History of the United States, v.3, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 15, Part 1: Outbreak of the Civil War through Unanimity of the Southern People

CHAPTER XV

The people of the North, to the last praying and hoping that actual hostilities might be averted, were profoundly moved by the news that civil war had begun. The shot at Sumter convinced nearly every one that the time of argument and compromise, of speech and entreaty, had given way to rude action; that the difficulty could not be composed by Congress, by conventions, or solved at the ballot-box, and that this peace-loving people must interrupt their industrial civilization and gird on the activity of war.1 With excitement and with sorrow they followed the course of the bombardment; with stern determination their minds accepted the policy which this grave event portended; and when on Monday, April 15, they read of the President's call for 75,000 militia to suppress combinations obstructing the execution of the laws in seven of the Southern States, they gave with one voice their approval of the policy foreshadowed, and rose almost as one man to the support of their chief magistrate.2 The blood of this people was stirred
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1 The most interesting and instructive parallel to this period of our history is the great Civil War in England. The history of this, by Gardiner, furnishes many suggestions of value to the student in the way of illustration and guidance. Of the opening he writes: "The Civil War, the outbreak of which was announced by the floating of Charles's standard on the hill at Nottingham, was rendered inevitable by the inadequacy of the intellectual methods of the day to effect a reconciliation between opposing moral and social forces which derived their strength from the past development of the nation."—Vol. i. p. 1.
2 "That first gun at Fort Sumter which brought all the free States to their feet as one man. That shot is destined to be the most memorable one ever fired on this continent, since the Concord fowling-pieces said, 'That bridge is ours, and we mean to go across it.' "—J. R. Lowell, article The Pickens-and-Stealin's Rebellion, Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861, p. 762.

as it had not been stirred since the days of the Revolution.1 The sentiment of patriotism rose supreme in all hearts. The service of the country superseded bread-winning labor and business, and called for the sacrifice on its altar of parental feeling and wifely tenderness. It was the uprising of a great people. Militia regiments and military companies, formed merely for the exercise of the drill, for social intercourse, and for Fourth-of-July parades, made haste to get ready for the conflict. Men who had never dreamed of a soldier's life hurried to enlist. Laborers, mechanics, clerks, students and professors of the colleges, many sons of wealthy and influential families, enrolled themselves for the common cause. Men of position in civil life went out as officers of companies and regiments, but when such places were lacking, they shouldered muskets and served in the ranks. Individuals, towns, cities, and States offered money freely. Patriotism spake from the pulpit, the platform, the stump, and with the mighty voice of the press, urging able-bodied men to devote their lives, and wealthy citizens to give of their abundance to their country in its time of need. The passions then kindled at the North inspired with a magnificent energy a people who, it was thought, were given over to money-getting and sordid calculation. "At the darkest moment in the history of the republic," Emerson wrote, "when it looked as if the nation would be dismembered, pulverized into its original elements, the attack on Fort Sumter crystallized the North into a unit, and the hope of mankind was saved.'" The feeling that
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1 "The heather is on fire. I never before knew what a popular excitement can be. . . . Indeed, here at the North there never was anything like it; for if the feeling were as deep and as stern in 1775, it was by no means so intelligent or unanimous; and then the masses to be moved were as a handful compared to our dense population now."—George Ticknor to Sir Edmund Head, April 21, Life of George Ticknor, vol. ii. p. 433.
2 Cabot, p. 605,

the South had been precipitate and unreasonable, and that she was clearly in the wrong, was almost universal. That she had wickedly rebelled, and without just and sufficient cause had begun a civil war, well expressed the sentiment of those who, stirred by passionate speech at the public meetings, went thence and enrolled themselves as volunteers. The speakers asserted that the people must preserve the Union and maintain the government; and this was clearly the purpose in the minds of the men who enlisted during the first months of the war. With all this enthusiasm and excitement in unison with a plain perception of duty, grave care sat on the brows of serious men, and their days of concern were followed by nights of unrest,1 for they saw that American nationality was at stake, and that the struggle for the right might be severe and prolonged.

The President in his proclamation called for 75,000 State militia. The War Department, in communicating the particulars to the governors, requested that they detail from their militia their respective quotas to serve as infantry or riflemen for three months, and stated that as soon as practicable after assembling at each appointed rendezvous they would be mustered into the service of the United States. The designation of this short period was not in any way an expression of a belief by the President or his cabinet that the war would last only ninety days; the authority
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1 General J. D. Cox writes: "The situation hung upon us like a nightmare. Garfield and I were lodging together at the time (in Columbus) . . . and when we reached our sitting-room after an evening session of the Senate [of the Ohio legislature], we often found ourselves involuntarily groaning, 'Civil war in our land!' The shame, the folly, the outrage seemed too great to believe, and we half hoped to wake from it as from a dream. Among the painful remembrances of those days is the ever-present weight at the heart, which never left me till I found relief in the active duties of camp-life at the close of the month. I went about my duties (and I am sure most of those with whom I associated did the same) with the half-choking sense of a grief I dared not think of; like one who is dragging himself to the ordinary labors of life from some terrible and recent bereavement."—Century War Book, vol. i. p. 87.

for the call was the Act of 1795, which permitted "the use of the militia so to be called forth" only for "thirty days after the commencement of the then next session of Congress."1 "Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion," the President had summoned Congress to meet on the 4th of July, and, in accordance with the act, he commanded the combinations opposing the execution of the laws "to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days." The governors of the free states and the legislatures which were in session went to work with energy and zeal. "The response of the country," said the President in his Fourth-of-July message, "was most gratifying, surpassing in unanimity and spirit the most sanguine expectation." In answer to the call of April 15, and a subsequent one for three-years troops, there were in the field on the 1st of July, at the command of the government, 310,000 men.2

The response of the Republicans was most natural. Seward and Chase, conservatives and radicals, were at one. Party fealty combined with love of country to influence their action. The organization and the drill of the Wideawakes in the presidential campaign may have contributed to the result. Yet in fact party lines seemed to be obliterated. No party cry was heard. Men apparently forgot that they had been Republicans or Democrats. The partisan was lost in the patriot. On the evening of the Sunday on which Fort Sumter was evacuated, Douglas, at his own request, had a long confidential interview with Lincoln.3
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1 For the legal question involved in this call see NationalIntelligencer, April 16. One section of the Act of 1795 expressly provided that the militia should not be compelled to serve more than three months in anyone year.
2 Report of Secretary of War, July 1. But according to the report of the Provost-Marshal-General there were in the service, July 1, 1861, of both regulars and volunteers, but 186,751 men, Phisterer's Statistical Record, p. 62.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 80.

The journals of the next morning, which published the call for troops, informed the country that the great leader of the Democrats had spontaneously pledged himself "to sustain the President in the exercise of all his constitutional functions to preserve the Union, maintain the government, and defend the federal capital."1 He represented and led more than a million Northern voters. It was known the next day that Buchanan sympathized heartily with the North.2 Everett, who had been a friend of the South and held by her in high esteem, charged her with "acts of treason and rebellion," described the firing on Fort Sumter as an "unutterable outrage upon the flag of the Union," and declared that she had inaugurated "the unprovoked and unrighteous war." 3

Walker, the Confederate Secretary of War, in a public speech at Montgomery the evening after the bombardment of Sumter had commenced, said, "The flag which now flaunts the breeze here will float over the dome of the old Capitol at Washington before the 1st of May."4 Northern people read this threat in the same issue of the journal that printed the President's call for troops, and their fears for the safety of Washington, which were already great on account of the probable secession of Virginia and the doubt as to the position of Maryland, were thereby intensified.
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1 Associated Press despatch, April 14.
2 New York Tribune, April 16. Buchanan was positive in his letter to Dix, April 19: "The present administration had no alternative but to accept the war initiated by South Carolina or the Southern Confederacy. The North will sustain the administration almost to a man; and it ought to be sustained at all hazards."—Life of Curtis, vol. ii. p. 543; see, also, p. 541.
3 Boston Evening Transcript, cited in Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 206; see, also, p. 161.
4 New York Tribune, April 15; NationalIntelligencer, May 9. Stephens throws some doubt as to the correctness of this report, and further argues that if these words were really used they are susceptible of a different construction from that commonly given, War between the States, vol. ii. p. 481.

"The immediate apprehensions of the government are for this city," wrote Lord Lyons, the British minister.1 The first efforts of the administration were directed towards making safe the capital, "the heart," as Everett termed it, "of the body-politic."2 The national and State authorities combined with the people to hurry forward soldiers for the defence of Washington. But one Northern State was fully ready for the emergency, and that was Massachusetts. Her governor, John A. Andrew, immediately after his inauguration in January, had caused the militia of the State to begin drilling actively and regularly in their armories. Five thousand men, of whom three thousand were armed with Springfield rifles, were in some measure prepared for war. On Tuesday, April 16, they commenced to muster in Boston. On Wednesday the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment armed with rifles started for Washington.3 On the 19th, in passing through Baltimore from the Philadelphia to the Washington railroad depot, they were violently attacked by a mob. The soldiers fired upon their assailants. Several companies had to fight their way through the city. Four soldiers, a number of the mob, and a prominent citizen of Baltimore, a mere looker-on, were killed, but the regiment succeeded in getting to their train on the Baltimore and Washington Railroad, and soon afterwards were in the capital city. On the same train with the Massachusetts Sixth had come one thousand Pennsylvania volunteers who had neither arms nor uniforms, but expected to get them at Washington; as it would have been madness for them to make the attempt to pass through the city, they were, by advice of the governor and the mayor and by direction of the railroad authorities, sent back as far north as the
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1 Despatch to London, cited in Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 545. Russell wrote to the London Times from Montgomery, May 8, "I have no doubt in my mind that the government here intended to attack and occupy Washington."
2 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 206.
3 Schouler's Massachusetts in the Civil War, pp. 33, 51, 72; Appleton.

Susquehanna River. Baltimore was in a frenzy.1 The secessionists and Southern sympathizers were rampant; stifling the Union sentiment of the city, they carried everything before them with a high hand and dictated the action of the constituted authorities. "The excitement is fearful. Send no more troops here," telegraphed Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown to the President. So great was the commotion that the State and city military were called out to assist the police in preserving the peace. In Monument Square a mass meeting assembled whose sentiment was decidedly opposed to any attempt at coercion of the Confederate States. More troops were on the way, and the order from the War Department was, "Send them on prepared to fight their way through if necessary."2 Apprehending "a terrible collision and bloodshed" and fearful consequences to Baltimore if the troops were not stopped, Mayor Brown and Marshal Kane consulted together and came to the decision that it would be wise to burn some of the bridges on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and on the Northern Central Railroad, which went to Harrisburg. Receiving a very reluctant assent from Governor Hicks, the order was given at midnight of the 19th and carried out.3 At the same time a committee of citizens was sent by special train to Washington
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1 The Baltimore Daily Exchange, in speaking of "the affair which has plunged our city in gloom and roused our people almost to madness," said: "The conduct of the troops who are guilty of this massacre will be regarded by impartial men everywhere with disgust and reprobation; for whatever differences of opinion there may be in regard to the extent and character of the provocations offered to the soldiers, it is an indisputable fact that they bore themselves like cowards in wantonly firing upon citizens who were congregated at places far away from the points at which any collision occurred."
2 This order was telegraphed in cipher to Felton, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, and was not known to the Baltimore authorities. It was nevertheless patent to them that no troops would be able to get through the city without a fight.
3 Governor Hicks denied that he gave his consent. See his letter to the people of Maryland, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. ii., Docs., p. 181.

with a letter from the mayor, approved by the governor, begging that the President should send no more troops through Baltimore. Early on Saturday morning, April 20, the committee had an interview with Lincoln, who, after consultation with General Scott, wrote a letter to Hicks and Brown saying that troops must be brought to Washington, but that if it were practicable and proper in the judgment of the general, they would be taken around Baltimore, and not through it. Such an arrangement was substantially agreed to the next day between Mayor Brown—who had been summoned to Washington by Lincoln—the President, the Secretary of War, and General Scott. To this Governor Hicks had given his assent.1

The seven days since the evacuation of Sumter had been crowded with events which gave rise to deep anxiety. April 17 the Virginia convention, in secret sitting, passed an ordinance of secession, and this was known the next day to the President.2 As an answer to Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops, Jefferson Davis by proclamation invited applications for letters of marque and reprisal against the merchant marine of the United States.3 As a rejoinder, the President on the 19th proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports from South Carolina to Texas inclusive, and declared that privateers acting "under the pretended authority " of the Confederate States would be treated as pirates.4 On the 18th the commander at Harper's Ferry, deeming his position untenable, abandoned it, demolished the arsenal, and burned the armory building.5 On the 20th the Gosport navy yard was partially destroyed by the Union forces and left to the
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1 My authorities for this account are official despatches, letters, statements, and reports in Official Records, vol. ii. p. 7 et seq., p. 578 et seq.; Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 123; Congressional Globe, 1st Session 37th Congress, p. 201; Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. chap. vi.
2 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 70; Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 104; Washington despatches to New York Tribune, April 17 and 18; Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 641.
3 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 71.
4 Ibid., p. 78.
5 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 3 et seq.

possession of the Virginians.1 It seemed to Chase, as he querulously stated it to the President," that the disunionists have anticipated us in everything, and that as yet we have accomplished nothing but the destruction of our own property."2 April 20 Robert E. Lee, who was esteemed by Scott the ablest officer next to himself in the service, and who had been unofficially offered the active command of the Union army,3 resigned his commission. The situation demanded
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 21.
2 Letter of April 25, Life of Chase, Schuckers, p. 424.
3 Francis P. Blair stated on the 14th day of April, 1871: "In the beginning of the war Secretary Cameron asked me to sound General Robert E. Lee, to know whether his feelings would justify him in taking command of our army. His cousin, John Lee, sent him a note at my suggestion. Lee came. I told him what President Lincoln wanted him to do. He wanted him to take command of the army. Lee said that he was devoted to the Union. He said, among other things, that he would do everything in his power to save it, and that if he owned all the negroes in the South, he would be willing to give them up and make the sacrifice of the value of everyone of them to save the Union. We talked several hours on the political question in that vein. Lee said he did not know how he could draw his sword upon his native State. We discussed that matter at some length, and had some hours of conversation. He said he could not decide without seeing his friend General Scott. He said he could not, under any circumstances, consent to supersede his old commander. He asked me if I supposed the President would consider that proper. I said yes. Then had a long conversation on that subject. He left the house and was soon after met by a committee from Richmond. He went with them, as I understood from some friends afterwards, to consult the Virginia convention as to some mode of settling the difficulty. I never saw him afterwards.
"The matter was talked over by President Lincoln and myself for some hours on two or three different occasions. Secretary Cameron and myself talked some hours on the same subject. The President and Secretary Cameron expressed themselves as anxious to give the command of our army to Robert E. Lee. I considered myself as authorized to inform General Lee of that fact. I do not believe that Secretary Chase was consulted on the subject or that there was any regular cabinet consultation, for the reason that Lee did not agree to take command of the army."
Statement made by Captain James May, of Rock Island, Ill., to Chief-Justice Chase, April 28, 1871, in Washington.—Chase Papers, MS. In this manner I shall refer to the private papers of Salmon P. Chase which have been kindly placed at my disposal by his daughters, Mrs. Chase and Mrs. Hoyt, through the instrumentality of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. See, also, Montgomery Blair to Bryant, National Intelligencer, August 9, 1866, cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 98. Lee himself wrote to Reverdy Johnson, February 25, 1868, as follows: "I never intimated to any one that I desired the command of the United States army, nor did I ever have a conversation but with one gentleman, Mr. Francis Preston Blair, on the subject, which was at his invitation, and, as I understood, at the instance of President Lincoln.
"After listening to his remarks I declined the offer he made me to take command of the army that was to be brought into the field, stating, as candidly and courteously as I could, that, though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States.
"I went directly from the interview with Mr. Blair to the office of General Scott—told him of the proposition that had been made to me and my decision. Upon reflection, after returning home, I concluded that I ought no longer to retain any commission I held in the United States army, and on the second morning thereafter I forwarded my resignation to General Scott.
"At the time I hoped that peace would have been preserved—that some way would be found to save the country from the calamities of war; and I then had no other intention than to pass the remainder of my life as a private citizen.
"Two days afterwards, on the invitation of the governor of Virginia, I repaired to Richmond, found that the convention then in session had passed the ordinance withdrawing the State from the Union, and accepted the commission of commander of its forces which was tendered me. These are the simple facts of the case." — Life of Lee, Long, p. 93.

correct apprehension and prompt decision. The gravity of it was heightened by the severance of communications between the national capital and the North as a result of the trouble in Baltimore. The burning of the bridges had cut off all railroad communication. Sunday night (April 21) the telegraph ceased to work.1 The only connection the government now had with its loyal territory and people was by means of private couriers; these made their way with difficulty through Maryland, where for the moment an unfriendly element reigned. Correct information was hard to get and rumors of all sorts filled the air. The government and the citizens were apprehensive of an attack on the city. They feared that Beauregard's South Carolina
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 586; Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 138; Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 550; New York Tribune.

army, flushed with victory, would be transported north as fast as the railroads could carry it, and that it would be joined by a large enough force of Virginia troops to make the capture of Washington an easy matter. Preparations were made to stand a siege. Panic seized the crowds of office-seekers, and they fled to the North. Many of the secessionists, afraid that the whole male population of the city would be impressed for its defence, departed for the South. This place, wrote General Scott, April 22, is "now partially besieged, threatened, and in danger of being attacked on all sides in a day or two or three."1 On the same day, Northern soldiers having arrived at Annapolis, Governor Hicks advised the President "that no more troops be ordered or allowed to pass through Maryland "; he suggested, moreover, " that Lord Lyons be requested to act as mediator between the contending parties of our country."2 Another project was to have the five ex-Presidents beseech the federal government to grant an armistice.3 Lincoln clearly stated his position on this Monday (April 22), in his reply to a delegation from the Young Men's Christian Association of Baltimore, who prayed that no more troops be sent through Maryland : "You express great horror of bloodshed, and yet would not lay a straw in the way of those who are organizing in Virginia and elsewhere to capture this city. ... I have no desire to invade the South; but I must have troops to defend this capital. Geographically it lies surrounded by the soil of Maryland, and mathematically the necessity exists that they should come over
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 587.
2 Hicks to the President. Official Records, vol. ii. p. 588. For Seward's reply of April 22 see Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 133. It was printed in the New York Tribune, April 24.
3 "I know the fact that the administration would have been requested by the five ex-Presidents to grant an armistice but for the hesitancy of Mr. Van Buren, who declined to unite until he should be assured that the administration desired to be approached in that way."—William D. Kelley to Chase, Philadelphia, April 29, Chase Papers, MS.; see, also, editorial in New York Tribune, April 29.

her territory." 1 Having a keen appreciation of how much depended on his holding the capital, the President was alarmed for its safety and nervously apprehensive at the outlook. As Tuesday the 23d passed by and no soldiers came, he paced the floor of the executive office in restless anxiety and thinking himself entirely alone, he exclaimed in tones of anguish, "Why don't they come! Why don't they come!"2 That same day had brought a mail from New York three days old, containing newspapers which told that the uprising of the North continued with waxing strength and unbounded enthusiasm, giving the news of the departure of the Seventh New York Regiment and the sailing of Governor Sprague's Rhode-Islanders. It was the bitterness of hope deferred that led Lincoln, in his speech on Wednesday to the wounded soldiers of the Sixth Massachusetts, to burst out ironically: "I begin to believe that there is no North. The Seventh Regiment is a myth. Rhode Island is another. You are the only real thing." 3

Nowhere may the uprising of the Northern people be better studied than in New York city, where on a grand scale might be witnessed the manifestations of that spirit which animated every city, town, and village from Maine to Kansas. The people and the press, with insignificant exceptions, showed a hearty loyalty to the Union. From the day that the news of the bombardment of Sumter
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 139. R. Fuller, a prominent Baptist minister of Baltimore, who was the spokesman of the Young Christians, thus wrote Chase from Baltimore, April 23: "From Mr. Lincoln nothing is to be hoped, except as you can influence him. Five associations, representing thousands of our best young men, sent a delegation of thirty to Washington yesterday . . . and asked me to go with them as the chairman. We were at once cordially received. I marked the President closely. Constitutionally genial and jovial, he is wholly inaccessible to Christian appeals, and his egotism will forever prevent his comprehending what patriotism means."—Chase Papers, MS.
2 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 152.
3 J. H., Diary. Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 153. L. E. Chittenden, in chap, xviii. of his Recollections of President Lincoln, gives an animated account of " The Isolation of the Capital."

came, when the Stock Exchange resounded with enthusiastic cheers for Major Anderson, every indication showed that the weight of the financial and trade centre of the country would be on the side of the national government. Party ties here as elsewhere were sunk in the common devotion to the flag. This was especially disappointing to the South since, owing to her business connection and social intercourse with New York city, and to the large Democratic majority which it always gave, she had reckoned upon the friendship of the metropolis,1 and regarded it as an important factor in dividing the North, a result which she had confidently expected. The mayor, Fernando Wood, had proposed that, in the event of disunion, New York should constitute itself a free city, retaining its commerce with both sections,2 and, unless John Forsyth was wofully deceived, a conspiracy had gathered head to carry out that purpose.3 William H. Russell, the correspondent of the
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1 "Will the city of New York 'kiss the rod that smites her' and at the bidding of her Black Republican tyrants war upon her Southern friends and best customers? Will she sacrifice her commerce, her wealth, her population, her character, in order to strengthen the arm of her oppressors ?"— Richmond Examiner, April 15.
2 Mayor's message, New York Herald, January 8.
3 Forsyth, one of the Confederate commissioners to the United States, wrote Jefferson Davis from Washington, April 4: "While in New York last week, I learned some particulars of a contemplated revolutionary movement in that city. ... I was called upon by a gentleman by the name of , who asked to speak confidentially to me. Leave granted, he proceeded to inform me that a movement was on foot to relieve New York city and' its surroundings' of the ruin with which that city was threatened. The people of New York, he said, were living under a double tyranny—the one located at Albany and reaching their domestic affairs, and the other at Washington, breaking up their foreign trade. The evil was so great as to justify a revolution for relief. To this end 200 of the most influential and wealthy citizens of New York had been approached, and were then arranging the details of a plan to throw off the authority of the federal and State governments, to seize the navy-yard at Brooklyn, the vessels of war and the forts in the harbor, and to declare New York a free city. The military of the city had been felt and found responsive; the mayor of the city, while not taking a leading part from considerations of policy, will at the proper time throw his whole power into the movement. Several army officers are in it, two of the principal ship builders and the leading merchants and capitalists of the city. The movement is to be divested of everything like party aspects, and among the conspirators are several who, although never Republicans, voted for Lincoln under the then Northern delusive idea that a sectional President might be elected with safety to the Union. The night of the day I left the city a private meeting was to be held, and a circular which was read to me in manuscript and which has since been forwarded to me in print, . . . was to be distributed for signatures. There was no doubt that 30,000 or 40,000 signatures would be obtained to it in a week. The plan is to procure a powerful demonstration of public feeling, and to follow up the demonstration by a coup d'etat to be arranged beforehand. The forts are to be possessed by furnishing the recruits from the ranks of the conspirators who are daily being collected and sent to those forts by the government. , the ship-builder, and his associates say that they can convert enough of the merchant marine in the port of New York into a naval force to drive the United States ships out of the harbor at very short notice. Being on an island they can resist attack, and in a few hours concentrate 50,000 men at any point of assault.
"The object of the interview with me was to learn what would be the disposition of the Confederate States government towards such a movement. . .. The circular enclosed was read to me by Dr. , a distinguished practitioner and a gentleman of high position and large fortune in that city—a man heretofore devoted to science, and one of the men least likely to take part in a revolution. Such, I am assured, is the class of men who have taken hold of it.
''The tone of the gentleman who conversed with me was one of deep earnestness and firm resolve. They say that New York is being punished for its large Democratic vote, that they have no confidence in the ability of the Black Republican administration to govern them wisely or justly, and that the great masses only need to be shown the way to rush into the revolution. They speak with confidence of success at an early day. . . . Mr. Russell, the Crimean correspondent of the London Times, is here. He goes south to study this revolution. We are cultivating him, and give him a dinner to-morrow."—MSS. Confederate Diplomatic Correspondence, Treasury Department. I have suppressed the names in this despatch, as they do not add materially to its force.

London Times, was, in March, struck by the indifference with which prominent men of the metropolis regarded the impending trouble.1 But now the voice of its people gave
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1 Dining with a New York banker, Russell "was astonished to perceive how calmly he spoke of the impending troubles. His friends, all men of position in New York society, had the same dilettante tone, and were as little anxious for the future, or excited by the present, as a party of savants chronicling the movements of a ' magnetic storm.'"—Entry March 17, Diary, p. 14. Later Russell dined with Horatio Seymour, Samuel J. Tilden, and George Bancroft, and wrote, "The result left on my mind by their conversation and arguments was that, according to the Constitution, the government could not employ force to prevent secession, or to compel States which had seceded by the will of the people to acknowledge the federal power."—Ibid., p. 20. July 2, when, after a trip through the South, he returned to New York, he was amazed at the change. "As long as there was a chance that the struggle might not take place, the merchants of New York were silent, fearful of offending their Southern friends and connections, but inflicting infinite damage on their own government and misleading both sides. Their sentiments, sympathies, and business bound them with the South ; and, indeed, till 'the glorious uprising' the South believed New York was with them, as might be credited from the tone of some organs in the press, and I remember hearing it said by Southerners in Washington that it was very likely New York would go out of the Union! When the merchants, however, saw the South was determined to quit the Union . . . they rushed to the platform—the battle-cry was sounded from almost every pulpit—flag-raisings took place in every square, like the planting of the tree of liberty in France in 1848, and the oath was taken to trample secession under foot and to quench the fire of the Southern heart forever.
"The change in manner, in tone, in argument, is most remarkable. I met men to-day who last March argued coolly and philosophically about the right of secession. They are now furious at the idea of such wickedness." —Ibid., p. 370.

no uncertain sound. The tone was the same as that heard in New England and the West. The flag waved everywhere. The resoluteness with which those suspected of Southern sympathies were warned to raise the sign of loyalty, and their speedy compliance, were a certain indication of the prevailing sentiment. In twenty-four hours the New York Herald, a journal of wide influence with a Southern leaning, though apt to go with the popular current, changed its tune, clearly demonstrating the opinion of the Democratic majority.1 The New York Seventh Regiment,
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1 "The people of this metropolis owe it to themselves, to their material and political interests, to their social security, and to the country at large to make a solemn and imposing effort in behalf of peace."—New York Herald, April 15. "The time has passed for such public peace meetings in the North as were advocated, and might have effected some beneficial result, a few weeks since. War will make the Northern people a unit. Republicans look upon it as inevitable, and Democrats have been becoming gradually disgusted at the neglect and ingratitude with which they have been treated by a section for which they have faithfully borne the heat and the burthen of conflict for so many years."—Ibid., April 16.

the corps of the elite, offered its services to the government, and when it left for Washington, Friday the 19th, the heart of the metropolis went with it. As those fine fellows marched down Broadway, an enormous crowd with true sympathy and hearty accent bade them god-speed. "It was worth a life, that march," wrote Theodore Winthrop, who fifty days later laid down his own life on Virginia soil for the cause of the Union. "Only one who passed, as we did, through that tempest of cheers two miles long, can know the terrible enthusiasm of the occasion." 1 Patriotism fitly ended the week by a grand demonstration. With the city a mass of the national colors, a quarter of a million people2 met in and about Union Square to hear Union speeches, to do homage to Major Anderson, and to pledge themselves to the maintenance of the Union and the defence of the Constitution. Distinguished men of all the political parties spoke in the same strain; clergymen of various denominations offered up prayers of like tenor. The Catholic archbishop, Hughes, kept at home by illness, wrote a letter expressing his full sympathy with the object of the meeting. Mayor Fernando Wood declared: "I am with you in this contest. We know no party now."3

The New York Seventh Regiment left for Washington the day that the Massachusetts Sixth was attacked in Baltimore. It was learned on their arrival at Philadelphia early on the morning of Saturday the 20th that it would be impossible to reach the capital city by the usual route. Colonel Lefferts of the Seventh telegraphed the Secretary of War for orders.4 There was considerable delay in the transmission
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1 Winthrop in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861, p. 745. See, also, Fitz-James O'Brien in New York Times, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i„ Docs., p. 148.
2 A newspaper estimate.
3 New York Times, New York Herald, April 21; New York Tribune, April 22; Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 82.
4 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 582.

of messages, and before he received a reply he chartered a steamer to take his regiment direct to Washington. He embarked his troops Saturday afternoon, but deciding that it was not prudent to attempt the passage of the lower Potomac, he directed the course of the transport up Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis, arriving there Monday morning the 22d. There he found, under the command of General Butler, the Massachusetts Eighth, which had gone from Philadelphia to Perryville by rail and thence by boat, but had not yet disembarked. Governor Hicks was at his capital earnestly advising Butler not to land the troops, and counselling the President to send them elsewhere.1 Both of the regiments landed Monday afternoon under the governor's protest. Every one was eager to get to Washington. But much of the railroad track from Annapolis to the junction with the main line from Baltimore to Washington had been torn up. Experienced track-layers were called for, and these stepped forth from the ranks of the Massachusetts Eighth, and began to relay and spike the rails. Massachusetts machinists repaired a disabled locomotive which they had built in the days of peace. Wednesday morning the march to Annapolis Junction began. Some rickety cars attached to the locomotive carried the brass howitzers of the Seventh, and served as a baggage, supply, ambulance, and construction train. All sorts of rumors in regard to an attack from secessionists in force along the route were afloat, and it was deemed necessary to proceed with caution. The march was along the railroad. "The kid-gloved New York dandies," the "military Brummels," fraternized with the Massachusetts mechanics; the gourmets who had partaken of many a dinner at Delmonico's ate their scanty campaign fare with good-humor and relish. They shared their rations with their Massachusetts compatriots, and gave them assistance in laying track. "Our march," wrote O'Brien, "lay through an arid, sandy, tobacco-growing
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. pp. 586, 588.

country. The sun poured on our heads like hot lava." A furious wind-storm and a heavy shower which wet them through were among the trials they had to endure. Eight miles from Annapolis they came to a broken bridge. A working party was called for. At twilight the bridge could be crossed. Night fell, but the capital was thought to be in danger and the troops must press on. Although moonlight, the march was monotonous and fatiguing. The little army struggled manfully against their difficulties, and by the early morning of Thursday, April 25, had reached Annapolis Junction, completing their march of twenty miles.1 There they found a train which took them quickly to Washington. The Seventh Regiment arrived first. Forming as soon as they left the cars, they marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. To the people who noted their military bearing, and to the President who reviewed them, they were a goodly sight. Their actual presence, and the fact denoted by their arrival—that a route from the loyal North to its capital was open, and that other regiments were on the way soon to arrive—insured the safety of Washington. "Ten thousand of our troops are arrived here," wrote Seward, April 27, "and the city is considered safe."2

The alarm in regard to Washington was natural, but not well-founded. During these eventful eleven days (from the evacuation of Sumter to the arrival of the New York Seventh) the capital had been in no danger of capture. The Northern authorities and people looked at the situation wholly from a military point of view, and from that view an attempt to take it was feasible, and would probably have met with success. Beauregard could have transported by railroad his army of 5000 to 6000 3 from Charleston to
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1 For lively descriptions of this march see Theodore Winthrop in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1861; letter of Fitz-James O'Brien, April 27, in the New York Times, May 2.
2 Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 560.
3 I think this a low estimate of his effective force. The official return of the South Carolina army shown to Russell, April 21, was: in Charleston harbor and Charleston, 7025 men; in Columbia, 1950; in the field, 3027; total, 12,002.—Letter to London Times.

Alexandria in three or four days.1 Six to fifteen thousand Virginia militia,2 though all had not the best of equipment, were available to join him. The number of troops in Washington is variously given.3 The only assurance that General Scott could give the President, Monday, April 22, was that he could defend "the Capitol, the arsenal, and all the executive buildings against 10,000 troops not better than our district volunteers." 4 The military conditions of capture were fulfilled. Beauregard's army had something like three months of discipline, and, supported by the Virginia militia,
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1 The time of express trains from Charleston to Washington was about forty-one hours. On the facilities for the transportation of troops see Bird, railroad superintendent, to Walker, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 771. Leaving Charleston April 23, a detachment of 450 South Carolina troops was transported from Charleston to Richmond in about thirty-six hours, Richmond Examiner, April 25. A. K. McClure writes that General Scott said to him, April 15, "General Beauregard commands more men at Charleston than I command on the continent east of the frontier," and that Beauregard could transport his army to Washington in three or four days. Lincoln said to Scott, "It does seem to me, General, that if I were Beauregard I would take Washington."—McClure's Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 60.
2 Various statements are made about this number. Virginia's "armed soldiery numbers now some 10,000 men, of which not more than 6000 are completely equipped."—Scott, a delegate in the Virginia convention, April 13, Richmond Examiner, April 15. "It will be seen by the proclamation of the governor . . . that the entire military force of the State has been ordered to hold itself in readiness to march at a moment's warning. The equipped force of volunteers in this State—by which we mean armed and equipped—is now between 6000 and 7000 men."—Ibid., April 18. April 25 Stephens, then in Richmond, reported 15,000 troops there, Johnston and Browne, p. 399. All but 450 of these were Virginians. April 21 there were 2000 at Harper's Ferry, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 772.
3 "We have some four to five thousand men under arms in the city." —Personal Memorandum, April 19, J. G. N., Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 125. "Until the day before yesterday we had not 2500 men here under arms."—Cameron to Thomson, April 27, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 604; see General Scott's reports, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 66 et seg.
4 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 144. As to the District of Columbia militia, ibid., pp. 66, 106.

could, had he made a dash upon Washington, have probably taken it. The moral effect of the seizure of the nation's capital by the revolutionists would have been so momentous, in all likelihood insuring the immediate recognition of the Southern Confederacy by the European powers, that it is no wonder the President and his cabinet were preyed upon by deep anxiety. Stanton, in his emphatic way, expressed the general feeling. "The state of affairs here," he wrote Dix, April 23, is " desperate beyond any conception. If there be any remedy—any shadow of hope to preserve this government from utter and absolute extinction — it must come from New York without delay."1 As a matter of fact, however, with the exception of the reckless and unmeaning boast of the Confederate Secretary of War,2 nothing has been disclosed showing that any design existed, or that any movement had been set on foot during these eleven days by the Confederate States or by Virginia towards the capture of Washington. "There is no truth whatever," wrote Stephens, confidentially, from Montgomery, April 17, "in the telegraphic despatches that the President intends to head an expedition to Washington."3 The newspapers, indeed, flashed out threats, and in their sanctums the taking of the federal capital was seriously considered and planned;4 there was a popular feeling that it might be and
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1 Life of Dix, vol. ii. p. 18.
2 Ante.
3 Johnston and Browne, p. 396. "Whether Mr. Walker did make such a speech as reported by that telegram, or not, I do not know. ... I do know that such were not the views of the cabinet or of the people generally of the Confederate States."—Stephens's War Between the States, vol. ii. p. 421.
4 "Attention, volunteers 1 Nothing is more probable than that President Davis will soon march an army through North Carolina and Virginia to Washington. Those of our volunteers who desire to join the Southern army, as it shall pass through our borders, had better organize at once for the purpose, and keep their arms, accoutrements, uniforms, ammunition, and knapsacks in constant readiness."—Richmond Enquirer, April 13. "Washington is to be the seat of war. Washington is the great prize in dispute, and if Southerners will rush instantly upon it the war will soon be ended."—Richmond Examiner, April 20. "The capture of Washington City is perfectly within the power of Virginia and Maryland, if Virginia will only make the proper effort by her constituted authorities. . . . The entire population pant for the onset; there never was half the unanimity amongst the people before, nor a tithe of the zeal upon any subject that is now manifested to take Washington, and drive from it every Black Republican who is a dweller there. . . . Our people can take it — they will take it—and Scott the arch-traitor and Lincoln the beast, combined, cannot prevent it."—Ibid., April 23; see citations from Southern newspapers in National Intelligencer, May 9; Richmond Whig, cited by Moore, vol. i., Diary, p. 74.

ought to be done.1 Stephens, on his arrival at Richmond, April 22, found "a strong inclination on the part of some here to make an attack upon Washington;" he added, "What course and policy will be adopted is not yet determined upon." 2 A movement on the capital must have depended on Beauregard's army as the nucleus of the attacking force. No part of it reached Richmond until the evening of the 24th; 3 and at mid-day of the 25th the New York Seventh was in Washington. While Lincoln feared the Charleston army, Beauregard was "apprehensive of an attack by the Northern ' fanatics' before the South is prepared." 4 The panic in Washington was matched by the panic in Richmond. On Sunday, April 21, about noon, the report spread that the United States steamer Pawnee, having a large force of troops on board, was steaming up James River with the intention of attacking Richmond. The bell on the Capitol rang out the alarm. Men rushed from the churches and, seizing their weapons, hastened to the wharf to oppose the landing of the federal soldiers. Not until evening were the unfounded fears entirely dissipated.'' 5
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1 Richmond Examiner, April 24.
2 Johnston and Browne, p. 399.
3 Richmond Examiner, April 25; letter from "Stonewall" Jackson, Biography, by his wife, p. 149.
4 Entry, April 25, Russell's Diary, p. 136.
5 Richmond Enquirer, April 22; Richmond Examiner, April 22; Life in the South, by a Blockaded British Subject (Catherine C. Hopley), vol. i. p. 278; Richmond During the War, Sarah A. Putnam (1867), p. 24. Down South, by Samuel Phillips Day, vol. i. p. 100. Stephens wrote, April 22: "The people are in apprehension this city will be attacked by the forces now in the Chesapeake and Potomac below. There are no forts on the James River to prevent armed ships from coming up. The Pawnee, Cumberland, and others, with a large force of soldiers at Old Point, are below." See, also, A Rebel's Recollections, Eggleston, p. 22.

Although the capture of Washington was from a military point of view feasible, the political obstacles to a dash upon it were insurmountable. The doctrine of state rights, which was sincerely held in the Southern States, not only furnished the theory of secession, but it was maintained in a certain degree as against each other.1 North Carolina not yet having seceded, the Confederate troops could not have been transported over her territory without her consent; that, indeed, was easily obtained, but consumed somewhat of time. The great difficulty lay with Virginia. The government of the State was now in the hands of the convention, which in the early part of April had voted against secession, 2 and of the governor, Letcher, who had not sympathized with the secessionists of his State.3 When the convention passed the ordinance resuming the "rights of sovereignty" of Virginia, which they did April 17, the vote of 88 in its favor to 55 against it, and the submission of it to the popular vote at an election to be held on the fourth Thursday of May, did not indicate that those in authority had any notion of proceeding with rashness or without some
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1 "We sincerely hope that no effort will be made by citizens of the South to take possession of the city of Washington and to expel the officials of the government of the United States from their abodes or offices. If any such effort be made before Virginia and Maryland shall have seceded from the Union of the United States it will be very disastrous to the cause of secession. It will raise the State pride of the citizens of these proud commonwealths, who will not be able to see with indifference their territories lawlessly invaded and used for an unlawful purpose. And when these States have seceded it will be for them to settle their relations towards Washington."—Charleston Mercury, April 19; see, also, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, Jones, p. 27. 2 Ante, p. 345.
3 Note his action the day the news of the taking of Sumter was received at Richmond, Richmond Enquirer, April 16; Richmond Examiner, April 18.

respect for the forms of law.1 No great significance, however, need be laid upon the proviso that the ordinance required ratification by the people before taking effect, since matters proceeded on the assumption that they would make it valid;2 yet the course of the Virginia authorities precluded the prompt military action which was indispensable for the capture of Washington; and it is clearly evident that without her spontaneous consent and active co-operation no movement could have been made. April 19, Governor Letcher telegraphed to Montgomery, asking that a commission from the Confederate States be sent at once to Richmond, in order that the two governments might act conjointly. Stephens, the Vice-President of the Confederacy, was selected for this duty. 3 Three days after his arrival he complained of the tardy disposition of Virginia. "The Virginians will debate and speak," he wrote, "though war be at the gates of their city. . . . The convention acts slowly —they are greatly behind the times.3 Nevertheless on that day, the 25th, the convention ratified the offensive and defensive alliance between Virginia and the Confederacy, which its committee and Stephens had agreed to, and it also adopted the constitution of the provisional government of the Confederate States, though declaring that this act should have no effect if the people at the appointed time rejected the ordinance of secession.5 It was not until this
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1 Jones, in A Rebel War Clerk's Diary, makes the following entry, April 19: "From the ardor of the volunteers already beginning to pour into the city, I believe 25,000 men could be collected and armed in a week, and in another they might sweep the whole abolition concern beyond the Susquehanna. . . . But this will not be attempted, nor permitted, by the convention, so recently composed mostly of Union men."
2 " The ordinance of secession will be submitted as a matter of course to a vote of the people. But it will be a mere formality. The ratification will be carried by one almost unanimous shout."—Richmond Whig, April 23. Likewise the Richmond Enquirer, April 19, and Richmond Examiner, April 26.
3 Johnston and Browne, p. 397.
4 Letter of April 25, ibid., p. 399.
5 Stephens's War between the States, vol. ii. pp. 378, 887; Johnston and Browne, p. 399.

agreement had been concluded that the Virginian and Confederate forces could legally unite in a military movement, and by that time the alarm about Washington had come to an end. On the 24th there were but three hundred Virginians at Alexandria fit for duty, while the force in Washington was greatly overrated by their general.1 Robert E. Lee, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Virginia forces, instructed him that he should "let it be known that you intend no attack, but invasion of our soil will be considered an act of war."2

The only indication I have found which, before April 25, looked towards co-operation between the Confederate government and Virginia, and which might have eventuated in an attack on Washington, is a despatch from Davis to Letcher of the 22d, saying," Sustain Baltimore if practicable. We reinforce you." 3 On the same day the Advisory Council of Virginia recommended the governor to deliver 1000 of the arms taken at Harper's Ferry to General Stewart at Baltimore, and to loan from the arsenal at Lexington 5000 muskets to the Maryland troops, to enable them to resist the passage of Northern troops to Washington.4 Two thousand of these arms were actually delivered.5 The doctrine of state rights, rigidly adhered to as it was by many Southerners, required the consent of Maryland for an attack on the national capital, for the District of Columbia was considered her soil.6 Hoping that she
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1 Cocke to Lee, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 776. He estimated the army in Washington as numbering 10,000 to 12,000. The Richmond Examiner was nearer right. "Exclusive of the District militia," it said, April 26, "Lincoln's whole force now at his immediate command does not probably exceed 500 regulars and 4000 raw militia."
2 Lee to Cocke, April 24, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 777. Lee accepted the command of the Virginia forces April 23, Life of Lee, Long, p. 98.
3 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 773.
4 Ibid.; see, also, Richmond Enquirer, April 25.
5 McPherson's History of the Rebellion, p. 394.
6 Speaking of Walker's speech, the Baltimore American said: "This is a threat, not to the Republican party, but to the nation — to Virginia and North Carolina, still in the Union, through whose territory the Southern invading army must pass, and to Maryland, upon whose soil the Capitol stands."—Cited by National Intelligencer, April 18. "No troops of the Confederate States, or of any other State, can with propriety assail Washington before Maryland has seceded from the Union and shall request their aid and intervention."—Charleston Mercury, April 23.

would cast in her lot with the South, the Virginians proceeded towards her with delicacy, and, even had they been ready, would not have made an attack on Washington, except at her request, comprehending that in such an event the fury of violated sovereignty and soil, now directed at the Northern troops, might be turned against the Southern invader. When they threatened Harper's Ferry and the Gosport navy-yard, they simply made an effort, according to their theory, to recover what was their own. But to cross the Potomac was an entirely different affair. "Your intention to fortify the heights of Maryland," wrote General Lee, May 10, to Thomas J. Jackson, then in command of the Virginia volunteers at Harper's Ferry, "may interrupt our friendly arrangements with that State, and we have no right to intrude on her soil unless, under pressing necessity, for defence."1 Nor was this right assumed until the Virginians had come to regard Maryland as remaining one of the United States, and being therefore in "open and avowed hostility" to them.2

The Confederate States were full of joy at the bombardment and evacuation of Sumter. When Lincoln took up the gage of war by his call for troops, or, as the secessionists said, threw it down, the martial ardor which lay constantly in the Southern breast, and the belief that they must arm for the defence of their property and their liberties, prompted these people to rise as one man. The uprising of men and the proffers of money matched that which was
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1 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 825.
2 See letter of J. M. Mason to General Lee, May 15, and his reply, May 21, ibid., pp. 849, 860.

going on at the North. All hearts were in the cause. Stephens, who had travelled from Montgomery to Richmond, said on his way back, at Atlanta: "I find our people everywhere are alive to their interests and their duty in this crisis. Such a degree of popular enthusiasm was never before seen in this country."1 "The anxiety among our citizens," declared Howell Cobb, "is not as to who shall go to the wars, but who shall stay at home."2 As at the North, so in the Confederate States, the best blood was offering itself to fight for country and rights which were prized.3 Nor was the feeling less hearty in eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia. "North Carolina," wrote Stephens, "is in a blaze from one extremity to the other. Yesterday, Sunday as it was, large crowds were assembled at all the stations along the railroad—at Wilmington five thousand at least, the Confederate flag flying all over the
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1 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 176.
2 Ibid., p. 268.
3 See, for example, Charleston Mercury, April 18, 19, 20, 22, May 4; private letter from Montgomery, printed in Baltimore Daily Exchange, April 16; private letter from a prominent merchant of New Orleans, ibid., April 25; National Intelligencer, April 25 ; opinions of the New Orleans press, cited by Moore, vol. i., Docs., p. 138; also ibid., pp. 164, 179; vol. i., Diary, pp. 41, 68; Atlanta Commonwealth, April 25, May 2. "Our troops are composed of rich and poor, learned and unlearned. Our best and most respected citizens fill the ranks as common soldiers."—Richmond Examiner, April 26. ''The flower of the Southern youth, the prime of Southern manhood, are collected in the camps of Virginia. Some of the most remarkable of these are here in the close neighborhood of Richmond. Genius, learning, and wealth, enough to furnish the aristocracy of an empire, wear the coarse gray of the common soldier and learn the use of the soldier's common weapon."—Ibid., April 30. "In the South, the volunteers who spring to arms with so much alacrity are men of substance and position, wealthy farmers and planters with their sons, professional men, merchants and their clerks, intelligent and industrious mechanics, and indeed from every art, trade, profession, and occupation; the wealth, intelligence, industry, and backbone of society have rallied for the defence of their homes, and for the assertion of constitutional liberty."—Richmond Enquirer, April 25. For the constitution of the Stonewall brigade, see Life of "Stonewall" Jackson, by his wife, p. 160. I may add as authorities nearly all Southern writers since the war.

city."1 "All Virginia is in arms," he wrote from Richmond.2 Requisitions were made on Virginia and North Carolina for their quota of militia under the President's call of April 15, as they were still in the Union. Governor Letcher and Governor Ellis each sent a defiant refusal.3 Ellis at once called a special session of the North Carolina legislature. It met May 1, and one hour after assembling unanimously passed an act providing for a convention which should have unrestricted powers, and the action of which should be final. It also voted men and money for the war. May 13 the people elected delegates, who one week later came together in convention. On the first day of the meeting, having voted down a motion that they should sit with closed doors, they passed unanimously an ordinance of secession, and after deciding in the negative a proposition to submit the constitution of the provisional government of the Confederate States to a popular vote, they ratified it without one voice of dissent.4

In answer to the President's call for State militia, Tennessee's governor peremptorily refused to "furnish a man for purposes of coercion."5 April 18 a number of her prominent citizens, one of whom was John Bell, united in an address to the people, in which they averred that "the present duty of Tennessee" was to preserve her independence both of the North and the South—to take sides with neither. "Her position should be to maintain the sanctity of her soil from the
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1 Letter from Richmond, April 22, Johnston and Browne, p. 898.
2 Letter of April 25, Johnston and Browne, p. 399; for enthusiasm over taking of Sumter see Richmond Examiner, April 15; Richmond Dispatch, April 15; Richmond Enquirer, April 16, also April 23, 26; Richmond Whig, April 16 ; see also editorials in Richmond Examiner, April 25 and 26, and proclamation of Governor Letcher, same date; letter of Mrs. John Tyler to her mother, April 18, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 646; A Rebel's Recollections, Eggleston, p. 19.
3 Official Records, Series iii., cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. pp. 90, 91.
4 Journal of North Carolina Convention, 1861, pp. 15, 17. The vote against a secret session was 59-54; against submission of the constitution to the people, 72-34; see, also, Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 539.
5 Ibid., p. 678.

hostile tread of any party." Less than a week later, Bell, in a public speech, declared that he was "for standing by the South," and that his "voice was clear and loud to every Tennesseean—to arms! to arms!"1 May 8 the legislature in secret session made an offensive and defensive military league with the Southern Confederacy. It also adopted a declaration of independence, and passed an ordinance ratifying the constitution of the provisional government of the Confederate States, subject to the result of their submission to a popular vote. June 8 the people at the ballot-box approved the action of their representatives, giving a majority of nearly 58,000 for separation from the Union.2
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1 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., pp. 72,137. T. D. Winter, who had spent several months in the South, made, June 10, a report to Secretary Chase, which is a substantially correct description of Tennessee sentiment. But as he wrote before the result of the election was known, he overrated the Union strength and the salutary effect of a federal invading army. Winter wrote: "After the presidential election . . . the Union men and the Union press . . . strongly opposed the feeling of secession that seemed to be gaining ground, and though they felt no sympathy with the administration, yet they strongly recommended that the administration have a fair commencement, and that if the just rights of the South were conceded, they could live as well under a Republican administration as any other. This position was maintained until even after all the other States had gone out with the exception of Virginia, and when she seceded and the evacuation of Fort Sumter took place, and still later, until Mr. Bell made his wonderful leap into the secession ranks, when the Union press placed the secession flag at the head of their column, with all the array of the press of Tennessee against the Union. I do not think it has changed the sentiment of a large number of its patrons. . . . My firm belief is, that should an army formidable enough to control as they went march into the South, and show to the masses that they came only to execute the laws and protect their slave property, the current of [secession] feeling would change materially."—Chase Papers, MS.
2 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 202; Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 678. The vote was as follows:
For separation. No separation.
East Tennessee 14,780 32,923
Middle Tennessee 58,265 8,198
West Tennessee 29,127 6,117
Military camps 2,741
104,913 47,238
Majority for separation 57,675
Proclamation of Governor Harris, June 24, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. ii., Docs., p. 169; see, also, Tribune Almanac, 1862, p. 59. The total vote was 6818 more than at the presidential election of 1860. For the charge of intimidation at this election, see Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 483.

May 6 the convention of Arkansas reassembled and, with but one dissenting vote, immediately passed an ordinance of secession.1

Fifty-five out of one hundred and forty-three delegates of the Virginia convention had voted against the ordinance of secession,2 and, indeed, the day before its adoption John Tyler, one of the influential members, who believed that Virginia had no alternative but war, and that it was a choice between "submission or resistance," doubted whether the ordinance would be passed.3 The ardent secessionists complained that the convention by no means represented the people. The politicians may be divided, but "the people of Virginia are henceforth united," declared the Richmond Examiner on the day that the President's call for troops reached Richmond.4 Immediately after the vote on the
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1 Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 23.
2 The vote was kept secret, but was published in detail in Richmond Examiner, June 17. It is also printed by McPherson, p. 7, note.
3 Letter to his wife, April 16, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 640; see, also, the debate in the convention, April 13, Richmond Examiner, April 15.
4 April 15. See, also, the Examiner of April 17, 25. "In the latter days the convention had secret meetings. The women and children are not admitted, and it is from them and the press that the little practical sense hitherto exhibited by its members has been derived. No one who has not witnessed it can conceive the amount of outside pressure to which, from the first day of its session, the convention has been subjected. But for this it would hardly have taken ground against coercion."—Ibid., May 2. Likewise the Richmond Enquirer, April 13, and the Richmond Dispatch, April 15. But the Richmond Whig, May 3, said the convention "was fully abreast, if not ahead, of public sentiment. . . . An ordinance of secession in the month of February would have met a prompt rejection at the polls." "The masses of the people were really ahead of their leaders " in Virginia as well as in Georgia.—Stephens's War between the States, vol. ii. p. 389. "In Virginia the 'leaders' of the people had been opposed to the secession of the State."—General D. H. Maury, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. i. p. 426.

ordinance had been taken nine delegates changed their votes from the negative to the affirmative, and six who had not answered to their names obtained leave to record their voices for secession. The final vote then stood 103 to 46.1 The proceedings were not unattended with emotion. One delegate when speaking against the ordinance broke down in impassioned and incoherent sobs. Another, who voted for it, at the thought of rending the ancient ties wept like a child.2 Many delegates who had strenuously opposed secession now bowed to the will of the majority, and were ready to devote their lives and their fortunes to their State. Such an one was Stuart, who in a public letter urged all good citizens "to stand together as one man."' Another was Baldwin, who, when asked by a Northern politician, "What will the Union men of Virginia do now?" replied: "There are no Union men left in Virginia. We stand this day a united people, ready ... to make good the eternal separation which we have declared. . . . We will give you a fight which will stand out upon the page of history."4 For the eastern part of the State Baldwin spoke truly.' The mountains were the dividing line between union and secession. Many of the delegates from west of the Alleghanies remained loyal to the national government and began organizing a movement to hold their section with the North. East of the mountains sympathy with the States farther
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1 For the names in detail see Richmond Examiner, June 17; see, also, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 641; Richmond Whig, June 14, which states that one half of the 46 signed the original parchment copy of the ordinance.
2 Richmond Examiner, April 17.
3 Cited in Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 478.
4 John B. Baldwin to G. B. Manley, May 10, Richmond Dispatch, May 16; see, also, article of R. L. Dabney, Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. i. p. 443.
5 "Eastern Virginia is a unit for instant and eternal resistance."—Richmond Whig, April 18, also April 19. "The expression of sentiment is wellnigh unanimous in favor of the maintenance of Southern rights."—Richmond Enquirer, April 17, also April 19; likewise Richmond Examiner, April 17, 18.

south determined the action of a majority, while the sentiment that patriotism meant devotion to one's State carried along the rest.1 In Virginia the opinion that the States were sovereign was strongly held; but many, denying that she had the constitutional right to secede, placed her action on the ground of justifiable revolution.2 The popular vote on the ordinance of secession of May 23 resulted as might have been expected, a majority of 96,750 being given for its ratification; the 32,134 votes cast against it came mostly from the western counties.3
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1 "The unanimity of the people was simply marvellous. So long as the question of secession was under discussion, opinions were both various and violent. The moment secession was finally determined upon, a revolution was wrought. There was no longer anything to discuss, and so discussion ceased. Men got ready for war, and delicate women with equal spirit sent them off with smiling faces."—Eggleston's A Rebel's Recollections, p. 47.
2 See Baldwin's letter of May 10; also his testimony before a congressional committee in 1866, Reports of committees, 1st Session 39th Congress, vol. ii. p. 107.
3 Governor Letcher's proclamation of June 14, with returns of the counties appended thereto, Richmond Enquirer, June 18; Richmond Whig, June 17. This was a total vote of 161,018 against 167.223 at the presidential election of 1860. The Richmond Whig said: "This is the largest popular vote ever cast in the State for any proposition." For the charge of intimidation in this election see New York Tribune, May 24, and Greeley's American Conflict, vol. i. p. 479, which compare with the following from the Richmond Examiner of May 24 and 25: "The latest accounts from northwestern Virginia lead us to apprehend that a very heavy vote was yesterday cast in that country against the ordinance of secession. It was intimated that the feeling was so strong in particular portions of that district that the secession vote would not be allowed to be cast at all. . . . When the judges of election are all on one side, when the popular feeling is so excited as to stifle the freedom of suffrage, when the moral sense is likely to be corrupted by the contaminating contact of Pennsylvania and Ohio, we may very reasonably expect that great frauds may have been practised upon the ballot-box. Abolitionism knows no law in its war upon the South. Its 'higher law' authorizes all the maxims of morality, religion, honesty, justice, and honor to be set aside. If, therefore, any point of advantage can be gained by ballot-box stuffing and kindred election frauds, we are apprehensive that these pernicious arts of Northern chicanery and malice had their advent in Virginia in yesterday's election." "Had a few regiments of Southern troops been sent to the Northwest, the result there would have been very different. The majority of the citizens, even in that section, are certainly true to Virginia. But they were frightened. They believed that Lincoln and his myrmidons would instantly seize them if they appeared at the polls. It was a sense of insecurity, not abolitionism, that carried the Northwest against the ordinance."

In Baltimore and in Maryland the frenzy of opposition to the efforts of the national government to insure the safety of its capital did not last for a week after the attack on the Massachusetts Sixth; from the date of the arrival of the New York Seventh at Washington it began rapidly to subside.1 The railroad from Annapolis to the Junction was put in good repair, and the line through to Washington guarded; by this route troops were daily transported. Soon the capital was secure against any possible attack, but the increase of its army went on, 2 with the design in view of making, at the proper time, the forward movement demanded by the President's proclamation. Thoroughly loyal to the Union and distrusting his legislature, Governor Hicks was loath to convene it; but during the excitement, either because he could not resist the pressure or because he was forced to a choice of evils, he summoned it to meet April 26; afterwards, for the reason that Annapolis, the capital, was occupied by federal troops, he changed the place of meeting to Frederick City, discreetly selecting a town where Union sentiment dominated, instead of Baltimore, the more natural meeting-point.3 "I honestly and most earnestly entertain the con viction,"
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1 Baltimore Sun, cited by New York Times, April 27; New York Courier and Enquirer, April 28 ; Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Diary, pp. 46, 47; Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 446.
2 The city "begins to be a camp."—Seward to his wife, April 27, Life of Seward, vol. ii. p. 560.
3 See Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 445; Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Dons., p. 175. Reverdy Johnson, in writing from Frederick City, May 8, to Secretary Chase (Chase Papers, MS.), says, "The envelope (the only one I can obtain) will show the Union feeling." Reference is made to one of the envelopes, very common at the beginning of the war, which had designs and mottoes printed upon them exhibiting strong Union sentiments. An interesting and instructive collection of these, containing also envelopes testifying to the Southern cause, the gift of Miss Wing, is in the Boston Athenaeum. I desire here to acknowledge my indebtedness to Miss Wyman, of that library, for her intelligent aid.

he said in his message, "that the only safety of Maryland lies in preserving a neutral position between our brethren of the North and of the South." 1 The legislature adopted a policy of neutrality; it decided that it had no constitutional power to pass an ordinance of secession; nevertheless, it called no convention; at the same time the House protested against the war, implored the President to make peace, and declared that Maryland desired the "immediate recognition of the independence of the Confederate States."2 The legislature adjourning without having made one step towards secession, Maryland remained officially attached to the federal government, with the result that here the doctrine of state-rights operated on the side of the Union, by influencing its adherents to abide by the action of their State. But the governor and the people more than the legislature sympathized with the North. "The Union sentiment gets stronger and stronger," wrote Reverdy Johnson.3 May 9 federal troops on their way to Washington passed unmolested through Baltimore; these, the first to make the attempt since the trouble of April 19, were brought by transports from Perryville. Four days later the first train from Philadelphia arrived at the capital, and shortly afterwards regular railroad communication with the Northern cities, for passengers as well as for the military, was re-established.4 Whittingham, the Episcopal bishop of Maryland, rebuked clergymen who had omitted the prayer for the President of the United States, and admonished them that the offence must not continue.5 It became evident that the secessionists, although an influential minority, were losing their hold on the waverers, who waited before
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1 Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, p. 446.
2 Ibid.; McPherson, p. 9.
3 To Chase, May 8, Chase Papers, MS.
4 Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 172; National Intelligencer, May 16.
5 Circular of May 15, New York Times, cited by Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 253,

declaring themselves, to see on which side were the strongest battalions.1 By the middle of May Maryland was actively on the side of the North. Pursuant to the President's proclamation of April 15, and by a subsequent arrangement with the Secretary of War, Governor Hicks called for four regiments to serve within the limits of Maryland or for the defence of the capital, under the orders of the commander-in-chief of the United States army; the response to this call was prompt.2 The election for members of Congress in June, when Union men were chosen in all of the six districts, put to rest any doubts regarding the position of Maryland.3 This happy issue out of the trouble and gloom which proceeded from the collision of the Baltimore populace with the Massachusetts troops was in a large degree due to the wisdom with which the President, pursuing a conciliatory but firm policy, had handled affairs; it was his generals who, when left to a certain discretion, overstepped the limits he had marked out for himself, as did Butler in occupying Baltimore by the military, a course inexpedient in the opinion of Reverdy Johnson, a true Union man,4 and one which brought forth a rebuke from General Scott; and as did Cadwallader in suspending the privilege of the writ
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1 The columns of the Baltimore Daily Exchange, which argued that both sympathy and commercial interest should impel Maryland to join the South, reflect in a striking manner the fading of the hopes of those who ardently sympathized with the Southern Confederacy.
2 The date of the governor's call was May 14, New York Times, cited by Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 245; see, also, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 174.
3 Tribune Almanac, 1862, p. 59; Baltimore Daily Exchange, June 17. 4 Johnson said, in a private letter to Chase of May 8, giving him permission to show it to the President: "In the present condition of Baltimore and the State, the governor thinks (and I concur with him) that even one company of United States soldiers in the city would be more mischievous than otherwise. Indeed, he does not believe, nor do I, that it is necessary to the protection of the government property, or the assertion of any of its rights, to have any such force there, and I should advise against it. If the troops pass through the city without resistance, as it is thought they will, it will be evident that no such force would be required."—Chase Papers, MS.

of habeas corpus at Baltimore, and in causing a conflict between the President and Chief Justice Taney.1

In answer to the President's call for State militia, Governor Magoffin telegraphed, "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States," and at once summoned his legislature to meet in special session on the 6th of May. So far Magoffin represented the sentiment of his State, but in his desire of having her secede and join the Southern Confederacy, he was no true exponent of that sentiment. Like her mother Virginia, Kentucky was drawn in two ways. Sympathy, blood, and the community of social feeling growing out of slavery, inclined her to the South; her political faith, which Clay more than any other man had inspired her with, and which Crittenden now loyally represented, held her fast to the Union. While there were unconditional secessionists and unconditional Union men, a majority of the people, though believing in state-rights, thought that the grievances of the Southern States were not grave enough to justify secession; at the same time they opposed coercion, and since a re-cemented Union by compromise was plainly impossible, they would have solved the difficulty by peaceable separation. The course of public sentiment was very like that of Virginia up to the parting of the ways; and as most of the political leaders of ability were with the South, it is easy to see that a little change in circumstances, a little alteration of the direction of feeling, might in the end have impelled Kentucky to take up arms for the Confederacy instead of for the Union. By the 6th of May, when the legislature met, there had been evolved out of conflicting opinions and purposes the idea that the proper course for the commonwealth was neutrality. This imported that her soil should be held sacred against invasion by either of the contending parties, and the House, by resolution, gave an official stamp to the sentiment. Impracticable as this course turned out to be, it
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1 Tyler's Taney, p. 420.

deserves respect as an attempt to adhere to principle without breaking the heartstrings. In the succession of events neutrality was found to be impossible, and Kentucky chose the Union side; yet we may honor her the more that she retained a tenderness for the mother and sister States, and felt the bitterness of regret that events had so fallen out that she must make so hard a choice. President Lincoln knew his native State well. Selecting several of her well-known and honest citizens to co-operate with him, and holding himself amenable to counsel, he guided the Union movement, now openly, now with an unseen hand; at other times waiting with patience and refraining from direction, he had in the end the gratification of seeing, as a result of his policy, Kentucky actively on the Northern side. In June nine out of ten anti-secession congressmen were elected, the Union majority in the State being 54,700; in August a strong Union legislature was chosen, which, in response to the invasion of the State by the Confederate forces in September, ordered the United States flag raised over the Capitol at Frankfort, and, by resolutions that affirmed distinctly, though indirectly, the doctrine of state-rights, placed Kentucky in political and military association with the North.1
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1 For the account of public sentiment in Kentucky I have relied mainly on Shaler's Kentucky, and have also drawn several of the facts stated from that work, of which, in this connection, the whole of chap. xv. should be read. On Lincoln's action see Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. chap. xli. The speeches of Guthrie and Dixon, and the resolutions adopted at the public meeting in Louisville, April 18, may be read with profit, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 72; Magoffin's proclamation of May 20, ibid., p. 264 ; see, also, Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861. Garrett Davis, afterwards senator from Kentucky, wrote General McClellan, June 8, twelve days before the congressional election: "The sympathy for the South and the inclination to secession among our people is much stronger in the southwestern corner of the State than it is in any other part, and as you proceed towards the upper section of the Ohio River and our Virginia line it gradually becomes weaker, until it is almost wholly lost. ... I doubt not that two-thirds of our people are unconditionally for the Union. The timid and quiet are for it, and they shrink from convulsion and civil war, whilst all the bold, the reckless, and the bankrupt are for secession."—Official Records, vol. ii. p. 678.

The Missouri convention had in March declared against secession by a vote of 89 to 1; this was then a fair index of public sentiment, but after Sumter and the President's call for troops, when war became inevitable, there were many of her citizens who thought that Missouri should espouse the cause of the Confederacy. This was not from any special devotion to slavery, for in Missouri the institution had not the political and social power that it had in nearly all the other slave States, the ratio of her slave population to the whole being less than in any of them except Delaware; it was rather from the friendly, family, and political ties binding her to the South. Southern sympathy moreover exhibited strength, for the reason that it found a head in Governor Jackson, who gave it expression in speech and action. To the President's call for State militia he answered, " Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with." 1 The leader of the Union men was Francis P. Blair, Jr., a man of extraordinary physical and moral courage, of high social position in St. Louis, and possessing great personal popularity. In conjunction with Captain Lyon he had already organized four regiments as a home guard; these were largely constituted from the companies of Wide-awakes of the previous political campaign, and were mainly composed of Germans— a large element in the population of St. Louis—who in their opposition to slavery and devotion to the Union were not, like many Missourians, troubled as to whether their paramount allegiance was due to their State or to the national government. Blair now offered these four regiments to the Secretary of War as Missouri's quota; five regiments were sworn in and the command of them given to Lyon. The story of Missouri for the next four months is of a contest between Blair and Jackson—a contest of political
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1 April 17, Official Records, Series iii., cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 90.

management, of martial proceeding, and of battle. Blair showed great political ability, and assisted by Lyon, who had military talent and whose forces constantly increased, made steady progress. St. Louis was soon gained and the Union sentiment in the State grew rapidly. July 30 the convention, sitting at Jefferson City, the capital, deposed Governor Jackson, appointed Gamble, a Union man, in his stead, and in other ways brought the machinery of the State government to the support of the Union cause. Though this did not end the fight for Missouri, yet she was henceforward officially as well as in dominant sentiment on the side of the North.1

There was at no time any fear of the secession of Delaware. Her interest in slavery was small. Slaves formed but an insignificant fraction of her population, and since 1830 had steadily declined in number and in ratio to the whites. Her governor, not deeming that he had legal authority to offer her militia to the President, recommended the formation of volunteer companies to comply with his requisition. Accordingly one regiment, her quota, was promptly formed and mustered into the service of the United States.

The days in which the President was shut up in Washington, cut off from communication with the States which were his support, were days when the task that had been forced upon him seemed heavy indeed. But he was fast learning the lessons of war. He began making preparations for a long conflict. More volunteers offering than were necessary to fill the call for 75,000, and more than were desired for only three months' service, he determined to utilize this outburst of patriotism by enlisting men for three years, and sent advices to that effect to the governors of the different States.2 May 3 he issued a proclamation calling for 42,034
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1 In this account I have mainly followed Carr's Missouri, of which, in this connection, chaps, xiii. and xiv. should be read. See, also, The Fight for Missouri, Snead ; Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. chap. xi.
2 Official Records, Series iii., cited by Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. P255; see correspondence between Chandler and Cameron, Life of Chandler, Detroit Post and Tribune, p. 205.

volunteers, to serve for three years unless sooner discharged; he directed an increase of the regular army of 22,714 men and the enlistment of 18,000 seamen for the naval service.1 Such action, though clearly beyond the President's constitutional authority, received the approval of the North. Previously to this he had extended the blockade to Virginia and North Carolina.2

"The declaration of war against this Confederacy," issued by the President of the United States, said Jefferson Davis, in his message to his congress, referring to the call for 75,000 troops, "prompted me to convoke you" in special session.3 Accordingly, the delegates met April 29 at Montgomery. Their legislation was bellicose. They passed an act recognizing the existence of war between the United States and the Confederate States, and authorizing their president to issue letters of marque and reprisal.4 Davis
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1 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 185. Filling these calls made the army establishment as follows:
Regular army (Report, April 5) . . 17,113
Call of May 8 22,714 89,827
Volunteers—Call of April 15 75,000
Call of May 8 42,034 117,084
Regular navy (March 4) . 7,600
Call of May 3 18,000 158,861
25,600
Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 255, note.
2 Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 161.
3 Ibid., p. 171.
4 Statutes at Large, Provisional Government C. S. A., p. 100, passed May 6. W. H. Russell wrote the London Times from Montgomery, May 7: "Already numerous applications have been received from the ship-owners of New England, from the whalers of New Bedford, and from others in the Northern States for these very letters of marque, accompanied by the highest securities and guarantees! This statement I make on the very highest authority." I question the truth of this statement. A search in the Confederate Archives in the Treasury Department, Washington, discloses sixty-seven applications for letters of marque and reprisal. The owners, captains, and bondsmen of the vessels asking these letters are from Texas, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and three from Baltimore, and one from Wilmington, Delaware, but none from farther north. The New York Tribune of June 17 denied the story.

informed them that he had in the field in various localities 19,000 men, that 16,000 more were on the way to Virginia, and that it was proposed to organize an army of 100,000,1 for which volunteers were offering in excess of his wants. Five days after Lincoln by proclamation had decreed an increase of the Union force, the Confederate congress authorized Davis to accept without limit volunteers " to serve for and during the existing war."2 It also authorized a loan of fifty million dollars, which might be raised by the sale of eight per cent, bonds, or twenty millions of it might be obtained by the issue of treasury notes without interest; the notes should be receivable for all debts and taxes due the Confederate States except the export duty on cotton; the bonds were " to be sold for specie, military stores, or for the proceeds of sales of raw produce or manufactured articles."3 It prohibited, pending the war, all persons from paying their debts to individuals or corporations in the United States, except in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the District of Columbia, and it authorized them to pay the amount of their indebtedness into the treasury of the Confederate States, receiving therefor a treasurer's certificate, redeemable on the restoration of peace.4 It prohibited the export of cotton except through the seaports.5 It admitted Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas into the Confederacy, and, accepting an invitation from the Virginia convention, made Richmond the capital of the new government, adjourning to meet there July 20.6
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1 This was under the authority of an act passed at the first session of the provisional congress, ante, p. 294.
2 Statutes at Large, Provisional Government C. S. A., p. 104, passed May 8.
3 Ibid., p. 117, passed May 16.
4 Ibid., p. 151, passed May 21.
5 Ibid., p. 152, passed May 21.
6 Ibid., pp. 104,118, 119,120, 165. As to the action of the Virginia convention see Richmond Examiner, April 30. This congress enacted a strictly revenue tariff which possesses little interest, as the federal blockade was so effective that it brought little revenue. The duties on all articles but two were ad valorem, ranging from 5 to 25 per cent. The free list was largely made up of articles of food, war materials, and other things of necessity for the prosecution of the war. For the tariff, see Statutes, p. 127.

The Union of twenty-three States and the Confederacy of eleven1 were now arrayed against each other. Twenty-two million people confronted nine million, and of the nine million three and a half million were slaves.2 The proportion was nearly that of five to two. The Union had much greater wealth, was a country of a complex civilization, and boasted of its varied industries; it combined the farm, the shop, and the factory. The Confederacy was but a farm, dependent on Europe and on the North for everything but bread and meat, and before the war for much of those. The North had the money market, and could borrow with greater ease than the South. It was the iron age. The North had done much to develop its wealth of iron, that potent aid of civilization, that necessity of war; the South had scarcely touched its own mineral resources. In nearly every Northern regiment were mechanics of all kinds and men of business training accustomed to system, while the Southern army was made up of gentlemen and poor whites, splendid fighters, of rare courage and striking devotion, but as a whole inferior in education and in a knowledge of the arts and appliances of modern life to the men of the North.3
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1 South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee.
2 These are the totals of population of the seceding and non-seceding States by the census of 1860; but the computation is not absolutely exact, for western Virginia remained with the Union. But western Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri furnished more soldiers for the Confederates than western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee gave to the Union. The subject of relative population and wealth is clearly discussed by Professor A. B. Hart in the New England Magazine for November, 1891, reprinted in Practical Essays on American Government.
3What Everett said of the volunteers of Massachusetts may be applied to the whole Northern army. "They have hurried from the lawyer's office, from the counting-room, from the artist's studio, in instances not a few from the pulpit; they have left the fisher's line upon the reel, the plough in the furrow, the plane upon the work-bench, the hammer on the anvil, the form upon the printing-press—there is not a mechanical art nor a useful handicraft that has not its experts in these patriotic ranks."—Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 206.

The Union had the advantage of the regular army and navy, of the flag, and of the prestige and machinery of the national government:1 the ministers from foreign countries were accredited to the United States; the archives of what had been the common government were also in the possession of the Union.2 The aim of the Confederacy was to gain its independence. Davis, in the message of April 29 to his congress, expressed the sincere purpose of the Southern people. "We feel that our cause is just and holy," he declared. "We protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no cession of any kind from the States with which we have lately confederated. All we ask is to be let alone—that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, we must resist, to the direst extremity." 3 The aim of the North was to save the Union, to maintain the integrity of the nation. The Confederates, the President said in his Fourth-of-July message, "forced upon the country the distinct issue 'immediate' dissolution or blood'. . . It was with the deepest regret," he further declared, "that the executive found the duty of employing the war power in defence
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1 " It is worthy of note, that while in this the government's hour of trial large numbers of those in the army and navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which had pampered them, not one common soldier or common sailor is known to have deserted his flag."—Lincoln's Fourth-of-July message. "Of 4470 officers in the public service, civil and military, 2154 were representatives of States where the revolutionary movement was openly advocated and urged, even if not actually organized."—Seward to Adams, April 10.
2 That these advantages were appreciated by some in England is seen by an article in the London Times of April 27, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 228.
3 Ibid., p. 174.

of the government forced upon him. He could but perform this duty or surrender the existence of the government." From Davis's message we may clearly see that the doctrine of state-rights would not have been carried in 1861 to the point of secession, had it not been for the purpose of repelling what was considered an aggression on slavery. No one knew this better than Lincoln,1 but in his message there is not a word concerning the subject, and the reason is apparent. Restricting the object of the war to the restoration of the Union, he had with him Democrats and Bell and Everett men, as well as Republicans; a mention of slavery would at once have aroused the contentions of party.

Many at the South thought that when it came to the supreme test the North would not fight. Assuming even that the Republicans might be ready to take up arms, they believed that the Democrats and conservatives would earnestly oppose an attempt to conquer the seceding States, and so hamper the dominant party that it would be unable to carry out its designs.2 These became disenchanted as they witnessed the uprising of the North, and bewildered as they saw man after man of distinction on whom they had counted giving in his adherence to the Lincoln government because of the attack on the flag.3 Had the
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1 See Lincoln's pregnant statement to John Hay, May 7, Nicolay and Hay, vol. iv. p. 258.
2 Many Democratic newspapers and the speeches and resolutions of several Democratic meetings had given a certain support to this notion.
3 " The North seems to be thoroughly united against us. The Herald and the Express both give-way and-rally the hosts against us. Things have gone to that point in Philadelphia that no one is safe in the expression of a Southern sentiment."—Ex-President Tyler to his wife, April 18, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 641. "Where are Messrs. Fillmore, Everett, Winthrop, dishing, Butler, and Hallet, of Boston; Van Buren, Cochran, McKeon, Weed, Dix, and Barnard, of New York ; Ingersoll, Wilkins, Binney, Black, Bigler, and ex-President Buchanan, of Pennsylvania; Douglas et id omne genus—Democrats and Whigs of all stripes, hues, and conditions—where are they in the bloody crusade proposed by President Lincoln against the South? Unheard of in their dignified retirement! or hounding on the fanatic warfare, or themselves joining 'the noble army of martyrs for liberty' marching on the South. The New York Herald, but yesterday denouncing the 'bloody disunionism of President Lincoln's administration,' now declares triumphantly that 'the whole North is of one party, and that party is to conquer and subdue the South.'"—Charleston Mercury, April 23. "The North is a unit for the Union."—Richmond correspondence, ibid., May 7. "We are told the whole North is rallying as one man; Douglas, veering as ever with the popular breeze, conferring cheek by jowl with Lincoln; Buchanan lifting a treacherous and timeserving voice of encouragement from the icy atmosphere of Wheatland; well-fed and well-paid Fillmore, eating up all his past words of indignation for Southern injuries, and joining in the popular hue-and-cry against his special benefactors; and even poor old Cass, with better heart than them all, but with mind spent with age, doting over recollections of Jackson and the Force bill, mistaking the Baboon of '61 for the Lion of '32, and shouting the hurrahs of thirty years ago."—Richmond Examiner, April 22. ''It can no longer be denied that the North is a unit against the South. They are not only as one man for upholding Lincoln, but as one man for invasion and conquest. The proposition to subjugate comes from the metropolis of her boasted conservatism, even from the largest beneficiary of Southern wealth, New York City."—Ibid., April 24. "The sentiment which pervades the Northern Republican press is most ferocious towards the South. . . . The tone of the conservative press, too, has undergone a very marked change. Most of them have caved in—not exactly to approbation of the war policy of the Republicans, but to an admission, which amounts to the same thing, of the necessity of sustaining the government."—Richmond Whig, April 17. "The statesmen of the North, heretofore most honored and confided in by the South, have come out unequivocally in favor of the Lincoln policy of coercing and subjugating the South."—Richmond Enquirer, April 26. Mention is made of Fillmore, Cass, Buchanan, Douglas, B. F. Butler. See, also, ibid., April 30, article entitled "Our Northern Allies," where Everett, Cushing, and D. S. Dickinson are spoken of. It ends with: ''The Northern politicians have all left us. 'Let them fly—all, false thanes !'"

Confederates foreseen that they would at the very first confront a practically united North, they would have hesitated more than they did to strike the irrevocable blow. Nevertheless, as a large majority believed in the constitutional right of secession, the war on the part of the national government seemed to them a war of subjugation. The North had fastened a stigma on their property, and when they availed themselves of that safeguard of the minority which, according to their view, was intended by the fathers, it tried to compel them by force to remain in the Union. The Southern literature of this period is pervaded with two notions which were fused into the public sentiment: that their fight was for their property and their liberties, and that it was against spoliation and conquest. This sentiment, sincerely held by the statesmen, politicians, and journalists, was translated into vituperative language to excite the populace.1 All held the opinion that the North
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1 "The soldiery of New England, carrying out the decrees of that miserable despot who, without the character of George the Third, would doom the people from the Capitol at Washington, . . . fire upon the populace at Baltimore, having penetrated in armed bands to the heart of a Southern city for the purpose of subjugating the South."—Charleston Mercury, April 23; Pickens in a proclamation speaks of "Northern Goths and Vandals." —Ibid., April 27; "The Northern people were mere plunderers in peace; and now become murderers in war. From persecutors they have become bloody tyrants, ready to destroy us to subserve the foul purposes of their sectional domination. . . Their arms must be weakened by a consciousness of injustice and criminality. Let yours be strengthened by the holy conviction that you strike for your homes, your institutions, your all."—Ibid., May 7; "Let the fathers, mothers, sons, and brothers of Richmond and Charleston, Raleigh and Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans, look to the treatment of the women and the people of Washington and Baltimore, at the mercy of the grossest ruffians from the stews of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Hearken to their eri de guerre, 'Beauty and Booty.' Hear them declare that the war is one of conquest, spoil, and extermination."—Ibid., May 16; "The Northern troops, like Falstaff's ragged regiment, are made up of 'the canker of a bad world and a long peace;' of ignorant unemployed foreigners, loafers, criminals, and desperadoes. . . . But if conquered and subjugated, we should soon be massacred, and another St. Domingo tragedy would darken the pages of history. . . . The troops of our enemies are composed of men without honor, honesty, or morality, and are impelled to fight by not a single worthy or respectable motive. They possess no other courage except that desperation which crime, poverty, and misfortune sometimes endow bad men with, and who, like the murderer in Macbeth, become willing for the moment to 'set their life on any chance to mend it or get rid on it.'"—Richmond Examiner, April 26; "The war which the Lincoln administration has begun upon the Southern States is the most unnecessary and wicked war which ambition or lust has ever inaugurated."—Richmond Whig, April 15; the Richmond Enquirer, April 25, thus describes the Northern army: "Discharged operatives, street loafers, penniless adventurers, and vagrants fill up the ranks of the Yankee regiments. The 'solid men' of the North, their sons and relations, prudently keep out of the reach of danger, while they send the floating scum of free society to do the work of vandals and marauders." "War . . . has been forced upon us by the folly and fanaticism of the Northern abolitionists, whose sole end and aim it is to aggress upon the rights and property of the people of the South. . . . We fight for our liberties, our independence, our altars, our firesides, our wives, and our children."—Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer, May 11. These are fair examples of journalistic utterances. Stephens said at Atlanta, May 23 (Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 271): "The acts of Lincoln exhibit the spirit of anarchy which is abroad in the North, and total disregard of all constitutional obligations and limits by the abolition despot now in power. The North is fast drifting to anarchy and an established despotism." Davis said, June 1, at Richmond: "To the enemy we leave the base acts of the assassin and incendiary, to them we leave it to insult helpless women; to us belongs vengeance upon man." —Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 323.

was unconstitutionally and unjustly attempting to make sovereign States do that which they had deliberately resolved not to do. With such an idea thoroughly diffused among an Anglo-Saxon people, one might have known that resistance would be long and stubborn. The Confederates were by no means dismayed at the realization of the united North and the appreciation of the odds of number and wealth against them. "The numbers opposed to us are immense," wrote ex-President Tyler; "but twelve thousand Grecians conquered the whole power of Xerxes [sic] at Marathon, and our fathers, a mere handful, overcame the enormous power of Great Britain."1 "Has the strongest nation in capital and population always prevailed in the contest between nations?" asked the Charleston Mercury. "Did Philip of Spain or Louis XIV. of France subdue Holland? Did Great Britain subdue our ancestors in 1776?"2 Nevertheless, in making the effort to gain their independence the Confederates had undertaken a stupendous task; they had started out on a road the end of which
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1 Letter of April 18, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol ii. p. 641.
2 May 10.

was at best doubtful; they had gone to an extreme, before proceeding to which it had been better to endure somewhat of grievance. Their fight, they averred, was made for liberty, and yet they were weighted by the denial of liberty to three and one half million human beings. They had the distinction of being the only community of the Teutonic race which did not deem negro slavery wrong; in their social theory they had parted company with England, France, Germany, and Italy, and were at one with Spain and Brazil.

On the other hand, what a great work had the Northern men set out to do!1 They had undertaken to conquer the wills of five and one half million people—a community equal to themselves except, owing to their peculiar institution, in the arts and manufactures, in business training, and in scientific thought. There was undoubtedly a basis for the Southern opinion that in certain qualities which go to make up the soldier the men of the South were superior to those of the North. An intelligent observer who left Mississippi early in June, and travelled through Tennessee, expressed the belief to Garrett Davis "that the Southern men had much greater skill in the use of small-arms, superiority in horsemanship, and were more alert and spirited than Northern men, and that when they were anything like equal in numbers they would be victorious, especially in the early
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1 Russell wrote the London Times from Montgomery, May 16: "I expressed a belief in my first letter, written a few days after my arrival, March 27, that the South would never go back into the Union. The North thinks that it can coerce the South, and I am not prepared to say they are right or wrong ; but I am convinced that the South can only be forced back by such a conquest as that which laid Poland prostrate at the feet of Russia;" and from New Orleans, May 24: "It is impossible to resist the conviction that the Southern Confederacy can only be conquered by means as irresistible as those by which Poland was subjugated. The South will fall, if at all, as a nation prostrate at the feet of a victorious enemy. There is no doubt of the unanimity of the people. If words mean anything, they are animated by only one sentiment, and they will resist the North as long as they can command a man or a dollar."

battles." 1 The nature of the case made it an offensive warfare on the part of the North. "The first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth," declared the President in his proclamation of April 15," will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union." To perform this service the national troops must march into the States of the Confederacy; the fighting must be on Southern soil. Not the defence of Washington, but the taking of Richmond, was their task. For such warfare the proportion of five to two in population was none too great, the odds of wealth and industrial activities were none too large. Had they been less the North might have failed. In truth, the expectation of the South that by an exchange of its cotton with Europe it would be able to supply itself with the implements and munitions of war and the necessaries of life, was not extravagant.2 Had the North thoroughly understood the problem; had it known that the people in the cotton States were practically unanimous; that the action of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee was backed by a large and genuine majority, it might have refused to undertake the seemingly unachievable task. For while hardly a man at the North assented to the constitutional right of secession, all acknowledged the right of revolution;3 and had they been convinced that the action of the Southern States represented the free and untrammelled will of the Southern people, many would have objected to combating that right; arguing that even if the action of the men of the South was unjust and founded upon a wrong, it was not incumbent on the North to war upon
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1 Garrett Davis to General McClellan, June 8, Official Records, vol. ii. p. 677. This was also Russell's opinion, Diary, p. 340.
2 The efficiency of the blockade in making this hope vain was a mighty instrument on the Northern side. This is well stated by Professor A. B. Hart in a thoughtful article on the subject in the New England Magazine for November, 1891, p. 869.
3 Many in Virginia justified her action on the right of revolution, ante. The Declaration of Independence of Tennessee was based on the right of revolution.

them because they would not see the light and walk in it. In such a case the national idea, the feeling that the country must not physically be dismembered, would have lost much of its force.

It is impossible to escape the conviction that the action of the North was largely based on a misconception of the strength of the disunion sentiment in the Confederate States. The Northern people accepted the gage of war and came to the support of the President on the theory that a majority in all of the Southern States except South Carolina were at heart for the Union, and that if these loyal men were encouraged and protected they would make themselves felt in a movement looking towards allegiance to the national government.1 By the 4th of July Lincoln knew the
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1 A similar view began to be advocated with great earnestness by Greeley in the New York Tribune as early as January 14, and was urged with frequency. He held that notion during the war. In the first volume of the American Conflict, written between July, 1863, and April, 1864, he said: "No rational doubt can exist that, had time been afforded for consideration and both sides been generally heard, a free and fair vote would have shown an immense majority, even in the slave [cotton ?] States, against secession."—p. 515, but compare p. 510. I have already discussed this question at length, and do not consider it necessary to offer evidence in rebuttal; but, as showing that the sentiment of the South at this time was brought to the notice of one of the most distinguished men of the administration in a forcible and sincere manner, I will quote extensively from a letter of May 30 from Mrs. R. L. Hunt, of New Orleans, to Secretary Chase: "Do not delude yourself or others with the notion that war can maintain the Union. Alas, I say it with a heavy heart, the Union is destroyed; it can never be restored. If, indeed, the federal government had frowned upon the first dawning of disunion, things might have been different. But the United States suffered South Carolina to secede without opposition, and with scarcely a murmur of disapprobation. . . . All the Southern States, with the exception of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland, have joined in the secession, and have formed themselves into a powerful confederacy of States, with a government possessing all the usual powers of sovereignties, exercising entire and exclusive sway, legislative, executive, and judicial, within the limits of those States, and dissolving all connection with the United States. Having thus by a revolution hitherto almost bloodless assumed and exercised the right of self-government, the Confederate States are now threatened with war and desolation if they do not abjure the government they have formed, and

sentiment of the Northern people as well as any ruler has ever known a nation's feeling, and he spoke with sincerity when he addressed the public. In his message to Congress
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renounce forever the right of altering or abolishing that government—no matter how oppressive or despotic it may become.

"The time has passed for a discussion about the territories and fugitive slaves and the constitutional right of a State to secede. Secession has proved to be a revolution, the overthrow of the Constitution, the dissolution of the Union. Still secession is unfait accompli. Disunion is a fixed fact. It is worse than useless to deny or attempt to evade this truth.

"The question, then, to be determined is not, Shall the Union be maintained? but, Shall the Confederate States be allowed to govern themselves? And this is a question of liberty and free government.

"And how do the statesmen of the North, how do you, my dear brother, who should recognize facts as they are, propose to deal with this question? With sword and buckler, the rifle, the bayonet, and the musket, the cannon, and all the dread instruments of war, with infantry and cavalry and ships and navies and armies!

"With these you propose to subjugate the entire free people of the South, while you mock them with the declaration that your object is to maintain a Union which no longer exists. Is this wise, just, quite in keeping with the spirit of Christianity and of liberty, and with the lofty character of the United States? Would you desire a union of compulsion, a union to be maintained by the bayonet, a union with hatred and revenge filling the hearts of the North and of the South? I hope you would not. But if you would, the thing is impossible. You can never subjugate the South —never. Her people are high-spirited, martial, and intelligent. Educated in the school of American liberty, they value the right of self-government above all price. . . . They view the attempt to conquer them and to compel them to submit to the government of their victors as an effort of high-handed tyranny and oppression. You may for the moment have an advantage in wealth and numbers. But. . . the North is fighting for subjugation and domination, the South for liberty and independence. It is precisely like the great revolutionary struggle of 76 against the tyranny of Great Britain—a struggle for liberty on one side and for despotism on the other. How can you expect victory in such a cause? . . . Surely eight millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty in such a country as they possess are invincible by any force the North can send against them. . . . The South is now united to a man. There is no division among the people here. There is but one mind, one heart, one action. Do not suffer yourself to be misled with the idea that there are Union men in the South. There is not a man here who will not resist the arms of the North. The action of Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet has made them all of one mind.

at the beginning of the special session, he expressed his own opinion and that of the mass of men whose unreserved support he had. "It may well be questioned," he said,
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"I will tell you what I see here in the city. Every night the men are drilling. Young and old, professional men and laborers, lawyers, doctors, and even the ministers are all drilling. The shops are closed at six that the clerks may go to their drilling. The ladies hold fairs, make clothes, lint, etc., for the army, and animate the men by appeals to their chivalry and their patriotism to resist the enemy to the death. What is seen in New Orleans pervades the whole South. Never were a people more united and more determined."—Chase Papers, MS. Other testimony relating to this time corroborates that of Mrs. Hunt. Garrett Davis wrote General McClellan, June 8, that an intelligent friend just from the South had told him that "the whole Southern people were animated by the most intense hatred against the Northern States and Lincoln's administration."—Official Records, vol. ii. p. 677. William H. Russell, an impartial observer, travelled from April 14 to June 18 through the South. May 11 he wrote the London Times from Mobile: ''Let there be no mistake whatever as to the unanimity which exists at present in the South to fight for what it calls its independence, and to carry on a war to the knife with the government of the United States." May 12 he set down in his diary: "I have now been in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and in none of these great States have I found the least indication of the Union sentiment or of the attachment for the Union which Mr. Seward always assumes to exist in the South. If there were any considerable amount of it, I was in a position as a neutral to have been aware of its existence."—Diary, p. 192. June 18, having in addition travelled through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, he summed up his impressions thus: "So far I had certainly no reason to agree with Mr. Seward in thinking this rebellion was the result of a localized energetic action on the part of a fierce minority in the seceding States, and that there was in each a large, if inert, mass opposed to secession, which would rally round the Stars and Stripes the instant they were displayed in their sight. On the contrary, I met everywhere with but one feeling, with exceptions which proved its unanimity and its force. To a man the people went with their States and had but one battle cry, 'state rights, and death to those who make war against them!'

"Day afterday I had seen this feeling intensified by the accounts which came from the North of a fixed determination to maintain the war."—Diary, p. 315.

Schleiden, "minister from the Hanseatic towns, well versed in European affairs and a shrewd observer of public men and passing events " (Pierce, vol. iii. p. 601), wrote Sumner May 11: "You foretell in your kind note of the 5th inst. the subjugation of the rebels, and the exile of Jefferson Davis,


"whether there is to-day a majority of the legally qualified voters of any State, except, perhaps, South Carolina, in favor of disunion. There is much reason to believe that the Union men are the majority in many, if not in every other one, of the so-called seceded States." He repelled the notion that had taken hold of the Southern mind. The aim of the government, he declared, was its preservation, and not coercion, conquest, or subjugation.1

Much stress was laid by Lincoln and other exponents and leaders of Northern public opinion upon the assertion that the Southern movement was rebellion and the acts of the leaders treason; this, indeed, seems a natural corollary from the hypothesis that the work of secession had been that of a minority. The difference of meaning now attached to the same words in each section2 is an illustration of the intensity of feeling that existed.3 General Scott was by
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Toombs, and hoc genus omne. I have my doubts whether your predictions will be speedily fulfilled, and whether the final settlement of the present differences will be materially changed by the war now about to begin. AH news I have received from the South go to prove that the South is nearly, if not quite, as unanimous, enthusiastic, and confident of the result as the North is. That the power and most of the other advantages are on the side of the North is undeniable. But the South has two great allies, its climate and sickliness, and the prospect of fighting on its own soil for its independence. One State a month seems to be Mr. Seward's programme. Maryland is to be pacified in May, Virginia in June, Tennessee or Arkansas in July, and so forth. The task will not be an easy one. . . . The North will, no doubt, gain the respect of the South, so long denied, and satisfy its thirst of revenge. As to the principal object of the war, the reconstruction of the Union, I am, I am sorry to say, not quite as confident as you seem to be."—Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.
1 Sumner, who may be looked upon as the exponent of the radical Republicans, spoke of the contest differently. He wrote, May 5: "This generous uprising of the North is a new element of force, which foretells the subjugation of the rebels."—To Schleiden, Pierce's Memoir, vol. iv. p. 37.
2 Lieber had noted this in 1860, see vol. ii. p. 489. 3 June 20, when Russell had arrived at Cairo, 111., he wrote: "The space of a very few miles has completely altered the phases of thought and the forms of language.

"I am living among 'abolitionists, cutthroats, Lincolnite mercenaries,


Virginians called "the archtraitor," because he had not followed the fortunes of his State;1 Governor Hicks was termed a traitor, for the reason that he would not co-operate with the secessionists of Maryland.2 General Lee, who was moderate and accurate in the use of language, referred to the Union men of western Virginia as traitors.3 Since the firing on Sumter and the President's call for troops the quality of vindictiveness had increased strikingly.4 The religious press on both sides of the line was not behind the secular in urging on the war.5

Of arms belonging to the national government the Confederate States possessed, from the seizure of the different arsenals within their borders, substantially what would have been their due had a distribution been made pro rata to the population.6 Touching government armories there was
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foreign invaders, assassins, and plundering Dutchmen.' Such, at least, the men of Columbus tell me the garrison at Cairo consists of. Down below me are 'rebels, conspirators, robbers, slave breeders, wretches bent upon destroying the most perfect government on the face of the earth in order to perpetuate an accursed system, by which, however, beings are held in bondage and immortal souls consigned to perdition.'"—Diary, p. 882.

1 Richmond Examiner, April 23. A report that General Scott had resigned and would offer his sword to Virginia, had previously gained wide currency, see letter of ex-President Tyler to his wife, April 16, Letters and Times of the Tylers, vol. ii. p. 640; letter of Stephens, Johnston and Browne, p. 397; New York Tribune, April 24; Russell's Diary, pp. 163, 193; Russell to the London Times, Mobile, May 11.
2 Richmond Examiner, April 20; Richmond Enquirer, May 18.
3 Official Records, vol. ii. p. 874.
4 On vindictiveness at the South, see Russell's letters to the London Times from South Carolina, April 30, Montgomery, May 8; Russell's Diary, pp. 154,225,236,315. "There is certainly less vehemence and bitterness among the Northerners; but it might be erroneous to suppose there was less determination."—Entry of July 3, ibid., p. 375. On vindictiveness at both the North and the South, see letter of George Ticknor, Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 442.
5 See citations from a large number of religious journals in the Baltimore True Union, cited by Moore, Rebellion Record, vol. i., Docs., p. 181.
6 The Confederate States had 145,154 muskets, 18,652 rifles. The Union

no signal inequality. The Virginians saved the machinery at Harper's Ferry, which was erected at Richmond and Fayetteville, and may be said to have offset the Springfield armory. But in workmen the North had the superiority. Numerous private establishments for the manufacture of warlike implements, open communication with Europe, money and credit for the purchase of arms—all these increased its advantage; although late in the year the Confederates received Enfield rifles from England. The appeals of the governors of Georgia and Mississippi to the people for the loan of country rifles and double-barrelled shot-guns show to what straits they were reduced.1 In powder and facilities for making it the South was ill off as compared with the North; while in the discipline obtained by life in camp and daily drill the Confederacy was, with a goodly portion of its force, at least three months in advance of the Union.

During these first months of preparation, while the best blood of the North and of the South were making ready to slay one another, the remark of Captain Granger, of the
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had 416,246 muskets, 30,210 rifles. Computed from the statement from the ordnance office by General Ripley to the President, July 4, War Department Archives, MS. Jefferson Davis gives substantially the same number of arms in the Confederacy, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, vol. i. p. 471. The arms in the Confederacy stated by the Columbia Democrat and Planter were: Arms seized, 243,000; purchased by the States, 417,000; cannon, 8000, cited by Atlanta Southern Confederacy, May 9. This is an exaggeration, as was also the estimate of the Memphis Appeal, cited by Richmond Dispatch, June 17, and the statement of the Memphis Avalanche, "In arms, large or small, the South at this moment is better off than the North," cited by the Atlanta Commonwealth, May 21. "The haul of heavy cannon that was made at the Norfolk navy-yard was one of the most valuable acquisitions ever made by a people. ... A Norfolk correspondent of the Columbia Times remarks, 'For six weeks every train that leaves has been loaded with guns.' "—Richmond Dispatch, June 17.
1 Proclamation of Governor Brown, of Georgia, July 26. He estimated the people had 40,000 good country rifles and 25,000 good double-barrelled shot-guns, Atlanta Weekly Intelligencer, July 31; proclamation of Governor Pettus, of Mississippi. He estimated there were in private hands arms sufficient for 25,000 men, Moore's Rebellion Record, vol. ii., Docs., p. 195.

regular army, when mustering the Fourth Ohio into service, must have expressed the feeling of many souls in both sections, when contemplating for what purpose were these arrays of men. "Looking down the line of a thousand stalwart men, all in their Garibaldi shirts" (not yet having received their uniforms), he turned to General Cox and exclaimed, "My God! that such men should be food for powder!"1
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1 Century War Book, vol. i. p. 97.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.3. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].