History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and Supplement (part 4 of 11)

History for ready reference, Volume 5, Tunnage to Zyp and Supplement (part 4 of 11)

The first and longer part of Mr. Webster's speech was an historical review of the slavery question, and an argument maintaining the proposition, as he afterwards stated it in a few words, that there is "not a square rod of territory belonging to the United States the character of which, for slavery, or no slavery is not already fixed by some irrepealable law." The concluding part of his speech contained the passages which caused most grief among and gave most offense to his friends and admirers at the North. They are substantially comprised in the quotations following,—together with his eloquent declamation against the thought of secession: Mr. President, in the excited times in which we live, there is found to exist a state of crimination and recrimination between the North and South. There are lists of grievances produced by each; and those grievances, real or supposed, alienate the minds of one portion of the country from the other, exasperate the feelings, and subdue the sense of fraternal affection, patriotic love, and mutual regard. I shall bestow a little attention, Sir, upon these various grievances existing on the one side and on the other. I begin with complaints of the South. I will not answer, further than I have, the general statements of the honor·able Senator from South Carolina, that the North has prospered at the expense of the South in consequence of the manner of administering this government, in the collecting of its revenues, and so forth. These are disputed topics, and I have no inclination to enter into them. But I will allude to other complaints of the South, and especially to one which has in my opinion just foundation; and that is, that there has been found at the North, among individuals and among legislators, a disinclination to perform fully their constitutional duties in regard to the return of persons bound to service who have escaped into the free States. In that respect, the South, in my judgment, is right, and the North is wrong. Every member of every Northern legislature is bound by oath, like every other officer in the country, to support the Constitution of the United States; and the article of the Constitution which says to these States that they shall deliver up fugitives from service is as binding in honor and conscience as any other article. No man fulfils his duty in any legislature who sets himself to find excuses, evasions, escapes from this constitutional obligation. I have always thought that the Constitution addressed itself to the legislatures of the States or to the States themselves. It says that those persons escaping to other States 'shall be delivered up,' and I confess I have always been of the opinion that it was an injunction upon the States themselves. When it is said that a person escaping into another State, and coming therefore within the jurisdiction of that State, shall be delivered up, it seems to me the import of the clause is, that the State itself, in obedience to the Constitution, shall cause him to be delivered up. That is my judgment. I have always entertained that opinion, and I entertain it now. But when the subject, some years ago, was before the Supreme Court of the United States, the majority of the judges held that the power to cause fugitives from service to be delivered up was a power to be exercised under the authority of this government. I do not know, on the whole, that it may not have been a fortunate decision. My habit is to respect the result of judicial deliberations and the solemnity of judicial decisions. {3385} As it now stands, the business of seeing that these fugitives are delivered up resides in the power of Congress and the national judicature, and my friend at the head of the Judiciary Committee has a bill on the subject now before the Senate, which with some amendments to it, I propose to support, with all its provisions, to the fullest extent. And I desire to call the attention of all sober-minded men at the North, of all conscientious men, of all men who are not carried away by some fanatical idea or some false impression, to their constitutional obligations. I put it to all the sober and sound minds at the North as a question of morals and a question of conscience. What right have they, in their legislative capacity or any other capacity, to endeavor to get round this Constitution, or to embarrass the free exercise of the rights secured by the Constitution to the persons whose slaves escape from them? None at all; none at all. Neither in the forum of conscience, nor before the face of the Constitution, are they, in my opinion, justified in such an attempt. … I repeat, therefore, Sir, that here is a well-founded ground of complaint against the North, which ought to be removed, which it is now in the power of the different departments of this government to remove; which calls for the enactment of proper laws authorizing the judicature of this government, in the several States, to do all that is necessary for the recapture of fugitive slaves and for their restoration to those who claim them. … Complaint has been made against certain resolutions that emanate from legislatures at the North, and are sent here to us, not only on the subject of slavery in this District, but sometimes recommending Congress to consider the means of abolishing slavery in the States. I should be sorry to be called upon to present any resolutions here which could not be referable to any committee or any power in Congress; and therefore I should be unwilling to receive from the legislature of Massachusetts any instructions to present resolutions expressive of any opinion whatever on the subject of slavery, as it exists at the present moment in the States, for two reasons: first, be·cause I do not consider that the legislature of Massachusetts has anything to do with it; and next, because I do not consider that I, as her representative here, have anything to do with it. It has become, in my opinion, quite too common; and if the legislatures of the States do not like that opinion, they have a great deal more power to put it down than I have to uphold it; It has become in my opinion quite too common a practice for the State legislatures to present resolutions here on all subjects and to instruct us on all subjects. There is no public man that requires instruction more than I do, or who requires information more than I do, or desires it more heartily; but I do not like to have it in too imperative a shape. … Then Sir, there are the Abolition societies, of which I am unwilling to speak, but in regard to which I have very clear notions and opinions. I do not think them useful. I think their operations for the last twenty years have produced nothing good or valuable. At the same time, I believe thousands of their members to be honest and good men, perfectly well-meaning men. They have excited feelings; they think they must do something for the cause of liberty; and, in their sphere of action, they do not see what else they can do than to contribute to an Abolition press, or an Abolition society, or to pay an Abolition lecturer. I do not mean to impute gross motives even to the leaders of these societies, but I am not blind to the consequences of their proceedings. I cannot but see what mischiefs their interference with the South has produced. And is it not plain to every man? Let any gentleman who entertains doubts on this point recur to the debates in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1832, and he will see with what freedom a proposition made by Mr. Jefferson Randolph for the gradual abolition of slavery was discussed in that body. Everyone spoke of slavery as he thought; very ignominious and disparaging names and epithets were applied to it. The debates in the House of Delegates on that occasion, I believe, were all published. They were read by every colored man who could read, and to those who could not read, those debates were read by others. At that time Virginia was not unwilling or afraid to discuss this question, and to let that part of her population know as much of the discussion as they could learn. That was in 1832. As has been said by the honorable member from South Carolina, these Abolition societies commenced their course of action in 1835. It is said, I do not know how true it may be, that they sent incendiary publications into the slave States; at any rate, they attempted to arouse, and did arouse, a very strong feeling; in other words they created great agitation in the North against Southern slavery. Well, what was the result? The bonds of the slaves were bound more firmly than before, their rivets were more strongly fastened. Public opinion, which in Virginia had begun to be exhibited against slavery, and was opening out for the discussion of the question, drew back and shut itself up in its castle. I wish to know whether any body in Virginia can now talk openly as Mr. Randolph, Governor McDowell, and others talked in 1832, and sent their remarks to the press? We all know the fact, and we all know the cause; and everything that these agitating people have done has been, not to enlarge, but to restrain, not to set free, but to bind faster, the slave population of the South. Again, Sir, the violence of the Northern press is complained of. The press violent! Why, Sir, the press is violent everywhere. There are outrageous reproaches in the North against the South, and there are reproaches as vehement in the South against the North. Sir, the extremists of both parts of this country are violent; they mistake loud and violent talk, for eloquence and for reason. They think that he who talks loudest reasons best. And this we must expect, when the press is free, as it is here, and I trust always will be. … Well, in all this I see no solid grievance, no grievance presented by the South, within the redress of the government, but the single one to which I have referred; and that is, the want of a proper regard to the injunction of the Constitution for the delivery of fugitive slaves. There are also complaints of the North against the South. I need not go over them particularly. The first and gravest is, that the North adopted the Constitution, recognizing the existence of slavery in the States, and recognizing the right, to a certain extent, of the representation of slaves in Congress, under a state of sentiment and expectation which does not now exist; and that, by events, by circumstances, by the eagerness of the South to acquire territory and extend her slave population, the North finds itself, in regard to the relative influence of the South and the North, of the free States and the slave States, where it never did expect to find itself when they agreed to the compact of the Constitution. {3386} They complain, therefore, that, instead of slavery being regarded as an evil, as it was then, an evil which all hoped would be extinguished gradually, it is now regarded by the South as an institution to be cherished, and preserved, and extended; an institution which the South has already extended to the utmost of her power by the acquisition of new territory. Well, then, passing from that, every body in the North reads; and every body reads whatsoever the newspapers contain; and the newspapers, some of them, especially those presses to which I have alluded, are careful to spread about among the people every reproachful sentiment uttered by any Southern man bearing at all against the North; every thing that is calculated to exasperate and to alienate; and there are many such things, as every body will admit, from the South, or some portion of it, which are disseminated among the reading people; and they do exasperate, and alienate, and produce a most mischievous effect upon the public mind at the North. Sir, I would not notice things of this sort appearing in obscure quarters; but one thing has occurred in this debate which struck me very forcibly. An honorable member from Louisiana addressed us the other day on this subject. I suppose there is not a more amiable and worthy gentleman in this chamber, nor a gentleman who would be more slow to give offence to any body, and he did not mean in his remarks to give offence. But what did he say? Why, Sir, he took pains to run a contrast between the slaves of the South and the laboring people of the North, giving the preference, in all points of condition, and comfort, and happiness, to the slaves of the South. The honorable member, doubtless, did not suppose that he gave any offence, or did any injustice. He was merely expressing his opinion. But does he know how remarks of that sort will be received by the laboring people of the North? Why, who are the laboring people of the North? They are the whole North. They are the people who till their own farms with their own hands; freeholders, educated men, independent men. Let me say, Sir, that five sixths of the whole property of the North is in the hands of the laborers of the North; they cultivate their farms, they educate their children, they provide the means of independence. … There is a more tangible and irritating cause of grievance at the North. Free blacks are constantly employed in the vessels of the North, generally as cooks or stewards. When the vessel arrives at a Southern port, these free colored men are taken on shore, by the police or municipal authority, imprisoned, and kept in prison till the vessel is again ready to sail. This is not only irritating, but exceedingly unjustifiable and oppressive. Mr. Hoar's mission, some time ago, to South Carolina, was a well-intended effort to remove this cause of complaint. The North thinks such imprisonments illegal and unconstitutional; and as the cases occur constantly and frequently, they regard it as a great grievance. Now, Sir, so far as any of these grievances have their foundation in matters of law, they can be redressed, and ought to be redressed; and so far as they have their foundation in matters of opinion, in sentiment, in mutual crimination and recrimination, all that we can do is to endeavor to allay the agitation, and cultivate a better feeling and more fraternal sentiments between the South and the North. Mr. President, I should much prefer to have heard from every member on this floor declarations of opinion that this Union could never be dissolved, than the declaration of opinion by any body, that, in any case, under the pressure of any circumstances, such a dissolution was possible. I hear with distress and anguish the word 'secession,' especially when it falls from the lips of those who are patriotic, and known to the country, and known all over the world, for their political services. Secession! Peaceable secession! Sir, your eyes and mine are never destined to see that miracle. The dismemberment of this vast country without convulsion! The breaking up of the fountains of the great deep without ruffling the surface! Who is so foolish, I beg every body's pardon, as to expect to see any such thing? Sir, he who sees these States, now revolving in harmony around a common centre, and expects to see them quit their places and fly off without convulsion, may look the next hour to see the heavenly bodies rush from their spheres, and jostle against each other in the realms of space, without causing the wreck of the universe. There can be no such thing as a peaceable secession. Peaceable secession is an utter impossibility. Is the great Constitution under which we live, covering this whole country, is it to be thawed and melted away by secession, as the snows on the mountain melt under the influence of a vernal sun, disappear almost unobserved, and run off? No, Sir! No, Sir! I will not state what might produce the disruption of the Union; but, Sir, I see as plainly as I see the sun in heaven what that disruption itself must produce; I see that it must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe, in its two-fold character. Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, Sir, our ancestors, our fathers, and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensign of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude. … Sir, nobody can look over the face of this country at the present moment, nobody can see where its population is the most dense and growing, without being ready to admit, and compelled to admit, that ere long the strength of America will be in the Valley of the Mississippi. {3387} Well, now, Sir, I beg to inquire what the wildest enthusiast has to say on the possibility of cutting that river in two, and leaving free States at its source and on it branches, and slave States down near its mouth, each forming a separate government? … To break up this great government! to dismember this glorious country! To astonish Europe with an act of folly such as Europe for two centuries has never beheld in any government or any people! No, Sir! no, Sir! There will be no secession! Gentlemen are not serious when they talk of secession."

Daniel Webster, Works, volume 5, page 324.

"The speech, if exactly defined, is, in reality, a powerful effort, not for compromise or for the Fugitive Slave Law, or any other one thing, but to arrest the whole anti-slavery movement, and in that way put an end to the dangers which threatened the Union and restore lasting harmony between the jarring sections. It was a mad project. Mr. Webster might as well have attempted to stay the incoming tide at Marshfield with a rampart of sand as to seek to check the anti-slavery movement by a speech. Nevertheless, he produced a great effect. … The blow fell with terrible force, and here … we come to the real mischief which was wrought. The 7th of March speech demoralized New England and the whole North. The abolitionists showed by bitter anger the pain, disappointment, and dismay which this speech brought. The Free-Soil party quivered and sank for the moment beneath the shock. The whole anti-slavery movement recoiled. The conservative reaction which Mr. Webster endeavored to produce came and triumphed. Chiefly by his exertions the compromise policy was accepted and sustained by the country. The conservative elements everywhere rallied to his support, and by his ability and eloquence it seemed as if he had prevailed and brought the people over to his opinions. It was a wonderful tribute to his power and influence, but the triumph was hollow and short-lived. He had attempted to compass an impossibility. Nothing could kill the principles of human liberty, not even a speech by Daniel Webster, backed by all his intellect and knowledge, his eloquence and his renown. The anti-slavery movement was checked for the time, and pro-slavery democracy, the only other positive political force, reigned supreme. But amid the falling ruins of the Whig party, and the evanescent success of the Native Americans, the party of human rights revived; and when it rose again, taught by the trials and misfortunes of 1850, it rose with a strength which Mr. Webster had never dreamed of."

H. C. Lodge, Daniel Webster, chapter 9.

"A public meeting in Faneuil Hall condemned the action of Webster. Theodore Parker, who was one of the principal speakers, said: 'I know no deed in American history done by a son of New England to which I can compare this but the act of Benedict Arnold. … The only reasonable way in which we can estimate this speech is as a bid for the presidency.' In the main, the Northern Whig press condemned the salient points of the speech. … Whittier, in a song of plaintive vehemence called 'Ichabod,' mourned for the 'fallen' statesman whose faith was lost, and whose honor was dead. … This was the instant outburst of opinion; but friends for Webster and his cause came with more deliberate reflections. … When the first excitement had subsided, the friends of Webster bestirred themselves, and soon testimonials poured in, approving the position which he had taken. The most significant of them was the one from eight hundred solid men of Boston, who thanked him for 'recalling us to our duties under the Constitution,' and for his 'broad national and patriotic views.' The tone of many of the Whig papers changed, some to positive support, others to more qualified censure. The whole political literature of the time is full of the discussion of this speech and its relation to the compromise. It is frequently said that a speech in Congress does not alter opinions; that the minds of men are determined by set political bias or sectional considerations. This was certainly not the case in 1850. Webster's influence was of the greatest weight in the passage of the compromise measures, and he is as closely associated with them as is their author. Clay's adroit parliamentary management was necessary to carry them through the various and tedious steps of legislation. But it was Webster who raised up for them a powerful and much-needed support from Northern public sentiment. At the South the speech was cordially received; the larger portion of the press commended it with undisguised admiration. … On the 11th of March, Seward spoke. … When Seward came to the territorial question, his words created a sensation, 'We hold,' he said, 'no arbitrary authority over anything, whether acquired lawfully or seized by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain (i. e. the territories not formed into States) to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the Universe. We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.' This remark about 'a higher law,' while far inferior in rhetorical force to Webster's 'I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to re-enact the will of God,' was destined to have transcendent moral influence. A speech which can be condensed into an aphorism is sure to shape convictions. These, then, are the two maxims of this debate; the application of them shows the essential points of the controversy."

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850. volume 1, chapter 2.

In the political controversies which accompanied and followed the introduction of the Compromise measures, the Whigs who supported the Compromise were called "Silver-Grays," or "Snuff-Takers," and those who opposed it were called "Woolly-Heads," or "Seward-Whigs."

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850. Mr. Clay's last compromise. The Omnibus Bill. The Fugitive Slave Law as passed.

On the 17th of April, "a select committee of the Senate, headed by Mr. Clay, reported a bill consisting of 39 sections, embodying most of the resolutions which had been discussed. From its all-comprehensive nature it was called the Omnibus Bill. The points comprehended in the omnibus bill were as follows:

1st. When new states formed out of Texas present themselves, it shall be the duty of Congress to admit them;

2d. The immediate admission of California, with the boundaries which she has proposed;

3d. The establishment of territorial governments for Utah and New Mexico, without the Wilmot proviso;

4th. The combination of points 2 and 3 in one bill;

5th. The excission from Texas of all New Mexico, rendering therefor a pecuniary equivalent;

6th. The enactment of a law for the effectual rendition of fugitive slaves escaping into the free states;

7th. No interference with slavery in the District of Columbia, but the slave trade therein should be abolished, under heavy penalties.

This bill was discussed until the last of July, and then passed by the Senate, but it had been so pruned by successive amendments that it contained only a provision for the organization of a territorial government for Utah. In this condition it was sent to the House. There, as a whole, the bill was rejected, but its main heads were passed in August as separate bills, and were designated the compromise measures of 1850, and, in their accepted shape, required:

(1) Utah and New Mexico to be organized into territories, without reference to slavery;

(2) California to be admitted as a free state;

(3) $10,000,000 to be paid to Texas for her claim to New Mexico;

(4) fugitive slaves to be returned to their masters; and

(5) the slave trade to be abolished in the District of Columbia.

The compromises were received by the leaders of the two great parties as a final settlement of the vexed questions which had so long troubled Congress and agitated the country, but the storm was only temporarily allayed. In accordance with these measures California became a state of the Union September 9, 1850. The most important feature of this bill, in its bearing upon future struggles and conflicts, was the fugitive slave law. … In the midst of the discussion of these topics occurred the death of the President, July 9, 1850, one year and four months after his inauguration. … Mr. Fillmore was inaugurated on the 10th of July, 1850. He departed from the policy of his predecessor, organized a new cabinet, used his influence in favor of the compromise measures," and gave his signature to the Fugitive Slave Law.

W. R. Houghton, History of American Politics, chapter 15.

"It was apparent to everyone who knew anything of the sentiments of the North that this law could not be executed to any extent. Seward had truly said that if the South wished their runaway negroes returned they must alleviate, not increase, the rigors of the law of 1793; and to give the alleged fugitive a jury trial, as Webster proposed, was the only possible way to effect the desired purpose. If we look below the surface we shall find a strong impelling motive of the Southern clamor for this harsh enactment other than the natural desire to recover lost property. Early in the session it took air that a part of the game of the disunionists was to press a stringent fugitive slave law, for which no Northern man could vote; and when it was defeated, the North would be charged with refusing to carry out a stipulation of the Constitution. Douglas stated in the Senate that while there was some ground for complaint on the subject of surrender of fugitives from service, it had been greatly exaggerated. The excitement and virulence were not along the line bordering on the free and slave States, but between Vermont and South Carolina, New Hampshire and Alabama, Connecticut and Louisiana. Clay gave vent to his astonishment that Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina, States which very rarely lost a slave, demanded a stricter law than Kentucky, which lost many. After the act was passed Senator Butler, of South Carolina, said: 'I would just as soon have the law of 1793 as the present law, for any purpose, so far as regards the reclamation of fugitive slaves;' and another Southern ultra never thought it would be productive of much good to his section. Six months after the passage of the law, Seward expresses the matured opinion 'that political ends—merely political ends—and not real evils, resulting from the escape of slaves, constituted the prevailing motives to the enactment.'"

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"The fugitive-slave law was to make the citizens of the Free States do for the slave-holders what not a few of the slave-holders were too proud to do for themselves. Such a law could not but fail. But then it would increase the exasperation of the slave-holders by its failure, while exasperating the people of the Free States by the attempts at enforcement. Thus the compromise of 1850, instead of securing peace and harmony, contained in the most important of its provisions the seeds of new and greater conflicts. One effect it produced which Calhoun had clearly predicted when he warned the slave-holding states against compromises as an invention of the enemy: it adjourned the decisive conflict until the superiority of the North over the South in population and material resources was overwhelming."

C. Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, chapter 26 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 3, chapters 15-16.

H. Clay, Life, Correspondence, and Speeches; edited by Colton, volume 6.

W. H. Seward, Works, volume 1, pages 51-131. and volume 4.

J. S. Pike, First Blows of the Civil War, pages 1-98.

H.Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 2, chapters 18-28.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, chapter. 2 (volume 1).

See, also, HIGHER LAW DOCTRINE.

The following is the complete text of the Fugitive Slave Law: "An act to amend, and supplementary to, the Act entitled 'An Act respecting Fugitives from Justice, and Persons escaping from the Service of their Masters,' approved February twelfth, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States, and who, in consequence of such appointment, are authorized to exercise the powers that any justice of the peace, or other magistrate of any of the United States, may exercise in respect to offenders for any crime or offence against the United States, by arresting, imprisoning, or bailing the same under and by virtue of the thirty-third section of the act of the twenty-fourth of September seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, entitled 'An Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States,' shall be, and are hereby, authorized and required to exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

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SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That the Superior Court of each organized Territory of the United States shall have the same power to appoint commissioners to take acknowledgments of bail and affidavits, and to take depositions of witnesses in civil causes, which is now possessed by the Circuit Court of the United States; and all commissioners who shall hereafter be appointed for such purposes by the Superior Court of any organized Territory of the United States, shall possess all the powers, and exercise all the duties, conferred by law upon the commissioners appointed by the Circuit Courts of the United States for similar purposes, and shall moreover exercise and discharge all the powers and duties conferred by this act.

SECTION 3. And be it further enacted, That the Circuit Courts of the United States, and the Superior Courts of each organized Territory of the United States, shall from time to time enlarge the number of commissioners, with a view to afford reasonable facilities to reclaim fugitives from labor, and to the prompt discharge of the duties imposed by this act.

SECTION 4. And be it further enacted, That the commissioners above named shall have concurrent jurisdiction with the judges of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States, in their respective circuits and districts within the several States, and the judges of the Superior Courts of the Territories, severally and collectively, in term-time and vacation; and shall grant certificates to such claimants, upon satisfactory proof being made, with authority to take and remove such fugitives from service or labor, under the restrictions herein contained, to the State or Territory from which such persons may have escaped or fled.

SECTION 5. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of all marshals and deputy marshals to obey and execute all warrants and precepts issued under the provisions of this act, when to them directed; and should any marshal or deputy marshal refuse to receive such warrant, or other process, when tendered, or to use all proper means diligently to execute the same, he shall, on conviction thereof, be fined in the sum of one thousand dollars, to the use of such claimant, on the motion of such claimant by the Circuit or District Court for the district of such marshal; and after arrest of such fugitive, by such marshal or his deputy, or whilst at any time in his custody under the provisions of this act, should such fugitive escape, whether with or without the assent of such marshal or his deputy, such marshal shall be liable, on his official bond, to be prosecuted for the benefit of such claimant, for the full value of the service or labor of said fugitive in the State, Territory, or District whence he escaped: and the better to enable the said commissioners, when thus appointed, to execute their duties faithfully and efficiently, in conformity with the requirements of the Constitution of the United States and of this act, they are hereby authorized and empowered, within their counties respectively, to appoint, in writing under their hands, any one or more suitable persons, from time to time, to execute all such warrants and other process as may be issued by them in the lawful performance of their respective duties; with authority to such commissioners, or the persons to be appointed by them, to execute process as aforesaid, to summon and call to their aid the bystanders, or posse comitatus of the proper county, when necessary to insure a faithful observance of the clause of the Constitution referred to, in conformity with the provisions of this act; and all good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and assist in the prompt and efficient execution of this law, whenever their services may be required, as aforesaid, for that purpose; and said warrants shall run, and be executed by said officers, anywhere in the State within which they are issued.

SECTION 6. And be it further enacted, That when a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due, or his, her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized, by power of attorney, in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal officer or court of the State or Territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from some one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, of the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labor, or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking, or causing such person to be taken, forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner; and upon satisfactory proof being made, by deposition or affidavit, in writing, to be taken and certified by such court, judge, or commissioner, or by other satisfactory testimony, duly taken and certified by some court, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other legal officer authorized to administer an oath and take depositions under the laws of the State or Territory from which such person owing service or labor may have escaped, with a certificate of such magistracy or other authority, as aforesaid, with the seal of the proper court or officer thereto attached, which seal shall be sufficient to establish the competency of the proof, and with proof, also by affidavit, of the identity of the person whose service or labor is claimed to be due as aforesaid, that the person so arrested does in fact owe service or labor to the person or persons claiming him or her, in the State or Territory from which such fugitive may have escaped as aforesaid, and that said person escaped, to make out and deliver to such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, a certificate setting forth the substantial facts as to the service or labor due from such fugitive to the claimant, and of his or her escape from the State or Territory in which such service or labor was due, to the State or Territory in which he or she was arrested, with authority to such claimant, or his or her agent or attorney, to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence; and the certificates in this and the first [fourth] section mentioned, shall be conclusive of the right of the person or persons in whose favor granted, to remove such fugitive to the State or Territory from which he escaped, and shall prevent all molestation of such person or persons by any process issued by any court, judge, magistrate, or other person whomsoever.

{3390}

SECTION 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars, for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

SECTION 8. And be it further enacted, That the marshals, their deputies, and the clerks of the said District and Territorial Courts, shall be paid, for their services, the like fees as may be allowed to them for similar services in other cases; and where such services are rendered exclusively in the arrest, custody, and delivery of the fugitive to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or where such supposed fugitive may be discharged out of custody for the want of sufficient proof as aforesaid, then such fees are to be paid in the whole by such claimant, his agent or attorney; and in all cases where the proceedings are before a commissioner, he shall be entitled to a fee of ten dollars in full for his services in each case, upon the delivery of the said certificate to the claimant, his or her agent or attorney; or a fee of five dollars in cases where the proof shall not, in the opinion of such commissioner, warrant such certificate and delivery, inclusive of all services incident to such arrest and examination, to be paid, in either case, by the claimant, his or her agent or attorney. The person or persons authorized to execute the process to be issued by such commissioners for the arrest and detention of fugitives from service or labor as aforesaid, shall also be entitled to a fee of five dollars each for each person he or they may arrest and take before any such commissioner as aforesaid, at the instance and request of such claimant, with such other fees as may be deemed reasonable by such commissioner for such other additional services as may be necessarily performed by him or them; such as attending at the examination, keeping the fugitive in custody, and providing him with food and lodging during his detention, and until the final determination of such commissioner; and, in general, for performing such other duties as may be required by such claimant, his or her attorney or agent, or commissioner in the premises, such fees to be made up in conformity with the fees usually charged by the officers of the courts of justice within the proper district or county, as near as may be practicable, and paid by such claimants, their agents or attorneys, whether such supposed fugitives from service or labor be ordered to be delivered to such claimants by the final determination of such commissioners or not.

SECTION 9. And be it further enacted, That, upon affidavit made by the claimant of such fugitive, his agent or attorney, after such certificate has been issued, that he has reason to apprehend that such fugitive will be rescued by force from his or their possession before he can be taken beyond the limits of the State in which the arrest is made, it shall be the duty of the officer making the arrest to retain such fugitive in his custody, and to remove him to the State whence he fled, and there to deliver him to said claimant, his agent, or attorney. And to this end, the officer aforesaid is hereby authorized and required to employ so many persons as he may deem necessary to overcome such force, and to retain them in his service so long as circumstances may require. The said officer and his assistants, while so employed, to receive the same compensation, and to be allowed the same expenses, as are now allowed by law for transportation of criminals, to be certified by the judge of the district within which the arrest is made, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.

SECTION 10. And be it further enacted, That when any person held to service or labor in any State or Territory, or in the District of Columbia, shall escape therefrom, the party to whom such service or labor shall be due, his, her, or their agent or attorney, may apply to any court of record therein, or judge thereof in vacation, and make satisfactory proof to such court, or judge in vacation, of the escape aforesaid, and that the person escaping owed service or labor to such party. Whereupon the court shall cause a record to be made of the matters so proved, and also a general description of the person so escaping, with such convenient certainty as may be; and a transcript of such record, authenticated by the attestation of the clerk and of the seal of the said court, being produced in any other State, Territory, or district in which the person so escaping may be found, and being exhibited to any judge, commissioner, or other officer authorized by the law of the United States to cause persons escaping from service or labor to be delivered up, shall be held and taken to be full and conclusive evidence of the fact of escape, and that the service or labor of the person escaping is due to the party in such record mentioned. And upon the production by the said party of other and further evidence if necessary, either oral or by affidavit, in addition to what is contained in the said record of the identity of the person escaping, he or she shall be delivered up to the claimant. {3391} And the said court, commissioner, judge, or other person authorized by this act to grant certificates to claimants of fugitives, shall, upon the production of the record and other evidences aforesaid, grant to such claimant a certificate of his right to take any such person identified and proved to be owing service or labor as aforesaid, which certificate shall authorize such claimant to seize or arrest and transport such person to the State or Territory from which he escaped: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed as requiring the production of a transcript of such record as evidence as aforesaid. But in its absence the claim shall be heard and determined upon other satisfactory proofs, competent in law. Approved, September 18, 1850."

Statutes at Large, ix. 462-465.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with Great Britain.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-1851. The Hülsemann Letter. Kossuth in America.

In July, 1850, Daniel Webster became Secretary of State in the cabinet of President Fillmore and retained that post until his death, in October, 1852. "The best-known incident of this period was that which gave rise to the famous 'Hülsemann letter.' President Taylor had sent an agent to Hungary to report upon the condition of the revolutionary government, with the intention of recognizing it if there were sufficient grounds for doing so. When the agent arrived, the revolution was crushed, and he reported to the President against recognition. These papers were transmitted to the Senate in March, 1850. Mr. Hülsemann, the Austrian Charge, thereupon complained of the action of our administration, and Mr. Clayton, then Secretary of State, replied that the mission of the agent had been simply to gather information. On receiving further instructions from his government, Mr. Hülsemann rejoined to Mr. Clayton, and it fell to Mr. Webster to reply, which he did on December 21, 1850. The note of the Austrian Chargé was in a hectoring and highly offensive tone, and Mr. Webster felt the necessity of administering a sharp rebuke. 'The Hülsemann letter,' as it was called, was, accordingly dispatched. It set forth strongly the right of the United States and their intention to recognize any de facto revolutionary government, and to seek information in all proper ways in order to guide their action. … Mr. Webster had two objects. One was to awaken the people of Europe to a sense of the greatness of this country, the other to touch the national pride at home. He did both. … The affair did not, however, end here. Mr. Hülsemann became very mild, but he soon lost his temper again. Kossuth and the refugees in Turkey were brought to this country in a United States frigate. The Hungarian hero was received with a burst of enthusiasm that induced him to hope for substantial aid, which was, of course, wholly visionary. The popular excitement made it difficult for Mr. Webster to steer a proper course, but he succeeded, by great tact, in showing his own sympathy, and, so far as possible, that of the government, for the cause of Hungarian independence and for its leader, without going too far. … Mr. Webster's course, … although carefully guarded, aroused the ire of Mr. Hülsemann, who left the country, after writing a letter of indignant farewell to the Secretary of State."

H. C. Lodge, Daniel Webster, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: D. Webster, Works, volume 6, pages 488-504.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1851. The Lopez Filibustering expedition to Cuba.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852. Appearance of the Know Nothing or American Party.

"A new party had by this time risen to active importance in American politics. It appeared in 1852, in the form of a secret, oath-bound organization, of whose name, nature, and objects nothing was told even to its members until they had reached its higher degrees. Their consequent declaration that they knew nothing about it gave the society its popular name of Know Nothings. It accepted the name of the American Party. Its design was to oppose the easy naturalization of foreigners, and to aid the election of native-born citizens to office. Its nominations were made by secret conventions of delegates from the various lodges, and were voted for by all members under penalty of expulsion in case of refusal. At first, by endorsing the nominations of one or other of the two great parties, it decided many elections. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, the Know Nothing organization was adopted by many Southern Whigs who were unwilling to unite with the Democracy, and became, for a time, a national party. It carried nine of the State elections in 1855, and in 1856 nominated Presidential candidates. After that time its Southern members gradually united with the Democracy, and the Know Nothing party disappeared from politics."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, 2d edition, chapter 18, section 4.

The ritual, rules, etc., of the American, or Know Nothing party are given in the following work.

T. V. Cooper, American Politics, pages 56-68.

ALSO IN: A. Holmes, Parties and their Principles, pages 287-295.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852. Seventeenth Presidential Election. Franklin Pierce.

"The question of slavery, in its comprehensive bearings, formed the turning point in the presidential canvass of 1852. … The national democratic convention which nominated Mr. Pierce, unanimously adopted a platform approving the compromise of 1850 as the final decision of the slavery question. The Whig party were widely divided on the question of acquiescence in the compromise measures, and still more at variance in regard to the claims of rival candidates for the presidency. Mr. Seward's friends in the free states united in the support of General Scott, who had, to a considerable extent, stood aloof from the agitations of the last few years. On the other hand, the exclusive supporters of the compromise, as a condition of party allegiance, were divided between Millard Fillmore, at that time acting president, and Daniel Webster, secretary of state. The Whig convention met in Baltimore on the 17th of June, 1852, two weeks after the democratic convention, and nominated General Scott as their candidate for president. A large majority of the delegates from New York, and a considerable number from other states, maintained their opposition to the test resolutions which were proposed by the other branch of the party. These resolutions, however, were adopted, and a platform was thus established resembling, in its main features, that of the democrats. … Supported by several advocates of this new platform on the ground of his personal popularity, General Scott received the nomination. {3392} He was, however, regarded with great suspicion by a large number of whigs in the slaveholding states. … Many ardent friends of the compromise … refused to rally around General Scott, distrusting his fidelity to the compromise platform; while a large number of the Whigs of the free states, through aversion to the platform, assumed a neutral position or gave their support to a third candidate. Another portion of the Whig party nominated Mr. Webster, who died [October 24, 1852], not only refusing to decline the nomination, but openly avowing his disgust with the action of the party."

_G. E. Baker, Memoir of William. H. Seward (Seward's Works, volume 4)._

"The Democratic convention was held, first, on June 1, 1852, at Baltimore. It was a protracted convention, for it did not adjourn until the 6th of the month, but it was not very interesting. … After a short contest, the two-thirds rule was adopted by an overwhelming majority. The struggle over the nomination was protracted. On the first ballot, General Cass had 116; James Buchanan, 93; William L. Marcy, 27; Stephen A. Douglas, 20; Joseph Lane, 13; Samuel Houston, 8; and there were 4 scattering. The number necessary to a choice was 188. … On the twenty-ninth trial, the votes were: for Cass, 27; for Buchanan, 93; for Douglas, 91; and no other candidate had more than 26. At this point Cass began to recover his strength, and reached his largest number on the thirty-fifth trial, namely, 131. On that same ballot, Virginia gave 15 votes to Franklin Pierce. Mr. Pierce gained 15 more votes on the thirty-sixth trial; but at that point his increase ceased, and was then slowly resumed, as the weary repetition of balloting without effect went on. The forty-eighth trial resulted as follows: for Cass, 73; for Buchanan, 28; for Douglas, 33; for Marcy, 90; for Pierce, 55; for all others, 8. The forty-ninth trial was the last. There was a 'stampede' for Pierce, and he received 282 votes to 6 for all others. Ten candidates were voted for as a candidate for the vice-presidency.—On the second ballot, William R. King of Alabama was unanimously nominated. … The anti-slavery organization, the Free Soil Democrats, though a much less important political factor than they had been four years earlier, held their convention in Pittsburg on August 11. Henry Wilson of Massachusetts presided. John P. Hale of New Hampshire was nominated for President, and George W. Julian of Indiana for Vice-President. … The canvass was not a very spirited one. All the early autumn elections were favorable to the Democrats, and the result in November was a crushing defeat of the Whigs in the popular vote and one still more decisive in the electoral vote. … The popular and electoral votes were as follows." Popular vote: Franklin Pierce, 1,601,274; Winfield Scott, 1,386,580; John P. Hale, 155,825. Electoral vote: Pierce, 254; Scott, 42.

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 18.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852. The appearance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, and its effect.

"Of the literary forces that aided in bringing about the immense revolution in public sentiment between 1852 and 1860, we may affirm with confidence that by far the most weighty was the influence spread by this book. This story, when published [1851-1852] as a serial in the 'National Era,' an anti-slavery newspaper at Washington, attracted little attention, but after it was given to the world in book form in March, 1852, it proved the most successful novel ever written. The author felt deeply that the Fugitive Slave law was unjust, and that there was cruelty in its execution; this inspired her to pour out her soul in a protest against slavery. She thought that if she could only make the world see slavery as she saw it, her object would be accomplished; she would then have induced people to think right on the subject. The book was composed under the most disheartening circumstances. Worn out with the care of many young children; overstrained by the domestic trials of a large household, worried because her husband's small income did not meet their frugal needs; eking out the poor professor's salary by her literary work in a house too small to afford a study for the author—under such conditions there came the inspiration of her life. … The effect produced by the book was immense. Whittier offered up 'thanks for the Fugitive Slave law; for it gave occasion for Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Longfellow thought it was one of the greatest triumphs in literary history, but its moral effect was a higher triumph still. Lowell described the impression which the book made as a 'whirl of excitement.' Choate is reported to have said: 'That book will make two millions of abolitionists.' Garrison wrote the author: 'All the defenders of slavery have let me alone and are abusing you.'"

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, volume 1, pages 278-280.

Writing only nine months after the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," C. F. Briggs, in Putnam's Monthly Magazine, said: "Never since books were first printed has the success of Uncle Tom been equalled; the history of literature contains nothing parallel to it, nor approaching it; it is, in fact, the first real success in bookmaking, for all other successes in literature were failures when compared with the success of Uncle Tom. … There have been a good many books which were considered popular on their first appearance, which were widely read and more widely talked about. But what were they all, compared with Uncle Tom, whose honest countenance now overshadows the reading world, like the dark cloud with a silver lining. Don Quixote was a popular book on its first coming out, and so was Gil Blas, and Richardson's Pamela, and Fielding's Tom Jones, and Hannah More's Cœlebs, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall; and so were the Vicar of Wakefield, and Rasselas, and the Tale of a Tub, and Evelina, the Lady of the Lake, Waverley, the Sorrows of Werter, Childe Harold, the Spy, Pelham, Vivian Grey, Pickwick, the Mysteries of Paris, and Macaulay's History. These are among the most famous books that rose suddenly in popular esteem on their first appearance, but the united sale of the whole of them, within the first nine months of their publication, would not equal the sale of Uncle Tom in the same time. … It is but nine months since this Iliad of the blacks, as an English reviewer calls Uncle Tom, made its appearance among books, and already its sale has exceeded a million of copies; author and publisher have made fortunes out of it, and Mrs. Stowe, who was before unknown, is as familiar a name in all parts of the civilized world as that of Homer or Shakspeare. Nearly 200,000 copies of the first edition of the work have been sold in the United States, and the publishers say they are unable to meet the growing demand. {3393} The book was published on the 20th of last March, and on the 1st of December there had been sold 120,000 sets of the edition in two volumes. 50,000 copies of the cheaper edition in one, and 3,000 copies of the costly illustrated edition. … They [the publishers] have paid to the author $20,300 as her share of the profits on the actual cash sales of the first nine months. But it is in England where Uncle Tom has made his deepest mark. Such has been the sensation produced by the book there, and so numerous have been the editions published, that it is extremely difficult to collect the statistics of its circulation with a tolerable degree of exactness. But we know of twenty rival editions in England and Scotland, and that millions of copies have been produced. … We have seen it stated that there were thirty different editions published in London, within six months of the publication of the work here, and one firm keeps 400 men employed in printing and binding it. … Uncle Tom was not long in making his way across the British Channel, and four rival editions are claiming the attention of the Parisians, one under the title of 'le Père Tom,' and another of 'la Case de l'Oncle Tom.'"

_Uncle Tomitudes (Putnam's Monthly Magazine, January, 1853)._

"In May, 1852. Whittier wrote to Garrison: 'What a glorious work Harriet Beecher Stowe has wrought. Thanks for the Fugitive Slave Law. Better for slavery that that law had never been enacted, for it gave occasion for Uncle Tom's Cabin.' … Macaulay wrote, thanking her for the volume, assuring her of his high respect for the talents and for the benevolence of the writer. Four years later, the same illustrious author, essayist, and historian wrote to Mrs. Stowe: 'I have just returned from Italy, where your fame seems to throw that of all other writers into the shade. There is no place where Uncle Tom, transformed into Il Zio Tom, is not to be found.' From Lord Carlisle she received a long and earnest epistle, in which he says he felt that slavery was by far the 'topping' question of the world and age, and that he returned his 'deep and solemn thanks to Almighty God, who has led and enabled you to write such a book.' The Rev. Charles Kingsley, in the midst of illness and anxiety, sent his thanks, saying: 'Your book will do more to take away the reproach from your great and growing nation than many platform agitations and speechifyings.' Said Lord Palmerston, 'I have not read a novel for thirty years; but I have read that book three times, not only for the story, but for the statesmanship of it.' Lord Cockburn declared: 'She has done more for humanity than was ever before accomplished by any single book of fiction.' Within a year Uncle Tom's Cabin was scattered all over the world. Translations were made into all the principal languages, and into several obscure dialects, in number variously estimated from twenty to forty. The librarian of the British Museum, with an interest and enterprise which might well put our own countrymen to blush, has made a collection which is unique and very remarkable in the history of books. American visitors may see there thirty-five editions (Uncle Tom's Cabin) of the original English, and the complete text, and eight of abridgments and adaptations. Of translations into different languages there are nineteen, viz.: Armenian, one; Bohemian, one; Danish, two distinct versions; Dutch, one; Flemish, one; French, eight distinct versions, and two dramas; German, five distinct versions, and four abridgments; Hungarian, one complete version, one for children, and one versified abridgment; Illyrian, two distinct versions; Italian, one; Polish, two distinct versions; Portuguese, one; Roman, or modern Greek, one; Russian, two distinct versions; Spanish, six distinct versions; Swedish, one; Wallachian, two distinct versions; Welsh, three distinct versions."

_Mrs. F. T. McCray, Uncle Tom's Cabin (Magazine of American History, January, 1890)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852-1854. The Perry Expedition. Opening of intercourse with Japan.

See JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1853. The Gadsden Purchase of Arizona.

See ARIZONA: A. D. 1853.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty."

"The slavery agitation apparently had died away both in congress and throughout the country. This calm, however, was doomed to a sudden interruption. The prospect of … beneficent legislation was destroyed by the introduction of a measure which at once supplanted all other subjects in congress and in the political interests of the people. This was the novel and astounding proposal of Mr. Douglas [Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois], in relation to the Kansas and Nebraska territories. … The measure … alluded to … was a provision in the bill for the organization of a territory in Nebraska, declaring that the states which might at any future time be formed in the new territory should leave the question of slavery to be decided by the inhabitants thereof on the adoption of their constitution,—[this being in accordance with the doctrine which its advocates styled 'Popular Sovereignty,' but which took the commoner name of 'Squatter Sovereignty' from its opponents]. This provision was, as explained by the bill itself, the application of the compromise policy of 1850 to Nebraska, and, as was evident, virtually repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which guarantied that slavery should be forever excluded from the territory in question. But, in order to bring the supporters of the bill and its opponents to a more decided test, an amendment was moved expressly annulling that portion of the Missouri Compromise which related to the subject. Mr. Douglas, after some deliberation, accepted the amendment, and modified his plan so far as to introduce a new bill for the organization of Nebraska and Kansas within the same limits, instead of the territory of Nebraska alone, according to the original programme. The administration lost no time in adopting this policy as their own. It was at first proposed to hasten the passage of the bill through both houses so rapidly as to prevent any remonstrance on the part of the people. But the opponents of the measure, including Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, Mr. Sumner, Mr. Truman Smith, Mr. Wade, Mr. Everett, Mr. Bell, Mr. Houston, and Mr. Fessenden, combined against it such an earnest and effective resistance that the attention of the country was aroused, and an indignant protest called forth from the people of the free states. The bill, however, passed the senate on the 4th day of March, 1854, after a discussion which had occupied nearly every day of the session since the 23d of January. … {3394} On the 21st of March, Mr. Richardson of Illinois, in the house, moved to refer the bill, as it came from the senate, to the committee on territories, of which he was the chairman. Mr. Francis B. Cutting, of New York, moved that it be sent to the committee of the whole, where it could be freely discussed. His motion was carried, after a severe struggle, by a vote of 110 to 95. This was regarded as a triumph of the enemies of the bill and inspired hopes of its ultimate defeat in the house. On the 22d of May, after a most exciting contest, lasting nearly two months, in committee of the whole, Mr. Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, by an extraordinary stratagem in parliamentary tactics, succeeded in closing the debate and bringing the bill to a vote in the house, where it finally passed, before adjournment, by a vote of 113 to 100." Returned to the senate, on account of amendments which had been made to it, it passed that body again "by vote of 35 to 13; and amid the firing of cannon and the shouting of its friends, it was sent to the president for his signature, at three o'clock in the morning of May 26, 1854. President Pierce promptly gave it his approval, and the odious measure became the law of the land. Thus was abrogated the Missouri Compromise—a law enacted thirty years before with all the solemnity of a compact between the free and the slave states—and a territory as large as the thirteen original states opened to slavery. The act was consummated by the cooperation of the north. Originating with a senator from a free state, it was passed by a congress containing in each branch a majority of members from the free states, and was sanctioned by the approval of a free state president. The friends of this legislation attempted to defend it on the pretence that it was not an original act, but only declaratory of the true intent and significance of the compromise measures of 1850."

G. E. Baker, Memoir of William H. Seward (volume 4 of Seward's Works), pages 24-27.

Senator Douglas' explanation of the reasons on which he grounded his Kansas-Nebraska Bill is given in a report made by Lieutenant-Colonel Cutts, of conversations held by him with the Senator in 1859, and taken down in writing at the time, in the exact language of Mr. Douglas. "There was," said Senator Douglas, "a necessity for the organization of the Territory, which could no longer be denied or resisted. … Mr. Douglas, as early as the session of 1843, had introduced a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, for the purpose of opening the line of communication between the Mississippi Valley and our possessions on the Pacific Ocean, known as the Oregon country, and which was then under the operation of the treaty of joint occupation, or rather non occupation, with England, and was rapidly passing into the exclusive possession of the British Hudson's Bay Fur Company, who were establishing posts at every prominent and commanding point in the country. … Mr. Douglas renewed the introduction of his bill for the organization of Nebraska Territory, each session of Congress, from 1844 to 1854, a period of ten years, and while he had failed to secure the passage of the act, in consequence of the Mexican war intervening, and the slavery agitation which ensued, no one had objected to it upon the ground that there was no necessity for the organization of the Territory. During the discussions upon our Territorial questions during this period, Mr. Douglas often called attention to the fact that a line of policy had been adopted many years ago, and was being executed each year, which was entirely incompatible with the growth and development of our country. It had originated as early as the administration of Mr. Monroe, and had been continued by Mr. Adams, General Jackson, Mr. Van Buren, Harrison, and by Tyler, by which treaties had been made with the Indians to the east of the Mississippi River, for their removal to the country bordering upon the States west of the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, with guaranties in said treaties that the country within which these Indians were located should never be embraced within any Territory or State, or subjected to the jurisdiction of either, so long as grass should grow and water should run. These Indian settlements, thus secured by treaty, commenced upon the northern borders of Texas, or Red River, and were continued from year to year westward, until when, in 1844, Mr. Douglas introduced his first Nebraska Bill, they had reached the Nebraska or Platte River, and the Secretary of War was then engaged in the very act of removing Indians from Iowa, and settling them in the valley of the Platte River, with similar guaranties of perpetuity, by which the road to Oregon was forever to be closed. It was the avowed object of this Indian policy to form an Indian barrier on the western borders of Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa, by Indian settlements, secured in perpetuity by a compact that the white settlements should never extend westward of that line. This policy originated in the jealousy, on the part of the Atlantic States, of the growth and expansion of the Mississippi Valley, which threatened in a few years to become the controlling power of the nation. … This restrictive system received its first cheek in 1844, by the introduction of the Nebraska Bill, which was served on the Secretary of War, by its author, on the day of its introduction, with a notice that Congress was about to organize the Territory, and therefore he must not locate any more Indians there. In consequence of this notice, the Secretary (by courtesy) suspended his operations until Congress should have an opportunity of acting upon the bill; and inasmuch as Congress failed to act that session, Mr. Douglas renewed his bill and notice to the Secretary each year, and thus prevented action for ten years, and until he could procure action on the bill. … When Congress assembled at the session of 1853-1854, in view of this state of facts, Mr. Douglas renewed his Nebraska Act, which was modified, pending discussion, by dividing into two Territories, and became the Kansas-Nebraska Act. … The jealousies of the two great sections of the Union, North and South, had been fiercely excited by the slavery agitation. The Southern States would never consent to the opening of those Territories to settlement, so long as they were excluded by act of Congress from moving there and holding their slaves; and they had the power to prevent the opening of the country forever, inasmuch as it had been forever excluded by treaties with the Indians, which could not be changed or repealed except by a two-third vote in the Senate. {3395} But the South were willing to consent to remove the Indian restrictions, provided the North would at the same time remove the Missouri restriction, and thus throw the country open to settlement on equal terms by the people of the North and South, and leave the settlers at liberty to introduce or exclude slavery as they should think proper." The same report gives a distinction which Senator Douglas drew between "Popular Sovereignty" and "Squatter Sovereignty," as follows: "The name of Squatter Sovereignty was first applied by Mr. Calhoun, in a debate in the United States Senate in 1848, between himself and General Cass, in respect to the right of the people of California to institute a government for themselves after the Mexican jurisdiction had been withdrawn from them, and before the laws of the United States had been extended over them. General Cass contended that in such a case the people had a right, an inherent and inalienable right, to institute a government for themselves and for their own protection. Mr. Calhoun replied that, with the exception of the native Californians, the inhabitants of that country were mere squatters upon the public domain, who had gone there in vast crowds, without the authority of law, and were in fact trespassers as well as squatters upon the public lands, and to recognize their right to set up a government for themselves was to assert the doctrine of 'Squatter Sovereignty.' The term had no application to an organized Territory under the authority of Congress, or to the powers of such organized Territory, but was applied solely to an unorganized country whose existence was not recognized by law. On the other hand, what is called 'Popular Sovereignty' in the Territories, is a phrase used to designate the right of the people of an organized Territory, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, to govern themselves in respect to their own internal polity and domestic affairs."

S. A. Douglas, Brief Treatise upon Constitutional and Party Questions (reported by J. M. Cutts), pages 86-92, and 123-124.

"The repeal of the Missouri Compromise was the beginning of the end, the fatal step of the South on its road to destruction. Throughout the North the conviction grew that Union and slavery could not exist much longer together. On the 4th of July, 1854, Garrison publicly burned a copy of the Constitution of the United States with the words, 'The Union must be dissolved!' He represented only an extreme sentiment. But the people at large began to calculate the value of this Union for which so many sacrifices had been made. Slavery became odious to many persons hitherto indifferent to the subject, on the ground that it persistently and selfishly placed the Union in peril."

B. Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: M. Van Buren, Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties, chapter 8.

G. T. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, chapter 9.

_S. A. Douglas, Popular Sovereignty in the Territories (Harper's Magazine, September, 1859)._

H. von Holst. Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 4, chapters 6-8.

H. Greeley, History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension, chapter 14.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 5.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854. The Ostend Manifesto.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1855. Solidification of Anti-slavery sentiment in the North. The birth of the new Republican Party.

"The determined purpose of the Slave Power to make slavery the predominating national interest was never more clearly revealed than by the proposed repeal of the Missouri compromise. This was a deliberate and direct assault upon freedom. Many, indeed, under the pleas of fraternity and loyalty to the Union, palliated and apologized for this breach of faith; but the numbers were increasing every hour, as the struggle progressed, who could no longer be deceived by these hollow pretences. … Pulpits and presses which had been dumb, or had spoken evasively and with slight fealty to truth, gave forth no uncertain sound. … To the utterances of the sacred desk were added the action of ecclesiastical bodies, contributions to the press, and petitions to State legislatures and to Congress. … These discussions from pulpit, platform, and press, all pointed to political action as the only adequate remedy. In the Northern States there were Abolitionists, Free-Soilers, anti-slavery Whigs, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and anti-slavery members of the American party, which had just come into existence. … As the conflict progressed, large and increasing numbers saw that no help could be reasonably hoped but through the formation of a new party that could act without the embarrassment of a Southern wing. But the formation of a national and successful party from materials afforded by the disintegration of hitherto hostile organizations was a work of great delicacy and difficulty. Such a party could not be made;—it must grow out of the elements already existing. It must be born of the nation's necessities and of its longings for relief from the weakness, or wickedness, of existing organizations. The mode of organizing this new party of freedom varied according to the varying circumstances of different localities and the convictions of different men. … One of the earliest, if not the earliest, of the movements that contemplated definite action and the formation of a new party, was made in Ripon, Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, in the early months of 1854." A public meeting, held in one of the churches of the town, was followed by a second meeting, on the 20th of March, at which definite proceedings were taken. "By formal vote the town committees of the Whig and Free Soil parties were dissolved, and a committee of five, consisting of three Whigs, one Free-Soiler, and one Democrat, was chosen. 'The work done on that evening,' says Mr. Bovey [one of its originators], 'was fully accepted by the Whig and Free Soil parties of all this section immediately; and very soon—that is to say, in a few months—by those parties throughout the entire State.' A State convention was held in July, by which the organization of the party was perfected for the State, a majority of the delegation was secured for the next Congress, and a Free-Soiler, Charles Durkee, was elected to the Senate of the United States. At the meeting of the 20th of March, Mr. Bovey, though stating his belief that the party should and probably would take the name of 'Republican,' advised against such a christening at that time and by that small local body of men. He, however, wrote to the editor of the New York 'Tribune,' suggesting the name. … But that 'little eddy' on that far-off margin was only one of many similar demonstrations,—signs of a turn of the tide in the great sea of American politics. {3396} In Washington, on the morning after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, there was a meeting of some thirty members of the House at the rooms of Thomas D. Eliot and Edward Dickinson, of Massachusetts, called at the instance of Israel Washburn, Jr., of Maine, for consultation in regard to the course to be adopted in the exigencies of the case. The hopelessness of any further attempts through existing organizations was generally admitted; though a few still counselled adherence to the Whig party, in the expectation of securing its aid for freedom. But most present had become convinced that in a new party alone lay any reasonable hope of successful resistance to the continued aggressions of the arrogant and triumphant Slave Power. The name 'Republican' was suggested, discussed, and finally agreed upon as appropriate for the new organization. … But, whatever suggestions others may have made, or whatever action may have been taken elsewhere, to Michigan belongs the honor of being the first State to form and christen the Republican Party." A mass convention of Whigs and Free Soilers in that State was held on the 6th of July, at which the name was formally adopted, along with a "platform" of principles opposing the extension of slavery and demanding its abolition in the District of Columbia. "Though the Republican Party was not immediately organized in all the free States, its spirit inspired and its ideas largely pervaded the North. Within one year eleven Republican Senators were elected and fifteen States had secured anti-Nebraska majorities. Out of 142 Northern members of the House, 120 were opposed to the iniquitous measure. They were in sufficient numbers not only to control the election of Speaker, but they were able, by a majority of 15, to declare that 'in the opinion of this House, the repeal of the Missouri compromise of 1820, prohibiting slavery north of 36° 30', was an example of useless and factious agitation of the slavery question, unwise and unjust to the American people.' Several States which had failed to organize a Republican Party in 1854 did so in 1855."

H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 31.

"The refusal of the Whigs in many States to surrender their name and organization, and more especially the abrupt appearance of the Know-Nothings on the field of parties, retarded the general coalition between the Whigs and the Free-soilers which so many influences favored. As it turned out, a great variety of party names were retained or adopted in the Congressional and State campaigns of 1854, the designation of 'anti-Nebraska' being perhaps the most common, and certainly for the moment the most serviceable, since denunciation of the Nebraska bill was the one all-pervading bond of sympathy and agreement among men who differed very widely on almost all other political topics. This affiliation, however, was confined exclusively to the free States. In the slave States, the opposition to the Administration dared not raise the anti-Nebraska banner, nor could it have found followers; and it was not only inclined but forced to make its battle either under the old name of Whigs, or as became more popular, under the new appellation of 'Americans,' which grew into a more dignified synonym for Know-Nothings. … While the measure was yet under discussion in the House in March, New Hampshire led off by an election completely obliterating the eighty-nine Democratic majority in her Legislature. Connecticut followed in her footsteps early in April. Long before November it was evident that the political revolution among the people of the North was thorough, and that election day was anxiously awaited merely to record the popular verdict already decided. The influence of this result upon parties, old and new, is perhaps best illustrated in the organization of the Thirty-fourth Congress, chosen at these elections during the year 1854, which witnessed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Each Congress, in ordinary course, meets for the first time about one year after its members are elected by the people, and the influence of politics during the interim needs always to be taken into account. In this particular instance this effect had, if anything, been slightly reactionary, and the great contest for the Speakership during the winter of 1855-1856 may therefore be taken as a fair manifestation of the spirit of politics in 1854. The strength of the preceding House of Representatives, which met in December, 1853, had been: Whigs, 71; Free-soilers, 4; Democrats, 159—a clear Democratic majority of 84. In the new Congress there were in the House, as nearly as the classification could be made, about 108 anti-Nebraska members, nearly 40 Know-Nothings, and about 75 Democrats; the remaining members were undecided. The proud Democratic majority of the Pierce election was annihilated."

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: _J. D. Long, editor, The Republican Party: its History, etc._

A. Holmes, Parties and their Principles, pages 274-278.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 7 (volume 2).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1856. The beginning of the struggle for Kansas. Free-state settlers against Missouri "Border-ruffians."

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1866. The Canadian Reciprocity Treaty and its abrogation.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION, &c. (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1856. Long contest for the Speakership of the House. Election of Mr. Banks, Republican. Mr. Giddings' account.

"The free-soil party was now rapidly increasing in numbers and influence. The Whig organization had disbanded: Yet its leaders had too much pride of opinion to admit that the anti-slavery men were right in their policy or in their construction of the Constitution. Indeed, their prejudices were too strong to permit them to join any other existing organization. They therefore instituted a new party called the 'Know Nothings' or 'American party.' Their leading policy was the exclusion of foreigners from office. … It was a secret society, known to each other by signs, grips and passwords. It increased rapidly in numbers, and in the autumn of 1844 they elected a large majority of officers in all of the free States. … The effect of their success became apparent at the assembling of the thirty-fourth Congress. It had placed the democratic party in a very decided minority in the House of Representatives. … And the Free-soilers or Republicans were placed in a most critical position. Their difficulty arose from the determination of aspiring politicians to give all influence into the hands of the organization which had recently sprung up. {3397} Members of this new party were at the city of Washington some weeks before the assembling of Congress, making such political arrangements as they regarded necessary to secure the success for the 'Know Nothings.' But all were conscious that neither they nor the Free-soilers could succeed except by uniting with each other." A partial combination of Know Nothings with the Republicans was effected at a meeting on Friday before the opening of the session of Congress. "Late in the day a resolution was introduced pledging the members to vote for any man on whom a majority of the members should unite, provided he stood pledged by his past life or present declarations so to arrange the committees of the House as to give respectful answers to petitions concerning slavery. This resolution was adopted by a unanimous vote of more than 70 members. But the leading members of the 'Know Nothings' did not appear at any of the caucuses. It was in this unorganized form that members opposed to the extension of slavery met their associates on Monday in the Hall of Representatives, to enter upon a contest unequalled in the previous history of our Government. The House consisted of 234 members—225 of whom answered to their names at the first calling of the roll. The first business in order was the election of Speaker: And the ballots being counted, it was found that William A. Richardson, the democratic candidate, had 74 votes; Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, the 'Know Nothing' candidate, had 53 votes; Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky, the southern Know Nothing candidate, 30 votes; Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts, was supported by those Free-soilers or Republicans who refused to support any man placed in nomination by the Know Nothings; and Hiram M. Fuller, of Pennsylvania, received the votes of 17 members of the Know Nothing party who refused to support any other candidate. There were several other ballots cast during the day, with little change. The voting continued on the second, third, fourth and fifth days, without material change, except that Mr. Campbell's vote rose on one occasion as high as 75. After the result of the twenty-third ballot was announced, Mr. Campbell withdrew his name from the list of candidates. On the withdrawal of Mr. Campbell, Mr. Banks' rose regularly until the 15th December, when it reached 107. … On the 19th December, the ballot showed Mr. Banks to have 106, and Mr. Richardson 75. Messrs. Marshall and Fuller, with their adherents, continuing to vote by themselves. During the debates the Republicans were constantly assailed, and as the writer [Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio] was the oldest member of that party, he felt constrained to vindicate their cause. He assured the Democrats and 'Know Nothings' that the Republicans must soon come into power: And when once in power they would not permit southern members to dissolve the Union. This seemed to arouse much angry feeling. Mr. McMullen, of Virginia, replied with much spirit, declaring that whenever a northern President should be elected the South would dissolve the Union. This is believed to be the first distinct enunciation in Congress that the Union was to be dissolved upon the election of a northern President. Northern Democrats appeared mortified at the imprudence of Mr. McMullen. Mr. Banks, in a public speech made some two years previously in Maine, had said, that if we were to extend slavery or dissolve the Union, he would say, 'Let the Union slide.' This saying was now seized upon by southern men as an insuperable objection to Mr. Banks' election: While, at the same time, Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, assured the House and the country that unless slavery were extended he desired to see the Union slide. Members appeared by common consent to enter upon a general debate, which was suspended on the 24th so long as to take a ballot, which showed no substantial change in the parties. On the 27th, four ballots were taken with a similar result. … On the 28th December the balloting was resumed, and continued through that and the following day without material change of parties, and debate was again renewed. … The President of the United States sent his annual message to the Senate on the 31st December, and his private secretary appeared at the entrance of the House of Representatives and announced that he had brought with him the annual message of the President, to be presented to that body. Aware that this was intended to exert an influence against the Republicans, the author at once objected to receiving it, as it was an attempt to introduce a new practice—for up to that time no President had ever presumed to thrust his message upon an unorganized body—and that it could not constitutionally be received by members until a Speaker were elected. But a majority voted to receive it. The next attempt was to read it to the House; but it was again objected that it was not addressed to members in their disorganized condition, but was addressed to the Senate and House of Representatives, which had not then been organized. This objection was sustained, and although they had received the message, they refused to read it. The new year found the House unorganized, with the President's message lying upon the Clerk's desk unopened and unread. One ballot was taken. A motion was next made to take up and read the President's message; but, after debate, the motion was laid on the table. Members now began to make arrangements for continuing the contest indefinitely. Most of them had expected to draw their mileage to defray their current expenses; but being unable to do that until the House were organized, found themselves out of funds. In many Republican districts the people met in public conventions and passed resolutions approving the action of their Representatives, made provisions for their members to draw on their local banks for such funds as they deemed necessary for defraying expenses at Washington. To meet these expenses, some State Legislatures made appropriations from their State funds. Soon as the republican party became consolidated, its members became more confident. Those of greatest experience assured their friends that as the President, officers of government, and the army and navy must go without pay until the House should be organized, the pressure would soon be so great upon the democratic party that they would be compelled to submit to the election of a republican Speaker. Some State Legislatures passed resolutions sustaining the action of their Representatives, declaring the issue involved to be the extension or non-extension of slavery. … {3398} On the 29th January several propositions were made for an immediate organization. They were rejected, but by such small majorities as to indicate an organization at no very distant period; and the Republicans now felt one, and only one doubt in regard to success. The southern 'Know Nothings' had been Whigs, and bitterly hated the Democrats; and the question now presented was, whether they would unite with their old enemies rather than see a republican Speaker elected. On the 3d February a resolution was presented, declaring that three more ballots should be taken and if no election were had, the candidate having the highest number of votes on the 4th ballot should be declared Speaker. Soon after this vote was announced the House adjourned. Members now felt that the contest was drawing to a close. The next morning … Mr. Aiken, of South Carolina, was announced as the democratic candidate. And the first ballot, under the resolution, showed little change of parties. Banks received 102 votes; Aiken, 92; Fuller, 13; Campbell, 4; and Wells, 2. By this time the spacious galleries were filled with eager spectators, the lobbies and passages were crowded by men and ladies anxious for the result. The next ballot was taken without any change of parties. A motion was made to adjourn, but it was voted down by 159 to 52. Mr. Fuller announced that he was no longer a candidate. The result now appeared to be anticipated by all, and as the Clerk commenced calling the roll of members for the final vote, there appeared to be the most intense interest felt on all sides of the House. … When the roll had been called through there was so much confusion that it was difficult for anyone to be heard. But the clerks and tellers proceeded in their duties, and when the count was completed, Mr. Benson, of Maine —one of the tellers—rose, and in a loud voice proclaimed that 'On the one hundred and thirty-third ballot Nathaniel P. Banks had received 103 votes; Mr. Aiken had received 100 votes; Mr. Fuller had received 6 votes; and Mr. Campbell had received 4 votes. That Mr. Banks having received the highest number of votes on this ballot, was declared duly elected Speaker of the thirty-fourth Congress.' At this announcement the spectators in the galleries broke forth in wild excitement. Cheer after cheer went up, amid the waving of handkerchiefs and demonstrations of unrestrained exultation, which were responded to by hisses from the Administration side of the House. … The effect of this victory was felt through the country. … Sixteen years before this occurrence Mr. Adams and the author of these sketches were the only representatives in Congress of the doctrines now supported by a majority of the House. The slaveholders and those who sympathized with them appeared to realize that political power was gradually escaping from their grasp, and that the day was rapidly approaching when the people would resume control of the Government."

J. R. Giddings, History of the Rebellion, chapter 26.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1855-1860. Walker's Filibustering in Nicaragua.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1855-1860.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856. Refusal to sign the Declaration of Paris. Proposed amendment.

See DECLARATION OF PARIS.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856. Senator Sumner's speech on "The Crime against Kansas," and the assault upon him by Brooks of South Carolina.

"The most startling speech made during the debate [on affairs in Kansas], and which, from the events succeeding, became the most celebrated, was that of Charles Sumner. It was delivered on the 19th and 20th days of May and was published under the title of 'The Crime against Kansas.' … If there had been no more to Sumner's speech than the invective against the slave power, he would not have been assaulted by Preston Brooks. Nor is it probable that the bitter attack which the senator made on South Carolina would have provoked the violence, had it not been coupled with personal allusions to Senator Butler, who was a kinsman of Brooks. … It was said that Seward, who read the speech before delivery, advised Sumner to tone down its offensive remarks, and he and Wade regretted the personal attack. But Sumner was not fully 'conscious of the stinging force of his language.' To that, and because he was terribly in earnest, must be attributed the imperfections of the speech. He would annihilate the slave power, and he selected South Carolina and her senator as vulnerable points of attack. … Two days after this exciting debate (May 22d) when the Senate at the close of a short session adjourned, Sumner remained in the Chamber, occupied in writing letters. Becoming deeply engaged, he drew his arm-chair close to his desk, bent over his writing, and while in this position was approached by Brooks, a representative from South Carolina and a kinsman of Senator Butler. Brooks, standing before and directly over him, said: 'I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.' As he pronounced the last word, he hit Sumner on the head with his cane with the force that a dragoon would give to a sabre-blow. Sumner was more than six feet in height and of powerful frame, but penned under the desk he could offer no resistance, and Brooks continued the blows on his defenceless head. The cane broke, but the South Carolinian went on beating his victim with the butt. The first blows stunned and blinded Sumner, but instinctively and with powerful effort he wrenched the desk from its fastenings, stood up, and with spasmodic and wildly directed efforts attempted unavailingly to protect himself. Brooks took hold of him, and, while he was reeling and staggering about, struck him again and again. The assailant did not desist until his arm was seized by one who rushed to the spot to stop the assault. At that moment Sumner, reeling, staggering backwards and sideways, fell to the floor bleeding profusely and covered with his blood. The injury received by Sumner was much more severe than was at first thought by his physicians and friends. Four days after the assault, he was able to give at his lodgings his relation of the affair to the committee of the House of Representatives. But, in truth, the blows would have killed most men. Sumner's iron constitution and perfect health warded off a fatal result; but it soon appeared that the injury had affected the spinal column. The next three years and a half was a search for cure. … At last he went to Paris and put himself under the care of Dr. Brown-Séquard, whose treatment of actual cauterization of the back eventually restore him to a fair degree of health; but he never regained his former physical vigor. {3399} He was not able to enter regularly again on his senatorial career until December, 1859. … The different manner in which the North and the South regarded this deed is one of the many evidences of the deep gulf between these two people caused by slavery. … When Brooks returned to South Carolina he received an enthusiastic welcome. He was honored as a glorious son of the Palmetto State, and making him the present of a cane was a favorite testimonial. … At the North the assault of Brooks was considered brutal and cowardly; at the South, his name was never mentioned without calling him gallant or courageous, spirited or noble. … A committee was appointed by the House which took a large amount of evidence, and the majority reported a resolution in favor of the expulsion of Brooks. On this resolution, the vote was 121 to 95; but as it required two thirds, it was not carried. Only three Southern representatives publicly condemned the assault; only one voted to expel Brooks. After the decision by the House, Brooks made a speech, which he ended by resigning his place as representative. His district re-elected him almost unanimously: there were only six votes against him."

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 7 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. Sumner, Works, volume 4, pages 125-342.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856. Eighteenth Presidential Election. Buchanan made President.

"The presidential campaign of … 1856, showed a striking disintegration and re-formation of political groups. Nominally there were four parties in the field: Democrats, Whigs, Native Americans or Know-Nothings, and Republicans. The Know-Nothings had lately won some State elections, but were of little account as a national organization, for they stood upon an issue hopelessly insignificant in comparison with slavery. Already many had gone over to the Republican camp; those who remained nominated as their candidates Millard Fillmore and Andrew J. Donelson. The Whigs were the feeble remnant of a really dead party, held together by affection for the old name; too few to do anything by themselves, they took by adoption the Know-Nothing candidates. The Republican party had been born only in 1854. Its members, differing on other matters, united upon the one doctrine, which they accepted as a test: opposition to the extension of slavery. They nominated John C. Fremont and William L. Dayton, and made a platform whereby they declared it to be 'both the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.' … In this Convention 110 votes were cast for Lincoln for the second place on the ticket. … In the Democratic party there were two factions. The favorite candidate of the South was Franklin Pierce, for reelection, with Stephen A. Douglas as a substitute or second choice; the North more generally preferred James Buchanan, who was understood to be displeased with the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The struggle was sharp, but was won by the friends of Buchanan, with whom John C. Breckenridge was coupled. The campaign was eager, for the Republicans soon developed a strength beyond what had been expected and which put the Democrats to their best exertions. The result was: popular vote, Democrats [Buchanan] 1,838,169, Republicans [Fremont] 1,341,264, Know-Nothings and Whigs [Fillmore] 874,534; electoral vote, Democrats 174, Republicans 114, Know-Nothings and Whigs, 8. Thus James Buchanan became President of the United States, March 4, 1857. … Yet, while the Democrats triumphed, the Republicans enjoyed the presage of the future; they had polled a total number of votes which surprised everyone; on the other hand, the Democrats had lost ten States which they had carried in 1852 and had gained only two others, showing a net loss of eight States; and their electoral votes had dwindled from 254 to 174."

J. T, Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 4.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1856-1859. The continued struggle in Kansas. The Topeka vs. the Lecompton Constitution.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857. The Dred Scott decision.

"Dred Scott was a negro slave, the property of Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the army. In 1834, Dred was carried by his master from the slave state of Missouri, first, to the military post at Rock Island in the free state of Illinois, where he remained till April or May, 1836; and, thence, to Fort Snelling, in the territory known as Upper Louisiana, and lying north of the line of the Missouri Compromise, in both of which places he was held as a slave. At Fort Snelling, in the year 1836, he was married to Harriet, a negro slave, who had also been brought to Fort Snelling by her master, Major Taliaferro, and there sold to Dr. Emerson. In 1838, Dred, with his wife and a child which had been born to him, was carried back by his master to the state of Missouri. Subsequently, Dred, with his wife, his daughter Eliza, and another daughter, Lizzie, who was born after the return of her family to Missouri, was sold to John F. A. Sandford—the defendant in the present case. Dred commenced his efforts for the establishment of the freedom of himself and family in the state courts of Missouri. The suit was brought in the Circuit Court of St. Louis county. Before this court, the judgment was in his favor, but, on appeal by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the state, this judgment was reversed, and the case remanded to the court below,—where it remained, awaiting the decision of the suit which, in the meanwhile, Dred had brought in the United States courts. This second suit was brought before the Circuit Court of the United States for the district of Missouri, and thence carried, by writ of error, to the Supreme Court at Washington. It may be added that the first suit was brought against Dr. Emerson, but the second against Mr. Sandford, to whom Dred had been sold. The action, though brought to assert the title of Dred Scott and his family to freedom, was, in form, an action of trespass 'vi et armis,' which is the usual form employed in that state to try questions of this kind. The plaintiff, Scott, in his writ both makes a declaration of the acts of trespass—which of course are the acts of restraint necessarily implied in holding himself and family as slaves—and avers, what was necessary to give the court jurisdiction, that he and the defendant are citizens of different states; that is, that he is a citizen of Missouri, and the defendant a citizen of New York. At the April term of the court, in 1854, the defendant Sandford pleads, that the court has not jurisdiction, because the plaintiff is not a citizen of Missouri, but a negro of African descent, whose ancestors, of pure African blood, were brought into this country and sold as slaves. {3400} To this plea the plaintiff demurs as insufficient; the demurrer is argued at the same term, and is sustained by the court, that is, the court asserts its jurisdiction over the case." It was on this plea that the case went finally to the Supreme Court of the United States and was decided in 1857. "The question of negro citizenship came up in the consideration of the question of jurisdiction. For the question of jurisdiction was the question, whether the plaintiff was a citizen of Missouri, as he had averred in his declaration; and the only fact pleaded to disprove his citizenship was the fact that Scott was a negro of African descent, whose ancestors had been sold as slaves in the United States. The court, however, decided that this fact did not exclude the possibility of his being a citizen; in other words, it decided that a negro of this description can be a citizen of the United States. The first question before the Supreme Court was, whether it could rejudge this determination of the circuit court."

_W. A. Larned, Negro Citizenship (New Englander, August, 1857)._

The decision of the Supreme Court, delivered by Chief Justice Taney, March 6, 1857, not only closed the door of freedom to Dred Scott, but shut the doors of the United States courts against him and all those of his race who were or had been slaves, or who sprang from an ancestry in the servile state. The opinion of Chief Justice Taney was concurred in by all the justices except Curtis and McLean-Justice Nelson dissenting on one point only. The arguments and the sentiments in the opinion which gave most offence to the conscience and the reason of the country were the following: "It becomes … our duty to decide whether the facts stated in the plea are or are not sufficient to show that the plaintiff is not entitled to sue as a citizen in a court of the United States. This is certainly a very serious question, and one that now for the first time has been brought for decision before this court. But it is brought here by those who have a right to bring it, and it is our duty to meet it and decide it. The question is simply this: Can a negro, whose ancestors were imported into this country, and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guarantied by that instrument to the citizen? One of which rights is the privilege of suing in a court of the United States in the cases specified in the Constitution. It will be observed, that the plea applies to that class of persons only whose ancestors were negroes of the African race, and imported into this country, and sold and held as slaves. The only matter in issue before the court, therefore, is whether the descendants of such slaves, when they shall be emancipated, or who are born of parents who had become free before their birth, are citizens of a State, in the sense in which the word citizen is used in the Constitution of the United States. And this being the only matter in dispute on the pleadings, the court must be understood as speaking in this opinion of that class only, that is, of those persons who are the descendants of Africans who were imported into this country, and sold as slaves. … The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing. They both describe the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the 'sovereign people,' and every, citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty. The question before us is, whether the class of persons described in the plea in abatement compose a portion of this people, and are constituent members 'of this sovereignty? We think they are not, and that they are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States. On the contrary, they were at that time considered as a subordinate and inferior class of beings, who had been subjugated by the dominant race, and, whether emancipated or not, yet remained subject to their authority, and had no rights or privileges but such as those who held the power and the Government might choose to grant them. It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice or injustice, the policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision of that question belonged to the political or law-making power. … In discussing this question, we must not confound the rights of citizenship which a State may confer within its own limits, and the rights of citizenship as a member of the Union. It does not by any means follow, because he has all the rights and privileges of a citizen of a State, that he must be a citizen of the United States. He may have all of the rights and privileges of the citizen of a State, and yet not be entitled to the rights and privileges of a citizen in any other State. … The question then arises, whether the provisions of the Constitution, in relation to the personal rights and privileges to which the citizen of a State should be entitled, embraced the negro African race, at that time in this country, or who might afterwards be imported, who had then or should afterwards be made free in any State; and to put it in the power of a single State to make him a citizen of the United States, and endue him with the full rights of citizenship in every other State without their consent? … The court think the affirmative of these propositions cannot be maintained. And if it cannot, the plaintiff in error could not be a citizen of the State of Missouri, within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and, consequently, was not entitled to sue in its courts. It is true, every person, and every class and description of persons, who were at the time of the adoption of the Constitution recognised as citizens in the several States, became also citizens of this new political body; but none other. … It becomes necessary, therefore, to determine who were citizens of the several States when the Constitution was adopted. And in order to do this, we must recur to the Governments and institutions of the thirteen colonies, when they separated from Great Britain and formed new sovereignties, and took their places in the family of independent nations. We must inquire who, at that time, were recognised as the people or citizens of a State, whose rights and liberties had been outraged by the English Government; and who declared their independence, and assumed the powers of Government to defend their rights by force of arms. {3401} In the opinion of the court, the legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion in relation to that unfortunate race, which prevailed in the civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and when the Constitution was framed and adopted. But the public history of every European nation displays it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race." Finally, having, with great elaboration, decided the question of citizenship adversely to Dred Scott and all his kind, the Court proceeded to obliterate the antislavery provision of the Missouri Compromise, which constituted one of the grounds on which Dred Scott claimed his freedom. "It is the opinion of the court," wrote Chief Justice Taney, "that the act of Congress which prohibited a citizen from holding and owning property of this kind in the territory of the United States north of the line therein mentioned, is not warranted by the Constitution, and is therefore void; and that neither Dred Scott himself, nor any of his family, were made free by being carried into this territory; even if they had been carried there by the owner, with the intention of becoming a permanent resident. We have so far examined the case, as it stands under the Constitution of the United States, and the powers thereby delegated to the Federal Government. But there is another point in the case which depends on State power and State law. And it is contended, on the part of the plaintiff, that he is made free by being taken to Rock Island, in the State of Illinois, independently of his residence in the territory of the United States; and being so made free, he was not again reduced to a state of slavery by being brought back to Missouri. Our notice of this part of the case will be very brief; for the principle on which it depends was decided in this court, upon much consideration, in the case of Strader et al. v. Graham, reported in 10th Howard, 82. In that case, the slaves had been taken from Kentucky to Ohio, with the consent of the owner, and afterwards brought back to Kentucky. And this court held that their status or condition, as free or slave, depended upon the laws of Kentucky, when they were brought back into that State, and not of Ohio; and that this court had no jurisdiction to revise the judgment of a State court upon its own laws. This was the point directly before the court, and the decision that this court had not jurisdiction turned upon it, as will be seen by the report of the case. So in this case. As Scott was a slave when taken into the State of Illinois by his owner, and was there held as such, and brought back in that character, his status, as free or slave, depended on the laws of Missouri, and not of Illinois. … Upon the whole, therefore, it is the judgment of this court, that it appears by the record before us that the plaintiff in error is not a citizen of Missouri, in the sense in which that word is used in the Constitution; and that the Circuit Court of the United States, for that reason, had no jurisdiction in the case, and could give no judgment in it. Its judgment for the defendant must, consequently, be reversed, and a mandate issued, directing the suit to be dismissed for want of jurisdiction."

_Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Dred Scott vs. John F. A. Sandford (Howard's Reports, volume 19)._

"By this presentation of the iniquity, naked and in its most repulsive form, Taney did no small harm to the party which he intended to aid. It has been said that slavery plucked ruin on its own head by its aggressive violence. It could not help showing its native temper, nor could it help feeding its hunger of land, insisting on the restoration of its runaways, or demanding a foreign policy such as would fend off the approach of emancipation. But Taney's judgment was a gratuitous aggression and an insult to humanity at the same time, for which, supposing that the Southern leaders inspired it, they paid dear. If the slave was mere property, his owner might be entitled to take him anywhere, and thus slavery might be made national. The boast of a daring partisan of slavery might be fulfilled, that the day would come when men might be bought and sold in Boston as freely as any other goods. The issue, which all the politicians had striven to keep out of sight, was presented in its most startling and shocking form."

Goldwin Smith, The United States, page 235.

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 39.

S. Tyler, Memoirs of Roger B. Taney, chapters 4-5.

A. Johnston, The United States: Its History and Constitution, section 249.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857. Tariff reduction. The financial collapse.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1846-1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1857-1859. The Mormon rebellion in Utah.

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858. Treaty with China.

See CHINA: A. D. 1857-1868.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1858. The Lincoln and Douglas debate in Illinois.

The senatorial term of Mr. Stephen A. Douglas being about to expire, the choice of his successor became an issue which controlled the election of members of the Illinois Legislature, in the fall of 1858. Mr. Douglas received an endorsement at the hands of the Democratic State Convention, in April, which virtually nominated him for re-election. Abraham Lincoln, who had come markedly to the front in his state during the Kansas discussions, "was the man already chosen in the hearts of the Republicans of Illinois for the same office, and therefore with singular appropriateness they passed, with great unanimity, at their convention in Springfield on the 16th of June, the characteristic resolution: 'That Hon. Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for United States Senator to fill the vacancy about to be created by the expiration of Mr. Douglas' term of office.' {3402} There was of course no surprise in this for Mr. Lincoln. He had been all along led to expect it, and with that in view had been earnestly and quietly at work preparing a speech in acknowledgment of the honor about to be conferred on him. This speech he wrote on stray envelopes and scraps of paper, as ideas suggested themselves, putting them into that miscellaneous and convenient receptacle, his hat. As the convention drew near he copied the whole on connected sheets, carefully revising every line and sentence, and fastened them together, for reference during the delivery of the speech, and for publication. The former precaution, however, was unnecessary, for he had studied and read over what he had written so long and carefully that he was able to deliver it without the least hesitation or difficulty. … Before delivering his speech he invited a dozen or so of his friends over to the library of the State House, where he read and submitted it to them. After the reading he asked each man for his opinion. Some condemned and not one endorsed it. One man, more forcible than elegant, characterized it as a 'd-d fool utterance;' another said the doctrine was 'ahead of its time;' and still another contended that it would drive away a good many voters fresh from the Democratic ranks. Each man attacked it in his criticism. I was the last to respond. Although the doctrine announced was rather rank, yet it suited my views, and I said, 'Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and it will make you President.' At the time I hardly realized the force of my prophecy. Having patiently listened to these various criticisms from his friends—all of which with a single exception were adverse—he rose from his chair, and after alluding to the careful study and intense thought he had given the question, he answered all their objections substantially as follows: 'Friends, this thing has been retarded long enough. The time has come when these sentiments should be uttered; and if it is decreed that I should go down because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the truth—let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right.' The next day, the 17th, the speech was delivered just as we had heard it read. [The part of this famous speech which made the profoundest impression and gave rise to the most discussion was the opening part, contained in the following sentences: 'If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently 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 opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 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. Have we no tendency to the latter condition? Let anyone who doubts carefully contemplate that now almost complete legal combination—piece of machinery, so to speak—compounded of the Nebraska doctrine and the Dred Scott decision. Let him consider not only what work the machinery is adapted to do, and how well adapted; but also let him study the history of its construction, and trace, if he can, or rather fail, if he can, to trace the evidences of design and concert of action among its chief architects, from the beginning.'] … Lincoln had now created in reality a more profound impression than he or his friends anticipated. Many Republicans deprecated the advanced ground he had taken, the more so as the Democrats rejoiced that it afforded them an issue clear and well-defined. Numbers of his friends distant from Springfield, on reading his speech, wrote him censorious letters; and one well-informed co-worker predicted his defeat, charging it to the first ten lines of the speech. These complaints, coming apparently from every quarter, Lincoln bore with great patience. To one complainant who followed him into his office he said proudly, 'If I had to draw a pen across my record, and erase my whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I should choose that speech and leave it to the world unerased.' Meanwhile Douglas had returned from Washington to his home in Chicago. Here he rested for a few days until his friends and co-workers had arranged the details of a public reception on the 9th of July, when he delivered from the balcony of the Tremont House a speech intended as an answer to the one made by Lincoln in Springfield. Lincoln was present at this reception, but took no part in it. The next day, however, he replied. Both speeches were delivered at the same place. Leaving Chicago, Douglas passed on down to Bloomington and Springfield, where he spoke on the 16th and 17th of July respectively. On the evening of the latter day Lincoln responded again in a most effective and convincing effort. The contest now took on a different phase. Lincoln's Republican friends urged him to draw Douglas into a joint debate, and he accordingly sent him a challenge on the 24th of July. … On the 30th Douglas finally accepted the proposition to 'divide time, and address the same audiences,' naming seven different places, one in each Congressional district, outside of Chicago and Springfield, for joint meetings. The places and dates were, Ottawa, August 21; Freeport, August 27; Jonesboro, September 15; Charleston, September 18; Galesburg, October 7; Quincy, October 13; and Alton, October 15. … During the canvass Mr. Lincoln, in addition to the seven meetings with Douglas, filled thirty-one appointments made by the State Central Committee, besides speaking at many other times and places not previously advertised. … The election took place on the second of November, and while Lincoln received of the popular vote a majority of over 4,000, yet the returns from the legislative districts foreshadowed his defeat. In fact, when the Senatorial election took place in the Legislature, Douglas received 54 and Lincoln 46 votes—one of the results of the lamentable apportionment law then in operation."

W. H. Herndon and J. W. Weik, Lincoln, the True Story of a Great Life, chapter 13 (volume 2).

{3403}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859. Admission of Oregon into the Union, with a constitution excluding free colored People.

See OREGON: A. D. 1859.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859. John Brown's attack on Slavery in Virginia. The tragedy at Harper's Ferry.

"On the 17th of October, 1859, this country was bewildered and astounded while the fifteen Slave States were convulsed with fear, rage, and hate, by telegraphic dispatches from Baltimore and Washington, announcing the outbreak, at Harper's Ferry, of a conspiracy of Abolitionists and negroes, having for its object the devastation and ruin of the South, and the massacre of her white inhabitants. … As time wore on, further advices, with particulars and circumstances, left no room to doubt the substantial truth of the original report. An attempt had actually been made to excite a slave insurrection in Northern Virginia, and the one man in America to whom such an enterprise would not seem utter insanity and suicide, was at the head of it." This was John Brown, of Osawatomie, who had been fighting slavery and the border ruffians in Kansas (see KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859) for five years, and had now changed his field. "A secret convention, called by Brown, and attended only by such whites and blacks as he believed in thorough sympathy with his views, had assembled in a negro church at Chatham, Canada West, May 8, 1858; at which Convention a 'Provisional Constitution and Ordinances for the People of the United States' had been adopted. It was, of course, drafted by Brown, and was essentially an embodiment of his political views. … John Brown was chosen Commander-in-Chief; J. H. Kagi, Secretary of War; Owen Brown (son of John), Treasurer; Richard Realf, Secretary of State. Brown returned to the States soon after his triumphal entry into Canada as a liberator. … He was in Hagerstown, Maryland, on the 30th [of June, 1859], where he registered his name as 'Smith, and two sons, from Western New York.' He told his landlord that they had been farming in Western New York, but had been discouraged by losing two or three years' crops by frost, and they were now looking for a milder climate, in a location adapted to wool-growing, etc. After looking about Harper's Ferry for several days, they found, five or six miles from that village, a large farm, with three unoccupied houses, the owner, Dr. Booth Kennedy, having died the last Spring. These houses they rented for a trifle until the next March, paying the rent in advance. … After they had lived there a few weeks, attracting no observation, others joined them from time to time, including two of Brown's young daughters; and one would go and another come, without exciting any particular remark. … Meantime, the greater number of the men kept out of sight during the day, so as not to attract attention, while their arms, munitions, etc., were being gradually brought from Chambersburg, in well-secured boxes. No meal was eaten on the farm, while old Brown was there, until a blessing had been asked upon it; and his Bible was in daily requisition. The night of the 24th of October was originally fixed upon by Brown for the first blow against Slavery in Virginia, by the capture of the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry; and his biographer, Redpath, alleges that many were on their way to be with him on that occasion, when they were paralyzed by the intelligence that the blow had already been struck, and had failed. The reason given for this, by one who was in his confidence, is, that Brown, who had been absent on a secret journey to the North, suspected that one of his party was a traitor, and that he must strike prematurely, or not at all. But the women who had been with them at the Kennedy farm—the wives or daughters of one or another of the party—had already been quietly sent away; and the singular complexion of their household had undoubtedly begun to excite curiosity, if not alarm, among their neighbors. … Harper's Ferry was then a village of some 5,000 inhabitants, lying on the Virginia side of the Potomac, and on either side of its principal tributary, the Shenandoah, which here enters it from the South. Its site is a mere nest or cup among high, steep mountains. … Here the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crosses the Potomac. … Washington is 57 miles distant by turnpike; Baltimore 80 miles by railroad. … One of its very few streets was entirely occupied by the work-shops and offices of the National Armory, and had an iron railing across its entrance. In the old Arsenal building, there were usually stored from 100,000 to 200,000 stand of arms. The knowledge of this had doubtless determined the point at which the first blow of the liberators was to be struck. The forces with which Brown made his attack consisted of seventeen white and five colored men, though it is said that others who escaped assisted outside, by cutting the telegraph wires and tearing up the railroad track. The entrance of this petty army into Harper's Ferry on Sunday evening … seems to have been effected without creating alarm. They first rapidly extinguished the lights of the town; then took possession of the Armory buildings, which were only guarded by three watchmen, whom, without meeting resistance or exciting alarm, they seized and locked up in the guardhouse. It is probable that they were aided, or, at least, guided, by friendly negroes belonging in the village. … At a quarter-past one, the western train arrived, and its conductor found the bridge guarded by armed men. … A little after midnight, the house of Colonel Washington was visited by six of Brown's men under Captain Stevens, who captured the Colonel, seized his arms, horses, etc., and liberated his slaves. On their return, Stevens and party visited the house of Mr. Alstadtt and his son, whom they captured, and freed their slaves. These, with each male citizen as he appeared in the street, were confined in the Armory until they numbered between forty and fifty. Brown informed his prisoners that they could be liberated on condition of writing to their friends to send a negro apiece as ransom. At daylight, the train proceeded, Brown walking over the bridge with the conductor. Whenever anyone asked the object of their captors, the uniform answer was, 'To free the slaves;' and when one of the workmen, seeing an armed guard at the Arsenal gate, asked by what authority they had taken possession of the public property, he was answered, 'By the authority of God Almighty!' The passenger train that sped eastward from Harper's Ferry, by Brown's permission, in the early morning of Monday, October 17th, left that place completely in the military possession of the insurrectionists. … {3404} But it was no longer entirely one-sided. The white Virginians, who had arms, and who remained unmolested in their houses, prepared to use them. … Several Virginians soon obtained possession of a room overlooking the Armory gates, and fired thence at the sentinels who guarded them, one of whom was mortally wounded. Still, throughout the forenoon, the liberators remained masters of the town. … Had Brown chosen to fly to the mountains with his few followers, he might still have done so, though with a much slenderer chance of impunity than if he had, according to his original plan, decamped at midnight, with such arms and ammunition as he could bear away. Why he lingered, to brave inevitable destruction, is not certain; but it may fairly be presumed that he had private assurances that the negroes of the surrounding country would rise. … At all events, if his doom was already sealed, his delay at least hastened it. Half an hour after noon, a militia force, 100 strong, arrived from Charlestown, the county seat, and were rapidly disposed so as to command every available exit from the place. … Militia continued to pour in; the telegraph and railroad having been completely repaired, so that the Government at Washington, Governor Wise at Richmond, and the authorities at Baltimore, were in immediate communication with Harper's Ferry, and hurrying forward troops from all quarters. … Night found Brown's forces reduced to three unwounded whites beside himself, with perhaps half a dozen negroes from the vicinity. Eight of the insurgents were already dead; another lay dying beside the survivors; two were captives mortally wounded, and one other unhurt. Around the few survivors were 1,500 armed, infuriated foes. … During that night, Colonel Lee, with 90 United States marines and two pieces of artillery, arrived, and took possession of the Armory guard, very close to the engine-house. … At seven in the morning, after a parley which resulted in nothing, the marines advanced to the assault, broke in the door of the engine-house by using a ladder as a battering-ram, and rushed into the building. One of the defenders was shot and two marines wounded; but the odds were too great; in an instant, all resistance was over. Brown was struck in the face with a saber and knocked down, after which the blow was several times repeated, while a soldier ran a bayonet twice into the old man's body."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 20.

"The Virginians demonstrated amply during the Civil War that they were not cowards. What made them shake in their shoes was not John Brown and his handful of men, but the shadows which their excited imagination saw standing behind them. … The best evidence of the frightful genuineness of the panic is the brazen impudence with which it was brought forward as the justifying motive for the many atrocities which marked the trial. The brutalizing influences of slavery came to light with terrible vividness. Kapp's statement that Brown 'enjoyed very careful treatment' is not mistaken, but it is true only of the later period of his imprisonment. Watson Brown, whose life was prolonged until the early morning of the 19th of October, complained of the hard bench he was forced to lie on, His fellow-prisoner, Coppoc, begged for a mattress, or at least a blanket, for the dying man, but could obtain neither. Both Brown himself and Stevens, who was even more seriously wounded, had nothing furnished them but wretched straw. Redpath (page 373) assures us that 'from October 19 till November 7 no clean clothing was given to Brown, but that he lay in his soiled and blood-stained garments just as he had fallen at Harper's Ferry.' On the 25th of October he was brought before the court; he was not at first carried there on a camp-bed, as was the case afterward, but compelled to walk, leaning on two men. Virginia could not wait till he could stand. … There was no such haste to carry out the sentence as there had been to bring the trial to a close. On the 2d of November, Brown was sentenced to suffer death by hanging on the 2d of December."

H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155.

"Brown actually expected that the raid on Harper's Ferry would be the stroke with which Moses called forth water from the rock. The spring was to turn southward, and in its swift course to swell to a mighty river. He declared expressly to Governor Wise, and later still in his letters, that he had not intended simply to break the chains of a few dozen or a few hundred slaves, and to take them again to Canada. Emancipation was to be spread farther and farther, and the freedmen were to remain in the Southern States. Heaven itself could not have brought this about, unless it had sent the angel of judgment to cast down into the dust the whole white population from Florida to Maine." At the last, when John Brown, wounded and a prisoner, lay waiting his death, "he did not perceive that his undertaking could not have succeeded under any circumstances; but he did see that his failure and its consequences achieved much greater results than its most complete success could have done. … 'I can leave to God,' he writes, 'the time and manner of my death, for I believe now that the sealing of my testimony before God and man with my blood will do far more to further the cause to which I have earnestly devoted myself, than anything else I have done in my life.' And a few days later, 'My health improves slowly, and I am quite cheerful concerning my approaching end, since I am convinced that I am worth infinitely more on the gallows than I could be anywhere else.' … One year after the execution of Brown, on the 20th of December, 1860, South Carolina declared its secession from the Union, and on May 11, 1861, the Second Massachusetts Regiment of infantry was raised, which was first to sing on its march South: 'John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, His soul goes marching on.'"

H. von Holst, John Brown, pages 139-155, 125-126, 167-175.

"Editors persevered for a good while in saying that Brown was crazy; but at last they said only that it was 'a crazy scheme,' and the only evidence brought to prove it was that it cost him his life. I have no doubt that if he had gone with 5,000 men, liberated 1,000 slaves, killed a hundred or two slaveholders, and had as many more killed on his own side, but not lost his own life, these same editors would have called it by a more respectable name. Yet he has been far more successful than that."

_H. D. Thoreau, The Last Days of John Brown (Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers)._

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power, volume 2, chapter 45.

F. B. Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, chapters 15-17.

_J. Redpath, Public Life of Captain John Brown._

{3405}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Eighth Census.

Total population, 31,443,322, being an increase exceeding 35½ per cent. over the population of 1850; classified and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. California. 361,353 4,086 0 Colorado. 34,231 46 0 Connecticut. 451,520 8,627 0 Dakota. 2,576 0 0 Illinois. 1,704,323 7,628 0 Indiana. 1,339,000 11,428 0 Iowa. 673,844 1,069 0 Kansas. 106,579 625 2 Maine. 626,952 1,327 0 Massachusetts. 1,221,464 9,602 0 Michigan. 742,314 6,799 0 Minnesota. 171,864 259 0 Nebraska. 28,759 67 15 Nevada. 6,812 45 0 New Hampshire. 325,579 494 0 New Jersey. 646,699 25,318 18 New York. 3,831,730 49,005 0 Ohio. 2,302,838 36,673 0 Oregon. 52,337 128 0 Pennsylvania. 2,849,266 56,849 0 Rhode Island. 170,668 3,952 0 Utah. 40,214 30 29 Vermont. 314,389 709 0 Washington. 11,138 30 0 Wisconsin. 774,710 1,171 0 --- --- --- Total 18,791,159 225,967 64

South.

White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 526,431 2,690 435,080 Arkansas. 324,191 144 111,115 Delaware. 90,589 19,829 1,798 District of Columbia. 60,764 11,131 3,185 Florida. 77,748 932 61,745 Georgia. 591,588 3,500 462,198 Kentucky. 919,517 10,684 225,483 Louisiana. 357,629 18,647 331,726 Maryland. 515,918 83,942 87,189 Mississippi. 353,901 773 436,631 Missouri. 1,063,509 3,572 114,931 New Mexico 82,924 85 0 North Carolina. 631,100 30,463 881,059 South Carolina. 291,388 9,914 402,406 Tennessee. 826,782 7,300 275,719 Texas. 421,294 855 182,566 Virginia. 1,047,411 58,042 490,865 ---- --- --- Total 8,182,684 262,008 8,958,696

Immigration in the preceding decade added 2,598,214 to the population, being 1,388,098 from the British Islands, and 1,114,564 from other parts of Europe.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860. The Southern view of Slavery.

The state of opinion and feeling on the subject of slavery to which the people of the southern states had arrived in 1860 is set forth with brevity and distinctness in Claiborne's Life of General Quitman, which was published that year: "In the early stages of African slavery in the South," says the writer, "it was by many considered an evil, that had been inflicted upon the country by British and New England cupidity. The Africans were regarded as barbarians, and were governed by the lash. The very hatred of the 'evil' forced upon us was, in a measure, transferred to the unhappy victims. They were treated with severity, and no social relations subsisted between them and the whites. By degrees slavery began to be considered 'a necessary evil,' to be got rid of by gradual emancipation, or perhaps not at all, and the condition of the slave sensibly improved. The natural sense of justice in the human heart suggested that they had been brought here by compulsion, and that they should be regarded not as savages, but as captives, who were to be kindly treated while laboring for their ultimate redemption. The progress of anti-slavery sentiment in the Northern States (once regarded by the South as a harmless fanaticism), the excesses it has occasioned, and the unconstitutional power it claims, at length prompted a general and searching inquiry into the true status of the negro. The moment that the Southern mind became convinced, that slavery, as it exists among us, instead of being a moral, social, and political evil, is a moral, social, and political good, and is the natural condition of the negro, as ordained by Providence, and the only condition in which he can be civilized and instructed, the condition of the Southern slave underwent a thorough change. As a permanent fixture, as a hereditary heirloom, as a human being with an immortal soul, intrusted to us by God for his own wise purposes, his value increased, and his relation to his owner approximated to the relation of guardian and ward. Interest taught us that it would be wise to cherish what was to be the permanent means of production and profit, and religion exacted the humane and judicious employment of the 'talent' committed to our care. Thus the most powerful influences that sway the heart and the judgment are in operation for the benefit of the slave, and hence his present comfortable and constantly ameliorating condition. It is due, almost solely, to the moral convictions of the slaveholder. Our laws protect the slave in life and limb, and against cruel and inordinate punishment. Those laws are rigorously applied, though rarely necessary, for public opinion, more formidable than law, would condemn to execration and infamy the unjust and cruel master. Since these convictions in regard to slavery have been adopted almost unanimously in the South, the value of negroes has quadrupled. This, however, is in some measure an evil, because the tendency is to concentrate the slaves in the hands of the few, who are able to pay the extraordinary rates now demanded. It would be better for the commonwealth, and give additional solidity to our system of domestic servitude, if every family had an interest in it, secured, to a limited extent, against liability for debt. It should constitute in the South, if practicable, a part of every homestead, and then interest, and household tradition, and the friendly, confidential, and even affectionate relations that in the present state of public feeling prevail between master and slave, would unite all men in its defense. Neither land, nor slaves, which are here more valuable than land, should, by either direct or indirect legislation, be concentrated in few hands. Every citizen should have, if possible, that immediate interest in them which would make him feel that, in defending the commonwealth and its institutions, he is defending his own inheritance."

J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, volume 1, chapter 4.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (April-November). Nineteenth Presidential Election. Division of the Democratic Party. Four candidates in the field. A victory for freedom in the choice of Abraham Lincoln.

"Mr. J. W. Fell, a politician of Pennsylvania, says that after the debates of 1858 [with Douglas] he urged Lincoln to seek the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1860. Lincoln, however, replied curtly that men like Seward and Chase were entitled to take precedence, and that no such 'good luck' was in store for him. … In the winter of 1859-60 sundry 'intimate friends,' active politicians of Illinois, pressed him to consent to be mentioned as a candidate. He considered the matter over night and then gave them the desired permission, at the same time saying that he would not accept the vice-presidency. … With the opening of the spring of 1860 the several parties began the campaign in earnest. The Democratic Convention met first, at Charleston, April 23; and immediately the line of disruption opened. Upon the one side stood Douglas, with the moderate men and nearly all the Northern delegates, while against him were the advocates of extreme Southern doctrines, supported by the administration and by most of the delegates from the 'Cotton States.' The majority of the committee appointed to draft the platform were anti-Douglas men; but their report was rejected, and that offered by the pro-Douglas minority was substituted, 165 yeas to 138 nays. Thereupon the delegations of Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, and sundry delegates from other States, withdrew from the Convention, taking away 45 votes out of a total of 303. Those who remained declared the vote of two thirds of a full Convention, i. e., 202 votes, to be necessary for a choice. Then during three days 57 ballots were cast, Douglas being always far in the lead, but never polling more than 152½ votes. At last, on May 3, an adjournment was had until June 18, at Baltimore. At this second meeting contesting delegations appeared, and the decisions were uniformly in favor of the Douglas men, which provoked another secession of the extremist Southern men. A ballot showed 173½ votes for Douglas out of a total of 191½; the total was less than two thirds of the full number of the original Convention, and therefore it was decided that any person receiving two thirds of the votes cast by the delegates present should be deemed the nominee. The next ballot gave Douglas 181½. Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia was nominated for vice-president. On June 28, also at Baltimore [after a meeting and adjournment from Richmond, June 11], there came together a collection composed of original seceders at Charleston, and of some who had been rejected and others who had seceded at Baltimore. Very few Northern men were present, and the body in fact represented the Southern wing of the Democracy. Having, like its competitor, the merit of knowing its own mind, it promptly nominated John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky and Joseph Lane of Oregon, and adopted the radical platform which had been reported at Charleston. These doings opened, so that it could never be closed, that seam of which the thread had long been visible athwart the surface of the old Democratic party. … In May the Convention of the Constitutional Union party met, also at Baltimore. This organization was a sudden outgrowth designed only to meet the present emergency. … The party died, of necessity, upon the day when Lincoln was elected, and its members were then distributed between the Republicans, the Secessionists, and the Copperheads. John Bell, of Tennessee, the candidate for the presidency, joined the Confederacy; Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, the candidate for the vice-presidency, became a Republican. The party never had a hope of electing its men; but its existence increased the chance of throwing the election into Congress; and this hope inspired exertions far beyond what its own prospects warranted. On May 16 the Republican Convention came together at Chicago, where the great 'Wigwam' had been built to hold 10,000 persons. … Many candidates were named, chiefly Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, Edward Bates of Missouri, and William L. Dayton of New Jersey. Thurlow Weed was Seward's lieutenant. Horace Greeley, chiefly bent upon the defeat of Seward, would have liked to achieve it by the success of Bates. David Davis, aided by Judge Logan and a band of personal friends from Illinois, was manager for Lincoln. Primarily the contest lay between Seward and Lincoln. … Upon the third ballot … those who were keeping the tally saw that it stood:—Seward, 180; Lincoln, 231½; Chase, 24½; Bates, 22; Dayton, 1; McLean, 5; Scattering, 1. … Before the count could be announced, a delegate from Ohio transferred four votes to Lincoln. This settled the matter; and then other delegations followed, till Lincoln's score rose to 354. … Later in the day the convention nominated Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, on tho second ballot, by 367 votes, for the vice-presidency. … Almost from the beginning it was highly probable that the Republicans would win, and it was substantially certain that none of their competitors could do so. The only contrary chance was that no election might be made by the people, and that it might be thrown into Congress."

J. T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, volume 1, chapter 6.

At the popular election, the votes were: Lincoln, 1,866,452 (Free-States vote, 1,840,022, Slave States vote, 26,430); Douglas, 1,375,157 (Free States vote, 1,211,632, Slave States vote, 163,525); Breckenridge, 847,953 (Free States vote, 277,082, Slave States vote, 570,871); Bell, 590,631 (Free States vote, 74,658, Slave States vote, 515,973).

In the Electoral College, the four candidates were voted for as follows: Lincoln, 180; Breckenridge, 72; Bell, 39; Douglas, 12.

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: H. W. Raymond, Life of Lincoln, chapter 4.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, page 1.

J. G. Holland, Life of Lincoln, chapters 15-16.

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 2, chapters 13-16.

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapter 11 (volume 2).

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (November-December). The plotting of the rebellion. Secession of South Carolina.

"The long-hoped-for opportunity of trying the experiment of secession was now at last presented. Abraham Lincoln had been elevated to the presidency by a strictly sectional vote; and though the fact could not be denied that he had been elected in a perfectly constitutional manner, … yet, no sooner was it ascertained that it was almost certain that he would receive a majority of the electoral votes of the whole Union, than steps began to be taken for carrying into effect a revolutionary project which had engrossed the thoughts and sensibilities of a small class of extreme Southern politicians, mainly confined to the State of South Carolina, for some thirty years preceding. … So thoroughly matured was the project of secession in the minds of Southern extremists in South Carolina, that they are known actually to have commenced movements looking to this desired end before even the presidential election had taken place, and when the result which soon ensued was yet but a strong probability. Accordingly we find Governor Gist, as early as the 5th of November, 1860, addressing a message to the South Carolina Legislature, embodying the following bold and explicit declarations. … 'That an exposition of the will of the people may be obtained on a question involving such momentous consequences, I would earnestly recommend that, in the event of Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, a Convention of the people of this state be immediately called, to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. My own opinions of what the Convention should do are of little moment; but, believing that the time has arrived when everyone, however humble he may be, should express his opinions in unmistakable language, I am constrained to say that the only alternative left, in my judgment, is the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union. The indications from many of the Southern States justify the conclusion that the secession of South Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted simultaneously by them, and ultimately by the entire South. … I would also respectfully recommend a thorough reorganization of the militia, so as to place the whole military force of the state in a position to be used at the shortest notice and with the greatest efficiency. … In addition to this general preparation, I would recommend that the services of 10,000 volunteers be immediately accepted.' … I desire not to particularize on this painful subject to an extent which might now prove annoying, and therefore proceed briefly to state that the Legislature of South Carolina provided for the assemblage of a state Convention, the members of which were to be elected on the 6th of December, while the conventional body itself was to come together on the 19th of the same month; that the Convention did assemble on the last-mentioned day, and, after an excited debate of several days' continuance, adopted an Ordinance of Secession on the 20th of December. Commissioners were sent with a copy of the ordinance to each of the slave states, in order to quicken co-operative action, and notification was duly made as to these events to the Federal government in Washington City. The next secession movement it was expected would come off in the State of Georgia. A Convention for this purpose had been already called. It was known that Alexander H. Stephens, Herschel V. Johnson, and other public men, of elevated standing and of extended influence, would be members of the Convention, and it was expected that they would exert themselves to the utmost to prevent the imitation by the State of Georgia of the rash example which had just been set by South Carolina; and it was likewise known that eminent personages from the State of South Carolina would attend the Convention of Georgia, in order to urge immediate co-operation. Under these circumstances, I took it upon myself to persuade the public men of most influence in the city of Nashville, where I was then residing, to send ten or fifteen delegates forthwith to Milledgeville, respectfully and earnestly to protest against extreme action on the part of Georgia. … I urged these views for several days most zealously, but, I regret to say, without success; some supposing that there was no serious danger of the Convention of Georgia adopting an Ordinance of Secession, and others that there was reason to fear, if we should send delegates to Milledgeville, it might result in fatally compromising our own attitude. The manly opposition made by Mr. Stephens to the attempt to draw Georgia into the Secession maelstrom is well known. This want of success is a circumstance which I shall ever deplore as the most unfortunate event of a public nature which has occurred within my recollection. Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were now soon enrolled among the seceded States. Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware still stood firm, despite all the efforts essayed to shake their constancy. It is indeed true, as Mr. Greeley has deliberately recorded, that after the secession 'conspiracy had held complete possession of the Southern mind for three months, with the Southern members of the cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers, most of the governors and other state functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active politicians pushing it on, and no force exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave states, with two thirds of the free population of the entire slaveholding region, was openly and positively adverse to it, either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exaggerated if not unreal, or because they believed that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by disunion.'"

H. S. Foote, War of the Rebellion, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, chapter 1.

S. W. Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War, chapters 2-5.

F. Moore, editor, Rebellion Record, volume 1.

The following is the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, adopted December 20, together with the Declaration of Causes which was promulgated by the Convention four days later:

"An Ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled 'The Constitution of the United States of America.' We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained. That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of 'The United States of America,' is hereby dissolved."

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"Declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union:

The People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A. D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act. In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, 'that they are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.' They further solemnly declared that whenever any 'form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.' Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies 'are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.' In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments—Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defence, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first article, 'that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. Under this Confederation the War of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3d September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definitive Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the Independence of the Colonies in the following terms:

'Article 1.—His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such; and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.' Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country as a free, sovereign and independent State. In 1787, Deputies were appointed by the States to revise the Articles of Confederation, and on 17th September, 1787, these Deputies recommended, for the adoption of the States, the Articles of Union, known as the Constitution of the United States. The parties to whom this Constitution was submitted, were the several sovereign States; they were to agree or disagree, and when nine of them agreed, the compact was to take effect among those concurring; and the General Government, as the common agent, was then to be invested with their authority. If only nine of the thirteen States had concurred, the other four would have remained as they were—separate sovereign States, independent of any of the provisions of the Constitution. In fact, two of the States did not accede to the Constitution until long after it had gone into operation among the other eleven; and during that interval, they each exercised the functions of an independent nation. By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But, to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On 23d May, 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her people, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken. Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government, with defined objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights. We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

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In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert, that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused for years past to fulfil their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. The Constitution of the United States, in its 4th Article, provides as follows: 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio river. The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from the service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constitutional compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. The ends for which this Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be 'to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen other States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of Slavery; they have permitted the open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to claim the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the Common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the Common Government, because he has declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that Slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons, who, by the Supreme Law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety. On the 4th March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced, that the South shall be excluded from the common Territory; that the Judicial Tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The Guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief. We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates, in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). President Buchanan's surrender. His disunion message and its evil effects.

Congress met on the first Monday of December and received from President Buchanan "his mischievous and deplorable message … —a message whose evil effect can never be estimated, and whose evil character can hardly be exaggerated. The President informed Congress that 'the long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at last produced its natural effect.' … The President found that the chief grievance of the South was in the enactments of the Free States known as 'personal liberty laws' [designed to protect free citizens, black or white, in their right to trial by jury, which the fugitive slave law denied to a black man claimed as a slave]. … Very likely these enactments, inspired by an earnest spirit of liberty, went in many cases too far, and tended to produce conflicts between National and State authority. That was a question to be determined finally and exclusively by the Federal Judiciary. Unfortunately Mr. Buchanan carried his argument beyond that point. … After reciting the statutes which he regarded as objectionable and hostile to the constitutional rights of the South, and after urging their unconditional repeal upon the North, the President said: 'The Southern States, standing on the basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North. Should it be refused, then the Constitution, to which all the States are parties, will have been willfully violated. … In that event, the injured States, after having used all peaceful and constitutional means to obtain redress, would be justified in revolutionary resistance to the government of the Union.' By this declaration the President justified, and in effect advised, an appeal from the constitutional tribunals of the country to a popular judgment in the aggrieved States, and recognized the right of those States, upon such popular judgment, to destroy the Constitution and the Union. … Mr. Buchanan proceeded to argue ably and earnestly against the assumption by any State of an inherent right to secede from the government at its own will and pleasure. But he utterly destroyed the force of his reasoning by declaring that, 'after much serious reflection' he had arrived at 'the conclusion that no power has been delegated to Congress, or to any other department of the Federal Government, to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw, or has actually withdrawn,' from the Union. … Under these doctrines the Government of the United States was shorn of all power to preserve its own existence, and the Union might crumble and fall while its constituted authorities stood paralyzed and impotent. This construction was all that the extremists of the South desired. With so much conceded, they had every thing in their own hands. … Men who, under the wholesome restraint of executive power, would have refrained from taking aggressive steps against the National Government, were by Mr. Buchanan's action forced into a position of hostility. Men in the South, who were disposed to avoid extreme measures, were by taunt and reproach driven into the ranks of Secession. … The evil effects of Mr. Buchanan's message were not confined to the slave States. It did incalculable harm in the free States. It fixed in the minds of tens of thousands of Northern men who were opposed to the Republican party, the belief that the South was justified in taking steps to break up the government, if what they termed a war on Southern institutions should be continued. This feeling had in turn a most injurious influence in the South."

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress, volume 1, chapter 10. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21128

ALSO IN: G. T. Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, volume 2, chapters 16-17.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). Vain concessions and humiliations of the North proposed. The Crittenden compromise.

"When, in the House of Representatives, Mr. Boteler, of Virginia, proposed to refer so much of the President's Message as related to the perilous condition of the country to a committee of thirty-three—one from each state—not less than 52 members from the Slave States refused to vote. 'I pay no attention to any action taken in this body,' said one. 'I am not sent here to patch up difficulties,' said another. The Democratic members from the Free States did their utmost to compose the dissension—some of them who subsequently became conspicuous in the war—suggesting concessions which doubtless they looked back upon with regret. It was proposed that persons of African blood should never be considered as citizens of the United States; that there should never be any interference with slavery in the Territories, nor with the interstate slave-trade; that the doctrine of state-rights should be admitted, and power of coercion denied to the government. Among the dissatisfied members, one would allow any state at pleasure to secede, and allot it a fair share of the public property and territory. Another would divide the Union into four republics; another would abolish the office of President, and have in its stead a council of three, each of whom should have a veto on every public act. Propositions such as these show to what length the allies of the slave power would have gone to preserve it and give it perpetuity. At this stage, Mr. Crittenden [Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky], proposed in the Senate certain amendments of the Constitution, and resolutions known subsequently as the Crittenden Compromise. The essential features of his plan were the re-establishing of the Missouri Compromise: that in all territory of the United States north of 36° 30' slavery should be prohibited; in all south of that line, not only permitted, but protected; that from such territory north or south states might be admitted with or without slavery, as the Constitution of each might determine; that Congress should have no power to abolish slavery in places under its jurisdiction in a slave state, nor in the District of Columbia, without the consent of the adjoining states, nor without compensation to the slaveholders, nor to prevent persons connected with the government bringing their slaves into the District; that Congress should have no power to hinder the interstate or territorial transport of slaves; that the national government should pay a full value to the owner of a fugitive slave who might have been rescued from the officers; that no amendments of the Constitution should ever be made which might affect these amendments, or other slave compromises already existing in the Constitution. {3411} He also recommended to the states that had enacted laws in conflict with the existing fugitive slave acts, their repeal; and in four resolutions made provision for the more perfect execution of those acts. But the dissension was too deep to be closed by such a measure as Mr. Crittenden's, which contained nothing that could satisfy the North. The South was resolved not to be satisfied with any thing. It had taken what was plainly an irreversible step. According]y, Mr. Crittenden's proposition was eventually lost."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 31 (section 6, volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 24.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, pages 48-90.

J. A. Logan, The Great Conspiracy, chapter 8.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (December). Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. Floyd's treachery in the War Department. Cabinet rupture. Loyalty reinstated in the national government.

"In November, 1860, the fortifications of Charleston Harbor consisted of three works—Castle Pinckney, an old-fashioned, circular brick fort, on Shute's Folly Island, and about one mile east of the city; Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, still farther to the east, and famous as being on the site of the old fort of palmetto logs, where, during the long bombardment by the British fleet in Revolutionary days, the gallant William Jasper leaped from the low rampart upon the beach below, and seizing the flag that had been shot down, rehoisted it above the fort; and lastly, Fort Sumter, an unfinished fortification, named after General Thomas Sumter, the famous partisan leader of the Revolution, and who was familiarly known as the 'gamecock of the Carolinas.' The armament of Castle Pinckney consisted of 22 cannon, 2 mortars, and 4 light pieces; that of Moultrie of 45 cannon and 7 light pieces; while Sumter mounted 78 heavy guns of various calibre. The entire force of United States troops in these fortifications was composed of two weak companies of artillery under command of Major Robert Anderson, and a few engineer employees under Captain John G. Foster. Of these a sergeant and squad of men were stationed at Castle Pinckney for the care of the quarters and the guns; a similar handful were at Sumter; while most of the little force were at Moultrie, where Anderson had his headquarters. Such was the military situation when South Carolina began to proclaim, without disguise, her purpose to secede and to possess herself of the fortifications on her coast. … Our Government paid no apparent heed, and yet the authorities at Washington were fully and betimes forewarned. … On the files of the Engineer Department I found a letter, which still remains there, dated as early as November 24, 1860, from Captain Foster to Colonel De Russy, then the chief of the engineer corps, in which the captain states that, at the request of Major Anderson, he has, in company with that officer, made a thorough inspection of the forts in the harbor; that, in the opinion of Anderson, one additional company of artillery should at once be sent to garrison Castle Pinckney, which in the terse language of the letter, 'commands the city of Charleston.' Upon the back of the letter is the simple but significant indorsement, in his own hand-writing, 'Return to Governor Floyd.' You may recall him as Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War. On November 30, Captain Foster again writes to Colonel De Russy, saying: 'I think that more troops should have been sent here to guard the forts, and I believe that no serious demonstration on the part of the populace would have met such a course.' On this is indorsed: 'Colonel Cooper says this has been shown to the Secretary of War. H. G. W.' The initials, placed there by himself, are those of the gallant Horatio G. Wright, who succeeded to the command of the Sixth Army Corps after the loved Sedgwick fell. On December 2, application was made by Captain Foster for the small supply of four boxes of muskets and sixty rounds of cartridge per man, to arm the few civilians or hired laborers who constituted the engineer corps. These arms and ammunition were in the United States arsenal at Charleston, a building which still had a Federal keeper, and over which still floated the Federal flag. On this application is the following indorsement, also in General Wright's handwriting: 'Handed to adjutant-general, and by him laid before the Secretary of War on the sixth of December. Returned by adjutant-general on the seventh. Action deferred for the present. See Captain Foster's letter of December 4.' … On December 17, Captain Foster, acting on his own patriotic judgment, but without orders, went to Charleston and took from the Federal arsenal forty muskets, with which to arm his laborers. Early on the morning of the 19th, he received a telegram from Secretary Floyd, directing him instantly to return the arms to the arsenal. On the next day, the 20th, the South Carolinians decided, in State convention, to secede, and proclaimed their State an independent sovereignty. … All alike were delirious with the epidemic madness of the hour, were hopeful, resolute, enthusiastic. Bells pealed and cannon boomed. … But few ventured to breast the storm. There was one, whose name should live honored in in a nation's memory, a wise, true man, the greatest lawyer of his State, James L. Pettigrew, who, when his minister first dropped from the service the prayer for the President of the United States, rose in his pew in the middle aisle of Charleston's most fashionable church, and slowly and with distinct voice repeated: 'Most humbly and heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of these United States.' Then, placing his prayer-book in the rack, and drawing his wife's arm within his own, he left the church, nor entered it again until his body was borne there for burial. To their honor be it said, that even the Carolinians respected his sincerity and candor, and never molested him. … On the night of December 26, Major Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie, which was untenable by his small force, spiked his guns, burned the gun-carriages, and transferred his small command in two schooners to Fort Sumter. This act was without orders and against the do-nothing and helpless policy which had thus far controlled the Government. But it showed the wisdom and prompt decision of the trained soldier and the spirit of the loyal citizen. … Let us recall the appearance of Sumter when Anderson transferred his feeble garrison to its protection. The fort was built on an artificial island, which had been constructed by dumping stone upon a shoal that lay on the south side of the principal ship channel to Charleston Harbor. Sumter was pentagonal in form, and its five sides of brick, made solid by concrete, rose 60 feet above the water. It was pierced for an armament of 135 guns, which were to be placed in three tiers. {3412} Two tiers were to be in casemates, and one 'en barbette,' or on the top of the wall. The embrasures of the upper tier of casemates were never completed. They were filled up with brick during Major Anderson's occupation of the fort, and so remained during all the succeeding operations and siege. Seventy-eight guns of various calibre composed its then armament, the most efficient of which were placed 'en barbette.' On the east and west sides of the parade were barracks for the privates, and on the south side were the officers' quarters. These were all wooden structures. The wharf by which access was had to the fort was on the southern side against the gorge wall. Looking from the sea front, Sumter lay nearly midway between Sullivan's Island on the north and the low, sandy ridges of Morris on the south, and about 1,400 yards from either. The main ship channel was between Sumter and Sullivan's Island. The water between the fort and Morris Island was for the most part comparatively shallow. James Island lay to the west and southwest, while to the northwest, and at a distance of three and one-third miles, rose the steeples of Charleston. The city could have been barely reached by the heaviest guns of the barbette battery. Castle Pinckney lay in the direction of the city, and was distant about two and one-third miles. Sullivan's, Morris, and James Islands thus formed a segment of three-fourths of a circle around Sumter. They were so close under the guns of the fort that, with the then limited experience in the construction of earthworks, no batteries could have been erected under fire from Sumter sufficiently strong to prevent the re-enforcement and supplying of the fort, had Anderson been allowed to open fire at the first upon the rebel working parties. … At noon of December 27, the flag of the nation was raised over the defenders of the fort. Major Anderson knelt, holding the halliards, while Reverend Matthew Harris, an army chaplain, offered fervent prayer for that dear flag and for the loyal few who stood beneath its folds. … And then all wearily the days and weeks dragged on. New fortifications rose day by day on each sandhill about the harbor; vessels of war, bearing the Confederate flag, steamed insultingly near, and the islands were white as harvest fields, with the tents of the fast-gathering rebel soldiery; and still, by positive orders, Anderson was bidden to stand in idle helplessness beside his silent indignant cannon."

General Stewart L. Woodford, The Story of Fort Sumter (Personal Recollections of the War of the Rebellion, pages 259-266).

On the 29th of December, three days after Anderson had transferred his command to Fort Sumter, Floyd gave up his work of treachery in the War Department, and resigned. Howell Cobb had resigned the Treasury Department previously, on the 10th. A few days later, January 8, Jacob Thompson withdrew from the Interior Department. Loyal men now replaced these secessionists in the Cabinet. Joseph Holt of Kentucky took the place of Floyd in the War Department; John A. Dix of New York succeeded Cobb in the Treasury, and the place of Thompson was not filled. Edwin M. Stanton entered the Cabinet as Attorney-General, taking the place of Jeremiah S. Black who became Secretary of State. General Cass had held the State Department until December 12, when he, too, resigned, but for reasons opposite to those of Floyd and Cobb. He left the Government because it would not reinforce the Charleston forts.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, page 28.

ALSO IN: S. W. Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, chapters 1, and 6-10.

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 2, chapters 18-29, and volume 3, chapter 1-6.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860-1861 (December-February). Seizure of arms, arsenals, forts, and other public property by the Southern insurgents. Base surrender of an army by Twiggs.

"Directly after Major Anderson's removal to Fort Sumter, the Federal arsenal in Charleston, containing many thousand stand of arms and a considerable quantity of military stores, was seized by the volunteers, now flocking to that city by direction of the State authorities; Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie, and Sullivan's Island were likewise occupied by them, and their defenses vigorously enlarged and improved. The Custom-House, Post-Office, etc., were likewise appropriated, without resistance or commotion. … Georgia having given [January 2, 1861] a large popular majority for Secession, her authorities immediately took military possession of the Federal arsenal at Augusta, as also of Forts Pulaski and Jackson, commanding the approaches by sea to Savannah. North Carolina had not voted to secede, yet Governor Ellis simultaneously seized the United States Arsenal at Fayetteville, with Fort Macon, and other fortifications commanding the approaches to Beaufort and Wilmington. Having done so, Governor Ellis coolly wrote to the War Department that he had taken the step to preserve the forts from seizure by mobs! In Alabama, the Federal arsenal at Mobile was seized on the 4th, by order of Governor Moore. It contained large quantities of arms and munitions. Fort Morgan, commanding the approaches to Mobile, was likewise seized, and garrisoned by State troops. … In Louisiana, the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge was seized by order of Governor Moore on the 11th. Forts Jackson and St. Philip, commanding the passage up the Mississippi to New Orleans, and Fort Pike, at the entrance of Lake Pontchartrain, were likewise seized and garrisoned by State troops. The Federal Mint and Custom-House at New Orleans were left untouched until February 1st, when they, too, were taken possession of by the State authorities. … In Florida, Fort Barrancas and the Navy Yard at Pensacola were seized by Florida and Alabama forces on the 13th; Commander Armstrong surrendering them without a struggle. He ordered Lieutenant Slemmer, likewise, to surrender Forts Pickens and McRae; but the intrepid subordinate defied the order, and, withdrawing his small force from Fort McRae to the stronger and less accessible Fort Pickens, announced his determination to hold out to the last. He was soon after besieged therein by a formidable volunteer force; and a dispatch from Pensacola announced that 'Fort McRae is being occupied and the guns manned by the allied forces of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi.' … The revenue cutter Cass, stationed at Mobile, was turned over by Captain J. J. Morrison to the authorities of Alabama at the end of January. {3413} The McClellan, Captain Breshwood, stationed on the Mississippi below New Orleans, was, in like manner, handed over to those of Louisiana. General Dix had sent down a special agent to secure them, but he was too late. The telegraph dispatch whereby General Dix directed him, 'If any person' attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot,' sent an electric thrill through the loyal heart of the country. Finally, tidings reached Washington, about the end of February, that Brigadier-General Twiggs, commanding the department of Texas, had disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned over his entire army, with all the posts and fortifications, arms, munitions, horses, equipments, etc., to General Ben. M'Culloch, representing the authorities of Texas, now fully launched upon the rushing tide of treason. The Union lost by that single act at least half its military force, with the State of Texas, and the control of our Mexican frontier. … The defensive fortifications located within the seceding States were some 30 in number, mounting over 3,000 guns, and having cost at least $20,000,000. Nearly all these had been seized and appropriated by the Confederates before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, with the exception of Fortress Monroe (Virginia), Fort Sumter (South Carolina), Fort Pickens (Florida), and the fortresses on Key West and the Tortugas, off the Florida coast."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (January-February). Secession of Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas. Opposition of Alexander H. Stephens, in Georgia.

"On the 9th day of January, 1861, the State of Mississippi seceded from the Union. Alabama and Florida followed on the 11th day of the same month; Georgia on the 20th; Louisiana on the 26th; and Texas on the 1st of February. Thus, in less than three mouths after the announcement of Lincoln's election, all the Cotton States … had seceded from the Union, and had, besides, secured every Federal fort within their limits, except the forts in Charleston harbor, and Fort Pickens, below Pensacola, which were retained by United States troops."

E. A. Pollard, The First Year of the War, chapter 1.

The secession of Georgia was powerfully but vainly opposed by the foremost citizen of that state, Alexander H. Stephens, whose speech before the Legislature of Georgia, in protest against the disruption of the Union, had been one of the notable utterances of the time. "Shall the people of the South," asked Mr. Stephens, "secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the government, to withdraw from it because a man has been constitutionally elected, puts us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the constitution. Many of us have sworn to support it. Can we, therefore, for the mere election of a man to the presidency, and that, too, in accordance with the prescribed forms of the constitution, make a point of resistance to the government, without becoming the breakers of that sacred instrument ourselves, by withdrawing ourselves from it? Would we not be in the wrong? Whatever fate is to befall this country, let it never be laid to the charge of the people of the South, and especially to the people of Georgia, that we were untrue to our national engagements. Let the fault and the wrong rest upon others. … Let the fanatics of the North break the constitution, if such is their fell purpose. Let the responsibility be upon them. … We went into the election with this people. The result was different from what we wished; but the election has been constitutionally held. Were we to make a point of resistance to the government and go out of the Union on that account, the record would be made up hereafter against us. But it is said Mr. Lincoln's policy and principles are against the constitution, and that, if he carries them out, it will be destructive of our rights. Let us not anticipate a threatened evil. If he violates the constitution, then will come our time to act. Do not let us break it because, forsooth, he may. If he does, that is the time for us to strike. I think it would be injudicious and unwise to do this sooner. I do not anticipate that Mr. Lincoln will do anything to jeopard our safety or security, whatever may be his spirit to do it; for he is bound by the constitutional checks which are thrown around him, which at this time render him powerless to do any great mischief. This shows the wisdom of our system. The President of the United States is no emperor, no dictator—he is clothed with no absolute power. He can do nothing unless he is backed by power in Congress. The House of Representatives is largely in a majority against him. In the very face and teeth of the heavy majority which he has obtained in the northern States, there have been large gains in the House of Representatives to the conservative constitutional party of the country, which here I will call the national democratic party, because that is the cognomen it has at the North. … Is this the time, then, to apprehend that Mr. Lincoln, with this large majority in the House of Representatives against him, can carry out any of his unconstitutional principles in that body? In the Senate he will also be powerless. There will be a majority of four against him. … Mr. Lincoln cannot appoint an officer without the consent of the Senate—he cannot form a cabinet without the same consent. He will be in the condition of George the Third (the embodiment of toryism), who had to ask the whigs to appoint his ministers, and was compelled to receive a cabinet utterly opposed to his views; and so Mr. Lincoln will be compelled to ask of the Senate to choose for him a cabinet, if the democracy of that party chose to put him on such terms. He will be compelled to do this, or let the government stop, if the national democratic men (for that is their name at the North), the conservative men in the Senate, should so determine. Then how can Mr. Lincoln obtain a cabinet which would aid him, or allow him to violate the constitution? Why then, I say, should we disrupt the ties of this Union when his hands are tied—when he can do nothing against us?"

A. H. Stephens, Speech against Secession, November 14, 1860 (in "Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private; by H. Cleveland").

{3414}

But when Georgia, despite his exertions, was drawn into the movement of rebellion, Mr. Stephens surrendered to it, and lent his voice to the undertaking which he had proved to be without excuse.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (MARCH).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February). The Peace Convention.

"The General Assembly of Virginia, on the 19th of January, adopted resolutions inviting representatives of the several States to assemble in a Peace Convention at Washington, which met on the 4th of February. It was composed of 133 Commissioners, many from the border States, and the object of these was to prevail upon their associates from the North to unite with them in such recommendations to Congress as would prevent their own States from seceding and enable them to bring back six of the cotton States which had already seceded." On the 15th of February a committee of the Convention reported certain proposed amendments to the Constitution which "were substantially the same with the Crittenden Compromise;

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (DECEMBER) VAIN CONCESSIONS;

but on motion of Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, the general terms of the first and by far the most important section were restricted to the present Territories of the United States. On motion of Mr. Franklin, of Pennsylvania, this section was further amended, but not materially changed, by the adoption of the substitute offered by him. Nearly in this form it was afterwards adopted by the Convention. The following is a copy:

'In all the present territory of the United States north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, is prohibited. In all the present territory south of that line, the status of persons held to involuntary service or labor, as it now exists, shall not be changed; nor shall any law be passed by Congress or the Territorial Legislature to prevent the taking of such persons from any of the States of this Union to said territory, nor to impair the rights arising from said relation; but the same shall be subject to judicial cognizance in the Federal courts, according to the course of the common law. When any Territory north or south of said line, within such boundary as Congress may prescribe, shall contain a population equal to that required for a member of Congress, it shall, if its form of government be republican, be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, with or without involuntary servitude, as the Constitution of such State may provide.'…

More than ten days were consumed in discussion and in voting upon various propositions offered by individual commissioners. The final vote was not reached until Tuesday, the 26th February, when it was taken on the first vitally important section, as amended. This section, on which all the rest depended, was negatived by a vote of eight States to eleven. Those which voted in its favor were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. And those in the negative were Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Virginia." A reconsideration of the vote was moved, however, and on the day following (February 27), "the first section was adopted, but only by a majority of nine to eight States, nine being less than a majority of the States represented. … From the nature of this vote, it was manifestly impossible that two-thirds of both Houses of Congress should act favorably on the amendment, even if the delay had not already rendered such action impracticable before the close of the session. The remaining sections of the amendment were carried by small majorities," and the proposed amendment of the Constitution was reported to Congress, with a request that it be submitted to the Legislatures of the States, but no action upon it was taken.

T. V. Cooper, American Politics, pages 106-108.

"Most of the Southerners thought these propositions worse than nothing. Hunter preferred the present position under the constitution, with the Dred Scott decision as its exposition. Mason, the other Senator from the state that had issued the call for the Peace Convention, said that he would consider himself a traitor if he should recommend such propositions. Wigfall of Texas, however, bore off the palm by saying: 'If those resolutions were adopted, and ratified by three-fourths of the states of this Union, and no other cause ever existed, I make the assertion that the seven states now out of the Union would go out upon that.' Many of the Republicans were equally strong in their opposition to them. Chandler of Michigan spoke the substance of the opinions of several on his side of the Senate when he expressed himself in the language of the 'stump' by saying: 'No concession, no compromise,—ay, give us strife, even to blood,—before a yielding to the demands of traitorous insolence.' … John Tyler, the president of the convention that passed them, and Seddon returned to their state and denounced the recommendations of the Peace Convention as a delusion, a sham and an insult to the South. … Hawkins of Florida told the House, when the question was first touched upon, that the day of compromise was past and that he and his state were opposed to all and every compromise. Pugh and Clopton of Alabama both spoke boldly for secession and against any temporizing policy. Congress had been in session but ten days, and neither of the committees on compromise had had time to report, when a large number of the members of Congress from the extreme Southern States issued a manifesto declaring that 'argument was exhausted' and that 'the sole and primary aim of each slaveholding state ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from an unnatural and hostile Union.' … The boldness of these facts is startling, even when viewed at this distance. They make it perfectly evident that it was not the constitution which the South was desirous of saving, but the institution of slavery which she was determined to preserve. Likewise on the Northern side we find that those who were courageous, logical, and intellectually vigorous in political speculation considered the constitution of less importance than the development of their ideas of freedom. These people were called Abolitionists. Although their political strength was not great, some one of their many ideas found sympathy in the mind of almost every Northerner of education or of clear moral intentions. This explains how John A. Andrew could be elected governor of Massachusetts, although known to have presided over a John Brown meeting. {3415} The purpose of the Abolitionists was 'the utter extermination of slavery wheresoever it may exist.' Wendell Phillips surprised very few Abolitionists when, knowing that the Confederacy was forming, he rejoiced that 'the covenant with death' was annulled and 'the agreement with hell' was broken in pieces, and exclaimed: 'Union or no Union, constitution or no constitution, freedom for every man between the oceans, and from the hot Gulf to the frozen pole! You may as well dam up Niagara with bulrushes as bind our anti-slavery purpose with Congressional compromise.' Congress had to consider such facts as these, as well as the compromises which were proposed. Stephen A. Douglas felt compelled to say, as early as January, 1861, that there were Democrats in the Senate who did not want a settlement. And it was plain to all that most of the Republicans discouraged further concessions. Nor would a constitutional amendment have been possible unless the Northern members had first recognized the seven states as being out of the Union, for it would otherwise have required the support of all but one of the states that were still active. That the 'personal liberty' laws were a violation of the constitution, and that the execution of the fugitive slave law of 1850 had been unconstitutionally obstructed, were unquestioned facts, directly or indirectly recognized by many of the Republican leaders. Nevertheless, the North was much more inclined to continue in this unconstitutional position than to yield to the demands of the South."

_F. Bancroft, The Final Efforts at Compromise (Political Science Quarterly, September, 1891)._

ALSO IN: H. A. Wise, Seven Decades of the Union, chapter 15.

L. G. Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, volume 2, chapter 20.

L. E. Chittenden, Report of Debates and Proceedings in Secret Session of the Conference Convention, Washington, 1861.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February). Adoption of a Constitution for "The Confederate States of America." Election of a President and Vice President.

"Early in February, 1861, a convention of six seceding states, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, was held at Montgomery, Alabama. They were represented by 42 persons. Measures were taken for the formation of a provisional government. After the vote on the provisional Constitution was taken, Jefferson Davis was elected President, and Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President of the Confederacy for the current year. The inauguration of Mr. Davis took place on February 18th. Both were shortly after re-elected permanently for six years. … The permanent Constitution adopted for 'The Confederate States of America,' the title now assumed, was modeled substantially on that of the United States. It was remarked that, after all, the old Constitution was the most suitable basis for the new Confederacy. Among points of difference must be noticed that the new instrument broadly recognized, even in its preamble, the contested doctrine of state-rights. … Inducements and threats were applied to draw Virginia and the other Border States into the Confederacy. … With an ominous monition, the second article reads, 'Congress shall … have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any state not a member of this Confederacy.' At this time Virginia was receiving an annual income of $12,000,000 from the sale of slaves. In 1860 12,000 slaves were sent over her railroads to the South and Southwest. One thousand dollars for each was considered a low estimate. Notwithstanding this, the Ordinance of Secession did not pass the Virginia Convention until some weeks subsequently (April 17)."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 32 (volume 1).

The preamble of the Constitution declared that "the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, ordained a Constitution to form a permanent Federal Government and for other purposes. The change in phraseology was obviously to assert the derivative character of the Federal Government and to exclude the conclusion which Webster and others had sought to draw from the phrase, 'We, the people of the United States.' In the Executive department, the Constitution provided, in accordance with the early agreement of the Convention of 1787, that the President should be elected for six years and be ineligible. A seat upon the floor of either House of Congress might be granted to the principal officer in each of the Executive departments with the privilege of discussing any measures appertaining to his department. The President was empowered to remove at pleasure the principal officer in each of the Executive departments and all persons connected with the diplomatic service. To give entire control of Cabinet officers and of foreign ministers was considered to be necessary for the proper discharge of the President's duties and for the independence of his department. All other civil officers could be removed when their services were unnecessary, or for dishonesty, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty, but the removals in such cases, with the reasons therefor, were to be reported to the Senate, and no person rejected by the Senate could be reappointed to the same office during the recess of the Senate. The President was empowered, while approving portions of an appropriation bill, to disapprove particular items, as in other like cases of veto, the object being to defeat log-rolling combinations against the Treasury. Admitting members of the Cabinet to seats upon the floor of Congress with right of discussion (which worked well during the brief life of the Confederacy), was intended to secure greater facility of communication betwixt the Executive and the Legislative departments and enforce upon the heads of the departments more direct personal responsibility. By ineligibility of the President and restriction of the power of removal, the Congress, acting as a convention, sought to secure greater devotion to public interests, freedom from the corrupting influences of Executive patronage, and to break up the iniquitous spoils system which is such a peril to the purity and perpetuity of our Government. The Judicial department was permitted to remain substantially as it was in the old Government. The only changes were to authorize a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, the withholding from the Federal Courts jurisdiction of suits between citizens of different States, and the enactment of a wise provision that any judicial or other Federal officer, resident and acting solely within the limits of any State, might be impeached by a vote of two thirds of both branches of the Legislature thereof.

{3416}

The provisions in reference to the election of Senators and Representatives and the powers and duties of each House were unaltered except that the electors of each State were required to be citizens, and the Senators were to be chosen by the Legislatures of the State at the session next immediately preceding the beginning of the term of service. In reference to the general powers of Congress, some of the changes were more vital. The general welfare clause was omitted from the taxing grant. Bounties from the Treasury and extra compensation to contractors, officers, and agents were prohibited. 'A Protective Tariff' was so far forbidden that no duties or taxes on importations could be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry. Export duties were allowed with the concurrence of two thirds of both Houses. Congress was forbidden to make internal improvements except to furnish lights, beacons, buoys, to improve harbors, and to remove obstructions in river navigation, and the cost of these was to be paid by duties levied on the navigation facilitated. That the objects might be better attained, States, with the consent of Congress and under certain other restrictions, were allowed to lay a duty on the sea-going tonnage participating in the trades of the river or harbor improved. States, divided by rivers, or through which rivers flowed, could enter into compacts for improving their navigation. Uniform laws of naturalization and bankruptcy were authorized, but bankruptcy could not affect debts contracted prior to the passage of the law. A two-thirds vote was made requisite to appropriate money unless asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of the departments. Every law must relate but to one subject, and that was to be expressed in the title. To admit new States required a vote of two thirds of each House, the Senate voting by States. Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several conventions, Congress could summon a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution, but the convention was confined in its action to propositions suggested by the States making the call. … 'The importation of negroes of the African race was forbidden, and Congress was required to pass laws effectually to prevent it.' The right of transit or sojourn with slaves in any State was secured and fugitive slaves—called 'slaves' without the euphemism of the old instrument—were to be delivered up on the claim of the party to whom they belonged. Congress could prohibit the introduction of slaves from States and Territories not included in the Confederacy, and laws impairing the right of property in negro slaves were prohibited. Slaves could be carried into any Territory of the Confederacy by citizens of the Confederate States and be protected as property. This clause was intended to forbid 'squatter sovereignty,' and to prevent adverse action against property in slaves, until the Territory should emerge from a condition of pupilage and dependence into the dignity, equality, and sovereignty of a State, when its right to define 'property' would be beyond the interference or control of Congress."

J. L. M. Curry, The Southern States of the American Union, chapter 13.

Alexander H. Stephens, in his "Constitutional view of the late War between the States," expresses the opinion that the selection of Jefferson Davis for the Presidency of the Confederacy was due to a misunderstanding. He says that a majority of the states were looking to Georgia for the President, and the Georgia delegation had unanimously agreed to present Mr. Toombs, who would have been acceptable. But a rumor got currency that Georgia would put forward Howell Cobb, whereupon the other states took up Davis, and united upon him. It was generally understood, says Mr. Stephens, that Davis "did not desire the office of President. He preferred a military position, and the one he desired above all others was the chief command of the army."

A. H. Stephens, Constitutional View of the War between the States, volume 2, page 328-333.

ALSO IN: _R. B. Rhett, The Confederate Government at Montgomery (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1, pages 99-111)._

Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, part 3, chapter. 5, and appendix K (volume 1).

The text of both the Provisional and the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States is given in the appendix referred to.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February). Urgency of South Carolina for the reduction of Fort Sumter before the inauguration of President Lincoln.

"I am perfectly satisfied," wrote Governor Pickens of South Carolina to Howell Cobb, "President of the Provisional Congress" of the Confederacy, in a letter dated February 13, 1861,—"I am perfectly satisfied that the welfare of the new confederation and the necessities of the State require that Fort Sumter should be reduced before the close of the present administration at Washington. If an attack is delayed until after the inauguration of the incoming President of the United States, the troops now gathered in the capital may then be employed in attempting that which, previous to that time, they could not be spared to do. They dare not leave Washington now and do that which then will be a measure too inviting to be resisted. Mr. Lincoln cannot do more for this State than Mr. Buchanan has done. Mr. Lincoln will not concede what Mr. Buchanan has refused. Mr. Buchanan has placed his refusal upon grounds which determine his reply to six States, as completely as to the same demand if made by a single State. If peace can be secured, it will be by the prompt use of the occasion, when the forces of the United States are withheld from our harbor. If war can be averted, it will be by making the capture of Fort Sumter a fact accomplished during the continuance of the present administration, and leaving to the incoming administration the question of an open declaration of war. Such a declaration, separated, as it will be, from any present act of hostilities during Mr. Lincoln's administration, may become to him a matter requiring consideration. That consideration will not be expected of him, if the attack on the fort is made during his administration, and becomes, therefore, as to him, an act of present hostility. Mr. Buchanan cannot resist, because he has not the power. Mr. Lincoln may not attack, because the cause of the quarrel will have been, or may be, considered by him as past. Upon this line of policy I have acted, and upon the adherence to it may be found, I think, the most rational expectation of seeing that fort, which is even now a source of danger to the State, restored to the possession of the State without those consequences which I should most deeply deplore."

Official Records, volume 1, page 256.

{3417}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (February-March). The inauguration and the inaugural address of President Lincoln.

"On the 11th of February, with his family and some personal friends, Lincoln left his home at Springfield for Washington. … On his way to Washington, he passed through the great states of Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and was everywhere received with demonstrations of loyalty, as the representative of the national government. He addressed the people at the capitals of these states, and at many of their chief towns and cities. The city of Washington was surrounded by slave territory, and was really within the lines of the insurgents. Baltimore was not only a slaveholding city, but nowhere was the spirit of rebellion more hot and ferocious than among a large class of its people. The lower classes, the material of which mobs are made, were reckless, and ready for any outrage. From the date of his election to the time of his start for Washington, there had often appeared in the press and elsewhere, vulgar threats and menaces that he should never be inaugurated, nor reach the capital alive. Little attention was paid to these threats, yet some of the President's personal friends, without his knowledge, employed a detective, who sent agents to Baltimore and Washington to investigate. … The detectives ascertained the existence of a plot to assassinate the President elect, as he passed through Baltimore. The first intelligence of this conspiracy was communicated to Lincoln at Philadelphia. On the facts being laid before him, he was urged to take the train that night (the 21st of February), by which he would reach Washington the next morning, passing through Baltimore earlier than the conspirators expected, and thus avoid the danger. Having already made appointments to meet the citizens of Philadelphia at, and raise the United States flag over, Independence Hall, on Washington's birthday, the 22nd, and also to meet the Legislature of Pennsylvania at Harrisburgh, he declined starting for Washington that night. Finally his friends persuaded him to allow the detectives and the officers of the railways to arrange for him to return from Harrisburgh, and, by special train, to go to Washington the night following the ceremonies at Harrisburgh. … He went to Harrisburgh according to arrangement, met the Legislature, and retired to his room. In the meanwhile, General Scott and Mr. Seward had learned, through other sources, of the existence of the plot to assassinate him, and had despatched Mr. F. W. Seward, a son of Senator Seward, to apprise him of the danger. Information coming to him from both of these sources, each independent of the other, induced him to yield to the wishes of his friends, and anticipate his journey to Washington. Besides, there had reached him from Baltimore no committee, either of the municipal authorities or of citizens, to tender him the hospitalities, and to extend to him the courtesies of that city, as had been done by every other city through which he had passed. He was persuaded to permit the detective to arrange for his going to Washington that night. The telegraph wires to Baltimore were cut, Harrisburgh was isolated, and, taking a special train, he reached Philadelphia, and driving to the Baltimore depot, found the Washington train waiting his arrival, stepped on board, and passed on without interruption through Baltimore to the national capital. … He afterwards declared: 'I did not then, nor do I now believe I should have been assassinated, had I gone through Baltimore as first contemplated, but I thought it wise to run no risk where no risk was necessary.' … On the 4th of March, 1861, he was inaugurated President of the United States. … In the open air, and with a voice so clear and distinct that he could be heard by thrice ten thousand men, he read his inaugural address, and on the very verge of civil war, he made a most earnest appeal for peace."

I. N. Arnold, Life of Abraham Lincoln, chapters 11-12.

ALSO IN: J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 1, chapter 13.

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 3, chapters 19-21. _

H. J. Raymond, Life of Abraham Lincoln, chapters 5-6.

The following is the full text of the inaugural address, from Lincoln's "Complete Works."

"Fellow-Citizens of the United States: In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States to be taken by the President 'before he enters on the execution of his office.' I do not consider it necessary, at present, for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement. Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the southern states, that, by the accession of a republican administration, their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches, when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.' Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And, more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read: 'Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.' I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace, and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming administration. I add, too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the states when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause—as cheerfully to one section as to another. {3418} There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions: 'No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.' It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law-giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause 'shall be delivered up,' their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone, in any case, be content that this oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that 'the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states'? I take the official oath today with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional. It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our National Constitution. During that period, fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens have in succession administered the executive branch of the Government. They have conducted it through many perils, and generally with great success. Yet, with all this scope of precedent, I now enter upon the same task, for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted. I hold that in the contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the union of these states is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever, it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself. Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of states in the nature of a contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it—break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it? Descending from these genera] principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen states expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation, in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was 'to form a more perfect Union.' But if the destruction of the Union by one or by a part only of the states be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity. It follows from these views that no state, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence within any state or states against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I therefore consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and, to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself. In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects there will be no invasion, no using of force against or 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. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable 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 reflection. {3419} 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 exercised 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 sympathies and affections. That there are persons, in one section or another, who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union, may I not speak? Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to are greater than all the real ones you fly from—will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake? All profess to be content in the Union if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If, by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution—certainly would if such a right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities and of individuals are so plainly assured to them by affirmations and negations, guarantees and prohibitions in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain, express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by state authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the Territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the Government is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority in such case will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new Confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this. Is there such perfect identity of interests among the states to compose a new Union as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession? Plainly, the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy. A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism, in some form, is all that is left. I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decide by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must he binding in any case upon the parties to a suit, as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government; and while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the Court or the Judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes. One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive-slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured; and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections than before. The foreign slave-trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived, without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all by the other. Physically speaking, we cannot separate; we cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? {3420} Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the National Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject, to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor, rather than oppose, a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it. I will venture to add that to me the convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions originated by others not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable. The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the states. The people themselves can do this also if they choose, but the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor. Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world? In our present differences is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of Nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth and that justice will surely prevail by the judgment of this great tribunal, the American people. By the frame of the Government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have with equal wisdom provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals. While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the Government in the short space of four years. My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty. In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.' I am loth to close. W are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (March). President Lincoln and his Cabinet. Secretary Seward.

President Lincoln, "in selecting his cabinet, which he did substantially before he left Springfield for Washington, … thought it wise to call to his assistance the strong men of his party, especially those who had given evidence of the support they commanded as his competitors in the Chicago convention. … This was sound policy under the circumstances. It might indeed have been foreseen that among the members of a cabinet so composed, troublesome disagreements and rivalries would break out. But it was better for the President to have these strong and ambitious men near him as his coöperators than to have them as his critics in Congress, where their differences might have been composed in a common opposition to him. As members of his cabinet he could hope to control them, and to keep them busily employed in the service of a common purpose, if he had the strength to do so. Whether he did possess this strength was soon tested by a singularly rude trial. There can be no doubt that the foremost members of his cabinet, Seward and Chase, the most eminent Republican statesmen, had felt themselves wronged by their party when in its national convention it preferred to them for the presidency a man whom, not unnaturally, they thought greatly their inferior in ability and experience as well as in service. … Seward, who, as Secretary of State, considered himself next to the Chief Executive, and who quickly accustomed himself to giving orders and making arrangements upon his own motion, thought it necessary that he should rescue the direction of public affairs from hands so unskilled, and take full charge of them himself. At the end of the first month of the administration he submitted a 'memorandum' to President Lincoln, which has been first brought to light by Nicolay and Hay, and is one of their most valuable contributions to the history of those days.

{3421}

In that paper Seward actually told the President that, at the end of a month's administration, the government was still without a policy, either domestic or foreign; that the slavery question should be eliminated from the struggle about the Union; that the matter of the maintenance of the forts and other possessions in the South should be decided with that view; that explanations should be demanded categorically from the governments of Spain and France, which were then preparing, one for the annexation of San Domingo, and both for the invasion of Mexico; that if no satisfactory explanations were received war should be declared against Spain and France by the United States; that explanations should also be sought from Russia and Great Britain, and a vigorous continental spirit of independence against European intervention be aroused all over the American continent; that this policy should be incessantly pursued and directed by somebody; that either the President should devote himself entirely to it, or devolve the direction on some member of his cabinet, whereupon all debate on this policy must end. This could be understood only as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. … Had Lincoln, as most Presidents would have done, instantly dismissed Seward, and published the true reason for that dismissal, it would inevitably have been the end of Seward's career. But Lincoln did what not many of the noblest and greatest men in history would have been noble and great enough to do. He considered that Seward was still capable of rendering great service to his country in the place in which he was, if rightly controlled. He ignored the insult, but firmly established his superiority. In his reply, which he forthwith dispatched, he told Seward that the administration had a domestic policy as laid down in the inaugural address with Seward's approval; that it had a foreign policy as traced in Seward's dispatches with the President's approval; that if any policy was to be maintained or changed, he, the President, was to direct that on his responsibility; and that in performing that duty the President had a right to the advice of his secretaries. Seward's fantastic schemes of foreign war and continental policies Lincoln brushed aside by passing them over in silence. Nothing more was said. Seward must have felt that he was at the mercy of a superior man."

Carl Schurz, Abraham Lincoln, pages 67-73.

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln: a History, volume 3, chapters 22 and 26.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (March). Surrender of Alexander H. Stephens to Secession. His "Corner-stone" speech at Savannah.

The following is from a speech made by Alexander H. Stephens at Savannah, on the evening after the secession of Georgia, which he had opposed, but to which he now yielded himself without reserve. It is a speech that became famous on account of its bold declaration that Slavery formed the "corner-stone" of the New Confederacy. "The new constitution," said Mr. Stephens, "has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution—African slavery as it exists amongst us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the 'storm came and the wind blew.' Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery —subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us."

A. H. Stephens, Speech in Savannah, March 21, 1861 (in "Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private; by H. Cleveland").

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (March-April). The breaking of rebellion into open war by the attack on Fort Sumter. President Lincoln's statement of the circumstances. His first difficulties. Attitude of the Border States.

The circumstances under which the first blow of the civil war was struck by the rebels at Charleston were recited by President Lincoln, in his Message to Congress, at the special session convened July 4, 1861; "On the 5th of March (the present incumbent's first full day in office), a letter of Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Sumter, written on the 28th of February and received at the War Department on the 4th of March, was by that department placed in his hands. This letter expressed the professional opinion of the writer that reinforcements could not be thrown into that fort within the time for his relief, rendered necessary by the limited supply of provisions, and with a view of holding possession of the same, with a force of less than 20,000 good and well-disciplined men. This opinion was concurred in by all the officers of his command, and their memoranda on the subject were made inclosures of Major Anderson's letter. {3422} The whole was immediately laid before Lieutenant-General Scott, who at once concurred with Major Anderson in opinion. On reflection, however, he took full time, consulting with other officers, both of the army and the navy, and at the end of four days came reluctantly but decidedly to the same conclusion as before. He also stated at the same time that no such sufficient force was then at the control of the government, or could be raised and brought to the ground within the time when the provisions in the fort would be exhausted. In a purely military point of view, this reduced the duty of the administration in the case to the mere matter of getting the garrison safely out of the fort. It was believed, however, that to so abandon that position, under the circumstances, would be utterly ruinous; that the necessity under which it was to be done would not be fully understood; that by many it would be construed as a part of a voluntary policy; that at home it would discourage the friends of the Union, embolden its adversaries, and go far to insure to the latter a recognition abroad; that, in fact, it would be our national destruction consummated. This could not be allowed. Starvation was not yet upon the garrison, and ere it would be reached Fort Pickens might be reinforced. This last would be a clear indication of policy, and would better enable the country to accept the evacuation of Fort Sumter as a military necessity. An order was at once directed to be sent for the landing of the troops from the steamship 'Brooklyn' into Fort Pickens. This order could not go by land, but must take the longer and slower route by sea. The first return news from the order was received just one week before the fall of Fort Sumter. The news itself was that the officer commanding the 'Sabine,' to which vessel the troops had been transferred from the 'Brooklyn,' acting upon some quasi armistice of the late administration (and of the existence of which the present administration, up to the time the order was despatched, had only too vague and uncertain rumors to fix attention), had refused to land the troops. To now reinforce Fort Pickens before a crisis would be reached at Fort Sumter was impossible—rendered so by the near exhaustion of provisions in the latter-named fort. In precaution against such a conjuncture, the government had, a few days before, commenced preparing an expedition as well adapted as might be to relieve Fort Sumter, which expedition was intended to be ultimately used, or not, according to circumstances. The strongest anticipated case for using it was now presented, and it was resolved to send it forward. As had been intended in this contingency, it was also resolved to notify the governor of South Carolina that he might expect an attempt would be made to provision the fort; and that, if the attempt should not be resisted, there would be no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the fort. This notice was accordingly given; whereupon the fort was attacked and bombarded to its fall, without even awaiting the arrival of the provisioning expedition. It is thus seen that the assault upon and reduction of Fort Sumter was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, pages 56-57.

The President's delay of action in the case of Fort Sumter was mainly due, on the political side of the question, to the state of things in the border states—especially in Virginia. "There were fifteen slave states, which those engaged in the rebellion hoped to lead or to force into secession. At the time of the inauguration, only seven of these fifteen—less than a majority—had revolted. The cotton states alone had followed the lead of South Carolina out of the Union. Several weeks had passed since a state had seceded; and unless other states could be dragooned into the movement, the rebellion would be practically a failure from the start. Such a confederacy could not hope to live a year, and would be obliged to find its way back into the Union upon some terms. In the meantime, two or three conventions in the border states [Virginia, April 4, and Missouri, March], delegated freshly from the people, had voted distinctly and decidedly not to secede. [Kentucky and Tennessee had refused even the call of conventions; while North Carolina, February 28, and Arkansas, March 18, of the states farther south, had voted secession down.] The affairs of the confederacy were really in a very precarious condition when Mr. Lincoln came into power. The rebel government was making very much more bluster than progress. It became Mr. Lincoln's policy so to conduct affairs as to strengthen the Union feeling in the border states, and to give utterance to no sentiment and to do no deed which should drive these states toward the confederacy. … The confederacy found that it must make progress or die. The rebel Congress passed a measure for the organization of an army, on the 9th of March, and on the 12th two confederate commissioners—Mr. Forsyth of Alabama and Mr. Crawford of Georgia—presented themselves at the State Department at Washington for the purpose of making a treaty with the United States. They knew, of course, that they could not be received officially, and that they ought to be arrested for treason. The President would not recognize them, but sent to them a copy of his inaugural, as the embodiment of the views of the government. … In the meantime, Lieutenant Talbot, on behalf of Mr. Lincoln, was having interviews with Governor Pickens of South Carolina and with General Beauregard, in command of the confederate forces there, in which he informed them that provisions would be sent to Fort Sumter, peaceably if possible,—otherwise by force. This was communicated to L. P. Walker, then rebel Secretary of War. Before Talbot had made his communication, Beauregard had informed Major Anderson, in command of Fort Sumter, that he must have no further intercourse with Charleston; and Talbot himself was refused permission to visit that gallant and faithful officer. … The wisdom of Mr. Lincoln's waiting became evident at a day not too long delayed. Fort Pickens, which the rebels had not taken, was quietly reinforced [April 12], and when the vessels which carried the relief [to Sumter] were dispatched, Mr. Lincoln gave official information to General Beauregard that provisions were to be sent to Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, by an unarmed vessel. He was determined that no hostile act on the part of the government should commence the war, for which both sides were preparing; although an act of open war had already transpired in Charleston harbor"—the rebel batteries having fired upon and driven off the unarmed steamer Star of the West, which had been sent to convey troops and provisions to Fort Sumter on the 9th of January, two months before Lincoln's inauguration. {3423} "Beauregard laid this last intelligence before his Secretary of War, and, under special instructions, on the 12th of April, he demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter. He was ready to make the demand, and to back it by force. The city of Charleston was full of troops, and, for months, batteries had been in course of construction, with the special purpose of compelling the surrender of the fort. Major Anderson had seen these batteries going up, day after day, without the liberty to fire a gun. He declined to surrender. He was called upon to state when he would evacuate the fort. He replied that on the 15th he would do so, should he not meantime receive controlling instructions from the government, or additional supplies. The response which he received was that the confederate batteries would open on Fort Sumter in one hour from the date of the message. The date of the message was 'April 12, 1861, 3:30 A. M.' Beauregard was true to his word. At half past four the batteries opened upon the Fort, which, after a long and terrible bombardment, and a gallant though comparatively feeble defense by a small and half-starved garrison, was surrendered the following day. … The fall of Sumter was the resurrection of patriotism. The North needed just this. Such a universal burst of patriotic indignation as ran over the North under the influence of this insult to the national flag has never been witnessed. It swept away all party lines as if it had been flame and they had been flax."

J. G. Holland, Life of Lincoln, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: F. W. Seward, Seward at Washington, chapter 56.

S. W. Crawford, Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, chapters 24-32.

A. Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie, chapters 8-11.

A. Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, volume 1, chapters 2-4.

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, The Century Company, volume 1, pages 40-83.

_S. L. Woodford, The Story of Fort Sumter (Personal Recollections of the War: N. Y. Com. L. L. of the United States)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April). President Lincoln's call to arms. The mighty uprising of the North. The response of disloyal Governors.

"By the next morning (Sunday April 14) the news of the close of the bombardment and capitulation of Sumter was in Washington. In the forenoon, at the time Anderson and his garrison were evacuating the fort, Lincoln and his Cabinet, together with sundry military officers, were at the Executive Mansion, giving final shape to the details of the action the Government had decided to take. A proclamation, drafted by himself, copied on the spot by his secretary, was concurred in by his Cabinet, signed, and sent to the State Department to be sealed, filed, and copied for publication in the next morning's newspapers. The document bears date April 15 (Monday), but was made and signed on Sunday." It was as follows:

"Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, 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: Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country. And I hereby command the persons composing the combination aforesaid to disperse and retire peacefully to their respective abodes within twenty days from date. Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective chambers, at twelve o'clock noon, on Thursday the fourth day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-fifth. Abraham Lincoln. By the President: William H. Seward, Secretary of State."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, page 34.

"In view of the subsequent gigantic expansion of the civil war, eleventh-hour critics continue to insist that a larger force should have been called at once. They forget that this was nearly five times the then existing regular army; that only very limited quantities of arms, equipments, and supplies were in the Northern arsenals; that the treasury was bankrupt; and that an insignificant eight million loan had not two weeks before been discounted nearly six per cent. by the New York bankers, some bids ranging as low as eighty-five. They forget that the shameful events of the past four months had elicited scarcely a spark of war feeling; that the loyal States had suffered the siege of Sumter and firing on the 'Star of the West' with a dangerous indifference. They forget the doubt and dismay, the panic of commerce, the division of counsels, the attacks from within, the sneers from without—that faith seemed gone and patriotism dead. Twenty-four hours later all this was measurably changed, … The guns of the Sumter bombardment woke the country from the political nightmare which had so long tormented and paralyzed it. {3424} The lion of the North was fully roused. Betrayed, insulted, outraged, the free States arose as with a cry of pain and vengeance. War sermons from pulpits; war speeches in every assemblage; tenders of troops; offers of money; military proclamations and orders in every newspaper; every city radiant with bunting; every village-green a mustering ground; war appropriations in every legislature and in every city or town council; war preparations in every public or private workshop; gun-casting in the great foundries; cartridge-making in the principal towns; camps and drills in the fields; parades, drums, flags, and bayonets in the streets; knitting, bandage-rolling, and lint-scraping in nearly every household. Before the lapse of forty-eight hours a Massachusetts regiment, armed and equipped, was on its way to Washington; within the space of a month the energy and intelligence of the country were almost completely turned from the industries of peace to the activities of war."

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 4, chapters 4-5.

"In intelligence no army, except perhaps the Athenian, can have ever equalled or approached that of the North. Most of the soldiers carried books and writing materials in their knapsacks, and mail bags heavily weighted with letters were sent from every cantonment. Such privates would sometimes reason instead of obeying, and they would see errors of their commanders to which they had better have been blind. But on the whole, in a war in which much was thrown upon the individual soldier, intelligence was likely to prevail. In wealth, in the means of providing the weapons and ammunitions of war, the North had an immense advantage, which, combined with that of numbers, could not fail, if, to use Lincoln's homely phrase, it 'pegged away,' to tell in the end. It was also vastly superior in mechanical invention; which was destined to play a great part, and in mechanical skill; almost every Yankee regiment was full of mechanics, some of whom could devise as well as execute. In artillery and engineering the North took the lead from the first, having many civil engineers, whose conversion into military civil engineers was easy. The South, to begin with, had the contents of Federal arsenals and armouries, which had been well stocked by the provident treason of Buchanan's Minister of War. … But when these resources were exhausted, replacement was difficult, the blockade having been established, though extraordinary efforts in the way of military manufacture were made. To the wealthy North, besides its own factories, were opened the markets of England and the world. Of the small regular army the Confederacy had carried off a share, with nearly half the regular officers. The South had the advantage of the defensive, which, with long-range muskets and in a difficult country, was reckoned in battle as five to two. The South had the superiority of the unity, force, and secrecy which autocracy lends to the operations of war. On the side of the North these were comparatively wanting."

Goldwin Smith, The United States, chapter 5.

In six of the eight Slave-labor States included in the call, the President's Proclamation and the requisition of the Secretary of War "were treated by the authorities with words of scorn and defiance. The exceptions were Maryland and Delaware. In the other States, disloyal Governors held the reins of power. 'I have only to say,' replied Governor Letcher of Virginia, 'that the militia of this State will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object—an object, in my judgment, not within the province of the Constitution or the Act of 1795—will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the Administration has exhibited toward the South.' Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, answered:—'Your dispatch is received, and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in reply, that I regard the levy of troops, made by the Administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.' Governor Magoffin, of Kentucky, replied:—'Your dispatch is received. I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States.' Governor Harris, of Tennessee, said:—'Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but 50,000, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those of our Southern brethren.' Governor Rector, of Arkansas, replied:—'In answer to your requisition for troops from Arkansas to subjugate the Southern States, I have to say that none will be furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury.' … Governor Jackson, of Missouri, responded:—'There can be, I apprehend, no doubt that these men are intended to make war upon the seceded States. Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its objects, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on such an unholy crusade.' … Governor Hicks, of Maryland, appalled by the presence of great dangers, and sorely pressed by the secessionists on every side, hastened, in a proclamation, to assure the people of his State that no troops would be sent from Maryland unless it might be for the defense of the National Capital, and that they (the people) would, in a short time, 'have the opportunity afforded them, in a special election for members of the Congress of the United States, to express their devotion to the Union, or their desire to see it broken up.' Governor Burton, of Delaware, made no response until the 26th, when he informed the President that he had no authority to comply with his requisition. At the same time he recommended the formation of volunteer companies for the protection of the citizens and property of Delaware, and not for the preservation of the Union. … In the seven excepted Slave-labor States in which insurrection prevailed, the proclamation and the requisition produced hot indignation, and were assailed with the bitterest scorn. … Even in the Free-labor States, there were vehement opposers of the war policy of the Government from its inception." But, speaking generally, "the uprising of the people of the Free-labor States in defense of Nationality was a sublime spectacle. Nothing like it had been seen on the earth since the preaching of Peter the Hermit and of Pope Urban the Second filled all Christian Europe with religious zeal, and sent armed hosts, with the cry of 'God wills it! God wills it!' to rescue the sepulcher of Jesus from the hands of the infidel."

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 1, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: F. Moore, editor, Rebellion Record, volume 1.

W. J. Tenney, Military and Naval History of the Rebellion, chapters 4-6.

{3425}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April). The Morrill Tariff Act.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1861-1864 (UNITED STATES).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April). Secession of Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-JUNE).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April). Activity of Rebellion in Virginia and Maryland. Peril of the national capital. Attack on Massachusetts volunteers in Baltimore.

"Massachusetts, always the most zealous, was the first in the field [with troops in response to the President's call], and on the 17th [April] she forwarded a regiment of volunteers from Boston to Washington. Pennsylvania, although nearly one-half of her votes had been given for Mr. Breckinridge, followed this example; and, owing to her geographical position, her volunteers reached the shores of the Potomac in advance of all the others. After passing through the great city of Baltimore in the midst of an incipient insurrection, they encamped around the Capitol, on the 18th of April. The seceders, on their side, had not lost a moment in Virginia. They were in possession of Richmond, where the convention was in session. … The workshops and arsenal of Harper's Ferry, situated at the confluence of the Potomac and the Shenandoah, on a spot which was destined to play an important part during the war, were only guarded by a detachment of 64 dismounted dragoons; and the Virginia volunteers, assembled in the valleys of the Blue Ridge, were ready to take possession of them as soon as the ordinance for the secession of Virginia should furnish them a pretext. They were then to cross the Potomac and join the insurgents of Maryland, for the purpose of attempting the capture of Washington, where their accomplices were expecting them. On the morning of the 18th [April], a portion of them were on their march, in the hope of seizing the prey which was to be of so much value to the future armies of the Confederacy. But Lieutenant Jones, who was in command at Harper's Ferry, had been informed of the approach of the Confederate troops under the lead of Ashby—a chief well known since; notwithstanding their despatch, they only arrived in sight of Harper's Ferry in time to see from a distance a large conflagration that was consuming the workshops, store-houses, and the enormous piles of muskets heaped in the yards, while the Federal soldiers who had just kindled it were crossing the Potomac on their way to Washington. The Confederates found nothing but smoking ruins, and some machinery, which they sent to Richmond; their allies from Maryland had not made their appearance, and they did not feel strong enough to venture alone to the other side of the Potomac. During the last few days the authorities of Virginia had been making preparations for capturing the Norfolk [or Gosport] arsenal (navy-yard). That establishment possessed a magnificent granite basin, construction docks, and a depot of artillery with more than 2,000 guns; a two-decked vessel was on the stocks, two others, with a three-decker, three frigates, a steam sloop, and a brig, lay dismantled in the port; the steam frigate Merrimac was there undergoing repairs; the steam sloop Germantown was in the harbor ready to go to sea, while the sailing sloop Cumberland was lying to at the entrance of the port. … Commodore McCauley, the Federal commandant, was surrounded by traitors," and, being deficient in energy and capability, he allowed himself to be put in a position where he thought it necessary to sink all the vessels in the harbor except the Cumberland. As they were sinking, reinforcements arrived from Washington, under Captain Paulding, who superseded McCauley in command. But they came too late. Captain Paulding could do nothing except hastily destroy as far as possible the sinking ships and the arsenal buildings, and then retreat. "The Confederates found abundant resources in artillery and 'materiel' of every description in Norfolk; the fire was soon extinguished, the docks repaired, and they succeeded in raising the Merrimac, which we shall see at work the following year. Fort Monroe had just been occupied by a small Federal garrison. Its loss would have been even more disastrous to the Federal cause than that of the Norfolk navy-yard and arsenal, because the Confederates, instead of having to cover Richmond, would have been able to blockade Washington by sea and besiege it by land. … The example of Virginia fired the enthusiasm of the secessionists everywhere, and they applied themselves to the task of drawing into the conflict those slave States which were still hesitating. … The sight of the Pennsylvania volunteers had caused a great irritation in Baltimore. That city, the largest in the slave States, … warmly sympathized with the South. Her location on the railway line which connects Washington with the great cities of the North imparted to her a peculiar importance. Consequently, the accomplices of the South, who were numerous in Baltimore, determined to seize the first opportunity that might offer to drag that city into the rebellion. … The looked-for opportunity occurred … April 19. When the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, with a few battalions of Pennsylvania volunteers, arrived at the northern station, an immense crowd bore down upon them. A line of rails, laid in the centre of the streets, connected this with the southern station, and enabled the cars, drawn by horses, to pass through the city. The crowd surround the soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts, who occupy these cars. The last cars are stopped, and the occupants, being obliged to get out, endeavor to make their way through the crowd. But, being hemmed in on all sides, they are soon attacked by a shower of stones, which wound many of them, and injure a few mortally. The soldiers have to defend themselves, and the first discharge of musketry, which has considerable effect, opens them a passage. But the aggressors, being armed, rally, and a regular battle ensues. … The ground is strewn with the wounded of both parties. At last, the Massachusetts soldiers rejoin their comrades at the southern station," and are conveyed to Washington. "Baltimore was thenceforth in possession of the secessionists, who were fully determined to take advantage of the situation of that city to intercept all communications between Washington and the North. {3426} Accordingly, they hastened to burn the railroad bridges which had been constructed over large estuaries north of Baltimore, and to cut the telegraph wires. Deprived of all sources of information from the North, the capital of the Union was soon wrapped in mournful silence. For some days the occupant of the White House was unable to forward any instructions to the people who had remained faithful to the Union; but their zeal did not abate on that account. Patriotism extinguished all party animosities in the hearts of most of the Democrats who had opposed the election of Mr. Lincoln. In the presence of the national peril they loyally tendered their assistance to the President; and breaking loose from their former accomplices of the South, they assumed the name of War Democrats in opposition to that of Peace Democrats."

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 1, book 2, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: J. W. Hanson, History of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers, pages 21-57.

_G. W. Brown, Baltimore and the 29th of April, 1861 (Johns Hopkins University Studies, extra volume 3)._

Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 2.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April: South Carolina). Monarchical cravings. Intensity of the Carolinian hatred of New England and the North.

Mr. Russell, who was famous in his day as a correspondent of "The Times" (London), spent some time in South Carolina at the beginning of the war, and described the state of feeling there in a letter from Charleston, written at the end of April: "Nothing I could say," he wrote, "can be worth one fact which has forced itself upon my mind in reference to the sentiments which prevail among the gentlemen of this State. I have been among them for several days. I have visited their plantations, I have conversed with them freely and fully, and I have enjoyed that frank, courteous and graceful intercourse which constitutes an irresistible charm of their society. From all quarters have come to my ears the echoes of the same voice. … That voice says, 'If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content.' Let there be no misconception on this point. That sentiment, varied in a hundred ways, has been repeated to me over and over again. There is a general admission that the means to such an end are wanting, and that the desire cannot be gratified. But the admiration for monarchical institutions on the English model, for privileged classes, and for a landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. With the pride of having achieved their independence is mingled in the South Carolinians' hearts a strange regret at the result and consequences, and many are they who 'would go back tomorrow if we could.' An intense affection for the British connection, a love of British habits and customs, a respect for British sentiment, law, authority, order, civilization, and literature, preeminently distinguish the inhabitants of this State, who, glorying in their descent from ancient families on the three islands, whose fortunes they still follow, and with whose members they maintain not unfrequently familiar relations, regard with an aversion of which it is impossible to give an idea to one who has not seen its manifestations, the people of New England and the populations of the Northern States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure by the venom of 'Puritanism.' Whatever may be the cause, this is the fact and the effect. 'The State of South Carolina was,' I am told, 'founded by gentlemen.' It was not established by witch-burning Puritans, by cruel persecuting fanatics, who implanted in the North the standard of Torquemada, and breathed into the nostrils of their newly-born colonies all the ferocity, blood-thirstiness, and rabid intolerance of the Inquisition. … We could have got on with these fanatics if they had been either Christians or gentlemen,' says [one], 'for in the first case they would have acted with common charity, and in the second they would have fought when they insulted us; but there are neither Christians nor gentlemen among them!' 'Any thing on earth!' exclaims [another], 'any form of government, any tyranny or despotism you will; but '—and here is an appeal more terrible than the adjuration of all the Gods—'nothing on earth shall ever induce us to submit to any union with the brutal, bigoted blackguards of the New England States, who neither comprehend nor regard the feelings of gentlemen! Man, woman and child, we'll die first.' … The hatred of the Italian for the Tedesco, of the Greek for the Turk, of the Turk for the Russ, is warm and fierce enough to satisfy the prince of darkness, not to speak of a few little pet aversions among allied powers and the atoms of composite empires; but they are all mere indifference and neutrality of feeling compared to the animosity evinced by the 'gentry' of South Carolina for the 'rabble of the North.' The contests of Cavalier and Roundhead, of Vendean and Republican, even of Orangeman and Croppy, have been elegant joustings, regulated by the finest rules of chivalry, compared with those which North and South will carry on if their deeds support their words. 'Immortal hate, the study of revenge' will actuate every blow, and never in the history of the world, perhaps, will go forth such a 'væ victis' as that which may be heard before the fight has begun. There is nothing in all the dark caves of human passion so cruel and deadly as the hatred the South Carolinians profess for the Yankees. That hatred has been swelling for years, till it is the very life-blood of the state. … Believe a southern man as he believes himself, and you must regard New England and the kindred States as the birthplace of impurity of mind among men and of unchastity in women—the home of free love, of Fourrierism, of infidelity, of abolitionism, of false teachings in political economy and in social life; a land saturated with the drippings of rotten philosophy, with the poisonous infections of a fanatic press; without honor or modesty; whose wisdom is paltry cunning, whose valor and manhood have been swallowed up in a corrupt, howling demagogy, and in the marts of a dishonest commerce."

_W. H. Russell, Letter to the Times (London), April 30, 1861._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April-May). Proclamation by the Confederate President. President Lincoln's proclamation of a Blockade of Southern ports. The Queen's proclamation of British neutrality.

On the 17th of April, two days after President Lincoln's call for troops, Jefferson Davis, the chief of the rebellious Confederacy, published a counter-proclamation, giving notice of the intention of the government at Montgomery to issue letters of marque to privateers, for the destruction of American commerce. It was as follows:

"Whereas, Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States has, by proclamation announced the intention of invading this Confederacy with an armed force, for the purpose of capturing its fortresses, and thereby subverting its independence, and subjecting the free people thereof to the dominion of a foreign power; and whereas it has thus become the duty of this Government to repel the threatened invasion, and to defend the rights and liberties of the people by all the means which the laws of nations and the usages of civilized warfare place at its disposal; Now, therefore, I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, do issue this my Proclamation, inviting all those who may desire, by service in private armed vessels on the high seas, to aid this Government in resisting so wanton and wicked an aggression, to make application for commissions or Letters of Marque and Reprisal, to be issued under the Seal of these Confederate States. And I do further notify all persons applying for Letters of Marque, to make a statement in writing, giving the name and a suitable description of the character, tonnage, and force of the vessel, and the name and place of residence of each owner concerned therein, and the intended number of the crew, and to sign said statement and deliver the same to the Secretary of State, or to the Collector of any port of entry of these Confederate States, to be by him transmitted to the Secretary of State. And I do further notify all applicants aforesaid that before any commission or Letter of Marque is issued to any vessel, the owner or owners thereof, and the commander for the time being, will be required to give bond to the Confederate States, with at least two responsible sureties, not interested in such vessel, in the penal sum of five thousand dollars; or if such vessel be provided with more than one hundred and fifty men, then in the penal sum of ten thousand dollars, with condition that the owners, officers, and crew who shall be employed on board such commissioned vessel, shall observe the laws of these Confederate States and the instructions given to them for the regulation of their conduct. That they shall satisfy all damages done contrary to the tenor thereof by such vessel during her commission, and deliver up the same when revoked by the President of the Confederate States. And I do further specially enjoin on all persons holding offices, civil and military, under the authority of the Confederate States, that they be vigilant and zealous in discharging the duties incident thereto; and I do, moreover, solemnly exhort the good people of these Confederate States as they love their country, as they prize the blessings of free government, as they feel the wrongs of the past and these now threatened in aggravated form by those whose enmity is more implacable because unprovoked, that they exert themselves in preserving order, in promoting concord, in maintaining the authority and efficacy of the laws, and in supporting and invigorating all the measures which may be adopted for the common defence, and by which, under the blessing of Divine Providence, we may hope for a speedy, just, and honorable peace. In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the Seal of the Confederate States to be affixed, this seventeenth day of April 1861. By the President, (Signed) Jefferson Davis. R. Toombs, Secretary of State."

The response to this menace was a second proclamation by President Lincoln, announcing a blockade of the ports of the Confederacy, and warning all persons who should accept and act under the proposed letters of marque that they would be held amenable to the laws against piracy. This proclamation was in the following language:

"Whereas an insurrection against the government of the United States has broken out in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, and the laws of the United States for the collection of the revenue cannot be effectually executed therein conformably to that provision of the Constitution which requires duties to be uniform throughout the United States: And whereas a combination of persons engaged in such insurrection have threatened to grant pretended letters of marque to authorize the bearers thereof to commit assaults on the lives, vessels, and property of good citizens of the country lawfully engaged in commerce on the high seas, and in waters of the United States: And whereas an executive proclamation has been already issued requiring the persons engaged in these disorderly proceedings to desist therefrom, calling out a militia force for the purpose of repressing the same, and convening Congress in extraordinary session to deliberate and determine thereon: Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, with a view to the same purposes before mentioned, and to the protection of the public peace, and the lives and property of quiet and orderly citizens pursuing their lawful occupations, until Congress shall have assembled and deliberated on the said unlawful proceedings, or until the same shall have ceased, have further deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and of the law of nations in such case provided. For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach or shall attempt to leave either of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the commander of one of the blockading vessels, who will indorse on her register the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured and sent to the nearest convenient port, for such proceedings against her and her cargo, as prize, as may be deemed advisable. And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person, under the pretended authority of the said States, or under any other pretense, shall molest a vessel of the United States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for the prevention and punishment of piracy. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-fifth. Abraham Lincoln. By the President: William H. Seward, Secretary of State."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, pages 35-36.

{3428}

Apparently on unofficial information of these announcements, indicating a state of civil war in the United States, the Government of Great Britain made haste—unfriendly haste, as the United States complained—to declare neutrality between the belligerents, thus placing the insurgent Confederacy on an exactly equal footing with the United States so far as a foreign recognition might do so. The Queen's Proclamation was as follows:

"Whereas, We are happily at peace with all Sovereigns, Powers, and States; And whereas hostilities have unhappily commenced between the Government of the United States of America and certain States styling themselves 'the Confederate States of America'; And whereas we, being at peace with the Government of the United States, have declared our Royal determination to maintain a strict and impartial neutrality in the contest between the said contending parties; We, therefore, have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation: And we do hereby strictly charge and command all our loving subjects to observe a strict neutrality in and during the aforesaid hostilities, and to abstain from violating or contravening either the laws and statutes of the realm in this behalf, or the law of nations in relation thereto, as they will answer to the contrary at their peril." After reciting the language of certain statutes which forbid the subjects of Her Majesty to engage, without leave and license from the Crown, in any foreign military or naval service, or to furnish or equip any ship or vessel for service against any state with which Her Majesty is not at war, the Proclamation proceeds as follows: "Now, in order that none of our subjects may unwarily render themselves liable to the penalties imposed by said statute, we do hereby strictly command, that no person or persons whatsoever do commit any act, matter or thing whatsoever, contrary to the provisions of the said statute, upon pain of the several penalties by the said statute imposed, and of our high displeasure. And we do hereby further warn all our loving subjects, and all persons whatsoever entitled to our protection, that if any of them shall presume, in contempt of this Royal Proclamation, and of our high displeasure, to do any acts in derogation of their duty as subjects of a neutral sovereign, in the said contest, or in violation or contravention of the law of nations in that behalf—as, for example and more especially, by entering into the military service of either of the said contending parties as commissioned or non-commissioned officers or soldiers; or by serving as officers, sailors, or marines on board any ship or vessel of war or transport of or in the service of either of the said contending parties; or by serving as officers, sailors, or marines on board any privateer bearing letters of marque of or from either of the said contending parties; or by engaging to go or going to any place beyond the seas with intent to enlist or engage in any such service, or by procuring or attempting to procure, within Her Majesty's dominions, at home or abroad, others to do so; or by fitting out, arming, or equipping, any ship or vessel to be employed as a ship-of-war, or privateer, or transport, by either of the said contending parties; or by breaking, or endeavoring to break, any blockade lawfully and actually established by or on behalf of either of the said contending parties; or by carrying officers, soldiers, despatches, arms, military stores or materials, or any article or articles considered and deemed to be contraband of war according to the law of modern usage of nations, for the use or service of either of the said contending parties, all persons so offending will incur and be liable to the several penalties and penal consequences by the said statute, or by the law of nations, in that behalf imposed or denounced. And we do hereby declare that all our subjects and persons entitled to our protection who may misconduct themselves in the premises will do so at their peril and of their own wrong, and that they will in no wise obtain any protection from us against any liability or penal consequences, but will, on the contrary, incur our high displeasure by such misconduct. Given at our Court at the White Lodge, Richmond Park, this 13th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the 24th year of our reign. God save the Queen."

In the complaint of the United States subsequently submitted to the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva, the facts attending this remarkably hastened Proclamation of Neutrality were set forth as follows: "Before any armed collision had taken place, there existed an understanding between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Emperor of the French, with a view to securing a simultaneous and identical course of action of the two Governments on American questions. … The fact that it had been agreed to by the two Governments was communicated to Mr. Dallas, by Lord John Russell, on the first day of May, 1861. There was nothing in the previous relations between Great Britain and the United States which made it necessary for Her Majesty's Government to seek the advice or to invite the support of the Emperor of the French in the crisis which was threatened. … When the news of the bloodless attack upon Fort Sumter became known in Europe, Her Majesty's Government apparently assumed that the time had come for the joint action which had been previously agreed upon; and, without waiting to learn the purposes of the United States, it announced its intention to take the first step by recognizing the insurgents as belligerents. The President's Proclamation, which has since been made the ostensible reason for this determination, was issued on the 19th of April, and was made public in the Washington newspapers of the morning of the 20th. An imperfect copy of it was also telegraphed to New York, and from thence to Boston, in each of which cities it appeared in the newspapers of the morning of the 20th. The New York papers of the 20th gave the substance of the Proclamation, without the official commencement and close, and with several errors of more or less importance. The Boston papers of the same date, in addition to the errors in the New York copy, omitted the very important statement in regard to the collection of the revenue, which appears in the Proclamation as the main cause of its issue. {3429} During the morning of the 19th of April, a riot took place in Baltimore, which ended in severing direct communication, by rail or telegraph, between Washington and New York. Telegraphic communication was not restored until the 30th of the month. The regular passage of the mails and trains was resumed about the same time. … It is absolutely certain that no full copy of the text of the Proclamation could have left Washington by the mails of the 19th, and equally certain that no copy could have reached New York from Washington after the 19th for several days. On the 20th the steamer Canadian sailed from Portland, taking the Boston papers of that day, with the imperfect copy of the Proclamation, in which the clause in regard to the collection of the revenue was suppressed. This steamer arrived at Londonderry on the 1st of May, and the 'Daily News' of London, of the 2d of May, published the following telegraphic items of news: 'President Lincoln has issued a Proclamation, declaring a blockade of all the ports in the seceded States. The Federal Government will condemn as pirates all privateer-vessels which may be seized by Federal ships.' The Canadian arrived at Liverpool on the 2d of May, and the 'Daily News,' of the 3d, and the 'Times,' of the 4th of May, published the imperfect Boston copy of the Proclamation. … No other than the Boston copy of the Proclamation appears to have been published in the London newspapers. It is not likely that a copy was received in London before the 10th, by the Fulton from New York. It was on this meager and incorrect information that the advice of the British Law Officers was based, upon which that Government acted. … On the 5th of May the steamship Persia arrived at Liverpool with advices from New York to the 25th of April. Lord John Russell stated on Monday, the 6th of May, in a communication to Lord Cowley, 'that Her Majesty's Government received no dispatches from Lord Lyons by the mail which has just arrived, [the Persia,] the communication between Washington and New York being interrupted.' In the same dispatch Lord Cowley is informed 'that Her Majesty's Government cannot hesitate to admit that such Confederacy is entitled to be considered as a belligerent, and as such invested with all the rights and prerogatives of a belligerent,' and he is instructed to invite the French Government to a joint action, and a line of joint policy with the British Government, toward the United States."

The Case of the United States before the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva [42d congress, 2d session, Senate ex. doc. 31], pages 24-27.

"The British government is accustomed to preserve an attitude of neutrality towards contending nations; but it would seem that neutrality does not so far interfere with the sympathies and freedom of its subjects as to compel it to issue proclamations against Irishmen enlisting with Francis Joseph, or Englishmen fighting for Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi. … In the case of the United States, the laws of England and its treaty stipulations with our Government already forbade its subjects from engaging in a conspiracy to overthrow our institutions. The proclamation, therefore, in forbidding English subjects to fight in the service of the rebels against the United States, simply declared the law as it was already understood; while in forbidding Englishmen to fight for the United States against the rebels, it intervened to change the existing practice, to revive the almost obsolete act of Geo. III. forbidding English subjects from engaging in foreign service without the royal consent, which had slumbered in regard to Austria and Italy, for the purpose of forbidding Englishmen from assisting to maintain in the United States constitutional order against conspiracy and rebellion, and the cause of freedom against chattel slavery. The first effect of the proclamation, therefore, was to change the position in which England and Englishmen stood to the United States, to the disadvantage of the latter. Before the proclamation, for an Englishman to serve the United States Government in maintaining its integrity was regarded honorable; after the proclamation such service became a crime. The proclamation makes it an offence now for an Englishman to fight for the Government at Washington as great as it was for Englishmen before the proclamation to fight for the rebels of Montgomery. It thus, in a moral view, lowered the American Government to the level of the rebel confederacy, and in the next place, it proceeded, in an international view, to place the rebel confederacy on a par with the American Government. … No ingenuity can blind us to these facts:—Before the proclamation, to support our Government was an honorable office for the subjects of Great Britain, and the rebels were insurgents, with no rights save under the American Constitution. After the proclamation, for an Englishman to serve the United States is a crime, and the rebels are elevated into a belligerent power—and this intervention of England, depriving us of a support which her practice permitted, and giving the rebels a status and right they did not possess, we are coolly told is neutrality. … What would England have said to such a proclamation of neutrality from us in her domestic troubles in Canada, in Ireland, or in India? What would the English people have thought of a state paper from Washington, declaring it the sovereign will of the people of the United States to remain perfectly neutral in the contest being waged in Hindostan between the British government on the one side and the Mogul dynasty on the other, and forbidding American citizens to enter the services of either of the said belligerents? What would they have thought of the American President intimating with cold etiquette that it was a matter of profound indifference to this Government which of the belligerents should be victorious, the King of Oude and Nana Sahib, or Lord Canning and the immortal Havelock?"

_John Jay, The Great Conspiracy: Address at Mount Kisco, July 4, 1861._

ALSO IN: J. H. Soley, The Blockade and the Cruisers, chapter 2.

W. H. Seward, Works, volume 5 (Diplomatic History of the War).

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 4, chapter 15.

M. Bernard, Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War, chapters 4-10.

See, also, ALABAMA CLAIMS.

{3430}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (April-May: Maryland). The ending of rebellious trouble in Baltimore and the state. General Butler in the field.

The Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, Colonel Monroe, arrived at Philadelphia on the 20th of April, the day following the passage of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment through Baltimore, and its battle with the rebel mob of that city. The Eighth was accompanied by General Benjamin F. Butler, who had been appointed by the Governor of Massachusetts to command the first brigade from that state. At Philadelphia General Butler "first heard of the attack on the Sixth, in Baltimore. His orders commanded him to march through that city. It was now impossible to do so with less than 10,000 armed men. He counselled with Major-General Robert Patterson, who had just been appointed commander of the 'Department of Washington,' which embraced the States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and whose head-quarters were at Philadelphia. Commodore Dupont, commandant of the Navy Yard there, was also consulted, and it was agreed that the troops should go by water from Perryville, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, to Annapolis, and thence across Maryland to Washington." This route was accordingly taken by General Butler. Colonel Lefferts, who had reached Philadelphia with the New York Seventh Regiment, preferred to attempt going directly to Washington by a steamer which he secured for the purpose; but a report of rebel batteries on the Potomac turned him back, and his regiment, likewise, proceeded to Annapolis, arriving there some hours after the Eighth Massachusetts. Despite the protests and remonstrances of the Governor of Maryland-who was striving hard to put his state in an attitude of "neutrality," and to persuade the national government to respect it by passing no armed troops across Maryland soil—both regiments were landed, and took possession of the town, where the secessionists were making ready to capture the Naval Academy and the training ship Constitution. The track of the railroad from Annapolis had been torn up and the locomotives disabled. The mechanics of the Massachusetts Eighth proceeded quickly to repair both, and the two regiments moved forward. "The troops reached Annapolis Junction on the morning of the 25th, when the co-operation of the two regiments ceased, the Seventh New York going on to Washington, and the Eighth Massachusetts remaining to hold the road they had just opened. Before their departure from Annapolis, the Baltic, a large steamship transport, had arrived there with troops, and officers speedily followed. General Scott ordered General Butler to remain there, hold the town and the road, and superintend the forwarding of troops to the Capital. The 'Department of Annapolis,' which embraced the country twenty miles on each side of the railway, as far as Bladensburg, was created, and General Butler was placed in command of it, with ample discretionary powers to make him a sort of military dictator. … At the close of April, General Butler had full 10,000 men under his command at Annapolis, and an equal number were guarding the seat of Government [Washington]." Meantime, Baltimore had been given up to the control of the Secessionists, though the Maryland Unionists were numerous and strong and were gathering courage to assert themselves. But the rebellious and riotous city was now brought to its senses. On the 5th of May General Butler sent two regiments to occupy the Relay House, within nine miles of Baltimore. On the 9th, a force of 1,200 Pennsylvania troops and regulars, ordered forward by General Patterson from Philadelphia, were landed near Fort McHenry, under the guns of a United States vessel, and marched through the city. On the night of the 13th, General Butler, in person, with about 1,000 men, including the Massachusetts Sixth, entered the place and took a commanding position on Federal Hill, which was afterwards permanently fortified. From that day the disloyalty in Baltimore gave no trouble to the Government.

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 1, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 2.

J. Parton, General Butler in New Orleans, chapters 4-5.

_T. Winthrop, New York Seventh Regiment: Our March to Washington (Life in the Open Air)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May). Call for additional volunteers.

On the 3d of May the President issued a call for forty additional regiments of volunteers; directed an increase of the regular army by ten regiments, and ordered the enlistment of 18,000 seamen—acts subsequently legalized by Congress.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May). Exportation of cotton from the Confederacy, excepting through its seaports, prohibited.

On the 21st of May, 1861, the Congress of the Confederate States passed an act declaring that "from and after the 1st day of June next, and during the existence of the blockade of any of the ports of the Confederate States of America by the Government of the United States, it shall not be lawful for any person to export any raw cotton or cotton yarn from the Confederate States of America except through the seaports of the said Confederate States."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May). Secession of North Carolina.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-MAY).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May). General Butler at Fortress Monroe and his "Contrabands." The first military thrust at Slavery.

General Butler was commissioned as Major-General of Volunteers on the 16th of May, and on the 20th he was ordered to the command at Fortress Monroe. He arrived at the Fortress on the 22d and assumed the command. "On the evening of the second day after his arrival at the post, the event occurred which will for ever connect the name of General Butler with the history of the abolition of slavery in America. Colonel Phelps's visit to Hampton [the previous day] had thrown the white inhabitants into such alarm that most of them prepared for flight, and many left their homes that night, never to see them again. In the confusion three negroes escaped, and, making their way across the bridges, gave themselves up to a Union picket, saying that their master, Colonel Mallory, was about to remove them to North Carolina to work upon rebel fortifications there, far away from their wives and children, who were to be left in Hampton. They were brought to the fortress, and the circumstance was reported to the general in the morning. … He needed laborers. He was aware that the rebel batteries that were rising around him were the work chiefly of slaves, without whose assistance they could not have been erected in time to give him trouble. He wished to keep these men. The garrison wished them kept. The country would have deplored or resented the sending of them away. If they had been Colonel Mallory's horses, or Colonel Mallory's spades, or Colonel Mallory's percussion caps, he would have seized them and used them without hesitation. {3431} Why not property more valuable for the purposes of the rebellion than any other? He pronounced the electric words, 'These men are Contraband of War; set them at work.' 'An epigram,' as Winthrop remarks, 'abolished slavery in the United States.' The word took; for it gave the country an excuse for doing what it was longing to do. … By the time the three negroes were comfortably at work upon the new bake-house, General Butler received the following brief epistle, signed 'J. B. Carey, major-acting, Virginia volunteers': 'Be pleased to designate some time and place when it will be agreeable to you to accord to me a personal interview.' The general complied with the request." The interview occurred that afternoon, and was not between strangers; for General Butler and Major Carey were old political allies—hard-shell democrats both. The essential part of the conversation which ensued was as follows: "Major Carey: 'I am informed that three negroes, belonging to Colonel Mallory, have escaped within your lines. I am Colonel Mallory's agent and have charge of his property. What do you intend to do with regard to those negroes?' General Butler: 'I propose to retain them.' Major Carey: 'Do you mean, then, to set aside your constitutional obligations?' General Butler: 'I mean to abide by the decision of Virginia, as expressed in her ordinance of secession, passed the day before yesterday. I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be.' Major Carey: 'But you say, we can't secede, and so you cannot consistently detain the negroes.' General Butler: 'But you say, you have seceded, and so you cannot consistently claim them. I shall detain the negroes as contraband of war. You are using them upon your batteries. It is merely a question whether they shall be used for or against the government. Nevertheless, though I greatly need the labor which has providentially fallen into my hands, if Colonel Mallory will come into the fort, and take the oath of allegiance to the United States, he shall have his negroes, and I will endeavor to hire them from him.' Major Carey: 'Colonel Mallory is absent.' The interview here terminated, and each party, with polite farewell, went its way. This was on Friday, May 24. On Sunday morning, eight more negroes came in. … They continued to come in daily, in tens, twenties, thirties, till the number of contrabands in the various camps numbered more than 900. A commissioner of negro affairs was appointed, who taught, fed and governed them." General Butler reported his action to the Government, and on the 30th of May the Secretary of War wrote to him: "Your action in respect to the negroes who came within your lines, from the service of the rebels, is approved. … While … you will permit no interference, by persons under your command, with the relations of persons held to service under the laws of any state, you will, on the other hand, so long as any state within which your military operations are conducted remain under the control of … armed combinations, refrain from surrendering to alleged masters any persons who come within your lines." "So the matter rested for two months, at the expiration of which events revived the question."

J. Parton, General Butler in New Orleans, chapter 6.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May: Virginia). First Advance of Union Troops across the Potomac. Death of Ellsworth at Alexandria.

"Already 'Confederate' pickets were occupying Arlington Heights and the Virginia shore of the Long Bridge, which spans the Potomac at Washington City; and engineers had been seen on those heights selecting eligible positions for batteries. A crisis was evidently at hand, and the General-in-chief was now persuaded to allow an immediate invasion of Virginia. Orders were at once issued [May 23] for the occupation of the shores of the Potomac opposite, and also the city of Alexandria, nine miles below, by National troops. General Mansfield was in command of about 13,000 men at the Capital. Toward midnight, these forces in and around Washington were put in motion for the passage of the river, at three different points. One column was to cross at the Aqueduct Bridge, at Georgetown; another at the Long Bridge, at Washington; and a third was to proceed in vessels, and seize the city of Alexandria. The three invading columns moved almost simultaneously. … The troops moving by land and water reached Alexandria at about the same time. The National frigate Pawnee was lying off the town, and her commander had already been in negotiation for the evacuation of Alexandria by the insurgents. A detachment of her crew, bearing a flag of truce, now hastened to the shore in boats, and leaped eagerly upon the wharf just before the zouaves [the New York Fire Zouave Regiment, under Colonel Ellsworth] reached it. They were fired upon by some Virginia sentries, who instantly fled from the town. Ellsworth, ignorant of any negotiations, advanced to the center of the city, and took possession of it in the name of his Government, while the column under Wilcox marched through different streets to the Station of the Orange and Alexandria Railway, and seized it, with much rolling stock. They there captured a small company (thirty-five men) of Virginia cavalry, under Captain Ball. Other Virginians, who had heard the firing of the insurgent pickets, escaped by way of the railroad. Alexandria was now in quiet possession of the National troops, but there were many violent secessionists there who would not submit. Among them was a man named Jackson, the proprietor of an inn called the Marshall House. The Confederate flag had been flying over his premises for many days, and had been plainly seen from the President's house in Washington. It was still there, and Ellsworth went in person to take it down. When descending an upper staircase with it, he was shot by Jackson, who was waiting for him in a dark passage, with a double-barreled gun, loaded with buckshot. Ellsworth fell dead, and his murderer met the same fate an instant afterward, at the hands of Francis E. Brownell, of Troy, who, with six others, had accompanied his commander to the roof of the house. He shot Jackson through the head with a bullet, and pierced his body several times with his saber-bayonet. … Ellsworth was a very young and extremely handsome man, and was greatly beloved for his generosity, and admired for his bravery and patriotism. His death produced great excitement throughout the country. It was the first of note that had occurred in consequence of the National troubles, and the very first since the campaign had actually begun, a few hours before. {3432} It intensified the hatred of rebellion and its abettors; and a regiment was raised in his native State (New York) called the Ellsworth Avengers. Intrenching tools were sent over the Potomac early on the morning of the 24th, and the troops immediately commenced casting up intrenchments and redoubts, extending from Roach's Spring, on the Washington and Alexandria Road, across Arlington Heights, almost to the Chain Bridge."

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 1, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: F. Moore, Anecdotes, Poetry and Incidents of the War, page 391.

J. T. Headley, The Great Rebellion, chapter 5.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May-June). Tennessee dragged into the rebel Confederacy. Loyal resistance of East Tennessee.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-MAY) and (JUNE).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May-July: Missouri). The baffling of the 'Secessionists in Missouri. Lyon's capture of Camp Jackson. The Battle of Boonville.

See MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (May-September: Kentucky). The struggle for the state. Secession and Neutrality overcome.

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-SEPTEMBER).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (June: Virginia). The fight at Big Bethel.

"Major-General Butler and staff arrived at Fortress Monroe Wednesday afternoon, May 22d. … Colonel Magruder—late Colonel in the United States service, and an officer of much distinction as an obstinate combatant—was placed in command (rebel) of the Peninsula. … Troops rapidly poured into Butler's department, and he soon found himself in a condition to act on the offensive. Magruder's scouts and cavalry greatly annoyed the two camps mentioned. They had, also, seized several Union men. These raids became so frequent and annoying that a night attack was concerted upon their positions at Little Bethel and Big Bethel—the latter, near the north branch of Back River, where it was understood Magruder's outposts were throwing up strong works. Brigadier-General Pierce, of the Massachusetts troops, was detailed to command the expedition. … Approaching the enemy's position at Big Bethel, it was found that their guns commanded all points of approach. The road leading up to the bridge over the creek was swept by their artillery. A thick woods to the left of the road afforded some protection to the Federal left. An open field on the right of the approach only offered a house and out-buildings as a cover. The enemy occupied a hill, beyond the creek, which almost completely secured their front. At their rear was a dense wood. This gave them the advantage of ground, greatly. A reconnaissance would have demonstrated the futility of a front attack except by artillery. The only hope for the Federals was in a flank movement, higher up the creek, by which, the stream being passed, the enemy could be assaulted in their works, at the point of the bayonet, if necessary. This movement was only attempted partially at a late hour in the day. The rebels were well prepared, and only awaited the appearance of the head of the Federal advance to open a sharp fire. … The fight was, from the first, extremely unequal. A front attack was sheer folly. But, the flank movement was not ordered. … The fortunes of the day needed but a master-hand to direct them, to have turned in favor of the Union troops. … Lieutenant-Colonel Washburne had … arranged for a flank movement which, with a combined attack from the front, must have ended the struggle; but the order for retreat was given before the movement could be executed. … The Federal loss was 14 killed, 49 wounded and five missing. Among the killed were two of the most gallant and noble men in the service—Major Theodore Winthrop, Secretary and Aid to General Butler, and first-Lieutenant John T. Greble, of the United States regular artillery, Second regiment. The rebels pronounced their loss to have been but one killed and four wounded. The retreat was accomplished in good order—the enemy not pursuing."

O. J. Victor, History of the Southern Rebellion, volume 2, division 4, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 4, chapter 17.

Life and Poems of Theodore Winthrop, chapter 9.

Official Records, series 1, volume 2.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (June-July: West Virginia). General McClellan's campaign in the mountains. Rich Mountain and Carrick's Ford.

"Although some thousands of West Virginians had volunteered to fight for the Union, none of them were encamped on the soil of their State until after the election held [May 23] to ratify or reject the Ordinance of Secession. …

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-JUNE)]

The Virginians who volunteered were mustered in and organized at Camp Carlile, in Ohio, opposite Wheeling, under the command of Colonel Kelly, himself a Virginian. George B. McClellan, who had been appointed a Major-General and assigned to the command of the Department of the Ohio, remained at Cincinnati, his home. Three days after the election aforesaid, he issued from that city a spirited address 'To the Union men of Western Virginia.' … A brief and stirring address to his soldiers was issued simultaneously with the above; and, both being read to those in Camp Carlile that evening, the 1st Virginia, 1,100 strong, Colonel Kelly, crossed to Wheeling early next morning, closely followed by the 16th Ohio, Colonel Irvine. The 14th Ohio, Colonel Steedman, crossed simultaneously, and quietly occupied Parkersburg, the terminus of the Northwestern branch of the Baltimore and Ohio road. A Rebel force, then holding Grafton, which connected the branch aforesaid with the main or Wheeling division of the railroad, had meditated a descent on Wheeling; but, finding themselves anticipated and outnumbered, they obstructed and destroyed the railroad west of them," and fell back to Philippi, some fifteen miles southward. "General McClellan having ordered that Philippi be captured by surprise, the attempt was made on the night of June 2d. Two brigades of two regiments each approached the Rebel camp by different roads" and dispersed it completely, with some loss on both sides, capturing the tents, provisions and munitions. The Rebel commander, Colonel Porterfield, "gathering up such portion of his forces as he could find, retreated hastily to Beverly, and thence to Huttonsville; where the Rebel array was rapidly increased by conscription, and Governor Wise placed in command. General McClellan arrived at Grafton on the 23d. … His forces were rapidly augmented, till they amounted, by the 4th of July, to over 30,000 men; while the Rebels in his front could hardly muster 10,000 in all. {3433} He therefore resolved to advance. The Rebel main force, several thousand strong, under General Robert S. Garnett, was strongly intrenched on Laurel Hill, a few miles north of Beverly, … while a smaller detachment, under Colonel John Pegram was intrenched upon the summit and at either base of Rich Mountain … three or four miles distant from the Rebel main body." General Rosecrans, sent by a detour of eight miles through the mountains to Pegram's rear, drove the rebels (July 11) from their position, at the point of the bayonet; and the following day their commander, with about 600 men, was forced to surrender. "General McClellan pushed on to Beverly, which he entered early next morning, flanking General Garnett's position at Laurel Hill and compelling him to a precipitate flight northward. Six cannon, 200 tents, 60 wagons and over 100 prisoners, were the trophies of this success. The Rebel loss in killed and wounded was about 150; the Union about 50. General Garnett, completely flanked, thoroughly worsted, and fearfully outnumbered, abandoned his camp at Laurel Hill without a struggle, crossing the Laurel Mountains eastward, by a by-road, into the narrow valley of Cheat river. … At length, having crossed the Cheat at a point known as Carrick's Ford, which proffered an admirable position for defense. Garnett turned [July 14] to fight." But the Union force which pursued him was overpowering; Garnett himself was killed in the battle at the Ford and his command fled in confusion. General McClellan telegraphed to Washington, next day, from Huttonsville: "We have completely annihilated the enemy in Western Virginia. Our loss is about 13 killed and not more than 40 wounded; while the enemy's loss is not far from 200 killed; and the number of prisoners we have taken will amount to at least 1,000. We have captured seven of the enemy's guns in all. A portion of Garnett's forces retreated; but I look for their capture by General Hill, who is in hot pursuit." "This expectation was not realized. The pursuit was only continued two miles beyond the ford; when our weary soldiers halted, and the residue of the Rebels, under Colonel Ramsey, turning sharply to the right, made their way across the mountains, and joined General Jackson at Monterey." Meantime, simultaneously with General McClellan's advance on Beverly, another strong Union force, under General Cox, had moved from Guyandotte to the Kanawha, and up that river to Charleston, which it reached on the 25th of July. Governor Wise, who commanded the rebels in the Kanawha Valley, retreated, General Cox pursuing, until the pursuit was checked on the 29th by Wise's destruction of Gauley bridge. The rebels then made good their flight to Lewisburg, in Greenbrier county, where Wise was reinforced and superseded by General John B. Floyd.

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 32.

"The war in Western Virginia seemed to have ended with the dispersion of Garnett's forces, and there was much rejoicing over the result. It was premature. The 'Confederates' were not disposed to surrender to their enemy the granaries that would be needed to supply the troops in Eastern Virginia, without a severer struggle. General Robert E. Lee succeeded Garnett, and more important men than Wise and Floyd took the places of these incompetents. Rosecrans succeeded McClellan, who was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac, and the war in the mountain region of Virginia was soon renewed."

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 1, chapter 22.

ALSO IN: Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, series 1, volume 2, page 193-293.

V. A. Lewis, History of West Virginia, chapter 28.

_J. D. Cox, McClellan in West Virginia (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (July). First depredations of the Confederate cruiser Sumter.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1861-1862.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (July: Virginia). The seat of the rebel government transferred to Richmond.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (JULY).

[Image: The Principal Theatre of War in Virginia.]

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (July: Virginia). On to Richmond. The First Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas.

"The Southern Government having inclined to the defensive policy as that upon which they should act, their first object was to prevent an advance of any Federal force into Virginia. Early in the month of May troops were assembled in Richmond, and pushed forward toward the northeastern boundary of the State, to a position known as Manassas Junction. … It is here that a railroad from Alexandria, another from Staunton up the valley and through Manassas Gap, and another from Gordonsville unite. At Gordonsville the railroad from Richmond and the line from East Tennessee unite. As a point for concentration none more eligible exists in northeastern Virginia. The advantages for fortification are naturally such that the place can be rendered impregnable. Here the centre of the northern force of the Southern army was posted, with the left wing pushed forward to Winchester [under the command of General Joseph E. Johnston, with the Union General Patterson opposed to him] and the right extended to the Potomac, and sustained by heavy batteries which served to blockade the river. The Federal force, the advance of which was assembled at Washington for the defence of that city against any attack by the Southern troops, was posted on the Virginia side of the Potomac, on Arlington Heights, which were strongly fortified. Their right was pushed some distance up the Potomac, and chiefly on the Maryland side, while their left occupied Alexandria. The armies of both sides consisted of raw militia hastily brought together, and of volunteers who for the first time had put on the uniform, and taken up the weapons of the soldier. On both sides the forces were constantly accumulating. On the morning of June 27th, the consolidated report of General Mansfield, commanding the Department of Washington, gives the number of troops in that city and vicinity. The privates, including regulars and volunteers present for duty, numbered 22,846 men. The grand aggregate of the force, including officers, etc., present and absent, was 34,160 men. The force of General Patterson, commanding in Maryland above Washington, and also on the Virginia side of the Potomac, on the 28th of June, was returned, embracing officers and men enlisted and present for duty, 15,923. Of these about 550 were reported as sick."

W. J. Tenney, Military and Naval History of the Rebellion, page 67.

{3434}

"The return of Johnston's [Confederate] army for June 30th showed his total force present for duty to have been 10,654; but this includes some troops which, though assigned to his army, did not join him till after July 3d. … A prime object of Johnston in taking post at Winchester was, that he might be enabled to join the army at Manassas in case of need. On June 2d, only a week after Johnston's arrival at Harper's Ferry, Beauregard had reached Manassas and assumed command. He and Johnston at once communicated with each other, and agreed in their views of the importance of mutual support. … As soon as Johnston ascertained … that McClellan [from West Virginia] was not moving on Romney and Winchester, the feasibility of this movement to Manassas at the right time became greater. The only problem then remaining was to so time it as to arrive just long enough before the impending battle to take part in it, and not so long as to cause, by the news of his arrival, a corresponding transfer of Patterson. … It was for the purpose of gaining as much start as possible on Patterson that Johnston had retired to Winchester, instead of remaining opposite the Northern force at Martinsburg. He kept his cavalry well out, in order to be informed as promptly as possible of the slightest change in Patterson's position. Meanwhile the grand Federal advance upon Manassas had commenced."

R. M. Hughes, General Johnston, pages 47-51.

The advance from Washington, which began on the 16th of July, and which resulted in the grievous defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run, or Manassas, on Sunday, the 21st, was undertaken to appease the impatient, ignorant clamor of Northern newspapers, and in opposition to the judgment and the plans of General Scott, who was then at the head of the National army. The cry "On to Richmond" was taken up by Congressmen and Senators, and the pressure on the government became too strong to be resisted. Instead of keeping the raw troops, hurriedly gathered at Washington, in camps of instruction, until they were properly drilled and until their officers had acquired some experience in handling them, they were hurriedly pushed into a serious campaign movement, against an enemy likewise untrained, to be sure, but who was far better prepared to receive an attack than the assailants were to make one. General Irwin McDowell had been recently placed in command of the army intended for the field, with General Mansfield commanding the troops in Washington. The former had "entered on his new and responsible duties with great alacrity, working night and day to prepare his command for the approaching conflict. … McDowell was laboring at a great disadvantage—drilling and preparing his troops as best he could—under the heavy pressure from the North to deliver battle to the enemy in his front. Secretary Chase was the champion, in the Cabinet, of the intense feeling in the North that the war should be pushed at once, with a vigor that would end it soon. … There is no doubt that General Scott was weakened with the administration, for the reason that he did not believe in the prevailing opinion that a few days would crush the rebellion; and the more the old hero insisted, or faithfully stood by his views, the more it antagonized the opinion of those who hoped and said it would end speedily. At the Cabinet meeting a week before, General Hamilton says: 'General Montgomery Blair said he would march to Richmond with 10,000 men, armed with lathes.' 'Yes,' said General Scott, 'as prisoners of war.' Continuing General Hamilton's statement of the events which occurred prior to the battle and during its progress, he says: 'On the Sunday preceding the battle of Bull Run, Scott directed me, his military secretary, to say to McDowell that he wished him to dine with him without fail. At the dinner, at which General McDowell appeared, General Scott used every possible argument to dissuade General McDowell from fighting the first battle of Bull Run under the then existing condition of public affairs. … He then begged General McDowell to go to Secretary Chase, his kinsman, and aid him (General Scott) in preventing a forward movement at that moment; one of the arguments used by General Scott being that the Union sentiment of the South had been surprised by the suddenness and promptitude of the movement in favor of secession; that he (General Scott) was well advised that the Union sentiment was recovering itself, and gaining head in the South; that from the moment blood was shed the South would be made a unit. General McDowell regretted that he could not agree with General Scott in his views, and arose and retired. … In the course of the succeeding week General McDowell reported to General Scott his proposed plan of battle. It was hung upon the wall, and I followed with a pointer the positions indicated by General McDowell as those he intended the forces under his command should occupy. After General McDowell had gone through a detailed statement of his plan, and had finished, General Scott remarked, "General McDowell, that is as good a plan of battle as I ever saw upon paper." General McDowell said in rep]y: "General Scott, the success of this whole plan depends upon General Patterson holding General Johnston in check at Winchester." General Scott remarked that General Johnston was a very able soldier, that he had a railroad at his command with which to move his troops, and if General McDowell's plan of battle, which had just been presented to him, depended upon General Patterson holding General Johnston in check, his plan was not worth the paper it was drawn upon.' That ended that interview."

J. H. Stine, History of the Army of the Potomac, pages 7-10.

Says General McDowell, in his subsequent report of the movement and the disastrous battle: "When I submitted to the General-in-Chief, in compliance with his verbal instructions, the plan of operations and estimate of force required, the time I was to proceed to carry it into effect was fixed for the 8th of July (Monday). Every facility possible was given me by the General-in-Chief and heads of the administrative departments in making the necessary preparations. But the regiments, owing, I was told, to want of transportation, came over slowly. Many of them did not come across until eight or nine days after the time fixed upon, and went forward without my ever seeing them and without having been together before in a brigade. The sending re-enforcements to General Patterson by drawing off the wagons was a further and unavoidable cause of delay. Notwithstanding the herculean efforts of the Quartermaster-General, and his favoring me in every possible way, the wagons for ammunition, subsistence, &c., and the horses for the trains and for the artillery, did not all arrive for more than a week after the time appointed to move. {3435} I was not even prepared as late as the 15th ultimo, and the desire I should move became great, and it was wished I should not, if possible, delay longer than Tuesday, the 10th ultimo. When I did set out on the 10th I was still deficient in wagons for subsistence, but I went forward, trusting to their being procured in time to follow me. The trains thus hurriedly gotten together, with horses, wagons, drivers, and wagon-masters all new and unused to each other, moved with difficulty and disorder, and was the cause of a day's delay in getting the provisions forward, making it necessary to make on Sunday the attack we should have made on Saturday. I could not, with every exertion, get forward with the troops earlier than we did. I wished them to go to Centreville the second day, which would have taken us there on the 17th, and enabled us, so far as they were concerned, to go in to action on the 19th instead of the 21st; but when I went forward from Fairfax Court-House beyond Germantown to urge them forward, I was told it was impossible for the men to march farther. They had only come from Vienna, about 6 miles, and it was not more than 6½ miles farther to Centreville, in all a march of 12½ miles; but the men were foot-weary, not so much, I was told, by the distance marched, as by the time they had been on foot, caused by the obstructions in the road and the slow pace we had to move to avoid ambuscades. The men were, moreover, unaccustomed to marching, their bodies not in condition for that kind of work, and not used to carrying even the load of 'light marching order.'"

_Brig. General I. McDowell, Report (Official Records, series 1, volume 2, pages 323-324)._

The advance of the Union Army was made "in five divisions, commanded by Generals Tyler, Hunter, Heintzelman, Runyon, and Miles. Among the brigade commanders that afterward rose to eminence were William T. Sherman, Ambrose E. Burnside, Erastus D. Keyes, and Oliver O. Howard. The total force was somewhat over 34,000 men; but Runyon's division was left to guard the line of communication with Washington, and the number that actually moved against the enemy was about 28,000 with 49 guns and a battalion of cavalry. So little did strict military discipline as yet enter into the policy of the Government that a large number of civilians, including several members of Congress, obtained passes enabling them to ride out in carriages, close in the rear of the army, to witness the expected battle. … The troops marched by the Warrenton turnpike, and found themselves in the presence of the enemy on the banks of Bull Run on the 18th. … The enemy's outposts had fallen back as the army advanced, and the first serious opposition was met at Blackburn's Ford," where some sharp fighting occurred between Tyler's division and the Confederate troops under Longstreet. "McDowell, finding that Beauregard was very strongly intrenched on his right, and that the roads in that direction were not good, changed his plan and determined to attack on the north or left wing. Another reason for doing this lay in the fact that McDowell had distrusted Patterson from the first, having no faith that he would hold Johnston. … The action at Blackburn's Ford had been fought on Thursday. Friday and Saturday were consumed in reconnoissances and searching for a suitable ford on the upper part of the stream, where a column could cross and, marching down on the right bank, uncover the fords held by the enemy and enable the remainder of the army to cross. Such a ford was found at length, and on Sunday morning, the 21st, the army was put in motion. McDowell did not know that Johnston had easily eluded Patterson and with two fifths of his forces joined Beauregard on Saturday. … The Confederate commanders had actually ordered a forward movement of their own right wing; but as they saw the development of McDowell's plan they recalled that, and gradually strengthened their left to meet the onset. … The battleground was a plateau, wooded and broken."

R. Johnson, Short History of the War of Rebellion, chapter 4.

In the Report of the Confederate General Beauregard, the plateau which now became the principal battle ground of the conflict is described as follows: "It is inclosed on three sides by small water-courses, which empty into Bull Run within a few yards of each other a half a mile to the south of the stone bridge. Rising to an elevation of quite 100 feet above the level of Bull Run at the bridge, it falls off on three sides to the level of the enclosing streams in gentle slopes, but which are furrowed by ravines of irregular direction and length, and studded with clumps and patches of young pines and oaks. The general direction of the crest of the plateau is oblique to the course of Bull Run in that quarter and to the Brentsville and turnpike roads, which intersect each other at right angles. Immediately surrounding the two houses … [mentioned below] are small open fields of irregular outline, not exceeding 150 acres in extent. The houses, occupied at the time, the one by the Widow Henry and the other by the free negro Robinson, are small wooden buildings, the latter densely embowered in trees and environed by a double row of fences on two sides. Around the eastern and southern brow of the plateau an almost unbroken fringe of second-growth pines gave excellent shelter for our marksmen, who availed themselves of it with the most satisfactory skill. To the west, adjoining the fields, a broad belt of oaks extends directly across the crest on both sides of the Sudley road, in which during the battle regiments of both armies met and contended for the mastery. From the open ground of this plateau the view embraces a wide expanse of woods and gently undulating open country of broad grass and grain fields in all directions."

_General G. T. Beauregard, Report (Official Records, series 1, volume 2, pages 493-494)._

At an early hour in the afternoon, the Union forces had driven the enemy from this plateau and seemed to be in a position which promised victory to them. Says General McDowell in his official report: "The enemy was evidently disheartened and broken. But we had then been fighting since 10.30 o'clock in the morning, and it was after 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The men had been up since 2 o'clock in the morning, and had made what to those unused to such things seemed a long march before coming into action, though the longest distance gone over was not more that 9½ miles; and though they had three days' provisions served out to them the day before, many, no doubt, either did not get them, or threw them away on the march or during the battle, and were therefore without food. They had done much severe fighting. {3436} Some of the regiments which had been driven from the hill in the first two attempts of the enemy to keep possession of it had become shaken, were unsteady, and had many men out of the ranks. It was at this time that the enemy's re-enforcements came to his aid from the railroad train (understood to have just arrived from the valley with the residue of Johnston's army). They threw themselves in the woods on our right, and opened a fire of musketry on our men, which caused them to break and retire down the hillside. This soon degenerated into disorder, for which there was no remedy. Every effort was made to rally them, even beyond the reach of the enemy's fire, but in vain. The battalion of regular infantry alone moved up the hill opposite to the one with the house, and there maintained itself until our men could get down to and across the Warrenton turnpike on the way back to the position we occupied in the morning. The plain was covered with the retreating groups, and they seemed to infect those with whom they came in contact. The retreat soon became a rout, and this soon degenerated still further into a panic. Finding this state of affairs was beyond the efforts of all those who had assisted so faithfully during the long and hard day's work in gaining almost the object of our wishes, and that nothing remained on that field but to recognize what we could no longer prevent, I gave the necessary orders to protect their withdrawal, begging the men to form a line, and offer the appearance, at least, of organization and force. They returned by the fords to the Warrenton road, protected, by my order, by Colonel Porter's force of regulars. Once on the road, and the different corps coming together in small parties, many without officers, they became intermingled, and all organization was lost."

_Brigadier General I. McDowell, Report (Official Records, series 1, volume 2, page 320)._

"The battle of Bull Run was a misfortune, and not a disgrace, to the Federal arms; but the reports of losses on both sides prove that it was bravely disputed. … The rout—or, in other words, the panic— … was one of those accidents to which even victorious armies are sometimes liable, and against which old troops are not always able to guard. The importance of the battle of Bull Run cannot be measured by the amount of losses sustained by the two contending parties. … Its immediate effect upon military operations was to produce a sudden change in the attitude of the belligerents. The possession of Virginia, with the exception of that portion which had been recaptured by McClellan, was secured to the Confederates. Richmond was beyond danger of any attack, and Washington was threatened anew. … But it was chiefly through its moral effect that this first encounter was to exercise a powerful influence upon the war of which it was only the prelude. The South saw in this victory a kind of ratification of her claims. It was not only the Federal soldiers who were vanquished on that day, but with them all who had remained more or less openly loyal to the Union in the Southern States. … This disaster, which might have discouraged the North, proved, on the contrary, a salutary lesson."

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 1, book 3, chapter 2.

"Those only can realize the condition of our Army, at that time, who can recall the incidents of this memorable campaign and the battle with which it closed. The crowds of curious and impertinent spectators who accompanied and often rode through our ranks; the long and fatal delay of Hunter's column, on the morning of the battle—a delay occasioned by a few baggage-waggons, which should have been miles in rear—the many ludicrous, yet sad, scenes on the field; the heroic, but fruitless, gallantry of separate regiments, each attempting, in detail, the accomplishment of a work which required the combined effort of all; the dread, on the part of our men, of those terrible 'masked batteries' and 'the fierce Black-horse Cavalry,' neither of which ever had an existence except in the imaginative brains of our newspaper reporters, all help to fill up the picture. … I believe the plan of this battle to have been well-conceived, notwithstanding its disastrous result. We were compelled to take the offensive against troops in position, and upon a field, the topography of which was unknown to nearly all our officers. Notwithstanding these facts, successes would have been achieved but for the impatient spirit which hurried us on, without the slightest preparation. Of the march, the battle, the rout, and the disorderly retreat to Washington, the description given by William H. Russell was not greatly exaggerated. It was far more truthful than many of the descriptions given by the reporters of our own papers. Who has forgotten the newspaper accounts of the conduct of the celebrated Fire Zouaves—of the prodigies of valor performed by them—of their bayonet charges—of their heroic assaults—of the fearful destruction inflicted by them upon the enemy—and, finally, when the order to retreat came, of the great difficulty experienced by the officers in forcing 'these gallant, but bloodthirsty lambs,' as they were called, to cease fighting and commence retreating? We all remember these accounts, and many others of a similar character; and yet, every intelligent officer who was on the field knows that this regiment dispersed at the first fire, and so thoroughly was it dispersed that it was from that day never again known as a military organization. This campaign, and every subsequent one, of the War, taught us that the rough element of our cities—the prize-fighter, the veteran of a score of street-fights—does not necessarily make the most valuable soldier. On the contrary, many a pale-faced boy, who, from a sense of duty, has left school or counting-room to join our Army, has exhibited a degree of endurance on the march and of bravery on the field, seldom equalled by the rough element of our cities."

_General H. W. Slocum, Military Lessons taught by the War (Historical Magazine, February 1871)_.

"The failure of the Confederate army to pursue after the battle of Manassas has been much criticised, and has caused much acrimonious discussion. General Johnston, however, never hesitated to assume his share of the responsibility for the action taken, though insisting that the course pursued was proper, and the only practicable one under the circumstances. … The troops who had been actually engaged all day, in the hot summer season, were in no condition to follow up the enemy. But the great obstacle to any effective pursuit was the weakness of the cavalry arm in the Southern army. Its entire strength was considerably under 2,000 men, and a large proportion of these were not in call. {3437} Many of those within reach had been fighting for hours, and were in little better condition than the infantry. All who were available were sent off in immediate pursuit, with the result of greatly swelling the number of prisoners and captured guns. But by the time the captors turned their prizes over to proper guards, the Northern army had covered a sufficient distance to be out of danger, being protected in their retreat by large bodies of troops that had not been engaged. This was all that could be accomplished. … The fact that the condition of the Confederate troops put any active pursuit out of the question is established by the official reports. General Johnston's report says: 'Our victory was as complete as one gained by infantry and artillery can be.' … The same reasons apply with equal force to any attempted advance during the few days succeeding the battle. The army was not in a condition to make the movement, being itself much demoralized by the engagement. Many thought the war over and went home; many accompanied wounded comrades to their homes; for the ties of discipline were not as strong then as in a veteran army. But a yet stronger obstacle to an advance was the lack of necessary transportation. … Even if the Confederates had advanced and captured the intrenchments opposite Washington, they could have accomplished nothing. They could not have crossed the river on the bridge under the fire of the Federal vessels of war. They had no artillery of sufficient range to bombard Washington from the southern side, even if they had been disposed to wage war in that manner. They had no sufficient supply of ammunition."

R. M. Hughes, General Johnston, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: W. T. Sherman, Memoirs, volume 1, chapter 8.

J. G. Nicolay, Outbreak of the Rebellion, chapters 13-16.

_J. B. Fry and others, Campaign of the First Bull Run (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1)._

J. E. Cook, Stonewall Jackson, part 1, chapter 12.

A. Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, volume 1, chapter 9.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY). Enlistment of volunteers authorized by Congress.

The enlistment of 500,000 volunteers was authorized by Acts of Congress passed July 22 and 25.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (July-September: Missouri). Sigel's well-conducted retreat from Carthage. Death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek. Siege of Lexington. Fremont in command.

The flight of Governor Jackson and his followers from Booneville was westward, to Warsaw, on the Osage, first, and thence into Vernon County, where they were joined, July 3, by General Sterling Price.

See MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-JULY).

"Their united force is stated by Pollard, at 3,600. Being pursued by Lyon, they continued their retreat next day, halting at 9 P. M., in Jasper County, 23 miles distant. Ten miles hence, at 10 A. M. next morning, they were confronted by a Union force 1,500 strong, under Colonel Franz Sigel, who had been dispatched from St. Louis by the 'Southwestern Pacific road, to Rolla, had marched thence to Springfield, and had pushed on to Mount Vernon, Lawrence County, hoping to prevent a junction between Jackson and some forces which his Brigadiers were hurrying to his support. Each army appears to have started that morning with intent to find and fight the other; and such mutual intentions are seldom frustrated. Sigel found the Rebels, halted after their morning march, well posted, vastly superior in numbers and in cavalry, but inferior in artillery, which he accordingly resolved should play a principal part in the battle. In the cannonade which ensued, he inflicted great damage on the Rebels and received very little, until, after a desultory combat of three or four hours, the enemy resolved to profit by their vast superiority in cavalry by outflanking him, both right and left. This compelled Sigel to fall back. … The retreat was made in perfect order … to Carthage, and through that town to Sarcoxie, some fifteen miles eastward. It was well, indeed, that he did so; for Jackson's force was augmented, during that night and next morning, by the arrival of Price from the southward, bringing to his aid several thousand Arkansas and Texas troops, under Generals Ben McCulloch and Pearce. Our loss in the affair of Carthage was 13 killed and 31 wounded—not one of them abandoned to the enemy; while the Rebels reported their loss at 40 to 50 killed and 125 to 150 wounded. Sigel, now outnumbered three or four to one, was constrained to continue his retreat, by Mount Vernon, to Springfield; where General Lyon, who had been delayed by lack of transportation, joined and outranked him on the 10th."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 35.

"The month of August came, and found General Lyon at Springfield, hoping to receive reenforcements; but the battle of Bull Run had occurred, and rendered it impossible to send him aid. Major General Fremont had been appointed [July 9] to the command of the Western Department, and had reached St. Louis (July 25). Meantime Confederate troops were pouring over the southern frontier of Missouri, and Lyon, finding that they were advancing upon him in two columns, determined to strike before he should be overwhelmed by the combined Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas troops. His force did not exceed 5,500, his antagonist had more than 12,000. A skirmish occurred at Dug Spring (August 1st), in which he had the advantage; but he could not prevent the junction of the two columns. Hereupon he fell back to Springfield. His position had now become one of great difficulty. Political as well as military considerations rendered it almost impossible for him to retreat farther. He therefore determined to resume the offensive, and compensate for his weakness by audacity. Moving out of Springfield on a very dark night (August 9-10), and having ordered Sigel, with 1,200 men and six guns, to gain the enemy's rear by their right, he was ready, as soon as day broke, to make an attack on their front [on Wilson's Creek]. But the disparity of force was too great. Sigel was overwhelmed. He lost five out of his six guns, and more than half his men. The attack in front was conducted by Lyon in person with very great energy. His horse was shot under him; he was twice wounded, the second time in the head. In a final charge he called to the Second Kansas Regiment, whose colonel was at that moment severely wounded, 'Come on, I will lead you,' and in so doing was shot through the heart. After the death of Lyon the battle was still continued, their artillery preserving the national troops from total defeat. News then coming of Sigel's disaster, a retreat to Springfield, distant about nine miles, was resolved on. It was executed without difficulty. {3438} In this battle of Wilson's Creek there were 223 killed, 721 wounded, 292 missing, on the national side; and, as may be inferred from the determined character of the assault, the loss of the Confederates was very great. They had been so severely handled that they made no attempt at pursuit, and the retreat was continued by the national troops, who, on the 19th, had fallen back to Rolla. After this action, the Confederate commanders, McCulloch and Price, quarreling with each other, and unable to agree upon a plan for their campaign, the former returned to Arkansas, the latter advanced from Springfield toward Lexington. Here he found a national force of about three thousand (2,780) under Colonel Mulligan. Attempts were made by General Fremont to re-enforce Mulligan, but they did not succeed. Meantime the assailing forces were steadily increasing in number, until they eventually reached 28,000, with 13 pieces of artillery. They surrounded the position and cut off the beleaguered troops from water. They made repeated assaults without success until [September] 20th, when they contrived a movable breastwork of hemp-bales, which they rolled before them as they advanced, and compelled Mulligan, who had been twice wounded, to surrender unconditionally. On receiving news of this disaster, Fremont at once left St. Louis with the intention of attacking Price, but that general instantly retreated, making his way back to the southwest corner of the state, where he rejoined McCulloch and his Confederate troops."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 47 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri, chapters 11-14.

J. Peckham, General Lyon and Missouri in 1861, book 4.

_J. C. Fremont, F. Sigel and others, Wilson's Creek, Lexington and Pea Ridge (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War', volume 1)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (July-November). McClellan's rise to the chief command. Creation of the Army of the Potomac. Reorganization of the western armies.

"Immediately after the battle of Bull Run, Major General McClellan was assigned to the command of the Military Department of Washington and Northeastern Virginia. Lieutenant General Scott retained his command as general in chief of the American army, until the end of October. 'I found,' says General McClellan in his report, 'no army to command—a mere collection of regiments cowering on the banks of the Potomac, some perfectly raw, others dispirited by the recent defeat. Nothing of any consequence had been done to secure the southern approaches to the capital by means of defensive works; nothing whatever had been undertaken to defend the avenues to the city on the northern side of the Potomac. The number of troops in and around the city was about 50,000 infantry, less than 1,000 cavalry, 650 artillerymen, with nine imperfect field batteries of 30 pieces.' … General McClellan at once commenced the organization of the great army authorized by Congress. His views of the military position and appropriate military conduct were, for the most part, accepted, and such was the patriotism of the people, the resolution of Congress, the energy of the executive, that the Army of the Potomac had reached, on October 27th, a strength of … 168,318. It was the general's opinion that the advance upon the enemy at Manassas should not be postponed beyond the 25th of November. It was his desire that all the other armies should be stripped of their superfluous strength, and, as far as possible, every thing concentrated in the force under his command. On the 31st of October, General Scott, having found his bodily infirmities increasing, addressed a letter to the Secretary of War requesting to be placed on the retired list. … His desire was granted. An order was simultaneously issued appointing General McClellan commander-in-chief under the President. This change in his position at once produced a change in General McClellan's views. Hitherto he had undervalued the importance of what was to be done in the West. He had desired the Western armies to act on the defensive. Now he wished to institute an advance on East Tennessee, and capture Nashville contemporaneously with Richmond. … In preparation for this, the Department of the West was reorganized. On the day following that of McClellan's promotion, Fremont was removed from his command. His department was subdivided into three: (1.) New Mexico, which was assigned to Colonel Canby; (2.) Kansas, to General Hunter; (3.) Missouri, to General Halleck. To General Buell was assigned the Department of the Ohio, and to General Rosecrans that of West Virginia. The end of November approached, and still the Army of the Potomac had not moved. The weather was magnificent, the roads excellent. … Winter at last came, and nothing had been done. … Considering the military condition of the nation when General McClellan undertook the formation and organization of the great Army of the Potomac, the time consumed in bringing that force into a satisfactory condition was far from being too long. … From the resources furnished without stint by Congress McClellan created that army. Events showed that his mental constitution was such that he could not use it on the battlefield. … There probably never was an army in the world so lavishly supplied as that of the Potomac before the Peninsular expedition. General McDowell, who knew the state of things well, declared, in his testimony before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, 'There never was an army in the world supplied as well as ours. I believe a French army of half the size could be supplied with what we waste.'"

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapters 44 and 49 (volume 2).

"Some persons, who ought to have known better, have supposed that in organizing the Army of the Potomac I set too high a model before me and consumed unnecessary time in striving to form an army of regulars. This was an unjustifiable error on their part. I should, of course, have been glad to bring that army to the condition of regulars, but no one knew better than myself that, with the means at my command, that would have been impossible within any reasonable or permissible time. What I strove for and accomplished was to bring about such a condition of discipline and instruction that the army could be handled on the march and on the field of battle, and that orders could be reasonably well carried out. … In spite of all the clamor to the contrary, the time spent in the camps of instruction in front of Washington was well bestowed, and produced the most important and valuable results. Not a day of it was wasted. {3439} The fortifications then erected, both directly and indirectly, saved the capital more than once in the course of the war, and enabled the army to manœuvre freely and independently. … No other army we possessed could have met and defeated the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. And, with all the courage, energy, and intelligence of the Army of the Potomac, it probably would not have been equal to that most difficult task without the advantage it enjoyed during its sojourn in the camps around Washington."

G. B. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: G. B. McClellan, Report on the Organization and Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac.

_Prince de Joinville, The Army of the Potomac._

_Report of Joint Commission on the Conduct of the War, 37th Congress, 3d session, H. R., part. 1._

W. Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, chapter 3.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (August). Act of Congress freeing Slaves employed in the service of the Rebellion.

In August, Congress passed an "Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes." As originally framed, it only confiscated "any property used or employed in aiding, abetting or promoting insurrection, or resistance to the laws," which would not include slaves. A new section was added, declaring that "whenever hereafter during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person held to labor or service under the law of any State shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is due to take up arms against the United States, or to work in or upon any fort, dock, navy-yard, armory, intrenchment or in any military or naval service whatever against the Government of the United States, the person to whom such service or labor is due shall forfeit his claim thereto." The law further provided that, "whenever any person shall seek to enforce his claim to a slave, it shall be a sufficient answer to such claim, that the slave had been employed in the military or naval service against the United States contrary to the provisions of this Act."

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 1, page 342.

ALSO IN: H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, pages 568-570.

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Rebellion, page 195.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (August: North Carolina). The Hatteras expedition.

"General Wool relieved General Butler August 16th, 1861, of the command at Fortress Monroe. Butler was detailed to active duty. The War and Navy Departments having arranged the first of a series of expeditions against the Southern coast, the command of the land forces was conferred upon Butler—Commodore S. H. Stringham directing the naval arm. Materials for the adventure were rapidly gathered at Fortress Monroe from the date of August 16th to the 26th, on which day the fleet took its departure. … Not until the vessels were at sea were any but the directors of the enterprize aware of the point of attack. Forts Hatteras and Clark commanded the entrance to the Sounds of Pamlico and Albemarle, whose waters were a great rendezvous for traders running the blockade. … Fort Hatteras was an exceedingly formidable battery. It was nearly surrounded by water, and was only approached by a circuitous and narrow neck of land. … The secrecy and rapidity of preparation by the Federals caught the rebels somewhat unprepared for the attack. … The bombardment opened Wednesday morning, at ten o'clock, preparatory to the landing of the land forces on the beach above Fort Hatteras. … A heavy surf rolled in upon the treacherous sands. After infinite labor, and the beaching of three small boats, the landing was suspended for the day. Those already on shore—315 in number—were safe under the guns of the fleet. … The bombardment continued during the entire first day. No land assault was attempted. Fort Hatteras replied with great vigor, but with little avail. … On the morning of the 29th, the cannonade opened early. A cloudless sky and a clear sea blessed the cause of the assailants. During the night a transport heavily laden with troops reenforced the fort, running down the Sound which was yet open. Fort Clark was occupied by the Federal forces, and refused its aid to assist its late confederate. The conflict soon raged with extreme vigor on both sides. At eleven o'clock the Confederate flag fluttered uneasily a moment—then ran down the halyards and a white flag was slowly run to the peak. … Articles of capitulation were signed on board the flag-ship Minnesota. Butler then landed and took formal possession of the largest fortification. The number of prisoners surrendered was 615, who were all placed on the Minnesota. In four days time they were in New York harbor. … The first design, it would appear, was to destroy the forts, stop up the channel with old hulks, and to return, temporarily at least, to Fortress Monroe with the entire force; but the place proved to be so strong that Butler left Weber and Hawkins' commands in possession."

O. J. Victor, History of the Southern Rebellion, volume 2, division 5, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: D. Ammen, The Navy in the Civil War: The Atlantic Coast, chapter 8.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (August-October: Missouri). Fremont's premature proclamation of freedom to slaves of rebels and Lincoln's modification of it. The change of command.

"On the 31st of August, General Fremont [commanding in the West] issued a proclamation declaring martial law, defining the lines of the army of occupation, and threatening with death by the bullet all who should be found within those lines with arms in their hands. Furthermore, the real and personal property of all persons in the state [Missouri] who should take up arms against the United States was declared confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if they had any, were declared free men. This proclamation produced a strong effect upon the public mind. The proclaiming of freedom to the slaves of rebels struck the popular chord, particularly among thoroughly loyal men in the free states. Of course, it maddened all the sympathizers with the rebellion, infuriated the rebels themselves, and perplexed those loyal men who had upon their hands the task of so conducting affairs as to hold to their allegiance the border slave states which had not seceded. Mr. Lincoln did not approve some features of General Fremont's proclamation. As soon as he read it, he wrote, under date of September 2d, to the General, that there were two points in it which gave him anxiety. The first was, that, if he should shoot a man according to his proclamation, 'the confederates would certainly shoot our best men in their hands in retaliation, and so, man for man, indefinitely.' {3440} He therefore ordered him to allow no man to be shot under the proclamation without first having his (the President's) approbation or consent. The second cause of anxiety was that the paragraph relating to the confiscation of property and the liberation of slaves of traitorous owners would alarm Unionists at the South, and perhaps ruin the fair prospect of saving Kentucky to the Union. He, therefore, wished General Fremont, as of his own motion, so to modify his proclamation as to make it conformable to the confiscation act just passed by the extra session of Congress, which only freed such slaves as were engaged in the rebel service. … General Fremont received the President's letter respectfully, and replied to it September 8th, stating the difficulties under which he labored, with communication with the government so difficult, and the development of perplexing events so rapid in the department under his command. As to the part of his proclamation concerning the slaves, he wished the President openly to order the change desired, as, if he should do it of his own motion, it would imply that he thought himself wrong, and that he had acted without the reflection which the gravity of the point demanded. This the President did, in a dispatch under date of September 11th, in the words: 'It is therefore ordered that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and constructed, as to conform to, and not to transcend, the provisions on the same subject contained in the act of Congress entitled, An act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes, approved August 6, 1861; and that such act be published at length with this order.' Before this order had been received, or on the day following its date, General Fremont, though acquainted with the President's wishes, manumitted two slaves of Thomas L. Snead of St. Louis, in accordance with the terms of his proclamation. Although Mr. Lincoln desired General Fremont so to modify his proclamation as to make it accordant with the act of Congress approved August 6th, it is hardly to be supposed that he did it solely out of respect to that act. … If he had believed that the time had come for the measure of liberating the slaves of rebels by proclamation, the act of Congress would not have stood in his way. This act was an embodiment of his policy at that time, and he used it for his immediate purpose. … Complications in the personal relations of General Fremont and Colonel F. P. Blair, under whose personal and family influence General Fremont had received his position, occurred at an early day. Colonel Blair doubtless thought that he had not sufficient weight in the General's counsels, and the General, doubtless, exercised his right in choosing his own counselors. … It was a very unhappy quarrel, and it is quite likely that there was blame upon both sides, though it occurred between men equally devoted to the sacred cause of saving the country to freedom and justice. … Mr. Lincoln always gave to each the credit due to his motives, and so far refused to mingle in the general quarrel that grew out of the difficulty, that he kept the good-will of both sides, and compelled them to settle their own differences. … General Fremont at length took the field in person. On the 8th of October he left Jefferson City for Sedalia. As he advanced with his forces, Price retreated, until it was widely reported that he would give battle to the national forces at Springfield. Just as Fremont was making ready to engage the enemy, he was overtaken by an order relieving him of his command. He was succeeded by General Hunter; but Hunter's command was brief, and was transferred at an early day to General Halleck. General Fremont was relieved of his command by the President not because of his proclamation, not because he hated slavery, and not because he believed him corrupt or vindictive or disloyal. He relieved him simply because he believed that the interests of the country, all things considered, would be subserved by relieving him and putting another man in his place. The matter was the cause of great excitement in Missouri, and of much complaint among the radical anti-slavery men of the country: but the imputations sought to be cast upon the President were not fastened to him; and did not, four years later, when Fremont himself became a candidate for the presidency, prevent the warmest anti-slavery men from giving Mr. Lincoln their support. The federal army under General Hunter retreated without a battle; and thus the campaign, inaugurated with great show and immense expense, was a flat failure."

J. G. Holland, Life of Abraham Lincoln, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: _J. C. Fremont, In Command in Missouri (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1), pages 278-288._

_W. Dorsheimer, Fremont's Hundred Days in Missouri (Atlantic Monthly, volume 9, 1862)._

Official Record, series 1, volume 3, pages 466-564.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (August-December: West Virginia). Rosecrans against Lee. Battles of Carnifex Ferry and Cheat Summit.

"When General McClellan was called [July 22] to take General McDowell's place at the head of the Army of the Potomac, Brigadier-General William S. Rosecrans was left in command of the troops in West Virginia. General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, who had gathered together the forces which had been defeated under Garnett and Pegram, and some others, found himself in August at the head of about 16,000 men. Lee made his headquarters at Huntersville, while General John B. Floyd … took up a position on the Gauley River for the purpose of cutting off General Cox of Ohio, who, with a brigade of Rosecrans's army, had just driven a Confederate force under ex-Governor Henry A. Wise of Virginia out of the Kanawha Valley. Floyd surprised and routed the Seventh Ohio under Colonel Tyler, and then moved to a place on the Gauley River called Carnifex Ferry, hoping to cut off Cox from Rosecrans. But early in September Rosecrans, leaving part of his army under General Joseph J. Reynolds to watch Lee, marched southward with about 10,000 men and [September 10] attacked Floyd, who had strongly fortified himself with about 2,000 men on the banks of the river. After a severe fight of three or four hours, in which the Union troops lost heavily, Rosecrans, finding the position much stronger than he expected, gave orders at twilight to stop the assault until morning; but when morning came no enemy was to be seen; Floyd, finding his enemy much superior in numbers, had crossed the river in the night over a bridge hastily built of logs, and retreated to the mountains 30 miles away. Rosecrans followed, but finally fell back again to the Gauley. When Rosecrans marched against Floyd, Reynolds took up a strong position on Cheat Mountain."

J. D. Champlin, Young Folks' History of the War for the Union, chapter 10.

{3441}

"General Lee proposed first to win a victory, if possible, over Reynolds. He was combative, anxious to strike, but many difficulties confronted him. He fully realized he had been sent to West Virginia to retrieve Confederate disasters, and that he had a most difficult task to perform. The Federal commander [his main force at Elk Water] held the center summit of Cheat Mountain pass, the mountain having three well-defined summits. … It was necessary first to carry this well-selected position of the Federal troops. A citizen surveyor, in sympathy with the South and familiar with the mountain paths, had made a trip to an elevated point where he could clearly see the Federal position, and reported his observations to General Lee. Afterward he made a second reconnoissance, accompanied by Colonel Albert Rust, of the Third Arkansas Regiment, who was anxious to see the nature of the ground and the strength of the position for himself. They reported to General Lee that in their opinion the enemy's position could be assailed with success with troops which could be guided to the point they had reached. General Lee decided to make the attack, and gave to Rust a column of 1,200 infantry. … The movement was to begin at night, which happened to be a very rainy one. All the troops, however, got in the positions assigned to them without the knowledge of the enemy, where they waited, every moment expecting to hear the rattle of Rust's muskets, who had been charged with the capture of the pass on Cheat Mountain; but hour after hour passed, and no sounds were heard. After a delay of many hours, and the enemy had divined the nature of the attack, the troops were ordered back to their former position. There had been only a small conflict between cavalry, in which Colonel John A. Washington, General Lee's aid-de-camp, who had been sent with Major W. H. F. Lee to reconnoiter the enemy, was killed from an ambuscade. … Rust claims in his reports that spies had communicated the movements of the Confederate troops to the enemy. This officer evidently did not attack, because he found, on getting close to the Federal position, that it was much stronger than he had thought it was from the preliminary reconnoissances he had made. As the attack of the whole depended on the assault of this force, the failure to attack caused a corresponding failure of the whole movement. … This movement having failed, and knowing that the enemy would be prepared for any second attempt which, from the nature of the country, would have to be similar to the one already tried, General Lee decided to turn his attention to the commands of Wise and Floyd in front of Rosecrans, leaving General H. R. Jackson in Reynolds's front. He proceeded at once to Floyd's command, which he reached on September 20th, and then to Wise's camp, closely inspecting both. He at once perceived that Wise's position was the strongest and offered the best means for successful defense, and promptly concentrated his forces at that point. … Rosecrans had advanced to the top of Big Sewell Mountain and had placed his army in a strong position. General Lee, with te troops of Wise, Floyd, and Loring—about 8,000 men—occupied a position on a parallel range. The two armies were now in close proximity to each other, both occupying strong defensive positions. Lee and Rosecrans, having been officers of the engineers, were fully aware of the great disadvantage an attacking army would have, and each waited, hoping the other would attack. After occupying these positions for twelve days, Rosecrans, on the night of October 6th, retreated. The condition of the roads, the mud, the swollen streams, the large numbers of men with typhoid fever and measles, the condition of the horses, of the artillery, and transportation, were such that Lee decided not to pursue. … The rapid approach of winter and the rainy season terminated the campaign in this section. … At the termination of this campaign of General Lee's the Confederate Government did not bestow much attention upon this section. The majority of the people seemed inclined to support the Federal side. … It must be admitted that General Lee retired from West Virginia with diminished military reputation. Great results had been expected from his presence there. Garnett's defeat and death were to be avenged, and the whole of that portion of Virginia speedily wrested from the Federal arms. The public did not understand the difficulties of the situation, or comprehend why he did not defeat Reynolds, or the failure to attack Rosecrans."

F. Lee, General Lee, chapter 6.

After Lee left General H. R. Jackson in front of Reynolds' position, the former established himself in a fortified camp on Buffalo Hill, and was unsuccessfully attacked there by Reynolds, October 3. Two months later, on the 13th of December, the attack was repeated by Reynolds' successor in command, General Milroy, and again without success. Meantime, Floyd had been driven into the mountains, with little fighting, by Rosecrans, and military operations, for the time, were at an end.

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 1, book 4, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: V. A. Lewis, History of West Virginia, chapter 28.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (September-November: On the Mississippi). General Grant's first battle, at Belmont.

In August, General Ulysses S. Grant, who had been serving for a few weeks in Missouri, first as Colonel of the 21st Illinois Regiment, and later as a brigadier-general, was assigned by General Fremont to "the command of the district of south-east Missouri, embracing all the territory south of St. Louis, in Missouri, as well as all southern Illinois." On the 4th of September he established his headquarters at Cairo, Illinois, and the next day, having learned from a scout that the rebels were preparing to seize Paducah, at the mouth of the Tennessee River, he placed a couple of regiments of troops and a light battery on board of steamers: and occupied the place on the 6th,—telegraphing meanwhile for orders, but not waiting for them. His movement anticipated the enemy by a few hours, only, and secured a command of the Tennessee, the importance of which was afterward demonstrated by Grant, himself, when he moved on Forts Henry and Donelson. In his "Memoirs" General Grant says: "From the occupation of Paducah up to the early part of November, nothing important occurred with the troops under my command. {3442} I was reinforced from time to time and the men were drilled and disciplined preparatory for the service which was sure to come. By the 1st of November I had not fewer than 20,000 men. … About the 1st of November I was directed from department headquarters to make a demonstration on both sides of the Mississippi River with the view of detaining the rebels within their lines. Before my troops could be got off, I was notified from the same quarter that there were some 3,000 of the enemy on the St. Francis River about 50 miles west, or south-west, from Cairo, and was ordered to send another force against them. I dispatched Colonel Oglesby at once with troops sufficient to compete with the reported number of the enemy. On the 5th word came from the same source that the rebels were about to detach a large force from Columbus to be moved by boats down the Mississippi and up the White River, in Arkansas, in order to reinforce Price, and I was directed to prevent this movement if possible." To carry out these orders, General Grant directed a demonstration to be made from Paducah towards Columbus, while, at the same time, he conveyed some 3,000 troops down the river, in steamers, and attacked a camp of rebels at Belmont, immediately opposite Columbus. The battle was a severe one. "The officers and men engaged at Belmont were then under fire for the first time. Veterans," says General Grant, "could not have behaved better than they did up to the moment of reaching the rebel camp. At this point they became demoralized from their victory and failed to reap its full reward. … The moment the camp was reached our men laid down their arms and commenced rummaging the tents to pick up trophies. Some of the higher officers were little better than the privates. They galloped about from one cluster of men to another and at every halt delivered a short eulogy upon the Union cause and the achievements of the command." The result was a rallying of the defeated rebels and a reinforcement from Columbus which forced the Unionists to retire with haste. "Our loss at Belmont was 485 in killed, wounded and missing. About 125 of our wounded fell into the hands of the enemy. We returned with 175 prisoners and two guns, and spiked four other pieces. The loss of the enemy, as officially reported, was 642 men, killed, wounded and missing. We had engaged about 2,500 men, exclusive of the guard left with the transports. The enemy had about 7,000; but this includes the troops brought over from Columbus who were not engaged in the first defence of Belmont. The two objects for which the battle of Belmont was fought were fully accomplished. The enemy gave up all idea of detaching troops from Columbus. … If it had not been fought, Colonel Oglesby would probably have been captured or destroyed with his 3,000 men. Then I should have been culpable indeed."

U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, chapters 19-20 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: A. Badeau, Military History of U. S. Grant, chapter 1.

W. P. Johnston, Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston, chapter 24.

Official Records, series 1, volume 3.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (October: Virginia). Confederate project for the invasion of the North vetoed by Jefferson Davis.

"Between the 4th of August and the 15th of October more than 110 regiments and thirty batteries, comprising at least 100,000 men, were added to the forces in Washington and its neighborhood, and there appeared to be no limit to the resources and patriotism of the North. Moreover, the Northern troops were so well provided for in all respects, owing to the immense resources at the disposal of the United States Government, that there was every reason to expect in the spring of 1862 a decidedly improved condition in health and vigor, in self-confidence, and in all soldierly qualities, on the part of the soldiers. The army at Manassas, on the other hand, owing to the straitened means of the Confederate Government, was barely kept comfortable in the matter of clothing and shelter, and its chief officers looked forward with undisguised apprehension to the coming winter. … It was easy for any one instructed in military matters to see that if the Federal authorities would only be content to defer active operations until the patriotic levies of the North should have learned 'the trade of the soldier,'—should have acquired familiarity with the use of arms, habits of obedience, trust in their officers and superiors, discipline,—the Federal general would enter on the next campaign with all those chances of success which attend largely superior numbers, better arms and equipment, and a sound and thorough organization of his army. Such in fact was the view of the situation taken by the sagacious officer who commanded the lately victorious army at Manassas Junction, Joseph E. Johnston. In his opinion his two corps commanders, Beauregard … and G. W. Smith, … entirely concurred. They saw that something must be done to break up this constantly increasing Federal army while it was yet in the process of formation. The Confederate generals determined to urge their views upon the President of the Southern Confederacy. Mr. Davis responded at once to their expressed wish for a conference upon the military situation, and he reached Manassas on September 30, 1861. The conference was held the next day. The generals strongly advised Mr. Davis to reinforce the army at Manassas so that they might cross the Potomac, cut the communications of Washington with the North, and carry the war into the enemy's country. Johnston and Beauregard fixed the strength of an army adequate to these tasks at 60,000 men. Smith was content with a force of 50,000. Additional transportation and supplies of ammunition were also demanded. The army then at Manassas numbered about 40,000 men. With the quality of the soldiers the generals seemed to be perfectly content. They only asked that the additional troops sent should be of an equal degree of efficiency,—'seasoned soldiers' as distinguished from 'fresh volunteers.' But President Davis decided that he could not furnish the required reinforcement without 'a total disregard of the safety of other threatened positions.' The project was therefore dropped, and no further attempt was made during the ensuing autumn and winter to interfere with the uninterrupted development of the Federal army at and near Washington in organization and efficiency. … It is altogether probable that the Confederate army was at that time decidedly the superior of its antagonist in many important respects. It had the prestige of victory. … We may fairly say therefore, that an invasion of the North, undertaken in October, 1861, held out a very fair promise of a successful result for the Confederate arms."

J. C. Ropes, The Story of the Civil War, chapter 10.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (October: Virginia). The affair at Ball's Bluff, or Leesburg.

"The true story of the affair of Ball's Bluff, is, in brief, as follows: One of General Stone's officers, Captain Philbrick, of the 15th Massachusetts, thought that he had discovered a camp of the enemy about one mile beyond Harrison's island in the direction of Leesburg. Having completed the feint of crossing made in the course of the 20th, General Stone at 10.30 P. M. of the same day issued his orders for the surprise of the supposed camp at daybreak of the 21st. Colonel Devens, of the 15th Massachusetts, was entrusted with the duty, with four companies of his regiment. Colonel Lee, of the 20th Massachusetts, was directed to replace Colonel Devens in Harrison's island with four companies of his own regiment, one of which was to pass over to the Virginia shore and hold the heights there to cover Colonel Devens's return. Colonel Devens was directed to 'attack the camp at daybreak, and, having routed, to pursue them as far as he deems prudent, and to destroy the camp, if practicable, before returning.' … Having accomplished this duty, Colonel Devens will return to his present position, unless he shall see one on the Virginia side near the river which he can undoubtedly hold until reinforced, and one which can be successfully held against largely superior numbers. In which case he will hold on and report.' In obedience to these orders Colonel Devens crossed about midnight with five companies (instead of four), numbering about 300 men, and halted until daybreak in an open field near the bluffs bordering the shore. While there he was joined by Colonel Lee with 100 men of the 20th Massachusetts, who halted here to cover his return. At daybreak he advanced about a mile towards Leesburg, and then discovered that the supposed camp did not exist. After examining the vicinity and discovering no traces of the enemy, he determined not to return at once, but at about half-past six A. M. sent a non-commissioned officer to report to General Stone that he thought he could remain where he was until reinforced. At about seven o'clock a company of hostile riflemen were observed on the right, and a slight skirmish ensued. A company of cavalry being soon observed on the left, the skirmishers were drawn back to the woods, and, after waiting half an hour for attack, the command was withdrawn to the position held by Colonel Lee; but, after again scouting the woods, Colonel Devens returned to his advanced position. About eight o'clock the messenger returned from General Stone with orders for Colonel Devens to remain where he was, and that he would be reinforced. The messenger was again sent back to report the skirmish that had taken place. Colonel Devens then threw out skirmishers and awaited reinforcements. At about ten o'clock the messenger again returned with the information that Colonel Baker [Senator Edward D. Baker, of California] would soon arrive with his brigade and take command. Between nine and eleven Colonel Devens was joined by Lieutenant-Colonel Learned with the remainder of the 15th. bringing up his command to 28 officers and 625 men. About midday Colonel Devens learned that the enemy were gathering on his left, and about half-past twelve or one he was strongly attacked; and as he was in great danger of being outflanked, and no reinforcements had arrived, at about a quarter-past two he fell back to the bluff, where he found Colonel Baker, who directed him to take the right of the position he proposed to occupy. … At about three o'clock the enemy attacked in force, the weight of his attack being on our centre and left. At about four our artillery was silenced, and Colonel Devens was ordered to send two of his companies to support the left of our line; shortly after he learned that Colonel Baker had been killed. Colonel Coggswell then assumed command, and, after a vain attempt to cut his way through to Edward's Ferry, was obliged to give the order to retreat to the river-bank and direct the men to save themselves as best they could. I have gone thus much into detail because at the time I was much criticised and blamed for this unfortunate affair, while I was in no sense responsible for it."

G. B. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, chapter 11.

In connection with the disaster at Ball's Bluff (called the battle of Leesburg by the Confederates) a great wrong seems to have been done to General Stone. Accused of disloyalty, he was arrested, but on no specific charge, imprisoned for six months, denied a trial, and set free without explanation. He went abroad and for many years was Chief of the General Staff to the Khedive of Egypt.

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 1, chapter 17.

ALSO IN: _R. B. Irwin, Ball's Bluff and the arrest of General Stone (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 2, pages 123-134)._

_Report of Joint Commission on the Conduct of the War, 37th Congress, 3d session, H. R., part 2._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (October-December: South Carolina-Georgia). The Port Royal Expedition. Capture of Hilton Head. Extensive occupation of the coast. Savannah threatened.

"On the 29th of October, another and far stronger naval and military expedition [than that against the Hatteras forts] set forth from Hampton Roads, and, clearing the capes of Virginia, moved majestically southward. Genera] T. W. Sherman [not to be confused with General William T. Shennan of the Western armies] commanded the land forces, consisting of 13 volunteer regiments, forming three brigades, and numbering not less than 10,000 men; while the fleet—commanded by Commodore Samuel F. Du Pont—embraced the steam-frigate Wabash, 14 gun-boats, 22 first-class and 12 smaller steamers, with 26 sailing vessels. After a stormy passage, in which several transports were disabled and four absolutely lost, Commodore Du Pont, in his flag-ship, came to off Port Royal, South Carolina, during the night of November 3d and 4th; and, after proper soundings and reconnoissances, which developed the existence of a new fort on either side of the entrance, the commodore brought his most effective vessels into action at 9 A. M., on Thursday, November 7th, taking the lead in his flagship, the Wabash—the gunboats to follow at intervals in due order. Thus the fighting portion of the fleet steamed slowly up the bay by the forts, receiving and returning the fire of the batteries on Bay Point as they passed up, and exchanging like compliments with the stronger fort on Hilton Head as they came down. Thus no vessel remained stationary under fire; so that the enemy were at no time enabled to gain, by experiment and observation, a perfect aim. The day was lovely; the spectacle magnificent; the fight spirited, but most unequal. {3444} Despite the general presumption that batteries, well manned and served, are superior to ships when not ironclad, the terrible rain of shot and shell upon the gunners in the Rebel forts soon proved beyond human endurance. … The battle … raged nearly five hours, with fearful carnage and devastation on the part of the Rebels, and very little on ours, when the overmatched Confederates, finding themselves slaughtered to no purpose, suddenly and unanimously took to flight. … The Rebel forts were fully manned by 1,700 South Carolinians, with a field battery of 500 more stationed not far distant. The negroes, save those who had been driven off by their masters, or shot while attempting to evade them, had stubbornly remained on the isles."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, chapter 36.

"The effect of the battle of Port Royal was as largely felt in the North, where it revived the hopes of her people, as in the South, to whose people it revealed the presence of a new and pressing danger. The Federals had conquered a strong base of operations on the enemy's coast; they had carried the war into South Carolina. … Sherman might, perhaps, at the first moment of his adversary's disorder, have been able to push his success farther, and to lead his army upon Charleston, or Savannah. But he was afraid of risking such a venture. … The occupation of most of the islands in the vicinity of the St. Helena group was the natural consequence of the victory of Hilton Head. It was effected gradually before the end of the year. Among all the points of the coast which the Federals had thus seized without striking a blow, thanks to the prestige of their success, the most important was Tybee Island, at the entrance of the Savannah River. Situated on the right bank of the mouth of that river, and being the spot where the lighthouse stands, Tybee Island enabled the Federals, as soon as they became masters of it, to obstruct the passage of the blockade-runners on their way to the great mart of Savannah. At a distance of about 600 feet from its borders, on an islet in the middle of the river, stood Fort Pulaski. … A few days after, the navy extended its conquests still farther south," occupying the channel between the Tybee Island group and the Warsaw Islands, "and thus opening a passage for future operations, which would enable them to reach Savannah by turning Fort Pulaski. … At the end of the year, Dupont's fleet, supported by detachments from Sherman's army, was in possession of the five large bays of North Edisto, St. Helena, Port Royal, Tybee, Warsaw, and the whole chain of islands which forms the coast of Carolina and Georgia between those bays."

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, book 4, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: C. B. Boynton, History of the Navy during the Rebellion, volume 1, chapter 26.

D. Ammen, The Navy in the Civil War: The Atlantic Coast, chapter 2.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (November). The Trent affair. Arrest of Mason and Slidell.

"On the 8th of November, 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes, of the United States Steamer San Jacinto, intercepted on the ocean H. B. M. [His Britannic Majesty] mail packet boat Trent, having on board four rebel emissaries bound for England. Having boarded the Trent, an officer of the San Jacinto, with an armed guard, arrested the rebels Mason, Slidell, McFarland and Eustis, and transferred them to the San Jacinto. The Trent then proceeded on her voyage. Captain Wilkes conveyed his captives to Boston, where they were consigned to Fort Warren, then a receptacle for political prisoners. When this transaction became known to the British government, immediate preparations were made for war. In the United States, the act was hailed as a victory. The Secretary of the Navy publicly applauded Captain Wilkes, and the House of Representatives did the same. The Secretary of State, upon whom the chief responsibility in the matter rested, saw, more clearly than others, that a breach of international law had been committed by the commander of the San Jacinto. The President coincided with Mr. Seward, and it was at once resolved to restore the rebel captives to the protection of the British flag."

_G. E. Baker, Biographical Memoir of William H. Seward (volume 5 of Seward's Works, pages 10-11)._

In his diplomatic correspondence as quoted in the volume cited above, under the caption "Diary or Notes on the War," Secretary Seward wrote:

"November 30, 1861.—Captain Wilkes, in the Steamer San Jacinto, has boarded a British colonial steamer, and taken from her deck two insurgents who were proceeding to Europe on an errand of treason against their own country. Lord Lyons has prudently refrained from opening the subject to me, as, I presume, waiting instructions from home. We have done nothing on the subject to anticipate the discussion, and we have not furnished you with any explanations. We adhere to that course now, because we think it more prudent that the ground taken by the British government should be first made to us here, and that the discussion, if there must be one, shall be had here. In the capture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell on board a British vessel, Captain Wilkes having acted without any instructions from the government, the subject is therefore free from the embarrassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us. …

January 20, 1862.—We have reason to be satisfied with our course in the Trent affair. The American people could not have been united in a war which, being waged to maintain Captain Wilkes's act of force, would have practically been a voluntary war against Great Britain. At the same time it would have been a war in 1861 against Great Britain for a cause directly the opposite of the cause for which we waged war against the same power in 1812." In a despatch to Lord Lyons, British Minister, Mr. Seward had written: "If I decide this case in favor of my own government, I must disavow its most cherished principles, and reverse and forever abandon its essential policy. The country cannot afford the sacrifice. If I maintain those principles, and adhere to that policy, I must surrender the case itself. It will be seen, therefore, that this government could not deny the justice of the claim presented to us in this respect upon its merits. We are asked to do to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us. … By the adjustment of the present case upon principles confessedly American, and yet, as I trust, mutually satisfactory to both of the nations concerned, a question is finally and rightly settled between them, which, heretofore exhausting not only all forms of peaceful discussion, but also the arbitrament of war itself, for more than half a century alienated the two countries from each other."

W. H. Seward, To Lord Lyons, December 26, 1861 (Works, volume 5, Diplomatic History of the War, pages 308-309).

ALSO IN: M. Bernard, Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain, chapter 9.

_D. M. Fairfax, Captain Wilkes's Seizure of Mason and Slidell (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, pages 135-142)._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (December-March: Virginia). Protracted inaction of McClellan. His Plan of Campaign and its frustration by the rebel evacuation of Centreville.

"When Congress assembled … in the beginning of December, 1861, so successful had been the exertions of the authorities, and so zealously had the people responded to their country's call, that the consolidated morning reports, furnished your committee by the adjutant general of the army, showed that, exclusive of the command of General Dix, at Baltimore, the army of the Potomac consisted of about 185,000 men. During the time this large army had been collecting and organizing, nothing of importance had transpired in connexion with it, except the closing of the navigation of the Potomac by the rebels, which your committee treat of more at length in another part of this report, and the melancholy disaster of Ball's Bluff, which is made the subject of a separate report. The weather during the fall season, and for some weeks after the convening of Congress, continued unusually favorable for active military operations. As month after month passed without anything being done by the army of the Potomac, the people became more and more anxious for the announcement that the work of preparation had been completed and active operations would soon be commenced. From the testimony before your committee it appeared that the army of the Potomac was well armed and equipped, and had reached a high state of discipline by the last of September or the first of October. The men were ready and eager to commence active operations. The generals in command of the various divisions were opposed to going into winter quarters, and the most of them declared they had no expectation of doing so. … Your committee endeavored to obtain as accurate information, as possible in relation to the strength and position of the enemy in front of Washington. The testimony of the officers in our army here upon that point, however, was far from satisfactory. Early in December an order had been issued from headquarters prohibiting the commanders in the front from examining any persons who should come into our lines from the direction of the enemy; but all such persons were to be sent, without examination, to the headquarters of the army. Restrictions were also placed upon the movements of scouts. The result was, that the generals examined appeared to be almost entirely ignorant of the force of the enemy opposed to them, having only such information as they were allowed to obtain at headquarters. The strength of the enemy was variously estimated at from 70,000 to 210,000 men. Those who formed the highest estimate based their opinion upon information received at headquarters. … Subsequent events have proved that the force of the enemy was below even the lowest of these estimates, and the strength of their fortifications very greatly overestimated. Your committee also sought to ascertain what number of men could be spared from this army for offensive operations elsewhere, assuming that the works of the enemy in front were of such a character that it would not be advisable to move directly upon them. The estimate of the force necessary to be left in and around Washington to act entirely on the defensive, to render the capital secure against any attack of the enemy, as stated by the witnesses examined upon that point, was from 50,000 to 80,000 men, leaving 100,000 or upwards that could be used for expeditions at other points. … The subject of the obstruction of the navigation of the Potomac naturally demanded the consideration of your committee. … As was well urged by the Navy Department, the whole question amounted simply to this: Would the army co-operate with the navy in securing the unobstructed navigation of the Potomac, or, by withholding that cooperation at that time, permit so important a channel of communication to be closed. After repeated efforts, General McClellan promised that 4,000 men should be ready at a time named to proceed down the river. … The troops did not arrive, and the Navy Department was informed of the fact by Captain Craven. Assistant Secretary Fox, upon inquiring of General McClellan why the troops had not been sent according to agreement, was informed by him that his engineers were of the opinion that so large a body of troops could not be landed, and therefore he had concluded not to send them. Captain Fox replied that the landing of the troops was a matter of which the Navy Department had charge. … It was then agreed that the troops should be sent the next night. Captain Craven was again notified, and again had his flotilla in readiness for the arrival of the troops. But no troops were sent down at that time, nor were any ever sent down for that purpose. Captain Fox, in answer to the inquiry of the committee as to what reason was assigned for not sending the troops according to the second agreement, replied that the only reason, so far as he could ascertain, was, that General McClellan feared it might bring on a general engagement. … Upon the failure of this plan of the Navy Department, the effective vessels of the Potomac flotilla left upon the Port Royal expedition. The navigation of the river was almost immediately thereafter closed, and remained closed until the rebels voluntarily evacuated their batteries in the March following, no steps having been taken, in the meantime, for reopening communication by that route. On the 19th of January, 1862, the President of the United States, as commander-in-chief of the army and navy, issued orders for a general movement of all the armies of the United States, one result of which was the series of victories at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, &c., which so electrified the country and revived the hopes of every loyal man in the land. After this long period of inaction of the army of the Potomac, the President of the United States, on the 31st of January, 1862, issued the following order: … 'Ordered, That all the disposable force of the army of the Potomac, after providing safely for the defence of Washington, be formed into an expedition for the immediate object of seizing and occupying a point upon the railroad southwestward of what is known as Manassas Junction; all details to be in the discretion of the general-in-chief, and the expedition to move before or on the 22d day of February next. Abraham Lincoln.'

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To this order General McClellan wrote an elaborate reply of the same date, objecting to the plan therein indicated as involving 'the error of dividing our army by a very difficult obstacle, (the Occoquan,) and by a distance too great to enable the two portions to support each other, should either be attacked by the masses of the enemy, while the other is held in check.' He then proceeded to argue in favor of a movement by way of the Rappahannock or Fortress Monroe, giving the preference to the Rappahannock route. He stated that 30 days would be required to provide the necessary means of transportation. He stated that he regarded 'success as certain, by all the chances of war,' by the route he proposed, while it was 'by no means certain that we can beat them (the enemy) at Manassas.' … Your committee have no evidence, either oral or documentary, of the discussions that ensued or the arguments that were submitted to the consideration of the President that led him to relinquish his own line of operations and consent to the one proposed by Genera] McClellan, except the result of a council of war, held in February, 1862. That council, the first, so far as your committee have been able to ascertain, ever called by General McClellan, and then by direction of the President, was composed of twelve generals. … To them was submitted the question whether they would indorse the line of operations which General McClellan desired to adopt. The result of the deliberation was a vote of eight to four in favor of the movement by way of Annapolis, and thence down the Chesapeake bay, up the Rappahannock, landing at Urbana, and across the country to Richmond. The four generals who voted against the proposed movement were Generals McDowell, Sumner, Heintzelman, and Barnard. General Keyes voted for it with the qualification that no change should be made until the enemy were driven from their batteries on the Potomac. … Before the movement by way of Annapolis could be executed, the enemy abandoned their batteries upon the Potomac, and evacuated their position at Centreville and Manassas, retiring to the line of the Rappahannock. When General McClellan, then in the city of Washington, heard that the enemy had evacuated Manassas, he proceeded across the river and ordered a general movement of the whole army in the direction of the position lately occupied by the enemy. The enemy moved on the morning of the 10th of March, the greater part of it proceeding no further than Fairfax Court-House. A small force of the army proceeded to Manassas and beyond to the line of the Rappahannock, ascertaining that the enemy had retired beyond that river and destroyed the railroad bridge across it. … On the 13th of March General McClellan convened at Fairfax Court-House a council of war, consisting of four of the five commanders of army corps, (General Banks being absent,) and informed them that he proposed to abandon his plan of movement by way of the Rappahannock, and submitted to them instead a plan of movement by way of the York and James rivers."

Report of Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 37th Congress, 3d session, H. R. Rep., part 1, pages 6-12.

The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, consisting of Senators Wade, Chandler, and Andrew Johnson, and of Representatives Gooch, Covode, Julian, and Odell, was appointed in December, 1861. This Committee "was for four years one of the most important agencies in the country. It assumed, and was sustained by Congress in assuming, a great range of prerogative. It became a stern and zealous censor of both the army and the Government; it called soldiers and statesmen before it, and questioned them like refractory schoolboys. … It was often hasty and unjust in its judgments, but always, earnest, patriotic, and honest. … General McClellan and his immediate following treated the committee with something like contempt. But the President, with his larger comprehension of popular forces, knew that he must take into account an agency of such importance; and though he steadily defended General McClellan and his deliberateness of preparation before the committee, he constantly assured him in private that not a moment ought to be lost in getting himself in readiness for a forward movement. … December was the fifth month that General McClellan had been in command of the greatest army ever brought together on this continent. It was impossible to convince the country that a longer period of preparation was necessary before this army could be led against one inferior in numbers, and not superior in discipline or equipment. … McClellan reported to the Secretary of War, that Johnston's army, at the end of October, numbered 150,000, and that he would therefore require, to make an advance movement with the Army of the Potomac, a force of 240,000. Johnston's report of that date shows an effective total of 41,000 men. … Aware that his army was less than one-third as strong as the Union forces, Johnston contented himself with neutralizing the army at Washington, passing the time in drilling and disciplining his troops, who, according to his own account, were seriously in need of it. He could not account for the inactivity of the Union army. Military operations, he says, were practicable until the end of December; but he was never molested."

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 5, chapter 9.

McClellan says, "It certainly was not till late in November, 1861, that the Army of the Potomac was in any condition to move, nor even then were they capable of assaulting entrenched positions. By that time the roads had ceased to be practicable for the movement of armies, and the experience of subsequent years proved that no large operations could be advantageously conducted in that region during the winter season. Any success gained at that time in front of Washington could not have been followed up and a victory would have given us the barren possession of the field of battle, with a longer and more difficult line of supply during the rest of the winter. If the Army of the Potomac had been in condition to move before winter, such an operation would not have accorded with the general plan I had determined upon after succeeding General Scott as general in command of the armies"

G. B. McClellan, McClellan's Own Story, pages 199-200.

ALSO IN: J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, chapters 3-4.

_A. S. Webb, The Peninsula (Campaigns of the Civil War, volume 3) chapter 2._

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, book 5, chapter 4 (volume 1).

G. B. McClellan, The Peninsular Campaign (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 2, pages 160-187).

_G. B. McClellan, Complete Report._

_J. G. Barnard, The Peninsular Campaign and its Antecedents._

_J. C. Ropes, Gen. McClellan's Plans (Massachusetts Military Historical Society Papers, volume 1)._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (December-April: Virginia). Jackson's first campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Battle of Kernstown.

"Soon after the battle of Bull Run Stonewall Jackson was promoted to major-general, and the Confederate Government having on the 21st of October, 1861, organized the Department of Northern Virginia, under command of General Joseph E. Johnston, it was divided into the Valley District, the Potomac District, and Aquia District, to be commanded respectively by Major-Generals Jackson, Beauregard, and Holmes," In November, Jackson's force was about 10,000 men. "His only movement of note in the winter of 1861-62 was an expedition at the end of December to Bath and Romney, to destroy the Baltimore and Ohio railroad and a dam or two near Hancock, on the Chesapeake and Ohio canal. … In March Johnston withdrew from Manassas, and General McClellan collected his army of more than 100,000 men on the Peninsula. … Jackson's little army in the Valley had been greatly reduced during the winter from various causes, so that at the beginning of March he did not have over 5,000 men of all arms available for the defense of his district, which began to swarm with enemies all around its borders, aggregating more than ten times his own strength. Having retired up the Valley, he learned that the enemy had begun to withdraw and send troops to the east of the mountains to cooperate with McClellan. This he resolved to stop by an aggressive demonstration against Winchester, occupied by General Shields, of the Federal army, with a division of 8,000 to 10,000 men. A little after the middle of March, Jack·son concentrated what troops he could, and on the 23d he occupied a ridge at the hamlet of Kernstown, four miles south of Winchester. Shields promptly attacked him, and a severe engagement of several hours ensued, ending in Jackson's repulse about dark, followed by an orderly retreat up the Valley to near Swift Run Gap in Rockingham county. The pursuit was not vigorous nor persistent. Although Jackson retired before superior numbers, he had given a taste of his fighting qualities that stopped the withdrawal of the enemy's troops from the Valley. The result was so pleasing to the Richmond government and General Johnston that it was decided to reënforce Jackson by sending General Ewell's division to him at Swift Run Gap, which reached him about the 1st of May."

_J. D. Imboden, Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, pages 282-285)._

"The losses at Kernstown were: Union, 118 killed, 450 wounded, 22 missing=590; Confederate, 80 killed, 375 wounded, 263 missing=718."

_N. Kimball, Fighting Jackson at Kernstown (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, page 307, footnote)._

ALSO IN: G. H. Gordon, Brook Farm to Cedar Mountain, chapter 3.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1863. President Lincoln's suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus.

On the 27th of April, 1861, President Lincoln issued the following order "To the Commanding General, Army of the United States"—at that time, General Scott: "You are engaged in suppressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of any military line which is now or which shall be used between the city of Philadelphia and the city of Washington you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally, or through the officer in command at the point at which resistance occurs, are authorized to suspend that writ." On the 2d of July, another order was issued in exactly the same language, except that it gave authority to suspend the writ at "any point on or in the vicinity of any military line … between the city of New York and the city of Washington." On the 14th of October, a third order to General Scott declared: "The military line of the United States for the suppression of the insurrection may be extended so far as Bangor, Maine. You and any officer acting under your authority are hereby authorized to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in any place between that place and the city of Washington." On the 2d of December a specific order to General Halleck, commanding in the Department of Missouri, authorized the suspension of the writ within the limits of his command; and a similar order, long previously, had specially empowered the commander of the forces of the United States on the coast of Florida to do the same. On the 24th of September, 1862, a general proclamation by the President subjected to martial law "all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States"; and suspending the writ of habeas corpus "in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prison, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court martial or military commission." On the 3d of March, 1863, the authority of the President to suspend habeas corpus (which some thought questionable) was confirmed by act of Congress; and on the 15th of September in that year another general proclamation was issued, referring to the act and declaring a suspension of the writ "throughout the United States, in the cases where, by the authority of the President of the United States, military, naval, and civil officers of the United States, or any of them, hold persons under their command, or in their custody, either as prisoners of war, spies, or aiders or abettors of the enemy, or officers, soldiers, or seamen enrolled or drafted or mustered or enlisted in, or belonging to, the land or naval forces of the United States, or as deserters therefrom, or otherwise amenable to military law, or the rules and articles of war, or the rules or regulations prescribed for the military or naval service by authority of the President of the United States; or for resisting a draft, or for any other offense against the military or naval service."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, pages 38, 45, 54, 85, 93, 239, 406.

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"Whether it is the President or Congress that has power under the constitution to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus was a burning question during the civil war. … The case of John Merryman … was the first to come up for judicial interpretation. Merryman lived near Baltimore, and appears to have been suspected of being captain of a secession troop, of having assisted in destroying railroads and bridges for the purpose of preventing troops from reaching Washington, and of obstructing the United States mail. By order of General Keim of Pennsylvania he was arrested at night in his own house, and taken to Fort McHenry at that time in command of General George Cadwallader. Taney, who was then chief justice of the United States, granted a habeas corpus, but Cadwallader refused to obey it, saying that the privilege had been suspended by the President. On the return of the writ, the Chief Justice filed an opinion denying that the President had any power to suspend habeas corpus and affirming that such power rested with Congress alone. Lincoln continued to arrest and imprison without any regard to this opinion, and indeed was advised by his Attorney-General that he was not bound to notice it. … The writ of habeas corpus was … not suspended by Congress until the rebellion was half over. In other words, Lincoln suspended it for two years of his own accord and without authority from anyone; for two years he made arrests without warrants and held men in prison as long as he pleased. … There are few things in American history more worthy of discussion than the power exercised by Lincoln in those two years. It was absolute and arbitrary and, if unauthorized, its exercise was a tremendous violation of the constitution. Whether it was justifiable and necessary is another matter. If it was unconstitutional and yet necessary in order to save the Union, it shows that the constitution is defective in not allowing the government the proper means of protecting itself. That Lincoln used this power with discretion and forbearance there is no doubt. He was the most humane man that ever wielded such authority. He had no taste for tyranny, and he knew the temper of the American people. But, nevertheless, injustice was sometimes done. His subordinates had not always their master's nature."

_S. G. Fisher, The Suspension of Habeas Corpus during the War of the Rebellion (Political Science Quarterly, September, 1888)._

The view which President Lincoln himself entertained, and under which he assumed and exercised authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, was submitted to Congress in his first Message, when it convened in special session, July 4, 1861. He said: "Soon after the first call for militia, it was considered a duty to authorize the commanding general in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain, without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law, such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who has sworn to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed' should not himself violate them. Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen's liberty that, practically, it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited ex·tent be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated? Even in such a case, would not the official oath be broken if the government should be overthrown, when it was believed that disregarding the single law would tend to preserve it? But it was not believed that this question was presented. It was not believed that any law was violated. The provision of the Constitution that 'the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it,' is equivalent to a provision—is a provision—that such privilege may be suspended when, in case of rebellion or invasion, the public safety does require it. It was decided that we have a case of rebellion, and that the public safety does require the qualified suspension of the privilege of the writ which was authorized to be made. Now it is insisted that Congress, and not the executive, is vested with this power. But the Constitution itself is silent as to which or who is to exercise the power; and as the provision was plainly made for a dangerous emergency, it cannot be believed the framers of the instrument intended that in every case the danger should run its course until Congress could be called together, the very assembling of which might be prevented, as was intended in this case, by the rebellion. … Whether there shall be any legislation upon the subject, and if any, what, is submitted entirely to the better judgment of Congress."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, pages 59-60.

Congress gave tacit approval to this view of the President's powers by passing no act on the subject until nearly two years afterwards, as shown above.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (January-February: Kentucky—Tennessee). The first breaking of the Confederate line. Grant's capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.

"At the beginning of the new year the Union armies were over 660,000 strong, backed by a fleet of 212 vessels. McClellan lay quiet upon the Potomac all winter, drilling, organizing, disciplining the Army of the Potomac. In his front was Joe Johnston, with a much smaller force, pushing forward with equal energy the schooling of his soldiers. The Western generals were more active. Albert Sidney Johnston, perhaps the most promising Southern officer, was in command in the West, with headquarters at Bowling Green. Buell lay in Johnston's front, having superseded Sherman, whose 'crazy' suggestion that 250,000 men would be required for operations on the Western field had lost him the confidence of his superiors. There was abundant method in his madness, as time all too fully showed. In [Eastern] Kentucky the Confederate Humphrey Marshall had been creating more or less political trouble, and General Garfield was sent against him with some 2,000 men. Marshall somewhat outnumbered Garfield; but in a vigorous January campaign [beginning at Paintsville, January 7, and] culminating at Prestonburg [January 10], Garfield quite dispersed his forces, and drove him into the mountains.

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About the same time, Zollicoffer, with some 12,000 men, had retreated from his post in advance of Cumberland Gap, where he held the extreme right of the Southern line, to Mill Spring, in Central Kentucky. General George H. Thomas was charged with the duty of disposing of him. With about an equal force Thomas promptly moved upon his enemy, and in a sharp action at Mill Spring [January 19] utterly broke up his army. He thus early showed the rare vigor he afterwards so fully developed. Zollicoffer was killed. This first of our substantial western victories (called 'Fishing Creek' by the enemy) [and also called the battle of Logan Cross Roads by some Union writers] was a great encouragement to our arms. Crittenden, who succeeded to the command, withdrew his troops across the Cumberland, abandoning his artillery and trains. Eastern Kentucky was thus freed from the Confederates. Halleck's first task as commander of the Western armies was to penetrate the Confederate line of defense. This could be done by breaking its centre or by turning one of its flanks. The former appeared most feasible to Grant, and Commodore Foote, who commanded the naval forces. Under instructions from Halleck, seven of the gun-boat flotilla, with Grant's 17,000 men in reserve, moved up the Tennessee river to attack Fort Henry and essay the value of gun-boats in amphibious warfare. Grant landed below the fort, and Foote then opened fire upon it. Tilghman, in command, foreseeing its capture, was shrewd enough to send off the bulk of his force to Fort Donelson. He himself made a mock defense with a handful of men, surrendering the fort after the garrison was well on its way. Without the twin citadel of Donelson [distant about eleven miles, southeastwardly, on the Cumberland River], however, Fort Henry was but a barren triumph, for no column could advance up the Tennessee river while this garrison threatened its flank. It was here that Grant earned his first laurels as a stanch soldier, by compelling, after a stubborn fight, the surrender of this second fortress with its entire garrison. Every effort had been made by Johnston to hold the place. He must here fight for the possession of Nashville. Fort Donelson was strongly fortified and garrisoned. Grant moved against it from Fort Henry with 15,000 men; 5,000 less than the enemy. The ground is difficult; the troops are green. But reinforcements and the fleet come to Grant's assistance. The fort is fully invested, under great difficulties from severity of weather and the inexperience of the men. Happily there is not much ability in the defense. Floyd, the senior officer, determines to cut his way out. He falls heavily upon Grant's right, held by McClernand and backed by Wallace, thinking to thrust them aside from the river and to escape over the road so won. A stubborn resistance defeats this sortie, though but narrowly. A general assault is ordered, which effects a lodgment in the works. Divided responsibilities between Floyd, Buckner, and Pillow weaken the defense so as to operate a surrender. Our loss was 2,300. The Confederates captured were over 15,000 men. These successes broke through the centre of the Confederate line, established with so much pains, and compromised its flanks. Johnston found that he must retire to a new line. This lay naturally along the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. He had retreated from Bowling Green on receipt of the news of the fall of Fort Henry, and was forced thereby to cede to Buell possession of Nashville, and practically of Kentucky. The advanced flank on the Mississippi at Columbus was likewise compromised, and with the bulk of the armament was withdrawn to Island No. 10, some forty miles below Cairo. We could congratulate ourselves upon a very substantial gain."

T. A. Dodge, Bird's-Eye View of Our Civil War, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, chapters 21-23.

J. M. Hoppin, Life of Rear Admiral Foote, chapters 16-18.

W. P. Johnston, Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston, chapters 26-28.

Official Records, series 1, volume 7.

Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (January-March: Missouri-Arkansas). Expulsion of the Confederates from Missouri. Battle of Pea Ridge.

"Late in December General Samuel R. Curtis took command of 12,000 National troops at Rolla, and advanced against Price, who retreated before him to the northwestern corner of Arkansas, where his force was joined by that of General McCulloch, and together they took up a position in the Boston Mountains. Curtis crossed the line into Arkansas, chose a strong place on Pea Ridge, in the Ozark Mountains, intrenched, and awaited attack. Because of serious disagreements between Price and McCulloch, General Earl Van Dorn, who ranked them both, was sent to take command of the Confederate force, arriving late in January. There is no authentic statement as to the size of his army. He himself declared that he had but 14,000 men, while no other estimate gave fewer than twice that number. Among them was a large body of Cherokee Indians, recruited for the Confederate service by Albert Pike, who thirty years before had won reputation as a poet. On March 5, 1862, Van Dorn moved to attack Curtis, who knew of his coming and formed his line on the bluffs along Sugar Creek, facing southward. His divisions were commanded by Generals Franz Sigel and Alexander S. Asboth and Colonels Jefferson C. Davis and Eugene A. Carr, and he had somewhat more than 10,000 men in line, with 48 guns. The Confederates, finding the position too strong in front, made a night march to the west, with the intention of striking the Nationals on the right flank. But Curtis discovered their movement at dawn, promptly faced his line to the right about, and executed a grand left wheel. His army was looking westward toward the approaching foe, Carr's division being on the right, then Davis, then Asboth, and Sigel on the left. But they were not fairly in position when the blow fell. Carr was struck most heavily, and, though reenforced from time to time, was driven back a mile in the course of the day. Davis, opposed to the corps of McCulloch, was more successful; that General was killed and his troops were driven from the field. In the night Curtis reformed and strengthened his lines, and in the morning the battle was renewed. This day Sigel executed some brilliant and characteristic manœvres. To bring his division into its place on the left wing, he pushed a battery forward, and while it was firing rapidly its infantry supports were brought up to it by a right wheel; this movement was repeated with another battery and its supports to the left of the first, and again, till the whole division had come into line, pressing back the enemy's right. {3450} Sigel was now so far advanced that Curtis's whole line made a curve, enclosing the enemy, and by a heavy concentrated artillery fire the Confederates were soon driven to the shelter of the ravines, and finally put to rout. The National loss in this action [called the battle of Elk Horn by the Confederates]—killed, wounded, and missing—was over 1,300, Carr and Asboth being among the wounded. The Confederate loss is unknown. Generals McCulloch and McIntosh were killed, and Generals Price and Slack wounded. Owing to the nature of the ground, any effective pursuit of Van Dorn's broken forces was impracticable."

R. Johnson, Short History of the War of Secession, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: _W. Baxter, Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove._

O. J. Victor, History of the Southern Rebellion, volume 3, pages 56-71.

Official Records, series 1, volume 8, pages 189-330.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (January-April: North Carolina). Burnside's expedition to Roanoke and capture of Newbern and Beaufort.

"Roanoke Island, lying behind Bodie's Island, the sand-bar that shuts off Upper North Carolina from the Atlantic Ocean, offers some of the most interesting souvenirs of early American history. … As stated by General Wise, to whom its defense was intrusted by the Confederate government, it was the key to all the rear defenses of Norfolk. It unlocked two sounds, eight rivers, four canals, two railroads. It guarded more than four fifths of the supplies of Norfolk. The seizure of it endangered the subsistence of the Confederate army there, threatened the navy yard, interrupted the communication between Norfolk and Richmond, and intervened between both and the South. … After the capture of Hatteras Inlet in August, 1861, light-draught steamers, armed with a rifle gun, often stealthily came out of these waters to prey upon commerce. … An expedition for operating on this part of the North Carolina coast was placed under command of General Burnside, who was ordered (January 7th, 1862) to unite with Flag-officer Goldsborough, in command of the fleet, at Fortress Monroe, capture Newbern, seize the Weldon Railroad, and reduce Fort Macon. The force consisted of 31 steam gun-boats, some of them carrying heavy guns; 11,500 troops, conveyed in 47 transports; a fleet of small vessels for the transportation of sixty days' supplies. It left Hampton Roads on the night of January 11th, and arrived off Hatteras in two days, as a storm was coming on. The commander found with dismay that the draught of several of his ships was too great to permit them to enter. … Some dishonest ship-sellers in New York had, by misrepresentation, palmed off on the government unsuitable transport vessels, of which several were lost in that tempestuous sea. … It was only by the greatest exertion and perseverance, and not until a whole fortnight had elapsed, that the entrance to Pamlico Sound was completed. The villainy that led to this delay gave the Confederates ample time for preparation. Not until the end of another week (February 7th) had the reorganized expedition gained the entrance to Croatan Sound, and worked through its shallow, marshy passes. The weather was beautiful by day; there was a bright moonshine at night. The gun-boats found a Confederate fleet drawn up behind the obstructions, across the channel, near Pork Point. They opened fire on the fort at that point. It was returned both from the works and the shipping. Meantime troops were being landed at Ashby's, a small force, which was attempting to resist them, being driven off by the fire of the ships. The debarkation went on, though it was raining heavily and night had set in. It was continued until 10,000 men had been landed on the marsh. Before dark, however, the work at Pork Point had been silenced, and the Confederate fleet had retired to Weir's Point. … When day broke, Burnside commenced forcing his way up the island. He moved in three columns, the central one, preceded by a howitzer battery, upon the only road, the right and left through the woods. The battery that obstructed this road was soon carried, though not without resistance. The men had to wade waist-deep in the water of the pond that protected it. … Toward Nag's Head the Confederate force, expelled from the captured work, attempted to retreat. They were, however, overtaken, and the rest of the command on the north of the island, 2,500 strong, was compelled to surrender. The Confederate fleet was pursued to Elizabeth City, whither it had fled, and there destroyed. A large part of the town was burned. A portion of the national fleet went into the harbor of Edenton and captured that town. Winton, on the Chowan River, shared the same fate. Burnside next made an attack (March 14th) on Newbern, one of the most important sea-ports of North Carolina. As the troops advanced from the place of landing, the gun-boats shelled the woods in front of them, and thereby cleared the way. A march of 18 miles in a rain-storm, and over execrable roads, did not damp the energy of the soldiers. … Newbern was captured, and with it 46 heavy guns, 3 batteries of light artillery, and a large amount of stores. Burnside's losses were 90 killed and 466 wounded. Preparations were next made for the reduction of Fort Macon, which commands the entrance of Beaufort Harbor. On April 25th it was bombarded by three steamers and three shore batteries; the former, however, in the course of an hour and a half, were compelled to withdraw. But the shore batteries, continuing their attack, silenced the guns of the garrison, and, in the course of the afternoon, compelled the surrender of the fort. In connection with this expedition some operations of minor importance occurred. … The chief result, however, was the closure of the ports and suppression of commerce. General Burnside's forces were eventually, for the most part, withdrawn. They were taken to Alexandria, and joined the army of General Pope."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 59 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: D. Ammen, The Navy in the Civil War: The Atlantic Coast, chapters 8-9.

A. Woodbury, Burnside and the 9th Army Corps, part 1, chapters 3-5.

B. P. Poore, Life of Burnside, chapters 12-14.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (February-April: Georgia-Florida).

Siege and capture of Fort Pulaski. Temporary occupation of Florida. Discouragement of Unionists.

The blockade of Fort Pulaski may be dated from the 22d of February. Preparations were then made on Tybee Island to bombard it. The most of the work had to be done in the night. The work was carried on under the supervision of General Gillmore, who was in chief command, and on the 9th of April eleven batteries, containing an aggregate of 36 guns, were in readiness to open fire. General David Hunter, who had just succeeded General Sherman in command of the Department, arrived at Tybee on the evening of the 8th. At sunrise, on the morning of the 10th, Hunter sent Lieutenant J. H. Wilson to the fort, with a summons to the commander of the garrison to surrender. The latter refused, saying: "I am here to defend this fort, not to surrender it." At a few minutes after eight o'clock the batteries opened fire, and at the end of thirty hours the garrison surrendered. In reporting the capture, General Hunter wrote: "At the end of eighteen hours' firing the fort was breached in the southeast angle, and at the moment of surrender, 2 p. m. on the 11th instant, we had commenced preparations for storming. The whole armament of the fort—47 guns, a great supply of fixed ammunition, 40,000 pounds of powder, and large quantities of commissary stores, have fallen into our hands; also 360 prisoners, of whom the officers will be sent North by the first opportunity that offers. The result of this bombardment must cause, I am convinced, a change in the construction of fortifications as radical as that foreshadowed in naval architecture by the conflict between the Monitor and Merrimac. No works of stone or brick can resist the impact of rifled artillery of heavy caliber." General Benham, immediately commanding the operations, remarked in his report: "This siege is … the first trial, at least on our side of the Atlantic, of the modern heavy and rifled projectiles against forts erected and supposed to be sufficiently strong prior to these inventions, almost equaling, as it would appear, the revolution accomplished in naval warfare by the iron-clad vessels recently constructed." Captain (acting Brigadier-General) Q. A. Gillmore, the officer immediately in charge of the works on Tybee Island, has given, in a report made in 1865 to the Adjutant-General of the United States of America, an account of the difficulties under which the batteries which performed the chief part in the siege were erected: "Tybee Island is mostly a mud marsh, like other marsh islands on this coast. Several ridges and hummocks of firm ground, however, exist upon it, and the shore of Tybee Roads, where the batteries were located, is partially skirted by low sand banks, formed by the gradual and protracted action of the wind and tides. The distance along this shore from the landing place to the advanced batteries is about 2½ miles. The last mile of this route, on which the seven most advanced batteries were placed, is low and marshy, lies in full view of Fort Pulaski, and is within effective range of its guns. The construction of a causeway resting on fascines and brush-wood over this swampy portion of the line; the erection of the several batteries, with the magazines, gun platforms, and splinter-proof shelters; the transportation of the heaviest ordnance in our service by the labor of men alone; the hauling of ordnance stores and engineer supplies, and the mounting of the guns and mortars on their carriages and beds had to be done almost exclusively at night, alike regardless of the inclemency of the weather and of the miasma from the swamps. No one except an eye-witness can form any but a faint conception of the herculean labor by which mortars of 8½ tons' weight and columbiads but a trifle lighter were moved in the dead of night over a narrow causeway, bordered by swamps on either side, and liable at any moment to be overturned and buried in the mud beyond reach. The stratum of mud is about 12 feet deep, and on several occasions the heaviest pieces, particularly the mortars, became detached from the sling-carts, and were with great difficulty, by the use of planks and skids, kept from sinking to the bottom. Two hundred and fifty men were barely sufficient to move a single piece on sling-carts. The men were not allowed to speak above a whisper, and were guided by the notes of a whistle. The positions selected for the five most advanced batteries were artificially screened from view from the fort by a gradual and almost imperceptible change, made little by little every night, in the condition and appearance of the brush-wood and bushes in front of them. No sudden alteration of the outline of the landscape was permitted. After the concealment was once perfected to such a degree as to afford a good and safe parapet behind it less care was taken, and some of the work in the batteries requiring mechanical skill was done in the daytime, the fatigue parties going to their labor before break of day and returning in the evening after dark. … The three breaching batteries—Sigel, Scott, and McClellan—were established at a mean distance of 1,700 yards from the scarp walls of Fort Pulaski. The circumstance, altogether new in the annals of sieges, that a practicable breach, which compelled the surrender of the work, was made at that distance in a wall 7½ feet thick, standing obliquely to the line of fire and backed by heavy casemate piers and arches, cannot be ignored by a simple reference to the time-honored military maxims that 'Forts cannot sustain a vigorous land attack,' and that 'All masonry should be covered from land batteries.'"

Official Records, series 1, volume 6, pages 134-135, 155, 161.

"By this victory, won on the first anniversary of the fall of Fort Sumter [April 12], the port of Savannah was sealed against blockade-runners. The capture of Fort Jackson above, and of the city, would have been of little advantage to the Nationals then, for the forces necessary to hold them were needed in more important work farther down the coast. While Gillmore and Viele were besieging Fort Pulaski, Commodore Dupont and General Wright were making easy conquests on the coast of Florida." Fort Clinch, on Amelia Island, Fernandina, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and other places, were abandoned by the Rebels on the approach of the National forces. But these conquests proved rather unfortunate than otherwise. "At first, the hopes they inspired in the breasts of the Union people developed quite a widespread loyalty. A Union convention was called to assemble at Jacksonville on the 10th of April, to organize a loyal State Government, when, to the dismay of those engaged in the matter, General Wright prepared to withdraw his forces, two days before the time when the convention was to meet. … In consequence, … very little Union feeling was manifested in Florida during the remainder of the war."

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 2, chapter 12.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (February-April: Tennessee). The advance up River. Battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing.

"By the end of February, 1862, Major-General Halleck commanded all the armies in the valley of the Mississippi, from his headquarters in St. Louis. These were, the Army of the Ohio, Major-General Buell, in Kentucky; the Army of the Tennessee, Major-General Grant, at Forts Henry and Donelson; the Army of the Mississippi, Major-General Pope; and that of General S. R. Curtis, in Southwest Missouri. He posted his chief of staff, General Cullum, at Cairo, and me [General Sherman] at Paducah, chiefly to expedite and facilitate the important operations then in progress up the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. … General Buell had also followed up the rebel army, which had retreated hastily from Bowling Green to and through Nashville, a city of so much importance to the South that it was at one time proposed as its capital. Both Generals Grant and Buell looked to its capture as an event of great importance. On the 21st General Grant sent General Smith with his division to Clarksville, 50 miles above Donelson, toward Nashville, and on the 27th went himself to Nashville to meet and confer with General Buell, but returned to Donelson the next day." Orders sent by General Halleck to Grant did not reach the latter, and a supposed disobedience occurred which caused him to be hastily relieved from his command, which was transferred to General C. F. Smith, on the 4th of March. Halleck's purpose "was evidently to operate up the Tennessee River, to break up Bear Creek Bridge and the railroad communications between the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers, and no doubt he was provoked that Generals Grant and Smith had turned aside to Nashville. In the mean time several of the gunboats, under Captain Phelps, United States Navy, had gone up the Tennessee as far as Florence, and on their return had reported a strong Union feeling among the people along the river. On the 10th of March, having received the necessary orders from General Halleck, I embarked my division at Paducah. … I … steamed up the Tennessee River, following the two gunboats, and, in passing Pittsburg Landing, was told by Captain Gwin that, on his former trip up the river, he had found a rebel regiment of cavalry posted there, and that it was the usual landing-place for the people about Corinth, distant 30 miles. I sent word back to General Smith that, if we were detained up the river, he ought to post some troops at Pittsburg Landing. We went on up the river cautiously, till we saw Eastport and Chickasaw, both of which were occupied by rebel batteries and a small rebel force of infantry. We then dropped back quietly to the mouth of Yellow River, a few miles below," where the troops were landed and an attempt made to push out and destroy the Memphis and Charleston railroad; but heavy rains had so swollen all the streams that the expedition was foiled and returned. "Once more embarked, I concluded to drop down to Pittsburg Landing, and to make the attempt from there. During the night of the 14th, we dropped down to Pittsburg Landing, where I found Hurlbut's division in boats. Leaving my command there, I steamed down to Savannah, and reported to General Smith in person, who saw in the flooded Tennessee the full truth of my report; and he then instructed me to disembark my own division, and that of General Hurlbut, at Pittsburg Landing; to take positions well back, and to leave room for his whole army; telling me that he would soon come up in person, and move out in force to make the lodgment on the railroad, contemplated by General Halleck's orders. … Within a few days, Prentiss's division arrived and camped on my left, and afterward McClernand's and W. H. L. Wallace's divisions, which formed a line to our rear. Lew Wallace's division remained on the north side of Snake Creek, on a road leading from Savannah or Crump's Landing to Purdy. General C. F. Smith remained back at Savannah, in chief command, and I was only responsible for my own division. I kept pickets well out on the roads, and made myself familiar with all the ground inside and outside my lines. … We were all conscious that the enemy was collecting at Corinth, but in what force we could not know, nor did we know what was going on behind us. On the 17th of March, General U. S. Grant was restored to the command of all the troops up the Tennessee River, by reason of General Smith's extreme illness, and because he had explained to General Halleck satisfactorily his conduct after Donelson; and he too made his headquarters at Savannah, but frequently visited our camps. … From about the 1st of April we were conscious that the rebel cavalry in our front was getting bolder and more saucy. … On Sunday morning, the 6th, early, there was a good deal of picket-firing, and I got breakfast, rode out along my lines, … and saw the rebel lines of battle in front coming down on us as far as the eye could reach. All my troops were in line of battle, ready, and the ground was favorable to us. … In a few minutes the battle of 'Shiloh' began with extreme fury, and lasted two days. … Probably no single battle of the war gave rise to such wild and damaging reports. It was publicly asserted at the North that our army was taken completely by surprise; that the rebels caught us in our tents; bayoneted the men in their beds; that General Grant was drunk; that Buell's opportune arrival saved the Army of the Tennessee from utter annihilation, etc. These reports were in a measure sustained by the published opinions of Generals Buell, Nelson, and others, who had reached the steamboat-landing from the east, just before nightfall of the 6th, when there was a large crowd of frightened, stampeded men, who clamored and declared that our army was all destroyed and beaten. Personally I saw General Grant, who with his staff visited me about 10 A. M. of the 6th, when we were desperately engaged. But we had checked the headlong assault of our enemy, and then held our ground. This gave him great satisfaction, and he told me that things did not look as well over on the left. … He came again just before dark, and described the last assault made by the rebels at the ravine, near the steamboat-landing, which he had repelled by a heavy battery collected under Colonel J. D. Webster and other officers, and he was convinced that the battle was over for that day. He ordered me to be ready to assume the offensive in the morning, saying that, as he had observed at Fort Donelson at the crisis of the battle, both sides seemed defeated, and whoever assumed the offensive was sure to win. {3453} General Grant also explained to me that General Buell had reached the bank of the Tennessee River opposite Pittsburg Landing, and was in the act of ferrying his troops across at the time he was speaking to me. About half an hour afterward General Buell himself rode up to where I was. … Buell said that Nelson's, McCook's, and Crittenden's divisions of his army, containing 18,000 men, had arrived and could cross over in the night, and be ready for the next day's battle. I argued that with these reënforcements we could sweep the field. Buell seemed to mistrust us, and repeatedly said that he did not like the looks of things, especially about the boat-landing, and I really feared he would not cross over his army that night, lest he should become involved in our general disaster. … Buell did cross over that night, and the next day we assumed the offensive and swept the field, thus gaining the battle decisively. Nevertheless, the controversy was started and kept up, mostly to the personal prejudice of General Grant, who as usual maintained an imperturbable silence. … Beauregard [who took the rebel command after General Albert Sidney Johnston fell in the first day's battle afterward reported his entire loss as 10,699. Our aggregate loss, made up from official statements, shows 1,700 killed, 7,495 wounded, 3,022 prisoners; aggregate, 12,217, of which 2,167 were in Buell's army, leaving for that of Grant 10,050. This result is a fair measure of the amount of fighting done by each army. … The battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburg Landing, was one of the most fiercely contested of the war. On the morning of April 6, 1862, the five divisions of McClernand, Prentiss, Hurlbut, W. H. L. Wallace, and Sherman, aggregated about 32,000 men. We had no intrenchments of any sort, on the theory that as soon as Buell arrived we would march to Corinth to attack the enemy. The rebel army, commanded by General Albert Sidney Johnston, was, according to their own reports and admissions, 45,000 strong."

W. T. Sherman, Memoirs, 4th edition, chapter 10 (volume 1); or 1st edition, chapter 9 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, chapters 23-25.

W. P. Johnston, Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston, chapters 30-35.

_U. S. Grant, D. C. Buell, and others, Shiloh (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1)._

_Official Records, Series 1, volume 10._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March). President Lincoln's proposal of Compensated Emancipation approved by Congress.

On the 6th of March President Lincoln addressed to Congress the following Special Message: "Fellow-citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives: I recommend the adoption of a joint resolution by your honorable bodies, which shall be substantially as follows: Resolved, That the United States ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State, in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system. If the proposition contained in the resolution does not meet the approval of Congress and the country, there is the end; but if it does command such approval, I deem it of importance that the States and people immediately interested should be at once distinctly notified of the fact, so that they may begin to consider whether to accept or reject it. The Federal Government would find its highest interest in such a measure, as one of the most efficient means of self-preservation. The leaders of the existing insurrection entertain the hope that this government will ultimately be forced to acknowledge the independence of some part of the disaffected region, and that all the slave States north of such part will then say, 'The Union for which we have struggled being already gone, we now choose to go with the Southern section.' To deprive them of this hope substantially ends the rebellion; and the initiation of emancipation completely deprives them of it as to all the States initiating it. The point is not that all the States tolerating slavery would very soon, if at all, initiate emancipation; but that while the offer is equally made to all, the more Northern shall, by such initiation, make it certain to the more Southern that in no event will the former ever join the latter in their proposed confederacy. I say 'initiation' because, in my judgment, gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all. In the mere financial or pecuniary view, any member of Congress, with the census tables and treasury reports before him, can readily see for himself how very soon the current expenditures of this war would purchase, at fair valuation, all the slaves in any named State. Such a proposition on the part of the General Government sets up no claim of a right by Federal authority to interfere with slavery within State limits, referring, as it does, the absolute control of the subject in each case to the State and its people immediately interested. It is proposed as a matter of perfectly free choice with them. In the annual message, last December, I thought fit to say, 'The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed.' I said this not hastily, but deliberate]y. War has been made, and continues to be, an indispensable means to this end. A practical reacknowledgment of the national authority would render the war unnecessary, and it would at once cease. If, however, resistance continues, the war must also continue; and it is impossible to foresee all the incidents which may attend and all the ruin which may follow it. Such as may seem indispensable, or may obviously promise great efficiency, toward ending the struggle, must and will come. The proposition now made, though an offer only, I hope it may be esteemed no offense to ask whether the pecuniary consideration tendered would not be of more value to the States and private persons concerned than are the institution and property in it, in the present aspect of affairs? While it is true that the adoption of the proposed resolution would be merely initiatory, and not within itself a practical measure, it is recommended in the hope that it would soon lead to important practical results. In full view of my great responsibility to my God and to my country, I earnestly beg the attention of Congress and the people to the subject. Abraham Lincoln, Washington, March 6, 1862."

Abraham Lincoln, Complete Works, volume 2, pages 129-130.

{3454}

"Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, having moved and carried a reference of this Message by the House to a Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, and Mr. R. Conkling, of New York, having moved the resolve above recommended, a debate sprung up thereon; which is notable only as developing the repugnance of the Unionists of the Border Slave States, with that of the Democrats of all the States, to compensated or any other Emancipation. … It passed the House by 89 Yeas (Republicans, West Virginians, and a few others not strictly partisans) to 31 Nays." On the 2d of April, the resolution passed the Senate, by 32 Yeas to 10 Nays. "The President of course approved the measure; but no single Slave State ever claimed its benefits; and its only use inhered in its demonstration of the willingness of the Unionists to increase their already heavy burdens to pay for the slaves of the Border States—a willingness which the infatuation of the ruling class in those States rendered abortive."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 2, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 3, chapter 23.

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 5, chapter 12.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March). The Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac.

"In August 1861 the Northern States had determined to obtain ironclad steam vessels, and at the end of that month Ericsson offered to construct in a few months a vessel which would destroy the rebel squadron. A board of officers was appointed to consider plans proposed, and in September it recommended that a vessel on Ericsson's design should be built. She was commenced in October, launched on January 30th, 1862, and completed on February 15th, 1862. The design provided for a hull not more than 2 ft. above the water, and with a flat bottom, that the draught might not exceed 10 ft. The sides, to a short distance below the water line, were protected with 4-in. plates. In the centre of the deck was built a circular turret, revolving on a central spindle, and protected with 8 in. of iron. Inside the turret were mounted two 11-in. smooth bore guns, pointing through port holes. They could thus fire in any direction without turning the vessel, an obvious advantage not only on the open sea but especially in narrow waters, for which she was more intended. Such was the famous 'Monitor,' a name given by Ericsson to his creation to admonish the leaders of the Southern Rebellion, and to be also a monitor to the Lords of the Admiralty in England, suggesting to them doubts as to the propriety of their building four broadside ironclads at three and a half million dollars each."

S. Eardley-Wilmot, The Development of Navies, chapter 4.

"While the Secretary of the Navy was urging forward the construction of the first iron-clads, it was known that the rebel government was making great exertions in the same direction. Iron-clad vessels were under way at New Orleans, Charleston, and at some other points, while at Norfolk the Merrimack [the old frigate of that name, roofed slopingly with railroad iron, was very near completion in the winter of 1861-62.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1861 (APRIL) ACTIVITY OF REBELLION.

The formidable character of this mailed frigate constrained the Government to make every effort to complete the Monitor [the first of the turreted iron-clads, invented by John C. Ericsson] in season to meet her whenever she should come out; and it is stated that information obtained by a rebel spy of the state of forwardness in which the Monitor was, induced the rebels to put a double force upon their frigate, so that she might be able to attack our fleet in Hampton Roads before the Monitor's arrival, and, if possible, also to make a raid upon Washington or the Northern cities. This extra labor, it is said, gained the one day in which the Merrimack destroyed the Cumberland and Congress. … The Monitor, commanded by Lieutenant John L. Worden, reached the scene of late disaster to our cause, and of her coming triumph, on the 8th of March, at 9 o'clock P. M., and Lieutenant Worden reported for orders to Captain Marston, the commander of the Roanoke. The Minnesota, one of our noblest frigates, the Roanoke of the same class, but partially disabled, the frigate Congress, and the sloop Cumberland, had been stationed at the mouth of the James River to watch for, to engage, and, if possible, destroy, capture, or stop the expected rebel iron-clad frigate then ready for sea at Norfolk. These vessels carried very heavy batteries, and it was hoped that they would be able to cope with the Merrimack. How vain such an expectation was, her first day's operations fully and sadly demonstrated. It is probably no exaggeration to say that she would have destroyed easily, and without any material damage to herself, every wooden ship then in our Navy, had they been within her reach, and with none but themselves to oppose her."

C. B. Boynton, History of the Navy during the Rebellion, chapter 21.

"Such was the state of affairs when the Monitor arrived at Hampton Roads, that the sturdy commanders trembled in face of the coming day, and all was silence and gloom. The sloop-of-war Cumberland, having a crew of 300 men, and mounting 24 guns, now lay on the bottom with only her top-gallant masts and pennant above the water, marking the spot where 117 mangled bodies lay buried beneath the waves. The Congress, a 50-gun frigate, had also met her destruction, and now lay on shore with the flames kindled by hot shot of the Merrimac sweeping out her hull. The Roanoke and Minnesota, steam frigates of 40 guns each, the pride of the navy and the most perfect of any men-of-war of the period, laid hard and fast on shore, with broken machinery and as powerless as if they had been unarmed. The capture or entire destruction of the Federal fleet at Hampton Roads and the escape of the Merrimac and the rebel cruisers seemed inevitable." Arriving in the evening of the 8th, the Monitor anchored near the frigate Minnesota at Newport News. "At half-past five in the morning all hands were called, and the ship was immediately cleared of her sea-rig and got ready for battle. … At half-past seven o'clock a long line of black smoke was seen, preceded by the steamers Jamestown, Patrick Henry and Teazer. It was the signal for battle. The crews of the different vessels stood by their guns, fuzes in hands. The Monitor steamed slowly from beneath the bows of the Minnesota, where she had been partly concealed, to meet the challenger in an open field. It was alike an astonishment to the rebels and our own people; neither had seen her when she arrived, and many were the conjectures of what it could be. Some said a huge water tank; others an infernal machine; none that she had guns, and not till they saw steam rise from her deck did they think she had power to move herself. … The Merrimac stopped her engines, as if to survey and wonder at the audacity of the nondescript. The Monitor was approaching on her starboard bow. {3455} Then, as if seized with impulsive rage, and as if a huge breath would waft her enemy away, the Merrimac poured a broadside of solid shot at her. For an instant she was enveloped in smoke, and people who were looking on held their breath in doubt of seeing the Monitor again. It was a moment of great suspense. Then as a gentle breeze swept over the scene the Monitor appeared. At this instant the flash of her own guns was seen, and then their report, louder than any cannon that had ever been heard, thundered across the sea. It seemed to jar the very earth, and the iron scales of the invincible crumbled and cracked from their fastenings. One on board the Merrimac at this time has told me that, though at first entirely confident of victory, consternation took hold of them all. 'D-n it!' said one, 'the thing is full of guns!' The enthusiasm at this moment among the thousand of civilians and soldiers, who lined the shore to witness the fight, was beyond description and their own control. Such a spontaneous burst of cheers was never before heard. Men were frantic with joy. The Monitor continued her approach, reserving fire that every shot might take effect, until she came parallel with the Merrimac, but heading in the opposite direction. In this way they passed slowly within a few yards of each other, both delivering and receiving the other's fire. … Captain Worden headed again towards the Merrimac with renewed confidence and engaged her at close quarters. Again they joined in close combat, the Monitor lying bow on, at times touching, both delivering their fire as rapidly as possible. At the same time the marines on the Merrimac poured an incessant fire of musketry at the peek-holes about the pilot-house and turret. The speed of the two vessels was about equal, but the light draught of the Monitor gave her an advantage. The rebels finding that they could make nothing of the invulnerable cheese-box, as they called her, and foiled and maddened at the loss of their coveted prize, turned towards the Minnesota, determined, if possible, to destroy her. The Merrimac went head on and received a full broadside of the Minnesota. Fifty solid nine-inch shot struck square. Any wooden vessel that ever floated would have gone to pieces under such a fire. The Merrimac was unharmed. She returned the fire with her forward rifle guns. One shell passed through four rooms, tearing away partitions and setting the ship on tire. Another passed through the boiler of the steamer Dragon which lay alongside, blowing her up and killing and wounding 17 men. Before a third was fired the Monitor interposed, compelling the Merrimac to change her position. The two combatants then made a complete circle in their endeavors to get a favorable position, each seeking to discharge a broadside into some vital part. The Merrimac then turned sharp and made a plunge towards the Minnesota, but Worden was vigilant, and crossed the stern of the Merrimac, sending two solid shot into her. To get back again between her and the Minnesota, the Monitor had almost to cross her bow. The Merrimac steamed up quickly, and finding that the Monitor would be struck with her prow Worden sheered towards the enemy's stern, avoiding a direct blow, and, as they came into collision, each vessel delivered a broadside into the other. At this point a shell from the Merrimac struck the pilot-house exactly over the peek-hole through which Captain Worden was looking. The shell exploding, filled his face and eyes with powder and fragments of iron, utterly blinding and for a time rendering him unconscious. Lieutenant Greene, who had been in charge of the turret division, immediately left the guns and spent full thirty minutes nursing the wounded commander, during which time the gunners shotted the guns, and, as the Merrimac was turning away, discharged them at close range into her stern, a blow that made her whole frame shudder and seemed at once to be fatal. There was no officer to direct the movements of the vessel except the pilot Howard. As the two combatants parted from the struggle they were headed in opposite directions, both away from their goal. Presuming that the fight would be continued, Pilot Howard ran the vessel a short distance down the channel and turning brought her again close to the protection of the Minnesota, when Lieutenant Greene stepped into the pilot-house and assumed command. It was then observed that the Merrimac had taken the channel and was heading towards Norfolk. She was soon joined by her consorts, and taken up to their refuge under the batteries of Craney Island, the Merrimac apparently sagging down astern. Thus ended the greatest naval battle of the world. … The only perceptible danger to those on board the Monitor, after the first round from the Merrimac, was to those in the turret, who were in great danger from the flying of bolt heads driven with great force across the turret, and from the concussion, which would for a time paralyze a man if he should in any way be in contact with the turret when struck by a shot."

_F. B. Butts, The Monitor and the Merrimac (Soldiers' and Sailors' Historical Society of Rhode Island, Fourth series, Number 6)._

"The engagement in Hampton Roads on the 8th of March, 1862, between the Confederate iron-clad Virginia, or the Merrimac, as she is known at the North, and the United States wooden fleet, and that on the 9th, between the Virginia and the Monitor, was, in its results, in some respects the most momentous naval conflict ever witnessed. No battle was ever more widely discussed or produced a greater sensation. It revolutionized the navies of the world. … Rams and iron-clads were in future to decide all naval warfare. In this battle old things passed away, and the experience of a thousand years of battle and breeze was forgotten. The naval supremacy of England vanished in the smoke of this fight, only to reappear some years later more commanding than ever. The effect of the news was best described by the London 'Times,' which said: 'Whereas we had available for immediate purposes 149 first-class war-ships: we have now two, these two being the Warrior and her sister Ironside. There is not now a ship in the English navy apart from these two that it would not be madness to trust to an engagement with that little Monitor.' The Admiralty at once proceeded to reconstruct the navy. … The same results were produced in France, which had but one sea-going iron-clad, La Gloire, and this one, like the Warrior, was only protected amidships. … And so with all the maritime powers. In this race the United States took the lead, and at the close of the war led all the others in the numbers and efficiency of its iron-clad fleet. … Our loss [that is, the Confederate loss on the Virginia, or Merrimac, in the first day's battle, with the wooden ships] in killed and wounded was 21. {3456} The armor was hardly damaged, though at one time our ship was the focus on which were directed at least 100 heavy guns afloat and ashore. But nothing outside escaped. … We slept at our guns, dreaming of other victories in the morning. But at daybreak we discovered, lying between us and the Minnesota, a strange-looking craft, which we knew at once to be Ericsson's Monitor, which had long been expected in Hampton Roads, and of which, from different sources, we had a good idea. She could not possibly have made her appearance at a more inopportune time for us, changing our plans, which were to destroy the Minnesota, and then the remainder of the fleet below Fortress Monroe. She appeared but a pigmy compared with the lofty frigate which she guarded. But in her size was one great element of her success. … After an early breakfast, we got under way and steamed out toward the enemy, opening fire from our bow pivot, and closing in to deliver our starboard broadside at short range, which was returned promptly from her 11-inch guns. Both vessels then turned and passed again still closer. The Monitor was firing every seven or eight minutes, and nearly every shot struck. Our ship was working worse and worse, and after the loss of the smoke-stack, Mr. Ramsay, chief engineer, reported that the draught was so poor that it was with great difficulty he could keep up steam. Once or twice the ship was on the bottom. Drawing 22 feet of water, we were confined to a narrow channel, while the Monitor, with only 12 feet immersion, could take any position, and always have us in range of her guns. … Several times the Monitor ceased firing, and we were in hopes she was disabled, but the revolution again of her turret and the heavy blows of her 11-inch shot on our sides soon undeceived us. … Lieutenant Jones now determined to run her down or board her. For nearly an hour we manœuvred for a position. … The ship was as unwieldy as Noah's Ark. … And so, for six or more hours, the struggle was kept up. At length, the Monitor withdrew over the middle ground where we could not follow. … The battle was a drawn one, so far as the two vessels engaged were concerned. But in its general results the advantage was with the Monitor."

J. T. Wood, The First Fight of Iron Clads (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, volume 1, pages 692-711).

ALSO IN: _J. Ericsson, The Building of the Monitor (Battles and Leaders. volume 1, pages 730-744)._

W. C. Church, Life of John Ericsson, chapters 15-18 (volume 1).

Gideon Welles, The First Iron-Clad Monitor (Annals of the War by leading Participants), page 17.

C. B. Boynton, History of the Navy during the Rebellion, chapter 21.

On the evacuation of Norfolk by the Confederates, in May, 1862, the Merrimac was destroyed. The following December the Monitor went down in a storm at sea, while on her way to Charleston, and only a few of her crew were saved.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March). Amendment of the Military Code. Officers forbidden to surrender fugitive Slaves.

"As the formal orders of the government regarding the treatment of slaves who sought refuge near the armies were not always executed, Congress determined to give them a legal sanction; and on the 25th of February and the 13th of March both the Senate and the House of Representatives introduced a new article in the military code, prohibiting officers, at the risk of dismissal, from interfering to restore fugitive slaves to their masters. Notwithstanding the powers with which the government was thus armed, great difficulty was experienced in applying this law in those regiments whose commanders openly professed their sympathies in favor of slavery."

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 2, page 733.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March-April: On the Mississippi). New Madrid and Island No. 10.

On the surrender of Fort Donelson to General Grant, Columbus, on the Mississippi, was hastily abandoned by the rebels, who fell back to Island Number Ten, thirty miles below, where strong works had been erected. These it was hoped would command the passage of the river. "Following the course of the Mississippi, this island is about ten miles above New Madrid, Missouri, which is 79 miles below Cairo; but on account of a long bend in the river … the island is really further south than New Madrid. New Madrid is at the most northerly part of the bend, and its guns were so placed as to be able to fire at vessels coming either way. Besides Fort Thompson, named after Jeff Thompson, it was defended by several batteries and by six gunboats, mounting heavy guns, which had come up the river from New Orleans and were under the command of Commodore Hollins. … As the land around New Madrid is very flat, these gunboats could fire upon troops approaching the place by land. On the same day when the flag of the Union was hoisted over the deserted works of the Confederates at Columbus [March 4], a Union army under General John Pope, who had been commanding in eastern Missouri, appeared before New Madrid. Seeing that he could do but little with his field artillery, he sent to Cairo for heavy guns; and while waiting for these he built a battery at Point Pleasant, about ten miles below New Madrid, so as to blockade the river at that place and prevent supplies from being sent up to the town. Meanwhile the Confederates strengthened their works and reinforced the garrison with men from Island Number Ten, while their fleet of gunboats was increased to nine. Four heavy guns were sent from Bird's Point to General Pope by the Cairo and Fulton Railway, which brought them within 20 miles of where they were wanted. … On the night of March 12 a thousand spades were at work within half a mile of Fort Thompson, and at daylight the guns were in position ready for action. Pope opened a cannonade at once on the gunboats and on Fort Thompson, both of which replied vigorously. The fight raged all day long; several of the gun boats were disabled and the Union army was gradually shutting in the Confederates on the land side, when their commander, General McCown, seeing the danger of capture, left the place in the night, during a heavy thunder-storm, and removed all his troops to Island Number Ten. … General Pope lost 51 men in killed and wounded during the day's bombardment; the loss of the Confederates is not known, but is thought to have been more than a hundred. About the time of the capture of New Madrid, Commodore Foote sailed from Cairo with a fleet of seven iron-clad gunboats, one wooden gunboat, and ten mortar-boats, for the purpose of aiding General Pope in the attack on Island Number Ten. He came in sight of the island on Saturday, March 15, and on the next morning opened the bombardment with the rifled guns of the Benton, his flag-ship. {3457} The mortar-boats, moored at convenient places along the shore, soon took part in the firing, and rained bombs into the Confederate works. … Commodore Foote kept up the bombardment for many days, without doing much damage to the Confederate works. But while he kept the enemy busy, General Pope had been engaged in digging a canal across the swampy peninsula formed by the bend of the river, so that vessels could go through to New Madrid without having to pass Island Number Ten. … A large number of men were employed, and after nineteen days of hard labor a channel deep enough for light-draught vessels was cut through. In the night of April 1 a few men from the gunboats, aided by some of Pope's soldiers, landed on the Kentucky shore, opposite Island Number Ten, took one of the batteries by surprise and spiked its six guns. … A few nights afterward the Carondelet [gunboat] ran safely by all the batteries at midnight, during a heavy thunderstorm. … Two nights afterward the Pittsburgh, another gunboat, performed the same feat, with the same good fortune; and a few days later the Confederates were astonished to see a fleet of transports laden with troops and several floating batteries join the gunboats at New Madrid. … The gunboats soon silenced the one-gun batteries on the opposite side of the river below New Madrid," and the Confederates, attempting to escape, were intercepted and captured (April 7), both those on the mainland and those on the Island.

J. D. Champlin, Jr., Young Folks' History of the War for the Union, chapter 16.

Said General Pope in his report: "It is almost impossible to give a correct account of the immense quantity of artillery, ammunition, and supplies of every description which fell into our hands. Three generals, 273 field and company officers, 6,700 privates, 123 pieces of heavy artillery, 35 pieces of field artillery (all of the very best character and latest patterns), 7,000 stand of small-arms, tents for 12,000 men, several wharf-boat loads of provisions, an immense quantity of ammunition of all kinds, many hundred horses and mules, with wagons and harness, &c., are among the spoils. Very few, if any, of the enemy escaped, and only by wading and swimming through the swamps. The conduct of the troops was splendid throughout, as the results of this operation and its whole progress very plainly indicate. We have crossed this great river, the banks of which were lined with batteries and defended by 7,000 men. We have pursued and captured the whole force of the enemy and all his supplies and material of war, and have again recrossed and reoccupied the camps at New Madrid, without losing a man or meeting with any accident. Such results bespeak efficiency, good conduct, high discipline, and soldierly deportment of the best character far more conclusively than they can be exhibited in pitched battle or the storming of fortified places."

Official Records, series 1, volume 8.

"In the years since 1862, Island No. 10 … has disappeared. The river, constantly wearing at its upper end, has little by little swept away the whole. … On the other shore a new No. 10 has risen."

A. T. Mahan, The Navy in the Civil War: The Gulf and Inland Waters, chapter 2.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March-May: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign. McClellan before Yorktown.

"When Manassas had been abandoned by the enemy [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (December-March: Virginia)] and he had withdrawn behind the Rapidan, the Urbana movement lost much of its promise, as the enemy was now in position to reach Richmond before we could do so. The alternative remained of making Fort Monroe and its vicinity the base of operations. The plan first adopted was to commence the movement with the First Corps as a unit, to land north of Gloucester and move thence on West Point; or, should circumstances render it advisable, to land a little below Yorktown to turn the defenses between that place and Fort Monroe. The Navy Department were confident that we could rely upon their vessels to neutralize the Merrimac and aid materially in reducing the batteries on the York River. … As transports arrived very slowly, especially those for horses, and the great impatience of the Government grew apace, it became necessary to embark divisions as fast as vessels arrived, and I decided to land them at Fort Monroe, holding the First Corps to the last, still intending to move it in mass to turn Gloucester. On the 17th of March the leading division embarked at Alexandria. The campaign was undertaken with the intention of taking some 145,000 troops, to be increased by a division of 10,000 drawn from the troops in the vicinity of Fort Monroe. … On the 12th of March I learned that there had appeared in the daily papers the order relieving me from the general command of all the armies and confining my authority to the Department of the Potomac. I had received no previous intimation of the intention of the Government in this respect. … On my arrival at Fort Monroe on the 2d of April, I found five divisions of infantry, Sykes's brigade of regulars, two regiments of cavalry, and a portion of the reserve artillery disembarked. Another cavalry regiment and a part of a fourth had arrived, but were still on shipboard; comparatively few wagons had come. … The best information obtainable represented the Confederate troops around Yorktown as numbering at least 15,000, with about an equal force at Norfolk; and it was clear that the army lately at Manassas, now mostly near Gordonsville, was in position to be thrown promptly to the Peninsula. … On my arrival at Fort Monroe I learned, in an interview with Flag-Officer Goldsborough, that he could not protect the James as a line of supply, and that he could furnish no vessels to take an active part in the reduction of the batteries at York and Gloucester or to run by and gain their rear. He could only aid in the final attack after our land batteries had essentially silenced their fire. I thus found myself with 53,000 men in condition to move, faced by the conditions of the problem just stated. Information was received that Yorktown was already being reenforced from Norfolk, and it was apprehended that the main Confederate army would promptly follow the same course. I therefore determined to move at once with the force in hand, and endeavor to seize a point—near the Halfway House—between Yorktown and Williamsburg, where the Peninsula is reduced to a narrow neck, and thus cut off the retreat of the Yorktown garrison and prevent the arrival of reenforcements. {3458} The advance commenced on the morning of the 4th of April, and was arranged to turn successively the intrenchments on the two roads; the result being that, on the afternoon of the 5th, the Third Corps was engaged with the enemy's outposts in front of Yorktown and under the artillery fire of the place. The Fourth Corps came upon Lee's Mills and found it covered by the unfordable line of the Warwick, and reported the position so strong as to render it impossible to execute its orders to assault. Thus all things were brought to a stand-still, and the intended movement on the Halfway House could not be carried out. Just at this moment came a telegram, dated the 4th, informing me that the First Corps [McDowell's] was withdrawn from my command. Thus, when too deeply committed to recede, I found that another reduction of about 43,000 … diminished my paper force to 92,000, instead of the 155,000 on which the plans of the campaign had been founded, … which reduced the numbers actually available for battle to some 67,000 or 68,000. The order withdrawing the First Corps also broke up the Department of the Potomac, forming out of it the Department of the Shenandoah, under General Banks, and the Department of the Rappahannock, under General McDowell, the latter including Washington. … In our front was an intrenched line, apparently too strong for assault, and which I had now no means of turning, either by land or water. … Whatever may have been said afterward, no one at the time—so far as my knowledge extended—thought an assault practicable without certain preliminary siege operations. … We were thus obliged to resort to siege operations in order to silence the enemy's artillery fire, and open the way to an assault. All the batteries would have been ready to open fire on the 5th, or, at latest, on the morning of the 6th of May; … but during the night of the 3d and 4th of May the enemy evacuated his positions. … Meanwhile, on the 22d of April, Franklin's division of McDowell's corps had joined me by water, in consequence of my urgent calls for reënforcements … [and, May 7th] disembarked near West Point and took up a suitable position to hold its own and cover the landing of reënforcements."

_G. B. McClellan, The Peninsular Campaign (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, pages 160-187)._

General Joseph E. Johnston, who assumed command of the Confederate forces on the Peninsula, April 17, says in his "Narrative": "I went to the Peninsula as soon as possible, reaching General Magruder's headquarters early in the morning. … That officer had estimated the importance of at least delaying the invaders until an army capable of coping with them could be formed; and opposed them with about a tenth of their number, on a line of which Yorktown, intrenched, made the left flank. This boldness imposed upon the Federal general, and made him halt to besiege instead of assailing the Confederate position. This resolute and judicious course on the part of General Magruder was of incalculable value. It saved Richmond, and gave the Confederate Government time to swell that officer's handful to an army. … The arrival of Smith's and Longstreet's divisions increased the army on the Peninsula to about 53,000 men, including 3,000 sick. … I could see no other object in holding the position than that of delaying the enemy's progress, to gain time."

J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, chapters 4-5.

ALSO IN: _J. C. Palfrey, The Siege of Yorktown (Massachusetts Military Historical Society Papers, volume 1, pages 31-92)._

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 2, book 1, chapter 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (March-June). Appointment of Military Governors in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Louisiana.

"By the Union victories in the spring of 1862 very considerable areas of territory in States in rebellion came under the control and occupation of the Union armies. … The sudden change from Confederate to Federal authority involved everywhere either a serious derangement or total cessation of the ordinary administration of local civil law, and the displacement from the occupied territory of State governments and State officials who claimed to be exercising functions under ordinances of secession, and yielding obedience to the self-styled Confederate States. A similar displacement had occurred in Virginia and in Missouri during the year 1861, but in those States prompt remedies were available," by means of popular movements, through delegated conventions, which abrogated the rebellious and reinstated loyal State governments in operation. The courses pursued in Virginia and Missouri were not practicable, however, in other cases, and "a substitute was found in the appointment of military governors to represent and exert such State and local authority as the anomalous conditions made practicable, and as the supreme military necessities might allow. The first of these appointments occurred in Tennessee. Nashville, the capital, having been evacuated about February 23, 1862, President Lincoln nominated, and the Senate confirmed, Andrew Johnson (March 4, 1862) as military governor with the rank of brigadier-general. … Conforming to this precedent, Mr. Lincoln, through the Secretary of War, appointed Edward Stanley military governor of North Carolina, 'with authority to exercise and perform, within the limits of that State, all and singular the powers, duties, and functions pertaining to the office of military governor (including the power to establish all necessary offices and tribunals, and suspend the writ of habeas corpus) during the pleasure of the President, or until the loyal inhabitants of that State shall organize a civil government in conformity with the Constitution of the United States.' … In like manner, soon after news was received of the successes in the Gulf, Colonel G. F. Shepley (of the 12th Maine Infantry) of Butler's army was appointed military governor of Louisiana, this selection being made because General Butler had already designated him to act as mayor of the city of New Orleans, and it was thought best to combine both functions in the same individual."

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 6, chapter 16.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (April: On the Mississippi). Farragut's passage of the lower forts and capture of New Orleans.

"About the close of the gloomy and disastrous year 1861, the Government of the United States determined to regain control of the Mississippi. … After long consideration, Farragut was chosen as the naval officer to command in the Gulf. The story of his southern birth, and of his steadfast loyalty to his flag, is too well known to be here repeated. His formal orders put him in command of the 'Western Gulf Blockading Squadron,' and these were issued in January, 1862. {3459} But confidential instructions were also given him, by which he was especially charged with the 'reduction of the defences guarding the approaches to New Orleans, and the taking possession of that city.' He was to be assisted by a mortar-fleet of schooners, under commander D. D. Porter. … On February 2d, 1862, Farragut sailed for the Gulf, in the sloop-of-war Hartford, which was so long to bear his flag, successfully, through manifold dangers. The Hartford was a wooden screw-steamer, full ship-rigged, and of 1,900 tons burthen. She was of comparatively light draught, and, therefore, well suited to the service she was called upon to perform. … The Hartford arrived at her rendezvous, Ship Island, 100 miles north-northeast of the mouths _ of the Mississippi, on February 20th. A military force, to co-operate with Farragut's fleet, was sent out, under General B. F. Butler, and arrived at Ship Island on March 25th."

E. Shippen, Naval Battles, chapter 41.

"At a point about 30 miles above the head of the passes, where the river makes its last great bend—the lowest favorable locality for defense before reaching the Gulf—the United States Government had erected two forts, St. Philip on the left or north bank, and Jackson a little farther down stream on the right. … The Confederate Government had early taken possession of these forts, and put them in complete order. When Farragut's fleet appeared before them, Fort Jackson, with its water battery, mounted 75 guns, and St. Philip about 40. … Just above the forts lay a rebel fleet of 15 vessels, under Commodore J. K. Mitchell, including the iron-clad ram Manassas and an immense floating battery covered with railroad iron, called the Louisiana. Just below Fort Jackson the Confederates had obstructed the river with a heavy chain, brought from Pensacola. … The task that lay before Farragut was, to break through the obstructions, pass between the forts, conquer the rebel fleet, and then steam up to New Orleans, lay the city under his guns, and demand its surrender. For its accomplishment he had 6 sloops-of-war, 16 gunboats, 21 schooners, each carrying a 13-inch mortar, and 5 other vessels. The fleet carried over 200 guns. … The schooners sailed up partly, or were towed by steamers, and on the morning of the 18th of April they had all reached their positions, ready to open fire. … For six days and nights the mortars kept up an unremitting fire, mainly on Fort Jackson, throwing nearly 6,000 shells. The Confederates acknowledged a loss of 14 killed and 39 wounded by the bombardment. … Farragut's patience was sorely tried by this delay. He had never had much faith in the mortars, and now it was evident, as he had anticipated, that almost the only practical effect of the bombardment was, to give the enemy long warning of the attack by the ships. … Having decided to run by the forts, he confided to his trusted Fleet Captain, Bell, the dangerous mission of proceeding with the gunboats Pinola and Itasca to make a passage for his fleet through the chain obstructions. … A sufficient opening was made for the fleet to pass through, in spite of the heavy fire to which the party were subjected. … Farragut had made up his mind to run by the forts at the close of the fifth day's bombardment; but the necessity of repairing damages to two of his vessels delayed him twenty-four hours longer. He had intended to lead the column in his flag-ship Hartford; but in the final disposition he gave that post to Captain Theodorus Bailey, at his own earnest request, who hoisted his red flag on the gunboat Cayuga. … The attempt to pass was to be made in the night, April 23-24; and, as the moon would rise about half past 3 o'clock in the morning, the fleet were warned to expect the signal for sailing at about 2 o'clock. … Lieutenant Commanding Caldwell sent up in the Itasca to examine the obstructions and find whether the passage was still open. At 11 o'clock he gave the signal that it was, and about the same time the enemy opened fire on him, sent down burning rafts, and lighted the immense piles of wood which they had prepared on the shore near the ends of the chain. … It was half past 3, the hour of moonrise, before all was ready. In the light of the blazing rafts and bonfires, moon or no moon made little difference now. … Captain Bailey led off with his division of 8 vessels, whose objective was Fort St. Philip, and all of them passed through the opening in the cable. Both forts opened fire upon his flag-ship, the Cayuga, soon after she had passed the hulks. Five minutes later she was pouring grape and canister into St. Philip, and in ten minutes more she had passed beyond range of that work, to find herself surrounded by 11 rebel gun-boats. Three of them attempted to board her at once. An 11-inch shot was sent through one of them at the close range of 30 yards, and she immediately ran aground and burned up. The Parrott gun on the forecastle drove off another; and Bailey was preparing to close with the third, when the Oneida and Varuna, which had run in close to St. Philip, thus avoiding the elevated guns of the fort, while they swept its bastions with grape and scrapnel, came up to the assistance of the Cayuga. The Oneida ran under full steam into one of the rebel ships, cut her nearly in two, and left her to float down stream a helpless wreck. She fired right and left into the others, and then went to the assistance of the Varuna, which was ashore on the left bank, hard pressed by the Governor Moore and another, said to be the Manassas. The Varuna was rammed by them both, and sank at the end of 15 minutes; but in that time it is claimed that she put three 8-inch shells into the Governor Moore, and so crippled her with solid shot that she surrendered to the Oneida, and drove five 8-inch shells into another, which sent her ashore. Still another of her shells exploded the boiler of a rebel steamer. The Pensacola steamed steadily but slowly by, firing with great deliberation and regularity. … The Mississippi was fought regularly in line, like the Pensacola, but escaped with light losses. She encountered the ram Manassas, which gave her a severe cut on the port quarter below the water-line, and disabled her machinery. But she riddled the ram with shot, boarded her, and set her on fire, so that she drifted below the forts and blew up. The Katahdin ran close to the forts, steamed by rapidly, and got near the head of the line, where she put a few good shots into the iron-clad Louisiana. The Kineo ran by close under St. Philip, and then assisted the Mississippi in handling the ram Manassas; but she was afterward attacked by three rebel gun boats at once, and, her pivot-gun carriage becoming injured, she withdrew and continued on up stream. {3460} The Wissahickon ran ashore before she reached the forts, got off, passed them, and above ran ashore again. Most of these operations were carried on in the darkness occasioned by the thick smoke, lighted, however, by the lurid flashes of more than 200 guns. The Hartford, bearing Flag-Officer Farragut, led the second division of the fleet. … In attempting to avoid a fire-raft, she grounded on a shoal near St. Philip. At the same time the ram Manassas pushed a raft upon her port quarter, and in an instant she was on fire. A part of the crew went to 'fire quarters' and soon subdued the flames, while the working of her guns was steadily continued, and she was then backed off into deep water. This movement turned the ship's head down stream, and it was with some difficulty that she was turned around against the current; but this was finally accomplished, and she continued to steam up the river, firing into several of the enemy's vessels as she passed. Among these was a steamer full of men, apparently a boarding-party. She was making straight for the Hartford when Captain Broome's gun, manned by marines, planted a shell in her, which exploded, and she disappeared. … The Brooklyn got out of her course, ran over one of the hulks, and became entangled in the raft, where she suffered a raking fire from Fort Jackson, and a pretty severe one from St. Philip. Scarcely was she disentangled and on her way up stream when she was butted by the Manassas, which, however, had not headway enough to damage her much, and slid off in the darkness. Then she was attacked by a large rebel steamer, but gave her the port broadside at fifty yards and set her on fire. Groping along through a black cloud of smoke from a fire-raft, she came close abreast of St. Philip, into which she poured such tremendous broadsides that by the flashes the gunners were seen running to shelter, and for the time the fort was silenced. The Brooklyn then passed on, and engaged several of the enemy's gunboats at short range. One of these, the Warrior, came under the port broadside, when eleven 5-second shells were instantly planted in her, all of which exploded, setting her on fire, and she was run ashore. The Brooklyn was under fire an hour and a half, and her losses were almost as severe as those of the Pensacola. The Richmond, a slow ship, brought up the rear of the second division, steaming steadily and working her guns with great regularity. … The Sciota, carrying Fleet-Captain Bell, led the third division. She steamed by the forts, firing as she passed, and above them burned two steamboats. … The Iroquois passed within 50 yards of Fort Jackson without injury, but was subjected to a terrible raking cross-fire from St. Philip, and was also raked by the McCrea. … Her losses were heavy. The Pinola passed up in line, firing her 11-inch pivot-gun and Parrott rifles at the flashes of Fort Jackson's guns, which at first were all that could be seen; then she emerged from the cloud of smoke, stood over toward St. Philip, and in the light of the blazing rafts received the discharges of its 40 guns. She was the last vessel that passed the forts, and got up in time to put one or two shells into the gunboats of the enemy. The Kennebec got out of her course, became entangled in the rafts, and did not get free till it was broad daylight and too late to attempt a passage. The Itasca, arriving in front of Fort Jackson, received a shot in her boiler, which made it impossible for her to proceed, and was turned down stream. The Winona got astray among the hulks, and lost so much time that when she came within range of Fort Jackson it was daylight, and the fleet had passed on. The first three or four shots from the fort swept away the entire crew of her rifled gun, save one man. Still she kept on, until the lower battery of St. Philip opened on her at less than point-blank range; this was too much for her, and she prudently headed down stream and ran out of the fire. Thus was accomplished a feat in naval warfare which had no precedent, and which is still without a parallel except the one furnished by Farragut himself, two years later, at Mobile. Starting with 17 wooden vessels, he had passed with all but 3 of them, against the swift current of a river but half a mile wide, between two powerful earthworks which had long been prepared for him, his course impeded by blazing rafts, and immediately thereafter had met the enemy's fleet of 15 vessels, two of them iron-clad, and either captured or destroyed every one of them. And all this with a loss of but one ship from his own squadron."

L. Farragut, Life of Farragut, chapters 18-19.

Commander Porter, who kept up the mortar fire while Farragut was forcing his way, says of the battle: "No grander or more beautiful sight could have been realized than the scenes of that night. From silence, disturbed now and then only by the slow fire of the mortars,—the phantom-like movements of the vessels giving no sound—an increased roar of heavy guns began, while the mortars burst forth into rapid bombardment, as the fleet drew near the enemy's works. Vessel after vessel added her guns to those already at work, until the very earth seemed to shake from their reverberations. A burning raft added its lurid glare to the scene, and the fiery tracks of the mortar-shells, as they passed through the darkness aloft, and sometimes burst in mid-air, gave the impression that heaven itself had joined in the general strife. The succeeding silence was almost as sudden. From the weighing of the anchors, one hour and ten minutes saw the vessels by the forts, and Farragut on his way to New Orleans, the prize staked upon the fierce game of war just ended."

D. D. Porter, Naval History of the Civil War, page 185.

"General Lovell, who was in command at New Orleans, had come down the river in a steamboat to observe the operations and was very nearly captured; he hastened back to the city to withdraw his forces. When the news spread through the streets that the Federal fleet had passed the forts and had destroyed the Confederate flotilla, a strange scene followed; a scene impossible, perhaps, in any other American city under parallel circumstances. The brave, active, fighting men of New Orleans were far away in the armies of the South; but they had left behind a slinking swarm of human vermin. … These, when they saw a hopeless panic seize the good people of the city, poured forth from their dens and began an indiscriminate pillaging of houses, shops, and storage-sheds. Thus while the better class of citizens were frantically setting fire to the cotton (some 12,000 bales) the cut-throats and ruffians, the hardened women and even the lawless children, were raging from place to place, back and forth, here and there, wildly plundering and aimlessly destroying. … All the public materials, consisting of army supplies, were heaped up in the middle of the streets and burned. {3461} General Lovell withdrew his soldiers on the evening of the 24th, leaving the city at the mercy of the Federal fleet, which at 1 o'clock on the following day steamed up the river and anchored in the middle of the stream not far from the foot of Canal Street. … The mob which lately had been committing such foul deeds, now swayed back and forth in the streets, hooting, yelling and cursing, urging the people to resist the landing of the Federals. Commodore Farragut demanded the formal surrender of the city, but the mayor was powerless. He could not surrender the city while the people were controlled by an unreasoning mob. Consequently, on the 20th, a detachment under command of Fleet Captain H. H. Bell was sent ashore to take possession of the public buildings."

M. Thompson, The Story of Louisiana, chapter 11.

"The success was almost beyond price to the Union Government from its moral importance on both sides of the Atlantic. As to the material advantage won, it may be best judged of by the statement of the well-known Confederate writer, Mr. Pollard: … 'It was a heavy blow to the Confederacy. It annihilated us in Louisiana; separated us from Texas and Arkansas; diminished our resources and supplies by the loss of one of the greatest grain and cattle countries within the limits of the Confederacy; gave to the enemy the Mississippi River, with all its means of navigation, for a base of operations.' … In calling the capture of New Orleans 'one of the most remarkable triumphs in the whole history of naval operations' he [Mr. Welles, Secretary of the Navy] is fully justified."

C. C. Chesney, Essays in Military Biog., page 167-168.

ALSO IN: _D. D. Porter, J. R. Bartlett and others, The Capture of New Orleans (Battles and Leaders, volume 2)._

A. T. Mahan, Admiral Farragut, chapter 7.

Official Records, series 1, volume 6.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (April-May: Alabama). General Mitchell's expedition.

The division of Buell's army commanded by General Ormsby M. Mitchell left Nashville with the other divisions of that army, late in March, but took the road to Murfreesboro, while the latter marched toward Pittsburg Landing. On the 4th of April General Mitchell marched from Murfreesboro to Shelbyville, 26 miles distant. "On the 7th he advanced to Fayetteville, 27 miles farther, and the next forenoon, the 8th, 15 miles beyond, he crossed the State line of Alabama. Continuing his march six miles farther, and being within ten miles of Huntsville, Alabama, he halted for the artillery and infantry to come up." At an early hour the next morning he entered the town, taking it completely by surprise. "Before the close of the day 100 miles of the Memphis and Charleston railroad were in his possession, stretching in one direction as far as Stevenson, and in the other as far as Decatur. … From Decatur he pushed on at once to Tuscumbia. Thus, without the loss of a single life, General Mitchell placed his army midway between Corinth and Chattanooga, prevented the destruction of a fine bridge at Decatur, opened communication with General Buell, and also the navigation of the Tennessee. The occupation of Huntsville also cut off all communication between the east and west by the Memphis and Charleston railroad. … This extension of General Mitchell's lines to hold the railroad rendered his situation precarious. Soon the enemy began to gather in force and threaten him. … He was raised to the rank of a major-general, and ordered to report directly to the [war] department, and his force was constituted an independent corps. But he got no reënforcements, he was left in such a condition that he at first hardly had anything to report but that he had been gradually driven from those positions, the gaining of which had made him a major-general." Subsequently he advanced upon Chattanooga; but that important position was not secured. A little later General Mitchell was transferred to Port Royal, South Carolina.

W. J. Tenney, Military and Naval History of the Rebellion, chapter 15.

It was in connection with General Mitchell's expedition that the thrilling episode of the railroad raid in Georgia occurred, narratives of which have been published by one of the participants, Reverend William Pittenger, first under the title of "Capturing a Locomotive," and afterwards with the title "Daring and Suffering," and also as "The Great Locomotive Chase." Volume Two of "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" also contains the story, entitled "The Locomotive Chase in Georgia," preceded by General Buell's critical account of Mitchell's entire operations.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (April-May: Tennessee-Mississippi). The bloodless and bootless conquest of Corinth.

"General Halleck arrived at Pittsburg landing on the 11th of April and immediately assumed command in the field. On the 21st General Pope arrived with an army 30,000 strong, fresh from the capture of Island Number Ten in the Mississippi River. He went into camp at Hamburg landing five miles above Pittsburg. Halleck had now three armies: the Army of the Ohio, Buell commanding; the Army of the Mississippi, Pope commanding; and the Army of the Tennessee. His orders divided the combined force into the right wing, reserve, centre, and left wing. … I [General Grant] was named second in command of the whole, and was also supposed to be in command of the right wing and reserve. … Preparations were at once made upon the arrival of the new commander for an advance on Corinth. … Corinth, Mississippi, lies in a south-westerly direction from Pittsburg landing and about 19 miles away as the bird would fly, but probably 22 by the nearest wagon-road. It is about four miles south of the line dividing the States of Tennessee and Mississippi, and at the junction of the Mississippi and Chattanooga Railroad with the Mobile and Ohio road which runs from Columbus to Mobile. … Corinth was a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold, and consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of. We ought to have seized it immediately after the fall of Donelson and Nashville, when it could have been taken without a battle, but failing then it should have been taken, without delay, on the concentration of troops at Pittsburg landing after the battle of Shiloh. In fact, the arrival of Pope should not have been awaited. There was no time from the battle of Shiloh up to the evacuation of Corinth when the enemy would not have left if pushed. … On the 30th of April the grand army commenced its advance from Shiloh upon Corinth. The movement was a siege from the start to the close.

{3462}

The National troops were always behind intrenchments, except of course the small reconnoitring parties sent to the front to clear the way for an advance. Even the commanders of these parties were cautioned, 'not to bring on an engagement.' … For myself, I was little more than an observer. Orders were sent direct to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from one line of intrenchments to another without notifying me. My position was so embarrassing in fact that I made several applications during the siege to be relieved. … On the 28th of May, General Logan, whose command was then on the Mobile and Ohio railroad, said to me that the enemy had been evacuating for several days, and that if allowed he could go into Corinth with his brigade. … Beauregard published his orders for the evacuation of Corinth on the 26th of May and fixed the 29th for the departure of his troops, and on the 30th of May General Halleck had his whole army drawn up prepared for battle and announced in orders that there was every indication that our left was to be attacked that morning. Corinth had already been evacuated and the National troops marched on and took possession without opposition. Everything had been destroyed or carried away. The Confederate commander had instructed his soldiers to cheer on the arrival of every train, to create the impression among the Yankees that reinforcements were arriving. There was not a sick or wounded man left by the Confederates, nor stores of any kind. Some ammunition had been blown up—not removed—but the trophies of war were a few Quaker guns, logs of about the diameter of ordinary cannon, mounted on wheels of wagons and pointed in the most threatening manner towards us. The possession of Corinth by the National troops was of strategic importance, but the victory was barren in every other particular. … General Halleck at once commenced erecting fortifications around Corinth on a scale to indicate that this one point must be held if it took the whole National army to do it. … They were laid out on a scale that would have required 100,000 men to fully man them. … These fortifications were never used. … After the capture of Corinth a movable force of 80,000 men, besides enough to hold all the territory acquired, could have been set in motion for the accomplishment of any great campaign for the suppression of the rebellion. In addition to this fresh troops were being raised to swell the effective force. But the work of depletion commenced."

U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, chapter 26 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: _M. F. Force, From Fort Henry to Corinth (Campaigns of the Civil War, volume 2), chapter 8._

A. Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, chapter 24 (volume 1).

Official Records, series 1, volume 10.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (April-June). Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia and in the Territories.

On the 16th of December, 1861, Mr Wilson, of Massachusetts, introduced in the Senate of the United States a bill for the immediate emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia; "for the payment to their loyal owners of an average sum of $300; for the appointment of a commission to assess the sum to be paid; and the appropriation of $1,000,000. This bill was reported back on the 13th of February, 1862, with amendments. On the 24th he introduced a bill which, he said, was supplementary to that already before the Senate, to repeal the act extending the laws of Maryland over the District, and to annul all those statutes which gave the cities of Washington and Georgetown authority to pass ordinances discriminating against persons on account of color. On the 12th of March it came up for debate in committee of the whole. The debate on these resolutions, the bill, and other cognate measures exhibit elements of interest hardly found in any other session of the American Congress on record. It was emphatically a new departure. … No important change was made, and on the 3d of April, 1862, the bill introduced by Mr. Wilson more than three months before was passed by a vote of 29 to 14. The bill was taken up in the House the next week, and gave rise to a brief but brilliant debate. … The bill … passed the House by a vote of 92 to 38, and received the approval of the President on the 16th day of April, 1862. The President, in his message accompanying his approval of the bill, had stated some objections to it. These objections were that certain classes, such as married women, minors, and persons absent from the District, were not sufficiently protected and provided for; and he suggested that these defects should be remedied by additional legislation"—which was done. "On the 24th of March, 1862, Mr. Arnold, of Illinois, introduced a bill into the House of Representatives to render freedom national and slavery sectional. It was referred to the Committee on Territories, was reported on the 1st of May, with an amendment, and made the order of the day for the 8th. It provided that freedom should be the fundamental law of the land, and that slavery should no longer exist in all places under the direct and exclusive control of the Federal government. It prohibited slavery in all Territories, then or thereafter existing; in all places purchased by the government, with the consent of the legislatures of the several States, for forts, magazines, arsenals, doek-yards, and other needful buildings; in all vessels on the high seas, and on all national highways, beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the several States. … The difficulties, … real or seeming, constitutional or other, were too great to secure the united action of the friends of the underlying principle of the bill as reported by the committee. Mr. Lovejoy, therefore, moved a substitute restricting its action entirely to the Territories. The substitute was accepted, and the bill as thus amended was carried by a vote of 85 to 50. The preamble was so amended as to read, 'An act to secure freedom to all persons within the Territories of the United States.' In the Senate, on the 15th of May, Mr. Browning, reported the bill from the Committee on Territories with an amendment that, from and after the passage of the act, there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any existing Territory, or in any Territory thereafter formed or acquired. It was, substantially, the application of the principle of the ordinance of 1787 to all the territory then possessed or thereafter to be acquired. On the 9th of June the Senate proceeded to its consideration, adopted the amendment, and passed the bill by a vote of 28 to 10. The House agreed to the Senate amendment, and the bill thus amended was passed on the 17th, and approved by the President on the 19th of June."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 3, chapters 21 and 24.

ALSO IN: _M. Tremain, Slavery in the District of Columbia (University of Nebraska: Seminary Papers Number 2)._

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May). Passage of the Homestead Act.

"The homestead bill, or the granting of free homes from and on the public domain, became a national question in 1852. The Free Soil Democracy, at Pittsburg, Pa., August 11, 1852, in National Convention, nominated John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, and George W. Julian, of Indiana, for President and Vice-President, and adopted the following as the 12th plank or resolution in their platform: 'That the public lands of the United States belong to the people, and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to corporations, but should be held as a sacred trust for the benefit of the people, and should be granted in limited quantities, free of cost, to landless settlers.' Thereafter it became a national question until its passage in 1862, and was in the platforms of political parties. It was petitioned for and against. Public sentiment was aroused. It was a serious innovation and would cause an almost entire change in the settlement laws. Instead of the public lands being sold for cash, for profit, or being taken, first, under the pre-emption system, which eventuated in cash purchases, they were to be given to actual settlers who would occupy, improve, and cultivate them for a term of years, and then receive a patent free of acreage charges, with fees paid by the homesteader sufficient to cover cost of survey and transfer of title. … The rich and fertile lands of the Mississippi Valley were fast filling up with settlers. Agricultural lands in the Middle States, which, after the year 1824, were bought for $1.25 per acre, now sold at from $50 to $80 per acre. Former purchasers of these Government lands in the Middle, Western, and Southern States, were selling their early purchases for this great advance, and moving west, to Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri, and there again taking cheap Government lands under the pre-emption laws. The western emigration caused a rush—a migration of neighborhoods in many localities of the older Western States. Following the sun, their pillar of fire, these State founders moved westward, a resistless army of agents of American civilization, and there was a demand for homes on the public lands, and a strong pressure for the enactment of a law which should confine locators to small tracts, and require actual occupation, improvement, and cultivation. A fierce political battle now ensued, beginning in 1854, and continuing until 1862, the year of the passage of the law. The demand of the settlers was incessant and constant." Mr. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, made himself the special champion of the measure in Congress. On the 1st of February, 1859, a bill embodying its principles was carried in the House, but was not permitted to reach a vote in the Senate. The slaveholding interest was almost solidly against it. In March, 1860, a similar bill was again passed by the House. The Senate substituted a bill granting homesteads to actual settlers at twenty-five cents per acre, instead of free of cost. After protracted conferences, the House was forced to accept the Senate bill, with slight amendments. But if the enemies of the measure had so nearly lost their control of Congress, they still owned the President—Buchanan—and he killed it by a veto. Then came the rebellion and civil war, absorbing all minor questions, and nearly two years went by before the law which opened the public lands freely to all actual settlers was adopted. It became a law by the signature of President Lincoln on the 20th of May, 1862. The following are the essential provisions of the Act: "That any person who is the head of a family, or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the naturalization laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms against the United States Government or given aid and comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the first January, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, be entitled to enter one quarter-section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands, upon which said person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which may, at the time the application is made, be subject to pre-emption at one dollar and twenty-five cents, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less of such unappropriated lands, at two dollars and fifty cents per acre, to be located in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed: Provided, That any person owning or residing on land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, with the land so already owned and occupied, exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres. … That the person applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application to the register of the land office in which he or she is about to make such entry, make affidavit before the said register or receiver that he or she is the head of a family, or is twenty-one or more years of age, or shall have performed service in the Army or Navy of the United States, and that he has never borne arms against the Government of the United States or given aid and comfort to its enemies, and that such application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not, either directly or indirectly, for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever; and upon filing the said affidavit with the said register or receiver, and on payment of ten dollars, he or she shall thereupon be permitted to enter the quantity of land specified: Provided, however, That no certificate shall be given or patent issued therefor until the expiration of five years from the date of such entry; and if, at the expiration of such time, or at any time within two years thereafter, the person making such entry—or if he be dead, his widow; or in case of her death, his heirs or devisee; or in case of a widow making such entry, her heirs or devisee, in case of her death—shall prove by two credible witnesses that he, or she, or they have resided upon or cultivated the same for the term of five years immediately succeeding the time of filing the affidavit aforesaid, and shall make affidavit that no part of said land has been alienated, and that he has borne true allegiance to the Government of the United States; then, in such case, he, she, or they, if at that time a citizen of the United States, shall be entitled to a patent, as in other cases provided for by law: {3464} And provided, further, That in case of the death of both father and mother, leaving an infant child or children under twenty-one years of age, the right and fee shall inure to the benefit of said infant child or children; and the executor, administrator, or guardian may, at any time within two years after the death of the surviving parent, and in accordance with the laws of the State in which such children for the time being have their domicil, sell said land for the benefit of said infants, but for no other purpose; and the purchaser shall acquire the absolute title by the purchase, and be entitled to a patent from the United States, on payment of the office fees and sum of money herein specified. … That if, at any time after the filing of the affidavit, … and before the expiration of the five years aforesaid, it shall be proven, after due notice to the settler, to the satisfaction of the register of the land office, that the person having filed such affidavit shall have actually changed his or her residence, or abandoned the said land for more than six months at any time, then and in that event the land so entered shall revert to the Government.' … This original homestead act has been amended several times. … The principal amendments were in the nature of extension of its privileges, and the limit of 80 acres of land of the double minimum class, $2.50 per acre, within certain road limits, has since been done away with by acts of March 3, 1879, July 1, 1879, and June 15, 1880; there now being but one class of agricultural lands, so for as regards the minimum quantity in homestead entries. The act of June 8, 1872, was known as the soldiers' and sailors' homestead act. It gave honorably discharged soldiers and sailors from the Army and Navy of the United States lands under the homestead act in any locality, and deducted from the five years' residence which was required to make title their term of service in the Army and Navy during the war of the Rebellion. One year's residence and cultivation, however, were necessary. … The soldiers' additional homestead provision was to give those soldiers who had had the benefit of the homestead act, to the extent of a quantity under 160 acres, an additional amount, so as to make their allowance 160 acres."

T. Donaldson, The Public Domain, chapter 27.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May). General Hunter's Emancipation Order, rescinded by President Lincoln.

Major General David Hunter, having lately succeeded to the command at Hilton Head, South Carolina, issued, on the 9th of May, 1862, a General Order (No. 11), declaring martial law in Georgia, Florida and South Carolina, and adding: "Slavery and martial law in a free country are altogether incompatible; the persons in these States … heretofore held as slaves are therefore declared forever free." This order was rescinded by President Lincoln in a Proclamation, dated May 19, in which he used the following language: "Whether it be competent for me, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, to declare the slaves of any State or States free; and whether at any time, or in any case, it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the maintenance of the Government, to exercise such supposed power, are questions which, under my responsibility, I reserve to myself, and which I cannot feel justified in leaving to the decision of commanders in the field."

E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, pages 250—251.

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 6, ch. 5.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: South Carolina). Employment of the freed Negroes as armed soldiers.

The negroes within the Union lines in South Carolina, at Hilton Head and elsewhere, were placed under the charge, at first, of agents appointed by the Treasury Department; but disagreements arose between these agents and the military authorities, and the former were recalled. "These several agents had been replaced by a superior officer of the staff, General Saxton, who was himself placed under the orders Of General Hunter with the rank of a military commander. By this action the government at Washington sustained Hunter in his conflict with the agents Of the Treasury Department—a conflict originating in very serious causes, for it affected the question of slavery in its most vital points. … Mr. Cameron [Secretary of the Treasury] had authorized General Sherman to organize the negroes into squads and companies. The latter had at first only been employed in manual labor, such as the construction of forts, roads and wharves; but Hunter, on taking Sherman's place, saw that he could give a much wider interpretation to the Secretary's instructions. He substituted muskets for the pick-axes used by the detachments of negro laborers organized by his predecessor; and, instead of making them dig the earth, he had them taught military exercises. Nor did he stop here; but wishing to increase the number of these new soldiers, he gathered all the adult negroes residing on the adjoining islands at Hilton Head on the 12th of May, in order to induce them to enter the military service. … The civil agents complained bitterly of the trouble this measure had created among the people entrusted to their charge, and thence sprung the quarrel which Mr. Lincoln cut short by deciding in favor of Hunter. The protection granted to fugitive slaves was the first logical consequence of the war, their enrolment in the Federal armies was the second. As untimely and impolitic as was the proclamation by which Hunter had taken upon himself to free the slaves outside of his jurisdiction, the creation Of the first negro regiment was an act skilfully conceived. It was essentially a military act; it raised and ennobled the freedman by entrusting him with arms; its legality was unquestionable from the moment that the President approved of it, for there was no law to prevent him from enlisting colored volunteers. In short, it showed to the Confederates that the Washington government was determined not to allow itself to be any longer paralyzed by the vain hope Of reconciliation. … But notwithstanding the success of this first experiment, considerable time elapsed before the Federal government concluded to follow Hunter in this direction."

Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America, volume 2, book 7, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: G. W. Williams, History of Negro troops in the War of the Rebellion, chapter 5.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign: The Battle of Williamsburg and the slow advance to the Chickahominy.

On the evacuation Of the rebel works at Yorktown, "our columns followed on in pursuit, McClellan remaining in Yorktown, busy with questions of transportation. The enemy under Longstreet had awaited our approach at Williamsburg. Hooker first attacked, having been brought to a stand by a work known as Fort Magruder, and kept up a heavy pounding all the forenoon [May 5). Kearny came to his rescue when Hooker's men were all but spent. Hancock moved around the enemy's left, seized some abandoned redoubts, and made a brilliant diversion. But there was no cooperation in our attack; no one on the field was in supreme command, and the day was fruitlessly spent in partial blows. The enemy retreated at night. Our loss was 2,200; theirs in all probability less."

T. A. Dodge, Bird's-eye View of our Civil War, chapter 11.

"General Johnston says [' Narrative,' p. 124]: 'We fought for no other purpose than to hold the ground long enough to enable our baggage-trains to get out of the way of the troops. This object was accomplished without difficulty. There was no time during the day when the slightest uncertainty appeared.' He also says that Longstreet's and Hill's divisions slept on the field; that what deserves to be called fighting ceased two hours before dark, yet the Confederates held the field until the next morning, when they resumed their march. … There may be a little rose-color about these statements, but the substantial facts seem to be accurately stated. … General McClellan made no pursuit after Williamsburg, for reasons which he who will may find stated in his Report; and we may pass on with the single additional remark that the battle of Williamsburg was unnecessary, for the position might have been turned by a movement by our right. This was actually accomplished by Hancock, after Hooker had met with all his heavy loss; and it might as well have been done before as after. … The three weeks which followed the battle of Williamsburg were so devoid of incident that it seems to be sufficient to say that the Confederates moved up the Peninsula in two columns. The right column, composed of the divisions of Smith and Magruder, followed the road by New Kent Court House, and in three marches reached the Baltimore Cross Roads, 19 miles from Barhamsville. The left column, composed of the divisions of Longstreet and D. H. Hill, reached in the same number of marches the Long Bridges. The army remained five days in this position, facing to the east. … The iron-clad Virginia [better known as the Merrimac] was destroyed on, or just before, the 14th of May. This event opened the James River to our navy; and, to be ready to meet an advance up that river as well as from the direction of West Point, the Confederate forces were ordered to cross the Chickahominy on the 15th May. On the 17th their army encamped about three miles from Richmond, in front of the line of redoubts constructed in 1861. … During this period the weather was generally fine, cool and breezy, but gradually tending towards heat. … McClellan sent out cavalry reconnoissances from Williamsburg on the 5th and 7th May. … The advance of the main body began on the 8th; and on the 10th headquarters were at Roper's Church, 19 miles from Williamsburg, with all the troops which had arrived by land, except Hooker's, in the vicinity of that place. … By the 15th, headquarters, and the divisions of Franklin, Porter, Sykes, and Smith, reached Cumberland on the Pamunkey. … On the 19th of May, headquarters and the corps of Porter and Franklin moved to Tunstall's Station on the railroad, five miles from White House. On the 20th, Casey's division forded the Chickahominy, where Bottom's Bridge had been, and occupied the opposite heights. Bottom's Bridge was immediately rebuilt. … On the 22d, headquarters moved to Cold Harbor. On the 24th, we carried the village of Mechanicsville, but the enemy destroyed the bridge on which the Mechanicsville Turnpike crossed the river. On the same day our left advance secured a position at Seven Pines, the point of junction of the Nine-Mile Road with the Williamsburg road, which last road crosses the Chickahominy at Bottom's Bridge. … It is difficult to account for, or justify, the slowness of McClellan's march. The distance from Williamsburg to the middle of a line drawn from Bottom's Bridge to Cold Harbor, measuring by the road, is about 40 miles. That from West Point to the same point, measuring in the same way, is considerably less. One might almost say that, in the three weeks which McClellan took to accomplish this distance, he might have marched his army all the way in order of battle, bridging streams, felling trees, making roads, and supplying his army as he advanced. 'I had hoped,' he says, 'by rapid movements to drive before me, or capture, the enemy on the Peninsula, open the James River, and press on to Richmond, before he should be materially re-enforced.' What was there to hinder his making the attempt? Instead of that he followed him at the average rate of rather less than two miles a day."

F. W. Palfrey, After the fall of Yorktown (Massachusetts Military Historical Society Papers, volume 1, pages 95-114).

ALSO IN: J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, chapter 5.

_Report of Joint Commission on the Conduct of the War, 38th Congress 2d session, volume 1._

Official Records, series 1, volume 11, part 1.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). Evacuation of Norfolk by the Rebels. Destruction of the Merrimac.

"The movement of our grand army up the Peninsula, in connection with Burnside's successes and captures in North Carolina, had rendered the possession of Norfolk by the Rebels no longer tenable. … General Wool, commanding at Fortress Monroe, having organized an expedition designed to reduce that important city, led it thither on the 10th; finding the bridge over Tanner's Creek on fire, but no enemy to dispute possession of Norfolk, which was quietly surrendered by its Mayor. The Navy Yard and Portsmouth were in like manner repossessed; the Rebels, ere they left, destroying every thing that would burn, partially blowing up the Dry Dock, and completely destroying their famous iron-clad known to us as the Merrimac. They left about 200 cannon. … Two unfinished iron-clads were among the vessels fired by the Rebels ere they left."

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 2, page 127.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign: Fair Oaks, or Seven Pines.

"On the 25th of May General McClellan issued a general order, which was read throughout the camps, directing the troops, as they advanced beyond the Chickahominy, to be prepared for battle at a moment's notice, and to be entirely unencumbered, with the exception of ambulances; to carry three days rations in their haversacks, leaving their knapsacks with their wagons, which were on the eastern side of the river, carefully parked. … The divisions from the corps of Generals Heintzelman and Keyes were among the first to cross the Chickahominy. They took a position on the right bank somewhat advanced therefrom. The right wing rested near New Bridge, the centre at Seven Pines, and the left flank on the White Oak Swamp. General Sumner's corps remained on the east side of the river. On the 30th the Confederate General Johnston made arrangements for an attack upon the Federal army, for the purpose of cutting off, if possible, the corps of Generals Heintzelman and Keyes before they could be joined by General Sumner. He selected the divisions of Generals Longstreet, Huger, G. W. Smith, D. H. Hill, and Whiting. His plan was that Generals Hill and Longstreet should advance by the road to Williamsburg and make the attack in front, and that General Huger should move on the road to Charles City and attack in flank the troops assailed by Generals Hill and Longstreet. General Smith was ordered to the junction of the New Bridge Road and the Nine Mile Road, and to be in readiness to fall on the right flank of General Keyes and to cover the left of General Longstreet. The forces of Generals Hill, Longstreet, and Smith were in position early on the morning of Saturday, May 31, and waited until afternoon for General Huger to get into position. Prince de Joinville, who was a competent spectator, thus describes ['Campagne de l' Armèe du Potomac, Mars-Juillet, 1862'] the scenes which followed this attack: 'At the moment it was thus attacked the Federal army occupied a position having the form of a V. The base of the V is at Bottom's Bridge, where the railroad crosses the Chickahominy. The left arm stretches toward Richmond, with this railroad and the road from that city to Williamsburg. There stood the left wing, composed of four divisions echeloned, one behind the other, between Fair Oaks and Savage stations, and encamped in the woods on both sides of the road. The other arm of the V, the right, follows the left bank of the river; that is the right wing. There are these five divisions and the reserve. Should one desire to communicate from one extremity to the other of those two wings, going by Bottom's Bridge, the way is very long, not less than 12 or 15 miles. In an air line the distance, on the contrary, is very trifling, but between the two arms of the V flows the Chickahominy. It was to connect both arms, in the space between them, that the construction of 3 or 4 bridges had been undertaken, only one of which was serviceable on the 31st of May. It had been built by General Sumner, nearly half way between Bottom's Bridge and the most advanced point of the Federal lines. It saved the army that day from a disaster.' The other bridges were not ready. They were structures of logs, and time was required to build them. The approaches were always bad, and the tedious labor of corduroying long distances was necessary. 'It was against the left wing of the army that every effort of the enemy was directed. That wing had its outposts at Fair Oaks station, on the York river railroad, and at a place called Seven Pines, on the Williamsburg road. There the Federals had thrown up a redoubt in a clearing, where a few houses were to be seen, and constructed abatis, to increase the field for sharpshooting of the troops posted there. The rest of the country was completely covered with woods. The previous day there had been a frightful storm, with torrents of rain, and the roads were frightful. All at once, about one o'clock in the afternoon, the weather being dark and gloomy, a very spirited fusilade is heard. The pickets and sentries are violently driven in; the woods which surround Fair Oaks and Seven Pines are filled with clouds of the enemy's sharpshooters. The troops rush to arms and fight in desperation; but their adversaries' forces constantly increase, and their losses do not stop them. The redoubt of the Seven Pines is surrounded, and its defenders die bravely. … Meanwhile Heintzelman rushes to the rescue with his two divisions. As at Williamsburg, Kearney arrives in good time to reëstablish the fight. Berry's brigade, of this division, composed of Michigan regiments and an Irish battalion, advances firm as a wall into the midst of the disordered mass which wanders over the battle field, and does more by its example than the most powerful reënforcements. About a mile of ground has been lost, 15 pieces of cannon, the camp of the division of the advance guard, that of General Casey; but now we hold our own. A sort of line of battle is formed across the woods, perpendicularly to the road and the railroad, and there the repeated assaults of the enemy's masses are resisted. The left cannot be turned, where is the White Oak Swamp, an impassable morass; but the right may be surrounded. At this very moment, in fact, a strong column of Confederates has been directed against that side. If it succeeds in interposing between Bottom's Bridge and the Federal troops, which hold beyond Savage's Station, the entire left wing is lost. It will have no retreat, and is doomed to yield to numbers; but precisely at this moment—that is to say, at 6 o'clock in the evening—new actors appear on the scene. General Sumner, who has succeeded in passing the Chickahominy, with Sedgwick's division, over the bridge constructed by his troops, and who, like a brave soldier, has marched straight through the woods to the sound of the cannon, arrived suddenly on the left flank of the column with which the enemy is endeavoring to cut off Heintzelman and Keyes. He plants in the clearing a battery which he has succeeded in bringing with him. … In vain Johnston sends against this battery his best troops, those of South Carolina—the Hampton Legion among others. In vain he rushes on it himself; nothing can shake the Federals, who, at nightfall, valiantly led by General Sumner in person, throw themselves upon the enemy at the point of the bayonet, and drive him furiously, with frightful slaughter and fear, back as far as Fair Oaks Station. Night put an end to the combat. On both sides nothing was known of the result of the battle but what each one had seen with his own eyes. … Evidently Johnston had flattered himself, in throwing all his forces on the four divisions of the left wing, that he could annihilate them before any aid could come to them from the main body of the army on the left bank of the Chickahominy. For the moment he had recoiled before the energetic resistance of those four divisions, and also before the furious and unforeseen attack of Sumner's troops. {3467} No doubt he had counted on the terrible storm of the previous day to have swelled the Chickahominy so as to render the establishment of a bridge impossible, or to sweep away in its overflowing waters those already established; but the capricious river baffled his plans, as it did some hours later those of his adversaries. The effect of the deluge was not immediate; the rise in the water delayed its appearance 24 hours. Was this unhoped-for delay turned to account with all desirable activity on the part of the Federals? That is a question which will remain always in dispute. … It was not until 7 o'clock in the evening that the idea of securing all the bridges without delay, and causing the whole army to cross at daybreak to the right bank of the Chickahominy, was entertained. It was now too late. Four hours had been lost, and the opportunity—that moment so fleeting, in war as in other circumstances—had gone. The rise, on which Johnston had vainly counted, and which had not hindered Sumner from crossing, came on during the night. The river rose suddenly from two feet, and continued to swell with rapidity, carrying away the new bridges, tearing up and sweeping off the trees which formed the planking of Sumner's bridges, and covering the entire valley with its overflowing waters. Nothing could cross. At the earliest dawn of day the combat was resumed with great fury on the left bank. The enemy came on in a body, but without order or method, and rushed upon the Federals, who, knowing that they were inferior in numbers and without hope of being supported, did not attempt to do more than resist and hold their ground. They fought with fierce determination on both sides, without any noise, without any cries, and whenever they were too hardly pressed they made a charge with the bayonet. … Toward midday the fire gradually diminished, then ceased. The enemy retreated; but the Federals were not in a position to pursue them. No one then knew what a loss the Southerners had just suffered in the person of their commander, General Johnston, who was severely wounded. It was to his absence that was owing, in a great measure, the unskilful attacks against the Federal army in the morning. … Who can say what would have been the result if at this moment the 35,000 fresh troops left on the other side of the Chickahominy had appeared on the flank of this disordered mass after having successfully crossed the bridges?'"

W. J. Tenney, Military and Naval History of the Rebellion, chapter 19 (quoting and translating from Prince de Joinville's "Campagne de l'Armée du Potomac").

"After this battle of Seven Pines—or Fair Oaks, as the Northern people prefer to call it—General McClellan made no step forward, but employed his troops industriously in intrenching themselves."

J. E. Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, page 142.

ALSO IN: _G. W. Smith, Two days of Battle at Seven Pines (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, pages 220-263)._

Official Records, series 1, volume 11, part 1.

W. Allan, The Army of Northern Virginia in 1862, chapter 7-8.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May-June: Virginia). Stonewall Jackson's second campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Winchester. Cross Keys. Port Republic.

"At the time the Army of the Potomac was toiling painfully up the Peninsula towards Richmond, the remaining forces in Northern Virginia presented the extraordinary spectacle of three distinct armies, planted on three separate lines of operations, under three independent commanders. The highland region of West Virginia had been formed into the 'Mountain Department' under command of General Fremont; the Valley of the Shenandoah constituted the 'Department of the Shenandoah' under General Banks; and the region covered by the direct lines of approach to Washington had been erected into the 'Department of the Rappahannock,' and assigned to General McDowell. … The Administration, growing more easy touching the safety of the capital, determined, in response to General McClellan's oft-repeated appeals for re-enforcements, to send forward McDowell's corps,—not, indeed, as he desired, to re-enforce him by water, but to advance overland to attack Richmond in co-operation with the Army of the Potomac. … After numerous delays, the time of advance of this column was at length fixed for the 26th of May, a date closely coincident with the arrival of the Army of the Potomac on the Chickahominy. The head of McDowell's column had already been pushed eight miles south of Fredericksburg; and McClellan, to clear all opposition from his path, sent forward Porter's corps to Hanover Junction, where he had a sharp encounter with a force of the enemy under General Branch, whom he repulsed with a loss of 200 killed and 700 prisoners, and established the right of the Army of the Potomac within fifteen miles, or one march, of McDowell's van. McDowell was eager to advance, and McClellan was equally anxious for his arrival, when there happened an event which frustrated this plan and all the hopes that had been based thereon. This event was the irruption of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. The keen-eyed soldier at the head of the main Confederate army, discerning the intended junction between McDowell and McClellan, quickly seized his opportunity, and intrusted the execution of a bold 'coup' to that vigorous lieutenant who had already made the Valley ring with his exploits." Jackson, who had been resting for a time in a position between the south fork of the Shenandoah and Swift Run Gap, was joined, on the 30th of April, by Ewell's division from Gordonsville, and by other re-enforcements, which "raised his force to about 15,000 men. Banks' force, reduced by the detachment of Shields' division, sent to General McDowell, to about 5,000 men, was posted at Harrisonburg. Fremont was at Franklin, across the mountains; but one of his brigades, under Milroy, had burst beyond the limits of the Mountain Department, and seemed to be moving to make a junction with Banks, with the design, as Jackson thought, of advancing on Staunton. Jackson determined to attack these forces in detail. Accordingly, he posted Ewell so as to hold Banks in check, whilst he himself moved to Staunton. From here he threw forward five brigades, under General Edward Johnson (May 7), to attack Milroy. The latter retreated to his mountain fastness, and took position at a point named McDowell, where, re-enforced by the brigade of Schenck, he engaged Johnson, but was forced to retire on Fremont's main body at Franklin. Having thus thrown off Milroy eccentrically from communication with Banks, Jackson returned (May 14) to destroy the force under that officer." Banks retreated down the Valley, followed by Jackson, who diverged a little to capture a garrison of 700 men at Front Royal. {3468} On the 24th, Banks made a stand on the heights of Winchester and gave fight, "till, being assailed on both flanks, he retired hastily to the north bank of the Potomac (May 25), making a march of 53 miles in 48 hours. Jackson continued the pursuit as far as Halltown, within two miles of Harper's Ferry, where he remained till the 30th, when, finding heavy forces converging on his rear, he began a retrograde movement up the Valley. The tidings of Jackson's apparition at Winchester on the 24th, and his subsequent advance to Harper's Ferry, fell like a thunderbolt on the war-council at Washington. The order for McDowell's advance from Fredericksburg, to unite with McClellan, was instantly countermanded; and he was directed to put 20,000 men in motion at once for the Shenandoah Valley, by the line of the Manassas Gap Railroad. … In vain he pointed out that it was impossible for him either to succor Banks or co-operate with Fremont; … that it would take him a week or ten days to reach the Valley, and that by this time the occasion for his services would have passed by. In vain General McClellan urged the real motive of the raid—to prevent re-enforcements from reaching him." McDowell moved from the east and Fremont from the west, converging on Strasburg. "The two columns moved rapidly; they had almost effected a junction on the 31st; but that very day Jackson, falling back from Harper's Ferry, slipped between the two, and made good his retreat up the Valley. … The pursuers did their best: they pushed on, Fremont following in the path of Jackson up the Valley of the Shenandoah; while McDowell sent forward Shields' division by the lateral Luray Valley, with a view to head him off when he should attempt to break through the gaps of the Blue Ridge." On the 8th of June Ewell's division of Jackson's army "repulsed Fremont, while Jackson held Shields in check. Early next morning, drawing in Ewell and concentrating his forces, Jackson threw himself across the river, burned the bridge to prevent Fremont from following; fell upon Shields' advance, consisting of two brigades under General Tyler, and repulsed him, capturing his artillery. The former of these affairs figures in history as the battle of Cross Keys, and the latter as the battle of Port Republic. In this exciting month's campaign, Jackson made great captures of stores and prisoners; but this was not its chief result. Without gaining a single tactical victory he had yet achieved a great strategic victory; for by skilfully manœuvring 15,000 men he succeeded in neutralizing a force of 60,000. It is perhaps not too much to say that he saved Richmond."

W. Swinton, Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, pages 122-128.

ALSO IN: _J. D. Imboden, Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah (Battles and Leaders, volume 2, page 282-301)._

J. E. Cooke, Stonewall Jackson: a Military Biography, part 2, chapters 8-17.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May-July: On the Mississippi). The first undertakings against Vicksburg.

"New Orleans once secured and handed over to General Butler, Farragut pushed up the Mississippi, and in the course of the next two months the Union flag was hoisted at Baton Rouge, Natchez, and every town of importance as high as Vicksburg. This city, strong by its natural position on high bluffs sloping gently landward, and already partly converted into a fortress by intrenchments heavily armed, was now (since the surrender of Memphis on the 6th of June) the only point of importance held by the Confederates on the banks of the great river. It at once, therefore, assumed an importance well warranted by its later history. Summoned on the 18th of May to evacuate the place, General M. L. Smith, who held it, gave a decided refusal; and Farragut found it necessary to await once more the arrival of Porter's flotilla, which was not brought up and reported ready until the 27th of June. On the 28th a general attack took place, Farragut succeeding in taking two of his three frigates and six gun-boats above the batteries, but producing no effect on the defences. 'The enemy leave their guns for the moment,' says his hasty report, 'but return to them as soon as we have passed, and rake us.' About 50 men were killed and wounded on board, and the Brooklyn frigate, with two gun-boats, forced to retreat below the place. The bombardment continued at intervals, pending an application to General Halleck at Corinth for a corps of his army to aid the fleet, and the result of an experiment (the first of three) made to cut a ship canal through the isthmus opposite Vicksburg, and leave the Federal ships an independent passage. On the 15th of July their possession of the river was suddenly challenged by a large ram, the Arkansas, which the Confederates had been fitting on the Yazoo, a considerable stream entering the Mississippi just above Vicksburg. … Her plating, however, proved to be weak, and her machinery very defective." The career of the Arkansas was brief and harmless. In August she was knocked to pieces by the shells of the Essex, "whose commander had taken charge of the Lower Mississippi on the departure of Farragut. The latter officer, in compliance with orders from Mr. Welles, had abandoned his contest with the Vicksburg works on the 20th of July, and made down stream for New Orleans, whence he proceeded with his squadron to carry on operations along the coast of Texas, where the chief posts were (for the time) recovered to the Union by his detachments in the course of a few weeks. 'All we want,' he wrote on the 15th of October, 'is a few soldiers to hold the places, and we will soon have the whole coast. It is a more effectual blockade to have the vessels inside instead of outside.'"

C. C. Chesney, Essays in Military Biography, pages 169-171.

ALSO IN: L. Farragut, Life of David G. Farragut, chapter. 20.

D. D. Porter, Naval History of the Civil War, chapter 21.

R. B. Irwin, History of the 19th Army Corps. chapters 2-3.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (May-December: Louisiana). New Orleans under General Butler.

The army which accompanied Farragut's naval expedition against New Orleans, to assist its operations and to occupy the city and the lower Mississippi region when taken, was placed under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler. It consisted nominally of 18,000 men, but is said to have actually mustered less than 14,000. It was composed of regiments which had been raised by Butler in New England especially for the enterprise, his preparations having commenced as early as September, 1861. These troops were partly gathered at Ship Island, in the Gulf, some time before Farragut made ready his fleet; the remainder were at the rendezvous in good time, and the whole were in waiting, on board transports, at the passes, when Farragut carried his fleet past Forts Jackson and St. Philip. {3469} "General Butler … now proceeded to execute his part of the duty. He brought his forces into the rear of St. Philip, Porter keeping up a bombardment. On the 27th of April the garrison had become so demoralized as to refuse to fight any longer. The forts were therefore surrendered on the next day. … On the 1st of May New Orleans 'was formally occupied by United States troops. The loss on the national side in achieving this great victory was 40 killed and 177 wounded. … General Butler now entered on the difficult task of governing New Orleans. Its population, though greatly diminished to strengthen the Confederate armies in the Border States—a cause of bitter complaint to the inhabitants—still numbered about 140,000. Almost one half of it was of foreign birth. Perhaps no city in the world had in its lower classes a more dangerous and desperate population. There was a wide-spread hope that a French force would soon come to their help. By firmness, strict yet considerate, he controlled the municipal authorities; by severity he put down the mob. He was a terror to tricky tradesmen, a benefactor to the starving poor. He cleaned the streets, enforced sanitary regulations, and kept out yellow fever. He put an effectual stop to the operations of Confederate agents, who were illicitly obtaining supplies for their cause. … He arrested Mumford, the person who had hauled down the national flag at the Mint [where it had been raised by one of Farragut's officers before the arrival of the troops], brought him before a military commission, convicted and executed him." This execution of Mumford (by hanging) drew from the Confederate President, Davis, a proclamation denouncing Butler as "an outlaw and common enemy of mankind"; directing that, if captured, he should be immediately hung; declaring the commissioned officers of his command "not entitled to be considered as soldiers engaged in honorable warfare, but as robbers and criminals"; and ordering that "no commissioned officer of the United States taken captive shall be released on parole before exchange until the said Butler shall have met with due punishment for his crimes." "Some women of New Orleans, relying on the immunity of their sex, gratified their animosity by insulting national officers in public places. One of them ventured so far as to spit in the face of an officer who was quietly walking in the street. Hereupon was issued 'General Order No. 28' [known as 'the Woman Order,' which gave notice that] … 'hereafter, when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her vocation.' … The feeling of personal hatred to Butler grew daily more and more intense. He was accused of improper tampering with the banks, speculating in sequestrated property, and, through the agency of his brother, carrying on illegal but profitable transactions in sugar and cotton. In South Carolina a reward of $10,000 had been offered for his assassination. Throughout the Confederacy he received an ignominious surname, and was known as 'Butler the Beast.' The government felt constrained to send a commission to New Orleans to investigate his transactions. Its conclusion was that he had evidently acted 'under a misapprehension, to be referred to the patriotic zeal which governs him.'" In December General Butler was recalled and General Banks was sent to take his place.

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 52 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the Civil War, volume 2, chapter 13.

J. Parton, General Butler in New Orleans, chapters 11-32.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (June: On the Mississippi). The capture of Memphis. The naval fight before the city.

After the evacuation of Corinth by Beauregard, "Fort Pillow, 40 miles above Memphis, was no longer of any account, for the Union army could take it from the rear. The Confederates, therefore, spiked the guns, burned their barracks and what supplies they could not take away; and the Confederate gunboats went down the river to Memphis, where several of the boats had been built. Commodore Montgomery commanded the fleet. He had eight vessels. … Fort Pillow evacuated! It was astounding news to the people of Memphis. They learned it at noon, June 5th. The merchants closed their stores. Some of them began to pack their goods. Some of the citizens jumped on board the cars and fled from the city. The Confederate fleet made its appearance. 'I shall retreat no farther,' said Commodore Montgomery; 'I shall fight a battle in front of the city, and to-morrow morning you will see Lincoln's gunboats sent to the bottom.' The dawn is breaking when I step from the Benton, the flag-ship of Commodore Davis [commanding the Union river fleet], to the tugboat Jessie Benton. … The Union fleet is at anchor three miles above the city. 'Drop down below the city and see if you can discover the Confederate fleet,' is the order to the captain of the Jessie Benton. We sweep around the majestic bend of the river and behold the city. The first rays of the sun are gilding the spires of the churches. A crowd of people is upon the levee—men, women, and children—who have come out to see the Union fleet sent to the bottom. … Suddenly a vessel with a black cloud of smoke rolling from the chimneys shoots into the stream. It is the Little Rebel, Commodore Montgomery's flag-ship. One by one the other vessels follow, forming in two lines of battle. In the front line, nearest the city, is the Beauregard, next the Little Rebel, then the Price and Sumter. In the second line, behind the Beauregard, is the Lovell, then the Thompson, Bragg, and Van Dorn. … There are five gunboats in the Union fleet. The Benton is nearest the Tennessee shore, then the Carondelet, Louisville, St. Louis, and Cairo. There are also two rams—the Queen City and Monarch. The rams are river steamers, with thick oak sides; they carry no cannon, but on each boat are 100 riflemen. 'Round to; head down stream; keep in line with the flag-ship,' was the order which we on board the Jessie Benton carried to each boat of the line." In the fight which followed, and which is graphically described by the eye-witness here quoted, the Price and the Beauregard were run down by the rams; the Little Rebel, the Lovell, the Thompson and the Bragg were destroyed by shot and shell; the Sumter driven ashore, and the Van Dorn alone escaped. On the Union side, only the ram Queen City was disabled. {3470} "In an hour's time the Confederate fleet was annihilated. … It is not known how many men were lost on the Confederate side, but probably from 80 to 100. Colonel Ellet was the only one injured on board the Union fleet. … The victory opens the Upper Mississippi from Cairo to Vicksburg."

C. C. Coffin, Drumbeat of the Nation, chapter 10.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (June: Virginia). The Peninsular Campaign: McClellan fortifying and Lee preparing for a bold attack.

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