corinth. He, therefore, proceeded with the greatest
caution, advancing his whole line at once and intrench
ing as he went. Of course the advance in this manner
was very slow, on the average about a mile a day. It
was the 27th of May before he got up near enough to
Corinth to execute his plan of cutting the Mobile and
Ohio Railroad south of Corinth. In the night of the
27th he started Colonel Elliot with a thousand picked
cavalrymen to do this work.
On the 29th, the whole army was so near Corinth
that Halleck thought the battle might take place on
the SOth. He supposed that the Confederates were
massing on his left to attack Pope. But Beauregard
probably never had any idea at all of fighting a battle
at Corinth. His plan was to draw the Federals far
ther south, away from their base on the Tennessee
River, thus compelling them to weaken their active
forces to guard their long lines of communication, and
then fight them with much greater advantage. At
any rate he had determined upon this course before the
middle of May, and during the entire last week of the
month he was shipping his stores southward as fast as
possible over the railroad. Both Grant and Logan
knew, on the 28th, that this was going on, but Halleck
could not be made to believe it.
About four o'clock in the morning of the SOth an

Mississippi Valley— Helena to Vicksburg.

CORINTH 319
escaped Confederate soldier came into General Nelson's
camp, and informed Nelson that the Confederates were
retreating from Corinth. Nelson immediate- The retreat
ly ordered his division to advance, and ad- fedeJat^fr^
vised Buell of his movement. By seven corinth.
o'clock both his division and MeCook's were inside of the
Confederate works. The Confederate army was disap
pearing over the ridges to the south. Colonel Elliot
struck the railroad some eighteen miles below Corinth
in the morning of the SOth only to find that all the
trains carrying the stores and war material, except a
single one, had passed. Halleck had been deceived and
eluded by the more astute Beauregard. The Federals
were too much worn out by their work with the spade
to make any effective pursuit. Halleck sent a few com
panies of cavalry to harass the retreating column, but
they stopped at the crossings of the Tuscumbia only a
few miles away. Beauregard halted at Baldwin, some
thirty-two miles below Corinth. Halleck now sent
Pope's army, strengthened by one of Buell's divisions, to
find him. Beauregard retired from Baldwin on the 7th
of June before Pope's advance. Pope very nearly forced
him to battle on the 8th, but Halleck restrained the im
petuosity of his subordinate, and Beauregard escaped
the danger which for a moment again threatened him.
On the 9th, the Confederate troops were again united at
Tupelo, a place on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad some
fifty-two miles south of Corinth. Halleck felt that his
line was becoming too much extended and called Pope
back to the neighborhood of Corinth.
The fall of Corinth led naturally to the fall of Mem
phis, not, however, without some fighting. When Pope
started from above Fort Pillow to go to Hal- The faU of
leek at Pittsburg Landing, he left Foote's Me^pW"-
fleet and two regiments of infantry to hold the river

320 THE CIVIL WAE
above the Fort. In the morning of the 10th of May the
Confederate fleet which held the river below the Fort,
consisting of eight vessels, under command of Captain
Montgomery, steamed up the river and attacked the
Federal boats. After an engagement of two hours, in
which two vessels on each side were much injured, the
Confederates were compelled to retire.
The garrison at Fort Pillow evacuated the place about
the 4th of June, in consequence of Beauregard's retreat
from Corinth. The Federal forces entered the Fort on
the 5th and the way to Memphis now appeared to be
open to them. Montgomery, however, was determined
to make them flght for its possession. The Federal
fleet anchored in the night of the 5th only a mile or two
above the city. In the morning of the 6th Montgomery
moved forward to contest their farther advance. The
Federal fleet consisted of five gun-boats and four rams.
On account of Foote's illness, the gun-boats were under
the command of Captain Davis, and the rams under the
command of their inventor. Colonel Ellet. The battle
lasted about two hours, and ended in the destruction
of seven out of the eight vessels of the Confederates.
Ellet's rams did the work for the most part. The
city was occupied by the Federal forces a little later in
the day, and soon became the head-quarters of General
Grant. The Mississippi was now open to Vicksburg.
The campaign of the spring of 1862 in the depart
ments west of the AUeghanies had thus been highly
successful to the Federals, and had brought to the front
the men who were destined to play the chief roles in
the future conduct of the war, Halleck, Grant, and
Sherman.

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