Campfire and battlefield
by Rossiter Johnson · English · Gutenberg #47746 · 2,179,371 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Campfire and battlefield
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Campfire and battlefield
an illustrated history of the campaigns and conflicts of the great Civil War
Author: Rossiter Johnson
Selden Connor
John Brown Gordon
Henry W. B. Howard
O. O. Howard
John Tyler Morgan
John Clark Ridpath
Release date: December 22, 2014 [eBook #47746]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47746
Credits: E-text prepared by Ron Swanson
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPFIRE AND BATTLEFIELD ***
E-text prepared by Ron Swanson
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the numerous original illustrations.
See 47746-h.htm or 47746-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/47746/pg47746-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/47746/47746-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Page numbers, enclosed by curly brackets, are included in
the text to facilitate the use of the index (example: {119}).
[Frontispiece: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. (From
a war-time photograph.)]
CAMPFIRE AND BATTLEFIELD
An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great
Civil War
BY
ROSSITER JOHNSON
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D., GEN. J. T. MORGAN, GEN. O. O. HOWARD
GEN. SELDEN CONNOR, HENRY W. B. HOWARD, GEN. JOHN B. GORDON
Art Editors Frank Beard, George Spiel
[Illustration]
New York
Copyright, 1894, by
Bryan, Taylor & Company,
61 East Ninth Street
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY EVENTS.
CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION FOR CONFLICT.
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF BLOODSHED.
CHAPTER IV.
BORDER STATES AND FOREIGN RELATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
ARMY ORGANIZATION NORTH AND SOUTH.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
CHAPTER VII.
EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST UNION VICTORIES.
CHAPTER IX.
THE "MONITOR" AND THE "MERRIMAC."
CHAPTER X.
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CAMPAIGN OF SHILOH.
CHAPTER XII.
MINOR ENGAGEMENTS OF THE FIRST YEAR.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XIV.
POPE'S CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ANTIETAM CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XVI.
EMANCIPATION.
CHAPTER XVII.
BURNSIDE'S CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WAR IN THE WEST.
CHAPTER XIX.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE SECOND YEAR.
CHAPTER XX.
EMPLOYMENT OF COLORED SOLDIERS.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
CHAPTER XXII.
GETTYSBURG.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DRAFT RIOTS.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BLACK CHAPTER.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN COMMISSIONS.
CHAPTER XXX.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE THIRD YEAR.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS IN THE WEST.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE ADVANCE ON PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WASHINGTON IN DANGER.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SHERIDAN IN THE SHENANDOAH.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
CHAPTER XL.
THE NATIONAL FINANCES.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA.
CHAPTER XLII.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE FOURTH YEAR.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE FINAL BATTLES.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PEACE.
INDEX.
{4} [Illustration: FORT SUMTER. BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT.]
[Illustration: FORT SUMTER. IN 1865--AFTER ITS REDUCTION BY GENERAL
GILLMORE.]
{5} [Illustration: DEFENCES OF WASHINGTON--HEAVY ARTILLERY.]
CAMPFIRE AND BATTLEFIELD.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY EVENTS.
CAUSES OF THE WAR--SLAVERY, STATE RIGHTS, SECTIONAL FEELING--JOHN
BROWN--ELECTION OF LINCOLN--SECESSION OF SOUTHERN STATES--"SHOOT HIM
ON THE SPOT"--PENSACOLA--MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON--SUMTER OCCUPIED--THE
"STAR OF THE WEST"--SUMTER BOMBARDED AND EVACUATED--THE CALL TO ARMS.
On the 9th of January, 1861, the _Star of the West_, a vessel which
the United States Government had sent to convey supplies to Fort
Sumter, was fired on by batteries on Morris Island, in Charleston
Harbor, South Carolina, and was compelled to withdraw.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter began on April 12th, the fort was
surrendered on the 13th and evacuated on the 14th. On April 19th the
Sixth Massachusetts regiment, which had been summoned to the defence
of the national capital, was attacked, _en route_, in the streets of
Baltimore.
Meanwhile, several Southern States had passed ordinances seceding from
the Union, and had formed a new union called the Confederate States of
America. Many Government forts, arsenals, and navy yards had been
seized by the new Confederacy; and by midsummer a bloody civil war was
in progress, which for four years absorbed the energies of the whole
American people.
[Illustration: RIVER GUNBOAT (A CONVERTED NEW YORK FERRYBOAT).]
What were the causes of this civil war?
The underlying, fundamental cause was African slavery--the
determination of the South to perpetuate and extend it, and the
determination of the people of the North to limit or abolish it.
Originally existing in all the colonies, slavery had been gradually
abolished in the Northern States, and was excluded from the new States
that came into the Union from the Northwestern Territory. The
unprofitableness of slave labor might, in time, have resulted in its
abolition in the South; but the invention, at the close of the last
century, of Eli Whitney's cotton-gin, transformed the raising of
cotton from an almost profitless to the most profitable of the staple
industries, and as a result of it the American plantations produced
seven-eighths of all the cotton of the world. African labor was
necessary to it, and the system of slavery became a fixed and
deep-rooted system in the South.
{6} [Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET. WILLIAM H.
SEWARD, Secretary of State. SALMON P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury.
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the
Navy. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, Postmaster-General. CALEB B. SMITH, Secretary
of the Interior. EDWARD BATES, Attorney-General.]
The self-interest thus established led the South, in the face of
Northern opposition to slavery which might make an independent
government necessary to them, to insist on the sovereignty of the
individual States, involving the right to secede from the Union. The
Constitution adopted in 1789 did not determine the question as to
whether the sovereignty of the States or that of {7} the central
government was paramount, but left it open, to be interpreted
according to the interests involved, and to be settled in the end by
an appeal to the sword. In the earlier history of the country the
doctrine of State sovereignty was most advocated in New England; but
with the rise of the tariff, which favored the manufacturing East at
the expense of the agricultural South, New England passed to the
advocacy of national sovereignty, while the people of the South took
up the doctrine of State Rights, determined to act on it should a
separation seem to be necessary to their independence of action on the
issue of slavery.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT ANDERSON.]
[Illustration: FORT MOULTRIE, CHARLESTON, WITH FORT SUMTER IN THE
DISTANCE.]
[Illustration: SIEGE GUN BEARING ON SUMTER. (Showing carriage rendered
useless before Confederate Evacuation, 1864.)]
From this time onward there was constant danger that the slavery
question would so imbitter the politics and legislation of the country
as to bring about disunion. The danger was imminent at the time of the
Missouri agitation of 1820-21, but was temporarily averted by the
Missouri Compromise. The Nullification Acts of South Carolina
indicated the intention of the South to stand on their State
sovereignty when it suited them. The annexation of Texas enlarged the
domain of slavery and made the issue a vital one. The aggressiveness
of the South appeared in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in
1854; and the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, giving the slaveholder the
right to hold his slaves in a free State, aroused to indignant and
determined opposition the anti-slavery sentiment of the North. The
expression in this decision, that the negro had "no rights which the
white man was bound to respect," brought squarely before the people
the issue of manhood liberty, and afforded a text for preaching
effectively the gospel of universal freedom.
The absence of intercourse between the North and the South, and their
radically different systems of civilization, made them like two
different peoples, estranged, jealous and suspicious. The publication
of sectional books fostered animosities and perpetuated misjudgments
and misunderstandings; and the interested influence of demagogues,
whose purposes would be furthered by sectional hatred, kept alive and
intensified the sectional differences.
There was little feeling of fraternity, then, to stand in the way when
the issues involved seemed to require the arbitrament of war, and it
was as enemies rather than as quarrelling brothers, that the men of
the North and the South rallied to their respective standards.
* * * * *
{8} [Illustration: INTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT IN
1863--FROM GOVERNMENT PHOTOGRAPH. (Presented to participants in Sumter
Celebration, April 14, 1865.)]
An episode which occurred about a year before the war, which was
inherently of minor importance, brought to the surface the bitter
feeling which was preparing the way for the fraternal strife. John
Brown, an enthusiastic abolitionist, a man of undoubted courage, but
possessing poor judgment, and who had been very prominent in a
struggle to make Kansas a free State, in 1859 collected a small
company, and, invading the State of Virginia, seized the United States
Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. His expectation was that the blacks would
flock to his standard, and that, arming them from the arsenal, he
could lead a servile insurrection which would result in ending
slavery. His project, which was quixotic in the extreme, lacking all
justification of possible success, failed miserably, and Brown was
hung as a criminal. At the South, his action was taken as an
indication of what the abolitionists would do if they secured control
of the Government, and the secessionist sentiment was greatly
stimulated by his attempt. At the North he became a martyr to the
cause of freedom; and although the leaders would not at first call the
war for the Union an anti-slavery war, the people knew it was an
anti-slavery war, and old {9} John Brown's wraith hung over every
Southern battlefield. The song,
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on."
became a battle-cry, sung at every public meeting, sending recruits to
the front, and making the echoes ring around the army campfires.
So long as the Democratic party, which was in political alliance with
the South, retained control of the Federal Government, there was
neither motive nor excuse for secession or rebellion. Had the Free
Soil Party elected Fremont in 1856, war would have come then. When the
election of 1860, through Democratic dissension and adherence to
several candidates, resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, the
candidate of the Free Soilers, the die was cast, and the South
prepared for the struggle it was about to precipitate.
* * * * *
The day after the election, on November 7th, 1860, the Palmetto flag,
the ensign of the State of South Carolina, was raised at Charleston,
replacing the American flag. High officials in the Government, in
sympathy with the Southern cause, had stripped the Northern arsenals
of arms and ammunition and had sent them to Southern posts. The little
standing army had been so disposed as to leave the city of Washington
defenceless, except for a few hundred marines and half a hundred men
of ordnance. The outgoing Administration was leaving the national
treasury bankrupt, and permitted hostile preparations to go on
unchecked, and hostile demonstrations to be made without interference.
So little did the people of the North realize that war was impending,
that Southern agents found no difficulty in making purchases of
military supplies from Northern manufacturers. Except for the
purchases made by Raphael Semmes in New England, the Confederacy would
have begun the war without percussion caps, which were not
manufactured at the South. With every advantage thrown at the outset
in favor of the South and against the North, the struggle began.
[Illustration: CHARLESTON HARBOR.]
[Illustration: THE PALMETTO FLAG.]
[Illustration: THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.]
The Southern leaders had been secretly preparing for a long time.
During the summer and fall of 1860, John B. Floyd, the Secretary of
War, had been sending war material South, and he continued his
pernicious activity until, in December, complicity in the theft of
some bonds rendered his resignation necessary. About the same time the
Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Interior,
Jacob Thompson, and the Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, withdrew from
the cabinet. On the election of Lincoln, treasonable preparations
became more open and more general. These were aided by President
Buchanan's message to Congress expressing doubt of the constitutional
power of the Government to take offensive action against a State. On
December 20, an ordinance of secession was passed by the South
Carolina Legislature; and following this example, Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia seceded in
the order named. Virginia held on till the last; and while a popular
vote was pending, to accept or reject the action of the Legislature,
the seat of government of the Confederate States, established in
February at Montgomery, Ala., was removed to Richmond, the capital of
Virginia. Governor Letcher turned over to the Confederates the entire
military force and equipment of the State, which passed out of the
Union without waiting for the verdict of the people. This State was
well punished by becoming the centre of the conflict for four years,
and by political dismemberment, loyal West Virginia being separated
from the original commonwealth and admitted to the Union during the
war.
During the fall and winter of 1860-61, the Southern leaders committed
many acts of treasonable aggression. They seized United States
property, acting under the authority of their States, until the
formation of the Confederacy, when the central government became their
authority. In some of these cases the Federal custodians of the
property yielded it in recognition of the right of the State to take
it. In some cases they abandoned it, hopeless of being able to hold it
against the armed forces that threatened it, and doubtful of support
from the Buchanan Administration at Washington. But there were noble
exceptions, and brave officers held to their trusts, and either
preserved them to the United States Government or released them only
when overpowered.
In December, 1860, the rebels seized Castle Pinckney and {10} Fort
Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, the arsenal at Charleston, and the
revenue cutter _William Aiken_; in January, the arsenals at Mount
Vernon, Ala., Apalachicola, Fla., Baton Rouge, La., Augusta, Ga., and
many forts, hospitals, etc., in Southern ports. By February they had
gained such assurance of not being molested in their seizures of
Government property, that everything within their reach was taken with
impunity. So many of the officers in active service were in sympathy
with the South, that it frequently required only a demand for the
surrender of a vessel or a fort--sometimes not even that--to secure
it. One of these attempted seizures gave rise to an official utterance
that did much to cheer the Northern heart. John A. Dix, who in
January, 1861, succeeded Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury, sent W. H.
Jones, a Treasury clerk, to New Orleans, to save to the Government
certain revenue cutters in Southern ports. Jones telegraphed the
secretary that the captain of the cutter _McClelland_ refused to give
her up, and Dix thereupon sent the following memorable despatch:
"Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command
of the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Captain
Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of
the cutter, tell Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer and
treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American
flag, shoot him on the spot."
These determined words were among the few that were uttered by
Northern officials that gave the friends of the Union any hope of
leadership against the aggression of the seceding States; and they
passed among the proverbial expressions of the war, to live as long as
American history.
[Illustration: A SUMTER CASEMATE DURING THE BOMBARDMENT.]
The firmness of Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer had prevented the surrender
of Fort Pickens, in Pensacola Harbor, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico,
when it was demanded with some show of force, in January, 1861.
Meanwhile, an event was preparing, in which the loyalty, courage, and
promptness of a United States officer was to bring to an issue the
question of "bloodless secession" or war. The seizures of Government
property here and there had excited indignation in the loyal North,
but no general, effective sentiment of opposition. But at the shot
that was fired at Sumter, the North burst into a flame of patriotic,
quenchless fury, which did not subside until it had been atoned for on
many a battlefield, and the Confederate "stars and bars" fell, never
to rise again.
Lieutenant-Colonel Gardner had been in command at Charleston Harbor,
S. C., and when he saw the secessionists preparing to seize the forts
there, so early as November, 1860, he applied to Washington for
reinforcements. Upon this, at the request of Southern members of
Congress, Secretary of War Floyd removed him, and sent in his place
Major Robert Anderson, evidently supposing that that officer's
Kentucky origin would render him faithful to the Southern cause. But
his fidelity to the old flag resulted in one of the most dramatic
episodes of the war.
On reaching his headquarters at Fort Moultrie, Major Anderson at once
applied for improvements, which the Secretary of War was now willing
and even eager to make, and he appropriated large sums for the
improvement of both Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, but would not
increase the garrison or the ammunition. It soon became apparent that
against a hostile attack Fort {11} Moultrie could not be held, as it
was commanded from the house-tops on Sullivan's Island, near by, and
Major Anderson decided to move his garrison across the harbor to Fort
Sumter, which, unlike Moultrie, was unapproachable by land. The
secessionists in Charleston were active and watched suspiciously every
movement made by the military, and the latter were constantly on guard
to prevent surprise and capture of the fort. The preparations for
removal to Sumter were made with the greatest caution. So well had
Major Anderson kept his purpose secret, that his second in command,
Captain Abner Doubleday, was informed of it only when ordered to have
his company ready to go to Fort Sumter in twenty minutes. The families
of the officers were sent to Fort Johnson, opposite Charleston, whence
they were afterward taken North.
For the ostensible purpose of removing these non-combatants to a place
of safety--a step to which the now well-organized South Carolina
militia could make no objection--Anderson's quartermaster, Lieutenant
Hall, had chartered three schooners and some barges, which were
ultimately used to transport supplies from Moultrie to Sumter. Laden
with these supplies, the transports started for Fort Johnson, and
there awaited the signal gun which was to direct them to land at
Sumter. The guns of Moultrie were trained to bear on the route across
the harbor, to be used defensively in case the movement was detected
and interfered with.
The preparations completed, at sunset on December 26, the troops, who
had equipped themselves in the twenty minutes allowed them, were
silently marched out of Fort Moultrie and passed through the little
village of Moultrieville, which lay between the fort and the point of
embarkation. The march was fortunately made without observation, and
the men took their places in rowboats which promptly started on their
momentous voyage. After several narrow escapes from being stopped by
the omnipresent guard boats, which were deceived into supposing the
troop boats to contain only laborers in charge of officers, the party
reached Fort Sumter. Here they found crowds of laborers, who were at
work, at the Government's expense, preparing Sumter to be handed over
to the Southern league. These men, most of them from Baltimore, were
nearly all secessionists, and had already refused to man the fort as
soldiers for its defence. They showed some opposition to the landing
of the troops, but were promptly driven inside the fort at the point
of the bayonet, and were presently shipped on board the supply
schooners and sent ashore, where they communicated to the secession
authorities the news of Major Anderson's clever ruse. The signal gun
was fired from Sumter, the supplies were landed, and Fort Sumter was
in the hands of the loyal men who were to immortalize their names by
their heroic defence of it.
[Illustration: MAJOR ANDERSON AND OFFICERS DEFENDING FORT SUMTER.
Capt. T. Seymour. 1st Lieut. G. W. Snyder. 1st Lieut. J. C. Davis. 2d
Lieut. R. K. Meade. 1st Lieut. T. Talbot. Capt. A. Doubleday. Major R.
Anderson. Surg. S. W. Crawford. Capt. J. G. Foster.]
[Illustration: GUSTAVUS V. FOX, Commanding the Relief Expedition to
Fort Sumter; afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy.]
Sixty-one artillerymen and thirteen musicians, under command of seven
or eight officers, constituted the slender garrison. Many of these
officers subsequently rose to distinction in the service of their
country, in which some of them died. Major Anderson became a
major-general and served for a while in his native Kentucky, but was
soon compelled by failing health to retire. Captains Abner Doubleday,
John G. Foster and Truman Seymour, Lieut. Jefferson C. Davis and Dr.
S. Wiley Crawford, the surgeon, became major-generals, and were in
service throughout the war; Lieut. Norman J. Hall became colonel of
the Seventh Michigan Volunteers, and was thrice brevetted in the
regular army for gallantry, especially at Gettysburg; Lieuts. George
W. Snyder and Theodore Talbot received promotion, but died early in
the war; and Edward Moale, a civilian clerk who rendered great
assistance, afterward received a commission in the regular army. One
only of the defenders of Sumter afterward joined the Confederacy; this
was Lieut. Richard K. Meade, who yielded to the tremendous social and
family {12} pressure that carried so many reluctant men to the wrong
side when the war began. Commissioned in the rebel army, he died in
1862.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, Commanding U. S.
Army, 1861.]
At noon on December 27, Major Anderson solemnized his occupancy of
Sumter by formally raising the flag of his country, with prayer by the
chaplain, Rev. Matthias Harris, and military ceremonies.
The sight of the national ensign on Sumter was quickly observed from a
troop ship in the harbor, which hastened to the city with the news,
not only that Anderson had moved from Moultrie to Sumter, but also
that he was heavily reinforced, the sixty soldiers thronging the
parapet making so good a show as to give the impression of a much
larger number. At this news Charleston was thrown into a ferment of
rage and excitement. South Carolina troops were at once sent, on
December 27, to take possession of Castle Pinckney, the seizure of
which was perhaps the first overt act of war on the part of the
secessionists. This was followed by the rebel occupation of Forts
Moultrie and Johnson, which were gotten into readiness for action, and
shore batteries, some of them iron clad, were planted near Moultrie
and on Cummings Point, an extremity of Morris Island near to Sumter;
so that by the time the preparations were completed, Anderson's
gallant little band was effectively covered on four different sides.
But the rebels were not relying wholly on measures for reducing Sumter
in order to secure it. It was diplomacy rather than war which they
expected would place in their hands all the government property in
Charleston Harbor. On the very day of Anderson's strategic move across
the harbor, three commissioners arrived in Washington for the purpose
of negotiating for the peaceable surrender to South Carolina of all
the forts and establishments. But the telegraphic news, which reached
Washington with the commissioners, that the loyal Anderson was doing
his part, met with such patriotic response in the North as effectively
to interfere with the commissioners' plans. What Buchanan might have
released to them under other circumstances, he could not give them
after Major Anderson had taken steps to protect his trust.
Once within the fort, the Sumter garrison set vigorously to work to
put it in a defensive condition. The Government work on the fort was
not completed, and had the Southerners attacked it at once, as they
would have done but for the expectation that the President would order
Anderson to return to Moultrie, they could easily have captured it by
assault. But they still hoped for "bloodless secession," and deferred
offensive action. There were no flanking defences for the fort, and no
fire-proof quarters for the officers. There was a great quantity of
combustible material in the wooden quarters, which ultimately
terminated the defence; for the garrison was rather smoked out by
fire, than either starved out or reduced by shot and shell. The
engineer officers were driven to all sorts of expedients to make the
fort tenable, because there was very little material there out of
which to make proper military defences. The workmen had left in the
interior of the unfinished fort a confused mass of building material,
unmounted guns, gun-carriages, derricks, blocks and tackle. Only two
tiers of the fort were in condition for the mounting of heavy
artillery--the upper and lower tiers. Although the garrison was
severely taxed in performing the excessive guard duty required by
their perilous situation, they yet accomplished an enormous amount of
work--mounting guns with improvised tackle; carrying by hand to the
upper tier shot weighing nearly one hundred and thirty pounds each;
protecting the casemates with flag-stones; rigging ten-inch columbiads
as mortars in the parade grounds within the fort, to fire on Morris
Island; and making their quarters as comfortable as the circumstances
admitted. The guns of the fort were carefully aimed at the various
objects to be fired at, and the proper elevation marked on each, to
avoid errors in aiming when the smoke of action should refract the
light.
To guard against a simultaneous attack from many sides, against which
sixty men could make only a feeble defence, mines were planted under
the wharf where a landing was most feasible, to blow it up at the
proper time. Piles of paving stones with charges of powder under them,
to scatter them as deadly missiles among an attacking party, were
placed on the esplanade. Metal-lined boxes were placed on the parapet
on all sides of the fort, from which musketry-fire and hand-grenades
could be thrown down on the invaders directly beneath. Barrels filled
{13} with broken stone, with charges of powder at the centre, were
prepared to roll down to the water's edge and there burst. A trial of
this device was observed by the rebels, who inferred from it that
Sumter was bristling with "infernal machines" and had better be dealt
with at long range.
[Illustration: HARPER'S FERRY.]
The discomforts and sufferings of the garrison were very great.
Quarters were lacking in accommodations; rations were short, and fuel
was scanty in midwinter. The transition from the position of friends
to that of foes was not immediate, but gradual. After the move to
Sumter, the men were still permitted to do their marketing in
Charleston; for all that Anderson had then done was to make a
displeasing change of base in a harbor where he commanded, and could
go where he pleased. Presently market privileges were restricted, and
then prohibited altogether; and even when, under the expectation of
action at Washington satisfactory to the South, the authorities
relaxed their prohibition, the secessionist marketmen would sell
nothing to go to the fort. Constant work on salt pork, with limited
necessaries and an entire absence of luxuries, made the condition of
the garrison very hard, and their conduct worthy of the highest
praise.
Anderson has been criticised for permitting the secessionists to build
and arm batteries all around him, and coolly take possession of
Government property, without his firing a shot to prevent it, as he
could easily have done, since the guns of Sumter commanded the
waterways all over the harbor. But it is easier now to see what should
have been done than it was then to see what should be done. Anderson
did not even know that he would be supported by his own Government, in
case he took the offensive; and the reluctance to begin hostilities
was something he shared with the leaders on both sides, even
down to the time of Lincoln's inaugural, in which the President
said to the people of the South: "In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil
war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors." The fact of Anderson's
Southern birth, while it did not interfere with his loyalty, did make
him reluctant to precipitate a struggle which he prayed and hoped
might be averted. Had the issue of war been declared at the time,
freeing him to do what he could, he could have saved Sumter. As it
was, the preparations for reducing Sumter went on unmolested.
Instead of yielding to the demand of the South Carolina {14}
commissioners for Anderson's return to Moultrie, President Buchanan
permitted the organization of an expedition for the relief of Sumter.
But instead of sending down a war vessel, a merchant steamer was sent
with recruits from Governor's Island, New York. The _Star of the West_
arrived off Charleston January 9, and as soon as she attempted to
enter the harbor, she was fired on from batteries on Morris Island.
Approaching nearer, and coming within gun-shot of Moultrie, she was
again fired on. At Sumter, the long roll was beaten and the guns
manned, but Anderson would not permit the rebel fire to be returned.
The _Star of the West_ withdrew and returned to New York. Explanations
were demanded by Anderson, with the result of sending Lieutenant
Talbot to Washington with a full statement of the affair, there to
await instructions. The tacit truce thus established enabled the
preparation of Sumter to be completed, but the rebel batteries also
were advanced.
Then began a series of demands from Charleston for the surrender of
the fort. The secessionists argued with Anderson as to the
hopelessness of his case, with the Washington Government going to
pieces, and the South determined to have the fort and exterminate the
garrison; and still another commission was sent to Washington, to
secure there a settlement of the question, which was invariably
referred back to Anderson's judgment.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. DIX.]
[Illustration: GENERAL DIX'S FAMOUS DESPATCH.]
The winter was passed in this sort of diplomacy and in intense
activity, within the fort and around it. The garrison shared the
general encouragement drawn from the accessions to the cabinet of
strong and loyal men, such as John A. Dix and Joseph Holt, to replace
the secessionists who had resigned. The Charleston people continued
their loud demands for an attack on Sumter. The affair of the _Star of
the West_, and the organization of the Confederate Government in
February, had greatly stimulated the war spirit of the North, and it
was felt that the crisis was approaching. Charleston people began to
feel the effects of blockading their own channel with sunken ships,
for their commerce all went to other ports.
With the inauguration of Lincoln on March 4, the South learned that
they had to deal with an Administration which, however forbearing, was
firm as a rock. Indications of a vigorous policy were slow in reaching
the anxious garrison of Sumter, for the new President was surrounded
with spies, and every order or private despatch was quickly repeated
throughout the South, which made him cautious. But the fact that he
had determined to reinforce Sumter, and to insist on its defence, did
soon become known, both at the fort and in Charleston; and on April 6,
Lieutenant Talbot was sent on from Washington to notify Governor
Pickens to that effect. This information, received at Charleston April
8, was telegraphed to the Confederate Government at Montgomery, and on
the 10th General Beauregard received orders from the rebel Secretary
of War to open fire at once on Sumter.
Instantly there was renewed activity everywhere. The garrison,
inspired by the prospect of an end to their long and wearisome
waiting, were in high spirits. The Confederates suddenly removed a
house near Moultrie, disclosing behind it a formidable masked battery
which effectually enfiladed the barbette guns at Sumter, which,
although the heaviest there were, had to be abandoned. On the
afternoon of the 11th, officers came from Beauregard to demand the
surrender of the fort, which they learned would have to yield soon for
lack of provisions. At {15} three A.M. of the 12th, General Beauregard
sent word that he would open fire in one hour.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL P. G. T. BEAUREGARD, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.]
He kept his word. At four o'clock the first gun of the war was fired
from the Cummings Point battery on Morris Island, aimed by the
venerable Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, one of the fathers of secession.
It was a good shot, the shell penetrating the masonry of the fort and
bursting inside. At this signal, instantly the batteries opened on all
sides, and the firing became an almost continuous roar.
But, as yet, Sumter made no reply. The artillery duel was not to be a
matter of hours, and there was no hurry. Breakfast was served to
officers and men, and was eaten amid a continual peppering of the fort
with balls and shells from columbiads and mortars. After this
refreshment the men were told off into firing parties, and the first
detachment was marched to the casemates, where Capt. Abner Doubleday
aimed the first gun fired on the Union side against the Southern
Confederacy. It was fired appropriately against the Cummings Point
battery which had begun the hostilities; and it struck its mark, but
did no damage. The heaviest guns in Sumter being useless, the fort was
at a disadvantage throughout the fight, from the lightness of its
metal. Notwithstanding Major Anderson's orders that the barbette guns
should be abandoned, Sergeant John Carmody, disappointed at the
effects produced by the fire of the fort, stole out and fired, one
after another, the heavy barbette battery guns. Roughly aimed, they
did little mischief; but they scared the enemy, who brought all their
weight to bear now on this battery. Captains Doubleday and Seymour
directed the firing from Sumter, and were assisted by Lieut. J. C.
Davis and Surgeon Crawford, who, having no sick in hospital,
volunteered his active services, and hammered away on Fort Moultrie.
By the middle of the morning the vessels of the relieving fleet, sent
in pursuance of Lincoln's promise, were sighted outside the bar.
Salutes were exchanged, but it was impossible for the vessels to enter
the unknown, unmarked channel. This expedition was commanded by Capt.
Gustavus V. Fox, afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who had
fitted it out with the cooperation of patriotic civilians--G. W.
Blunt, William H. Aspinwall, Russell Sturgis, and others. The vessels
arriving on the morning of April 12th were the war ship _Pawnee_,
under Commodore Rowan, and the transports _Baltic_ and _Harriet Lane_.
The _Pocahontas_, Captain Gillis, arrived on the 13th. Knowing in
advance the impossibility of entering the harbor with these vessels, a
number of launches had been brought, with the intention of running in
the reinforcements in these, under cover of night and protected by the
guns of Sumter. Except for the delay of the _Pocahontas_, which
carried the launches, this would have been attempted on the night of
the 12th, when the garrison anxiously expected the new arrivals.
Postponed until the 13th, it was then too late, as by that time Sumter
had been surrendered.
The expectation of these reinforcements, the fear of a night {16}
assault by the enemy, and the difficulty of deciding whether any boats
that might approach would contain friends to be welcomed or enemies to
be repulsed, made the night of the 12th a most anxious one for the
garrison. But neither friends nor enemies appeared, and after a
breakfast of pork and water, on the morning of the 13th, a momentous
day's fighting began.
[Illustration: AN ALEXANDRIA ANTE-BELLUM RELIC.]
By nine o'clock in the morning fire broke out in the officers'
quarters, and it was learned that the hostile batteries were firing
red-hot shot. Discovering the flames, the enemy redoubled their
firing. It was impossible, even were it desirable, to save the wooden
quarters, and, after one or two attempts to quench the flames, they
were allowed to burn. Precautions were taken to secure the powder
magazines from danger by cutting away the woodwork and spreading wet
blankets. Many barrels of powder were rolled out for use. But finally
a shot struck the door of the magazine and locked it fast, cutting off
further supplies of ammunition. Powder that could not be protected was
thrown overboard, but some of it lodging at the base of the fort was
ignited by the enemy's shot, and exploded, blowing a heavy gun at the
nearest embrasure out of battery. A trench was dug in front of the
magazine, and filled with water.
So many of the men were required to attend to these precautions, that
the firing from Sumter slackened up almost to cessation, leading the
enemy to think they had given up. The fire became intense, driving
some of the men outside the fort for air, until the thick-falling
missiles drove them in again; and, combined with the bursting shells,
all this produced a scene that was terrific. As the fire subsided for
want of fuel to burn, the {17} damage was disclosed. A tower at an
angle of the fort, in which shells had been stored, had been entirely
shattered by the bursting of the shells. The wooden gates at the
entrance to the fort were burned through, leaving the way open for
assault, and other entrances were now opened in the same way.
Shortly after noon the flag was shot away from its staff. A tremendous
amount of ammunition had been wasted by the rebels in the ambitious
effort to lower the flag, and at last it was successful. But the
exultation of the enemy was cut short by the plucky action of Peter
Hart, a servant, who had been allowed to join Major Anderson at the
fort on condition that he should remain a non-combatant. Making a
temporary flagstaff of a spar, he nailed the flag to it and tied it
firmly to the gun-carriages on the parapet, accomplishing his feat
under the concentrated fire with which the enemy sought to prevent it.
Supposing the fall of the flag to have been a token of surrender,
ex-Senator Wigfall, of Texas, made his appearance at the fort about
two P.M., announced himself as an aid to General Beauregard, and
requested an interview with Major Anderson. He begged that the
bloodshed might cease, and was told that there had been none at
Sumter. He offered Anderson honorable terms of evacuation, and then
withdrew.
At Wigfall's request, a white flag had been displayed during his
presence at the fort, and the firing ceased. Observing this, General
Beauregard sent a boat containing Colonels Chestnut, Lee, and Pryor,
and Captain Miles, to inquire whether he surrendered. A long parley
ensued, during which these officers said that Wigfall had not been in
communication with Beauregard; upon which Major Anderson said, "Very
well, gentlemen, you can return to your batteries," and announced that
he would run up his flag and renew his fire. But at their request he
agreed to delay this until they could see General Beauregard, and they
withdrew.
That evening, another boat-load of officers came, bringing
Beauregard's confirmation of the terms of evacuation that had been
discussed with Wigfall, although permission to salute the United
States flag was granted with much hesitation. It was then arranged
that Anderson should leave Fort Sumter on the following day, taking
all his men and arms and personal baggage, and saluting the flag.
Early on the morning of Sunday, April 14, all was made ready for the
departure. The firing of the salute was a matter of some danger, as
there was so much fire still about the fort that it was risky to lay
ammunition down, and sparks of fire floated in the air. Fifty guns
were fired before the flag was lowered. In reloading one of them, some
spark that had lodged in the piece prematurely discharged it,
instantly killing the gunner, Daniel Hough. The fire from the muzzle
dropping on the cartridges piled below exploded those also, seriously
injuring five other men. This was the only life lost at Sumter, and
the first life lost in the war; and, with the exception of one man
wounded by a bursting shell, these wounded men received the only
casualties of the brave little garrison that defended Fort Sumter.
The men were formed in company, banners were flung to the breeze, the
drums beat "Yankee Doodle," and the order was given to march through
the charred gateway to the transport that lay at the dock in readiness
to carry them to the _Baltic_, on which they sailed to New York.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE, C. S. A.]
When they reached their destination, they were lionized by their
enthusiastic countrymen. Steam whistles and cheers greeted their
passage through the harbor; comforts, long a stranger to them, awaited
them at Fort Hamilton, where they were greeted in the name of a
grateful people by the people's spokesman, Henry Ward Beecher; and the
newspapers sang their praises in one harmonious chorus.
When Fort Sumter was evacuated, it presented very much the exterior
appearance that it did before the bombardment--a few {18} holes
knocked in the masonry were all that the comparatively light artillery
then brought to bear on it could accomplish. Occupied by the
Confederates after the evacuation, it remained in their hands until
the end of the war. When, in 1863, General Q. A. Gillmore bombarded
Charleston, Fort Sumter was reduced to a pile of bricks and mortar;
but such a quantity of cannonballs and shells were poured into its
debris as to form an almost solid mass of iron, practically
impregnable. Sumter never was reduced by artillery fire, and fell into
Federal hands again only when Charleston fell before Sherman's march
to the sea.
On the conglomerate pile which constituted the ruins of the fort, a
dramatic scene of poetic justice occurred on April 14, 1865, the
fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Sumter. An expedition was sent
by the Government to Charleston Harbor to celebrate the recapture by
replacing the national flag on Fort Sumter. The ship _Arago_ bore the
officials in charge of the ceremony, and many invited guests, among
whom were William Lloyd Garrison and the English George Thompson,
leading abolitionists. A patriotic oration was pronounced by Henry
Ward Beecher; and by the hand of Anderson, now major-general, the same
flag which he had lowered in 1861 was drawn to the peak of the
flagstaff, while Sumter's guns and those of every battery in the
harbor that had fired on that flag fired a national salute of one
hundred guns. The flag was riddled with holes, but, as the orator of
the day pointed out, as symbolic of the preserved Union, not a single
star had been shot away. Peter Hart, the brave man who had reset the
flag during the bombardment, was present; and the Rev. Mr. Harris, who
read prayers at the first raising, pronounced the benediction on the
resurrection of the ensign of the nation.
The shot that was fired on Sumter was the signal for a nation to rise
in arms. That Sunday on which Sumter was evacuated was a memorable day
to all who witnessed the intense excitement, the patriotic fury of a
patient people roused to white-hot indignation. As on a gala day, the
American flag suddenly appeared on every public building and from
innumerable private residences. Crowds surged through the streets,
seeking news and conference. The national flag was thrown to the
breeze from nearly every court-house, school-house, college, hotel,
engine-house, railway station and public building, from the spires of
many churches, and from the windows of innumerable private residences.
The fife and drum were heard in the streets, and recruiting offices
were opened in vacant stores or in tents hastily pitched in the public
squares. All sorts and conditions of men left their business and
stepped into the ranks, and in a few days the Government was offered
several times as many troops as had been called for. Boys of fifteen
sat down and wept because they were not permitted to go, but here and
there one dried his tears when he was told that he might be a drummer
or an officer's servant. Attentions between young people were suddenly
ripened into engagements, and engagements of long date were hastily
finished in marriages; for the boys were going, and the girls were
proud to have them go, and wanted to send them off in good spirits.
Everybody seemed anxious to put forth some expression of loyalty to
the national government and the starry flag. In the Ohio senate, on
Friday, the 12th, a senator announced that "the secessionists are
bombarding Fort Sumter." "Glory to God!" exclaimed a woman in the
gallery, breaking the solemn silence which briefly followed the
announcement. This was Abby Kelly Foster, an active abolitionist, who
discerned that at last the final appeal had been taken on the slavery
question--the appeal to the sword--from the triumphant issue of which
would come the freedom for which she and her associates had contended,
and which they believed could come in no other way.
[Illustration: "WAR GOVERNORS" OF THE NORTHERN STATES.]
On Monday, April 15, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five
thousand militia from the several States "to suppress this combination
against the laws, and to cause the laws to be duly executed."
The response to this call was immediate, and within the week some of
the troops thus summoned were in Washington.
While forts and arsenals were being seized by the Confederates all
over the South, while batteries to reduce Fort Sumter were being
constructed and armed, what had been doing at Washington city, the
capital of the nation?
{19}
CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION FOR CONFLICT.
DEFENCELESS CONDITION OF WASHINGTON--SECESSION SYMPATHIZERS IN
OFFICE--VOLUNTEERS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA--COL. CHARLES P.
STONE--PROTECTION OF PUBLIC OFFICES AND GUARDING OF
COMMUNICATIONS--UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE--RESPONSE OF THE MILITIA--THE
SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS IN BALTIMORE--THE NEW YORK SEVENTH REACHES
WASHINGTON--DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH--SOUTHERN MILITARY
AGGRESSION--HARPER'S FERRY CAPTURED--GOSPORT NAVY YARD BURNED AND
EVACUATED.
During the interval between the election and the inauguration of
President Lincoln, a very alarming condition of affairs existed at the
national capital. The administration was in the hands of men who, even
those who were not actively disloyal, were not Republicans, and did
not desire to assume responsibility for the crisis which the
Republican success at the polls had precipitated.
[Illustration: ON THE MARCH.]
[Illustration]
[Illustration: RETURN FROM SKIRMISHING.]
The Government service was honeycombed with secession sentiment, which
extended from cabinet officers down to department clerks. Always
essentially a city of Southern sympathies, Washington was filled with
the advocates of State Rights. The retiring Democratic President,
James Buchanan, in addition to a perhaps not unnatural timidity in the
face of impending war and a reluctance to embroil his administration
in affairs which it properly belonged to the incoming administration
to settle, was also torn with conflicting opinions as to the
constitutional questions involved, especially as to his power to
coerce a sovereign State. Turning to his cabinet for advice, he was
easily led to do the things that simplified the Southern preparations
to leave the Union.
{20} It has been told that the regular army troops had been sent away
from Washington, leaving a mere handful of marines on duty there. It
became a problem for loyal men to devise means for the maintenance of
order at the seat of Government. It being the policy of the Government
at that time to do nothing to provoke hostilities, it was deemed
unwise to bring regular troops openly into Washington. There was no
regularly organized militia there; only a few independent companies of
doubtful, or unascertained, loyalty.
The aged Gen. Winfield Scott was in command of the army in 1860, and
appreciating that trouble would come either from continued
acquiescence in the aggressions of the South or from a show of force,
he advised the President to quietly enroll the loyal people of the
District of Columbia for the guardianship of the capital. For this
duty he called in Charles P. Stone, a graduate of West Point and a
veteran of the Mexican war, who was made Inspector-General of the
District of Columbia, with the rank of colonel.
Colonel Stone took measures to ascertain the sentiments of the
existing independent military companies. With admirable diplomacy he
disarmed such of them as were found to be disloyal. Some of them he
found to be in excellent condition of drill and equipment, by
connivance of the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, and they were well
aware that it was their destiny to help defend the South against the
"coercion" of the Yankees. Opposition from the War Department to
Colonel Stone's measures ceased with Floyd's resignation, and under
the new Secretary of War, Joseph Holt (afterward Lincoln's
Attorney-General), he was able to enroll in a few weeks thirty-three
companies of infantry volunteers and two troops of cavalry, under
trustworthy leaders. These were recruited from neighborhoods, from
among artisans, and from fire companies. All this was done with the
discretion required by the strained condition of public feeling, which
was such that, as General Scott said to Colonel Stone, "a dog-fight
might cause the gutters of the capital to run with blood." As the time
for Lincoln's inauguration approached, it became safe to move more
openly; and by the 4th of March a company of sappers and miners and a
battery had been brought down from West Point, while thirty new
companies had been added to the volunteer force of the District.
[Illustration: WASH-DAY IN CAMP--GUARDING THE SUPPLY TRAIN.]
{21} [Illustration: LAST MOMENTS OF JOHN BROWN.
John Brown of Ossawatomie, spake on his dying day:
"I will not have to shrive my soul a priest in slavery's pay,
But let some poor slave-mother, whom I have striven to free,
With her children, from the gallows stair, put up a prayer for me!"
John Brown of Ossawatomie, they led him out to die:
And lo! a poor slave-mother, with her little child, pressed nigh;
Then the bold blue eye grew tender, and the old harsh face grew
mild,
As he stooped between the crowding ranks, and kissed the negro's
child!
J. G. Whittier.]
In the first enthusiasm over the dramatic incidents attending the
beginning of hostilities, the great services rendered by these troops
were overlooked by the public. Abraham Lincoln's journey to Washington
was beset with such danger that the last stage of it was made
secretly, in advance of the published programme, and there was great
rejoicing when it was announced that the President was "safe in
Washington." He could not have been safe there except for the {22}
presence of Colonel Stone's volunteers. Trouble was apprehended at his
inauguration. But the dispositions made by Colonel Stone secured peace
and quiet for that ceremonial in a city teeming with traitors and
would-be assassins. The advance to Washington of the troops called out
by Lincoln's proclamation of April 15 was opposed in Maryland,
regiments were attacked in the streets of Baltimore, and communicating
railroad bridges were burned in order that no more troops for the
subjugation of the South might pass through that border city. The
South was flocking to arms, stimulated by the desire of seizing
Washington. To a delegation that called on the President to protest
against the passage of troops through Baltimore, Mr. Lincoln summed up
the situation by saying: "I _must_ have troops for the defence of the
capital. The Carolinians are marching across Virginia to seize the
capital and hang me. What am I to do? I _must_ have troops, I say; and
as they can neither crawl under Maryland nor fly over it, they must
come across it."
During all this troubled time the District volunteers were the only
reliance for the security of the public property, for guarding the
approaches to the city, and for keeping open the communications for
the entrance of the coming troops. They were among the first to be
mustered into the United States service, and among the first to
advance into Virginia.
[Illustration: LONG BRIDGE--OVER THE POTOMAC, AT WASHINGTON. The
planks were laid loose on the beams, and at night they were taken up,
so that the bridge could not be crossed by the Confederate cavalry
that hovered about the capital.]
To secure the public buildings against a rising among the
secessionists living in Washington, the volunteer companies and the
regular army batteries were conveniently posted, the bridges and
highways leading to the city were guarded, and signals were arranged
for the concentration at any given point of the eight thousand men who
now constituted the garrison of the capital. Provisions were collected
and stored, many of them in the Capitol building, and, to such extent
as the force warranted, Washington was considered secure unless a
Southern army was marched against it. And this impending danger was
daily increasing. On April 17, Jefferson Davis, the President of the
Confederacy, had called for thirty-two thousand troops, and had
offered letters of marque to vessels to attack American commerce. The
arrival of the militia called out by President Lincoln's proclamation
was anxiously awaited.
* * * * *
Almost before the boom of the guns that were fired on Sumter had
ceased, military preparations were actively under way in nearly every
city and village in the North. The uniformed {23} militia regiments
were promptly filled up to their full numbers by new enlistments. Home
Guards were organized in country towns, to defend their homes should
the war be waged in the North, and to man afresh, when necessary, the
companies already sent out. To fife and drum, the ununiformed farmers
marched up and down the village green, temporarily armed with
shot-guns and smooth-bore rifles, acquiring proficiency in "Hardee's
Tactics" under the direction of old militia officers who had shone
resplendent on former "training days." Neither custom nor regulations
prescribing any particular uniforms, the greatest variety of fancy was
shown in the equipment of the volunteers. Some adopted the zouave
uniform, which had become popular through the then recent war between
France and Austria and the memories of Magenta and Solferino.
Garibaldi was a popular hero of the day, and the red shirts of his
trusty men were another of the uniforms particularly favored. The war
enthusiasm extended to the women and children, and sewing circles were
organized for the making of many useful, and also many useless,
articles for camp and hospital. The "havelocks"--a cap-cover and cape
combined--however useful in India, were not wanted in America. Later,
when there were sick and wounded to be cared for, these organizations
of women were of inestimable service in preparing lint, bandages, and
delicacies for the hospitals.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL MONTGOMERY C. MEIGS.]
[Illustration: MAJ.-GEN. JOHN E. WOOL.]
[Illustration: OLD CAPITOL PRISON, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
Prompt to discern the coming appeal to arms, John A. Andrew, the
famous "war governor" of Massachusetts, had begun to recruit, arm, and
equip his State militia as early as February, 1860, and by the time
the call for troops came he had thirteen thousand men ready, not only
to go to the front, but to furnish their own camp equipage and
rations. Of these, nearly four thousand responded to the first call
for three-months' volunteers. The first regiment to start for
Washington was the Sixth Militia, Col. Edward F. Jones, which left
Boston on April 17, only three days after the fall of Sumter. The
passage of the train bearing this regiment was one long ovation from
Boston to Philadelphia. At the latter city, as at New York, the men
were received with enthusiastic hospitality, welcomed, fed, and plied
with good things for their already overstocked haversacks; and it
began to seem as though war were one continuous picnic. At least until
the defence of Washington should begin, they were under no
apprehension of trouble, until, on approaching Baltimore, on April 19,
the anniversary of the Revolutionary battle of Lexington, the officers
were warned that the passage of the regiment through that city would
be forcibly opposed by a mob, which was already collected and marching
about the city, following a secession flag. Colonel Jones ordered
ammunition to be distributed, and, passing through the cars in person,
he warned the men that they were to pay no attention to abuse or even
missiles, and that, if it became necessary for them to fire on the
mob, they would receive orders to that effect from their commandants.
The passage of trains through Baltimore at that period was by horse
power across the city, from one depot to another. The horses being
quickly attached as soon as the locomotive was taken off, cars
carrying about two-thirds of the regiment were driven rapidly over the
route; but to intercept the remaining four companies the mob
barricaded the tracks, and it became necessary for these to abandon
the cars and cover the remaining distance on foot. At once they became
the target for showers of stones thrown by the mob, and in order to
lessen the need of armed resistance, the officers gave the order to
proceed at the double-quick. It was a mistake, but a common one when
citizen soldiers are dealing with a mob; the most merciful as well as
the wisest course being to scatter the mob promptly by a warning,
followed by the promised volley. The mob thought they had the troops
on the run, and were encouraged to believe that they either dared not
shoot or that they were without ammunition. The missiles were followed
with pistol shots, at which one soldier fell dead. Then the order to
fire was given to the troops, and several of the crowd, rioters and
spectators, fell. The mayor of Baltimore joined the officers at the
head of the column, to give his authority to its progress, and also to
tell the officers to {24} defend themselves. Instead of being faced
about to confront the mob, the troops were marched steadily forward,
turning about as they advanced and delivering a desultory fire, which,
however, did not deter the mob from continuing its attack. At last,
Marshal Kane, of the Baltimore police, interposed with a company of
policemen between the rear of troops and the rioters, formed a line,
and ordered the mob back on penalty of a pistol volley. This was so
effective as to practically end the affair, and without further
serious disturbance the detachment joined their comrades at the Camden
station, and boarded the train that took them to Washington. The
regiment's loss was four killed and thirty-six wounded. The men were
furious over the affair, and it required all the authority of the
colonel to keep them from leaving the cars and taking vengeance on
Baltimore for the death of their comrades. Arrived at Washington, the
first regiment to come in response to the call of the President, they
were quartered in the Senate Chamber.
[Illustration: EPISCOPAL CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA, VA. General George
Washington and General Robert Lee attended this church.]
[Illustration: PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE, ALEXANDRIA, VA.]
After this incident, the mayor and police of Baltimore, who had done
their duty handsomely, with the approval of the governor destroyed the
tracks and railway bridges leading into the city, that there might be
no repetition of such scenes; and the troops that followed--the
Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania (which, unarmed, had reached Baltimore
with the Sixth Massachusetts, but had to turn back), the Eighth
Massachusetts under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, and the famous Seventh
New York--had to reach Washington by way of Annapolis. The Seventh,
under Colonel Lefferts, was the first home regiment to leave New York
City, and nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the demonstrations
that accompanied its march down Broadway. To greet its passage out of
the city to the front, all business was suspended, and the population
turned _en masse_ into the streets. Boxes of cigars and other luxuries
were thrust into the hands of the men as they passed down Broadway in
a triumphal march such as has never been surpassed in the annals of
the city. There was a certain dramatic element, new at the time, and
scarcely repeated during the war, in this departure of a regiment
composed literally of the flower of a great and wealthy city,
representing its best elements, social and commercial. When General
(then Major) McDowell mustered them in at Washington, he said to one
of the captains: "You have a company of officers, not privates;" and
out of the less than one thousand men composing this command, over six
hundred, mostly privates, afterward became officers in the Union army.
Among these were such names as Abram Duryea, who organized "Duryea's
Zouaves;" Egbert L. Viele, Noah L. Farnam, Edward L. Molineux,
Alexander Shaler, Louis Fitzgerald, Philip Schuyler, FitzJames
O'Brien; Robert G. Shaw, who fell at Fort Wagner, leading to the
assault his Massachusetts regiment, which was the first colored
regiment to be organized under State authority; and Theodore Winthrop,
whose death at Big Bethel, as a brave officer and man of letters, was
one of the conspicuous casualties of the early days of the war.
These troops were taken on transports from Philadelphia to Annapolis,
another town of {25} Southern sympathies, where, except for the
hospitality of the United States Naval Academy, they were most
unwelcome. From that point they made their way, at first by train, and
then, being obstructed by the destruction of railroads and railroad
bridges, by forced marches, until they reached Annapolis Junction,
where they were met by a regiment sent out from Washington to meet
them, and thence proceeded by rail again. The strict discipline of
Colonel Lefferts, to which they owed their successful pioneer work in
opening the way to the capital, took them in review past President
Lincoln at the White House before they breakfasted, and they had no
let-up on the hardship of their service until they were quartered in
the House of Representatives, where they were subsequently sworn into
the service of the Government.
This episode is worth recounting, since it was the determined advance
of these troops--the Eighth Massachusetts, under Colonel Hinks,
accompanying them--in spite of rumors of a large secessionist force
between them and Washington, that made access to the seat of
government practicable for the regiments that promptly followed them,
including more men from Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, the First
Rhode Island, the Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Seventy-first New York,
the latter regiments reaching Annapolis before the Seventh New York
and Eighth Massachusetts left, thus keeping the way open. Had the
rumored fifteen thousand rebels actually lain between Annapolis and
Washington, it would have gone hard with the Government and the
fortunes of the Union.
Troops continued to pour into Washington, until it really became an
embarrassment to know what to do with them. They "bunked" all over the
city, were quartered so far as practicable in the Government
buildings, and made the national capital festive with the pranks in
which they let off the animal spirits they carried into the grand
picnic they seemed to have started on. Among them, a regiment of
Zouaves, recruited from the New York Fire Department by Col. Elmer E.
Ellsworth, was conspicuous. They were the last of the old-time
"toughs," and they made things lively in the capital. They swarmed
over the Capitol building, scaling its walls and running about its
cornices in true fire-laddie fashion, and once they rendered a
distinct service to the city of Washington by saving a burning
building adjoining Willard's Hotel, displaying a reckless daring that
gave the District firemen some new ideas.
[Illustration: COLONEL ELMER E. ELLSWORTH.]
[Illustration: MARSHALL HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA. Where Colonel Ellsworth was
killed.]
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ELLSWORTH.]
{26} [Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS AND HIS CABINET. JUDAH P.
BENJAMIN, Attorney-General--War--State. JOHN H. REAGAN,
Postmaster-General. STEPHEN R. MALLORY, Secretary of the Navy.
CHRISTOPHER G. MEMMINGER, Secretary of the Treasury. ROBERT TOOMBS,
Secretary of State. LEROY P. WALKER, Secretary of War.]
Ellsworth had attracted much attention in 1860 by the admirable work
of a company of Chicago Zouaves, with which he had given exhibition
drills in the East, and he was early commissioned a second lieutenant
in the regular army. But he resigned this position in order to
organize the Fire Zouaves, which he marched down Broadway under escort
of the Fire Department, and entered upon active service only to
sacrifice his life at the very beginning in a needless but tragic
manner. As soon as troops arrived in Washington in sufficient numbers,
the Government determined to make Washington secure by seizing its
outposts. Among these were Arlington Heights, across the Potomac, on
the "sacred soil of Virginia," of which this occupation was termed the
first "invasion." Ellsworth's regiment occupied the city of
Alexandria; and then, discovering a secession flag flying from the
Marshall House, the colonel mounted to the roof in person and tore the
flag down. Descending, he was met at the foot of the stairs by
Jackson, the proprietor of the hotel, who shot him dead with a
shot-gun. Ellsworth's death was promptly avenged by Private Francis E.
Brownell, who had accompanied him, and who put a bullet through
Jackson's head; but, as the first death of an officer, it created
wide-spread excitement {27} throughout the North, not excelled by that
over the Massachusetts men who fell in Baltimore, and royal honors
were shown to his remains. They lay in state in the White House, where
he had been a great favorite with the President, and were conveyed to
their last resting-place with every military distinction. Perhaps this
incident, more than any that had yet occurred, brought home to the
people of the North the reality of the war that was upon them. But it
only stimulated recruiting; the death of Ellsworth weighing far less
with the generous patriotism of the young men who filled up regiment
after regiment, than the glory of Ellsworth, and the honor of Private
Brownell.
* * * * *
While the levies were coming into Washington, the Southern leaders had
not been idle. Response to Jefferson Davis's call for troops was
general all over the States, and the week that intervened between
Sumter and the riot in Baltimore was a busy one. In Virginia, the
Governor took into his own hands measures for the defence of his
State. As early as April 15 he caused a number of militia officers to
be summoned to Richmond, and he placed in their hands the execution of
a movement to capture the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, at
the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Proceeding with a
small command through an unfriendly country, these officers, among
whom was the afterward famous Confederate general, John D. Imboden,
reached their destination in the gray of the early morning of April
18, the day after the Virginia Legislature had passed the ordinance of
secession. Instead of the resistance they had looked forward to on
information that a Massachusetts regiment was guarding Harper's Ferry,
they were welcomed with the sight of buildings in flames, which told
them, only too truly, that the United States garrison had abandoned
the place on their approach, and had set fire to the arsenal and
stores to save them from falling into the hands of the Confederates.
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS'S RESIDENCE IN RICHMOND.]
Early warning of the attempted seizure of Harper's Ferry had been
confided to a messenger who had volunteered to acquaint the Government
with the impending peril, and word was sent that heavy reinforcements
alone would save this property to the United States. But in those
formative days, when many earnest men hesitated between loyalty to the
Union and loyalty to their State, when officers like Lee abandoned the
old service with reluctance under a sense of paramount duty to their
State, a man who was loyal one day would conclude overnight to secede
with his State. And from some such cause as this, or through fear of
the consequences, the messenger never delivered the message to the War
Department, and the reinforcements, though anxiously expected, never
came. The arsenal had been left in charge of Lieut. Roger Jones, who
had been ordered to Harper's Ferry from Carlisle Barracks, Penn., with
a small force of forty-five men. Hearing nothing from Washington in
response to his request for aid, he made up his mind on the evening of
April 17, that the only course open to him was to save his garrison by
retreat, and destroy the property thus abandoned. This determination
was confirmed by the news brought to him, by a former superintendent
of the arsenal, of the coming of the Virginia troops. Although this
same man had loyally reported, so long before as January, that an
attempt might be made, he now told the workmen engaged at the arsenal
that within twenty-four hours the arsenal would be in the hands of the
Virginia forces, and advised them to protect the property, cast their
lot with the secessionists, and insure to themselves a continuance of
work under the new regime.
Lieutenant Jones immediately made secret preparations. He had trains
of powder laid through the buildings, and when the force of thirteen
hundred Virginians had approached to within a mile of the arsenal, at
nine o'clock on the evening of April 17, the torch was applied, and
the flames ran through the works, which were quickly burning. Some of
the powder trains had been wet by the Southern sympathizers among the
workmen, but the result was a practical destruction of nearly all that
would have been valuable as munitions of war. The powder that was
stored in the buildings exploded from time to time, effectually
preventing serious efforts to put out the fire. The garrison was
withdrawn {28} across the Potomac and marched back to Carlisle. When
the Virginians came up the next morning, they found only the burning
arsenal buildings to greet them.
Enough property was rescued from the destruction to make the capture a
useful one to the Confederates, however; and the possession of
Harper's Ferry gave them command of an important line of communication
with Washington, by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Anticipating the
use of this line for the transportation of Western troops to
Washington, Gen. Kenton Harper, commanding the Virginians, stopped the
first train through; but his only capture was the person of Gen.
William S. Harney, of the regular army, who was on his way to
Washington to resign his commission rather than engage in the civil
war. He was made a prisoner and sent to Richmond, whence he was
allowed to proceed on his errand. General Harney did not resign, but
was presently sent to Missouri to command the Department of the West.
But his conciliating method of dealing with the enemy, together with
his uncertain loyalty, caused him to be relieved very soon. The
strategic value of Harper's Ferry was developed under Col. Thomas J.
Jackson (afterward the celebrated "Stonewall"), who was made colonel
commandant of all the Virginia forces, superseding all the previously
existing militia generals. Robert E. Lee had been given the general
command of the State troops, with Jackson as his executive officer,
and by a legislative ordinance every militia officer above the grade
of captain had been relegated to private life unless reappointed by
the governor under the new dispensation.
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL AT RICHMOND.]
The bridge at Point of Rocks, a few miles down the Potomac toward
Washington, was seized and fortified against a possible attack by
General Butler, who was near Baltimore; and by a clever _ruse_ a great
number of trains on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were "bagged," and
the cars and engines side-tracked into Strasburg, greatly facilitating
the Confederate train service in Virginia. Horses and supplies were
secured from the neighboring country, and when Gen. Joseph E. Johnston
superseded Jackson a month later at Harper's Ferry, the Confederates
were in good shape to confront an advance on their position from
Maryland or Pennsylvania, or to send reinforcements, as they did, when
the first considerable struggle of the war came at Bull Run, fifty
miles south of them.
[Illustration: ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS, Vice-President C. S. A.]
Another destruction of Government property by Government officers,
about this time, most unnecessary and unfortunate, deprived the Navy
Department of ships and material that would have been incalculably
precious, and furnished the Confederates with three ships, one of
which, the _Merrimac_, was to be heard from later in a signal manner.
At the Gosport Navy Yard, opposite Norfolk, Va., there were, besides
many munitions of war, no less than eleven fine war ships, a majority
of which were armed and ready for sea. The Government made prompt
preparations to secure these after the fall of Sumter; and but for the
delay of the commandant, Commodore Charles S. McCauley, in executing
his orders, a number of the vessels, with stores, armament, and crews,
would have been withdrawn into safe waters. But under the influence of
his junior officers, most of whom subsequently joined the Confederacy,
he deferred action until better prepared. This delay was fatal; for on
April 18 he suddenly was confronted by a hostile force, though small
in numbers, under General Taliaferro, which had seized Norfolk and
threatened the navy yard. The {29} action of the latter in waiting one
day for expected reinforcements from Richmond, and Commodore
McCauley's promise not to move a vessel or fire a shot except in
defence, gave the Union commander time to do what he could to destroy
the property in his charge; and on April 20 he scuttled every ship in
the harbor, sinking them just before the arrival of Capt. Hiram
Paulding in the _Pawnee_ with orders to relieve McCauley, and to save
or destroy the property. Seeing that it would be possible for the
enemy to raise the sunken vessels, and that after the ships had been
rendered useless he could not hold the place with his small force,
Paulding decided to complete the work of destruction as far as
possible, and told off his men in detachments for this duty. Ships,
ship-houses, barracks, wharves, were at the signal (a rocket) set
ablaze, and the display was magnificent as pyrotechnics, and
discouraging to the enemy, which had expected to secure a ready-made
navy for the taking of it. When to the roar of the flames was added
the boom of the loaded guns as the fire reached them, the effect was
tremendous. Under cover of all this, the _Pawnee_ drew out of the
harbor, accompanied by the steam-tug _Yankee_ towing the _Cumberland_,
which alone of the fleet had not been scuttled, and bearing the loyal
garrison and crews. In the haste with which the work of destruction
had been undertaken, the result was incomplete. The mine under the
dry-dock did not explode; and that most useful appliance, together
with many shops, cannon, and provisions, was secured by the
Confederates, who also succeeded in raising and using three of the
sunken and partially burned vessels--the _Merrimac_, _Raritan_, and
_Plymouth_, under the guns of the first of which, from behind its
armored sides, the _Cumberland_ afterward came to grief in Hampton
Roads.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL E. D. TOWNSEND, Assistant
Adjutant-General.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES P. STONE.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY.]
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF BLOODSHED.
LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS--THE STRUGGLE FOR VIRGINIA--OPPOSING VIEWS
EXPRESSED BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS--THE SLAVE-TRADE OF
VIRGINIA--VIRGINIA DRAGOONED--THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS--LINCOLN'S
FAITH IN THE PEOPLE--ORIGIN OF THE WORD "COPPERHEAD."
Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address was one of the ablest state papers
recorded in American history. It argued the question of secession in
all its aspects--the constitutional right, the reality of the
grievance, the sufficiency of the remedy--and so far as law and logic
went, it left the secessionists little or nothing to stand on. But
neither law nor logic could change in a single day the pre-determined
purpose of a powerful combination, or allay the passions that had been
roused by years of resentful debate. Some of its sentences read like
maxims for statesmen: "The central idea of secession is the essence of
anarchy." "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make
laws?" "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate
justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the
world?" With all its conciliatory messages it expressed a firm and
unalterable purpose to maintain the Union at every hazard. "I
consider," he said, "that, in view of the Constitution and the laws,
the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take
care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the
laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this
I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so
far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people,
shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner
direct the contrary." And in closing he said: "In your hands, my
dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous
issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have
no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath
registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most
solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.... We are not enemies,
but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained,
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living
heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the
better angels of our nature."
{30} [Illustration: SHERMAN AND HIS GENERALS. Oliver O. Howard. John
A. Logan. William B. Hazen. William T. Sherman. Jeff. C. Davis. Henry
W. Slocum. J. A. Mower.]
No such address had ever come from the lips of a {31} President
before. Pierce and Buchanan had scolded the abolitionists like
partisans; Lincoln talked to the secessionists like a brother. The
loyal people throughout the country received the address with
satisfaction. The secessionists bitterly denounced it. Overlooking all
its pacific declarations, and keeping out of sight the fact that a
majority of the Congress just chosen was politically opposed to the
President, they appealed to the Southern people to say whether they
would "submit to abolition rule," and whether they were going to look
on and "see gallant little South Carolina crushed under the heel of
despotism."
[Illustration: GENERAL GRANT'S BODYGUARD.]
[Illustration: GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, WITH GENERALS RAWLINS AND
BOWERS.]
In spite of all such appeals, there was still a strong Union sentiment
at the South. This sentiment was admirably expressed by Hon. Alexander
H. Stephens in a speech delivered on November 14, 1860, in the
following words: "This step of secession, once taken, can never be
recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must
follow will rest on the convention for all time.... What reasons can
you give the nations of the earth to justify it? What right has the
North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What
justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right
has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act
of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government of
Washington, of which the South has the right to complain? I challenge
the answer.... I declare here, as I have often done before, and which
has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots
in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest
Government--the most equal in its rights, the most just in its
decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in
its principles to elevate the race of men--that the sun of heaven ever
shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a Government as
this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a
century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a {32}
nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us,
with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and
rights unassailed--is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, to
which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote." In a speech by Mr.
Stephens delivered in Savannah, March 22, 1861, he expressed entirely
different views; in expounding the new constitution, he said: "The
prevailing idea entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the
leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution
was, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws
of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and
politically.... Our new Government is founded upon exactly the
opposite idea. Its foundation was laid, and its corner-stone rests,
upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man,
that slavery, in subordination to the superior race, is his natural
and normal condition." Seven slave States had gone out, but eight
remained, and the anxiety of the secessionists was to secure these at
once, or most of them, before the excitement cooled. The great prize
was Virginia, both because of her own power and resources, and because
her accession to the Confederacy would necessarily bring North
Carolina also. Her governor, John Letcher, professed to be a Unionist;
but his conduct after the ordinance of secession had been passed
appears to prove that this profession was insincere. In electing
delegates to a convention to consider the question of secession, the
Unionists cast a majority of sixty thousand votes; and on the 4th of
April, when President Lincoln had been in office a month, that
convention refused, by a vote of eighty-nine to forty-five, to pass an
ordinance of secession. The leading revolutionists of the cotton
States were becoming uneasy. Said Mr. Gilchrist, of Alabama, to the
Confederate Secretary of War: "You must sprinkle blood in the faces of
the people! If you delay two months, Alabama stays in the Union!"
Hence the attack on Fort Sumter, out of which the garrison were in
peril of being driven by starvation. This certainly had a great
popular effect in the South as well as in the North; but Virginia's
choice appears to have been determined by a measure that was less
spectacular and more coldly significant. The Confederate Constitution
provided that Congress should have the power to "prohibit the
introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory
not belonging to, this Confederacy," and at the time when Virginia's
fate was in the balance it was reported that such an act had been
passed by the Congress at Montgomery.[1] When Virginia heard this,
like the young man in Scripture, she went away sorrowful; for in that
line of trade she had great possessions. The cultivation of land by
slave labor had long since ceased to be profitable in the border
States--or at least it was far less profitable than raising slaves for
the cotton States--and the acquisition of new territory in Texas had
enormously increased the demand. The {33} greatest part of this
business (sometimes estimated as high as one-half) was Virginia's. It
was called "the vigintal crop," as the blacks were ready for market
and at their highest value about the age of twenty. As it was an
ordinary business of bargain and sale, no statistics were kept; but
the lowest estimate of the annual value of the trade in the Old
Dominion placed it in the tens of millions of dollars. President Dew,
of William and Mary College, in his celebrated pamphlet, wrote:
"Virginia is, in fact, a negro-raising State for other States." The
New York _Journal of Commerce_ of October 12, 1835, contained a letter
from a Virginian (vouched for by the editor) in which it was asserted
that twenty thousand slaves had been driven south from that State that
year. In 1836 the Wheeling (Va.) _Times_ estimated the number of
slaves exported from that State during the preceding year at forty
thousand, valued at twenty-four million dollars. The Baltimore
_Register_ in 1846 said: "Dealing in slaves has become a large
business; establishments are made in several places in Maryland and
Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle." The Richmond
_Examiner_, before the war, said: "Upon an inside estimate, they [the
slaves of Virginia] yield in gross surplus produce, from sales of
negroes to go south, ten million dollars." In the United States
Senate, just before the war, Hon. Alfred Iverson, of Georgia, replying
to Mr. Powell, of Virginia, said Virginia was deeply interested in
secession: for if the cotton States seceded, Virginia would find no
market for her slaves, without which that State would be ruined.
[Footnote 1: It is now impossible to prove positively that such a law
was actually passed; for the officially printed volume of "Statutes at
Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of
America" (Richmond, 1861) was evidently mutilated before being placed
in the hands of the compositor. The Acts are numbered, but here and
there numbers are missing, and in some of the later Acts there are
allusions to previous Acts that cannot be found in the book. It is
known that on the 6th of March, 1861, the Judiciary Committee was
instructed to inquire into the expediency of such prohibition, and it
seems a fair conjecture that one of the missing numbers was an Act of
this character. In a later edition (1864) the numbering is made
consecutive, but the missing matter is not restored.]
[Illustration: THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT ATTACKED IN THE
STREETS OF BALTIMORE, APRIL 19, 1861.]
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF THE SEVENTH REGIMENT FROM NEW YORK CITY,
APRIL 19, 1861.]
[Illustration: COLONEL MARSHALL LEFFERTS, Commanding Seventh
Regiment.]
{34} [Illustration: ON PICKET. (Showing photographer's outfit.)]
After Sumter had been fired on, and the Confederate Congress had
forbidden this traffic to outsiders, the Virginia Convention again
took up the ordinance of secession (April 17) and passed it in secret
session by a vote of eighty-eight to fifty-five. It was not to take
effect till approved by the people; but the day fixed for their voting
upon it was six weeks distant, the last Thursday in May. Long before
that date, Governor Letcher, without waiting for the verdict of the
people, turned over the entire military force and equipment of the
State to the Confederate authorities, and the seat of the Confederate
Government was removed from Montgomery to Richmond. David G. Farragut,
afterwards the famous admiral, who was in Norfolk, Virginia, at the
time, anxiously watching the course of events, {35} declared that the
State "had been dragooned out of the Union," and he refused to be
dragooned with her. But Robert E. Lee and other prominent Virginians
resigned their commissions in the United States service to enter that
of their States or of the Confederacy, and the soil of Virginia was
overrun by soldiers from the cotton States. Any other result than a
vote for secession was therefore impossible. Arkansas followed with a
similar ordinance on the 6th of May, and North Carolina on the 21st,
neither being submitted to a popular vote. Kentucky refused to secede.
For Tennessee and Missouri there was a prolonged struggle.
[Illustration: GENERAL JOSEPH G. TOTTEN, Chief of Engineers.]
[Illustration: GENERAL ABRAM DURYEA.]
[Illustration: GENERAL ALEXANDER SHALER.]
[Illustration: MAJOR THEODORE WINTHROP. Killed at Big Bethel.]
When Fort Sumter was surrendered, the Confederates had already
acquired possession of Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie in Charleston
Harbor, Fort Pulaski at Savannah, Fort Morgan at the entrance of
Mobile Bay, Forts Jackson and St. Philip below New Orleans, the
navy-yard and Forts McRae and Barrancas at Pensacola, the arsenals at
Mount Vernon, Ala., and Little Rock, Ark., and the New Orleans Mint.
The largest force of United States regulars was that in Texas, under
command of Gen. David E. Twiggs, who surrendered it in February, and
turned over to the insurgents one million two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars' worth of military property.
On the day when Sumter fell, President Lincoln penned a proclamation,
issued the next day (Monday, April 15), which declared "that the laws
of the United States have been for some time past, and now are,
opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary
course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals
by law," and called for militia from the several States of the Union
to the number of seventy-five thousand. It also called a special
session of Congress, to convene on July 4. He appealed "to all loyal
citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the
honor, the integrity, and existence of our National Union, and the
perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long
enough endured."
With regard to the reception of this celebrated proclamation in the
South, Alexander H. Stephens writes as follows, in his History of the
war: "The effect of this upon the public mind of the Southern States
cannot be described or even estimated. Up to this time, a majority, I
think, of even those who favored the policy of secession had done so
under the belief and conviction that it was the surest way of securing
a redress of grievances, and of bringing the Federal Government back
to Constitutional principles. This proclamation dispelled all such
hopes. It showed that the party in power intended nothing short of
complete centralization. The principles actuating the Washington
authorities were those aiming at consolidated power; while the
principles controlling the action of the Montgomery authorities were
those which enlisted devotion and attachment to the Federative system
as established by the Fathers in 1778 and 1787. In short, the cause of
the Confederates was States Sovereignty, or the sovereign right of
local self-government on the part of the States severally. The cause
of their assailants involved the overthrow of this entire fabric, and
the erection of a centralized empire in its stead."
The effect of this proclamation in the North has already been referred
to. Mr. Lincoln's faith in the people had always been strong; but the
response to this proclamation was probably a surprise even to him, as
it certainly was to the secessionists, who had assured the Southern
people that the Yankees would not fight. The whole North was thrilled
with military ardor, and moved almost as one man. The papers were
lively with great head-lines and double-leaded editorials; and the
local poet filled the spare space--when there was any--with his
glowing patriotic effusions. The closing passage of Longfellow's
"Building of the Ship," written a dozen years before, beginning:
"Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!"
{36} was in constant demand, and was recited effectively by nearly
every orator that addressed a war meeting.
Eminent men of all parties and all professions spoke out for the
Union. Stephen A. Douglas, who had long been Lincoln's rival, and had
opposed the policy of coercion, went to the White House the day before
Sumter fell, had a long interview with the President, and promised a
hearty support of the Administration, which was immediately
telegraphed over the country, and had a powerful effect. Ex-President
Pierce (who had made the direful prediction of blood in Northern
streets), ex-President Buchanan (who had failed to find any authority
for coercion), Gen. Lewis Cass (a Democratic partisan since the war of
1812), Archbishop Hughes (the highest dignitary of the Roman Catholic
Church in America), and numerous others, all "came out for the Union,"
as the phrase went. The greater portion of the Democratic party, which
had opposed Lincoln's election, also, as individuals, sustained the
Administration in its determination not to permit a division of the
country. These were known as "war Democrats," while those that opposed
and reviled the Government were called "Copperheads," in allusion to
the snake of that name. Some of the bolder ones attempted to take the
edge off the sarcasm by cutting the head of Liberty out of a copper
cent and wearing it as a scarf-pin; but all they could say was quickly
drowned in the general clamor.
Town halls, schoolhouses, academies, and even churches were turned
into temporary barracks. Village greens and city squares were occupied
every day by platoons of men, most of them not yet uniformed, marching
and wheeling and countermarching, and being drilled in the manual of
arms by officers that knew just a little more than they did, by virtue
of having bought a handbook of tactics the day before, and sat up all
night to study it. There was great scarcity of arms. One regiment was
looking dubiously at some ancient muskets that had just been placed in
their hands, when the colonel came up and with grim humor assured them
that he had seen those weapons used in the Mexican War, and more men
were killed in front of them than behind them. The boys had great
respect for the colonel, but they wanted to be excused from believing
his story.
[Illustration: BURNING OF GOSPORT NAVY YARD, NORFOLK, VA., APRIL 21,
1861.]
[Illustration: BURNING OF THE UNITED STATES ARSENAL AT HARPER'S FERRY,
VA., APRIL 18, 1861.]
CHAPTER IV.
BORDER STATES AND FOREIGN RELATIONS.
GOVERNORS OF CERTAIN STATES REFUSE TROOPS--THE GOVERNOR OF MISSOURI
DISLOYAL--EVENTS IN ST. LOUIS--LOYALTY OF GERMANS--BATTLE AT
CARTHAGE--THE STRUGGLE FOR KENTUCKY, MARYLAND AND TENNESSEE--ACTIONS
IN WEST VIRGINIA--BATTLE OF RICH MOUNTAIN--BATTLE OF BIG
BETHEL--HARPER'S FERRY.
The disposition of the border slave States was one of the most
difficult problems with which the Government had to deal. When the
President issued his call for seventy-five thousand men, the Governors
of Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as those of North
Carolina and Virginia, returned positive refusals. The Governor of
Missouri answered: "It is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary,
inhuman, diabolical, and cannot {37} be complied with." The Governor
of Kentucky said: "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked
purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." The Governor of
Tennessee: "Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but
fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defence of our rights and those
of our brethren." The Governor of North Carolina: "I can be no party
to this wicked violation of the laws of the country and to this war
upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North
Carolina." The Governor of Virginia: "The militia of Virginia will not
be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose
as they have in view." Every one of these governors was a
secessionist, with a strong and aggressive party at his back; and yet
in each of these States the secessionists were in a minority. It was a
serious matter to increase the hostility that beset the National arms
on what in another war would have been called neutral ground, and it
was also a serious matter to leave the Union element in the
northernmost slave States without a powerful support and protection.
The problem was worked out differently in each of the States.
[Illustration: A BATTERY ON DRILL.]
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING LOYAL AND SECEDING STATES.]
At the winter session of the Missouri Legislature an act had been
passed that placed the city of St. Louis under the control of police
commissioners to be appointed by the Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson.
Four of his appointees were secessionists, and three of these were
leaders of bodies of "minutemen," half-secret armed organizations. The
mayor of the city, who {38} was also one of the commissioners, was
known as a "conditional Union man." Other acts showed plainly the bent
of the Legislature. One made it treason to speak against the authority
of the Governor, and gave him enlarged powers, while another
appropriated three million dollars for military purposes, taking the
entire school fund for the year, and the accumulations that were to
have paid the July interest on the public debt.
[Illustration: RECRUITS TO THE FRONT.]
A State convention called to consider the question of secession met in
February, and proved to be overwhelmingly in favor of Missouri's
remaining in the Union, though it also expressed a general sympathy
with slavery, assumed that the South had wrongs, deprecated the
employment of military force on either side, and repeated the
suggestion that had been made many times in other quarters for a
national convention to amend the Constitution so as to satisfy
everybody. The State convention made its report in March, and
adjourned till December.
This proceeding appeared to be a great disappointment to Governor
Jackson; but he failed to take from it any hint to give up his purpose
of getting the State out of the Union. On the contrary, he proceeded
to try what he could do with the powers at his command. He called an
extra session of the Legislature, to convene May 2d, for the purpose
of "adopting measures to place the State in a proper attitude of
defence," and he called out the militia on the 3d of May, to go into
encampment for six days. There was a large store of arms (more than
twenty thousand stand) in the St. Louis arsenal; but while he was
devising a method and a pretext for seizing them, the greater part of
them were suddenly removed, by order from Washington, to Springfield,
Illinois. The captain that had them in charge took them on a steamer
to Alton, and there called the citizens together by ringing a
fire-alarm, told them what he had, and asked their assistance in
transferring the cargo to a train for Springfield, as he expected
pursuit by a force of secessionists. The many hands that make light
work were not wanting, and the train very soon rolled away with its
precious freight. The Governor applied to the Confederate Government
for assistance, and a quantity of arms and ammunition, including
several field-guns, was sent to him in boxes marked "marble." He also
ordered a general of the State militia to establish a camp of
instruction near the city, and gathered there such volunteer companies
as were organized and armed.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN NATHANIEL LYON. (Afterwards
Brigadier-General.)]
[Illustration: A VILLAGE COMPANY ON PARADE.]
General Scott had anticipated all this by sending reinforcements to
the little company that held the arsenal, and with them Capt.
Nathaniel Lyon, of the regular army, a man that lacked no element of
skill, courage, or patriotism necessary for the crisis. The force was
also increased by several regiments of loyal home guards, organized
mainly by the exertions of Francis P. Blair, Jr., and mustered into
the service of the United States. When the character and purpose of
the force that was being concentrated by Jackson became sufficiently
evident--from the fact that the streets in the camp were named for
prominent Confederate leaders, and other indications--Lyon determined
upon prompt and decisive action. This was the more important since the
United States arsenal at Liberty had been robbed, and secession troops
were being drilled at St. Joseph. With a battalion of regulars and six
regiments of the home guard, he marched out in the afternoon of May
10th, surrounded the camp, and trained six pieces of artillery on it,
and then demanded an immediate surrender, with no terms but a promise
of proper treatment as prisoners of war. The astonished commander, a
recreant West Pointer, surrendered promptly; and he and his brigade
were disarmed {39} and taken into the city. All the "marble" that had
come up from Baton Rouge and been hauled out to the camp only two days
before was captured and removed to the arsenal, becoming once more the
property of the United States.
The outward march had attracted attention, crowds had gathered along
the route, and when Lyon's command were returning with their prisoners
they had to pass through a throng of people, among whom were not a few
that were striving to create a riot. The outbreak came at length;
stones were thrown at the troops and pistol-shots fired into the
ranks, when one regiment levelled their muskets and poured a volley or
two into the crowd. Three or four soldiers and about twenty citizens
were killed in this beginning of the conflict at the West. William T.
Sherman (the now famous general), walking out with his little son that
afternoon, found himself for the first time under fire, and lay down
in a gully while the bullets cut the twigs of the trees above him.
[Illustration: THE BATTLE AT PHILIPPI, JUNE 3, 1861.]
[Illustration: GENERAL B. F. KELLEY.]
Two days later, Gen. William S. Harney arrived in St. Louis and
assumed command of the United States forces. He was a veteran of long
experience; but ex-Governor Sterling Price, commanding the State
forces, entrapped him into a truce that tied his hands, while it left
Jackson and Price practically at liberty to pursue their plans for
secession. Thereupon the Government removed him, repudiated the truce,
and gave the command to Lyon, now made a brigadier-general. After an
interview with Lyon in St. Louis (June 11), in which they found it
impossible to deceive or swerve him, Price and Jackson went to the
capital, Jefferson City, burning railway bridges behind them, and the
Governor immediately issued a proclamation declaring that the State
had been invaded by United States forces, and calling out fifty
thousand of the militia to repel the invasion. Its closing passage is
a fair specimen of many proclamations and appeals that were issued
that spring and summer: "Your first allegiance is due to your own
State, and you are under no obligation whatever to obey the
unconstitutional edicts of the military despotism which has introduced
itself at Washington, nor submit to the infamous and degrading sway of
its wicked minions in this State. No brave-hearted Missourian will
obey the one or submit to the other. Rise, then, and drive out
ignominiously the invaders who have dared to desecrate the soil which
your labors have made fruitful and which is consecrated by your
homes."
{40} [Illustration: A BOMB PROOF.]
The very next day Lyon had an expedition in motion, which reached
Jefferson City on the 15th, took possession of the place, and raised
the National flag over the Capitol. At his approach the Governor fled,
carrying with him the great seal of the State. Learning that he was
with Price, gathering a force at Booneville, fifty miles farther up
Missouri {41} River, Lyon at once reembarked the greater part of his
command, arrived at Booneville on the morning of the 17th, fought and
routed the force there, and captured their guns and supplies. The
Governor was now a mere fugitive; and the State convention, assembling
again in July, declared the State offices vacant, nullified the
secession work of the Legislature, and made Hamilton R. Gamble, a
Union man, provisional Governor. Among the citizens whose prompt
personal efforts were conspicuous on the Union side were John M.
Schofield and Francis P. Blair, Jr. (afterward Generals), B. Gratz
Brown (afterward candidate for Vice-President), Rev. Galusha Anderson
(afterward President of Chicago University), William McPherson, and
Clinton B. Fisk (afterward founder of Fisk University at Nashville).
The puzzling part of the difficulty in Missouri was now over, for the
contest was well defined. Most of the people in the northern part of
the State, and most of the population of St. Louis (especially the
Germans), were loyal to the National Government; but the secessionists
were strong in its southern part, where Price succeeded in organizing
a considerable force, which was joined by men from Arkansas and Texas,
under Gens. Ben. McCulloch and Gideon J. Pillow. Gen. Franz Sigel was
sent against them, and at Carthage (July 5) with twelve hundred men
encountered five thousand and inflicted a heavy loss upon them, though
he was obliged to retreat. His soldierly qualities in this and other
actions gave him one of the sudden reputations that were made in the
first year of the war, but obscured by the greater events that
followed. His hilarious popularity was expressed in the common
greeting: "You fights mit Sigel? Den you trinks mit me!" Lyon,
marching from Springfield, Mo., defeated McCulloch at Dug Spring, and
a week later (August 10) attacked him again at Wilson's Creek, though
McCulloch had been heavily reinforced. The national troops,
outnumbered three to one, were defeated; and Lyon, who had been twice
wounded early in the action, was shot dead while leading a regiment in
a desperate charge. Major S. D. Sturgis conducted the retreat, and
this ended the campaign. It was found that General Lyon, who was a
bachelor, had bequeathed all he possessed (about thirty thousand
dollars) to the United States Government, to be used for war purposes.
[Illustration: CARING FOR THE DEAD AND WOUNDED.]
{42} [Illustration: BATTLE OF WILSON'S CREEK, NEAR SPRINGFIELD, MO.,
AUGUST 10, 1861.]
In the days when personal leadership was more than it can ever be
again, while South Carolina was listening to the teachings of John C.
Calhoun, which led her to try the experiment of secession, Kentucky
was following Henry Clay, who, though a slaveholder, was a strong
Unionist. The practical effect was seen when the crisis came, after he
had been in his grave nine years. Governor Beriah Magoffin convened
the Legislature in January, 1861, and asked it to organize the
militia, buy muskets, and put the State in a condition of armed
neutrality; all of which it refused to do. After the fall of Fort
Sumter he called the Legislature together again, evidently hoping that
the popular excitement would bring them over to his scheme. But the
utmost that could be accomplished was the passage of a resolution by
the lower house (May 16) declaring that Kentucky should occupy "a
position of strict neutrality," and approving his refusal to furnish
troops for the national army. Thereupon he issued a proclamation (May
20) in which he "notified and warned all other States, separate or
united, especially the United and Confederate States, that I solemnly
forbid any movement upon Kentucky soil." But two days later the
Legislature repudiated this interpretation of neutrality, and passed a
series of acts intended to prevent any scheme of secession that might
be formed. It appropriated one million dollars for arms and
ammunition, but placed the disbursement of the money and control of
the arms in the hands of commissioners that were all Union men. It
amended the militia law so as to require the State Guards to take an
oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and finally the
Senate passed a resolution declaring that "Kentucky will not sever
connection with the National Government, nor take up arms with either
belligerent party." Lovell H. Rousseau (afterward a gallant general in
the national service), speaking in his place in the Senate, said: "The
politicians are having their day; the people will yet have theirs. I
have an abiding confidence in the right, and I know that this
secession movement is all wrong. There is not a single substantial
reason for it; our Government had never oppressed us with a feather's
weight." The Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge and other prominent citizens
took a similar stand; and a new Legislature, chosen in August,
presented a Union majority of three to one. As a last resort, Governor
Magoffin addressed a letter to President Lincoln, requesting that
Kentucky's neutrality be respected and the national forces removed
from the State. Mr. Lincoln, in refusing his request, courteously
reminded him that the force consisted exclusively of Kentuckians, and
told him that he had not met any Kentuckian, except himself and the
messengers that brought his letter, who wanted it removed. To
strengthen the first argument, Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame,
who was a citizen of Kentucky, was made a general and given the
command in the State in September. Two months later, a secession
convention met at Russellville, in the southern part of the State,
organized a provisional government, and sent a full delegation to the
Confederate Congress at Richmond, who found no difficulty in being
{43} admitted to seats in that body. Being now firmly supported by the
new Legislature, the National Government began to arrest prominent
Kentuckians who still advocated secession, whereupon others, including
ex-Vice-President John C. Breckinridge, fled southward and entered the
service of the Confederacy. Kentucky as a State was saved to the
Union, but the line of separation was drawn between her citizens, and
she contributed to the ranks of both the great contending armies.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER AND STAFF.]
Like the governor of Kentucky, Gov. Thomas H. Hicks, of Maryland, had
at first protested against the passage of troops, had dreamed of
making the State neutral, and had even gone so far as to suggest to
the Administration that the British Minister at Washington be asked to
mediate between it and the Confederates. But, unlike Governor
Magoffin, he ultimately came out in favor of the Union. The
Legislature would not adopt an ordinance of secession, nor call a
convention for that purpose; but it passed a bill establishing a board
of public safety, giving it extraordinary authority over the military
powers of the State, and appointed as such board six secessionists and
the governor. A tremendous pressure was brought to bear upon the
State. One of her poets, in a ringing rhyme to a popular air, told her
that the despot's heel was on her shore, and predicted that she would
speedily "spurn the Northern scum," while the Vice-President of the
Confederacy felt so sure of her acquisition that in a speech (April
30) he triumphantly announced that she "had resolved, to a man, to
stand by the South." But Reverdy Johnson and other prominent
Marylanders were quite as bold and active for the national cause. A
popular Union Convention was held in Baltimore; General Butler with
his troops restored the broken communications and held the important
centres; and under a suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_ some of
the more violent secessionists were imprisoned. The release of the
citizens was demanded by Chief-Justice Taney, of the United States
Supreme Court, who declared that the President had no right to suspend
the writ; but his demand was refused. In May the Governor called for
four regiments of volunteers to fill the requisition of the National
Government, but requested that they might be assigned to duty in the
State. So Maryland remained in the Union, though a considerable number
of her citizens entered the ranks of the Confederate army.
In the mountainous regions of western North Carolina and eastern
Tennessee, where few slaves were held, there was a strong Union
element. In other portions of those States there were many
enthusiastic secessionists. But in each State there was a majority
against disunion. North Carolina voted on the question of calling a
convention to consider the subject, and by a small majority decided
for "no convention." Tennessee, on a similar vote, showed a majority
of fifty thousand against calling a convention. After the fall of
Sumter Gov. John W. Ellis, of North Carolina, seized the branch mint
at Charlotte and the arsenal at Fayetteville, and called an extra
session of the Legislature. This Legislature authorized him to tender
the military resources of the State to the Confederate Government, and
called a convention to meet May 20th, which passed an ordinance {44}
of secession by a unanimous vote. The conservative or Union party of
Tennessee issued an address on the 18th of April, in which they
declared their approval of the Governor's refusal to furnish troops
for the national defence, and condemned both secession and coercion,
holding that Tennessee should take an independent attitude. This, with
the excitement of the time, was enough for the Legislature. In secret
session it authorized Gov. Isham G. Harris, who was a strong
secessionist, to enter into a military league with the Confederate
Government, which he immediately did. It also passed an ordinance of
secession, to be submitted to a popular vote on the 8th of June.
Before that day came, the State was in the possession of Confederate
soldiers, and a majority of over fifty thousand was obtained for
secession. East Tennessee had voted heavily against the ordinance; and
a convention held at Greenville, June 17, wherein thirty-one of the
eastern counties were represented, declared, for certain plainly
specified reasons, that it "did not regard the result of the election
as expressive of the will of a majority of the freemen of Tennessee."
Later, the people of those counties asked to be separated peaceably
from the rest of the State and allowed to remain in the Union; but the
Confederate authorities did not recognize the principle of secession
from secession, and the people of that region were subjected to a
bloody and relentless persecution, before which many of them fled from
their homes. The most prominent of the Unionists were Andrew Johnson
and the Rev. William G. Brownlow.
[Illustration: COMMISSARY QUARTERS.]
[Illustration: CULINARY DEPARTMENT.]
That portion of the Old Dominion which lay west of the Alleghany
Mountains held in 1860 but one-twelfth as many slaves in proportion to
its white population as the remainder of the State. And when Virginia
passed her ordinance of secession, all but nine of the fifty-five
votes against it were cast by delegates from the mountainous western
counties. The people of these counties, having little interest in
slavery and its products, and great interests in iron, coal and
lumber, the market for which was in the free States, while their
streams flowed into the Ohio, naturally objected to being dragged into
the Confederacy. Like the people of East Tennessee, they wanted to
secede from secession, and one of their delegates actually proposed it
in the convention. In less than a month (May 13) after the passage of
the ordinance, a Union convention was held at Wheeling, in which
twenty-five of the western counties were represented; and ten days
later, when the election was held, these people voted against
seceding. The State authorities sent recruiting officers over the
mountains, but they had little success. Some forces were gathered,
under the direction of Gen. Robert E. Lee and under the immediate
command of Colonel Porterfield, who began burning the bridges {45} on
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Meanwhile Capt. George B. McClellan
had been made a general and placed in command of Ohio troops. With
four regiments he crossed the Ohio on the 26th and went in pursuit of
the enemy. His movement at first was retarded by the burned bridges;
but these were repaired, large reinforcements were brought over, and
in small but brilliant engagements--at Philippi and at Rich
Mountain--he completely routed the Confederates.
At Philippi the Confederates were completely surprised by Colonels
Kelley and Dumont, and beat so hasty a retreat that the affair
received the local name of the "Philippi races." The victory at Rich
Mountain was the first instance of the capture by either side of a
military position regularly approached and defended. A pass over this
mountain was regarded as so important that all the Confederate troops
that could be spared were sent to defend it, under command of Gen.
Robert S. Garnett with Colonel Pegram to assist him. The position was
so strong that a front attack was avoided, and its speedy capture
resulted from a flank attack skilfully planned and successfully
executed by Gen. W. S. Rosecrans. On the retreat up the Cheat River
Valley General Garnett was killed, and Pegram, with a considerable
number of his men, surrendered to McClellan.
The importance of this affair at Rich Mountain was really slight,
notwithstanding it was successful in securing to the Union army a
footing on this frontier that was not afterward seriously disturbed.
But the significance of the action of July 11, and the campaign which
it terminated, lies in the instant popularity and prominence it gave
to General McClellan. He reported the victory in a Napoleonic
despatch, announcing the annihilation of "two armies, commanded by
educated and experienced soldiers, intrenched in mountain fastnesses
fortified at their leisure;" and concluding, "Our success is complete,
and secession is killed in this country." McClellan's failure to
accomplish more in this campaign has been indicated by military
critics, but at the time nothing obscured the brilliancy of the
victory. The people took his own estimate of it, and "Little Mac," the
young Napoleon, became a popular hero. The Government also took his
view of it; and after the defeat at Bull Run, a few days later, he was
given the command of the Army of the Potomac, and in the autumn
succeeded to the command of the Armies of the United States.
Delegates from the counties west of the Alleghanies met at Wheeling
(June 11), pronounced the acts of the Richmond convention null and
void, declared all the State offices vacant, and reorganized the
Government, with Francis H. Pierpont as governor. A legislature,
consisting of members that had been chosen on the 23d of May, met at
Wheeling on the 1st of July, and on the 9th it elected two United
States senators. The new State of Kanawha was formally declared
created in August. Its constitution was ratified by the people in May,
1862, and in December of that year it was admitted into the Union.
But, meanwhile, its original and appropriate name had been exchanged
for that of West Virginia.
The victory at Rich Mountain, announced in McClellan's triumphant and
resounding words, came in good time to arrest the depression caused by
an unfortunate affair of a few weeks before, at Big Bethel, on June
10th; though the popular clamor for aggressive warfare did not cease,
but was even now driving the army into a premature advance on Manassas
and the battle of Bull Run, for which the preparations were
inadequate.
[Illustration: GENERAL BEN McCULLOCH, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: GENERAL J. B. MAGRUDER, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: GENERAL STERLING PRICE, C. S. A.]
{46} [Illustration: BATTLE OF BIG BETHEL, VIRGINIA, JUNE 10, 1861.]
Big Bethel has been called the first battle of the war, though it was
subsequent to the affair of the "Philippi races," and at a later day
would not have been called a battle at all. But among its few
casualties there were numbered the deaths of Major Theodore Winthrop
and the youthful Lieut. John T. Greble, and the painful impression
caused by these losses converted the affair into a tragic national
calamity. The movement was a conception of Gen. B. F. Butler's, who
commanded at Fortress Monroe. Annoyed by the aggressions of a body of
Confederates, under General Magruder, encamped at Little Bethel, eight
miles north of Newport News, he sent an expedition to capture them. It
consisted of Col. Abram Duryea's Fifth New York Zouaves, with
Lieut.-Col. (afterward General) Gouverneur K. Warren second in command
(the Confederates greatly feared these "red-legged devils," as they
dubbed them), Col. Frederick Townsend's Third New York, Colonel
Bendix's Seventh New York Volunteers, the First and Second New York,
and detachments from other regiments, with two field-pieces worked by
regulars under Lieutenant Greble; Gen. E. W. Pierce in command.
Duryea's Zouaves were sent forward to attack from the rear; but a
dreadful mistake of identity led Bendix's men to fire into Townsend's
regiment, as these commands approached each other, which brought
Duryea back to participate in the supposed engagement in his rear, and
destroyed the chance of surprising the rebel camp. The {47}
Confederates abandoned Little Bethel, and took a strong position at
Big Bethel, where they easily repulsed the attack that was made, and
pursued the retreating Unionists until checked by the Second New York
Regiment.
An important preliminary to the battle of Bull Run was the operations
about Harper's Ferry in June and July, resulting, as they did, in the
release from that point of a strong Confederate reinforcement, which
joined Beauregard at Bull Run at a critical time, and turned the
fortunes of the day against the Union army.
Harper's Ferry, as we have seen, had been occupied by a Confederate
force under Stonewall Jackson, who became subordinate to the superior
rank of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston when that officer arrived on the
scene. On both sides a sentimental importance was given to the
occupation of Harper's Ferry, which was not warranted by its
significance as a military stronghold. It did, indeed, afford a
control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, so long as the position
could be maintained. But it derived its importance in the public mind
from the fact that it had been chosen by John Brown as the scene of
his projected negro uprising in 1859, and was presumed from that to be
a natural fortress, a sort of Gibraltar, which, once gained, could be
held forever by a small though determined body of men. The Confederate
Government and military staff at Richmond so regarded it, and they
warned General Johnston that he must realize, in defending it, that
its abandonment would be depressing to the cause of the South. General
Patterson, whose army gathered in Pennsylvania was to attack it,
impressed on the War Department the paramount importance of a victory,
and predicted that the first great battle of the war, the results of
which would be decisive in the contest, would be fought at Harper's
Ferry. He begged for the means of success, and offered his life as the
price of a failure on his part. The Washington authorities, though
they did not exact the penalty, took him at his word as to the men and
means required, and furnished him with between eighteen and twenty-two
thousand men (variously estimated), sending him such commanders as
Major-General Sandford, of New York (who generously waived his
superior rank, and accepted a subordinate position), Fitz John Porter,
George Cadwalader, Charles P. Stone, and others. Both sides, then,
prepared for action at Harper's Ferry, as for a mighty struggle over
an important strategic position.
The Confederates were the first to realize that this was an error.
However desirable it might be to hold Harper's Ferry as the key to the
Baltimore and Ohio, and to Maryland, General Johnston quickly
discovered that, while it was secure enough against an attack in
front, across the Potomac, it was an easy capture for a superior force
that should cross the river above or below it, and attack it from the
Virginia side. For its defence, his force of six thousand five hundred
men would not suffice against Patterson's twenty thousand, and he
requested permission to withdraw to Winchester, twenty miles to the
southwest. This suggestion was most unpalatable to the Confederate
authorities, who understood well that the popular interpretation of
the movement would be detrimental to the cause. But the fear that
McClellan would join Patterson from West Virginia, and that the loss
of an army of six thousand five hundred would be even more depressing
than a retreat, they reluctantly consented to Johnston's plan. He
destroyed everything at Harper's Ferry that could be destroyed, on
June 13th and 14th; and when Patterson, after repeated promptings from
Washington, arrived there on the 15th, he found no determined enemy
and no mighty battle awaiting him, but only the barren victory of an
unopposed occupation of a ruined and deserted camp.
[Illustration: A RAILROAD BATTERY.]
CHAPTER V.
ARMY ORGANIZATION NORTH AND SOUTH.
CONFEDERATE ADVANTAGES--THE LEADING GENERAL OFFICERS--GRADUATES OF
WEST POINT JOIN THE CONFEDERACY--CAPITAL REMOVED FROM
MONTGOMERY--PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CALL FOR SOLDIERS AND
SAILORS--SOUTHERN PRIVATEERS--"ON TO RICHMOND!"
Although up to this time no important engagements between the troops
had taken place, the war was actually begun. The Sumter affair had
been the signal for both sides to throw away subterfuge and disguise,
and it became thenceforth an open struggle for military advantage. The
South no longer pleaded State rights, but military necessity, for
seizing such Government posts and property as were within reach; the
North no longer acted under the restraint of hesitation to commit an
open breach, for the peace was broken irrevocably, and whatever it was
possible to do, in the way of defence or offence, was now become
politic.
The two contending powers were entering on the struggle under very
different conditions and with unequal advantages. Before taking up the
military operations which ensued, it will be interesting to look at
these conditions.
On both sides there were many experienced army and navy officers, who
had seen service, had been educated at the United States Military and
Naval Academies, and had either remained {48} in the service or,
having withdrawn to civil life, were prompt to offer their swords to
the side to which they adhered. Assuming the number and quality of
these officers to have been equally divided, there were several
respects in which the Confederates had the advantage in their
preliminary organization, apart from the studied care with which
disloyal cabinet officers had scattered the Federal regular army and
had stripped Northern posts of supplies and of trustworthy
commandants. President Lincoln came on from his Western home without
knowledge of war, acquaintance with military men, or familiarity with
military matters, and was immediately plunged into emergencies
requiring in the Executive an intimate knowledge of all three. He
became the titular commander-in-chief of an army already officered,
but not only ignorant as to whether he had the right man in the right
place, but powerless to make changes even had he known what changes to
make, by reason of the law and the traditions governing the
_personnel_ of the service, in which promotion and personal relations
were fixed and established. He found a military establishment that had
been running on a peace footing for more than a decade and was not
readily adaptable to war conditions; and officers in high command,
who, as their States seceded, followed them out of the Union, carrying
with them the latest official secrets and leaving behind them
vacancies which red-tape and tradition, and not the free choice of the
commander-in-chief, were to fill. His near advisers, particularly
those in whose hands were the details of military administration, were
scarcely better informed than himself, possessing political shrewdness
and undoubted loyalty, but none of the professional knowledge of which
he stood so sorely in need.
The President of the Southern Confederacy, on the other hand, was
Jefferson Davis, a man whose personal instrumentality in bringing
about the rebellion gave him both knowledge and authority; an educated
soldier and veteran of the Mexican war, in which he held a high
command; familiar, through long service as Secretary of War and on the
Senate Military Committee, not only with all the details of military
administration, but with the points of strength and weakness in the
military establishment of the enemy he was about to grapple with.
Placed at the head of a new government, with neither army nor navy,
nor law nor tradition for their control, he was free to exercise his
superior knowledge of military matters for the best possible use of
the men at his command in organizing his military establishment. None
of the political conditions surrounding him forced on President Davis
the appointment of political generals--an unavoidable evil which long
postponed the effectiveness of President Lincoln's army
administration. Whatever his judgment, guided by his professional
military experience, approved of, he was free to do. It was President
Lincoln's difficult task to learn something about military matters
himself, and then to untie or cut the Gordian knot of hampering
conditions; and if, in doing this, an occasional injustice was done to
an individual officer, it is a cause for wonder far less significant
than that by the exercise of his extraordinary faculty of common-sense
he progressed as rapidly as he did toward the right way of
accomplishing the ends he had in view.
[Illustration: FRANCIS H. PIERPONT, Governor of West Virginia.]
[Illustration: CAMP OF THE FORTY-FOURTH NEW YORK INFANTRY, NEAR
ALEXANDRIA, VA.]
The beginning of trouble in 1861 found the administration of the War
Department in the hands of Secretary Joseph Holt, who had succeeded
the secessionist Floyd, and was in turn succeeded by Simon Cameron,
the war secretary of Lincoln's first cabinet, who remained there until
the appointment of Edwin M. Stanton, the great "war secretary" of the
remaining years of the struggle. Cameron was a shrewd politician, but
was uninformed on military matters, for advice on which President
Lincoln relied principally on other members of the cabinet and on
General Scott. The cabinet of 1861 contained also John A. Dix, in the
Treasury--whence issued his celebrated "shoot him on the spot" {49}
despatch--who took a general's commission when he retired in favor of
Salmon P. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury during most of the war.
Gideon Welles was Secretary of the Navy.
Among the staff officers of the army were Lorenzo Thomas,
Adjutant-General; E. D. Townsend, who as Assistant Adjutant-General
was identified with this important office throughout the war;
Montgomery C. Meigs, Quartermaster-General; and Joseph G. Totten,
Chief of Engineers.
The general in command of the army was Winfield Scott, whose conduct
of the Mexican war had made him a conspicuous military and political
figure, an able officer and a most loyal Unionist, but already
suffering from the infirmities of age, which soon compelled him to
relinquish to younger hands the command of the army. But until after
the battle of Bull Run, his was the directing mind. His immediate
subordinates were Brig.-Gens. John E. Wool, also a veteran in service;
William S. Harney, whose reluctance to take part in civil war soon
terminated his usefulness; and David E. Twiggs, who surrendered his
command to the Confederates in Texas, and going with the South, was
replaced by Edwin V. Sumner.
The command of the main Union force, organized from the volunteers who
were pouring into Washington, devolved on Irvin McDowell, a major in
the regular army, now promoted to be brigadier-general, who
established his headquarters at Alexandria, across the Potomac from
Washington, there directing the defence of the capital, and thence
advancing to Bull Run. In this command he succeeded Gen. Joseph K. F.
Mansfield. Under him, during this campaign, were many officers who
rose to eminence during the war. His corps commanders at Bull Run were
Gens. Daniel Tyler, David Hunter, Samuel P. Heintzelman, Theodore
Runyon, and D. S. Miles; and among the brigade commanders were Gens.
Erasmus D. Keyes, Robert C. Schenck, William T. Sherman, Israel B.
Richardson, Andrew Porter, Ambrose E. Burnside, William B. Franklin,
Oliver O. Howard, Louis Blenker, and Thomas A. Davies. Threatening the
approach to Richmond from the lower Chesapeake, was Gen. Benjamin F.
Butler, at Fortress Monroe.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL W. B. FRANKLIN.]
[Illustration: GENERAL DAVID HUNTER.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH K. F. MANSFIELD.]
[Illustration: GENERAL GEORGE H. THOMAS.]
[Illustration: GENERAL SAMUEL P. HEINTZELMAN.]
Among the Confederate generals who prepared to defend Virginia, were
Robert E. Lee, then in command of the Virginia State troops, Samuel
Cooper, Joseph E. Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, James Longstreet,
Jubal A. Early, Richard S. Ewell, Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson,
Robert S. Garnett, John C. Pegram, Benjamin Huger, John B. Magruder,
and others.
The seventy-five thousand troops called for in President Lincoln's
proclamation of April 15th, were three-months men. On the 3d of May,
1861, he issued another proclamation, calling for forty-two thousand
volunteers for three years, and authorizing the raising of ten new
regiments for the regular army. He also called for eighteen thousand
volunteer seamen for the navy. The ports of the Southern coasts had
been already (April 19th) declared in a state of blockade, and it was
not only desirable but absolutely necessary to make the blockade
effectual. The Confederate Government had issued letters of marque for
privateers almost from the first; and its Congress had authorized the
raising of an army of one hundred thousand volunteers for one year.
When Congress convened on the 4th of July, President Lincoln asked for
four hundred thousand men and four hundred million dollars, to
suppress the insurrection; and in response he was authorized to call
for five hundred thousand men and spend five hundred million dollars.
What he had already done was approved and declared valid; and on the
15th of July the House of Representatives, with but five dissenting
votes, passed a resolution (introduced by John A. McClernand, a
Democrat) pledging any amount of money and any number of men that
might be necessary to restore the authority of the National
Government.
The seat of the Confederate Government was removed from Montgomery,
Ala., to Richmond, Va., on the 20th of May.
{50} [Illustration: BATTLE OF BULL RUN, JULY 21, 1861.]
{51} [Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL McDOWELL AND STAFF.]
CHAPTER VI.
THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
THE ADVANCE INTO VIRGINIA--FORTIFICATIONS ON THE POTOMAC--POPULAR
DEMAND FOR OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS--CONFEDERATES FORTIFY MANASSAS
JUNCTION--THEIR LINE OF DEFENCE AT BULL RUN--McDOWELL'S DEPARTURE FOR
BULL RUN--A CHANGE OF PLAN--FIGHTING AT BLACKBURN'S FORD--DETOUR FROM
CENTREVILLE AND FLANK ATTACK FROM SUDLEY FORD--UNION SUCCESS IN THE
MORNING--DISASTROUS BATTLE OF THE AFTERNOON--LOSS OF THE BATTERIES--A
REAR ATTACK--DISORDER AND RETREAT--RESULTS OF THE BATTLE.
The first serious collision of the opposing armies occurred at Bull
Run, in Virginia, on July 18 and 21, 1861. It was a battle between raw
troops on both sides, and at a later period in the war a few well-led
veterans might have turned it at almost any time into a victory for
the losers and a defeat for those who won it. It developed the
strength and weakness of the men, the commanders, and the organization
of the army. It opened the eyes of the North to what was before them
in this conflict, and it gave {52} pause to military operations for a
better preparation. Up to Bull Run, the war might have been terminated
by a single great battle. After it, the struggle was certain to be a
long one.
[Illustration: FAIRFAX COURT-HOUSE.]
Up to May 24th, the Union troops had been kept strictly on the
Washington side of the Potomac. On that date, Gen. Joseph K. F.
Mansfield sent three columns of troops across the river into Virginia,
to drive back the Confederate pickets which were within sight of the
capital. From Washington to Alexandria, a few miles down the river, a
line of fortifications was established, which, with the approaches to
Washington from Maryland in Union control, seemed to assure the safety
of the city.
Troops from all the loyal States had continued to arrive at
Washington. The ninety thousand men who had responded to the first
call of the President had enlisted for three months. While these
troops predominated in the service it was not the expectation of
General Scott to undertake any serious operations. He proposed to
utilize these for the defence of Washington; the garrisoning of
Fortress Monroe, with possibly the recovery of the Norfolk Navy Yard;
the reinforcement of Patterson at Harper's Ferry and of McClellan in
the Shenandoah; and the control of the border States. When the half
million of three-years men called out in May and July should be
equipped with the half billion of dollars voted by Congress, and
instructed and drilled during a summer encampment, larger military
operations were to ensue; but not before.
But after the mishap to Butler's men at Big Bethel, and the ambushing
of a troop train at Vienna, near Washington, there was a public demand
for some kind of vigorous action which should retrieve the national
honor, tarnished and unavenged since Sumter, and should justify the
military establishment, which to the non-military mind seemed already
enormous. Brigadiers and gold lace and regiments playing "high jinks"
in their camps convenient to the attractions of Washington became a
by-word, and "On to Richmond!" became the cry of those who wanted to
see some fighting, now there was an army, and wanted to see secession
rebuked and rebellion nipped in the bud. Under the stimulus of this
public demand, which, however erroneous from a military point of view,
could not be ignored, a forward movement was decided on.
The Confederate forces were established on what was known as the
"Alexandria line," with its base at Manassas Junction, about thirty
miles east of Alexandria. Early in June, General Beauregard, still
wearing the laurels of his Sumter victory, was sent in person to
command, relieving the Confederate General Bonham. Manassas Junction
stood on a high plateau, dropping off toward the east into the valley
of the little stream called Bull Run, running from northwest to
southeast some three miles distant. The Confederates had begun to
intrench and fortify this elevated position; but Beauregard's quick
and educated military judgment at once decided that a better defence
could be made by moving his line forward to Bull Run, where the stream
afforded a natural barrier, except at certain fords, where his men
could be posted more effectively. Here he established himself, the
right of his line being at Union Mills Ford, nearly due east from
Manassas, and his left just above Stone Bridge, by which Bull Run is
crossed on the Warrenton Turnpike leading from {53} Centreville to
Gainesville. His commanders (after Johnston's arrival), from left to
right, were: Ewell, supported by Holmes; Jones and Longstreet,
supported by Early; Bonham, supported by Jackson; Cocke, supported by
Bee, each guarding a ford; and, at Stone Bridge, Evans. The Bull Run
line of defence requiring a larger force, Beauregard was liberally
reinforced from Richmond, so that his army numbered nearly twenty-two
thousand men and twenty-nine guns, before he was joined by Johnston
with about eight thousand men and twenty-eight guns.
Against this force advanced General McDowell, who had succeeded
Mansfield in command of operations south of the Potomac, with
something less than twenty-nine thousand men and forty-nine guns. With
his army under the commanders already named, he was ready and started
from Washington on July 16th, within a week of the date he had
planned, notwithstanding the slow operations of the Government's
military machinery, rusted by long disuse and not as yet in smooth
working order. The departure of his column was a strange spectacle.
The novelty of warfare and the general impression that the war was to
be ended with one grand, brilliant stroke--an impression largely
derived from the confidence at headquarters that the expedition would
be successful--turned the march into a sort of festive picnic.
Citizens accompanied the column on foot; Congressmen, newspaper
correspondents, sightseers, went along in carriages. There was a
tremendous turnout of non-combatants, eager to see the finishing
stroke to the rebellion. These were destined to share in the general
rout that followed and to come pouring back into the security of
Washington, all mixed in with the disorganized and flying troops. One
member of Congress, John A. Logan, of Illinois, a veteran of the
Mexican War, followed the army from the House of Representatives,
armed with a musket, and began as a civilian a participation in the
four years' fighting that brought him high rank, great honor, and a
distinguished reputation.
[Illustration: UNITED STATES MILITARY RAILROAD, BULL RUN.]
[Illustration: GENERAL AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE.]
[Illustration: GENERAL LOUIS BLENKER.]
On July 18th the army arrived in front of the enemy at Bull Run. An
army of seasoned campaigners, accustomed to self-denial, would have
done better, for they would not have stopped along the way to pick
blackberries and change stale water for fresh in their canteens at
every wayside well and spring. The plan agreed upon by Generals Scott
and McDowell had been for an attempt to turn the enemy's right from
the south; and to conceal his purpose McDowell ordered an advance,
directly along the Warrenton Turnpike, on Centreville, as though that
were to be his point of attack. But Washington was full of Confederate
spies, and Beauregard was well informed as to what to expect. Tyler,
whose division led the way, found Centreville evacuated and the enemy
strongly posted along Bull Run, as he could see from his elevated
position at Centreville, looking across the Bull Run valley with
Manassas looming up beyond. It was McDowell's intention that Tyler
should limit himself to making the feint on Centreville, without
bringing on any engagement, while diverging to the left behind him the
main army attacked Beauregard's right. But neither Tyler nor his men
were as yet schooled to find an enemy flying before their advance and
not yearn to be after them for a fight. Discovering the position of
the enemy across the stream at Blackburn's and Mitchell's fords, he
brought up some field pieces and sent forward his skirmishers; and as
the enemy continued to retire before his successive increase of both
troops and artillery, he presently found that the reconnoissance he
had been ordered to make had assumed the proportions of a small
engagement with the brigades of Bonham, Longstreet, and Early, which
he drove back in confusion, with a loss of about sixty men on each
side.
After this engagement, McDowell abandoned his attack from the south in
favor of a flank attack from the north, where the roads were better.
His {54} army was now concentrated at Centreville, whither the
commanders had been attracted by the sound of the engagement at
Blackburn's Ford, and there he divulged to his commanders the new plan
of attack. Richardson's brigade was continued at Blackburn's Ford to
keep up the appearance of an attack in front, and the next two days,
Friday and Saturday, July 19th and 20th, were occupied in looking for
an undefended crossing of Bull Run north of the Confederate line, in
resting the men, and provisioning them from the supply trains, which
were slow in reaching the rendezvous at Centreville.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO BULL RUN.]
The engineers reported late on Saturday, the 20th, a practicable
crossing of the stream at Sudley Ford, accessible by a detour of five
or six miles around a bend of Bull Run turning sharply from the west.
McDowell determined to send Hunter's and Heintzelman's divisions to
make this flank movement over a route which took them north, then
west, and brought them upon the enemy's left, as they crossed Bull Run
at Sudley Ford and moved due south by the Sudley Road toward Manassas.
Meanwhile Tyler was ordered to proceed from Centreville to the Stone
Bridge at Bull Run, there to feign attack until he heard Hunter and
Heintzelman engaged, when he would cross and join their attack on the
Confederate left, or push on to Gainesville, west of Bull Run, and
head off Johnston, who McDowell was certain was coming from
Winchester, with or without "Patterson on his heels," as General Scott
had promised.
But during McDowell's enforced two days of inactivity at Centreville
there had been portentous happenings within the Confederate lines.
Johnston had already left Winchester on the 18th; one detachment of
his army had joined Beauregard on the morning of the 20th; Johnston in
person arrived at noon with a second detachment, and the remainder of
his force arrived on the 21st in time to take part in the battle, the
brunt of which was borne by Johnston's army, which McDowell had hoped
not to meet at all! Johnston, as the ranking officer, assumed command,
and he and Beauregard turned their attention to defending themselves
against the attack now initiated by McDowell.
Hunter and Heintzelman, whose brigades were {55} commanded by Cols.
Andrew Porter, Ambrose E. Burnside, W. B. Franklin, Orlando B.
Willcox, and Oliver O. Howard, reached Sudley Ford after an
unexpectedly long march, and crossed it unopposed about nine in the
morning. Tyler, who had been expected to hold the Confederate Evans at
Stone Bridge by a sharp attack, betrayed the incidental character of
his demonstration by the feebleness of his operations; and Evans,
suspecting from this an attack from some other direction, was soon
rendered certain of it by the clouds of dust which he saw toward the
north. Immediately, of his own motion and in the absence of orders
from his superiors, he informed his neighboring commander, Cocke, of
his intention, and leaving only a few companies to deceive Tyler at
Stone Bridge, he turned his command to the rear and marched it to a
strong position on Young's Branch, where he faced the enemy
approaching from his left. This action has commended itself to
military critics as the finest tactical movement of the entire battle.
Evans was even momentarily successful in repulsing the troops of
Burnside's brigade, which he pursued for a short distance. At the
outset, General Hunter was severely wounded. Porter came to Burnside's
support, and Bee and Bartow, of Johnston's army, aligned their
brigades with that of Evans. There was sharp fighting for two hours;
but the arrival of fresh supports for Burnside and Porter, including
Sykes' regiment of regulars and the regular batteries of Griffin and
Ricketts, and the extension of the Union line by Heintzelman's
division beyond the Sudley Road, proved too much for the Confederates,
who retreated downhill out of the Young's Branch valley before a Union
charge down the Sudley Road. But they had checked the advance long
enough for Johnston to order a general movement to strengthen the new
line of defence which was then formed on a hill half a mile south of
Young's Branch, under the direction of Jackson, who with his own
brigade of Johnston's army met and rallied the retreating
Confederates. It was right here that Stonewall Jackson acquired his
_sobriquet_. To encourage his own men to stop and rally, Bee called
out to them: "Look at Jackson's brigade! It stands there like a stone
wall." And Jackson never was called by his own name again, but only
"Stonewall." Tyler did send Keyes' and W. T. Sherman's brigades across
Bull Run by the ford above Stone Bridge in time to join in the
pursuit, Sherman pushing toward Hunter and Keyes remaining near Bull
Run; but Schenck's brigade he did not send across at all.
[Illustration: GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: GENERAL JAMES LONGSTREET, C. S. A.]
As a result of the morning's fighting the whole Union line was pushed
forward past the Warrenton Turnpike, extending from Keyes' position on
Bull Run to where Porter and Willcox were posted, west of the Sudley
Road. The Union troops felt not only that they had the advantage, but
that they had won the battle; and this confidence, added to the fact
that they were weary with marching and fighting, prepared them ill to
meet the really serious work of the day, which was still before them.
{56} [Illustration: INTERIOR OF CONFEDERATE FORTIFICATION.]
{57} [Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT PATTERSON.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL E. B. TYLER.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES GRIFFIN.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL O. O. HOWARD.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES B. RICKETTS.]
Johnston and Beauregard came up in person to superintend the
dispositions for defence. The line was formed on the edge of a
semicircular piece of woods, with the concave side toward the Union
advance, on an elevation some distance south of the first position.
The Confederate artillery commanded both the Warrenton Turnpike and
the Sudley Road (the latter passing through the woods), and the
plateau between them was subject to a cross fire. Across this plateau
the Union advance had to be made, and it was made under great
disadvantages. His effective fighting force reduced by casualties, by
the retirement of Burnside's brigade after a hard morning's fighting,
and by the separation from the main army of Keyes' brigade, which made
an ineffectual attempt to cross Young's Branch and get at the enemy's
right, McDowell was no longer superior in numbers, as in the morning.
His weary men had not only to fight, but to advance on an enemy in
position--to advance over open ground on an enemy concealed in the
woods, invisible even while their sharpshooters picked off his gunners
at their batteries. The formation of the ground gave him no
comprehensive view of the whole field, except such as he got by going
to the top of the Henry house, opposite the Confederate centre; nor
could his subordinate commanders see what the others were doing, and
there was a good deal of independence of action among the Union troops
throughout the remainder of the day.
For his afternoon attack on the new Confederate position McDowell had
under his immediate control the brigades of Andrew Porter, Franklin,
Willcox, and Sherman, with Howard in reserve, back of the Warrenton
Turnpike. These commands were not available up to their full strength,
for they included a good many regiments and companies that had lost
their organization. From their sheltered positions along the sunken
turnpike and the valley of Young's Branch he brought them forward for
an attack on the centre and left of the enemy. With splendid courage
they advanced over the open ground and made a succession of determined
assaults, which carried a portion of the position attacked. About the
middle of the afternoon the regular batteries of Captains Griffin and
Ricketts were brought forward to a position near the Henry house. But
though their effectiveness from this point was greatly increased, so
also was their danger; and after long and courageous fighting by both
infantry and artillery, it was the conflict that surged about these
guns that finally gave the victory to the Confederates.
{58} [Illustration: STONE HOUSE, WARRENTON TURNPIKE, BULL RUN.]
[Illustration: THE NEW HENRY HOUSE, BULL RUN. Showing the Union
monument of the first battle.]
Two regiments had been detailed to support the batteries, but the
inexperience of these regiments was such that they were of little
service. The batteries had scarcely taken up their advanced position
when the gunners began to drop one by one under the fire of
sharpshooters concealed in the woods before them. Sticking pluckily to
their work, the artillerymen did effective firing, but presently the
temptation to secure guns so inefficiently protected by supporting
infantry proved strong enough to bring Confederate regiments out from
the cover of the woods; and keeping out of the {59} line of fire, they
stole nearer and nearer to the batteries. A Confederate cavalry charge
scattered one of the supporting regiments, and a volley from a
Confederate regiment, that had gotten up to within seventy yards, sent
the other off in confused retreat. So close an approach had been
permitted by Captain Griffin under the mistaken impression,
communicated to him by the chief of artillery, that the troops
approaching so steadily were his own supports. He realized his error
too late; and when a volley of musketry had taken off nearly every one
of his gunners, had killed Lieutenant Ramsay, and seriously wounded
Captain Ricketts, the Confederates rushed in and captured the guns.
[Illustration: STAND OF THE UNION TROOPS AT THE HENRY HOUSE.]
Then ensued a series of captures and recaptures of these same guns,
first by one side and then by the other. At the same time there was a
general fight all along the line of battle, which did not dislodge the
Confederates while it wore out the Union troops. They lacked both the
experience and the discipline necessary to keep them together after a
repulse. The men lost track of their companies, regiments, brigades,
officers, in the confusion, and little by little the army became
disorganized, and that at a time when there was still remaining among
them both strength and courage enough to have won after all. It has
been said that at one time there were twelve thousand individual
soldiers wandering about the field of battle who did not know "where
they belonged." The strong individuality of the early recruits of the
war was in a measure accountable for this. They had not as yet become
machines, as good soldiers must be. "They were not soldiers," said one
officer, "but citizens--independent sovereigns--in uniform." It was
impossible, of course, to get strong, concerted action out of such a
mass-meeting of individual patriots; and the constant disintegration
of regiments and brigades gradually reduced the effectiveness of
McDowell's army.
Meanwhile the Confederate reinforcements from the lower fords were
arriving. The remainder of Johnston's army from Winchester had already
arrived; and though the Union army did not know that they had been
fighting the biggest half of Johnston's army all day, they realized
that they were dealing with Johnston now. During the fight of the day
the Union right wing had faced around almost to the east, and the
combined attack of the new Johnston brigades and Early's
reinforcements from the fords was delivered almost squarely on the
rear of its right flank.
A blow so strong and from such an unexpected quarter had a serious
effect on the troops that received it. But not as yet was the
conviction of defeat general in the Union army. The contest had been
waged with such varying results in different parts of the field, one
side successful here, another there, and again and again the local
advantage turning the other way under some bold movement of an
individual command, that neither army realized the full significance
of what had happened. The Unionists had begun the afternoon's work
{60} under the impression that the victory was already theirs and that
they had only to push on and secure the fruits of it. In some parts of
the field their successes were such that it seemed as though the
Confederate line was breaking. Many of the Confederates had the same
idea of it, and Jefferson Davis, coming up from Manassas on his way
from Richmond, full of anxiety for the result, found the roads almost
impassable by reason of crowds of Confederates escaping to the rear.
His heart sank within him. "Battles are not won," he remarked, "where
two or three unhurt men are seen leading away one that is wounded."
But he continued on, only to find that the field from which his men
were retreating had been already won, and that McDowell's army were in
full retreat.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL BARNARD E. BEE, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE HENRY HOUSE.]
McDowell himself did not know how the retreat had begun. He had not
ordered it, for he inferred from the lull in the fighting that his
enemy was giving way. But it had dawned on the men, first that their
victory was in doubt, then that the Confederates had a fighting
chance, and finally that the battle was lost; and by a sort of common
consent they began to make their way to the rear in retreat. A curious
thing happened which dashed McDowell's hope of making a stand at Stone
Bridge. Although the Warrenton Turnpike was open, and Stone Bridge had
been freed from the obstructing abattis of trees, offering a straight
road from the battlefield to the rendezvous at Centreville, the troops
all withdrew from the field by the same directions from which they had
approached it in the morning. And so, while the brigades near the
Stone Bridge and the ford above it crossed directly over Bull Run, the
commands which had made the long detour in the morning made the same
detour in retreat, adding many miles to the route they had to travel
to reach Centreville.
McDowell accepted the situation, and made careful dispositions to
protect the rear of his retreating army. Stuart's pursuing cavalry
found a steady line of defence which they could not break. The
rearmost brigades were in such good order that the Confederate
infantry dared not strike them. The way over the Stone Bridge was well
covered by the reserves east of Bull Run, under Blenker. But now
occurred an incident that greatly retarded the orderly retreat and
broke it into confusion.
There had been some fighting during the day between the reserves left
east of Bull Run and Confederate troops who sallied out from the lower
fords. As a result of this a Confederate battery had been posted on an
elevation commanding the Warrenton {61} Turnpike where it crossed Cub
Run, a little stream between Bull Run and Centreville, on a suspension
bridge. When the retreating brigades which had made the long detour
from Sudley Ford reached this bridge they were met with a shower of
fire from this battery. Finally, the horses attached to a wagon were
killed, and the wagon was overturned right on the bridge, completely
obstructing it. The remainder of the wagon train was reduced to ruin,
and the thirteen guns which had been brought safely out of the battle
were captured. A panic ensued. Horses were cut from wagons, even from
ambulances bearing wounded men, and ridden off. Even while McDowell
and his officers were deliberating as to the expediency of making a
stand at Centreville, the disorganized men took the decision into
their own hands and made a bee-line for Washington.
Portions of the army, however, maintained their organization, and
partly successful attempts were made to stop the flight. The
Confederates had but little cavalry, and were in no condition to
pursue. There was a black-horse regiment from Louisiana that undertook
it, but came upon the New York Fire Zouaves, and in a bloody fight
lost heavily. The retreat was well conducted; but this was due largely
to the fact that the Confederates were too exhausted and too fearful
to continue the pursuit. It is not to be denied that on both sides, in
the battle of Bull Run, there was displayed much bravery, and not a
little skill. Never before, perhaps, was such fighting done by
comparatively raw and inexperienced men.
It was a motley crowd that thronged the highway to the capital.
Intermixed were soldiers and civilians, privates and members of
Congress, worn-out volunteers and panic-stricken non-combatants,
"red-legged-devil" Zouaves, gray-coated Westerners, and regular army
blue-coats. They pressed right on, fearing the pursuit which,
unaccountably, did not follow. Some of the men since morning had
marched twenty-five miles, from Centreville and back, and that night
they marched twenty miles more to Washington.
All the next day the defeated army straggled into Washington
city--bedraggled, foot-sore, wounded, hungry, wet through with the
drizzling rain, exhausted. The citizens turned out to receive and
succor them, and the city became a vast soup-house and hospital. On
the streets, in the shelter of house-areas, under stoops, men dropped
down and slept.
[Illustration: FORT LINCOLN, WASHINGTON, D. C.]
{62}
CHAPTER VII.
EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
PARALYSIS OF THE UNION CAUSE--FORTIFYING THE APPROACHES TO THE
CAPITAL--WHY THE CONFEDERATES DID NOT ATTEMPT THE CAPTURE OF
WASHINGTON--EFFECT OF UNION DEFEAT IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE--SLIDELL AND
MASON--CAPTURE OF THE "TRENT"--HENRY WARD BEECHER IN ENGLAND--SYMPATHY
OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT FOR THE NORTH.
The battle of Bull Run was undertaken with precipitation, fought with
much valor on both sides, and terminated with present ruin to the
Federal cause. For the moment the Union seemed to stagger under the
blow. On the Confederate side there was corresponding exultation; a
spirit of defiance flamed up throughout the South.
It is in the nature of things that the initial battle of a war
consolidates and crystallizes the sentiments of both the contestants.
After Bull Run there was no further hope of peaceable adjustment, but
only an increasing and settled purpose to fight out with the sword the
great issue which was dividing the Union. For a brief season after the
battle there was a paralysis of the Union cause. It was as much as the
authorities at Washington could do to make themselves secure against
further disaster. Indeed, the Potomac River now gave positive comfort
to the Government, since it furnished in some measure a natural
barrier to the northward progress of the exultant Confederates.
Immediate steps were taken to fortify the approaches to the capital;
but while this work was in progress the Government seemed to stand,
like an alarmed sentry, on the Long Bridge of the Potomac.
[Illustration: EXAMINING PASSES AT THE GEORGETOWN FERRY.]
[Illustration: FORT IN FRONT OF WASHINGTON.]
In the South as well as in the North there was much surprise that the
Confederates did not pursue the routed Union forces at the battle of
Bull Run and capture Washington. Perhaps Gen. Joseph E. Johnston is
the best witness on this subject on the Southern side. He says: "All
the military conditions, we knew, forbade an attempt on Washington.
The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the
United States by defeat. The Southern volunteers believed that the
objects of the war had been accomplished by their victory, and that
they had achieved all their country required of them. Many, therefore,
in ignorance of their military obligations, left the army--not to
return.... Exaggerated ideas of the victory, prevailing among our
troops, cost us more than the Federal army lost by defeat." In writing
this passage General Johnston probably took no account of the effect
produced in Europe. The early narratives sent there, in which the
panic of retreat was made the principal figure, gave the impression
that the result arose from constitutional cowardice in Northern men
and invincible courage in Southerners. They also gave the impression
that the Confederates were altogether superior in generalship; and the
effect was deep and long-enduring. The most notable of these was by a
correspondent of the London _Times_, who had apparently been sent
across the Atlantic for the express purpose of writing down the
Republic, writing up the South, and enlisting the sympathies of
Englishmen for the rebellion. In his second letter from Charleston
(April 30, 1861) he had written that men of all classes in South
Carolina declared to him: "If we could only get one of the royal race
of England to rule over us, we should be content." "The New Englander
must have something to persecute; and as he has hunted down all his
Indians, burnt all his witches, persecuted all his opponents to the
death, he invented abolitionism {63} as the sole resource left to him
for the gratification of his favorite passion. Next to this motive
principle is his desire to make money dishonestly, trickily, meanly,
and shabbily. He has acted on it in all his relations with the South,
and has cheated and plundered her in all his dealings, by villanous
tariffs." Many an Englishman, counting his worthless Confederate
bonds, and trying to hope that he will yet receive something for them,
knows he would never have made that investment but for such writing as
this, and the accounts from the same pen of the battle of Bull Run.
At the North the spectacle of McDowell's army streaming back in
disorder to the national capital produced first a shock of surprise,
then a sense of disgrace, and then a calm determination to begin the
war over again. It was well expressed by a Methodist minister at a
camp-meeting in Illinois, the Rev. Henry Cox. The news of the battle
came while he was preaching, and he closed his sermon with the words:
"Brethren, we'd better adjourn this camp-meeting and go home and
drill."
The effect of this over-discussed battle upon the more confident and
boastful of the Southerners was perhaps fairly expressed by an
editorial utterance of one of their journals, the Louisville, Ky.,
_Courier_: "As our Norman kinsmen in England, always a minority, have
ruled their Saxon countrymen in political vassalage up to the present
day, so have we, the 'slave oligarchs,' governed the Yankees till
within a twelvemonth. We framed the Constitution, for seventy years
moulded the policy of the government, and placed our own men, or
'Northern men with Southern principles,' in power. On the 6th of
November, 1860, the Puritans emancipated themselves, and are now in
violent insurrection against their former owners. This insane holiday
freak will not last long, however; for, dastards in fight and
incapable of self-government, they will inevitably again fall under
the control of a superior race. A few more Bull Run thrashings will
bring them once more under the yoke, as docile as the most loyal of
our Ethiopian chattels."
[Illustration: THE "SAN JACINTO" STOPPING THE "TRENT."]
{64} [Illustration: FORTIFICATION IN FRONT OF WASHINGTON.]
France and England had made all haste to recognize the Confederates as
belligerents, but had not granted them recognition as an established
nation, and never did. There was a constant fear, however, that they
would; and the Confederate Government did its utmost to bring about
such recognition. Messrs. James M. Mason, of Virginia, and John
Slidell, of Louisiana, were sent out by that Government, as duly
accredited ministers to London and Paris, in 1861. They escaped the
blockaders at Charleston, reached Havana, and there embarked on the
British mail steamer _Trent_ for Europe. But Capt. Charles Wilkes (who
had commanded the celebrated exploring expedition in Antarctic waters
twenty years before) was on the watch for them with the United States
steam frigate _San Jacinto_, overhauled the _Trent_ in the Bahama
Channel (November 8), took off the Confederate commissioners, and
allowed the steamer to proceed on her way. He carried his prisoners to
Boston, and they were incarcerated in Fort Warren. This action, for
which Wilkes {65} received the thanks of Congress, was denounced as an
outrage on British neutrality. The entire British public bristled up
as one lion, and their Government demanded an apology and the
liberation of the prisoners. The American public was unable to see any
way out of the dilemma, and was considering whether it would choose
humiliation or a foreign war, when our Secretary of State, William H.
Seward, solved the problem in a masterly manner. In his formal reply
he discussed the whole question with great ability, showing that such
detention of a vessel was justified by the laws of war, and there were
innumerable British precedents for it; that Captain Wilkes conducted
the search in a proper manner; that the commissioners were contraband
of war; and that the commander of the _Trent_ knew they were
contraband of war when he took them as passengers. But as Wilkes had
failed to complete the transaction in a legal manner by bringing the
_Trent_ into port for adjudication in a prize court, it must be
repudiated. In other words, by his consideration for the interests and
convenience of innocent persons, he had lost his prize. In summing up,
Mr. Seward said: "If I declare this case in favor of my own
Government, I must disavow its most cherished principles, and reverse
and forever abandon its most essential policy.... We are asked to do
to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations
ought to do to us." The commissioners were released, and sailed for
England in January; but the purpose of their mission had been
practically thwarted. This was a remarkable instance of eating one's
cake and keeping it at the same time.
[Illustration: CHARLES A. DANA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR.]
[Illustration: JAMES MURRAY MASON.]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN CHARLES WILKES. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)]
[Illustration: JOHN SLIDELL.]
But though danger of intervention was thus for the time averted, and
the relations between the British Government and our own remained
nominally friendly, so far as moral influence and bitterness of
feeling could go the Republic had no more determined enemies in the
cotton States than in the heart of England. The aristocratic classes
rejoiced at anything that threatened to destroy democratic government
or make its stability doubtful. They confidently expected to see our
country fall into a state of anarchy like that experienced so often by
the Spanish-American republics, and were willing to do everything they
safely could do to bring it about. The foremost English journals had
been predicting such a disaster ever since the beginning of the
century, had announced it as in progress when a British force burned
Washington in 1814, and now were surer of it than ever. Almost our
only friends of the London press were the _Daily News_ and _Weekly
Spectator_. The commercial classes, in a country that had fought so
many commercial wars, were of course delighted at the crippling of a
commercial rival whom they had so long hated and feared, no matter
what it might cost in the shedding of blood and the destruction of
social order. Among the working classes, though they suffered heavily
when the supply of cotton was diminished, we had many firm and devoted
friends, who saw and felt, however imperfectly, that the cause of free
labor was their own cause, no matter on which side of the Atlantic the
battlefield might lie.
To those who had for years endured the taunts of Englishmen who
pointed to American slavery and its tolerance in the American
Constitution, while they boasted that no slave could breathe on
British soil, it was a strange sight, when our country was at war over
the question, to see almost everything that had power {66} and
influence in England arrayed on the side of the slaveholders. A few
famous Englishmen--notably John Bright and Goldwin Smith--were true to
the cause of liberty, and did much to instruct the laboring classes as
to the real nature and significance of the conflict. Henry Ward
Beecher, then at the height of his powers, went to England and
addressed large audiences, enlightening them as to the real nature of
American affairs, concerning which most of them were grossly ignorant,
and produced an effect that was probably never surpassed by any
orator. The Canadians, with the usual narrowness of provincials, blind
to their own ultimate interests, were in the main more bitterly
hostile than the mother country.
Louis Napoleon, then the despotic ruler of France, was unfriendly to
the United States, and did his utmost to persuade the English
Government to unite with him in a scheme of intervention that would
probably have secured the division of the country. How far his plans
went beyond that result, can only be conjectured; but while the war
was still in progress (1864) he threw a French force into Mexico, and
established there an ephemeral empire with an Austrian archduke at its
head. That the possession of Mexico alone was not his object, is
suggested by the fact that, when the rebellion was subdued and the
secession cause extinct, he withdrew his troops from Mexico and left
the archduke to the fate of other filibusters.
The Russian Government was friendly to the United States throughout
the struggle. The imperial manifesto for the abolition of serfdom in
Russia was issued on March 3, 1861, the day before President Lincoln
was inaugurated, and this perhaps created a special bond of sympathy.
[Illustration: FORT MONROE.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER.]
[Illustration: COMMODORE S. H. STRINGHAM. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)]
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST UNION VICTORIES.
FEDERAL NAVY--BLOCKADE-RUNNING--BALLS, POWDER, AND EQUIPMENTS BROUGHT
FROM ENGLAND FOR CONFEDERATES--THE FIRST HATTERAS EXPEDITION--CAPTURE
OF FORT HATTERAS AND FORT CLARK--CAPTURE OF HILTON HEAD AND PORT
ROYAL--GENERAL BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION TO ROANOKE ISLAND--FEDERAL
VICTORY AT MILL SPRINGS, KY.--CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY BY FEDERAL FORCES
UNDER GENERAL GRANT--FALL OF FORT DONELSON--BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE.
When the war began, the greater part of the small navy of the United
States was in distant waters--off the coast of Africa, in the
Mediterranean, on the Asiatic station--and for some of the ships to
receive the news and return, many months were required. Twelve vessels
were at home--four in Northern and eight in Southern ports. The navy,
like the army, lost many Southern officers by resignation or
dismissal. About three hundred who had been educated {67} for its
service went over to the Confederacy; but none of them took with them
the vessels they had commanded. The Government bought all sorts of
merchant craft, mounting guns on some and fitting up others as
transports, and had gunboats built on ninety-day contracts. It was a
most miscellaneous fleet, whose principal strength consisted in the
weakness of its adversary. The first purpose was to complete the
blockade of Southern ports. Throughout the war this was never made so
perfect that no vessels could pass through; but it was gradually
rendered more and more effective. The task was simplified as the land
forces, little by little, obtained control of the shore, when a few
vessels could maintain an effective blockade from within. But an
exterior blockade of a port in the hands of the enemy required a large
fleet, operating beyond the range of the enemy's fire from the shore,
in a line so extended as to offer occasional opportunities for the
blockade-runners to slip past. But blockade-running became exceedingly
dangerous. Large numbers of the vessels engaged in it were captured or
driven ashore and wrecked. The profit on a single cargo that passed
either way in safety was very great, and special vessels for
blockade-running were built in England. The Confederate Government
enacted a law providing that a certain portion of every cargo thus
brought into its ports must consist of arms or ammunition, otherwise
vessel and all would be confiscated. This insured a constant supply;
and though the Southern soldier was often barefoot and ragged, and
sometimes hungry, he never lacked for the most improved weapons that
English arsenals could produce, nor was he ever defeated for want of
powder. A very large part of the bullets that destroyed the lives and
limbs of National troops were cast in England and brought over the sea
in blockade-runners. Clothing and equipments, too, for the Confederate
armies came from the same source. Often when a burial party went out,
after a battle, as they turned over one after another of the enemy's
slain and saw the name of a Birmingham manufacturer stamped upon his
buttons, it seemed that they must have been fighting a foreign foe. To
pay for these things, the Confederates sent out cotton, tobacco, rice,
and the naval stores produced by North Carolina forests. It was
obvious from the first that any movement that would shut off a part of
this trade, or render it more hazardous, would strike a blow at the
insurrection. Furthermore, Confederate privateers were already out,
and before the first expedition sailed sixteen captured merchantmen
had been taken into the ports of North Carolina.
[Illustration: ON BOARD THE FIRST BLOCKADE-RUNNER CAPTURED.]
Vessels could enter Pamlico or Albemarle Sound by any one of several
inlets, and then make the port of Newbern, Washington, or Plymouth;
and the first of several naval and military expeditions was fitted out
for the purpose of closing the most useful of these openings, Hatteras
Inlet, thirteen miles south of Cape Hatteras. Two forts had been
erected on the point at the northern side of this inlet, and the
project was to capture {68} them; but, so new was everybody to the art
of war, it was not at first intended to garrison and hold them.
The expedition, which originated with the Navy Department, was fitted
out in Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe, and was commanded by
Flag-officer Silas H. Stringham. It numbered ten vessels, all told,
carrying one hundred and fifty-eight guns. Two were transport
steamers, having on board about nine hundred troops commanded by Gen.
Benjamin F. Butler, and two were schooners carrying iron surf-boats.
It sailed on the 26th of August, 1861, with sealed orders, arrived at
its destination before sunset, and anchored off the bar. Early the
next morning an attempt was made to land the troops through the surf,
at a point three miles from the inlet, whence they might attack the
forts in the rear. But it was not very successful. The heavy surf
dashed the clumsy iron boats upon the shore, drenching the men,
wetting the powder, and endangering everything. About one-third of the
troops, however, were landed, with two field-guns, and remained there
under protection of the fire from the ships. The forts were garrisoned
by about six hundred men, and mounted twenty-five guns; but they were
not very strong, and their bomb-proofs were not constructed properly.
Stringham's flag-ship, the frigate _Minnesota_, led off in the attack,
followed by the _Susquehanna_ and _Wabash_, and the guns of the
smaller fort were soon silenced. The frigates were at such a distance
that they could drop shells into it with their pivot-guns, while the
shot from the fort could not reach them. Afterward the larger work,
Fort Hatteras, was bombarded, but with no practical effect, though the
firing was kept up till sunset. But meanwhile the troops that had
landed through the surf had taken possession of the smaller work, Fort
Clark. They also threw up a small earthwork, and with their
field-pieces fired upon some Confederate vessels that were in the
Sound. The next morning (the 28th) the frigates anchored within reach
of Fort Hatteras, and began a deliberate and steady bombardment. As
before, the shot from the fort fell short of the ships, and neither
could that from the smooth-bore broadside guns reach the fort; but the
pivot-guns and the rifled pieces of one vessel wrought great havoc.
One plunging shell went down through a ventilator and narrowly missed
exploding the magazine. At the end of three hours the fort
surrendered. Its defenders, who were commanded by Samuel Barron,
formerly of the United States navy, had suffered a loss of about fifty
in killed and wounded. They had been reinforced in the night, but a
steamer was seen taking away a load of troops just before the
surrender. The seven hundred prisoners were sent on board the
flag-ship and carried to New York. The victors had not lost a man.
There had been some intention of destroying the forts and blocking up
the channels of the inlet; but it was determined instead to leave a
garrison and establish a coaling station for the blockading fleet. Two
of the frigates remained in the Sound, and within a fortnight half a
dozen blockade-runners entered the inlet and were captured.
[Illustration: LAND FORCES STORMING THE FORTIFICATIONS AT FORT CLARK.
(Two views.)]
{69} [Illustration: FORTS HATTERAS AND CLARK, N. C., CAPTURED ON THE
29th OF AUGUST, 1861.]
[Illustration: GUNBOAT "MENDOTA."]
[Illustration: COMMANDER C. R. P. RODGERS. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)]
[Illustration: COMMANDER JOHN RODGERS. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)]
A much larger expedition sailed from Hampton Roads on one of the last
days of October. It consisted of more than fifty vessels--frigates,
gunboats, transports, tugs, steam ferry-boats, and schooners--carrying
twenty-two thousand men. The fleet was commanded by Flag-officer
Samuel F. Du Pont, the troops by Gen. Thomas W. Sherman (who must not
be confounded with Gen. William T. Sherman, famous for his march to
the sea). The expedition had been two months in preparation, and
though it sailed with sealed orders, and every effort had been made to
keep its destination secret, the information leaked out as usual, and
while it was on its way the Confederate Secretary of War telegraphed
to the Governor of South Carolina and the commander at Hilton Head
where to expect it. Bull's Bay, St. Helena, Port Royal, and Fernandina
had all been discussed, and the final choice fell upon Port Royal.
{70} [Illustration: BOMBARDMENT OF FORT WALKER, HILTON HEAD, PORT
ROYAL HARBOR, S. C., BY UNITED STATES FLEET, NOVEMBER 7, 1861.]
A tremendous gale was encountered on the passage; the fleet was
scattered, one {71} transport was completely wrecked, with a loss of
seven lives, one gunboat was obliged to throw her broadside battery
overboard, a transport threw over her cargo, and one store-ship was
lost. When the storm was over, only a single gunboat was in sight from
the flag-ship. But the fleet slowly came together again, and was
joined by some of the frigates that were blockading Charleston Harbor,
these being relieved by others that had come down for the purpose.
They arrived off the entrance to Port Royal harbor on the 5th and 6th
of November. This entrance was protected by two earthworks--Fort
Walker on Hilton Head (the south side), and Fort Beauregard on St.
Helena Island (the north side). These forts were about two and a half
miles apart, and were garrisoned by South Carolina troops, commanded
by Generals Drayton and Ripley. A brother of General Drayton commanded
a vessel in the attacking fleet.
On the morning of the 7th the order of battle was formed. The bar was
ten miles out from the entrance, and careful soundings had been made
by two gunboats, under the fire of three Confederate vessels that ran
out from the harbor. The main column consisted of ten vessels, led by
the flag-ship _Wabash_, and was ordered to attack Fort Walker. Another
column of four vessels was ordered to fire upon Fort Beauregard, pass
in, and attack the Confederate craft. All were under way soon after
breakfast, and were favored by a tranquil sea. The main column, a
ship's length apart, steamed in steadily at the rate of six miles an
hour, passing Fort Walker at a distance of eight hundred yards, and
delivering a fire of shells and rifled shot. Every gun in the fort
that could be brought to bear was worked as rapidly as possible, in a
gallant defence. After the line had passed the fort, it turned and
steamed out again, passing this time within six hundred yards, and
delivering fire from the guns on the other side of the vessels. Three
times they thus went around in a long ellipse, each time keeping the
fort under fire for about twenty minutes. Then the _Bienville_, which
had the heaviest guns, and was commanded by Captain Steadman, a South
Carolinian, sailed in closer yet, and delivered a fire that dismounted
several guns and wrought dreadful havoc. Meanwhile two or three
gunboats had taken a position from which they enfiladed the work, and
the flag-ship came to a stand at short range and pounded away
steadily. This was more than anything at that stage of the war could
endure, and from the mast-head the troops were seen streaming out of
the fort and across Hilton Head Island as if in panic. A flag of truce
was sent on shore, but there was no one to receive it, and soon after
two o'clock the National colors were floating over the fort. The
flanking column of vessels had attacked Fort Beauregard; and when the
commander of that work saw that Fort Walker was abandoned by its
defenders, he also retreated with his force. The Confederate vessels
escaped by running up a shallow inlet. The loss in the fleet was eight
men killed and twenty-three wounded; that of the Confederates, as
reported by their commander, was eleven killed and fifty-two wounded
or missing. General Sherman said: "Many bodies were buried in the
fort, and twenty or thirty were found half a mile distant." The road
across Hilton Head Island to a wharf whence the retreating troops were
taken to the mainland was strewn with arms and accoutrements, and two
howitzers were abandoned. The surgeon of the fort had been killed by a
shell and buried by a falling parapet. The troops were debarked and
took possession of both forts, repaired and strengthened the works,
formed an intrenched camp, and thus gave the Government a permanent
foothold on the soil of South Carolina.
[Illustration: MAP OF HILTON HEAD, SHOWING ITS TOPOGRAPHY.]
[Illustration: REAR-ADMIRAL S. F. DU PONT.]
[Illustration: BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL T. W. SHERMAN.]
Roanoke Island, N. C., lies between Roanoke Sound and Croatan Sound,
through which the channels lead to Albemarle Sound, giving access to
the interior of the State. This island, therefore, was fortified by
the Confederates, in order to command these approaches. The island is
about as large as that which is occupied by New York City--ten miles
long, and somewhat over two miles wide. In January, 1862, an
expedition was fitted out to capture it, and the command was given to
Gen. {72} Ambrose E. Burnside, who had about fifteen thousand men,
with a battery of six guns, carried on forty transports. The naval
part of the expedition, consisting of twenty-eight vessels, none of
them very large, carrying half a hundred guns, was under the immediate
command of Capt. Louis M. Goldsborough. Among his subordinate officers
were Stephen C. Rowan and John L. Worden. Burnside's three brigade
commanders--all of whom rose to eminence before the war was over--were
John G. Foster, Jesse L. Reno, and John G. Parke.
[Illustration: BRIGADIER-GENERAL T. F. DRAYTON, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL AMBROSE E. BURNSIDE.]
The expedition sailed from Hampton Roads on January 11, and almost
immediately encountered a terrific storm, by which the fleet was far
scattered, some of the vessels being carried out to sea and others
driven ashore. Five were wrecked, and a considerable number of men
were lost. By the 28th, all that had weathered the gale passed through
Hatteras Inlet into the sounds. The fortifications on the island
mounted forty guns; and in Croatan Sound a Confederate naval force of
eight vessels lay behind a line of obstructions across the channel.
On February 7th, the National gunboats, advancing in three columns,
shelled Fort Bartow--the principal fortification, on the west side of
the island--and the Confederate gunboats. The latter were soon driven
off, and in four hours the fort was silenced. The transports landed
the troops on the west side of the island, two miles south of the
fort, and in the morning of the 8th they began their march to the
interior, which was made difficult and disagreeable by swamps and a
lack of roads, and by a cold storm. On the 9th, the Confederate
skirmishers were driven in, and the main line was assaulted, first
with artillery, and then by the infantry. The Confederate left wing
was turned; and when the national troops had nearly exhausted their
ammunition they made a brilliant bayonet charge, led by Hawkins's New
York zouave regiment, and stormed the works, which were hastily
abandoned by the Confederates, who attempted to reach the northeast
shore and cross to Nag's Head, but more than two thousand of them were
captured. Fort Bartow still held out, but it was soon taken, its
garrison surrendering. In this action the national loss was two
hundred and thirty-five men killed or wounded in the army, and
twenty-five in the navy.
On the 10th, a part of the fleet, under Captain Rowan, pursued the
Confederate fleet up Albemarle Sound, and after a short engagement
defeated it. The Confederates set fire to their vessels and deserted
them, destroying all but one, which was captured. Rowan then took
possession of Elizabeth City and Edenton. The flying Confederates had
set fire to the former; but Rowan's men, with the help of the colored
people who remained, put out the fire and saved the city.
In this naval battle one of the first medals of honor won in the war
was earned by a sailor named John Davis. A shell thrown by the
Confederates entered one of the vessels and set fire to it. This was
near the magazine, and there was an open barrel of powder from which
Davis was serving a gun. He at once sat down on the barrel, and
remained there covering it until the fire was put out.
General Burnside next planned an expedition in the opposite direction,
to attack Newbern. His forces, numbering about eight thousand men,
sailed from Hatteras Inlet in the morning of March 12th, and that
evening landed within eighteen miles of Newbern. The next day they
marched toward the city, while the gunboats ascended the river and
shelled such fortifications and Confederate troops as could be seen.
The roads were miry, and the progress of the troops was slow. After
removing elaborate obstructions and torpedoes from the channel, the
fleet reached and silenced the forts near the city. The land forces
then came up and attacked the Confederates, who were about five
thousand strong and were commanded by General Branch. After hard
fighting, the works were carried, and the enemy fled. They burned the
railroad bridge over the Trent River, and set fire to the city; but
the sailors succeeded in extinguishing the flames in time to save the
greater part of the town. Burnside's loss in this battle was about
five hundred and fifty killed or wounded; that of the Confederates,
including prisoners, was about the same. Fifty-two guns and two
steamers were captured.
Ten days later, Beaufort, N. C., and Morehead City were occupied by
the National troops without opposition. Burnside's army was now broken
up into comparatively small bodies, holding the various places that
had been taken, which greatly diminished the facilities for
blockade-running on the North Carolina coast.
The year 1862 opened with indications of lively and decisive {73} work
west of the mountains, and many movements were made that cannot be
detailed here. One of the most gallant was in the region of the Big
Sandy River in eastern Kentucky, where Humphrey Marshall had gathered
a Confederate force of about two thousand five hundred (mostly
Kentuckians) at Paintville. Col. James A. Garfield (afterward
President), in command of one thousand eight hundred infantry and
three hundred cavalry, drove him out of Paintville, pursued him beyond
Prestonburg, came up with him at noon of January 10th, and fought him
till night, when Marshall retreated under cover of the darkness,
leaving his dead on the field.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JESSE L. RENO.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN G. PARKE.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN G. FOSTER.]
[Illustration: VICE-ADMIRAL S. C. ROWAN.]
[Illustration: REAR-ADMIRAL LOUIS M. GOLDSBOROUGH.]
In the autumn of 1861 a Confederate force, under Gen. Felix K.
Zollicoffer, had been pushed forward by way of Knoxville to eastern
Kentucky, but was defeated at Camp Wildcat, October 21st, by seven
thousand men under General Schoepff, and fell back to Mill Springs at
the head of steamboat navigation on the Cumberland. Zollicoffer soon
crossed to the northern bank, and fortified a position at Beech Grove,
in the angle between the river and Fishing Creek. The National forces
in the vicinity were commanded by Gen. George H. Thomas, who watched
Zollicoffer so closely that when the latter was told by his superiors
he should not have crossed the river, he could only answer that it was
now too late to return. As Zollicoffer was only a journalist, with
more zeal than military knowledge, Gen. George B. Crittenden was sent
to supersede him. Thomas was slowly advancing, through rainy weather,
over heavy roads, to drive this force out of the State, and had
reached Logan's Cross-roads, within ten miles of the Confederate camp,
when Crittenden determined to move out and attack him. The battle
began early on the morning of January 19, 1862. Thomas was on the
alert, and when his outposts were driven in he rapidly brought up one
detachment after another and threw them into line. The attack was
directed mainly against the National left, where the fighting was
obstinate and bloody, much of the firing being at very close quarters.
Here Zollicoffer, thinking the Fourth Kentucky was a Confederate
regiment firing upon its friends, rode forward to correct the supposed
mistake, and was shot dead by its colonel, Speed S. Fry. When, at
length, the right of the Confederate line had been pressed back and
broken, a steady fire having been kept up on the centre, the Ninth
Ohio Regiment made a bayonet charge on its left flank, and the whole
line was broken and routed. The Confederates took refuge in their
intrenchments, where Thomas swiftly pursued and closely invested them,
expecting to capture them all the next morning. But in the night they
managed to cross the river, leaving behind their wounded, twelve guns,
all their horses, mules, and wagons, and a large amount of stores. In
the further retreat two of the Confederate regiments disbanded and
scattered to their homes, while a large number from other regiments
deserted individually. The National loss in killed and wounded was two
hundred and forty-six; that of the Confederates, four hundred and
seventy-one. Thomas received the thanks of the President for his
victory. This action is variously called the Battle of Fishing Creek
and the Battle of Mill Springs.
{74} [Illustration: BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION OFF FORT MONROE.]
When Gen. Henry W. Halleck was placed in command of the Department of
Missouri, in November, 1861, he divided it into districts, giving to
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant the District of Cairo, {75} which included
Southern Illinois, the counties of Missouri south of Cape Girardeau,
and all of Kentucky that lies west of Cumberland River. Where the
Tennessee and the Cumberland enter Kentucky from the south they are
about ten miles apart, and here the Confederates had erected two
considerable works to command the rivers--Fort Henry on the east bank
of the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the west bank of the
Cumberland. They had also fortified the high bluffs at Columbus, on
the Mississippi, twenty miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and Bowling
Green, on the Big Barren. The general purpose was to establish a
military frontier with a strong line of defence from the Alleghany
Mountains to the Mississippi.
[Illustration: THE BURNSIDE EXPEDITION CROSSING HATTERAS BAR.]
[Illustration: ROANOKE ISLAND, N. C., AND CONFEDERATE FORTS.]
A fleet of iron-clad gunboats had been prepared by the United States
Government for service on the Western rivers, some of them being built
new, while others were altered freight-boats.
After a reconnoissance in force by Gen. C. F. Smith, General Grant
asked Halleck's permission to capture Fort Henry, and, after
considerable delay, received it on the 30th of January. That work was
garrisoned by three thousand men under Gen. Lloyd Tilghman. Its
position was strong, the ravines through which little tributaries
reached the river being filled with slashed timber and rifle-pits, and
swampy ground rendering approach from {76} the land side difficult.
But the work itself was rather poorly built, bags of sand being
largely used instead of a solid earth embankment.
On the morning of February 2d the fleet of four iron-clad and two
wooden gunboats, commanded by Flag-officer Andrew H. Foote, left
Cairo, steamed up the Ohio to Paducah, thence up the Tennessee, and by
daylight the next morning were within sight of the fort. Grant's land
force was to cooperate by an attack in the rear, but it did not arrive
in time. The gunboats moved up to within six hundred yards, and opened
a bombardment, to which the guns of the fort immediately responded,
and the firing was kept up for an hour. The _Essex_ received a shot in
her boiler, by which many men were wounded or scalded, including Capt.
William D. Porter, son of Commodore David Porter who had won fame in
another _Essex_ in the war of 1812-15. Otherwise the fleet, though
struck many times, was not seriously injured. On the other hand, the
fire from the gunboats knocked the sand-bags about, dismounted seven
gun
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/47746