Episodes of the Civil War. Nine Campaigns in Nine States, etc

Front matter

NINE CAMPAIGNS IN NINE STATES A SKETCH Cen'l Steednian's Negro Brigade. Gen'l P. S. Post, Battery B, Penn Light Artilleiv 1st column, 59th Illinois; 2nd column, list Ohio; 3rd column, 71st Ohio; Ith column, 93d Ohio; 5th column, 124th Ohio. BATTLE OF NASHVILLE, TENN., DEC. 15 AND 16, 1864 General P. S. Post's Brigade Assault on Overtoil Hill, Dec. 16, 1864, with General Steednian's Negro Troops on the lest EPISODES OF THE CIVIL WAR fliqe Campaigns in {line states Fremont in Missouri — Curtis in Missouri and Arkansas — Halleck's Siege of Corinth — Buell in Kentucky — Rosecrans in Kentucky and Tennessee — Grant TAHaE Battle of Chattanooga — Sherman from Chattanooga to Atlanta — Thomas in Tennessee and North Carolina — Stanley in Texas. IN WHICH IS COMPRISED The History of the Fifty-Ninth Regiment Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry — Together with Special Mention of the Various Regiments With Which it was Brigaded from 1861 to 1S65 BY CORPORAL GEO. W. HERR [Late Company C, 59th 111. 1 Sacramento, California SAN FRANCISCO THE BANCROFT COMPANY, Publishers Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1890, by GEO. W. HERR In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington All Rights Reserved

Preface

tY work is finished! Looking back to the time when, years , ago, the patriotic thought of compiling and publishing a history of the Fifty-ninth Regiment, Illinois Veteran Volunteers, first entered my mind, I feel grateful that Providence, who preserved me in the turmoil and danger of our great Civil War, also has vouchsafed to me the strength and perseverance to conquer what seemed almost insuperable obstacles in the prosecution of this beloved task. Would it be possible, I then thought, to procure the necessary data from which to write up a consecutive narrative of the movements of the Regiment, transferred as it had been during that eventful war from one brigade to another, and belonging to so many different divisions, nay army corps even, during its four years and a half of actual service ?

Another anxious inquiry forced upon me was that of finance. Was it to be expected that a work dealing with the movements and exploits of one regiment only would meet with a sale commensurate to the labor and the expense of preparing it ? Was the book not far more likely to succeed when its field of usefulness was enlarged so as to embrace (as in its present form it does) the history of the various regiments with which it had been brigaded ? And thus gradually was evolved the idea of compiling a more ambitiously accoutred book, handsome in dress, spacious in volume and liberally illustrated by artistic engravings. It will not be amiss to lay briefty before my readers such facts as may tend to show the authenticity of the narrative as well as the conscientious labor of the compiler. My first step was to address, by letter, a few of the survivors of the regiment, requesting as a favor their views on my proposed undertaking, and their active co-operation in furnishing data of personal recollections or memoranda.

Promise of help and actual data, encouraging replies as well as of the gloomier sort, did come in plenty; and, undeterred by promises left unfulfilled and my exchequer's gradual depletion, the work, you see, was prosecuted to its better end.

PREFACE.

X The incomplete, or even total absence of, record regarding a large number of men whose names appear in the roster calls for an expla nation. The Adjutant-general's Report of Illinois, upon which I needs had often to fall back for data and the verification of data, is not fully reliable. Men with whom I was in correspondence while prosecuting the preparation of this volume are there marked as dead; the names of others are fatally misspelled, while others still are left without any record whatever. The list of killed even is incomplete, while the record of men wounded is a blank. I have endeavored, as far as lay in my power, to rectify the mistakes and to remedy the defects, supplying correct data either from my own personal knowledge or the attested evidence of other survivors. A due regard for the mischief possibly to be wrought by misstatements has led me wholly to suppress the list of deserters.

This book then — a work of love and conscientious labor — while not claiming for its first edition that fullness and exactitude as to detail which subsequent editions may finally enable it to attain, I herewith offer to you, surviving comrades of that great struggle for the preservation of our beloved Union, trusting that its pages will contribute their humble share to cement still closer that solidarity bought with the life-blood of the nation's best sons. The author takes pleasure in acknowledging many obligations to Lieutenant William McAdams, Lieutenant C. A. Mosman, J. N. Byram, J. L. McCurdy, Captain J. M. Van Osdel, Captain D. W. Henderson, William P. White, Captain E. Mennett, Cap tain B. M. Veatch, Lieutenant-colonel George E. Currie, General W. S. Rosecrans, George H. Castle, Captain George Q. Gardner, Thomas R. Brown, Captain Albert Anthony, William E. Bundy, Lieutenant Fred N. Boyer, Charles Cunningham, 0. Summers, and many others, who furnished him much valued data. CORPORAL GEORGE W. HERR. Sacramento, June, 1890. CONTENTS

Part I Chatter

PAi;K I. The Spring of 1861 3 II. Treason Strikes 11 III. The Ninth Missouri 22 IV. One Hundred Daj'S with Fremont ..... 31 V. Springfield to the La Mine — The La Mine to Springfield . 41 VI. From Springfield to Sugar Creek 51 Ninth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, Summary of Service . 58

Part II

Fifty-ninth Illinois Infantry, Volunteer .... 59 VII. The Battle of Pea Ridge .... 61 VIII. After the Battle 77 IX. From Pea Ridge to Corinth 89 X. Corinth to Nashville — Nashville to Louisville ... 99 XL Louisville — Bardstown — Perry ville 109 XII. From Perryville to Nashville — Stone River .... 118 XIH. Shelbyville— Tullahoma— Winchester 131 XIV. Chicainauga 139 XV. Chattanooga 176 XVI. From Fields of Carnage to Fields of Peace .... 188 Summary of Service 194

Part III XVII

Dalton and Resaca 199 XVIII. Beyond the Oostanaula 207 XIX. Beyond the Etowah 211 XX. From Allatoona to Kulp's Farm 220 XXI. Kenesaw .... 228 XXII. Beyond the Chattahoochee 241 XXIII. Battle of Atlanta 252 XXIV. Siege of Atlanta '.260 XXV. Fall Of Atlanta 271 XXVI. Depopulation and Destruction of Atlanta .... 291 XXVII. Northern Georgia— Middle Tennessee 302 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXVIII. Franklin 313 XXIX. Nashville .326 XXX. From Tennessee to Texas — Home! . . . > . . • 345

Part IV

Mosman's Diary 361 History of the 37th Illinois Infantry 398 Fifth Wisconsin Battery, Organization of by Saml. R. Worick 406 Fifth Wisconsin Battery, by Capt. Geo. Q. Gardner .... 407 Stone River, incident of, by C. Cunningham 414 Mississippi Ram Fleet, by Lieut-Col. Geo. E. Currie . . 416 Negro Soldiers in the Army of the Cumberland, by O. Summers . . 424 COMPANY ORGANIZATIONS Co. A 438 Co. F 452 Co. B . . . ... 442 Co. G 455 Co. C 443 Co. H 455 Co. D 450 Co. I 457 Co. E 451 Co. K CONTENTS XIII BIOGRAPHIES AND PORTRAITS PAGE Anthony, Capt. A 456 Anderson, Lieut. J. j 450 Armstrong, G. D 454 Bunce, Surgeon Chas. . 435 Byram, J. N. (with portrait) 440 Bradley, B. T. . . . 441 Bundy, W. E 442 Birdsall, C. E 442 Beals, J. W 449 Boyer, Lieut. F. N 455 Beach, Capt. J. A 457 Baily, Geo. W 457 Beard, W. H 442 Castle, Geo. H 439 Crowder, VV.

A 442 Crandall, Lieut. W. D 450 Crandall, E. H 451 Currie, Col. Geo. E. (with portrait) 452 Caroll, John 456 Clark, A. ,1 ... 457 Dougherty, L. C 442 Dawson, Geo. F 455 Elledge, J. M 437 Elerick, Capt. J. M. (with portrait) 439 Frederick, Col. C. H. (with portrait) 436 Freeland, T.'J 449 Fielding, Edward 449 Farr, W. M 449 Fouch, L 450 Gardner, L. D. . 457 Griggs, G. W 450 Hale, Lieut. -Col. Clayton 435 Haulenbeck, F 437 Herring, Geo. H. 442 Hazeltine, G. E 442 Henderson, Capt. D. W 447 Herr, Geo. W. (with portrait) ... 448 Hall, Capt. H. \V. (with portrait) .453 Hill, L. M 457 Heidenrich, Julius 460 Hawks, V. S CONTENTS XIV PAGE Kelly, J. A. . . , . ' 454 Lathrop, D 437 Leonard, J. H 442 Loop, Lieut. J. H 449 Morris, W 449 Mennett, Capt. E 45° Mosman, Lieut. C. A 450 McCurdy, J.F 451 Millhouse. .1 455 McAdams, Lieut. Win.

(with portrait) . ..... 456 Macumber, A 457 Mitchell, J. A 45T Nelson, B. F ■ ■ 449 Ogden, A 449 Owens, T. R 439 Post, Gen. P. S. (with portrait) 435 Porter, H. D ... 441 Purdum, Lieut. S 449 Purdum, M. Pepper, A. C 456 Pinnell, W. R 457 Russell, Wm. P 451 Rice, W. H 461 Stookey, J. M 435 Smith, J. F 437 Stien, Capt. Geo. R 448 Shoot, M. T 456 Searcy, E. C 450 Sharp, A 451 Slusser, T. J 454 Starkey, Capt. H. C 455 Snider, A. J • .456 Summers, O. (with portrait) 461 Veatch, Capt. B. M 447 Vance, J. M ' . 455 VanOsdel, Capt. J. M. (with portrait) 458 Van Osdel, F. W 461 White, W. P 459 Warmbrodt, J 451 Warmbrodt, Saml. 451 Whitchurch, A. F 451 Welker, Wm 454 Welker, Joseph ILLUSTRATIONS Frontispiece — Battle oe Nashville. Pea Ridge. '- Gun, Fifth Wisconsin Battery. 1-4 Lookout Mountain '• • ■ • 1,s NINE CAMPAIGNS

Part I Nine Campaigns Chapter

I. THE SPRING OF 1861 Hopes op the People, North and South, that Peace would Prevail — Reasons for Such Hopes — Review op Distinct Elements — The War Faction North — The War Faction South — Their Composition — The Pro-slavery Conspirators. A STRANGE and electrical were the waves of emotion that swept over the land during the months of March, April and May, 1861. The immortal and ever-to-be-lamented Abraham Lincoln had been successfully and peacefully inaugurated, the threats that exhaled from the South to the contrary notwithstanding. The whole counts had been steeped in a hush of suspense pending the inauguration of the President elect, and when it was over, triumphantly and peacefully over, the tension of suspense relaxed, and a long breath of relief seemed to well from the bosom of the nation.

The masses seized upon the hope, and the hope was rapidly crystallizing as belief, that the threats of secession and con sequent war would evaporate in bluster and corn-juice, as had the threats to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and to prevent, by armed intervention, his lawful inauguration. South Carolina and the gulf cotton States had already passed "the ordinance of secession," the framework of a "Confederate Government " was in existence, Wigfall had actually opened a recruiting office for "the Army of the Confederate States" in Baltimore, yet the people were loath to believe that the South would strike — that actual hostilities were to commence. (■'!) Even the masses of the ultra South clung with strange tenacity to the hope, fathered and fostered by the desire, that things would never reach the point of actual war.

This sameness of hope, reaching out to belief, lingering in the hearts of the masses of both sections, drew its inspiration from springs of thought set widely apart and radically different in source. The North contained a large element the members of which believed that their fellow-countrymen South had complete and fully vested property rights in slaves, and that their vested rights should be recognized and defended. The North also contained a political party which, from the date of its organization, had been controlled by the South, and which was at all times en rapport with the slaveocracy of America, and the brains of that slaveocracy were not wholly confined to the States of the South. While the members of this element and party were favorably disposed to the slaveocracy, yet, with a few exceptions, they were firmly set against secession; they were Jacksonian on the question of the Union.

The rank and file of the Democratic Party North and the rank and file of the element cited were a unit on the questions of slavery. and the Union. They did not believe in chattel slavery, but they were willing to defend the inherited rights of the slaveocracy, and, above all things and at all hazards, they were for the Union. That this element was capable of exerting an important influence in the councils of the incoming administration subsequent events fully proved. It was a powerful element; it was led by some of the ablest minds of the North; in fact, numerically considered, it was, at the time of which we write, the Spring of 1861, the strongest element in the free States, comprising as it did the proletariat of the towns and cities north of Mason and Dixon's line, and recognizing its own importance and its probable weight in the new adminis tration, it was loath to believe that the South would rear the banner of revolt.

There was what might be termed a commercial reason why the people of the North should indulge in the hope that war would be averted. The masses North were workers; the North was the manufacturing section of the Republic; the South was a market for the manufactured pro ducts of the North; business obligations had for years bound a large element in both sections in the bonds of friendly intercourse and mutual interest: hence the business and labor elements North were slow to believe that the South would draw the sword. While the North never contained a secession party, the South did contain u Union party, and the Union party was largely in majority in many Southern States while free party action was possible. Of this party Alexander Stephens of Georgia might be considered the leader, if not the best type, while Parson Brownlow of Tennessee must be regarded as a type of the most ultra and uncompromising.

Though opposed to secession, the great majority of this element were pro slavery and State's rights men. With it were to be found the mechanic class and well-to-do farmers; many men of large wealth; a majority of the merchant class, and in fact the grea er portion of those non-committal persons who, possessed of a competency or a fair prospect of such, could only see property and business depreciation or ultimate ruin in war and a change of government. This class in the South fed and fostered the hope that the threatened storm would blow over without bloodshed. The leaders depended upon diplomacy, and under their auspices peace conventions were held, and held, as we now know, to no purpose. Singular as it may now seem, the South contained, during the Winter and early Spring of 1861, a majority of ultra secessionists who did not believe that war would come.

They were in favor of separating from the North — they affected to believe that they had just grounds and constitutional warrant for separation, and that, in the end, the North would admit the force of the alleged "consti tutional warrant" and not fight. Another class of non-believers in the coming of the fray was composed of men who were actually burning for war. These were mainly young men, members of the F. F. V.'s, the Southern gentry, the military class. They, too, believed that the South only needed to make a bold bluff; that when the North was forced to choose between granting the " consti tutional" demands of the South or war, war would be shelved. They argued that the South was a pastoral and agricultural region, and that the people of such regions were always THE SPRING OF 1861 warlike; that the masses North were mechanics and laborers, bent and grimed by the toil of field and foundry, mill and workshops; that they were largely impoverished and forever absorbed in the never-ending struggle to obtain the common necessaries of life.

How could an army composed of such material withstand the ycuth of the South, the chivalry of the Republic ? The youth of the North knew nothing of arms, of the saddle, of field and flood and chase; of mountain and vale; they were laborers and mechanics. Wanting in pride of caste, family individuality and martial spirit. Besides, they had no personal and direct financial interest in the quarrel, while the chivalry had the " nigger," and the " nigger" represented not only the motive of secession, but the wind and water whereby the wheels of Southern substance were turned. He was the mute motor whose labors filled the bladder of Southern pomp and pretense. The " nigger" was the Atlas upon whose broad black shoulders rested the would-be Southern world. Black paps suckled its embryo chivalry, while the chivalry full grown fed and fattened on the unrewarded sweat of black brows.

What wonder the chivalry desired to perpetuate slavery, though the Union be destroyed ! What wonder that they regarded the Northern representatives of labor with such withering yet honest contempt ! Such, in brief, were the reasons that led the masses North and South to hope, if not believe, that the secession move ment would not result in blows; that war would not rear its grizzled front. Perhaps the vast shadow of the gigantic struggle to come had fallen upon the mentality of the people, and that they were loath to believe in the coming of that, the magnitude of which though they seemed to feel they were incapable of comprehending. Robert Toombs, one of the giants of treason and the first Confederate Secretary of State, gave evidence of the fact that he fully realized the size of the contract he and his fellow-conspirators had undertaken when he said to the council who finally decided upon the damning act of firing upon Fort Sumter : " The firing upon that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen."

He also evidenced the fact that he fully felt the moral responsibility that would rest upon those who plunged the country into that war when he added, after a gloomy and painful pause, " I cannot counsel you." While the masses North and South prayed and hoped for a peaceful settlement of the growing dispute that agitated the two great sections of the country, each section contained an element, insignificant in numbers but fixed in purpose and intensely active, the members of which yearned for war. The leaders of those small but sleepless elements were ready to bless any hand that would light the torch of civil strife, and they hailed with joy every event and act that clouded the prospect of peace, or that promised to hasten the time when the cry went forth, " Let loose the dogs of war and cry havoc."

Widely different were the motives that prompted and moved those elements; indeed, they were diametrically opposed save in the two leading ideas, viz.: that war should come, and that that war should forever settle the question of slavery. The abolitionists composed the war party of the North, and the following points of difference existed between them and those who composed the war party of the South: The abolitionists were in favor of war because, in the face of the Missouri Compromise, and since the promulgation of the Dred Scott decision, they believed that war, and war only, could wipe the stigma of human slavery from the flag of the free; that noth ing less than the fires of war could eradicate the Cain-like brand with which the slaver's lash had disfigured the nation. The war party of the South — the composition of which we will discuss further on — favored war for the purpose of: First, to dissolve the Union; second, to secure and perpetuate slavery; third, to hold the territory already under the shadow of bond age, and to secure, beyond all peradventure, the vast regions ceded to the satraps of the shackle and the lash by the Mis souri Compromise.

The war party of the North did not meditate the destruction of the Union; the war party of the South did. The first objective point of the Southern war fac tion was the dissolution of the Union; that of the Northern faction was the abolition of slavery. The latter was moved by the highest and most disinterested of motives; the former by the basest of mercenary interests, involving not only trea son to the nation, but treason to the white labor of the South. THE SPRING OF 1861 Treason to the white labor of the South was indeed meditated when it was purposed to destroy the forms of representative democracy, and to rear instead an oligarchic republic — one ruled by caste and class. One in which the poor whites were to become the helots of the South ! Fenced out socially and politically by property qualifications.

Helots more wretched and far more helpless than the bonded blacks who were to be made the body and bowels, sills and sleepers of the oligarchy contemplated by the double-jointed treason of the Southern conspirators. The one leading object of the war party of the North was not incorporated, nor was it carried out, in the initiation or conduct of the war. On the part of the North the war was commenced not to abolish slavery but to preserve the Union. True, slavery was abolished, but its abolition was an incident, not an object of the war. On the other hand, the leading objects of the war party of the South were incorporated and did become the sole purpose of the war. The South fought for the "nigger," for the debasement of labor; the disruption of the nation, and the establishment of an oligarchic republic, the political and social systems of which should be like that of Sparta.

The one lodged in the keeping of a landed class; the other founded on the labor of blacks, born to servitude and bonded by law. This to be supplemented by the irregular and irresponsible toil of white helots, born to poverty, bonded by dependence and bearing the humiliating brand of political nonentity. Of the composition of the Northern war element little need be said. All the world are now familiar with the character and quality of those who composed the abolition party, the noblest and most self-sacrificing band of mortals the world ever knew. During the year 1774 the first society for the abolition of slavery was formed in Philadelphia. Before the close of the century similar societies were formed in New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia and New Jersey. John Jay and Alexander Hamilton were among the early abolition leaders, and William Lloyd Garrison Whittier the poet, Wendell Phillips, Benjamin Lundy and grand old " Ossawatomie" Brown were the last and greatest.

In 1848 the abolitionists voted with the Free Soil party, and with that organization they remained until 1856, when they joined the Republican Party. It is patent to all men that those who composed the small but uncompromising war ele ment of the North were moved wholly aud alone by that singleness of purpose and utter absence of personal party or sectional interest in the form of substantial gain that ever antagonizes the ignorant, alarms the powerful and wins and sternly bears the stigma — fanatic ! The war element of the South needs a more careful analysis than that of the North. The aims and objects of the Northern factions were preached from the housetops; were always open and above board; while those of the Southern faction were always secret or distorted. Hence a full understanding of the character and caliber of those who composed the Southern faction is more difficult to obtain, and has never been popu larly attained.

The institution of slavery being the bedrock upon which the social system cf the Soutli rested, it naturally became the chief concern of Southern politics and politicians. Slavery opened the political quarrel between the sections during the framing and in the convention that framed the National Constitution. Southerners were not satisfied with the guarantees accorded slaver}7 by the Constitution, and Patrick Henry voiced the fulness and bitterness of Southern dissatisfaction when he denounced that instrument as " a covenant with Death and a compact with Hell." From that, time the South contained a small body of powerful men — men of thought and sagacity — who foresaw that slavery and the Union could not be jointly perpetuated; that one bod}' could not long contain two antagonistic organisms.

With the birth of this thought came that of secession, and the men of far reaching foresight knew that secession was a question beyond and above all law, and that it could only be settled by the sword. Hence at a very early date the South contained a war party; a band of conspirators, whose first objective point was the dissolution of the Union. The schemes of this little band brought about the nullification convention of 1832, second the Missouri Compromise, and published the infamous Dred Scott decision. Its carefully considered machinations 10 distracted and disrupted the Charleston convention of 1860; coolly plotted to place a Democrat in the field that would represent the ultra slaveocracy of the South, foreseeing its defeat, and foreseeing also that in the reactionary excitement that was sure to follow the conspirators would be likely to obtain control of popular sentiment, at least in the gulf States, calculations that were fulfilled to the letter. These were the men who seized the reins of popular sentiment south of Mason and Dixon's line during the early Spring of 1861.

Chapter II. Treason Strikes

Effect of President Lincoln's Inaugural Address — Desperation of the Conspirators — Innerness of Their Aims — Fall of Fort Sumteb — Effect Thereof — Troops Called for — Unparalleled Patriotism Displayed — Illinoisians in TnE Service of Other States — An Entire Regiment Credited to Missouri. fLlPRIL, 1S61, came soft and balmy — Abraham Lincoln Vjl was seated in the presidential chair; the shock of the inauguration had subsided ; the country was in a healthier frame of mind and in the enjoyment of a more hopeful mood. President Lincoln's inaugural address fell upon the masses South in the form of a pleasing surprise. It was a wholesale contradiction of all that had been said, whispered, howled, preached and written by the pro-slavery conspirators, pro slavery preachers, pro-slavery liars, pro-slaver}7 press.

It proved, to the satisfaction of all who desired to see and under stand, that the conservative element of the North were wholly and immeasurably in the ascendant, and that in the vastness of that ascendancy the abolition or war party was lost if not forgotten. President Lincoln's inaugural speech closed with the following wise and fatherly words addressed to the people of the South: " 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 (ID TREASON STRIKES [1861] 12 advantageous or more satisfactory after separation than before?

Can aliens make trealies easier than friends can make laws? 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 questions, as to terms of intercourse are again upon you. " To the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Consti tution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all of the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part. I shall perfectly perform it, so far as is practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisition, 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 need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none, unless it is 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 collect the duties and imports. But beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion — no using of force against or among the people anyivhere. •'In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 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." This language and these declarations were not such as those for which the plotters South had prepared the people, nor was it what the plotters wanted.

Irritation was allayed, not increased. The probabilities of war were lessened, not enlarged. As an upshot the American penchant for talking matters over began to assert itself and peace and conference conventions were called in many Southern States. The effect of Lincoln's inaugural address was displeasing to the abolitionists and absolutely abominable to the pro-slavery conspirators. The latter saw with alarm that the tide of public sentiment, North and South, was not for war; they feared TREASON STRIKES 13 peace conventions and joint conferences; they believed and believed rightly, that were the people of the two sections per mitted to confer, to talk matters over, their long cherished scheme would be exploded. That the fruition of their "Arabian Nights " dream — the creation of a slavo-plutocratic empire, grand and oriental as it was — must be postponed.