Chapter XV…

Chapter XV

Thirty-Seventh Congress assembles.--Military Situation.--List of Senators: Fessenden, Sumner, Collamer, Wade, Chandler, Hale, Trumbull, Breckinridge, Baker of Oregon.--List of Members of the House of Representatives: Thaddeus Stevens, Crittenden, Lovejoy, Washburne, Bingham, Conkling, Shellabarger.--Mr. Grow elected Speaker.--Message of President Lincoln.--Its Leading Recommendations. --His Account of the Outbreak of the Rebellion.--Effect of the Message on the Northern People.--Battle of Bull Run.--Its Effect on Congress and the Country.--The Crittenden Resolution adopted.-- Its Significance.--Interesting Debate upon it in the Senate.--First Action by Congress Adverse to Slavery.--Confiscation of Certain Slaves.--Large Amount of Business dispatched by Congress.--Striking and Important Debate between Baker and Breckinridge.--Expulsion of Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate.--His Character.--Credit due to Union Men of Kentucky.--Effect produced in the South of Confederate Success at Bull Run.--Rigorous Policy adopted by the Confederate Government.--Law respecting "Alien Enemies."--Law sequestrating their Estates.--Rigidly enforced by Attorney-General Benjamin.--An Injudicious Policy.

The Thirty-seventh Congress assembled according to the President's proclamation, on the fourth day of July, 1861. There had been no ebb in the tide of patriotic enthusiasm which overspread the loyal States after the fall of Sumter. Mr. Lincoln's sagacity in fixing the session so late had apparently been well approved. The temper of the senators and representatives as they came together could not have been better for the great work before them. Startling events, following each other thick and fast, had kept the country in a state of absorbing excitement, and Congress saw around it on every side the indications of a sanguinary struggle to come. Even after the firing on Sumter, anxious and thoughtful men had not given up all hope of an adjustment. The very shock of arms in the harbor of Charleston, it was believed by many, might upon sober second thought induce Southern men to pause and consider and negotiate before taking the fatal plunge. Such expectations were vain. The South felt that their victory was pre-ordained. Jefferson Davis answered Mr. Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men by a proclamation ordering the enlistment of one hundred thousand. The Confederacy was growing in strength daily. State after State was joining it, and energy and confidence prevailed throughout all its borders. The situation grew every day more embarrassing and more critical. Without waiting for the action of Congress, Mr. Lincoln had called for forty-two thousand additional volunteers, and added eleven new regiments, numbering some twenty-two thousand men, to the regular army. A blockade of the Southern ports had been ordered on the 19th of April, and eighteen thousand men had been added to the navy.

No battle of magnitude or decisive character had been fought when Congress assembled; but there had been activity on the skirmish line of the gathering and advances forces and, at many points, blood collision. In Baltimore, on the historic 19th of April, the mob had endeavored to stop the march of Massachusetts troops hurrying to the protection of the National Capital. In Missouri General Nathaniel Lyon had put to flight the disloyal governor, and established the supremacy of National authority. In Western Virginia General McClellan had met with success in some minor engagements, and on the upper Potomac the forces under General Robert Patterson had gained some advantages. A reverse of no very serious character had been experienced at Big Bethel, near Hampton Roads, by the troops under General Benjamin F. Butler. General Robert C. Schenck, in command of a small force, had met with a repulse a few miles from Washington, near Vienna in the State of Virginia. These incidents were not in themselves of special importance, but they indicated an aggressive energy on the part of the Confederates, and foreshadowed the desperate character which the contest was destined to assume. Congress found itself legislating in a fortified city, with patrols of soldiers on the streets and with a military administration which had practically superseded the civil police in the duty of maintaining order and protecting life. The situation was startling and serious, and for the first time people began to realize that we were to have a war with bloody fighting and much suffering, with limitless destruction of property, with costly sacrifice of life.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

The spirit in both branches of Congress was a fair reflection of that which prevailed in the North. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee was the only senator who appeared from the eleven seceding States. John C. Breckinridge was present from Kentucky, somewhat mortified by the decisive rebuke which he had received in the vote of his State. The first important act of the Senate was the seating of James H. Lane and Samuel C. Pomeroy as senators from the new State of Kansas, which had been admitted at the last session of Congress as a free State,--in a bill which, with historic justice, Mr. Buchanan was called upon to approve, after he had announced in Congress, during the first year of his administration, that Kansas was as much a slave State as South Carolina. The first question of moment growing out of the Rebellion was the presentation of credentials by Messrs. Willey and Carlile, who claimed seats as senators from Virginia, the right to which was certified by the seal of the State with the signature of Francis H. Pierpont as governor. The credentials indicated that Mr. Willey was to take the seat vacated by Mr. Mason, and Mr. Carlile that vacated by Mr. Hunter. The loyal men of Virginia, especially from the western counties, finding that the regularly organized government of the State had joined the Rebellion, extemporized a government composed of the Union men of the Legislature which had been in session the preceding winter in Richmond. This body had met in Wheeling, and elected two men as senators who had stood firmly for the Union in the convention which had forced Virginia into secession. Their admission to the Senate was resisted by Mr. James A. Bayard, then senator from Delaware, and by the few other Democratic senators who still held seats. But after discussion, Mr. Willey and Mr. Carlile were sworn in, and thus the first step was taken which led soon after to the partition of the Old Dominion and the creation of the new State of West Virginia. The free States had a unanimous representation of Republican senators, with the exception of John R. Thompson from New Jersey, Jesse D. Bright from Indiana, James W. Nesmith from Oregon, and the two senators from California, Milton S. Latham and James A. McDougall, the latter of whom was sworn in as the successor of William M. Gwin.

The Senate, though deprived by secession of many able men from the South, presented an imposing array of talent, statesmanship, and character. William Pitt Fessenden had already served one term with distinction, and was now in the third year of his second term. He possessed a combination of qualities which gave him just eminence in his public career. He was brilliant from his youth upward; had led the Maine Legislature when but a few years beyond his majority; and, at a time when members of the legal profession are struggling for a first foot-hold, he had stepped to the front rank in the bar of Maine. He was elected a representative in Congress in 1840 at thirty-four years of age. He never enjoyed popularity in the sense in which that word is ordinarily used, but he had the absolute confidence and admiration of his constituents. He possessed that peculiar strength with the people--the most valuable and most enduring a public man can have--which comes from a sense of pride in the ability and character of the representative. Somewhat reserved and distant in manner to the world at large, he was genial and delightful to the intimate circle whom he called friends.

As a debater Mr. Fessenden was exceptionally able. He spoke without apparent effort, in a quiet, impressive manner, with a complete master of pure English. He preserved the lucidus ordo in his argument, was never confused, never hurried, never involved in style. A friend once said to him that the only criticism to be made of his speeches in the Senate was that he illustrated his point too copiously, throwing light upon it after it was made plain to the comprehension of all his hearers. "That fault," said he, "I acquired in addressing juries, where I always tried to adapt my argument to the understanding of the dullest man of the twelve." It was a fault which Mr. Fessenden overcame, and in his later years his speeches may be taken as models for clearness of statement, accuracy of reasoning, felicity of expression, moderation of tone. There have been members of the Senate who achieved greater distinction than Mr. Fessenden, but it may well be doubted whether in the qualities named he ever had a superior in that body. His personal character was beyond reproach. He maintained the highest standard of purity and honor. His patriotism was ardent and devoted. The general character of his mind was conservative, and he had the heartiest contempt of every thing that savored of the demagogue in the conduct of public affairs. He was never swayed from his conclusion by the passion of the hour, and he met the gravest responsibilities with even mind. He had a lofty disregard of personal danger, possessing both moral and physical courage in a high degree. He was constant in his devotion to duty, and no doubt shortened his life by his public labors.*

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

Mr. Sumner, though five years the junior, was senior in senatorial service to Mr. Fessenden, and had attained wider celebrity. Mr. Sumner's labor was given almost exclusively to questions involving our foreign relations, and to issues growing out of the slavery agitation. To the latter he devoted himself, not merely with unswerving fidelity but with all the power and ardor of his nature. Upon general questions of business in the Senate he was not an authority, and rarely participated in the debates which settled them; but he did more than any other man to promote the anti-slavery cause, and to uprear its standard in the Republican party. He had earned, in an unexampled degree, the hatred of the South, and this fact had increased the zeal for him among anti-slavery men throughout the North. The assault, made upon him by Preston S. Brooks, a South-Carolina representative, for his famous speech on Kansas, had strengthened his hold upon his constituency, which was not merely the State of Massachusetts but the radical and progressive Republicans of the entire country.

Mr. Sumner was studious, learned, and ambitious. He prepared his discussions of public questions with care, but was not ready as a debater. He presented his arguments with power, but they were laborious essays. He had no faculty for extempore speech. Like Addison, he could draw his draft for a thousand pounds, but might not have a shilling of change. This did not hinder his progress or lessen his prestige in the Senate. His written arguments were the anti-slavery classics of the day, and they were read more eagerly than speeches which produced greater effect on the hearer. Colonel Benton said that the eminent William Pinkney of Maryland was always thinking of the few hundred who came to hear him in the Senate Chamber, apparently forgetting the million who might read him outside. Mr. Sumner never made that mistake. His arguments went to the million. They produced a wide-spread and prodigious effect on public opinion and left an indelible impression on the history of the country.

Jacob Collamer of Vermont was a senator of eminent worth and ability. He had earned honorable fame as a member of the House of Representatives, and as a member of the Cabinet in the administration of General Taylor. He had entered the Senate at a ripe age, and with every qualification for distinguished service. To describe him in a single word, he was a wise man. Conservative in his nature, he was sure to advise against rashness. Sturdy in his principles, he always counseled firmness. In the periods of excitement through which the party was about to pass, his judgment was sure to prove of highest value--influenced, as it always was, by patriotism, and guided by conscience. Without power as an orator, he was listened to in the Senate with profound attention, as one who never offered counsel that was not needed. He carried into the Senate the gravity, the dignity, the weight of character, which enabled him to control more ardent natures; and he brought to a later generation the wisdom and experience acquired in a long life devoted to the service of his State and of his country.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

Zachariah Chandler had been the recognized leader of the Republican party in Michigan from its formation. He had superseded General Cass with a people in whose affections the latter had been strongly intrenched before Chandler was born. He had been four years in the Senate when the war broke out, and he was well established in reputation and influence. He was educated in the common schools of his native State of New Hampshire, but had not enjoyed the advantage of collegiate training. He was not eloquent according to the canons of oratory; but he was widely intelligent, had given careful attention to public questions, and spoke with force and clearness. He was a natural leader. He had abounding confidence in himself, possessed moral courage of a high order, and did not know the sensation of physical fear. He was zealous in the performance of public duty, radical in all his convictions, patriotic in every thought, an unrelenting foe to all forms of corruption. He distinguished between a friend and an enemy. He was always ready to help the one, and, though not lacking in magnanimity, he seldom neglected an opportunity to cripple the other.

Lyman Trumbull had entered the Senate six years before, when Illinois revolted against the course of Douglas in destroying the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Lincoln had earnestly desired the place, but waived his claims. The election of Trumbull was considered desirable for the consolidation of the new party, and the Republicans of Whig antecedents were taught a lesson of self-sacrifice by the promptness with which Mr. Lincoln abandoned the contest. Judge Trumbull had acquired a good reputation at the bar of his State, and at once took high rank in the Senate. His mind was trained to logical discussion, and as a debater he was able and incisive. His political affiliations prior to 1854 were with the Democracy, and aside from the issue in regard to the extension of slavery, he did not fully sympathize with the principles and tendencies of the Republican party. He differed from Mr. Lincoln just as Preston King, senator from New York, differed from Mr. Seward. Lincoln and Seward believed in Henry Clay and all the issues which he represented, while Trumbull and King were devoted to the policies and measures which characterized the administration of Jackson. The two classes of men composing the Republican party were equally zealous in support of the principles that led to the political revolution of 1860, but it was not easy to see what would be the result of other issues which time and necessity might develop.

Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio had been ten years in the Senate when the war broke out. He entered in March, 1851--the immediate successor of Thomas Ewing who had been transferred to the Senate from the Cabinet of Taylor, to take the place of Thomas Corwin who left the Senate to enter the Cabinet of Fillmore. Mr. Wade was elected as a Whig--the last senator chosen by that party in Ohio. His triumph was a rebuke to Mr. Corwin for his abandonment of the advanced position which he had taken against the aggressions of the slave power. It was rendered all the more significant by the defeat of Mr. Ewing, who with his strong hold upon the confidence and regard of the people of Ohio, was too conservative to embody the popular resentment against the odious features of the Compromise of 1850. Mr. Wade entered the Senate with Mr. Sumner. Their joint coming imparted confidence and strength to the contest for free soil, and was a powerful re-enforcement to Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Hale, who represented the distinctively anti-slavery sentiment in the Senate. The fidelity, the courage, the ability of Mr. Wade gave him prominence in the North, and were a constant surprise to the South. He brought to the Senate the radicalism which Mr. Giddings had so long upheld in the House, and was protected in his audacious freedom of speech by his steadiness of nerve and his known readiness to fight.

Henry B. Anthony entered the Senate on the 4th of March, 1859, at forty-four years of age. He had been Governor of Rhode Island ten years before. He received a liberal education at Brown University, and was for a long period editor of the Providence Journal, a position in which he established an enviable fame as a writer and secured an enduring hold upon the esteem and confidence of his State. In the Senate he soon acquired the rank to which his thorough training and intelligence, his graceful speech, his ardent patriotism, his stainless life entitled him. No man has ever enjoyed, among his associates of all parties, a more profound confidence, a more cordial respect, a warmer degree of affection.

UNITED-STATES SENATORS.

John P. Hale of New Hampshire was still pursuing the career which he had begun as an early advocate of the anti-slavery cause, and in which he had twice overthrown the power of the Democratic party in New Hampshire.--Henry Wilson was the colleague of Mr. Sumner, and was a man of strong parts, self-made, earnest, ardent, and true.--Lot M. Morrill was the worthy associate of Mr. Fessenden, prominent in his profession, and strong in the regard and confidence of the people of his States.--The author of the Wilmot Proviso came from Pennsylvania as the successor of Simon Cameron, and as the colleague of Edgar Cowan, whose ability was far greater than his ambition or his industry.--James W. Grimes, a native of New Hampshire, who had gone to Iowa at the time of its organization as a Territory and had been conspicuously influential in the affairs of the State, entered the Senate in March, 1859. He possessed an iron will and sound judgment. He was specially distinguished for independence of party restraint in his modes of thought and action. He and Judge Collamer of Vermont were the most intimate associates of Mr. Fessenden, and the three were not often separated on public questions. --The colleague of Mr. Grimes was James Harlan, one of Mr. Lincoln's most valued and most confidential friends, and subsequently a member of his Cabinet.--James R. Doolittle came from Wisconsin, a far more radical Republican than his colleague, Timothy O. Howe, and both were men of marked influence in the councils of their party.--John Sherman filled the vacancy occasioned by the appointment of Mr. Chase to the Treasury. Mr. Chase had been chosen as the successor of George E. Pugh, and remained in the Senate but a single day. Mr. Sherman had been six years in the House, and had risen rapidly in public esteem. He had been the candidate of his party for Speaker, and had served as chairman of Ways and Means in the Congress preceding the war.--From the far-off Pacific came Edward Dickinson Baker, a senator from Oregon, a man of extraordinary gifts of eloquence; lawyer, soldier, frontiersman, leader of popular assemblies, tribune of the people. In personal appearance he was commanding, in manner most attractive, in speech irresistibly charming. Perhaps in the history of the Senate no man ever left so brilliant a reputation from so short a service. He was born in England, and the earliest recollection of his life was the splendid pageant attending the funeral of Lord Nelson.** He came with his family to the United States when a child, lived for a time in Philadelphia, and removed to Illinois, where he grew to manhood and early attained distinction. He served his State with great brilliancy in Congress, and commanded with conspicuous success one of her regiments in the war with Mexico. The Whigs of the North- West presented Colonel Baker for a seat in the Cabinet of President Taylor. His failure to receive the appointment was a sore mortification to him. He thought his political career in Illinois was broken; and in 1852, after the close of his service in Congress, he joined the throng who were seeking fortune and fame on the Pacific slope. When leaving Washington he said to a friend that he should never look on the Capitol again unless he could come bearing his credentials as a senator of the United States. He returned in eight years.

Among the opposition senators, some fourteen in number, the most prominent was John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who had stepped from the Vice-President's chair to the floor of the Senate as the successor of Mr. Crittenden. Mr. Breckinridge at that time was forty years of age, attractive in personal appearance, graceful, and cordial in manner, by inheritance and by cultivation a gentleman. He came from a section where family rank gave power and influence. He united in his person the best blood of the South and the North, --preserving and combining the most winning traits of each. His lineage in Kentucky naturally brought to him the sympathy and support of the State. He was born to success and authority among his people. Originally he had anti-slavery convictions, as had all the members of his eminent family. So strongly was this tendency developed in his mind that, when he came to the bar, he removed to the Territory of Iowa, intending to identify himself with the growth of the free North-West. Circumstances overcame the determination, and carried him back to Kentucky, where he was welcomed at the hearth-stones and in the hearts of her people.

MR. CLAY AND MR. BRECKINRIDGE.

At twenty-five years of age Mr. Breckinridge was appointed major in one of the Kentucky regiments, which served in the Mexican war. After his return he entered upon the practice of his profession in Lexington, and against all the traditions of his family identified himself with the Democratic party. An apparently slight incident had an important bearing upon his earlier political career. He was selected to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Clay on his return to Kentucky in the autumn of 1850, from the field of his senatorial triumph in securing the adoption of the celebrated compromise of that year. Mr. Breckinridge's speech was graceful and effective. He eulogized Mr. Clay's work with discrimination, and paid the highest tribute to the illustrious statesman. Mr. Clay was visibly touched by the whole scene. His old opponents were present by the thousand to do him honor. The enmities and antagonisms of earlier years were buried. He had none but friends and supporters in Kentucky. He responded with earnestness, and even with emotion: "My welcome," he said, "has been made all the more grateful from being pronounced by my eloquent young friend, the son of an eloquent father, the grandson of a still more eloquent grandfather, both of whom were in days long gone my cherished companions, my earnest supporters." Mr. Clay's words were so warm, his manner was so cordial, that it seemed as if he intended to confer upon Breckinridge the leadership in Kentucky, which, after a half century's domination, he was about to surrender. Undoubtedly the events of that day aided Breckinridge the next year in carrying the Ashland District for Congress, and drew to him thereafter the support of many influential Whigs. He entered Congress when the slavery discussion was absorbing public attention, and by the irresistible drift of events he was carried into an association with extreme Southern men. It was by their friendly influence that he was promoted to the Vice-Presidency as soon as he became eligible under the Constitution. During the four stormy years of Buchanan's administration, when the sectional contest approached its crisis, Mr. Breckinridge became more and more the representative of Southern opinion, and, though unequal to Douglas in the arena of debate, he became the leader of those who opposed the "popular sovereignty" dogma of the Illinois senator. He was thence drawn by influences which he could not have controlled if he had desired, into the prolonged and exciting controversy which disrupted the Democratic party. Intellectually Mr. Breckinridge was not the equal of many Southern men who deferred to him as a leader. His precedence was due to his personal character, to his strong connections, to his well-tempered judgment, and especially to a certain attractiveness of manner which was felt by all who came in contact with him.

The prominence of New England in the Senate was exceptional. So many positions of influence were assigned to her that it created no small degree of jealously and ill-feeling in other sections. The places were allotted according to the somewhat rigid rules of precedence which obtain in that body, but this fact did not induce senators from the Middle and Western States to acquiesce with grace. The chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations was given to Mr. Sumner; Mr. Fessenden was placed at the head of the Finance Committee, which then included Appropriations; Mr. Wilson was made chairman of Military Affairs; Mr. John P. Hale, chairman of Naval Affairs; Mr. Collamer, chairman of Post-office and Post-roads; Mr. Foster of Connecticut, chairman of Pensions; Mr. Clark of New Hampshire, chairman of Claims; Mr. Simmons of Rhode Island, chairman of Patents; Mr. Foot of Vermont, chairman of Public Buildings and Grounds; Mr. Anthony, chairman of Printing; Mr. Dixon of Connecticut, chairman of Contingent Expenses. Mr. Lot M. Morrill, who had just entered the public service from Maine, was the only New-England senator left without a chairmanship. There were in all twenty-two committees in the Senate. Eleven were given to New England. But even this ratio does not exhibit the case in its full strength. The Committees on Foreign Relations, Finance, Military Affairs, and Naval Affairs shaped almost the entire legislation in time of war, and thus New England occupied a most commanding position. The retirement of Mr. Seward, Mr. Chase, and Mr. Cameron from the Senate to enter the Cabinet undoubtedly increased the number of important positions assigned to New England. Twenty-two States were represented in the Senate, and it was impossible to make sixteen of them, including the four leading States of the Union, recognize the justice of placing the control of National legislation in the hands of six States in the far North-East. It was not a fortunate arrangement for New England, since it provoked prejudices which proved injurious in many ways, and lasted for many years.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The House of Representatives was promptly organized by the election of Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania as Speaker. Mr. Grow came from the Wilmot district, on the northern border of the State, where the anti-slavery sentiment had taken earliest and deepest root. As Connecticut had in the Colonial period claimed a large part of the area of North Pennsylvania, her emigration tended in that direction, and this fact had given a distinct and more radical type to the population. Mr. Grow was himself a native of Connecticut. He was chosen Speaker because of his activity in the anti-slavery struggles of the House, and because of his aptitude for the duties of the chair. Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri was a rival candidate, and was supported by strong influences. It was not considered expedient to hold a party caucus, and the Democratic minority declined to present a candidate. On the roll call, Mr. Grow received 71 votes, Mr. Blair 40, while 48 votes, principally of Democratic representatives, were cast for different gentlemen who were in no sense candidates. Accepting Mr. Grow's plurality as the best form of nomination to the office, a large number of the friends of Mr. Blair changed their votes before the result was authoritatively declared, and Mr. Grow was announced as receiving 90 votes,--a majority of all the members. Two members appeared from Virginia. The other Confederate States were without representation. Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee was chosen Clerk, in compliment to his fidelity and courage as a Union man.

The House was filled with able men, many of whom had parliamentary experience. The natural leader, who assumed his place by common consent, was Thaddeus Stevens, a man of strong peculiarities of character, able, trained, and fearless. Born in Vermont and educated at Dartmouth, he had passed all his adult years in Pennsylvania, and was thoroughly identified with the State which he had served with distinction both in her own Legislature and in Congress. He had the reputation of being somewhat unscrupulous as to political methods, somewhat careless in personal conduct, somewhat lax in personal morals; but to the one great object of his life, the destruction of slavery and the elevation of the slave, he was supremely devoted. From the pursuit of that object nothing could deflect him. Upon no phase of it would he listen to compromise. Any man who was truly anti-slavery was his friend. Whoever espoused the cause and proved faithless in never so small a degree, became his enemy, inevitably and irreconcilably. Towards his own race he seemed often to be misanthropic. He was learned in the law, and for a third of a century had held high rank at the bar of a State distinguished for great lawyers. He was disposed to be taciturn. A brilliant talker, he did not relish idle and aimless conversation. He was much given to reading, study, and reflection, and to the retirement which enabled him to gratify his tastes. As was said of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Stevens loved solitude and understood its use.

Upon all political questions Mr. Stevens was an authority. He spoke with ease and readiness, using a style somewhat resembling the crisp, clear sententiousness of Dean Swift. Seldom, even in the most careless moment, did a sentence escape his lips, that would not bear the test of grammatical and rhetorical criticism. He possessed the keenest wit, and was unmerciful in its use toward those whom he did not like. He illustrated in concrete form the difference between wit and humor. He did not indulge in the latter. He did not enjoy a laugh. When his sharp sallies would set the entire House in an uproar, he was as impassive, his visage as solemn, as if he were pronouncing a funeral oration. His memory of facts, dates, and figures was exact, and in argument he knew the book and chapter and page for reference. He was fond of young men, invited their society, encouraged and generously aided them. He was easily moved by the distress of others. He was kind, charitable, lavish of his money in the relief of poverty. He had characteristics which seemed contradictory, but which combined to make one of the memorable figures in the Parliamentary history of the United States,--a man who had the courage to meet any opponent, and who was never overmatched in intellectual conflict.

Mr. Stevens had efficient colleagues from Pennsylvania. The most distinguished was John Hickman, who had been a Democrat until 1860, and who in debate was skillful and acute. William D. Kelley entered the House at this session for the first time, and was destined to serve his State for a long series of years, with ability, fidelity, and usefulness. James K. Moorhead, John Covode, Edward McPherson, and John W. Killinger were active and influential members.***

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

New York sent Reuben E. Fenton, already prominent, popular, and strong in the public service; Elbridge G. Spaulding, who became useful and even eminent as an adviser in financial legislation; William A. Wheeler, afterwards Vice-President of the United States; Theodore Pomeroy, the neighbor and confidential friend of Mr. Seward; Charles B. Sedgwick, of pronounced ability in the law; Charles H. Van Wyck, who afterwards sought distinction in the West; and Abraham Olin, subsequently well known in judicial life. The ablest and most brilliant man of the delegation was Roscoe Conkling. He had been elected to the preceding Congress when but twenty-nine years of age, and had exhibited a readiness and eloquence in debate that placed him at once in the first rank. His command of language was remarkable. In affluent and exuberant diction Mr. Conkling was never surpassed in either branch of Congress, unless, perhaps, by Rufus Choate.

The Ohio delegation was especially strong. John A. Bingham, the oldest in service on the Republican side, was an effective debater, well informed, ready, and versatile. A man of high principle, of strong faith, of zeal, enthusiasm, and eloquence, he could always command the attention of the House. His colleague, Samuel Shellabarger, was distinguished for the logical and analytical character of his mind. Without the gift of oratory, paying little heed to the graces of speech, Mr. Shellabarger conquered by the intrinsic strength of his argument, which generally amounted to demonstration. His mind possessed many of the qualities which distinguished Mr. Lincoln. In fairness, lucidness, fullness of statement, the two had a striking resemblance. Valentine B. Horton was a valuable member on all questions of finance and business; and on the issues touching slavery James M. Ashley followed the radical example of Mr. Giddings. Among the Democrats, George H. Pendleton, Clement L. Vallandigham, and Samuel S. Cox were especially conspicuous. Mr. Pendleton was regarded as the leader of the Democratic side of the House by a large section of his party, and his assignment to the Committee of Ways and Means by the Speaker was intended as a recognition of that fact. Mr. Cox gave much attention to foreign affairs, to which his mind had been drawn by a brief but fruitful participation in the diplomatic service of the country. Mr. Vallandigham possessed ability, and a certain form of dogged courage, combined with a love of notoriety, which allured him to the assumption of extreme positions and the advocacy of unpopular measures. No other State was in the aggregate so ably represented as Ohio.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Indiana was influential in the House. Schuyler Colfax was at the height of his successful career on the floor and destined to eminent promotion in the public service. Among his Republican colleagues were George W. Julian, long and creditably identified with the anti- slavery cause, and especially esteemed for the conscientious attention he had given to all questions relating to the public lands; Albert G. Porter, in his second Congress, well trained for debate, with ability and high character, rapidly winning public favor, but cut off from his legislative career by a Democratic majority in his district, although his strength with the people has since been strikingly attested; William McKee Dunn, a man of sound judgment, to be known and appreciated afterwards in other fields of honorable duty. On the Democratic side, William S. Holman already ranked as an old member. His efforts were steadily and persistently directed to the enforcement of public economy; and though he may have sometimes been unreasonable, and though he was often accused of acting the part of a demagogue, the country owes him a debt of gratitude for the integrity, intelligence, and simplicity with which he has illustrated a most honorable career as representative of the people. Daniel W. Voorhees, by nature a fierce partisan, yet always filled with generous impulses, was in his second Congress. His character was significantly illustrated by his willingness to lend his attractive eloquence in the Virginia courts in defense of one of John Brown's associates in the Harper's Ferry tragedy,--a magnanimous act in view of the risk to his position among the pro-slavery Democracy, with whom he was strongly identified in party organization.

Illinois sent Elihu B. Washburne, already eight years a representative in Congress, a man of courage, energy, and principle, devoted to the Republican party, constant in attendance upon the sessions of the House, expert in its rules, its most watchful and most careful member, an economist by nature, a foe to every form of corruption. Owen Lovejoy, though a native of Maine, springing from Puritan ancestry, and educated to the Christian ministry in the faith taught by Calvin, had the fiery eloquence of a French Revolutionist. Not even the exasperating wit of Thaddeus Stevens, or the studied taunts of John Quincy Adams, ever threw the Southern men into such rage as the speeches of Lovejoy. He was recklessly bold. His brother had been killed by a mob for preaching the doctrine of the Abolitionists, and he seemed almost to court the same fate. He was daring enough to say to the Southern Democrats, at a time of great excitement in the House, in a speech delivered long before the war, that the negroes were destined to walk to emancipation, as the children of Israel had journeyed to the promised land, "through the Red Sea." Among the Democrats the most conspicuous was William A. Richardson, who had been a devoted adherent of Douglas, and had co-operated with in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. A younger adherent of Douglas was John A. Logan, serving in his second term. He remained however but a short time in the Thirty-seventh Congress. His ardent patriotism and ambitious temperament carried him into the war, where his brilliant career is known and read of all men.

The most distinguished accession to the House was John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. He had never before served in that branch, but he had been chosen to the Senate six times by the Legislature of his State,--for five full terms and for the remainder of Mr. Clay's term when he retired in 1842. Only one other man, William E. King of Alabama, has ever been so many times elected to the Senate. Mr. Crittenden, like Mr. Clay, entered the Senate at thirty years of age. His service began the day that Madison left the Presidency, and ended the day of Lincoln's inauguration. But in this long period he had served only two full terms, and his total service in the Senate was little more than twenty years. He resigned in 1819 "to get bread for his family," as he expressed it; the compensation of a senator for the session of Congress not averaging at that time more than nine hundred dollars per annum. He resigned in 1841 to become Attorney-General in the Cabinet of Harrison. He resigned in 1848 to run for Governor of Kentucky in aid of General Taylor's candidacy, and he left the governorship in 1850, after the death of Taylor, to accept his old position in the Cabinet. He was appointed to the Supreme Bench by John Quincy Adams in the last year of his administration; but the Senate, already under the influence of the Jackson men, refused to confirm him. Mr. Clay wrote to Mr. Crittenden in anticipation of his failure, bidding him "cultivate calmness of mind and prepare for the worst event."

Mr. Crittenden's ability was of a high order. He stood at the head of that class of statesmen who were next to the highest grade. Like so many other eminent Whigs, he was excluded from the full recognition of his power by the overshadowing prestige of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster. The appearance of Mr. Crittenden in the House in his seventy-fourth year was his patriotic response to the roll-call of duty. He loved his country and his whole country, and every effort of his waning strength was put forth in behalf of the Union. It was his influence, more than that of any other man, which saved his State from the vortex of Rebellion. But for his strong hold upon the sympathy and pride of Kentucky, the malign influence of Breckinridge might have forced the State into the Confederacy. Mr. Lincoln considered Mr. Crittenden's course entitled to the admiration and gratitude of every man who was loyal to the Union.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Another Kentuckian gave noble aid to the National cause. Charles A. Wickliffe was a contemporary of Mr. Crittenden, and had for many years belonged to the same party. In the Whig dissensions which followed the accession of Mr. Tyler to the Presidency, Mr. Wickliffe supported the Administration. As an effective blow to Mr. Clay, the President called Mr. Wickliffe to his Cabinet. He served as Postmaster-General through Mr. Tyler's term, and with his chief went over to the Democratic party, supporting Mr. Polk in 1844. There was much anger over his course, on the part of the Kentucky Whigs, resulting in personal estrangements. He was a man of ability, of commanding appearance, of high character. His return to Congress, where he had originally entered nearly forty years before, brought a valuable support to the cause of the Union.

Associated with Crittenden and Wickliffe were three men of mark. Robert Mallory, William H. Wadsworth, and James S. Jackson were younger but not less devoted friends of the Union. Their example was especially valuable in holding thousands of young Kentuckians from following Breckinridge into the Confederate army. Jackson gave his life to his country on one of the battle-fields of the war.

--Missouri sent Francis P. Blair, Jr., and James S. Rollins, who had already been in the smoke and fire of civil conflict, and whose loyalty to the Union, under every form of peril, entitled them to the respect and confidence of patriotic men.

--Massachusetts sent Benjamin F. Thomas of rare eloquence; Alexander H. Rice, afterwards the governor of his State; Thomas D. Elliott, John B. Alley, the venerable William Appleton; and Henry L. Dawes, whose long service attests his character, his ability, and the confidence of his constituents.

--From New Hampshire came Gilman Marston, who soon after gained credit in the field; from Vermont, Justin S. Morrill, one of the most useful, industrious, and honorable members of the House; from Maine, its distinguished ex-governor, Anson P. Morrill; and Frederick A. Pike, of strong mind, keen and incisive in debate, but lacking the ambition necessary to give him his proper rank in the House. Samuel C. Fessenden and Thomas A. D. Fessenden, brothers of the distinguished senator, were members of this House,--the only instance in which three brothers were ever in Congress at the same time from the same State. Three Washburns had served in the preceding Congress, but they represented three States.

--The far North-West was well represented by young men. William Windom came from Minnesota, and from Iowa James F. Wilson, a man of positive strength, destined to take very prominent part in legislative proceedings. Fernando C. Beaman came from Michigan, and John F. Potter and A. Scott Sloan from Wisconsin. Martin F. Conway came from the youngest State of the Union, fresh from the contests which had made Kansas almost a field of war.

The organization of the House was so promptly effected that the President's message was received on the same day. Throughout the country there was an eagerness to hear Mr. Lincoln's views on the painful situation. The people had read with deep sympathy the tender plea to the South contained in his Inaugural address. The next occasion on which they had heard from him officially was his proclamation for troops after the fall of Sumter. Public opinion in the North would undoubtedly be much influenced by what the President should now say. Mr. Lincoln was keenly alive to the importance of his message, and he weighed every word he wrote. He maintained, as he always did, calmness of tone, moderation in expression. He appealed to reason, not to prejudice. He spoke as one who knew that he would be judged by the public opinion of the world. It was his fortune to put his name to many state papers of extraordinary weight, but never to one of graver import than his first message to Congress.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST MESSAGE.

The President informed Congress that he would not call their attention "to any ordinary subject of legislation." In fact there were but two things for Congress to do in the national exigency-- provide for the enlistment of an army, and for the raising of money necessary to the conduct of a great war. The President vividly narrated the progressive steps in the South which had brought about the existing status of affairs. He depicted in strong colors the condition in which he found the government when he assumed office; how "the forts, arsenals, dock-yards, and custom-houses" of the National Government had been seized; how "the accumulations of national revenue" had been appropriated; how "a disproportionate share of Federal muskets and rifles" had found their way into the Southern States, and had been seized to be used against the government; how the navy had been "scattered in distant seas, leaving but a small part of it within immediate reach of the government;" how seven States had seceded from the Union, and formed "a separate government, which is already invoking recognition, aid, and intervention from foreign powers." With this critical situation he was compelled to deal at once, and the policy which he had chosen when he entered upon his office looked to the exhaustion of all peaceful measures before a resort to stronger ones.

In pursuing the policy of peace, the President had "sought only to hold the public places and property not already wrested from the government, and to collect the revenue--relying for the rest on time, discussion, and the ballot-box." He had even gone so far as "to promise a continuance of the mails at government expense to the very people who were resisting the government;" and he had given "repeated pledges" that every thing should be "forborne without which it was believed possible to keep the government on foot;" that there should be no "disturbances to any of the people, or to any of their rights." He had gone in the direction of conciliation as far as it was possible to go, without consenting to a disruption of the government.

The President gave in detail the events which led to the assault on Sumter. He declared that the reduction of the fort "was in no sense a matter of self-defense on the part of the assailants." They well knew "that the garrison in the fort could by no possibility commit an aggression upon them;" they were expressly notified that "the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would be attempted, unless themselves, by resisting so much, should provoke more." They knew that the National Government desired to keep the garrison in the fort, "not to assail them, but merely to maintain visible possession, and thus to preserve the Union from actual and immediate dissolution." The Confederate Government had "assailed and reduced the fort for precisely the reverse object--to drive out the visible authority of the Federal Union, and thus force it to immediate dissolution."

"In this act," said Mr. Lincoln, "discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue--immediate dissolution or blood; and this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question, whether a Constitutional Republic, a government of the people by the same people, can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes." The President presented this point with elaboration. The question really involved, was "whether discontented individuals, too few in number to control the administration according to the organic law, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without pretenses, break up the government, and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask, Is there in all Republics this inherent and fatal weakness? Must a government of necessity be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?"

The President was severe upon Virginia and Virginians. He had made earnest effort to save the State from joining the Rebellion. He had held conferences with her leading men, and had gone so far on the 13th of April as to address a communication, for public use in Virginia, to the State convention then in session at Richmond, in answer to a resolution of the convention asking him to define the policy he intended to pursue in regard to the Confederate States. In this he re-asserted the position assumed in his Inaugural, and added that "if, as now appears to be true, an unprovoked assault has been made on Fort Sumter, I shall hold myself at liberty to repossess it if I can, and the like places which had been seized before the government was devolved upon me. I shall, to the best of my ability, repel force by force." This letter was used to inflame public sentiment in Virginia, and to hurl the State into Secession through the agency of a Convention elected to maintain the Union. Mr. Lincoln afterwards believed that the letter had been obtained from him under disingenuous pretenses and for the express purpose of using it, as it was used, against the Union and in favor of the Confederacy.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST MESSAGE.

The President's resentment towards those who had thus, as he thought, broken faith with him is visible in his message. Referring to the Virginia convention, he observed that, "the people had chosen a large majority of professed Union men" as delegates. "After the fall of Sumter, many members of that majority went over to the original Disunion minority, and with them adopted an ordinance withdrawing the State from the Union." In his own peculiar style, Mr. Lincoln made the stinging comment, "Whether this change was wrought by their great approval of the assault upon Sumter, or by their great resentment at the government's resistance to that assault, is not definitely known." Though the Virginia convention had submitted the ordinance of Secession to a vote of the people, to be taken on a day nearly a month in the future, the President informed Congress that "they immediately commenced acting as if the State was already out of the Union." They seized the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and the navy-yard at Norfolk, and "received, perhaps invited, large bodies of troops from the so-called seceding States." They "sent members to their Congress at Montgomery, and finally permitted the insurrectionary government to be transferred to their Capitol at Richmond." Mr. Lincoln concluded with an ominous sentence which might well have inspired Virginians with a sense of impending peril; "The people of Virginia have thus allowed his giant insurrection to make its nest within her borders, and this government has no choice left but to deal with it where it finds it." In that moment of passion these words, with all their terrible significance, were heard by Southern men only to be jeered at.

When the President came to specific recommendations he was brief and pointed. He asked that Congress would place "at the control of the government at least four hundred thousand men, and four hundred millions of money." He said this number was about one- tenth of those of proper age within the regions where all were apparently willing to engage, and the sum was "less than a twenty- third part of the money value owned by men who seem ready to devote the whole." He argued that "a debt of six hundred millions of dollars is now a less sum per head than the debt of the Revolution when we came out of that struggle, and the money value in the country bears even a greater proportion to what it was then than does the population." "Surely," he added, "each man has as strong a motive now to preserve our liberties as each had then to establish them."

After arguing at length as to the utter fallacy of the right of Secession, and showing how the public "mind of the South had been drugged and insidiously debauched with the doctrine for thirty years," the President closed his message "with the deepest regret that he found the duty of employing the war power of the government forced upon him;" but he "must perform his duty, or surrender the existence of the government." Compromise had been urged upon the President from every quarter. He answered all such requests frankly: "No compromise by public servants could in this case be a cure; not that compromises are not often proper, but that no popular government can long survive a marked precedent that those who carry an election can only save the government from immediate destruction by giving up the main point upon which the people gave the election. The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decision."

Mr. Lincoln thus saw his duty clearly and met it boldly. In his own person was centred, as he profoundly realized, the fate of Republican government. He had been elected President of the United States in strict accordance with all the requirements of the Constitution. He had been chosen without bribe, without violence, without undue pressure, by a majority of the electoral votes. If there had been outrage upon the freedom of the ballot it was not among his supporters; if there had been a terror of public opinion, overawing the right of private judgment, it was not in the States which had voted for him, but in those Southern communities where, by threats of violence, the opportunity to cast a ballot was denied to electors favorable to his cause. If he should now yield, he evil results would be immeasurable and irremediable. "As a private citizen," he said, "the Executive could not have consented that Republican institutions shall perish; much less could he in betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as these free people have confided to him." He avowed that, in full view of his great responsibility, he had so far done what he had deemed his duty. His words were almost to foreshadow the great tragedy of after years when declaring that he felt he had no moral right to shirk, or even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow. In conclusion he said to Congress, "having thus chosen our own course without guile, and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear, and with manly hearts."

The effect of this message upon the public opinion of the North was very great. If there had been hesitation by any party or any class upon the subsidence of the first glow of patriotism which had animated the country after the assault on Sumter, Mr. Lincoln's words arrested it, and restored enthusiasm and ardor to all hearts. Indeed, men of thought and discretion everywhere saw that the course of the President was fixed, and even if they differed from his conclusions, they were persuaded that safety could be secured only by following his counsels, and upholding his measures. Mr. Lincoln had been throughout his life much given to reading, to argument, to induction, to speculation, to reflection. He was now before the world as a man of whom decision and action were required, with the lives and fortunes of unborn millions depending upon his wisdom, with the fate of Republican liberty and Constitutional government at stake upon his success. The history of the world shows no example of a man upon whom extraordinary public duties and perilous responsibilities were so suddenly thrust. No antecedent training had apparently fitted him for his work; no experience in affairs had given assurance that he could master a situation which demanded an unprecedented expenditure of treasure, which involved the control of armies larger than the fabled host of Xerxes, which developed questions of state-craft more delicate and more difficult than those which had baffled the best minds in Europe.

Under the inspiration of the message, and in strict accordance with its recommendations, Congress proceeded to its work. No legislation was attempted, none was even seriously suggested, except measures relating to the war. In no other session of Congress was so much accomplished in so brief a time. Convening on the fourth day of July, both Houses adjourned finally on the 6th of August. There were in all but twenty-nine working-days, and every moment was faithfully and energetically employed. Seventy-six public Acts were passed. With the exception of four inconsiderable bills, the entire number related to the war,--to the various modes of strengthening the military and naval forces of the Union, to the wisest methods of securing money for the public service, to the effectual building up of the National credit. Many of these bills were long and complex. The military establishment was re-organized, the navy enlarged, the tariff revised, direct taxes were levied, and loan-bills perfected. Two hundred and seven millions of dollars were appropriated for the army, and fifty-six millions for the navy. Some details of these measures are elsewhere presented under appropriate heads. They are referred to here only to illustrate the patriotic spirit which pervaded Congress, and the magnitude of the work accomplished under the pressure of necessity.

DEFEAT OF THE UNION ARMY AT BULL RUN.

Seventeen days after the extra session began, and fifteen days before it closed, the country was startled and profoundly moved by a decisive defeat of the Union army at Bull Run in Virginia. The National troops were commanded by General Irvin McDowell, and the Confederates by General Beauregard. The battle is remarkable for the large number of division and brigade commanders who afterwards became widely known. Serving under General McDowell were General William T. Sherman, General Hunter, General Burnside, General Miles, General Heintzelman, General Fitz-John Porter, and General Howard. Serving under General Beauregard were Stonewall Jackson, General Longstreet, General Ewell, General J. E. B. Stuart. General Joseph E. Johnston re-enforced Beauregard with another army during the fight, and became the ranking-officer on the field. The defeat of the Union army was complete; it was a rout, and on the retreat became a panic. When the troops reached the protection of the fortifications around Washington, a thorough demoralization pervaded their ranks. The holiday illusion had been rudely dispelled, and the young men who had enlisted for a summer excursion, suddenly found that they were engaged in a bloody war in which comrades and friends had been slain by their side, and in which they saw nothing before them but privation, peril, loss of health, and possibly loss of life. The North had been taught a lesson. The doubting were at last convinced that the Confederates were equipped for a desperate fight, and intended to make it. If the Union were to be saved, it must be saved by the united loyalty and the unflinching resolution of the people.

The special and immediate danger was an outbreak in the Border slave States. Their people were seriously divided; but the Union men, aided by the entire moral influence and in no small degree by the military force of the Nation, had thus far triumphed. The repulse of the National arms, with the consequent loss of prestige, necessarily emboldened the enemies of the Union, who, by playing upon the prejudices and fears of the slave-holders, might succeed in seducing them from their allegiance. To prevent the success of such appeal Mr. Crittenden, whose wise counsels were devoted with sleepless patriotism to the preservation of loyalty in the Border States, offered in the House a resolution defining the objects of the National struggle. The resolution set forth that "the deplorable civil war has been forced upon the country by the Disunionists of the Southern States now in arms against the Constitutional Government;" that "in this National emergency, Congress, banishing all feelings of mere passion or resentment, will recollect only its duty to the whole country;" that "the war is not waged in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or the overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired;" and that, "as soon as these objects are accomplished, the war ought to cease." The resolution was adopted by the House without debate, and with only two negative votes.

THE CRITTENDEN RESOLUTION.

The same resolution was offered in the Senate by Andrew Johnson of Tennessee two days after its adoption in the House. It led to a somewhat acrimonious debate. Mr. Polk of Missouri desired an amendment declaring that the war had been "forced upon the country by the Disunionists of the Southern and Northern States." He was asked by Mr. Collamer of Vermont, whether he had ever "heard of any Northern Disunionists being in revolt against the government." He replied by asserting his belief that there were Disunionists North as well as South. He had "read Fourth of July speeches, in which the country was congratulated that there was now to be a dissolution of the Union." The amendment was rejected, receiving only four votes.

--Mr. Collamer spoke ably for the resolution. He was not however afraid of the word "subjugation." Its literal, classical meaning was, to pass under the yoke, but in the popular acceptation it meant that "all the people of the United States should submit to the Constitution and laws."

--Mr. Harris of New York expressed his approval of the resolution "precisely as it was offered. Every expression in it was apt and appropriate." If slavery should be abolished as a result of the war, he would not "shed a tear over that result; but yet it is not the purpose of the government in prosecuting the war to overthrow slavery."

--Mr. Fessenden of Maine agreed with Mr. Collamer as to the word "subjugation." It expressed the idea clearly, and he was "satisfied with it. The talk about subjugation is mere clap-trap."

--Mr. Doolittle of Wisconsin said the use of the word "subjugation" in the resolution did not imply that it was not "the purpose of the Government to compel the Disunionists to submit to the Constitution and the laws."

--Mr. Willey of Virginia said that there was a great sensitiveness in his section; that there was a fear among many that the object of the war was subjugation; that "its design was to reduce the Old Dominion to a province, and to make the people (in the language of the senator from Vermont) pass under the yoke."

--Mr. Hale of New Hampshire favored the resolution. He said the most radical abolitionists had "always disclaimed the idea or the power of interfering with slavery in the States."

--Mr. Clark, the colleague of Mr. Hale, would support the resolution, and would oppose any amendment offered to it, not because he liked its phraseology, but because "it was drawn by the senator from Tennessee, and suited him and the region from which he came."

--Mr. Breckinridge of Kentucky could not vote for the resolution, because he did not "agree with the statement of facts contained in it." He would not go into the antecedents of the unhappy difficulties. He did not consider that "the rupture in the harbor of Charleston, the firing on the Star of the West, and the collision at Fort Sumter, justified those proceedings on the part of the President which have made one blaze of war from the Atlantic to the western borders of the Republic." He did not believe that "the President had a right to take that step which produced the war, and to call (under Presidential authority alone) the largest army into the field ever assembled on the American continent, and the largest fleet ever collected in American harbors." He believed that "the responsibility for the war is to be charged, first, to the majority in the two Houses last winter in rejecting amendments to the Constitution; and, secondly, to the President, for calling out an armed force."

--Mr. Sherman of Ohio replied with great spirit to Mr. Breckinridge. He said Ohio and Kentucky stood side by side, and had always been friends; but if the senator who had just spoken, spoke the voice of his State, then he feared that Kentucky and Ohio would soon be enemies. He felt confident however that "the views expressed do not represent the sentiments of Kentucky's patriotic citizens." On the contrary, no person with the authority of President Lincoln "ever forbore so patiently." The people of the loyal States had "forborne with the Disunionists of the Southern States too much and too long." There was not a line, not a syllable, not a promise, in the Constitution which the people of the loyal States did not religiously obey. "The South has no right to demand any other compromise. The Constitution was the bond of union; and it was the South that sought to change it by amendments, or to subvert it by force. The Disunionists of the Southern States are traitors to their country, and must be, and will be, subdued."

--Mr. Breckinridge, replying to Mr. Sherman, believed that he truly represented the sentiment of Kentucky, and would submit the matter to the people of his State. "If they should decide that the prosperity and peace of the country would be best promoted by an unnatural and horrible fraternal war, and should throw their own energies into the struggle," he would "acquiesce in sadness and tears, but would no longer be the representative of Kentucky in the American Senate." He characterized personal allusion which had been made to himself as ungenerous and unjust, and declared that he had "never uttered a word or cherished a thought that was false to the Constitution and Union."

--Mr. Browning of Illinois, the successor of Stephen A. Douglas in the Senate, closed the debate. He spoke of "the indulgence shown to Mr. Breckinridge," and of his having used it to "assail the President vehemently, almost vindictively, while he had not a single word of condemnation for the atrocious conduct of the rebellious States." Was the senator from Kentucky here to vindicate them, and the hurl unceasing denunciations at the President, "who was never surpassed by any ruler in patriotism, honor, integrity, and devotion to the great cause of human rights?"

The resolution was adopted with only five dissenting votes,-- Breckinridge and Powell of Kentucky, Johnson and Polk of Missouri, and Trumbull of Illinois. Mr. Trumbull voted in the negative, because he did not like the form of expression.

The Crittenden Resolution, as it has always been termed, was thus adopted respectively, not jointly, by the two Houses of Congress. Its declarations, contained in the concluding clauses, though made somewhat under the pressure of national adversity, were nevertheless a fair reflection of the popular sentiment throughout the North. The public mind had been absorbed with the one thought of restoring the Union promptly and completely, and had not even contemplated interference with slavery as an instrumentality to that end. Many wise and far-seeing men were convinced from the first that the Rebellion would result in the destruction of slavery, but for various reasons deemed it inexpedient to make a premature declaration of their belief. Indeed, the wisest of them saw that a premature declaration would probably prove a hinderance and not a help to the conclusion they most desired. In the Senate it was noted that Mr. Sumner withheld his vote, as did Thaddeus Stevens and Owen Lovejoy in the House. But almost the entire Republican vote, including such men as Fessenden, Hale, Chandler, and Grimes, sustained the resolution. It was the voice of the Republican party, with no one openly opposing it in either branch of Congress.

ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENT DEVELOPED.

It was soon discovered, however, that if the National Government did not interfere with slavery, slavery would seriously interfere with the National Government. In other words, it was made apparent that the slaves if undisturbed were to be a source of strength to the Rebellion. Mr. Crittenden's resolution had hardly passed the House when it was learned from the participants in the battle of Bull Run that slaves by the thousand had been employed on the Confederate side in the construction of earthworks, in driving teams, in cooking, in the general work of the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments, and in all forms of camp drudgery. To permit this was simply adding four millions to the population from which the Confederates could draw their quotas of men for military service. It was no answer to say that they never intended to put arms in the hands of negroes. Their use in the various forms of work to which they were allotted, and for which they were admirably qualified, released the same number of white men, who could at once be mustered into the ranks. The slaves were therefore an effective addition to the military strength of the Confederacy from the very beginning of the war, and had seriously increased the available force of fighting men at the first engagement between the two armies.

As soon as this fact became well established, Congress proceeded to enact the first law since the organization of the Federal Government by which a slave could acquire his freedom. The "Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes" was on the calendar of the Senate when the disaster at Bull Run occurred, and had been under consideration the day preceding the battle. As originally framed, it only confiscated "any property used or employed in aiding, abetting, or promoting insurrection, or resistance to the laws." The word "property" would not include slaves, who, in the contemplation of the Federal law, were always "persons." A new section was now 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 in effect 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."

ZEAL AND INDUSTRY OF CONGRESS.

The virtue of this law consisted mainly in the fact that it exhibited a willingness on the part of Congress to strike very hard blows and to trample the institution of slavery under foot whenever or wherever it should be deemed advantageous to the cause of the Union to do so. From that time onward the disposition to assail slavery was rapidly developed, and the grounds on which the assurance contained in the Crittenden Resolution was given, had so changed in consequence of the use of slaves by the Confederate Government that every Republican member of both Senate and House felt himself absolved from any implied pledge therein to the slave-holders of the Border States. Humiliating as was the Bull Run disaster to the National arms, it carried with it many compensating considerations, and taught many useful lessons. The nation had learned that war must be conducted according to strict principles of military science, and cannot be successfully carried on with banners and toasts and stump speeches, or by the mere ardor of patriotism, or by boundless confidence in a just cause. The Government learned that it is lawful to strike at whatever gives strength to the enemy, and that an insurgent against the National authority must, by the law of common sense, be treated as beyond the protection of the National Constitution, both as to himself and his possessions.

Though the Act thus conditionally confiscating slave property was signed by Mr. Lincoln, it did not meet his entire approval. He had no objection to the principle involved, but thought it ill- timed and premature,--more likely to produce harm than good. He believed that it would prove brutum fulmen in the rebellious States, and a source of injury to the Union cause in the Border slave States. From the outbreak of hostilities, Mr. Lincoln regarded the position of those States as the key to the situation, and every thing which tended to weaken their loyalty as a blow struck directly and with fearful power against the Union. He could not however veto the bill, because that would be equivalent to declaring that the Confederate army might have the full benefit of the slave population as a military force. What he desired was that Congress should wait on his recommendations in regard to the question of Slavery. He felt assured that he could see the whole field more clearly; that, above all, he knew the time and the method for that form of intervention which would smite the States in rebellion and not alienate the slave States which still adhered to the Union.

The rapidity with which business was dispatched at this session gave little opportunity for any form of debate except that which was absolutely necessary in the explanation of measures. Active interest in the House centred around the obstructive and disloyal course of Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio and Mr. Burnett of Kentucky. Still greater interest attached to the course of Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate. He had returned to Washington under a cloud of suspicion. He was thoroughly distrusted by the Union men of Kentucky, who had in the popular election won a noble victory over the foes of the National Government, of whom Mr. Breckinridge had been reckoned chief. No overt act of treason could be charged against him, but the prevalent belief was that his sympathies were wholly with the government at Richmond. He opposed every act designed to strengthen the Union, and continually found fault with the attitude and with the intentions of the National Government. He was considered by many to be in Washington only that he might the more efficiently aid the cause of the Confederacy. During the consideration of "a bill to suppress insurrection and sedition," a debate arose between Mr. Breckinridge and Mr. Baker, the new senator from Oregon, which fixed the attention of the country upon the former, and subjected him to general condemnation in the Loyal States.

BRECKINRIDGE AND BAKER DISCUSSION.

The Oregon senator, with his ardent nature, and his impulse to take part in every conflict, had raised a regiment of volunteers principally composed of men from the Pacific coast. It was known as the California Regiment, and was encamped near Washington.**** On the 1st of August, while performing the double and somewhat anomalous duty of commanding his regiment and representing Oregon in the Senate, Mr. Baker entered the chamber in the full uniform of a Colonel in the United-States army. He laid his sword upon his desk and sat for some time listening to the debate. He was evidently impressed by the scene of which he was himself a conspicuous feature. Breckinridge took the floor shortly after Baker appeared, and made a speech, of which it is fair criticism to say that it reflected in all respects the views held by the members of the Confederate Congress then in session at Richmond. Colonel Baker evidently grew restive under the words of Mr. Breckinridge. His face was aglow with excitement, and he sprang to the floor when the senator from Kentucky took his seat. His reply, abounding in denunciation and invective, was not lacking in the more solid and convincing argument. He rapidly reviewed the situation, depicted the character of the Rebellion, described the position of Breckinridge, and passionately asked, "What would have been thought, if, in another Capitol, in a yet more martial age, a senator, with the Roman purple flowing from his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage should be dealt with on terms of peace? What would have been thought, if, after the battle of Cannae, a senator had denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasure, every appeal to the old recollections and the old glories?"

Mr. Fessenden, who sat near Baker, responded in an undertone "He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock." Baker, with his aptness and readiness, turned the interruption to still further indictment of Breckinridge: "Are not the speeches of the senator from Kentucky," he asked, "intended for disorganization? are they not intended to destroy our zeal? are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir, are they not words of brilliant, polished treason, even in the very Capitol of the Republic?"

It is impossible to realize the effect of the words so eloquently pronounced by the Oregon senator. In the history of the Senate, no more thrilling speech was ever delivered. The striking appearance of the speaker in the uniform of a soldier, his superb voice, his graceful manner, all united to give to the occasion an extraordinary interest and attraction.

The reply of Mr. Breckinridge was tame and ineffective. He did not repel the fierce characterizations with which Colonel Baker had overwhelmed him. He did not stop to resent them, though he was a man of unquestioned courage. One incident of his speech was grotesquely amusing. He was under the impression that the suggestion in regard to the Tarpeian Rock had been made by Mr. Sumner, and he proceeded to denounce the senator from Massachusetts with bitter indignation. Mr. Sumner looked surprised, but having become accustomed to abuse from the South, said nothing. When next day it was shown by the Globe that Mr. Fessenden was the offender, Mr. Breckinridge neither apologized to Mr. Sumner, nor attacked the senator from Maine. The first was manifestly his duty. From the second he excused himself for obvious reasons. After his experience with Baker, Breckinridge evidently did not court a conflict with Fessenden.

The course of Mr. Breckinridge was in direct hostility to the prevailing opinion of his State. The Legislature of Kentucky passed a resolution asking that he and his colleague, Lazarus W. Powell, should resign their seats, and, in the event of refusal, that the Senate would investigate their conduct, and, if it were found to be disloyal, expel them. Mr. Breckinridge did not wait for such an investigation. In the autumn of 1861 he joined the Rebellion, and was welcomed by the leaders and the people of the Confederacy with extravagant enthusiasm. His espousal of their cause was considered by them to be as great an acquisition as if a fresh army corps had been mustered into their service. His act called forth the most bitter denunciation throughout the North, and among the loyal people of Kentucky. He had not the excuse pleaded by so many men of the South, that he must abide by the fortunes of his States, and the worst interpretation was placed upon his presence at the July session of Congress.

Among the earliest acts at the next session was the expulsion of Mr. Breckinridge from the Senate. It was done in a manner which marked the full strength of the popular disapprobation of his course. The senators from the rebellious States had all been expelled at the July session, but without the application of an opprobrious epithet. There had also been a debate as to whether expulsion of the persona, or a mere declaration that the seats were vacant, were the proper course to be pursued by the Senate. Andrew Johnson maintained the latter, and all the Democratic senators, except McDougall of California, voted with him. But in the case of Mr. Breckinridge there was not a negative vote--his own colleague Powell remaining silent in his seat while five Democratic senators joined in the vote for his expulsion. The resolution, draughted by Mr. Trumbull, was made as offensive as possible, curtly declaring that "John C. Breckinridge, the traitor, be and is hereby expelled from the Senate."

The mutation of public opinion is striking. Mr. Breckinridge lived to become a popular idol in Kentucky. Long before his death (which occurred in 1875 in his fifty-fourth year) he could have had any position in the gift of his State. If his political disabilities could have been removed, he would undoubtedly have returned to the Senate. His support did not come solely from those who had sympathized with the South, but included thousands who had been loyally devoted to the Union. He possessed a strange, fascinating power over the people of Kentucky,--as great as that which had been wielded by Mr. Clay, though he was far below Mr. Clay in intellectual endowment. No man gave up more than he when he united his fortunes with the seceding States. It was his sense of personal fidelity to the Southern men who had been faithful to him, that blinded him to the higher obligation of fidelity to country, and to the higher appreciation of self-interest which is inseparably bound up with duty. He wrecked a great career. He embittered and shortened a life originally devoted to noble aims, and in its darkest shadows filled with generous impulses.

The original aim of Kentucky was to preserve a position of neutrality in the impending contest was found to be impracticable. The Confederates were the first to violate it, by occupying that section of the State bordering upon the Mississippi River with a considerable force under the command of General Polk, the Episcopal Bishop of Louisiana. This was on the 4th of September. Two days later the Colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers, who was in command at Cairo, took possession of Paducah. It was the first important step in a military career which fills the most brilliant pages in the military annals of our country. The name of the Illinois Colonel was Ulysses S. Grant.

EFFECT OF REBEL VICTORY AT BULL RUN.

The Confederate victory at Bull Run produced great effect throughout the South. The fall of Sumter had been a signal encouragement to those who had joined the revolt against the Union, but as no blood had been spilled, and as the garrison had been starved out rather than shelled out, there was a limit to enthusiasm over the result. But now a pitched battle had been fought within cannon sound of the National Capital, and the forces of the Union had been put to flight. Jefferson Davis had come from Richmond during the battle, and telegraphed to the Confederate Congress that the night had "closed upon a hard-fought field," but that the enemy were routed, and had "precipitately fled, abandoning a large amount of arms, knapsacks, and baggage;" that "too high praise cannot be bestowed upon the skill of the Confederate officers or the gallantry of all their troops;" that "the Confederate force was fifteen thousand, and the Union army was thirty-five thousand." He evidently knew the effect which these figures would have upon the pride of the South, and he did not at the moment stop to verify his statements. The actual force under McDowell was much less, that under Beauregard much greater, than Mr. Davis stated. McDowell was certainly outnumbered after General Johnston's army arrived on the field. If General Patterson, who was in command in the Shenandoah Valley, had been able to engage or detain Johnston, the fate of the day might have been different. But Johnston outgeneraled Patterson, and achieved what military genius always does,--he had his force in the right place at the right time.

The effect of the Rebel victory at Bull Run was at once visible in the rigorous policy adopted by the Confederate Government. The people of the Confederacy knew that their numbers were less than those of the Union, but Jefferson Davis had in effect told them that fifteen Southern men might be relied upon to put to flight thirty-five Northern men, and on this ratio they felt equal to the contest. The Congress at Richmond went to every extreme in their legislation. A fortnight after the battle they passed "an Act respecting alien enemies," "warning and requiring every male citizen of the United States, fourteen years old and upwards, to depart from the Confederate States within forty days from the date of the President's Proclamation," which was issued on the 14th of August. Those only could remain who intended to become citizens of the Confederacy. With the obvious design of avoiding every thing which could chill the sympathy with the Confederacy so largely prevailing in the Border States, the Proclamation excepted from its operation the States of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, the District of Columbia, the Territories of New Mexico, Arizona, and the Indian Territory. This was a manifest declaration of what they expected to include in the Confederacy when the National Government should finally surrender. Wherever a slave was held, the Confederate leaders adjudged the people to be their friends and their future allies.

CONFEDERATE CONFISCATION BILL.

This warning to alien enemies could not however be regarded as a measure of special harshness, or one beyond the fair exercise of the war power. But the next step was of a different nature. A law was enacted sequestrating "the estates, property, and effects of alien enemies." Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, who was at the time Attorney-General of the Confederate Government, proceeded to enforce the Act with utmost rigidity. The exception of the Border States and Territories, already noted, was also made under this law, but towards the citizens of States of unquestioned loyalty no mercy was shown. A close search was instituted by Mr. Benjamin, in which agents, former partners, attorneys, trustees, and all who might have the slightest knowledge of a piece of property within the limits of the Confederacy, belonging to a loyal citizen of the United States, were compelled to give information under penalty of a fine which might be as high as five thousand dollars, and imprisonment which might last for six months. They were forced to tell of any lands, chattels, rights, interests, an alien enemy might have, and also of any debts which might be due to an alien enemy. Mr. Benjamin's letter of instruction included among alien enemies all "subjects of Great Britain, France, or other neutral nations, who have a domicile or are carrying on business or traffic within the States at war with the Confederacy." It was a scheme of wholesale, cruel confiscation of the property of innocent persons, and the most ingenious lawyer of the Confederacy was selected to enforce it by inquisitorial processes which disregarded the confidence of friendship, the ties of blood, and the loyalty of affection.

The National legislation had given no precedent or warrant for proceedings so harsh. At the extra session there had been no attempt at the confiscation of any property except that directly used in aid of the insurrection. Slaves were added to his class only after it was learned that they were thus employed by the Confederates. Not only therefore did the Confederacy introduce slaves as a component element of the military force, but it resorted to confiscation of a cruel and rigorous type as one of the sources of financial strength. If the Confederate authorities had not thus set the example, it would have been difficult, perhaps impracticable, to induce Congress to entertain such a line of policy. Many were in favor of it from the first, but so many were against it that the precedent thus established by the Confederacy was not only an irresistible temptation but a justifying cause for lines of National policy which were afterwards complained of as unusual and oppressive.

[* NOTE.--The following is a complete list of the Senators who served in the Thirty-seventh Congress. Republicans in Roman, Democrats in Italic, American or Old-Line Whigs in small capitals.

CALIFORNIA.--Milton S. Latham; James A. McDougall. CONNECTICUT.--James Dixon; Lafayette S. Foster. DELAWARE.--James A. Bayard; Willard Saulsbury. ILLINOIS.--Stephen A. Douglas, died June 3, 1861; Lyman Trumbull; Orville H. Browning, appointed in place of Douglas; _William A. Richardson_, elected in place of Douglas. INDIANA.--Jesse D. Bright, expelled Feb. 5, 1862; Henry S. Lane; Joseph A. Wright, appointed in place of Bright; David Turpie, elected in place of Bright. IOWA.--James W. Grimes; James Harlan. KANSAS.--James H. Lane; Samuel C. Pomeroy. KENTUCKY.--Lazarus W. Powell; James C. Breckinridge, expelled Dec. 4, 1861; GARRETT DAVIS, elected in place of Breckinridge. MAINE.--Lot M. Morrill; William Pitt Fessenden. MARYLAND.--ANTHONY KENNEDY; JAMES A. PEARCE, died Dec. 30, 1862; Thomas H. Hicks, elected in place of Pearce. MASSACHUSETTS.--Charles Sumner; Henry Wilson. MICHIGAN.--Zachariah Chandler; Kinsley S. Bingham, died Oct. 5, 1861; Jacob M. Howard, elected in place of Bingham. MINNESOTA.--Morton S. Wilkinson; Henry M. Rice. MISSOURI.--Trusten Polk, expelled Jan. 10, 1862; John B. Henderson, appointed in place of Polk; Waldo P. Johnson, expelled Jan. 10, 1862; Robert Wilson, appointed in place of Johnson. NEW HAMPSHIRE.--John P. Hale; Daniel Clark. NEW JERSEY.--John R. Thomson, died Sept. 12, 1862; John C. Ten Eyck; Richard S. Field, appointed in place of Thomson; _James W. Wall_, elected in place of Thomson. NEW YORK.--Preston King; Ira Harris. OHIO.--Benjamin F. Wade; Salmon P. Chase, resigned March 5, 1861, to become Secretary of Treasury; John Sherman, elected in place of Chase. PENNSYLVANIA.--David Wilmot, elected in place of Cameron; Edgar Cowan; Simon Cameron, resigned March 5, 1861. RHODE ISLAND.--James F. Simmons, resigned December, 1862; Henry B. Anthony; Samuel G. Arnold, elected in place of Simmons. TENNESSEE.--Andrew Johnson, resigned March 4, 1862, to be military governor of Tennessee. VERMONT.--Solomon Foot; Jacob Collamer. VIRGINIA.--Waitman T. Willey; John S. Carlile. WISCONSIN.--James R. Doolittle; Timothy O. Howe.]

[** An anachronism occurs in stating that Senator Baker of Oregon had witnessed as a child the funeral pageant of Lord Nelson. He was not born for five years after Lord Nelson fell. The error was taken from a eulogy pronounced on Senator Baker after his death. The occurrence referred to was doubtless some one of the many military pageants in London at the close of the Napoleonic wars.]

[*** NOTE.--The following is a list of Representatives in the Thirty- seventh Congress. Republicans are given in Roman, Democrats in Italic, American or Old-Line Whigs in small capitals.

CALIFORNIA.--Aaron A. Sargent; Frederick F. Low; Timothy G. Phelps. CONNECTICUT.--Dwight Loomis; James E. English; George C. Woodruff; Alfred A. Burnham. DELAWARE.--George P. Fisher. ILLINOIS.--Eilhu B. Washburne; Isaac N. Arnold; Owen Lovejoy; William Kellogg; William A. Richardson, elected Senator; _John A. McClernand_, resigned 1861 to enter the army; _James C. Robinson; Philip B. Fouke; John A. Logan_, resigned 1861 to enter the army; William J. Allen, elected in place of Logan; Anthony L. Knapp, elected in place of McClernand. INDIANA.--John Law; James A. Cravens; William S. Holman; George W. Julian; Albert G. Porter; Daniel W. Voorhees; Albert S. White; Schuyler Colfax; William Mitchell; John P. C. Shanks; W. McKee Dunn. IOWA.--Samuel R. Curtis, resigned Aug. 4, 1861, to enter the army; William Vandever; James F. Wilson, elected in place of Curtis. KANSAS.--Martin F. Conway. KENTUCKY.--Henry C. Burnett, expelled Dec. 3, 1861; JAMES S. JACKSON, died in 1862; HENRY GRIDER; _Aaron Harding; Charles A. Wickliffe_; GEORGE W. DUNLAP; ROBERT MALLORY; John W. Menzies; SAMUEL L. CASEY, elected in place of Burnett; WILLIAM H. WADSWORTH; JOHN J. CRITTENDEN; GEORGE H. YEAMAN, elected in place of Jackson. LOUISIANA.--BENJAMIN F. FLANDERS, seated in February, 1863; MICHAEL HAHN, seated in February, 1863. MAINE.--John N. Goodwin; Charles W. Walton, resigned May 26, 1862; Samuel C. Fessenden; Anson P. Morrill; John H. Rice; Frederick A. Pike; Thomas A. D. Fessenden, elected in place of Walton. MARYLAND.--JOHN W. CRISFIELD; EDWIN H. WEBSTER; _Cornelius L. L. Learly_; FRANCIS THOMAS; CHARLES B. CALVERT; Henry May. MASSACHUSETTS.--Thomas D. Eliot; James Buffington; Benjamin F. Thomas; Alexander H. Rice; William Appleton, resigned in 1861; John B. Alley; Daniel W. Gooch; Charles R. Train; Goldsmith F. Bailey, died May 8, 1862; Charles Delano; Henry L. Dawes; Samuel Hooper, elected in place of Appleton; Amasa Walker, elected in place of Bailey. MICHIGAN.--Bradley F. Granger; Fernando C. Beaman; Francis W. Kellogg; Rowland E. Trowbridge. MINNESOTA.--Cyrus Aldrich; William Windom. MISSOURI.--Francis P. Blair, Jr., resigned in 1862; JAMES S. ROLLINS; Elijah H. Norton; John W. Reid, expelled Dec. 2, 1861; _John W. Noell; John S. Phelps; William A. Hall; Thomas L. Price_, elected in place of Reid. NEW HAMPSHIRE.--Gilman Marston; Edward H. Rollins; Thomas M. Edwards. NEW JERSEY.--John T. Nixon; John L. N. Stratton; _William G. Steele; George T. Cobb; Nehemiah Perry_. NEW YORK.--E. Henry Smith; MOSES F. ODELL; Benjamin Wood; William Wall; Frederick A. Conkling; Elijah Ward; Edward Haight; Charles H. Van Wyck; John B. Steele; Stephen Baker; Abraham B. Olin; James B. McKean; William A. Wheeler; Scorates N. Sherman; _Chauncey Vibbard_; Richard Franchot; Roscoe Conkling; R. Holland Duell; William E. Lansing; Ambrose W. Clark; Charles B. Sedgwick; Theodore M. Pomeroy; John P. Chamberlain; Alexander S. Diven; Robert B. Van Valkenburgh; Alfred Ely; Augustus Frank; Burt Van Horn; Elbridge G. Spaulding; Reuben E. Fenton; Erastus Corning; James E. Kerrigan; Isaac C. Delaplaine. OHIO.--George H. Pendleton; John A. Gurley; _Clement L. Vallandigham; William Allen_; James M. Ashley; Chilton A. White; Richard A. Harrison; Samuel Shellabarger; Warren P. Noble; Carey A. Trimble; Valentine B. Horton; Samuel S. Cox; Samuel T. Worcester; Harrison G. Blake; William P. Cutler; James R. Morris; Sidney Edgerton; Albert G. Riddle; John Hutchins; John A. Bingham; R. H. Nugen. OREGON.--George K. Shiel. PENNSYLVANIA.--William E. Lehman; John P. Verree; William D. Kelley; William M. Davis; John Hickman; Thomas B. Cooper, died April 4, 1862; John D. Stiles, elected in place of Cooper, deceased; Sydenham E. Ancona; Thaddeus Stevens; John W. Killinger; James H. Campbell; Hendrick R. Wright; Philip Johnson; Galusha A. Grow, Speaker; James T. Hale; Joseph Bailey; Edward McPherson; Samuel S. Blair; John Covode; Jesse Lazear; James K. Moorhead; Robert McKnight; John W. Wallace; John Patton; Elijah Babbitt; Charles J. Biddle. RHODE ISLAND.--William P. Sheffield; George H. Browne. TENNESSEE.--GEORGE W. BRIDGES; ANDREW J. CLEMENTS; HORACE MAYNARD. VERMONT.--Portus Baxter; Justin S. Morrill; Ezekiel P. Walton. VIRGINIA.--Jacob B. Blair, elected in place of Carlile; William G. Brown, John S. Carlile, elected Senator July, 1861; Joseph E. Segar; Charles H. Upton; Kililan V. Whaley. WISCONSIN.--Luther Hanchett, died Nov. 24, 1862; Walter D. McIndoe, elected in place of Hanchett; John F. Potter; A. Scott Sloan.

Territorial Delegates.--Colorado, Hiram P. Bennett; Dakota, John B. S. Todd; Nebraska, Samuel G. Daily; Nevada, John Cradlebaugh; New-Mexico, John S. Watts; Utah, John M. Bernhisel; Washington, William H. Wallace.]

[**** It should be stated that the so-called "California" regiment of Colonel Baker was recruited principally in Philadelphia from the young men of that city.]

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Chapter XVI

Second Session of Thirty-seventh Congress.--The Military Situation. --Disaster at Ball's Bluff.--Death of Colonel E. D. Baker.--The President's Message.--Capital and Labor.--Their Relation discussed by the President.--Agitation of the Slavery Question.--The House refuses to re-affirm the Crittenden Resolution.--Secretary Cameron resigns.--Sent on Russian Mission.--Succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton. --His Vigorous War Measures.--Victories in the Field.--Battle of Mill Spring.--General Order of the President for a Forward Movement. --Capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson.--Prestige and Popularity of General Grant.--Illinois Troops.--General Burnside's Victory in North Carolina.--Effect of the Victories upon the Country.--Continued Success for the Union in the South-West.--Proposed Celebration.-- The Monitor and the Merrimac.--Ericsson.--Worden.--Capture of New Orleans by Farragut.--The Navy.--Its Sudden and Great Popularity. --Legislation in its Favor.--Battle of Shiloh.--Anxiety in the North.--Death of Albert Sidney Johnston.--General Halleck takes the Field.--Military Situation in the East.--The President and General McClellan.--The Peninsular Campaign.--Stonewall Jackson's Raid.--Its Disastrous Effect.--Fear for Safety of Washington.--Anti- Slavery Legislation.--District of Columbia.--Compensated Emancipation. --Colonization.--Confiscation.--Punishment of Treason.

The first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress came to an end amid the deep gloom caused by the disastrous defeat at Bull Run. The second session opened in December, 1861, under the shadow of a grave disaster at Ball's Bluff, in which the eloquent senator from Oregon, Edward D. Baker, lost his life. Despite these reverses the patriotic spirit of the country had constantly risen, and had increased the Union forces until the army was six hundred thousand strong. Winfield Scott had gone upon the retired list at the ripe age of seventy-five, and George B. McClellan had succeeded him in command of the army. The military achievements thus far had been scarcely more then defensive. The National Capital had been fortified; Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri had been wrenched from rebel domination; while on our Southern coast two landings had been effected by the Union troops,--the first at Hatteras in North Carolina, the second at Port Royal in South Carolina. There was serious danger of a division of popular sentiment in the North growing out of the Slavery question; there was grave apprehension of foreign intervention from the arrest of Mason and Slidell. The war was in its eighth month; and, strong and energetic as the Northern people felt, it cannot be denied that a confidence in ultimate triumph had become dangerously developed throughout the South.

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE, 1861.

The message of Mr. Lincoln dealt with the situation in perfect candor. He did not attempt to withhold any thing or to color any thing. He frankly acknowledged that "our intercourse with foreign nations had been attended with profound solicitude." He recognized that "a nation which endured factious domestic division is exposed to disrespect abroad; and one party, if not both, is sure, sooner or later, to invoke foreign intervention." With his peculiar power of condensing a severe expression, he said that "the disloyal citizens of the United States have offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad." This offer was made on the presumption that some commercial or substantial gain would accrue to other nations from the destruction of the Republic; but Mr. Lincoln believed with confidence that "foreign governments would not in the end fail to perceive that one strong nation promises more durable peace, and a more extensive, valuable, and reliable commerce, than can the same nation broken into hostile fragments," and for this reason he believed that the rebel leaders had received from abroad "less patronage and encouragement than they probably expected."

The President dwelt with satisfaction upon the condition of the Border States, concerning whose course he had constantly exhibited the profoundest solicitude. He now informed Congress that "noble little Delaware led off right, from the first," and that Maryland, which had been "made to seem against the Union," had given "seven regiments to the loyal cause, and none to the enemy, and her people, at a regular election, have sustained the Union by a larger majority and a larger aggregate vote than they ever before gave to any candidate on any question." Kentucky, concerning which his anxiety had been deepest, was now decidedly, and, as he thought, "unchangeably, ranged on the side of the Union." Missouri he announced as comparatively quiet, and he did not believe she could be again overrun by the insurrectionists. These Border slave States, none of which "would promise a single soldier at first, have now an aggregate of not less than forty thousand in the field for the Union; while of their citizens certainly not more than a third of that number, and they of doubtful whereabouts and doubtful existence, are in arms against it." Beyond these results the President had some "general accounts of popular movements in behalf of the Union in North Carolina and Tennessee," and he expressed his belief that "the cause of the Union is advancing steadily and certainly Southward."

The one marked change in the popular opinion of the free States, now reflected in Congress, was in respect to the mode of dealing with Slavery. Mr. Lincoln was conservative, and always desired to keep somewhat in the rear rather than too far in advance of the public judgment. In his message he avoided all direct expression upon the Slavery question, but with the peculiar shrewdness which characterized his political discussion he announced a series of general truths respecting labor and capital which, in effect, were deadly hostile to the institution. He directed attention to the fact the "the insurrection is largely if not exclusively a war upon the first principle of popular government--the rights of the people." Conclusive evidence of this appeared in "the maturely considered public documents as well as in the general tone of the insurgents." He discerned a disposition to abridge the right of suffrage and to deny to the people the "right to participate in the selection of public officers except those of the Legislature." He found indeed that "monarchy itself is sometimes hinted at as a possible refuge from the power of the people." While he did not think it fitting to make "a general argument in favor of popular institutions," he felt that he should scarcely be justified were he "to omit raising a warning voice against this approach of returning despotism." It was, he said, "the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government," and it assumed "that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor."

THE PRESIDENT'S ANTI-SLAVERY ARGUMENT.

Mr. Lincoln found that the next step in this line of argument raised the question, "whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent?" thus leading to the conclusion that "all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves," and that "whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life." From all these theories Mr. Lincoln radically dissented, and maintained that "labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." "No men living," said he, "are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty--none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost." If Mr. Lincoln had directly attempted at that early stage of the contest to persuade the laboring men of the North that it was best for them to aid in abolishing Slavery, he would have seriously abridged the popularity of his administration. He pursued the wiser course of showing that the spirit of the Southern insurrection was hostile to all free labor, and that in its triumph not merely the independence of the laborer but his right of self-defense, as conferred by suffrage, would be imperiled if not destroyed. Until the discussion reached the higher plane on which Mr. Lincoln placed it, the free laborer in the North was disposed to regard a general emancipation of the slaves as tending to reduce his own wages, and as subjecting him to the disadvantage of an odious contest for precedence of race. The masses in the North had united with the Republican party in excluding Slavery from the Territories because the larger the area in which free labor was demanded the better and more certain was the remuneration. But against a general emancipation Mr. Lincoln was quick to see that white laborers might be readily prejudiced by superficial reasoning, and hence he adduced the broader argument which appealed at once to their humanity, to their sense of manly independence, and to their instinct of self-preservation against the mastery and the oppression of capital.

The agitation of the Slavery question, while unavoidable, was nevertheless attended with serious embarrassments to the Union cause. The great outburst of patriotism which followed the fall of Sumter contemplated a rally of the entire North for the defense of the Flag and the preservation of the Union. Neither political party was to take advantage of the situation, but all alike were to share in the responsibility and in the credit of maintaining the government inviolate. Every month however had demonstrated more and more that to preserve the government without interfering with Slavery would be impossible; and as this fact became clearly evident to the Republican vision, a large section of the Democratic party obdurately refused to acknowledge it or to consent to the measures which it suggested. It was apparent therefore within the first six months of the struggle that a division would come in the North, which would be of incalculable advantage to the insurrectionists, and that if the division should go far enough it would insure victory to the Confederate cause. If the Democratic party as a whole had in the autumn of the year 1861 taken the ground which a considerable section of it assumed, it would have been impossible to conduct the war for the Union successfully. Great credit therefore was due and was cordially given to the large element in that party which was ready to brave all the opprobrium of their fellow-partisans and to accept the full responsibility of co- operating with the Republicans in war measures.

Congress had hardly come together when the change of opinion and action upon the Slavery question became apparent. Mr. Holman of Indiana, reciting the Crittenden resolution which had been passed the preceding session with only two adverse votes, offered a resolution that its principles "be solemnly re-affirmed by this House." Objection was made by several members. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved to lay the resolution on the table, and the motion prevailed on a yea and nay vote by 71 to 65. The majority were all Republicans. The minority was principally made up of Democrats, but Republicans as conspicuous as Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts and Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio voted in the negative. The wide divergence between this action on the part of the Republicans on the third day of December, 1861, and that which they had taken on the preceding 22d of July, was recognized and appreciated by the country, and thus began the open division on the Slavery question which continually widened, which consolidated the Republican party in support of the most radical measures, and which steadily tended to weaken the Democratic party in the loyal States.

SECRETARY CAMERON RESIGNS.

At the height of the excitement in Congress over the engagement at Ball's Bluff there was a change in the head of the War Department. The disasters in the field and the general impatience for more decisive movements on the part of our armies led to the resignation of Secretary Cameron. He was in his sixty-third year, and though of unusual vigor for his age, was not adapted by education or habit to the persistent and patient toil, to the wearisome detail of organization, to the oppressive increase of responsibility, necessarily incident to military operations of such vast proportions as were entailed by the progress of the war. He was nominated as Minister to Russia, and on the eleventh day of January, 1862, was succeeded in the War Department by Edwin M. Stanton.

Mr. Stanton signalized his entrance upon duty by extraordinary vigor in war measures, and had the good fortune to gain credit for many successes which were the result of arrangements in progress and nearly perfected under his predecessor. A week after he was sworn in, an important victory was won at Mill Springs, Kentucky, by General George H. Thomas. The Confederate commander, General Zollicoffer, was killed, and a very decisive check was put to a new development of Secession sympathy which was foreshadowed in Kentucky. A few days later, on the 27th of January, under the inspiration of Mr. Stanton, the President issued a somewhat remarkable order commanding "a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces on the 22d of February." He especially directed that the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and the naval force in the Gulf of Mexico be ready for a movement on that day. The order did not mean what was stated on its face. It was evidently intended to mislead somebody.

The Illinois colonel who had taken possession of Paducah in the preceding September was now known as Brigadier-General Grant. He had been made prominent by a daring fight at Belmont, Missouri, on the 7th of November (1861) against a largely superior force under the command of the Confederate General Pillow. For the numbers engaged it was one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the war. The quarter-master of the expedition intimated to General Grant that in case of a reverse he had but two small steamers for transportation to the Illinois shore. The General's only reply was that in the event of his defeat "the steamers would hold all that would be left." He was now in command at Cairo, and co-operating with him was a flotilla of hastily constructed gunboats under the command of Flag-officer A. H. Foote of the navy. General Grant evidently interpreted Mr. Lincoln's order to mean that he need not wait until the 22d, and he began his movement of the first day of February. By the 16th he had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The flotilla had been more active than the troops, against Fort Henry, which was speedily evacuated, but Fort Donelson did not surrender until after a hard-fought land battle in which the characteristic tenacity, skill, and bravery of General Grant were for the first time fully shown to the country. "The victory achieved," he announced in his congratulatory order to the troops, "is not only great in the effect it will have in breaking down the rebellion, but has secured the greatest number of prisoners of war ever taken in a single battle on this continent." The number of prisoners exceeded ten thousand; forty pieces of cannon and extensive magazines of ordnance with military stores of all kinds were captured. The Confederate commander was General S. B. Buckner, who had joined the rebellion under circumstances which gained him much ill will in the Loyal States. Under a flag of truce he asked General Grant on the morning of the 16th for an armistice to "settle the terms of capitulation." General Grant's answer was, "No terms except unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works." General Buckner felt himself "compelled to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms" which General Grant proposed. It is due to General Buckner to say that he had been left in a humiliating position. The two generals who ranked him, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, seeing the inevitable, had escaped from the fort the preceding night with five thousand men, leaving to Buckner the mortification of surrender. In view of this fact the use of the term "unchivalrous" by the Confederate commander can be justly appreciated.

VICTORY AT FORT DONELSON.

The effect of the victory upon the country was electric. The public joy was unbounded. General Grant had become in a day the hero of the war. His fame was on every tongue. The initials of his name were seized upon by the people for rallying-cries of patriotism, and were woven into songs for the street and for the camp. He was "Unconditional Surrender," he was "United States," he was "Uncle Sam." Not himself only but his State was glorified. It was an Illinois victory. No less than thirty regiments from that State were in General Grant's command, and they had all won great credit. This fact was especially pleasing to Mr. Lincoln. Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky were all gallantly represented on the field, but the prestige of the day belonged to Illinois. Many of her public men, prominent in political life before and since the war, were in command of regiments. The moral force of the victory was increased by the fact that so large a proportion of these prominent officers had been, like General Grant, connected with the Democratic party,--thus adding demonstration to assurance that it was an uprising of a people in defense of their government, and not merely the work of a political party seeking to extirpate slavery. John A. Logan, Richard J. Oglesby, William R. Morrison, and William Pitt Kellogg were among the Illinois officers who shared in the renown of the victory. General Lewis Wallace commanded a division made up of Indiana and Kentucky troops, and was honorably prominent. The total force under General Grant was nearly fifty regiments, furnishing about twenty-eight thousand men for duty. They had captured the strongest Confederate intrenchment in the West, manned by nearly seventeen thousand men. The defeat was a great mortification to Jefferson Davis. He communicated intelligence of the disaster to the Confederate Congress in a curt message in which he described the official reports of the battle as "incomplete and unsatisfactory," and stated that he had relieved Generals Floyd and Pillow from command.

Two important results followed the victory. The strong fortifications erected at Columbus, Kentucky, to control the passage of the Mississippi, were abandoned by the Confederates; and Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, was surrendered to the Union army without resistance. The Confederate force at the latter point was under command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who, unable to offer battle, sullenly retreated southward. If the Confederate troops had been withdrawn from Fort Donelson in season to effect a junction with Johnston at Nashville, that able general might have delivered battle there on terms possibly advantageous to his side. It was this feature of the case which rendered the loss of Donelson so serious and so exasperating to the Confederate Government, as shown in the message of Jefferson Davis.

Another victory for the Union was gained on the coast of North Carolina under the joint efforts of the army and the navy. General Burnside was in command of the former and Commodore Gouldsborough of the latter. The battle of Roanoke Island was fought the day after the capture of Fort Henry, and the Union victory led to a lodgment of the national forces on the soil of North Carolina, which was held firmly to the end. Events beyond the Mississippi were also favorable to the National Government. General Sterling Price had been the cause of much trouble in Missouri, where he was personally popular. He had led many young men into rebellion, and his efforts to carry the State into the Confederacy were energetic and unremitting. He had been dominating a large section of Missouri and creating grave apprehensions for its safety. On the 18th of February General Halleck, who had succeeded General Fremont in the command of the Western Department, telegraphed the Secretary of War: "General Curtis has driven Price from Missouri, and is several miles across the Arkansas line, cutting up Price's army and hourly capturing prisoners and stores. The Army of the South-West is doing its duty nobly. The flag of the Union is floating in Arkansas."

These victories coming almost simultaneously produced a profound impression throughout the Loyal States. Men rushed to the conclusion that the war would be closed and the Union restored before the end of the year. The most sedate communities become mercurial and impressible in time of deep excitement. The rejoicing was universal. Congress ordered the illumination of the Capitol and other public buildings in Washington on the 22d of February "in honor of the recent victories of our army and navy;" and "as a mark of respect to the memory of those who had been killed and in sympathy with those who have been wounded" the House of Representatives on the 19th of February, on the motion of Mr. Washburne of Illinois, adjourned without transacting business. The flags taken in the recent victories were to be publicly exhibited, and a day of general congratulation was to be associated with the memory of Washington and "the triumph of the government which his valor and wisdom had done so much to establish." In the midst of the arrangements for this celebration, the members of the Cabinet jointly communicated to Congress on the 21st of February the intelligence that "the President of the United States is plunged into affliction by the death of a beloved child." Congress immediately ordered that the illumination of the public buildings be omitted, and "entertaining the deepest sentiments of sympathy and condolence with the President and his family," adjourned. The reading of Washington's Farewell Address on the 22d, before the two Houses, was the only part accomplished of the brilliant celebration that had been designed.

THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC.

A fortnight later, on the 8th of March (1862), came the remarkable engagement in Hampton Roads between the Monitor and the Merrimac. The former vessel arrived at Fortress Monroe after the Merrimac had destroyed the United-States sloop-of-war Cumberland and the frigate Congress, and had driven the steam-frigate Minnesota aground just as darkness put an end to the fight. On Sunday morning, March 9, the Merrimac renewed her attack upon the Minnesota, and was completely surprised by the appearance of a small vessel which, in the expressive description of the day, resembled a cheese- box on a raft. She had arrived from New York at the close of the first day's fight. From her turret began a furious cannonade which not only diverted the attack from the Minnesota but after a ferocious contest of many hours practically destroyed the Merrimac, which was compelled to seek the shelter of Confederate batteries at Sewell's Point, and never re-appeared in service. The relief to the North by this victory was incalculable. Not only had the Merrimac been stopped in her expected bombardment of Northern cities, but the success of the Monitor assured to the government a class of armor-plated vessels that could be of great value in the coast service to which our naval operations were principally confined. Against land batteries they would prove especially formidable. Ericsson who constructed the Monitor and Lieutenant Worden who commanded her, divided the honors, and were everywhere regarded as having rendered an invaluable service to the country. The modesty and heroism of Worden secured him an unbounded share of popular admiration and respect.

In the ensuing month of April the navy performed another great service by the capture of New Orleans. The fleet was in command of Captain Farragut, and successfully passed the fortifications which had been erected by the National Government to prevent a foreign foe from entering the Mississippi. New Orleans made no resistance to the approach of the fleet, and General B. F. Butler, in command of the Department of the Gulf, established his headquarters in the city. The importance of this conquest to the Union cause could hardly be estimated. It enabled the government to embarrass the trans-Mississippi States in their support of the rebel army, and thus inflicted a heavy blow upon the fortunes of the Confederacy. New Orleans in the control of the National Government was easy to defend, and it afforded a base of offensive operations in so many directions that no amount of vigilance could anticipate the attacks that might be made by the Union forces.

Viewed in connection with the effective work of Flag-officer Foote in supporting General Grant in the Henry and Donelson campaign, and of Gouldsborough in supporting Burnside on the coast of North Carolina, these later and greater achievements of the navy served to raise that branch of the service in popular esteem. Besides the intrinsic merit which attached to the victories, they had all the advantage of a genuine surprise to the public. Little had been expected from the navy in a contest where the field of operation seemed so restricted. But now the people saw that the most important post thus far wrenched from the Confederacy had been taken by the navy, and that it was effectively sustaining and strengthening the army at all points. It was no longer regarded as a mere blockading force, but was menacing the coast of the Confederate States, penetrating their rivers, and neutralizing the strength of thousands of Rebel soldiers who were withdrawn from armies in the field to man the fortifications rendered necessary by this unexpected form of attack. These facts made a deep impression of Congress. Since the close of the second war with Great Britain the navy had enjoyed no opportunity for distinction. The war with Mexico was wholly a contest on land, and for a period of forty-five years the navy of the United States had not measured its strength with any foe. Meanwhile however it had made great advance in the education and training of its officers and in the general tone of the service. Under the secretaryship of George Bancroft, the eminent historian, (in the cabinet of Mr. Polk,) an academy had been established at Annapolis for the scientific training of naval officers. By this enlightened policy, inaugurated if not originally conceived by Mr. Bancroft, naval officers had for the first time been placed on an equal footing with the officers of the army who had long enjoyed the advantages of the well-organized and efficient school at West Point. The academy had borne fruit, and at the outbreak of the war, the navy was filled with young officers carefully trained in the duties of their profession, intelligent in affairs, and with an esprit de corps not surpassed in the service of any other country. Their efficiency was supplemented by that of volunteer officers in large numbers who came from the American merchant marine, and who in all the duties of seamanship, in courage, capacity, and patriotism, were the peers of any men who ever trod a deck.

Congress now realized that a re-organization of the naval service was necessary, that the stimulus of promotion should be more liberally used, the pride of rank more generously indulged. An Act was therefore passed on the 16th of July greatly enlarging the scope of the naval organization and advancing the rank of its officers. Farragut had won his magnificent triumph at New Orleans while holding the rank of captain,--the highest then known to our service,--and Worden had achieved his great fame at Hampton Roads with the commission of a lieutenant. David D. Porter, with no higher rank, had been exercising commands which in any European government would have been assigned to an admiral. Perhaps no navy in the world had at that time abler officers than ours, while the rank and emolument, except for the lowest grades, was shamefully inadequate. The old navy had only the ranks of passed-midshipman, lieutenant, commander, and captain. The new law gave nine grades, --midshipman, ensign, master, lieutenant, lieutenant-commander, commander, captain, commodore, and rear-admiral. The effect of the increased rank was undoubtedly stimulating to the service and valuable to the government. Two higher grades of vice-admiral and admiral were subsequently added, and were filled by Farragut and Porter to whom in the judgment of the Department special and emphatic honor was due. The navy had conquered its own place in the public regard, and had performed an inestimable service in the contest against the rebellion.

THE DESPERATE BATTLE OF SHILOH.

The brilliant success in the early spring, both of the army and navy, was unfortunately not continued in the subsequent months. General Grant, after the fall of Nashville, marched southward to confront the army of General A. S. Johnston, and on the 6th and 7th of April a terrible battle was fought at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The battle was originally called by that name in the annals of the Union, but the title of "Shiloh" given to it by the Confederate authorities, is the one more generally recognized in history. In the first day's engagement the Union army narrowly escaped a crushing defeat; but before the renewal of the contest on the following morning General Buell effected a junction with the forces of General Grant, and the two, united, recovered all the lost ground of the day before and gained a substantial victory for the Union, though at great cost of life. The Union army lost some eighteen hundred men killed and nearly eight thousand wounded. The Confederate loss was not less. There is no doubt that General Grant was largely outnumbered on the first day, but after the junction of Buell he probably outnumbered the Confederates. Sixty thousand was perhaps the maximum of the Union forces on the second day, while the Confederate army, as nearly as can be ascertained, numbered fifty thousand. One great event of the battle was the death of Albert Sidney Johnston, a soldier of marked skill, a man of the highest personal character. Jefferson Davis made his death the occasion of a special message to the Confederate Congress, in which he said that "without doing injustice to the living, our loss is irreparable." The personal affliction of Mr. Davis was sore. The two had been at West Point together, and had been close friends through life. William Preston Johnston, son of the fallen General, a young man of singular excellence of character and of most attractive personal traits, was at the time private secretary to Mr. Davis. He has since been widely known in the South in connection with its educational progress.

Deep anxiety had preceded the battle throughout the North, and the relief which followed was grateful. It was made the occasion by the President for a proclamation in which the people were asked "to assemble in their places of public worship and especially acknowledge and render thanks to our Heavenly Father for the successes which have attended the Army of the Union." But after the first flush of victory, the battle became the subject of controversy in the newspapers. Criticism of officers was unsparing, the slaughter of our soldiers was exaggerated, crimination and recrimination were indulged in respecting the conduct of troops from certain States. General Grant was accused of having been surprised and of having thereby incurred a danger which narrowly escaped being a defeat. The subject was brought into Congress and warmly debated. Senator Sherman of Ohio introduced a resolution calling for all the reports from the officers in command, and made a speech defending the conduct of the Ohio troops, upon which some reflections had been inconsiderately and most unjustly cast. Mr. Elihu Washburne made an elaborate speech in the House on the 2d of May, in which he gave a full account of the battle, and defended General Grant with much warmth against all possible charges which, either through ignorance or malice, had been preferred against him for his conduct of the battle. This speech, which was of great value to General Grant, both with the Administration and the country, laid the foundation of that intimate friendship which so long subsisted between him and Mr. Washburne. Mr. Richardson of Illinois followed his colleague, and expressed his disgust with even the introduction of the subject in Congress. He felt that our armies would gain more renown and secure greater victories if the "Riot Act" could be read, and both Houses of Congress dispersed to their homes at the very earliest moment.

General Halleck, who had command of the Western Department, became anxious for reputation on the field, and was thought by many to be jealous of the daily increasing fame of General Grant. After the battle of Shiloh, he took command in person of the army which Grant had already rendered illustrious, leaving Grant to command its right wing. Uniting the Western forces into one large army General Halleck marched southward in pursuit of the Confederate column now under the command of Beauregard, and strongly intrenched at Corinth. As the army approached, Corinth was evacuated, and the campaign of General Halleck, leading to no important engagement, did not add to his military fame. Meanwhile there had been increasing dissatisfaction in Congress and among the people with the supersedure of General Grant, and to relieve the situation General Halleck was called to Washington in the early part of July to take command of the army which had been relinquished by McClellan in March, when he set forth upon the Peninsular campaign. In the intervening months there had been no General-in-Chief of the army, the duties being performed by the Secretary of War.

GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.

The Western victories, important as they were, did not remove the pressure in the East. The popular interest was more largely concentrated in the success of the Army of the Potomac, which would secure the safety of the National Capital, and possibly the possession of the capital of the Confederacy. High hopes had been staked upon the issue. Elaborate preparations had been made and the utmost care had been taken in the organization and discipline of the army.

General George B. McClellan was intrusted with the command. He was a native of Pennsylvania, a distinguished graduate of West Point, a man of high personal character. His military skill was vouched for by older officers whose opinions would have weight with the President. But he had been six months in command of the Army of the Potomac and had done nothing in the field. The autumn had passed in inaction, the winter had worn away, and the spring had come without finding him ready to move. Whatever might be the justification for delay, it was his misfortune to become the subject of controversy. There was a McClellan party and an anti-McClellan party, in the press, among the people, in Congress, and in the army. How far this may have impaired the efficiency of his command cannot be known, but it no doubt seriously undermined him in the confidence of the War Department. Before he had fired a gun in the Peninsular campaign he was in a disputation with both the President and Secretary Stanton. On the 9th of April (1862) Mr. Lincoln wrote him, "Your dispatches complaining that you are not properly sustained, while they do not offend me, do pain me very much." General McClellan had complained that the President had detained McDowell's corps, and thus weakened the strength of his army, and the President was defending the policy as one necessary to the safety of Washington. McClellan protested that he had but eighty-five thousand men at Yorktown. The President insisted that he had a hundred and eight thousand. "And once more," said the President, "in conclusion, let me tell you it is indispensable to you that you strike a blow. I am powerless to help this. You will do me the justice to remember that I always insisted that going down the bay in search of a field, instead of fighting at or near Manassas, was only shifting and not surmounting the difficulty; that we would find the same enemy and the same or equal intrenchments at either place. The country will not fail to note (is now noting) that the present hesitation to move upon the intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated. I beg to assure you that I have never written you or spoken to you in greater kindness of feeling than now, nor with a fuller purpose of sustaining you so far as in my most anxious judgment I consistently can."

This condition of affairs with the indication of increasing discord between the Commander-in-Chief and General McClellan boded no good to the Union cause, and the entire Peninsular campaign was but a succession of "hopes deferred" that made the heart sick; of disappointment, of great sacrifice of life and treasure, and in the end of positive disaster and humiliating retreat.

As General McClellan neared Richmond and needed re-enforcements for a decisive battle with General Lee's army, the Confederates used the most admirable tactics for the purpose of alarming the authorities at Washington and compelling them to withhold help from the Army of the Potomac. Stonewall Jackson came thundering down the Shenandoah Valley with a force which the exaggeration of the day placed far beyond his real numbers. He brushed aside the army of General Banks at Winchester by what might well be termed a military cyclone, and created such consternation that our troops in the Potomac Valley were at once thrown upon the defensive. McDowell with his corps was at Fredericksburg, hurrying to Hanover Court-House for the purpose of aiding McClellan. With our forces thus remote from Washington, and the fortifications around the city imperfectly manned, something akin to panic seized upon the Government. General McDowell, by direct order of the President, was turned from his march on Richmond, to follow or intercept Jackson. On the 25th of May the Secretary of War telegraphed to the governors of the Loyal States: "Intelligence from various quarters leaves no doubt that the enemy in great force are marching on Washington. You will please organize and forward immediately all the militia and volunteer forces in your State." The governors in turn issued alarming proclamations, some of which were eminently calculated to spread the contagion of fear prevailing at Washington. Governor Andrew, with evident apprehension of the worst, informed the people of Massachusetts that "The wily and barbarous horde of traitors to the people, to the Government, to our country, and to liberty, menace again the National Capital: they have attacked and routed Major-General Banks, are advancing on Harper's Ferry, and are marching on Washington. The President calls on Massachusetts to rise at once for its rescue and defense." Throughout the entire North there was for several days a genuine belief that the National Capital might soon be in possession of the Confederate army, and the senators and representatives in Congress be seized as prisoners of war.

STONEWALL JACKSON'S STRATEGY.

Meanwhile Stonewall Jackson having marched to the very banks of the Potomac and shelled Harper's Ferry, and having succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectation in the object which he had in view, deliberately began his retreat. He was followed up the Shenandoah Valley by the commands of four Major-Generals and one Brigadier- General of the Union army. He drew these united forces after him precisely as he desired, for the benefit of Lee's army at Richmond. He did not fly from them as if dreading a battle, for that would have been to dismiss the large Union force to the aid of General McClellan. Occasionally detailing a fraction of his command to engage in a skirmish with his pursuers, who far outnumbered his whole force, he managed to keep his main body at a safe distance, and to reserve it for a more important work ahead. After thus drawing our troops so far up the valley that it was impossible for them to retrace their steps in season for concentration on Richmond, he rapidly transported the main body of his own troops by rail from Staunton, and rejoined General Lee in time to take part in the final and memorable series of engagements which, by the close of June, had compelled General McClellan to take refuge on the banks of the James, where he could have the co-operation of the gunboats which lay at Harrison's Landing.

General Halleck took command as General-in-Chief of the army directly after the Army of the Potomac had closed its campaign against Richmond. He visited Harrison's Landing on the 24th of July to make personal inquiry into the situation, and the result was an order for the transfer of the army to Acquia Creek. General McClellan protested earnestly, and, in the judgment of many of the most skilled in military science, wisely, against this movement. The Army of the Potomac, he said, was "within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with the aid of the gunboats we can supply the army by water during its advance to within twelve miles of Richmond. At Acquia Creek we would be seventy miles from Richmond, with land transportation all the way." He thought the government had ample troops to protect Washington and guard the line of the Potomac, and he could not see the wisdom of transporting the Army of the Potomac two hundred miles at enormous cost, only to place it three times as far from Richmond as it then was. General Halleck's position was sustained by the President, and the Secretary of War, and the argument of General McClellan, convincing and conclusive as it seems, was overruled by the peremptory mandate of his military superiors.

The failure of the Peninsular campaign will always be a subject of controversy. At the time it was one of prolonged and angry dispute. Where military critics so widely differ, civilians gain the right to a personal judgment. The weakness of that great military movement was the lack of cordiality and confidence between the commander and the Administration at Washington. The seeds of distrust had been sown and a bountiful crop of disaster was the natural growth. The withdrawal of McDowell's corps was a fatal blow to McClellan. Before a military court which was inquiring into the transaction, General McClellan stated under oath that he had "no doubt that the Army of the Potomac would have taken Richmond had not the corps of General McDowell been separated from it; and that, had the command of General McDowell in the month of May joined the Army of the Potomac by way of Hanover Court-House, we would have had Richmond a week after the junction." He added, with evident reference to Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Stanton, "I do not hold General McDowell responsible for a failure to join me on that occasion."

STONEWALL JACKSON'S SUCCESSFUL RAID.

When General McDowell was turned back from Fredericksburg to take part in the fruitless chase after Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley, he was doing precisely what the President of the Confederate States would have ordered, had he been able to issue the orders of the President of the United States. McDowell saw the blunder, but his directions were peremptory and nothing was left but to obey. He telegraphed the Secretary of War, "The President's order is a crushing blow to us." Mr. Lincoln personally and immediately replied to General McDowell, "The change is as painful to me as it can possibly be to you or to any one." McDowell then ventured to argue the case with the President. He distinctly told Mr. Lincoln that he could effect nothing in trying to cut off Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. "I shall," he continued, "gain nothing for you there, and I shall lose much for you here. It is therefore not only on personal ground that I have a heavy heart in this matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Richmond north we shall have all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just accomplished." Mr. Lincoln's order and the whole of this correspondence were by telegraph on the twenty- fourth day of May. Conclusive as the reasoning of General McDowell seems, it did not move Mr. Lincoln from his purpose; and the heavy re-enforcement which was then within three days of the point where it could most effectively aid McClellan, was diverted to a hopeless and useless pursuit. Had McDowell been allowed to proceed as he desired and as General McClellan confidently expected, he would have re-enforced the Army of the Potomac for an attack on Lee, while Stonewall Jackson's corps was in the Shenandoah Valley. By the unfortunate diversion ordered by Mr. Lincoln, precisely the reverse occurred. Stonewall Jackson's corps arrived before Richmond in season to aid in defeating McClellan, while McDowell with his splendid contingent was aimlessly loitering in a distant part of Virginia.

The President was led into this course by the urgent advice of the Secretary of War. When McClellan went to the field, Mr. Stanton undertook personally to perform the duties of General-in-Chief in Washington. This was evidently an egregious blunder. Neither by education, temper, temperament, nor by any other trait of his character, was Mr. Stanton fitted for this duty. He was very positively and in a high degree unfitted for it. With three Major- Generals--McDowell, Banks, and Fremont--exercising independent commands in the Potomac Valley, with their movements exerting a direct and important influence upon the fortunes of the main army under McClellan, there was especial need of a cool-headed, experienced, able general at the Capital. Had one of the three great soldiers who have been at the head of the army since the close of the war, then been in chief command at Washington, there is little hazard in saying that the brilliant and dashing tactics of Stonewall Jackson would not have been successful, and that if General McClellan had failed before Richmond, it would not have been for lack of timely and adequate re-enforcement.

Before these military disasters occurred, Congress had made progress in its legislation against the institution of Slavery. At the beginning of the war there had been an ill-defined policy, or rather an absence of all policy, in relation to the most important of pending questions. The winter preceding the outbreak of the rebellion had been so assiduously devoted by Congress to efforts of compromise and conciliation, that it was difficult to turn the public mind promptly to the other side, and to induce the people to accept the logical consequences of the war. There was no uniform policy among our generals. Each commander was treating the question very much according to his own personal predilection, and that was generally found to be in accordance with his previous political relations. The most conspicuous exception to this rule was General Benjamin F. Butler, who had been identified with the extreme pro- slavery wing of the Democratic party. He was in command in May, 1861, at Fortress Monroe, and he found that when fugitive slaves sought the protection of his camp they were pursued under flags of truce, and their return was requested as a right under the Constitution of the United States by men who were in arms against the Constitution. The anomaly of this situation was seen by General Butler, and he met it promptly by refusing to permit the slaves to be returned, declaring them to be contraband of war. As they were useful to the enemy in military operations, they were to be classed with arms and ammunition. This opinion was at first received joyously by the country, and the word "contraband" became the synonym of fugitive slave. But General Butler's judgment is justified by the rules of modern warfare, and its application solved a question of policy which otherwise might have been fraught with serious difficulty. In the presence of arms the Fugitive-slave Law became null and void, and the Dred Scott decision was trampled under the iron hoof of war.

SLAVERY ABOLISHED IN THE DISTRICT.

The first exercise of legislative power hostile to the institution of slavery, already detailed, was promptly followed by one still more decisive. Congress provided for the abolition of the institution in the District of Columbia. A bill for this purpose was introduced in the Senate on the 16th of December, 1861, and two months later Mr. Morrill of Maine, from the Committee on the District, reported it to the Senate with a favorable recommendation. Garrett Davis of Kentucky spoke in support of an amendment requiring the colonization, beyond the limits of the United States, of all persons who might be liberated by the Act. He was firmly persuaded that the liberation of slaves with their continued residence among the whites would result in a war of races. Mr. Hale of New Hampshire combated his opinion by arguments and facts drawn from the history of emancipation in Jamaica. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts gave an interesting history of the circumstances which led to the selection of the site for the National Capital upon slave territory.

Mr. Sumner dealt with the subject at great length, enforcing his views by numerous authorities drawn from history, from the decisions of courts, and from the opinions of publicists and statesmen of modern times. The opponents of the measure did not conceal their apprehension that the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia portended its overthrow in the States. Mr. Sumner and his associates hailed the movement as the inauguration of a policy destined to produce that result. "The future," said the Massachusetts senator, "cannot be doubtful. At the National Capital slavery will give way to freedom. But the good work will not stop here: it must proceed. What God and Nature decree, Rebellion cannot arrest." Mr. Sherman of Ohio maintained that it was not a measure for the preservation of the government, but a municipal regulation, and that the time had come when it was evidently wise to exercise the powers granted by the Constitution. Mr. Willey of Virginia deprecated the existence of slavery in the capital of the country, but he opposed the emancipation bill as the first of a series of measures that would end in the abolition of slavery in all the States by act of Congress. The bill passed the Senate the third day of April by a vote of 29 to 14.

When the measure reached the House and was read for information it was at once challenged by Mr. Vallandigham of Ohio; and upon the parliamentary question "Shall the bill be rejected?" the yeas were 45 and the nays were 93. The debate which immediately followed was in good temper, with a notable absence of the exasperation which it was feared the subject would call forth. Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky stated the objections of the minority, and especially of the Border slave States, fairly and temperately. The time seemed to him unpropitious inasmuch as the moving cause of the secession of the States was the apprehension on their part that Congress was likely to take measures for the abolition of slavery. The passage of the bill necessarily rendered futile every attempt at reconciliation. Secondly, there was an implied agreement with Virginia and Maryland at the time of the cession of the District that "the system of slavery shall not be disturbed." And finally, the bill, although it provided for compensation to lawful owners, was in effect a measure of confiscation. It passed the House by a vote of 92 to 38. The President accompanied his approval with a special message in which, while not doubting the constitutionality of the measure, he intimated that there were "matters within and about the Act which might have taken a course or shape more satisfactory to his judgment." He especially commended the provision made for compensation to the owners of slaves, and referred with satisfaction to the appropriation made to aid any colored person of the District who might desire to emigrate "to Liberia, Hayti, or any country beyond the limits of the United States which the President may determine." The sum of one hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for this purpose by the Act--one hundred dollars being allowed to each emigrant. The experiment came to nothing. The colored persons who had resided in the United States as slaves were obviously desirous of trying their fortunes as freemen among the people whom they knew, and in the homes to which they were attached.

THE PRESIDENT'S CONSERVATIVE COURSE.

Mr. Lincoln had always been a firm believer in the scheme of African colonization; and in his message of December, 1861, he recommended a provision for colonizing the slaves set free by the influence of war. From the slave States which had remained loyal to the Union he was willing to accept slaves in lieu of the direct tax, according to some mode of valuation that might be agreed upon, and he was anxious that adequate provision should be made for their settlement in some place or places with a climate congenial to them. But the experiment with the manumitted negroes of the District, which was made in compliance with this recommendation of the President and in deference to his personal wishes, frequently and earnestly expressed, demonstrated the impracticability of the plan. Colonization could be effected only by the forcible removal of the colored people, and this would have been a more cruel violation of their natural rights than a continuance of the slavery in which they were born. If free choice between the two conditions had been offered, nine-tenths, perhaps even a larger proportion of the slaves, would have preferred to remain in their old homes. In an economic point of view the scheme was indefensible. We were at the time the only country with undeveloped agricultural resources in warm latitudes, that was not engaged in seeking labor from all quarters of the world. The Colonization scheme deliberately proposed to strip the United States of patient, faithful laborers, acclimated to the cotton and sugar fields of the South, and capable of adding great wealth to the nation. Colonization would deprive us of this much needed labor, would entail vast expense in the deportation of the negroes, and would devolve upon this country, by a moral responsibility which it could not avoid, the protection and maintenance of the feeble government which would be planted on the shores of Africa. The Liberian experiment, honorable as it was to the colored race, and successful as it had proved in establishing civilization in Africa, had not attained such material prosperity as would justify the United States in the removal of millions of its population to a remote country where there was no demand for labor.

Mr. Lincoln's course on the Slavery question at that period of his Administration was steadily and studiously conservative. He had checked the Secretary of War (Mr. Cameron) in the issuing of an anti-slavery order which was considered premature and unwise; he had countermanded and annulled the proclamations of General Hunter and General Fremont declaring the slaves to be free within the districts of their respective commands. He now recommended a measure in the line of his conservative policy, to which he attached great weight, and from which he anticipated important consequences. On the 6th of March, 1862, the President sent a message to Congress recommending the adoption of a joint resolution declaring that "the United States ought to co-operate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each State pecuniary aid to be used in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system." Mr. Lincoln believed that if the leaders of the existing Rebellion could conquer their independence, the Border slave States would necessarily join them from sympathy with their institutions. By the initiation of emancipation all possible desire or tendency in that direction would be removed, and thus a severe blow be given to the Rebellion. He believed in compensation to the slave-holder, and expressed his opinion that "gradual and not sudden emancipation is better for all." He asked Congress to consider "how very soon the current expenses of the war would purchase at a fair valuation all the slaves in any named State."

When the message reached the House it was referred to the Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union. Four days later Mr. Roscoe Conkling moved to suspend the rules in order to bring the resolution before the House "in the exact form in which the President had recommended it." The motion prevailed by 86 to 35. Francis P. Blair of Missouri and the representatives from West Virginia were the only Border State men who voted to suspend the rules. Mr. Conkling thought an immediate vote might be taken because he presumed "every member had made up his mind on the question involved." But the Kentucky delegation desired time for consultation. They concluded to oppose the resolution. Mr. Crittenden, speaking the sentiments of all, asked, "Why do you exact of Kentucky more than she has already done to show her loyalty? Has she not parted with all her former allies, with all her natural kindred in other States? Why should it be asked that she should now surrender up her domestic institutions?" Against the protest of Kentucky the resolution was passed, such radical abolitionists as Owen Lovejoy warmly supporting the proposition to pay for slaves out of the Treasury of the United States. Mr. Henderson of Missouri and Mr. Willey of West Virginia were the only Border State senators who saw the vast advantage to be secured to their own constituents by the passage of the measure. They supported it ably and heartily. It was earnestly opposed by the senators from Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Mr. Carlile of West Virginia was the only senator in nominal sympathy with the Administration who voted against it. The hostility to the President's policy by senators from the Border slave States was so fixed as to prevent even a free discussion of the measure, and it was therefore remanded to a future day for consideration.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A still more aggressive movement against slavery was made by Congress before the close of this eventful session. On the day that Congress convened, in the preceding December, Mr. Trumbull gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill "for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to the persons they hold in slavery." Three days later he formally introduced the bill, and made a lucid explanation of its provisions and its objects. He "disdained to press it upon the ground of a mere military power superior to the civil in time of war." "Necessity," said he, "is the plea of tyrants; and if our Constitution ceases to operate, the moment a person charged with its observance thinks there is a necessity to violate it, is of little value." So far from admitting that the superiority of the military over the civil power in time of war, Mr. Trumbull held that "under the Constitution the military is as much the subject of control by the civil power in war as in peace." He was for suppressing the rebellion "according to law, and in no other way;" and he warned his countrymen who stood "ready to tolerate almost any act done in good faith for the suppression of the rebellion, not to sanction usurpations of power which may hereafter become precedents for the destruction of constitutional liberty." Though the bill was introduced on the second day of December, 1861, it did not become a law until the 17th of July in the next year.

In the months intervening, it was elaborately debated, almost every senator taking part in the discussion. Garrett Davis of Kentucky, who had succeeded Mr. Breckinridge in the Senate, made a long speech against the bill, contending that Congress had no power to free any slaves. He wanted a bill of great severity against the rebel leaders: "to those that would repent" he would give "immunity, peace, and protection; to the impenitent and incorrigible he would give the gallows, or exile and the forfeiture of their whole estate." Such a law as that, he said, his "own State of Kentucky desired. As Hamilcar brought his infant son Hannibal to the family altar, and made him swear eternal enmity to the Roman power, so I have sworn and will ever maintain eternal enmity to the principle of secession and all its adherents." It was seen throughout the debate that the bill under consideration was in large part provoked by the confiscation measures of the Confederate Congress, and Mr. Davis declared that "the debts due to the North, estimated at $200,000,000, seized, confiscated, and appropriated by the rebel government, shall be remunerated fully."

Mr. John B. Henderson of Missouri who, as a Union man of prominence and ability, had succeeded Trusten Polk in the Senate, opposed the bill because it would "cement the Southern mind against us and drive new armies of excited and deluded men from the Border States to espouse the cause of rebellion." He urged that "the Union sentiment of the South should be cultivated, and radical measures tending to destroy that sentiment should be dropped." Mr. Fessenden was conservative on this as on other questions, and insisted upon the reference of Mr. Trumbull's bill to a committee; which was the occasion of some little passage between himself and Mr. Trumbull, not without temper. Mr. Trumbull suggested that "the senator from Maine would not be likely to get any light from the deliberations of five men unless he were himself one of them." Retorting in the same spirit, but, as he said, good-naturedly, Mr. Fessenden said he should not "hope that any deliberation of anybody would enlighten the senator from Illinois."

Sustaining the extreme power of confiscation, Mr. Sumner desired "the Act to be especially leveled at the institution of Slavery." He recalled the saying of Charles XII. of Sweden, that the cannoneers were perfectly right in directing their shots at him, for the war would be at an instant end if they could kill him; whereas they would reap little from killing his principal officers. "There is," said the senator, "no shot in this war so effective as one against Slavery, which is king above all officers; nor is there better augury of complete success than the willingness at last to fire upon this wicked king." By this means, Mr. Sumner believed that we should "take from the rebellion its mainspring of activity and strength, stop its chief stores of provisions and supplies, remove a motive and temptation to prolonged resistance, and destroy forever the disturbing influence which, so long as it exists, will keep this land a volcano, ever ready to break forth anew." Mr. Sumner, Mr. Wade, and Mr. Chandler, the senators who were regarded as most radical, desired more stringent provisions than they could secure. The really able lawyers of the Senate, Mr. Fessenden and Judge Collamer, repressed the extreme measures which but for their interposition would have been enacted. As the bill was finally perfected, Mr. Chandler and his colleague Mr. Howard voted against it, as did also Mr. Browning of Illinois and the Border-State Senators Davis of Kentucky, Henderson of Missouri, and Carlile of Virginia. To the Michigan senators the bill was too weak; to the others it was too strong. Mr. Willey of Virginia was the only senator from a slave-holding State who voted on the radical side. With the exceptions noted, Republican senators all voted for the bill.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

A series of measures in the House relating to confiscation were under discussion while the Senate was considering the same subject. The House passed a more stringent bill than the Senate would accept, and the subject was finally sent to a committee of conference, which from the points of disagreement framed the measure that ultimately became a law. As in the Senate, the Border-State men opposed the measure, but were overborne by the popular opinion which nearly consolidated the Republican vote of the North in favor of it. It was however an undoubted weakness, morally and politically, that such men as Crittenden and Mallory of Kentucky, James S. Rollins of Missouri, and Francis Thomas and Edwin H. Webster of Maryland were recorded against it. The bill was passed in the House by a vote of 82 to 42. The conference report having somewhat strengthened the original measure passed by the Senate, Messrs. Howard and Chandler of Michigan gave it their support, but for the same reason Mr. Cowan of Pennsylvania and Mr. Willey of Virginia opposed it. The final vote was 27 in favor to 12 against it.

The Act, as it finally passed, affixed to the crime of treason the punishment of death, or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment for not less than five years and a fine of not less than ten thousand dollars,--all the slaves, if any, to be declared free. "To insure the speedy termination of the present rebellion" it was made the duty of the President to cause the seizure of the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects of the following classes of persons: First, all those hereafter acting as officers of the army or the navy of the rebels in arms against the government of the United States; second, of any person acting as President, Vice-President, member of Congress, judge of any court, cabinet officer, foreign minister, commissioner, or consul of the so-called Confederate States; third, of any person acting as governor of a State, member of a convention or Legislature, or judge of any court of any of the so-called Confederate States of America; fourth, of any person who having held an office of honor, trust, or profit in the United States shall hereafter hold an office in the so-called Confederate States; fifth, of any person hereafter holding any office or agency under the so-called Confederate States or under any of the several States of said Confederacy; sixth, of any person who owning property in any loyal State or Territory of the United States, or in the District of Columbia, shall hereafter assist and give aid and comfort to the rebellion. "And all sales, transfers, or conveyances of any such property shall be null and void; and it shall be a sufficient bar to any suit brought by such persons for the possession or use of such property, or any of it, to allege and prove that he is one of the persons described in this section."

In the provisions of the Act directly affecting slavery it was declared that "All slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the Government of the United States or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army, and all slaves captured from such persons, or deserted by them and coming under the control of the Government of the United States, and all slaves of such persons found or being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterward occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives, shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." This provision had a very sweeping application. Even if the war had ended without a formal and effective system of emancipation, it is believed that this statute would have so operated as to render the slave system practically valueless. When the war closed it is probable that not less than one-half of all the slaves of the rebel States had come within the scope of this statute, and had therefore been declared legally free by the legislative power of the United States.

CONFISCATION OF REBEL PROPERTY.

Mr. Lincoln signed the Confiscation Act with reluctance. Indeed he had prepared a veto, but a joint resolution had been passed in order to remove the objections which in the President's view were absolutely fatal to the original bill, either as regarded its justice or its constitutionality. He had insisted to certain senators that the Confiscation Law must in terms exclude the possibility of its being applied to any act done by a rebel prior to its passage, and that no punishment or proceeding under it should be so construed as to work a forfeiture of the real estate of the offender beyond his natural life. These, with some minor defects, being corrected, the President affixed his signature and made public proclamation of the intended enforcement of the Act as qualified by the joint resolution approved on the same day. But there is good reason for believing that Mr. Lincoln would have been glad to confine its application to slave property, and he felt moreover that he could deal with that subject without the co-operation of Congress. The military situation was so discouraging that in the President's view it would have been wiser for Congress to refrain from enacting laws which, without success in the field, would be null and void, and which, with success in the field, would be rendered unnecessary. Congress adjourned on the same day that Mr. Lincoln approved the bill, and on returning home the senators and representatives found their constituents depressed, anxious, and alarmed for the country.

It cannot be said that the results flowing from this measure, either in restraining the action of Southern men or in securing to the National Treasury money derived from confiscated property, were at all in proportion to the importance ascribed to it in the discussion of both branches of Congress. Indeed the effect both morally and materially was far short of expectation. It is highly probable that if the stringent measure of the Confederate Congress and its stringent enforcement under the vigorous administration of Attorney- General Benjamin had not been attempted, the Congress of the United States could not have been induced to enter upon a course of legislation concerning which there existed much doubt and division of opinion among the Republicans. It is at least certain that but for the causes named, the scope of the Confiscation Act would have been confined within those limits which would have directly influenced the institution of Slavery, and would not have interfered with any other species of property. Whatever distress therefore came to Southern men, from the provisions in the Confiscation Act outside of those relating to Slavery, may fairly and properly be traced to the spirit of retaliation (always an effective weapon in time of war) which naturally followed the causeless and cruel procedure of the Confederate Government.

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Chapter XVII

Ball's Bluff Disaster.--Mr. Conkling's Resolution of Inquiry.-- Unsatisfactory Reply of Secretary Cameron.--Second Resolution.-- Second Reply.--Incidental Debate on Slavery.--Arrest of General Charles P. Stone.--His History.--His Response to Criticisms made upon him.--Responsibility of Colonel Baker.--General Stone before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.--His Examination.--Testimony of Officers.--General Stone appears before the Committee a Second Time.--His Arrest by Order of the War Department.--No Cause assigned. --Imprisoned in Fort Lafayette.--Solitary Confinement.--Sees Nobody. --His Wife denied Access to him.--Subject brought into Congress.-- A Search for the Responsibility of the Arrest.--Groundless Assumption of Mr. Sumner's Connection with it.--Mr. Lincoln's Message in Regard to the Case.--General Stone's Final Release by an Act of Congress. --Imprisoned for One Hundred and Eighty-nine Days.--Never told the Cause.--Never allowed a Trial.--Appears a Third Time before the Committee.--The True Responsibility for the Arrest.--His Restoration to Service.--His Resignation.--Joins the Khedive's Service.

On the day that Congress convened, (December 2, 1861,) Mr. Roscoe Conkling offered a resolution which was unanimously agreed to by the House, requesting "the Secretary of War, if not incompatible with the public service, to report to the House whether any, and if any, what, measures have been taken to ascertain who is responsible for the disastrous movement of our troops at Ball's Bluff." A few days later Mr. Chandler of Michigan offered a resolution in the Senate, directing an inquiry by a committee of three "into the disasters at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff." Mr. Grimes of Iowa offered a substitute which, after various modifications, directed the appointment of a "joint committee of three members of the Senate, and four members of the House of Representatives, to inquire into the conduct of the present war, with power to send for persons and papers, and with leave to sit during the sessions of either branch of Congress." The resolutions led to some debate. Mr. Chandler maintained that "it is the duty of the Senate to ascertain who is responsible for sending eighteen hundred men across the Potomac, in two old scows, without any means of retreat." Mr. McDougall thought a discussion of the question at that time was impolitic. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, while admitting that many mistakes had been made, asserted the "the greatest error in the conduct of the war has been the series of irresponsible proclamations issued by generals on the field." The joint resolution was adopted by the Senate with only three dissenting votes (Messrs. Latham, Carlile, and Rice) and by the House unanimously. Mr. Wade of Ohio, Mr. Chandler of Michigan, and Mr. Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on the part of the Senate, with Mr. Gooch of Massachusetts, Mr. Covode of Pennsylvania, Mr. Julian of Indiana, and Mr. Odell of New York on the part of the House, constituted the committee.

THE DISASTER AT BALL'S BLUFF.

The Secretary of War, in answer to Mr. Conkling's resolution touching the disaster at Ball's Bluff, stated that Major-General McClellan, commanding the army, "is of opinion that an inquiry on the subject of the resolution would at this time be injurious to the public service." The answer did not satisfy Mr. Conkling. He immediately moved another resolution declaring that the communication from the Secretary of War was "not responsive nor satisfactory to the House, and that the secretary be directed to return a further answer." A spirited debate followed, taking a somewhat extended range. Mr. Conkling said that his resolution related to "the most atrocious military murder ever committed in our history as a people. It relates to a lost field; to a disastrous and humiliating battle; to a blunder so gross that all men can see it,--a blunder which cost us confessedly nine hundred and thirty men, the very pride and flower of the States from which they came." . . . "The Bluff is a mile in length up and down the river, and the landing and ascent were made in the middle of it. Behind this was a six-acre lot skirted by woods on three sides. Into this burial-ground, one by one, as the boat brought them over, went up the devoted seventeen hundred. . . . Behind them rolled a deep river which could never be repassed. Before them and surrounding them on every side was a tree-sheltered and skulking foe, three or four times their number. . . . In an hour, in less than an hour, the field was a hell of fire raging from every side. The battle was lost before it was begun. It was from the outset a mere sacrifice, a sheer immolation, without a promise of success or a hope of escape." . . . "On the same side of the river with Leesburg," said Mr. Conkling, "within a day's march of that place, lay General McCall commanding a division containing fifteen regiments which marched fully eleven thousand men. If Leesburg were to be attacked, or if a reconnoissance in force were to be made in that direction, one of the first wonders in this case is, that the work should have been assigned to General Stone's division, divided as it was from the scene of action by a great river, when the division of General McCall was within a day's march of the spot, with neither river, mountain, nor barrier to be traversed."

--Mr. Richardson of Illinois thought Mr. Conkling's resolution was calculated "to raise an issue between the House of Representatives and the army, and divide the country." He thought this would injure the cause of the Union. In military matters he would "rather trust the commanding general of the army than a committee of the House."

--Mr. Crittenden of Kentucky protested against "the House interfering in the conduct of the war and the management of the army by investigating transactions which are in their nature purely military." He maintained that "such a policy takes control out of the hands of men supposed to be competent and puts it in the hands of men supposed not to be competent." "If," continued Mr. Crittenden, "we are to find fault with every movement, who not appoint a committee of the House to attend the Commander-in-chief? Why not send them with our army so that the power of Congress may be felt in battle as well as in the halls of legislation?"

--Mr. Lovejoy of Illinois gave a characteristic turn to the debate. "I believe before God," said he,--"and if it be fanaticism now it will not be when history traces the events of the day,--that the reason why we have had Bull Run and Ball's Bluff and other defeats and disasters is that God, in his providence, designs to arraign us before this great question of human freedom, and make us take the right position." Slavery, according to Mr. Lovejoy, was the Jonah on board the National ship, and the ship would founder unless Jonah were thrown overboard. "When Jonah was cast forth into the sea, the sea ceased from raging." Our battles, in Mr. Lovejoy's belief, "should be fought so as to hurt slavery," and enable the President to decree its destruction. "To be President, to be king, to be victor, has happened to many; to be embalmed in the hearts of mankind through all generations as liberator and emancipator has been vouchsafed to few."

THE DISASTER AT BALL'S BLUFF.

--Mr. Wickliffe of Kentucky believed we should "preserve the Union and slavery under it." He wised to "throw the Abolitionists overboard."

--Mr. Mallory of Kentucky, while not believing slavery to be incompatible with our liberty under the Constitution, declared that so far as he understood the feeling of the people of Kentucky, "if they ever come to regard slavery as standing in the way of the Union, they will not hesitate to wipe out the institution." Loud applause followed this remark.

--Mr. McKee Dunn of Indiana, while believing that "if slavery stands in the way of the Union it must be destroyed," was not yet "willing to accept Mr. Lovejoy as prophet, priest, or king." He thought "the gentleman from Illinois was not authorized to interpret God's providence" in the affairs of men.

--Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in recalling the debate to the immediate question before the House, took occasion to protest against the doctrine of non-interference laid down by Mr. Crittenden. "Has it come to this," said Mr. Stevens, "that Congress is a mere automaton, to register the decrees of another power, and that we have nothing to do but to find men and money? . . . This is the doctrine of despotism, better becoming that empire which they are attempting to establish in the South."

The resolution offered by Mr. Conkling was adopted by a vote of 79 to 54, on a call of the yeas and nays. The affirmative vote was wholly Republican. A few Republicans voted with the Democrats in the negative. The reply of Secretary Cameron was no more satisfactory than to the first resolution. He informed the House that "measures have been taken to ascertain who is responsible for the disastrous movement of our troops at Ball's Bluff, but it is not deemed compatible with the public interest to make known these measures at the present time." The difference between this answer and the first, was that the Administration assumed the responsibility of withholding the information, and did not rest it upon the judgment of the general in command of the army.

Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone was a graduate of West Point Military Academy, from Massachusetts. His family belongs to the old Puritan stock of that commonwealth, and had been honorably represented in every war in which the American people had engaged. General Stone served as a lieutenant in the Mexican war with high credit, and in 1855 resigned his commission and became a resident of California. It happened that he was in Washington at the breaking out of the civil war, and in response to the request of his old commander, General Scott, took a prominent part in the defense of the capital, considered to be in danger after the rising of the Baltimore mob. His conduct was so admirable that when the President, a few weeks later, directed the organization of eleven new regiments in the Regular Army, he appointed General Stone to the Colonelcy of the 14th United-States Infantry. After the battle of Bull Run, when General McClellan was promoted to the command of the Army of the Potomac, General Stone was selected to command a division which was directed to occupy the valley of the Potomac above Washington, as a corps of observation. The Union troops, engaged in the disastrous battle of Ball's Bluff, belonged to his corps, but were under the immediate command of Colonel E. D. Baker. The repulse and slaughter on that melancholy field were followed by excitement and indignation throughout the country quite as deep as that shown in Congress. The details of the disaster were greatly exaggerated. The official summary of losses, made up with care, showed that the total number killed, including both officers and men, was 49; wounded, 158; missing, 714, of whom a few were drowned, and the great mass taken prisoners. The popular admiration for Colonel Baker was unbounded, and the suspicion that his life had been needlessly destroyed created such a feeling as demanded a victim. General Stone was selected for the sacrifice, and popular wrath was turned upon him with burning intensity. Rumors and exaggerations filled the newspapers; and the public, in that state of credulity which is an incident to the victim-hunting mania, accepted every thing as true. It was widely believed that Colonel Baker said mournfully, as he marched to the battle-field, "I will obey General Stone's order, but it is my death-warrant."

BALL'S BLUFF DISASTER INVESTIGATED.

Goaded by these injurious and unfounded rumors, General Stone, in a letter to the Adjutant-General of the army, written a fortnight after the battle, deemed it his "duty to answer the persistent attacks made through the press by the friends of the lamented Colonel Baker." He called attention to the "distinct violations by Colonel Baker of his orders and instructions," and declared that he was left "to use his own discretion about crossing his force, or retiring that already over." He found it "painful to censure the acts of one who gallantly died on the field of battle," but justice to himself required "that the full truth should be made to appear." Colonel Baker did not receive the order "as a death- warrant," for it was delivered to him "at his own request." That "Colonel Baker was determined to fight a battle" was made evident by the fact that "he never crossed to examine the field, never gave an order to the troops in advance, and never sent forward to ascertain their position, until he had ordered over his force, and passed over a considerable portion of it." On the 5th of January, 1862, General Stone appeared before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and was examined under oath as to every detail of the Ball's-Bluff disaster which could in any way, directly or remotely, involve his responsibility as a commander. His answers were frank, withholding nothing, and were evidently intended to communicate every pertinent fact. So far as may be inferred from the questions and comments, the evidence was entirely satisfactory to the committee.

After the examination of General Stone, many officers of his command appeared before the committee. The captains and lieutenants, fresh from private life, whose names he probably did not know, and with whom he perhaps never exchanged a word, were summoned in large number. They had remarkable stories to tell about General Stone's disloyalty; about his holding secret correspondence with the enemy; about his permitting letters and packages to be taken across the line without examination; about his allowing rebels to go freely back and forth; and finally about his passing within the rebel lines to hold confidential interviews with the officers commanding the force opposed to him. It is singular that men of the acuteness and high character of those composing the committee did not carefully sift the testimony and subject it to the test of a rigorous cross- examination. The stories told by many of these swift witnesses were on the surface absurd, and should have been exposed. Publicity alone would have largely counteracted the evil effect of their narratives, but the examination was secret, and the witnesses evidently felt that the strongest bias against General Stone was the proper turn to give their testimony. The atmosphere was, as it often is in such cases, unfavorable to the suspected man; and his reputation was mercilessly assailed where he could not reply, and was not even allowed to hear. When officers of the higher grades, who came near to General Stone, who shared his confidence and assisted in his councils, were examined, the weight of the testimony was markedly different. General F. W. Lander regarded General Stone as "a very efficient, orderly, and excellent officer." Colonel Isaac J. Wistar, who succeeded Colonel Baker in the command of the California regiment, gave the highest testimony to General Stone's loyalty, and to the "full confidence" reposed in him by men of every rank in the brigade with which he was serving. Colonel Charles Devens who, with his regiment, the Fifteenth Massachusetts Infantry, had borne an honorable part on the bloody field, testified that he and the officers of the Fifteenth "had confidence in General Stone." Colonel James H. Van Allen, commanding a regiment of cavalry in General Stone's division, gave the most cordial testimony of his loyalty and high character.

After the larger part of the evidence adverse to General Stone had been heard, he received an intimation through General McClellan that it might be well for him to appear again before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. He obtained leave of absence from his command, repaired to Washington, and presented himself before the committee on the 31st of January, twenty-six days after his first testimony had been given. For some reason which the committee did not deem it necessary to explain, General Stone was not furnished with the names of the witnesses who had testified against him in the dark; their testimony was not submitted to him; it was not even read in his hearing. He was simply informed by the chairman-- Senator Wade of Ohio--that "in the course of our investigations there has come out in evidence matters which may be said to impeach you. I do not know that I can enumerate all the points, but I think I can. In the first place is your conduct in the Ball's- Bluff affair--your ordering your forces over without sufficient means of transportation, and in that way endangering your army, in case of a check, by not being able to re-enforce them. . . . Another point is that the evidence tends to show that you have had undue communication with the enemy by letters that have passed back and forth, by intercourse with officers from the other side, and by permitting packages to go over unexamined, to known Secessionists. . . . The next and only other point that now occurs to me is that you have suffered the enemy to erect formidable fortifications or batteries on the opposite side of the river, within the reach of your guns, and which you could easily have prevented." General Stone's answer was as lucid, frank, and full as could be made to charges of so sweeping a character. His explanations were unreserved, and his justification apparently complete and unanswerable against every form of accusation which the chairman submitted. To the charge of disloyalty General Stone replied with much feeling, "That is one humiliation I had hoped I should never be subjected to. I thought there was one calumny that could not be brought against me. Any other calumny I should expect after what I have received, but that one I should have supposed that you personally, Mr. Chairman, would have rejected at once. You remember last spring when the Government had so few friends here, when the enemy had this city I might almost say in his power, I raised all the volunteer troops that were here during the seven dark days. I disciplined and posted those troops. I commanded them, and they were the first to invade the soil of Virginia, and I led them." Mr. Wade here interrupted, and said, "I was no so unjust as not to mention that circumstance to the committee." General Stone resumed, "I could have surrendered Washington. And now I will swear that this government has not a more faithful soldier, of poor capacity it may be, but not a more faithful soldier from the day I was called into service to this minute."

GENERAL CHARLES P. STONE ARRESTED.

Subsequent developments proved that three days before this second examination General McClellan had in his possession an order from Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, directing him "to relieve General Stone from his command of a division in the Army of the Potomac, and that he be placed in arrest and kept in close custody until further orders." It is evident therefore that so far as the War Department was involved, the case had been prejudged, or judged at least without giving the accused man an opportunity to be heard in his own defense. It is difficult to understand why his testimony did not have the effect to recall or suspend the order of arrest, but despite the candor and evident honesty of his explanations, the blow fell upon him. Early on Saturday the eighth day of February General McClellan directed the provost marshal of the district, General Andrew Porter, "to arrest Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone at once, and to send him under close custody by first train to Fort Lafayette, where he will be placed in charge of the commanding officer, and have no communication with any one from the time of his arrest." Brigadier-General Sykes, commanding the City Guard, executed the order, taking General Stone from his bed at midnight in the hotel where he was stopping, and making him a close prisoner. Shortly after daylight the following morning General Stone addressed a note to General Seth Williams, Adjutant-General on the staff of General McClellan, informing him of his arrest, and adding, "Conscious of having been at all times a faithful soldier of the United States, I must respectfully request that I may be furnished at an early a moment as practicable with a copy of whatever charges may have been preferred against me, with the opportunity of promptly meeting them."

To this respectful communication no answer was made, and General Stone was hurried off to Fort Lafayette, under strict guard, with an order from General McClellan for his imprisonment. At the fort the money which he had in his pockets was taken from him, and he was placed in solitary confinement in a room ordinarily used for quarters of enlisted men. No letter was allowed to leave him or reach him without the most rigid inspection. Under this close surveillance, with an armed sentinel pacing before the door of his room, without opportunity for outdoor air or exercise, he was kept for forty-nine days. He applied at different times to the military authorities in Washington for a statement of the charges against him, for a speedy trial, for access to the records of his own office and his own headquarters, for a change of the place of his confinement. To none of these applications was answer of any kind returned. After he had been nearly two months in prison he asked that his wife might be allowed to visit him. She was in the deepest anguish, and her society in his imprisonment could have subjected the government to no danger, because she would have been under the same restraint and espionage as her husband. This natural and reasonable request, made only after his confinement promised to be indefinite, was peremptorily and curtly refused by the War Department.

On the fiftieth day the place of his imprisonment was changed from Fort Lafayette to Fort Hamilton near by, and the opportunity for open-air exercise within the fort was accorded him, though always under the eye of a sentinel. Here he renewed his request for the charges against him, without eliciting answer. He applied to the officer in command of the fort to learn of what possible crime he was accused, and the officer replied that he knew nothing of it; he was absolutely ignorant of any ground for General Stone's imprisonment. After striving for more than sixty days to ascertain the nature of his offense, and secure an opportunity to vindicate himself, the prisoner adopted another course. He applied for suspension of arrest with liberty to join the army just setting forth under General McClellan for the Peninsular campaign. No reply was made to his request. A few weeks later, when the Union forces under General Banks were defeated in the valley of the Shenandoah, he again asked the privilege of active duty, and again was treated with contemptuous silence. On the 4th of July he telegraphed directly to President Lincoln, recalling the honorable service in which he had been engaged just one year before. Reminding the President of the pressing need which the country then had "of the services of every willing soldier," he begged to be sent to the field. With manly dignity he declared, "I am utterly unconscious of any act, word, or design which should make me less eligible to an honorable place among the soldiers of the Republic than upon any day of my past life."

GENERAL STONE'S CASE IN CONGRESS.

Meanwhile the subject had forced itself upon the attention of Congress. On the 24th of March, Senators Latham and McDougall of California, the first a supporter of Breckinridge in 1860, the other a supporter of Douglas, with Aaron A. Sargent, representative from the same State and a most radical Republican, united in an energetic memorial to Secretary Stanton, on behalf of General Stone as a citizen of California. They stated that "the long arrest of General Stone without military trial or inquiry has led to complaints from many quarters. . . . Having known General Stone for years, and never having had cause to doubt his loyalty, we feel it our duty to inquire of the government through you for some explanation of a proceeding which seems to us extraordinary." To this memorial no reply was made, and after waiting nearly three weeks Mr. McDougall introduced in the Senate a very searching resolution of inquiry, requesting the Secretary of War to state upon whose authority the arrest was made, and upon whose complaint; why General Stone had been denied his rights under the articles of war; why no charges and specifications of his offense had been made; whether General Stone had not frequently asked to be informed of the charges against him; and finally upon what pretense he was still kept in prison. Mr. McDougall spoke in the Senate on the 15th of April in support of his resolution, making some interesting personal statements. General Stone was arrested on the night of Saturday, the 8th of February. "On the Wednesday evening before that," said Mr. McDougall, "I met General Stone, dressed as became a person of his rank, at the house of the President, where no one went on that evening except by special invitation. He was there mingling with his friends, receiving as much attention and as much consideration from all about him as any man there present. . . . Only two evenings after that, if I remember right, he was the guest under similar circumstances of the senior general in command of our army [McClellan], and there again receiving the hospitalities of the men first in office and first in the consideration of the country. On, I think, the very day of his arrest he was in the War Department, and was received by the head of that department as a man who had the entire confidence of the government, and of himself as one of the government's representatives. On that evening he was seized, taken from his home and family at midnight, carried off to Fort Lafayette and imprisoned, as are men convicted and adjudged guilty of the highest offense known to the law. . . . I undertake to say upon good authority that almost presently before his arrest he said to the present Secretary of War [Stanton], 'Sir, I hear complaints about my conduct as an officer at Ball's Bluff. I wish you to inquire into it and have the matter determined.' He was assured that there were no charges against him, and the secretary advised him in substance in these words: 'There is no occasion for your inquiry; go back to your command.' That was the day of the night on which he was arrested." Mr. McDougall's statement, the accuracy of which was not challenged by any one, disclosed the fact that while General Stone was a guest at the White House and at the residence of General McClellan, the latter had in his possession the order for arrest, and had held it for several days.

The resolution of Mr. McDougall was debated at some length in the Senate, Mr. Wade making a fiery speech in defense of the course pursued by the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and Mr. Browning of Illinois defending the President, upon whom there had been no imputation of any kind. Mr. Doolittle suggested that the resolution be referred to a committee. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts submitted a substitute, simply requesting "the President of the United States to communicate to the Senate any information touching the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone, not deemed incompatible with the public interest." Mr. Sumner had "no opinion to express in the case, for he knew nothing about it;" but "it seemed clear" to him "that General Stone ought to be confronted with his accusers at an early day, unless there be some reason of an overbearing military character which would render such a trial improper." Mr. Sumner had "seen in various newspapers a most persistent attempt" to connect him "with the credit or discredit of the arrest." He declared that from the beginning he "had been an absolute stranger to it." The arrest was made, he repeated, without his "suggestion or hint, direct or indirect." He declared that he "was as free from all connection with it" as "the intimate friends and family relatives of the prisoner." At the close of the debate Mr. McDougall accepted Mr. Wilson's resolution as a substitute for his, and on the 21st of April the latter was adopted by general consent.

SENATOR SUMNER AND GENERAL STONE.

The unfounded assumption of Mr. Sumner's connection with the arrest sprang perhaps from some censorious remarks in the Senate made by him in December touching General Stone's alleged course in sending back fugitive slaves. Subsequent intelligence indicated that Mr. Sumner had been misinformed on this matter, and that the facts did not inculpate General Stone. But instead of writing to Mr. Sumner to correct the statements made in his speech, General Stone, most unwisely and most reprehensibly, addressed to the senator on the 23d of December an ill-tempered and abusive letter. Mr. Henry Melville Parker of Massachusetts investigated all the facts and incidents of the case, and came to the conclusion that Mr. Sumner, as an act of revenge for the insolent letter, had caused General Stone's arrest. But the facts do not warrant Mr. Parker's conclusion. Aside from Mr. Sumner's public denial on the floor of the Senate-- which of itself closed the issue--he was never known to be guilty of an act of revenge. That passion belongs to meaner natures. The dates, moreover, remove the imputation of Mr. Parker. General Stone's hasty and ill-considered letter was placed in Mr. Sumner's hands on Christmas Day, 1861. The arrest was made on the 8th of February, 1862--forty-six days later. The intervening circumstances nowhere involve Mr. Sumner in the remotest degree.

In answer to the call upon the President for information, Mr. Lincoln sent a message to the Senate on the 1st of May, saying, "General Stone was arrested and imprisoned under my general authority, and upon evidence which, whether he be guilty or innocent, required, as appears to me, such proceedings to be had against him for the public safety." The President deemed it "incompatible with the public interest, and perhaps unjust to General Stone, to make a more particular statement of the evidence." After saying that General Stone had not been tried because the officers to constitute a court-martial could not be withdrawn from duty without serious injury to the service, the President gave this public assurance: "He will be allowed a trial without unnecessary delay: the charges and specifications will be furnished him in due season, and every facility for his defense will be afforded him by the War Department." This message on its face bears evidence that it was prepared at the War Department, and that Mr. Lincoln acted upon assurances furnished by Mr. Stanton. The arrest was made upon his "general" authority, and clearly not from any specific information he possessed. But the effect of the message was to preclude any further attempt at intervention by Congress. Indeed the assurance that General Stone should be tried "without unnecessary delay" was all that could be asked. But the promise made to the ear was broken to the hope, and General Stone was left to languish without a word of intelligence as to his alleged offense, and without the slightest opportunity to meet the accusers who in the dark had convicted him without trial, subjected him to cruel punishment, and exposed him to the judgment of the world as a degraded criminal.

Release from imprisonment came at last by the action of Congress, coercing the Executive Department to the trial or discharge of General Stone. In the Act of July 17, 1862, "defining the pay and emolument of certain officers," a section was inserted declaring that "whenever an officer shall be put under arrest, except at remote military posts, it shall be the duty of the officer by whose orders he is arrested to see that a copy of the charges shall be served upon him within eight days thereafter, and that he shall be brought to trial within ten days thereafter unless the necessities of the service prevent such trial; and then he shall be brought to trial within thirty days after the expiration of said ten days, or the arrest shall cease." The Act reserved the right to try the officer at any time within twelve months after his discharge from arrest, and by a proviso it was made to apply "to all persons now under arrest and waiting trial." The bill had been pending several months, having been originally reported by Senator Wilson before General Stone's arrest.

The provision of the Act applicable to the case of General Stone was only a full enforcement by law of the seventy-ninth article of war, which declared that "no officer or soldier who shall be put in arrest shall continued in confinement more than eight days, or until such time as a court-martial can be assembled." It was a direct violation of the spirit of this article, and a cruel straining of its letter, to consign General Stone to endless or indefinite imprisonment. Any man of average intelligence in the law--and Secretary Stanton was eminent in his profession--would at once say that the time beyond the eight days allowed for assembling a court- martial must be a reasonable period, and that an officer was entitled to prompt trial, or release from arrest. The law now passed was imperative. Withing eight days the arrested officer must be notified of the charges against him, within ten days he must be tried, and "if the necessities of the service prevent a trial" within thirty days after the ten, the officer is entitled to an absolute discharge. General Stone's case fell within the justice and the mercy of the law. The eight days within which he should be notified of the charges against him had been long passed; the ten days had certainly expired; but by the construction of the War Department the victim was still in the power that wronged him for thirty days more. From the 17th of July, thirty days were slowly told off until the 16th of August was at last reached, and General Stone was once more a free man. He had been one hundred and eighty-nine days in prison, and was at last discharged by the limitation of the statute without a word of exculpation or explanation. The routine order simply recited that "the necessities of the service not permitting the trial, within the time required by law, of Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone, now confined in Fort Lafayette, the Secretary of War directs that he be released from arrest."

GENERAL STONE FINALLY RELEASED.

The order simply turned him adrift. He was a Colonel in the Regular Army and a Brigadier-General in the volunteer service; and the Secretary, according to the rule of the War Department, should have given him some instruction,--either assigning him to duty or directing him to report at some place and await orders. Thinking it might be an omission, General Stone telegraphed the War Department that he had the honor "to report for duty." He waited five days in New York for an answer, and receiving none repaired to Washington. Reporting promptly at the office of the Adjutant-General, he was told they had no orders for him, and knew nothing about his arrest. He then applied to General McClellan, on the eve of the Antietam campaign, for permission to serve with the army. General McClellan on the 7th of September wrote to Secretary Stanton that he would be glad to avail himself of General Stone's services and that he had "no doubt as to his loyalty and devotion." No answer was returned by the War Department. On the 25th of September General Stone, still eager to confront his accusers, applied to General-in- Chief Halleck for a copy of any charges or allegations against him, and the opportunity of promptly meeting them. He reminded the general that two hundred and twenty-eight days had elapsed since his arrest, and that if he were to be tried for any offense those who had served under him must be the witnesses of his conduct, and that from battle and disease these witnesses were falling by hundreds and thousands; the casualties were so great indeed that his command was already reduced one-half. General Halleck replied that he had no official information of the cause of General Stone's arrest, and that so far as he could ascertain no charges or specifications were on file against him.

Several weeks later, on the 1st of December, 1862, General Stone applied to General McClellan, calling his attention to the Act of July 17, under which any officer arrested had the right to "a copy of the charges against him within eight days." He therefore respectfully requested General McClellan, as the officer who ordered the arrest, to furnish him a copy of the charges. General McClellan replied on the 5th of December that the order for arrest had been given him by the Secretary of War, who told him it was at the solicitation of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and based on testimony taken by them. He further informed General Stone that he had the order, in the handwriting of Secretary Stanton, several days before it was carried into effect, and added the following somewhat remarkable statement: "On the evening when you were arrested I submitted to the Secretary of War the written result of the examination of a refugee from Leesburg. This information to a certain extent agreed with the evidence stated to have been taken by the Committee, and upon its being imparted to the Secretary he again instructed me to cause you to be arrested, which I at once did." This discloses the fact that General McClellan was cognizant of the character of the testimony submitted against General Stone, and so rigidly withheld from the knowledge of the person most interested. On receipt of General McClellan's note, General Stone immediately asked him for the name of the Leesburg refugee and for a copy of his statement. A member of General McClellan's staff answered the inquiry, stating that the general "does not recollect the name of the refugee, and the last time he recollects seeing that statement was at the War Department immediately previous to your arrest." General Stone, victim of the perversity which had uniformly attended the case, was again baffled. He was never able to see the statement of the "refugee" or even to get his name, though, according to General McClellan, the testimony of the refugee was the proximate and apparently decisive cause of General Stone's arrest.

General Stone applied directly to the President, asking "if he could inform me why I was sent to Fort Lafayette." The President replied that "if he told me all he knew about it he should not tell me much." He stated that while it was done under his general authority, he did not do it. The President referred General Stone to General Halleck who stated that the arrest was made on the recommendation of General McClellan. This was a surprise to General Stone, for General McClellan had but recently written him that he had full confidence in his devotion and loyalty. General Halleck replied that he knew of that letter, and that "the Secretary of War had expressed great surprise at it because he said that General McClellan himself had recommended the arrest, and now seemed to be pushing the whole thing on his [the secretary's] shoulders." The search for the agency that would frankly admit responsibility was rendered still more difficult by the denial of the Committee on the Conduct of the War that the arrest had ever been recommended by them, either collectively or individually. They had simply forwarded to the Secretary of War such evidence as was submitted to them.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ARREST.

General Stone appeared before the Committee on the Conduct of the War on the 27th of February, 1863--nearly five months after his release from imprisonment. He was allowed to see the testimony which had hitherto been withheld from him, and answered all the accusations in detail with convincing candor and clearness. As he proceeded in his triumphant response to all the accusations against him, the committee said "Why did you not give us these explanations when you were here before?"--"Because," replied General Stone, "if the chairman will remember, the committee did not state to me the particular cases. . . . I gave general answers to general allegations." General Stone stated further to the committee that he ought himself to have asked for a Court of Inquiry after the reverse at Ball's Bluff. "The reason why I did not," he continued, "was this: While General McClellan was at Edward's Ferry, he showed me a telegram which he had written to the President to the effect that he had examined into the affair at Ball's Bluff and that General Stone was entirely without blame." "After the expression of that opinion," said General Stone, "it would not have been respectful to ask for a Court of Inquiry. It was given by the highest authority and sent to the highest authority, and as a soldier I had no right to ask for justification except of my superiors." Subsequently, on the occasion of Mr. Conkling's speech "severely criticising" General Stone's conduct in connection with the affair at Ball's Bluff, the General applied to the aide-de-camp of General McClellan, as likely to be informed of the Commander's wishes, to know if he "should ask for a Court of Inquiry," and the reply was "No." He then asked if he should make a statement correcting the mistakes in Mr. Conkling's speech. The reply was "Write nothing; say nothing; keep quiet." The committee asked General Stone, as a military man, "Who had the power to bring you to trial?" He answered "When I was arrested, the General-in-Chief, General McClellan, had that power. I know I should claim that power if any man under my command were arrested."

GENERAL STONE'S RESIGNATION.

The responsibility for the arrest and imprisonment of General Stone must, according to the official record of the case, rest on Secretary Stanton, Major-General McClellan, and the Committee on the Conduct of the War. It is very clear that Mr. Lincoln, pressed by a thousand calls and placing implicit confidence in these three agencies, took it for granted that ample proof existed to justify the extraordinary treatment to which General Stone was subjected. General Stone is not to be classed in that long list of private citizens temporarily confined without the benefit of habeas corpus, on the charge of sympathizing with the Rebellion. The situation of those persons more nearly assimilates with that of prisoners of war. It differs totally from the arrest of General Stone in that the cause of detention was well known and very often proudly avowed by the person detained. The key of their prison was generally in the hands of those who were thus confined,--an honest avowal of loyalty and an oath of allegiance to the National Government securing their release. If they could not take the oath they were justifiably held, and were no more injured in reputation than the millions with whose daring rebellion they sympathized. But to General Stone the government permitted the gravest crime to be imputed. A soldier who will betray his command belongs by the code of all nations to the most infamous class--his death but feebly atoning for the injury he has inflicted upon his country. It was under the implied accusation of this great guilt that General Stone was left in duress for more than six weary months, deprived of all power of self- defense, denied the inherited rights of the humblest citizen of the Republic. In the end, not gracefully but tardily, and as it seemed grudgingly, the government was compelled to confess its own wrong and to do partial justice to the injured man by restoring him to honorable service under the flag of the Nation. No reparation was made to him for the protracted defamation of his character, no order was published acknowledging that he was found guiltless, no communication was ever made to him by National authority giving even a hint of the grounds on which for half a year he was pilloried before the nation as a malefactor. The wound which General Stone received was deep. From some motive, the source of which will probably remain a mystery, his persecution continued in many petty and offensive ways, until he was finally driven, towards the close of the war, when he saw that he could be no longer useful to his country, to tender his resignation. It was promptly accepted. He found abroad the respect and consideration which had been denied him at home, and for many years he was Chief of the General Staff to the Khedive of Egypt.

It is not conceivable that the flagrant wrong suffered by General Stone was ever designed by any one of the eminent persons who share the responsibility for its infliction. They were influenced by and largely partook of the popular mania which demanded a victim to atone for a catastrophe. The instances in which this disposition of the public mind works cruel injury are innumerable, and only time, and not always time, seems able to render justice. Too often the object of popular vengeance is hurried to his fate, and placed beyond the pale of that reparation which returning reason is eager to extend. Fortunately the chief penalty of General Stone was the anguish of mind, the wounding of a proud spirit. His case will stand as a warning against future violations of the liberty which is the birthright of every American, and against the danger of appeasing popular clamor by the sacrifice of an innocent man. Throughout the ordeal, General Stone's bearing was soldierly. He faced accusation with equanimity and endured suffering with fortitude. He felt confident of ultimate justice, for he knew that it is not the manner of his countrymen "to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him."

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