CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
23
Threats of Southern leaders-Secret
preparations for war--Treachery of Buchanan's Cabinet--Conduct of Floyd--Shipment of arms
and ammunition to the Southern States--Seizure of Government property by the
rebels--Dispersion of the Navy--Secession of South Carolina--The Government in possession
of the Conspirators--The inauguration of President Lincoln--Official declaration that
force will be used to defend public property--The conspirators attack Fort Sumter--The
effect in the South--The uprising of the North--The condition of the War
Department--Response to the call for 75,000 troops--Washington threatened--Treachery of
Virginians--Harper's Ferry and Gosport Navy Yard destroyed--Riot in Baltimore--The route
to the Capital re-opened.
The political leaders in the Southern
States had so frequently threatened secession and the dissolution of the Union, that the
people of the North heard with indifference the menace repeated at the return of each
presidential election. During the administration preceding the inauguration of President
Lincoln, the Southern leaders openly prepared for war. Military companies were organized,
equipped and drilled, at the expense of the government, and the communities of the South
Atlantic and Gulf States were put on a war footing. No tocsin of alarm was sounded. The
work of preparation went on quietly and stealthily, it is true, but vigorously, and with
organized system. In the spring of 1860, the conspirators, emboldened by their previous
successes, declared openly, that unless they were permitted to choose for the
succession, a man for President of the United States, committed to their own peculiar
principles, they would secede from the Union and establish a confederacy, of the Southern
States, wherein the slaveholder might enjoy the rights and privileges of his domestic
institution, unmolested by external interference. The extreme ignorance of
24
the lower
classes of the white population in the slave States, placed them wholly in the power of
those who plotted treason against the government. They were taught to believe that the
greatest calamity that could befall them and all the inhabitants of the Southern States,
would be a government administered by a "Republican" President, and that the
only means of escape from this was secession and the establishment of an independent
Confederacy. Though the leaders thus taught the people, they at the same time diligently
labored to ensure the election of the Republican candidate; and having succeeded in
this, they called on the ignorant and misguided masses to take up arms and resist the
authority of President Lincoln. During the administration of James Buchanan, the
traitors occupied the fortifications, barracks and arsenals of the army; seized the
yards and docks of the navy; plundered the mints and custom houses; sent abroad the
ships of war; corrupted the regular army; bankrupted the Treasury; destroyed the credit of
the United States, and so completely demoralized the National Government, that but for
the virtue and latent patriotism of the loyal people in the Northern States, the free
institutions of America would have been irretrievably lost. Not only had the leaders
labored to disarm the people and demoralize the government by seizing the forts, arsenals
and treasure, by dispersing the fleet and disorganizing the army, but they had placed in
the several departments at the National Capital, men on whom they could rely for
assistance. They were equally diligent in garrisoning the fortifications on the Southern
coast with men of their own choosing, and in marshaling armies for the field. For, however
short-sighted and blinded by treason, these men were not without serious apprehensions of
a sudden uprising of the people in defence of the government and the honored flag of the
country. To armies hastily organized and indifferently armed, they had prepared to
oppose companies and
regiments
and batteries familiar with the evolutions on the field and skilled in the manual of arms.
25
Abraham Lincoln was elected President
of the United States on the 7th day of November, 1860, but would not enter upon the duties
of that office until his inauguration on the 4th day of March, 1861. In the mean time,
James Buchanan, who had been elected to his office, openly pledged to pursue the general
policy of the slaveholders, administered the affairs of the nation. The government was
virtually in the hands of the conspirators, and they had yet four months in which to
mature their nefarious schemes. Never was time more industriously employed. The members of
the President's Cabinet were among the boldest of the conspirators, and unscrupulous and
dictatorial, they enthralled him by superior councils, and involved him in a policy which,
though he knew was disastrous to the Nation, he had not power to change. His advisers
watched him keenly as do beasts of prey their victim, and, with commendations or threats,
moulded him to execute their will. Howell Cobb, a slaveholder and leading conspirator in
Georgia, was Secretary of the Treasury; he employed the powers of his official position
to destroy the credit of the Nation and leave an exhausted treasury to the new
Administration. Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, was Secretary of the Interior, and, though
a weak man, he served as spy and informer to the conspirators, and in Cabinet meetings
voted with his associates in treason. John B. Floyd, of Virginia, Secretary of War, having
greater power for evil, outstripped all others in crime against the government he had
sworn to defend. Ile scattered the standing army of the United States in remote
fortresses, in the far west, and left the forts in the Southern States ungarrisoned. He
disarmed the Northern States by emptying their arsenals and sending the arms into the
Southern States, where they could be seized and used by the insurgents. One hundred and
fifteen thousand stand of arms were taken from Springfield, Mass., and Watervliet, N. Y.,
and distributed throughout the slave States. A vast amount of heavy ordnance and ordnance
stores were transferred to the disaffected States; cannons, mortars, balls,
26
shells,
powder, and all the materials of war, were shipped in large quantities to rebel
storehouses. Having thus depleted the War Department, over which be presided, Floyd re
signed his office as Secretary, and at once joined the rebel army, in which he received a
high commission. Isaac Toucy, of Connecticut, a pliant tool in the hands of the
conspirators, was Secretary of the Navy. Including vessels of every class, the United
States Navy consisted of ninety vessels carrying about two thousand four hundred guns.
It was of the utmost importance to
the conspirators, that this arm of the Nation's defence, should be rendered powerless at
the hour it would be most needed by the government. The gallantry and high-sense of honor,
that obtained among the officers of the fleet, and the pride with which each commander
regarded his vessel and the flag it bore on the high seas, rendered hopeless the traitors'
schemes of corruption, so successfully plied against the officers at Washington. If the
fleet commanders could not be converted to plots of treason, it was essential to the
purposes of the conspirators, that the fleet should be dispersed in a manner that would
render it unavailable for defence. Accordingly, it was dispersed. In the report of the new
Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, made July 4tb, 1861, it is stated that five war
vessels were sent to the East Indies, three to Brazil, seven to the Pacific Ocean, three
to the Mediterreanean, seven to the coast of Africa and others to other distant waters, so
that of the whole squadron, but two vessels, carrying twenty-seven guns and two hundred
and eighty men, were left at home in Northern ports, and available to the government at
the time of the attack made by the rebels on Fort Sumter. Earnest men in the North
regarded this unprecedented dispersion of the fleet of the Nation, with suspicion and
alarm, even before the facts were published in the official report of Secretary Welles.
The House of Representatives appointed a select committee of five, to examine into the
condition of the navy, and to inquire into the conduct of Secretary Toucy. This committee
reported to the House on the 21st of February, 1861, and after stating in what manner the
fleet was dispersed, made use of the following language: "F.rom this statement it
will appear, that the entire naval force available for the defence of the whole Atlantic
coast, at the time of the appointment of this committee, consisted of the steamer
Brooklyn, twenty-five guns, and. the store-ship Relief, two guns. While the former was of
too great draft to permit her to enter Charleston harbor with safety, except at
springtide, the latter was under orders to the coast of Africa with stores for the African
squadron. Thus the whole Atlantic seaboard has been, to all intents and purposes, without
defences during all the period of civil commotion, and lawless violence to which the
President has called our attention, as ‘of such vast and alarming proportions as to
be beyond his power to check or control.’
"The committee cannot fail to
call attention to this extraordinary disposition of the entire naval force of the
country, and especially in connection with the present no less extraordinary and
critical juncture of political affairs. They cannot call to mind any period in the past
history of the country, of such profound peace and internal repose, as would justify so
entire an abandonment of the coast of the country to the chance of fortune. Certainly,
since the nation possessed a navy, it has never before sent its entire available force
into distant seas, and exposed the numerous interests at home, of which it is the special
guardian, to the dangers from which, even in times of the utmost quiet, prudence and
forecast do always shelter them. To the committee this disposition of the naval force at
this most critical period, seems extraordinary. The permitting of vessels to depart for
distant seas, after these unhappy difficulties had broken out at home; the omission to
put in repair and commission, ready for orders, a single one of the twenty-eight ships
dismantled and unfit for service, in our own ports, and that, too, while six hundred and
forty-six thousand six hundred and thirty-nine dollars and seventy-nine cents of the
appropriation for repairs in the navy, the present year, remained unexpended,
28
were, in the
opinion of your committee, grave errors----without justification or excuse."
Thus was the government despoiled by
its sworn officers; the most sacred trusts were betrayed; the property of the government
was delivered to its enemies by the men whose sworn duty it was to defend and preserve it,
and the government itself was on the very point of being unconditionally surrendered
into the hands of the conspirators. It is difficult to find any where in the annals of
history, so great weakness surrounded by arrogance so unscrupulous, and controlled by
treachery so infamous. The Executive, aroused to a sense of the dangers that surrounded
him, in a delirium of terror and alarm, recommended the unconditional surrender of the
government to the demands of those who plotted for its destruction. The North was called
on to surrender every thing. The South was only to consent to accept the surrender. A
"Peace Congress" was convened at Washington. to arrange the catalogue of
concessions the North was required to make to Slavery. Seven States were unrepresented.
Their leaders had resolved on a dismemberment of the Union, And the establishment of a
confederacy, whose foundation should be slavery. They refused to take part in the Peace
Convention, and regarded with scorn any measures that interfered with their mad designs.
The convention adjourned on the 27th of February, 1861, and their deliberations and plans
of adjustment were soon forgotten. Compromises and resolutions of pacification, were
offered in the Senate of the United States, and discussed at great length; but over and
above all schemes of politicians and compromises offered by statesmen, stood the one great
fact, that the State of South Carolina, through the representatives of her people in
convention assembled, as far as it was possible for them so to do, proceeded formally to
secede from the United States, and to break up the government of the American Union, by
passing the following resolution: "We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in
convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby de-
29
clared and
ordained, that the ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the 23d of May, in the year
of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America vas ratified,
and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying the
amendments of said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and that the union now subsisting
between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America is
hereby dissolved."
In the face of this official
declaration on the part of the conspirators in South Carolina, it was impossible for loyal
sovereigns in the North to consent to, much less to offer, any terms of compromise. The
new Administration acted on this principle, and demanded that the conspirators should
retract their acts of hostility against the United States, as preliminary to compromise
and terms of pardon. It was, however, not the purpose of the rebels to retract, not even
to suspend hostilities. Many believed that a peaceful separation might be effected; but
the leaders prepared for war and were resolved on enforcing their resolutions of secession
by arms in open war.
Throughout the Southern States, the
slaveholding secessionists brought into requisition every instrument of terror within
their grasp to crush out the last vestige of loyalty to) the Union. " Vigilance
Committees" and " Minute Men" were organized in the cities and large towns,
to execute the commands of the chief conspirators, and it is a notable fact, that wherever
these organizations were established, treason was most successful. Those who could not be
controlled by persuasion and coaxing, were dragooned and bullied, by threats and jeers. By
this means, when the question of secession was nominally, submitted to a popular vote,
thousands of well-disposed citizens voted for immediate secession through timidity, and
many more, who at heart were too loyal to be guilty of the slightest overt act of treason
against the government, quietly remained at home, in order to escape violence. "To be
candid," says a Southern journalist, speak-
30
ing of the
election, "there never has been so much lying and bullying practised, in the same
length of time, since the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as has been in the recent
campaign"
" The big heart of the people is
still in the Union, and we hope to see it yet assert its supremacy. It is now subjugated
temporarily to the will of the politicians. Less than a hundred thousand politicians are
endeavoring to destroy the liberties and usurp the rights of more than thirty millions of
people. If the people permit it, they deserve the horrors of the civil war which will
ensue ; they deserve the despotism under which they will be brought, and the hard fate
which will be their lot."
The stout heart gave utterance to
these sounds of warning, in the midst of traitors; they fell not unheard on the ears of
men not yet wholly mad, but through fear, were unheeded.
Forts Creswell and Johnson, on the
coast of North Carolina, were seized by the rebels on the 8th of January, 1861. On the
9th, a convention in the State of Mississippi passed an ordinance of secession. On the
11th, an armed force from New Orleans seized the United States Marine Hospital, two miles
below the city, expelled the patients and converted the buildings into barracks for rebel
troops. On the same clay, the secessionists of Florida and Alabama declared those States
out of the Union. They seized the navy yard and Fort Barancas at Pensacola. The rebels in
Mississippi blockaded the Mississippi river at Vicksburg, by placing a battery of field
pieces on the bluff; and compelled every vessel passing to heave to and be searched. On
the Arkansas river a vessel, with government supplies for the garrison at Fort Smith, was
seized and confiscated to the use of the rebels. On the 15th, the rebels in Florida
surprised and captured the United States Coast Survey Schooner Dana. On the 19th, a
convention in Georgia, by a vote of two hundred and eighty-eight against eighty-nine,
voted that State out of the Union. On the 21st, Jefferson Davis, United States Senator
from the State of Mississippi, who continued to
31
occupy his
seat after the secession of the State he represented, withdrew from the Senate to place
himself at the head of the rebels. On the 26th, the convention in Louisiana passed an
ordinance of secession. This convention was an usurpation. No returns have ever been made
of the vote by which the members claimed to have been elected. It is believed, that in
defiance of the threatened reign of terror, the people of that State voted against
secession. The convention was nevertheless packed to the pleasement of the leaders, and
the ordinance was adopted with only seventeen dissenting voices in a convention of one
hundred and thirty delegates. On the 31st, the rebels in New Orleans, silencing, by
threats of Lynch law, every honest patriot who would offer a remonstrance, seized the
custom-house and the United States Mint, containing government deposits to the amount of
five hundred and eleven thousand dollars.
On the 4th of February, forty-two of
the leading conspirators met in Montgomery, Alabama,, representing the States of
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The
object of the convention was the organization of a new nation,-the Southern
Confederacy,-to consist of the seven States above named, and such other States as might
subsequently secede from the Union and be added to the Confederacy. Without the slightest
misgivings, these men undertook to revolutionize a nation whose territory spans a zone of
the continent, and the number of whose people exceeds thirty millions. They deemed
themselves sovereign umpires, and arrogated to their convention the power to frame a
Constitution, adopt Articles of Confederation, and establish a permanent government. The
people were ignored and had no voice in the revolution. History affords no parallel to
such audacious usurpation; and yet, so sagaciously was the affair managed, that the
ignorant masses at the South were led as obediently as plantation slaves to unrewarded
labor. After performing the grave ceremonies of creating a nation, these same forty-two
delegates chose Jefferson Davis President, and Alexan-
32
der H.
Stevens Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy. On the 18th, Jefferson Davis and
Alexander II. Stevens were inaugurated at Montgomery in the offices to which they had been
elected by the convention.
Everything thus seemed to go
prosperously for the Confederacy, and the conspirators -were loud in their declarations
that God favored their enterprize and would give it success. All this time the government
was apparently powerless. The slaveholding States bounding the free States on the south,
called the "border States," did not secede, but threatened to do so if the
government attempted to coerce the seceded States back into the Union. This policy of
"No Coercion," which governed the action of the leaders in the border States,
was a device of traitors to enthral these States into the new doctrine of constitutional
secession. No action of these non-seceded States could have been more embarrassing to
the authorities at Washington. They thus formed a, bulwark, behind which the seceded
States deliberately and securely prepared for war; and from and through which they drew
supplies of arms and men.
Soon after the inauguration at
Montgomery, a member of the Military Committee declared, "We have arms, and in
abundance, though no armories. Every State has amply provided itself to meet any emergency
that may arise, and is daily purchasing and receiving cannon, mortars, shells, and other
engines of destruction with which to overwhelm the dastard adversary. Organized armies now
exist in all the States, commanded by officers, brave, accomplished, and experienced; and
even should war occur in twenty days, I feel confident that they have both the valor and
the arms successfully to resist any force whatever."
The people of the free States
regarded the progress of the rebellion with composure; and quietly, but with intense
latent emotion, awaited the inauguration of President Lincoln. Relief was not hoped for
during Buchanan's administration. This the conspirators well knew, and hence were
prepared to resist the inauguration of an administration
33
pledged to
resist the usurpation of the slave power. The attempt to assassinate President Lincoln on
his passage to the Capital failed, and his administration was duly inaugurated on the
4th of March, 1861.
In his
inaugural address, Mr. Lincoln said:
"I therefore consider that, in
view of the Constitution and laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability
I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins on me, that the laws of
the Union be faithfully executed in all the States; doing this I deem to be only a
simple duty on my part, and I shall -perform it, so far as practicable, unless my
rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or, in some
other authoritative manner, direct the contrary.
"I trust this will not be
regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose that as to the Union, I will
constitutionally defend and maintain it. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or
violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The
power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy and possess the property and places
belonging to the government, and to collect the duties on imports; but beyond what may be
necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among
the people anywhere.
"Physically speaking, we cannot
separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an
impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced and go out of the
presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different parts of our country
cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and. an intercourse either amicable
or hostile must continuo between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more
advantageous or more satisfactory after separating than before? Can aliens make treaties
easier than friends can snake laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between
aliens than laws among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always, and when,
after much
34
loss on both
sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions as to terms
of intercourse are again upon you.
"This country, with its
institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary . of
the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or
their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.
"The Chief Magistrate derives
all his authority from the people, and they have conferred none upon him to fix terms for
the separation of the Status. The people themselves can do this also, if they choose, but
the Executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present
government as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his
successor"
When Abraham Lincoln, by virtue of
his constitutional election, assumed the administration of the government of the United
States, he found all the offices at Washington administered by appointees of the preceding
administration, which was notoriously under the control of the conspirators. The heads of
Departments, the chiefs of Bureaus, clerks and messengers, with few exceptions, were
unreliable, and could not, with safety to the government, be retained in office. The city
of Washington was threatened with attack from the rebels in the ,South, when at the same
time it was literally swarming with spies and assassins who would inform, and co-operate
with, the enemy without.
On the 18th of February, Joseph Molt,
a distinguished and patriotic citizen of Kentucky, into whose hands the portfolio of the
War Department `vas entrusted on the retirement of the traitor Floyd, addressed a letter
to President Buchanan, in reply to a resolution of the House, inquiring into the state of
the defences of the city of Washington. The following extract from that letter describes
the condition of affairs at the time of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration:
"The overthrow of the Federal
authority has not only been sudden and widespread, but has been marked by ex-
35
cesses which
have alarmed all, and been sources of profound humiliation to a large portion of the
American people. Its history is a history of surprises, and treacheries, and ruthless
spoliations. The forts of the United States have been captured and garrisoned, and hostile
flags unfurled upon their ramparts. Its arsenals have been seized, and the vast amount of
public arms they contained appropriated to the use of the captors, while more than half a
million of dollars, found in the Mint at New Orleans, have been unscrupulously applied to
replenish the coffers of Louisiana. Officers in command of revenue cutters of the United
States, have beenprevailed on to violate their trusts, and surrender the property in
their charge; and instead of being branded for their crimes, they, and the vessels they
betrayed, have been cordially received into the service of the seceded States.
"At what time the armed
occupation of Washington City became a part of the revolutionary programme, is not
certainly known; more than six weeks ago, the impression had already extensively obtained,
that a conspiracy for the accomplishment of this guilty purpose was in process of
formation, if not fully matured. The earnest endeavors made by men known to be devoted to
the revolution, to hurry Virginia and Maryland out of the Union, were regarded as
preparatory
steps for the subjugation of Washington.
"The nature and power of the
testimony thus accumulated may be best estimated by the effect produced upon the popular
mind. Apprehensions for the safety of the capitol were communicated from points near and
remote, by men
unquestionably
reliable and loyal. The resident population became disquieted, and the repose of many
families in the city was known to be disturbed by painful anxieties. Members of
Congress, too, men of calm and comprehensive views, and of undoubted fidelity to their
country, frankly expressed their solicitude to the President and to this department, and
formally
insisted that the defences of the capitol should be strengthened. With such warnings, it
could not be forgotten that, had the early admonitions which reached here in regard
36
to the
designs of lawless men upon the forts of Charleston harbor, been acted on by sending
forward adequate reinforcements before the revolution began, the disastrous political
complications that ensued might not have occurred.
"Impressed by these
circumstances and considerations, I earnestly besought you to allow the concentration at
this city of a sufficient military force, to preserve the public peace from all the
dangers that seemed to threaten it. An open manifestation on the part of the
administration of a determination, as well as of the ability to maintain the laws, would,
I was convinced, prove the surest as also the most pacific means of baffling and
dissolving any conspiracy that might have been organized. It was believed, too, that the
highest and most solemn responsibility resting upon a President withdrawing from the
government was, to secure to his successor a peaceful inauguration"
The words of this address were the
first official declaration to the world, that the government .would, if necessary,
employ force to defend the Constitution and enforce the laws of the nation. The rebels
now gave up all hopes of peaceful separation. The government was now pledged to the loyal
people, to use force to hold, occupy and possess the public property and collect the
lawful duties and imports. The conspirators in this, the declared purpose of the new
administration, had but two alternatives: either they must surrender the forts,
arsenals, mints, custom houses, vessels and other public property, and acknowledge their
ordinances of secession to be void, or they must defend them with armed force. Nothing was
more foreign to the purposes of the self-constituted officers of the conspiracy, than
submission to the authority of Mr. Lincoln's administration. They chose the terrible
alternative of civil war.
The leaders felt the necessity of
arousing the people and of creating a popular furor in favor of the Confederacy. They
resolved to take the initiative in open hostilities, and by storming some weakly
garrisoned fort, and hoisting the Confederate banner on the proud place, honored by the
flag
37
of the
nation, "fire the heart of the South," and amid excitement and confusion.
create an army that would be able successfully to resist the small standing army of the
Union. It was supposed that the South, once committed to war, would be compelled by pride
to support the leaders, and continue the conflict. Every possible preparation was made,
with all the expedition the facilities at their command would admit of, for an attack on
Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. Fortifications were erected on the islands opposite the
fort, iron-clad batteries were constructed in every available position on shore, and
formidable engines of war floated in the harbor. To man these and to defend the city they
had collected at Charleston an army of ten thousand men.
On the 11th of April, the rebels sent
a demand to the United States garrison to surrender. Major Robert Anderson replied that
" his sense of honor and his obligation to the government would prevent his
compliance." He, however, at the same time, informed them that the garrison were
nearly starved out, and if no supplies reached them before the 15th, they would be
compelled to surrender.
A peaceful surrender would not
accomplish the purposes of the rebel leaders, and hence, at half past four o'clock on the
morning of the 12th of April, the rebels, commanded by General Beauregard, opened fire
upon Fort Sumter and the flag of the United States, and thus inaugurated a civil war,
which was to cost more than two hundred thousand lives, to distress and impoverish
countless families, to imperil the existence of free institutions, and to subvert the
doctrine of republican governments. This outrage upon our country's fiaa was received
throughout the rebellious States with all the demonstrations of pride and joy. The conduct
of the last administration at Washington had brought the people in the South to look upon
the government with contempt, and they had no apprehensions that it would now manifest
sufficient vitality to attempt to punish their treason.
The action of the rebels at
Charleston was telegraphed throughout the States, and when the people heard that Fort
38
Sumter had
been captured, after two days' bombardment, and that the national flag had been. hauled
down to make room for the banner of traitors, the land was filled with patriotic
indignation. The uprising at the North was such as the world never witnessed before. Up to
the day of the attack on Sumter, there were few men in the North who believed the rebels
would commence civil war. The threats and bluster of the Southern politicians were
regarded as a more violent repetition of similar demonstrations in the past. As the news
of the insult to the national dignity, of the battle and of the capture of the fort by the
rebels was flashed along the wires and radiated from every station, excitement,
unparalleled in the history of the world, pervaded every city, hamlet and fireside. Party
distinctions were forgotten, and a united people thought only of the public peril and of
means to defend the government.
On the 15th of April, President
Lincoln issued a proclamation, calling out '15,000 volunteers, to serve during a terra
of three months, and at the same time summoned Congress to convene in extra session on the
4th of July. Never, perhaps, were a people found less prepared for war, than were the
people of the Northern States, yet the response to this call for troops was prompt
and-cordial. Four days after the date of the call, troops from States remote from the
capital were already thronging its streets, and the War Department was overwhelmed with
men anxious to serve in defence of their country.
The President had exercised, in the
organization of his administration, a wise and liberal judgment. William II. Seward, of
New York, was appointed Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the
Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Connecticut,
Secretary of the Navy; Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster-General ; Edward Bates,
of Missouri, Attorney-General; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior.
Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, thus
describes the
39
condition his department when he entered upon his duties:
"Upon my appointment to the position, I found the department destitute of all means
of defence; without guns and with little prospect of purchasing the material of war. I
found the nation without any army, and I found scarcely a man throughout the whole War
Department in whom I could put my trust. The Adjutant-General deserted. The
Quartermaster-General ran oil: The Commissary-General was on his death-bed. More than half
the clerks were disloyal." This was the condition of the War Department little more
than a month before '15,000 troops were called into the field, and the capital of the
nation menaced by a well organized army.
Immediately after the capture of
Sumter, Jefferson Davis, the proclaimed head of the conspirators, issued a proclamation,
authorizing privateers to be fitted out in all the ports of the South, to prey upon the
commerce of the United States. Against these piratical vessels, the vast merchant marine
of the United States was utterly defenceless. Treachery had dismantled .and dispersed
the fleet, and there were no convoys to guard the merchantmen. As a protection against the
rebel privateers, the President, on the 19th of April, announced the blockade of all the
ports in the seceded States. At the same time, the Secretary of the Navy put forth all the
strength of his department to create a navy, and in less than three months, over three
hundred vessels of war were in active service.
Encouraged by the successful attack
on Sumter, the rebels -prepared to make a desperate effort to gain possession of
Washington before the North could gather forces for its defence. A plot was formed for the
capture of the city, by a conspiracy of Virginians with prominent secessionists in
Washington, leagued with traitors of influence and wealth in Baltimore. The Virginians, to
the number of about three thousand, were to seize the arsenal at Harper's Ferry, which
contained twenty-five thousand stand of arms, and thus supply themselves with weapons and
ammunition. They
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were then to
make a rapid descent on Washington, and marching into the streets of the city, they would
be joined by organized bands of traitors, armed to the teeth and ready to receive them. In
the midst of the terror and confusion created by the sudden assault from without and from
within, the conspirators would seize on some of the most important public buildings and
convert them into fortresses, from whence they could command the city until the arrival of
reinforcements from Richmond. In the meantime, the conspirators in Baltimore were to cut
off all communication with the North, by burning bridges, tearing up railroads, and
cutting the telegraph. Should troops attempt to march through Baltimore to the defence of
the capital, armed mobs were to attack them in the streets, and impede their progress
until Washington could be strongly garrisoned by reinforcements.
The government were made acquainted
with this plot just in time to thwart it and save the city. Gen. Scott quietly took
possession of the capital, behind whose massive walls a few trusty soldiers could maintain
a desperate defence. A party of three hundred men, commanded by General James Lane, of
Kansas, bivouacked in the East Room of the White House; and the " CASSIUS M. CLAY
BATTALION" patrolled the streets at night and guarded the public buildings. The very
limited means left at the disposal of the Secretary of War, were used to the best possible
advantage to guard against a surprise. The Long Bridge across the Potomac was patrolled by
a detachment of dragoons; and a battery of light artillery was placed at the end of the
bridge, on the Washington side.
Lieutenant Jones of the United States
army, with a garrison of forty-three men, held Harper's Ferry. On the 19th of April, at
ten o'clock in the night, he received reliable information that three thousand Virginians,
despatched by Governor Letcher, were within two hours march of Harper's Ferry, approaching
from Winchester, and that three hundred troops from Hallstown were within half a mile of
the
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arsenal. The
little band of defenders had heroically prepared to blow up the arsenal and destroy the
arms and ammunition should they find the enemy approaching in overpowering numbers.
Accordingly, when convinced that over three thousand men were about descending on the
garrison, Lieutenant Jones ordered the torch to be applied, and, in a few minutes, all the
buildings of the army were in flames. The garrison retired in safety across the river. The
secessionists at Harper's Ferry made every effort to extinguish the flames and save the
munitions of war for their approaching friends. Failing to obtain the government
property, in a burst of rage they rushed across the river to pursue the heroic band, whose
loyalty had defeated their attempt to appropriate the arms of the government, and firing
upon them, succeeded in killing three of their number. At daylight next morning about
five thousand Virginia troops were holding the important post.
This action on the part of the
Virginians took place while that State was still nominally in the Union. For, though a
convention in secret conclave had passed an ordinance of secession, it was kept a
profound secret from the community, in order that plans, not yet matured, might be adopted
for seizing Fortress Monroe, the Gosport Navy Yard, and the arsenal at Harper's Ferry.
On the night of the 16th of April, by
order of Governor Letcher, a large number of boats laden with stones were sunk in the
mouth of James river, in order to prevent the passage out of the large ships lying in the
harbor. Immediate arrangements were made to seize the navy, yard. Many of the petty
officers in the yard were traitors, and labored to baffle the efforts of loyal men to
protect the public property. On the 18th, many of the naval officers resigned their
commissions, and passed over to the rebel service, surrendering to the enemy, as far as
was in their power, the most extensive and important naval station in America. The history
of the world will scarcely show, among civilized men, any act of dishonor so flagrant.
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It was now evident that the yard,
with its immense stores of materials, could not be preserved. Not a moment was to be lost.
On the 21st of April, at seven o'clock in the evening, the steamship Pawnee left
Fortress Monroe with six thousand men on board to aid in the destruction of the yard and
to bring oft' the loyal men. The steamer reached Gosport at nine o'clock. The crews of the
Cumberland and the Pennsylvania received their deliverers with hearty applause. The
Pawnee made fast to the dock, landed the troops, and seized all the gates of the yard that
no foes could enter. All that could possibly be removed was placed on board the vessels to
the extent of their capacity. Everything that could not be removed and that could prove
valuable to the rebels was destroyed. Shot, shell, carbines, stands of arms, revolvers,
were thrown overboard from the vessels that could not be towed over the obstructions.
Nearly three thousand heavy guns, splendid Columbiads and Dahlgrens, were spiked.
At midnight, when the light of the
moon had gone out, the barracks were set on fire, and the crackling flames, leaping from
basement roof, illumined the scene with a
fearful glare. The trains were laid and the matchcs prepared to set on fire houses,
shops, ships, everything that would burn. At four o'clock the torch was applied, and in
less than half an hour the whole yard was enveloped in flames. Thus were the labors of
half a century lost in an hour.
The traitors in Baltimore acted
promptly with their friends in Virginia. They tore up the railroad through the streets,
and resisted the passage of Northern troops through the city. As the troops from
Massachusetts, on the 19th of April, were marching through Baltimore on their way to
Washington, they were hideously beset by an armed mob bearing a secession flag. They were
assailed from behind street corners, from doors, windows and housetops, by men armed with
pistols, guns, stones, clubs, and all the implements of savage warfare. A Pennsylvania
regiment was preparing to follow the Massachusetts troops in cars. They
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were
unarmed, and it was deemed imprudent to attempt to cross the city. The men were therefore
returned to Philadelphia. The secessionists had thus effectually obstructed the passage
of troops to the national capital over the only direct and expeditious route. For a time,
troops were forwarded through Annapolis and up the Potomac river. Baltimore was for
the time in the possession of the secessionists. It was determined, however, that the
soldiers from the North should fight their way through every obstruction. As soon,
therefore, as Washington was safe, United States volunteers were ordered to march by the
direct route to their capital, through the streets of Baltimore, or over the grounds where
the city once stood.
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