Battle-Fields of '61. A narrative of the military operations of the war for the Union up to the end of the Peninsular Campaign ... With illustrations, etc

Front matter

(Frontispiece.) — Battle fields of *6i. ASHBY'S ESCAPE. Battle -Fields of '6i A NARRATIVE OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION UP TO THE END OF THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN BY WILLIS J. ABBOT Author of "Blue Jackets of '61 : " " Blue Jackets of 1812 s" " Blue Jackets of '76" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. C. JACKSON NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1S89 By DODD, MEAD & COMPANY Jl Osk tori 1 anb C hnr c bil I BOSTON V

Introduction

. IHE events in that colossal struggle for national unity on the one side, and for sectional independence upon the other, generally termed the Civil War in the United States, seem naturally to fall into three groups or periods. The first period was one of doubt and uncertainty ; of measuring strength ; of forming and rejecting plans ; of testing and discarding generals. Beginning with the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and ending with the disastrous failure of General McClellan's peninsular campaign, it comprehended many notable victories for both Federals and Con federates. It was a period in which the men of the South held themselves wholly on the defensive. The battles were fought upon Southern soil. The gray-clad armies did not set foot upon Northern territory during its continuance. Yet at the end of this period the work of quelling the uprising of the Southern people seemed as far from completion as on that July day when McDowell's troops recoiled, shattered and bleeding, from the fatal field of Bull Run.

The second period begins with General Lee's invasion of Maryland. The Confederates had become alive to the magnitude of the task they had imposed upon themselves when they sought to rend in twain the American Union. They had North. They had seen more than nition from any European nation. hausted by the strain of a purely discovered the determination of the a year pass with no sign of recog- They felt themselves growing ex defensive warfare. Rallying all their strength they carried the war into the Northern States, and fought fiercely to maintain it there. It was during this period that the most

INTRODUCTION.

. VI hotly contested battles were fought, and the most dashing and colossal campaigns undertaken. The third period dates from the accession of General Grant to the supreme command of the Union armies. Before the constant and merciless blows of "the Great Hammerer" the Confederate armies wasted away. It was an era of fighting against fate. All hope of victory was dead. The one chance of success for the Confederates lay in the recognition of the Confederacy by some foreign power, which should give them succor and assistance. Clinging to this desperate hope they fought a dilatory warfare against overwhelming odds, until the surrender of Lee at Appomattox happily ended the fratricidal war. Under the title "Battle Fields of '61 " I have tried to tell the story of the first period of this protracted struggle.

In telling it I have ever kept in mind the fact that military genius and human bravery must always awaken admiration, even when enlisted in support of a cause which we may regard as eternally wrong. The march of time has put the civil war and its causes far behind us. Let us recognize the sincerity and conscientiousness of the men who drew the sword in support of the South, and accept the records of their valor, persever ance, and uncomplaining endurance as a part of the glorious heritage of the people of the United States. WILLIS J. ABBOT. -5 38 CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Page

The Quarrel. — How the War Spirit grew and was fostered. — Slavery. — The Missouri Compromise. — The War in Kansas. — The Massacre at Dutch Henry's Crossing. — Acts of Violence. — The Fugitive Slave Law. — John Brown at Harper's Ferry i

Chapter II

The Political Struggle. — Nominations for President. — Abraham Lincoln elected. — The Secession of South Carolina. — Seizure of Federal Forts. — Lieutenant Slemmer saves Fort Pickens. — Secretary Dix and the American Flag

Chapter III

In Charleston Harbor. — Defences of the Port. — Major Anderson in Fort Moultrie. — Growing Hostility of the People of Charleston. — Anderson removes to Fort Sumter. — Secessionists seize the other Forts. — Secessionists fire upon the " Star of the West." — Anderson summoned to surrender. — Bombardment of Fort Sumter. — Capitulation, and Evacuation of the Fort . CONTENTS. VIII

Chapter IV. Page

President Lincoln calls for Troops. — Volunteers North and South.— Massachusetts Soldiers in Baltimore. — Harper's Ferry and the Norfolk Navy-Yard. — Boundaries of the Confederacy. — West Virginia joins the Union. — Kentucky remains Loyal. — How Lyon saved Missouri 7°

Chapter V

Activity of the Confederates. — The Federals cross the Potomac. — Death of Ellsworth. — Battle of Big Bethel. — The Ambuscade on the Railroad. — McClellan in West Virginia. — Battle of Rich Mountain. — Death of General Garnett ....... 88

Chapter VI

" On to Richmond." — The People demand an Invasion of Confederate Territory. — General McDowell's Plan of Campaign. — Operations in the Shenandoah Valley. — Patterson's Campaign. — The Advance to Bull Run. — A Skirmish. — The Plan of Battle. — Machinery to the Front. — Jackson like a Stone Wall. — The Disaster to Griffin's Battery. — Defeat of the Union Army. — The Retreat to Washington 101

Chapter VII

Not discouraged. — General McClellan put in Command of the Union Army. — Warfare ix Missouri. — Price's Motley Army. — Battle of Wilson's Creek. — The Disaster to Sigel. — The Death of General Lyon. — Retreat of the Federals. — Martial Law in St. Louis. — Battle of Lexington. — Mulligan's Desperate Defence. — Lexington surrenders. — General Grant at Belmont . . . . . -136

Chapter VIII

Campaigning in West Virginia. — Skirmishes at Carnifex Ferry and Cheat Mountain. — The Destruction of Guyandotte. — The Expedition to Hatteras Inlet. — Port Royal. — Battle of Ball's Bluff. — Battle of Santa Rosa Island. — Close of 1861 CONTENTS. IX

Chapter IX. Page

Campaigning in Kentucky. — The Battle of Prestonburg. — Battle of Mill Spring. — The Advance into Tennessee. — General Grant1 takes Fort Henry. — Preparations for the Attack upon- Fort Donelson.— Skirmishing along the Lines. — A Cold Bivouac. — The Repulse of the Gunboats. — Confederates take the Offensive. — Surrender of Fort Donelson I75

Chapter X

The War in the East. — The Confederates on Roanoke Island. — Burnside's Expedition. — The Advance upon Beaufort. — Battle of New Berne. — Fall of Fort Macon. — New Madrid and Island No. io. — The Canal through the Swamp. — The "Carondelet" runs the Batteries. — Evacuation and Surrender of Island No. io. — In South-west Missouri. — The Battle of Pea Ridge . . . .212

CHAPTER XL

The Battle of Shiloh. — Why the Battle was fought there. — Lethargy of Grant's Army. — General Johnston determines to attack. — The Surprise of General Prentiss. — Grant reaches the Field. — The Hornets' Nest. — The Confederates successful. — Second Day at Shiloh. — The Federals Victorious 239

Chapter XII

New Orleans. — Plans for the Capture of the Crescent City. — Butler's Expedition. — The Forts at the Mouth of the Mississippi River. — Farragut's Naval Expedition. — The Passage of the Forts. — The City taken. — River Battle before Memphis. — Ellet and his Steam-Rams. — Memphis taken 262

Chapter XIII

The Peninsular Campaign. — General McClellan in Disfavor. — Rival Plans of Campaign. — The Peninsula. — Siege of Yorktown. — Battle of Williamsburg. — The James River opened. — Peril of McClellan's Army. — Battle of Seven Pines and Fair Oaks . . ' . . . CONTENTS. X PAGE

Chapter XIV

Stonewall Jackson. — The Shenandoah Valley. — How Jackson checked McDowell. — Ashby's Exploits. — Evacuation of Winchester. — Battle of Kernstown. — Battle of McDowell. — Surprise of the Federals at Front Royal. — On the Road to Winchester. — Death of Ashby. — Battle of Port Republic. — Battle of Cross Keys. — End of the Valley Campaign 305

Chapter XV

The Seven Days before Richmond. — Battle of Ellison's Mills. — Battle of Gaines's Mill. — Battle of Savage's Station. — Battle of Glendale. — Battle of Malvern Hill. — McClellan's Final Retreat. — Close of the Peninsular Campaign. — The End ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Ashby's Escape Frontispiece Massacre at Dutch Henry's Crossing 13 Storming Brown's Castle 21 The Floating Battery in Action 51 Sergeant Carmody Fights Single-handed .59 Sergeant Hart and the Colors . . . 65 The Riot in Baltimore 73 Attacking a Railway Train . . 95 Batteries in Action 113 Bringing up the Guns 121 Fighting for Ricketts's Guns 129 Death of Lyon 145 The Hemp-bale Barriers 153 Grant at Belmont - 159 The Death of Baker 169 The Bombardment of Fort Henry 185 Sharp-shooters at Fort Donelson 195 ILLUSTRATIONS. XII PAGE Smith's Charge at Fort Donelson 2°5 On Picket . . . , 225 Rallying upon the Colors 235 The Surprise at Shiloh 247 Charging the Hornets' Nest 255 The Passage of the Bayou 275 Fighting on the Skirmish Line . . 287 Sumner's March to Seven Pines . ' 3QI Jackson at Kernstown 311 Burning Stores at White House 339 A Shell from the Gunboats 351 LIST OF MAPS.

The Bull Run Campaign 109 Battle of Bull Run. — Positions in the Forenoon 117 Battle of Bull Run. — Positions in the Afternoon 125 Scene of Operations in Missouri . . . . . . . . 140 Operations on Western Rivers 181 Fort Donelson 199 New Madrid and Island No. io 221 Battle of Shiloh '61

Chapter I The Quarrel

HOW THE WAR SPIRIT GREW AND WAS FOSTERED. SLAVERY. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. THE WAR IN KANSAS. THE MASSACRE AT DUTCH HENRY'S CROSSING. ACTS OF VIOLENCE. THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. — -JOHN BROWN AT HARPER'S FERRY. IURING the winter of 1860 and the early spring of 1861 the eyes of the civilized world were fixed upon the compara tively insignificant American seaport town, Charleston, South Carolina. Rising directly from the water, in the very centre of the entrance to that harbor stood the mass of masonry known as Fort Sumter, — a name destined to go down to fame along with Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, and other by-words of American history. A handful of United States soldiers occupied the fort, and from its flag-staff floated the stars and stripes. The national colors, floating over a national for tress, in the harbor of one of the oldest cities of the United States, — '61. surely in that there could be nothing to excite apprehension at home, or to cause European peoples to divert their attention from the political quarrels and dissensions with which Europe is forever racked, and to shake their heads with apprehension of grave troubles in store for the great American republic.

But was Fort Sumter in a United States port? The blue-clad Federal soldier, peering through a casemate across the cold gray waters of Charleston harbor in January, '61, might well be excused for doubt upon this point. From the low-lying shores surrounding the harbor ramparts and bastions were rising, and the black muzzles of half a hundred guns were pointed towards Sumter. Over these armed works flags were flying, but the familiar flag of the Union was nowhere to be seen. Over most of the batteries waved the palmetto flag of South Carolina. At one point a banner, bearing a representation of a pelican feeding its young, told that a celebrated artillery company from Louisiana was encamped beneath its shadow. After the 5th of March, the belea guered garrison saw a new flag appear over the hostile works, — the stars and bars of the young Confederate States of America.

Had any soldier among the besieged wearers of the blue felt any doubt as to the true meaning of those frowning ramparts, those menacing cannon, and those strange and unaccustomed flags, he had not long to wait for enlightenment; for at half-past four, on the morning of the 12th of April, 1 861, a gun fired from a battery on James Island sent a shell shrieking through the air to burst directly above the flag waving from the bastion of Fort Sumter. It was the appointed signal for the opening of the bombardment, and it proved to be, moreover, the signal for the commencement of the most colossal and the most bloody war of modern history; and, saddest of all, it was the signal for civil war, — a war in which brother was arrayed against brother, and fathers against their sons. But, though the civil war began with that shot fired at Fort Sumter, we must go back in the history of the United States several years, to find the causes which gradually led up to the bitter struggle.

Mere '61. 3 sectional jealousy had much to do with it. In those days the railroads did not bind together the widely separated parts of the country -with iron bonds. New Orleans was as far from New York then, as New York is now from London or Paris. The business interests of the North and South were diverse. News and letters travelled slowly between the sections. Though nominally a united nation, the States of the Union were in reality strangers to each other, full of jealousies and bickerings, and ripe for a civil war that to-day would be impossible. With so little to unite the individual States into one strong nation, it is small wonder that a political question of supreme importance should serve to divide the Union into two hostile parties, and that the bitterness engendered by political discussion, victory, and defeat should finally result in the withdrawal of a number of the States for the purpose of setting up a nation of their own.

Such a question there was, embittering the debates in Congress, breaking up political parties and organized churches, and carrying hatred even into families. It was the question of Slavery. But, while the existence of slavery in the Southern States did lead up to the war, it is a mistake to look upon that great conflict as an organized and deliberate effort to achieve the freedom of the negro by the sword. That in the end that long and bloody struggle did result in the total abolition of slavery in the United States was, indeed, so great a boon to the cause of civilization, that before it all other evidences of the world's progress during the present century seem as nothing; but that the war did so result was due to no preconcerted plan. The South may have avowedly gone to war for the protection of its slaves, but the North, in taking up arms, strenuously denied its intention of looking upon the enslaved blacks as other than private property, just like the planter's horses or oxen.

Even after the war was fairly opened, when General Fremont, commanding the United States troops in Missouri, took it upon himself to declare free all those slaves in Missouri whose owners had taken up arms against the Federal government, his action was severely condemned by the Federal authori- '61. 4 ties, and the order revoked by the direction of President Lincoln himself. But though the North, through its representatives at Washington, before the beginning of the war and for some time after active hostilities had begun, denied any intention to interfere with slavery in the States in which it already existed, yet popular sentiment in the North was boldly outspoken in demanding that as new States were admitted to the Union from the rapidly growing territory west of the Mississippi river, they should be admitted as free States, and have incorporated in the constitution of each a section declaring human slavery illegal.

The people of the South saw that, if this were done, the free States would soon outnumber the slave States, and the existence of the institution of slavery in the South would be jeopardized. Quick to take alarm, and having always looked upon the Federal union as a union of sovereign States, created by the States and terminable at the will of any one of them, the people of the Southern States were readily persuaded by their leaders that their wisest course was to withdraw entirely from a Union in which their property rights were menaced by the growing strength of the party of anti-slavery. And so it happened that when the presidential election of 1860 ended in the election of Abraham Lincoln, the Southern States, one after another, declared their intention of immediately seceding from the United States.

The States of the North, remaining loyal to the national government, declared that that government was founded upon an irrevocable pact; that no State had the authority to declare itself free of Federal authority, and that that authority should be established and its mandates enforced in every city and village of the seceding States. There lay the issue, and then followed the war which was to decide it. This quarrel between the slavery and anti-slavery parties began as early as 1820, when Missouri, the first of the new States west of the Mississippi, knocked for admission to the Union. After prolonged debate she was admitted as a slave State, but at the same time Congress enacted a law which provided that thereafter no new State or Territory '61. 5 lying north of the southern boundary of Missouri should recognize slavery as lawful.

For a time this stilled the gathering storm, but when it again broke forth it was with renewed fury. With the continued stream of emigration westward, the territory lying to the west of Missouri soon began to fill up. Settlers poured in, farms and clearings became numerous, little villages began to grow up. While the country was wild and sparsely populated the settlers governed themselves, recognizing no authority, and appealing to none for protection. But, as the population increased, the necessity for a regular form of government became apparent, and in 1854 we find the two Territories of Kansas and Nebraska organized, and asking Con gress to provide them with territorial officers and recognize them as Territories of the United States. Both lay north of the southern boun dary line of Missouri, but both were admitted as Territories, with the proviso that slavery should be recognized or prohibited according to the will of a majority of the settlers in the Territory.

By this act the historic Missouri Compromise, which had been expected to settle the slavery question, was annulled. After this the struggle between the slavery and anti-slavery elements became one of deeds as well as of words. In the halls of Congress, in debating societies, and at political gatherings of all kinds the discussion was carried on. But out in Kansas the rifle and the shot-gun were the arguments upon which both sides largely relied. The bill by which Kansas and Nebraska were constituted Territories had, as we have said, left the question of slavery to the attention of the territorial legislatures alone. Slaveholders and politicians of the South determined that, in Kansas at least, the legislature should recognize slavery as a lawful institution. In order that the legislature might be controlled, it was essential that Kansas should be settled by slave-owners, or, at least, believers in slavery.

Hardly had the bill become a law when colonizing parties from all parts of the South were on the march for Kansas. The people of Missouri were particularly active in this work. Dominated by the slave power, this State did not wish to see a free '61. 6 State organized upon her western border. Therefore Missourians were untiring in the work of colonization. This work of the pro-slavery people had been prosecuted for several months before the anti-slavery societies of the North conceived the idea of using the same tactics. Once embarked upon this course, however they followed it with unflagging zeal, and a stream of emigrants began to flow from New England into Kansas. The pro-slavery movement had begun first, however, and the first trial of strength between the two parties — the election of a delegate to Congress — resulted in the elec tion of the pro-slavery candidate by an enormous majority.

Of course the victorious party was loud in its boasting, but the anti-slavery men were in no wise cast down. The election upon which the existence of slavery within the Territory should depend, was the election of a territorial legislature, and this was not to be held until the 30th of March, four months later. So they plucked up courage, sent for reenforcements of voters from New England, and prepared to measure their strength with their adversaries again. When the test actually occurred a surprising thing happened. Thirty days before the election an official census of the Territory showed that there were therein 2,905 voters, about equally divided between the two parties. No one moving into the Territory after that census was legally entitled to vote ; yet when the ballots were counted after the election, March 30, 1855, there were found 6,307 votes, and over three-fourths of them were for the pro-slavery candidates.

How did it happen? The Missourians had simply taken a very audacious method of demonstrating their intention of making Kansas a slave State. From Westport and Independence, and the Missouri towns near the Kansas border, crowds of Missourians, carrying rifles and bowie knives, had crossed the State line and taken possession of the polling places. Any protest on the part of the election judges was met with a display of revolvers and knives that generally proved effectual. At Lawrence, Kans., the leader of a gang of Missourians stepped up with his ballot. *6i. 7 'Are you a resident of Kansas?" asked the judge of election. ' I am," was the unblushing answer. "Does your family reside in the Territory?" continued the judge, with some incredulity. " None of your business ! If you give me any more of your imper tinence I'll knock your head off your shoulders."

The judge looked at the brawny Missourian, pistol in belt, the hilt of a knife protruding from the top of his boot. Behind him were a hundred more of the same sort. Evidently discretion was the wisest course, and setting the ballot-box out where it would be most conven ient for the Missourians, the judge of elections departed from the scene. At Bloomington the judges stood guard over the ballot-box, and stoutly refused to allow the colonizers to cast a vote. " Well, gentlemen," said the leader of the Missourians, " ye can hev just five minutes to make up yer minds. At the end of that time you resign, or — " and he patted the lock of his rifle significantly. When the time expired, there was no need to use the rifle. The judges were nowhere to be seen. So the first Kansas legislature was elected, — a legislature, of course, strongly pro-slavery in its character.

But violence and fraud of this kind always works the defeat of the cause it is intended to serve, and the indignation aroused among all honorable and fair-minded men, by this bold act of the Missourians, did much toward making Kansas ulti mately a free State. But for the time it was not safe for any one in Kansas or Missouri to condemn the high-handed lawlessness by which the election was carried. A Missouri editor who rashly condemned the proceedings saw the entire equipment of his newspaper office thrown into the Missouri river by an enraged mob. A Kansas lawyer, active in pro testing, was seized by a mob, coated with tar and feathers, carried through the streets of Leavenworth on a rail, and finally sold at a public mock auction, a negro slave acting as auctioneer. '61. Nevertheless, mob law never yet accomplished a political victory, and Kansas became a free State, after all.

It is not necessary here to tell the story of the long struggle for Kansas : how New England immigrants came pouring in by thousands, well furnished with Sharps' rifles, and but meagrely provided with ploughs and hoes. The Missourians had thrown down the gauntlet. New England took it up. From literary Boston one hundred cases, marked " books," were sent to certain prominent free-State men of Lawrence, Kans. When opened, the library was found to consist of Sharps' rifles only. From New Haven came seventy-nine trusty men, whose stock in trade was " Bibles and loaded carbines." Collisions be tween the antagonistic parties soon became frequent, and the struggle for supremacy in Kansas took on the proportions of a war. To tell in detail the events of the war for Kansas : how now the free-State and now the pro-slavery party was in the ascendancy ; how, one after the other, the territorial governors sent out to govern the Territory failed in their efforts to preserve order ; how men were murdered in cold blood or shot down in hot fight, — all this would require a volume to itself, and has but a remote bearing upon the subject of this book.

But as some of the leading events of the Kansas war are pertinent to the narrative of the civil war, as showing how bitter was the struggle over the existence of slavery, even ten years before a single statesman, or newspaper of note, dared to demand its entire abolition, they may be briefly touched upon here. For some time after the election a kind of armed peace rested upon Kansas. The territorial legislature adopted a constitution and enacted statutes in which the slavery question was evaded with extreme neatness. Then both parties rested on their arms, and each waited for the other to make the first move. The importation of Sharps' rifles was in no way checked, and the Missourians still paid friendly visits to the Territory when any question of importance was to be settled at the polls.

That beneath the calm surface there raged the fires of partisan hatred was occasionally shown. Thus, at Atchison, a clergyman, an '61. 9 outspoken abolitionist, was taken from his house by a mob, dragged to the Missouri river, there placed on a raft and sent drifting down that turbid stream with the curses of a pro-slavery mob, and a warning not to return, under penalty of death ringing in his ears. He did come back, despite the warning, and, though his life was spared, was escorted out of town for the second time, this time clad in a coat of tar and feathers. Soon after, a sheriff of strong pro-slavery beliefs had occasion to arrest a free-State man. Before getting his prisoner to jail he was stopped by an armed party of free-State men and the prisoner lib erated. The Missourians thereupon poured over the border to help a Kansas sheriff enforce the laws.

The town of Lawrence, a very head centre of the free-State movement, was besieged. The people of the town rallied to its defence, shouldered their rifles, and spent days and nights in the trenches. An immense amount of parleying was done, but no fighting; and, after the two hostile parties had doggedly con fronted each other for four days, a storm of snow and sleet drove the Missourians home. But the siege of Lawrence should be ever memorable, for there first appeared, as a public advocate of immediate and uncompromising warfare upon slavery, that inscrutable character, half madman, half seer, John Brown. An uncompromising foe to slavery was old John Brown. While others fought to make Kansas a free State, he fought only for the total abolition of slavery in all parts of the United States. A stern, hard nature was his ; all warrior, with none of the arts of the poli tician.

Stood a stonewall in his path, he would go through or over it; the idea of getting around an obstacle never occurred to him. He came to Kansas, not as a settler seeking a home, but as a self appointed crusader, to begin there that struggle against slavery which culminated in his measuring his single-handed strength against the power of the United States, and paying for his rashness upon the scaffold. John Brown was a believer in fighting fire with fire. His remedy '61. for the violence existing in Kansas was, more violence. If the pro slavery men terrorized the anti-slavery settlers, his advice to the injured party was to get down their carbines and send their persecutors out of the world. In later days this sword-wielding Puritan has been exalted on high as a martyr and saint ; but it is hard to read the account of his first exploit without feeling that, though in his war upon slavery he was enlisted in a good cause, the methods he pursued were enough to have made the cause odious.

In May, 1856, word reached John Brown that certain pro-slavery people, in the vicinity known as Dutch Henry's Crossing, were intimidating free-State men and forcing them to leave the country. No violence had been done, though threats were freely used. In fact, the pro-slavery men were employing the same tactics toward the free- State men that John Brown, and his son of the same name, had freely used in their operations against the men arrayed upon the side of slavery. But for some reason this news seemed to work strangely upon Brown, and aroused all the fanaticism in his nature. Hastily organizing a party of eight men, all but two of whom were members of his own household, Brown armed them with swords and cutlasses. "It is time these outrages were stopped," said he; "I shall make an example of those fellows."

With this vague declaration of his intentions, he led his party to the neighborhood of Dutch Henry's Crossing. Then, stopping by night in the dark woods that fringed the banks of the Pottawatomie, he unfolded his plan. This was nothing less than to raid up and down the banks of the creek, murdering all settlers who were suspected of sympathy with the cause of slavery. But against this bloody programme his followers rebelled. For hours Brown harangued, argued, and pleaded with them. He declared that it had been foreordained by God that he should perform the deed. He quoted the Scriptures to prove that in thus shedding the blood of innocent men they were only acting in accordance with eternal '61. 11 teachings. The men's scruples, at first strong, gradually gave way, and when the sun rose the plan for the ghastly deed was fully matured.