Chapter 66

THE UPRISING OF THE NORTH

1861

While politicians indecently clamoured for office, as indicated in the concluding chapter of the preceding volume, President Lincoln, whenever escape from the patronage hunters permitted, was considering the wisdom of provisioning Fort Sumter. Grave doubt obtained as to the government's physical ability to succour the fort, but, assuming it possible, was it wise as a political measure? The majority of the Cabinet, including Seward, voted in the negative, giving rise to the report that Sumter would be abandoned. Union people generally, wishing to support the brave and loyal action of Major Anderson and his little band, vigorously protested against such an exhibition of weakness, and the longer the Government hesitated the more vigorously the popular will resented such a policy. Finally, on March 29, in spite of General Scott's advice and Secretary Seward's opinion, the President, guided by public sentiment, directed a relief expedition to be ready to sail as early as April 6.

Meanwhile a Confederate constitution had been adopted, a Confederate flag raised over the capitol at Montgomery, and a Confederate Congress assembled, which had authorised the enlistment of 100,000 volunteers, the issue of $1,000,000 in treasury notes, and the organisation of a navy. To take charge of military operations at Charleston, the Confederate government commissioned Pierre T. Beauregard a brigadier-general and placed him in command of South Carolina.

Beauregard quickly learned of Lincoln's decision to relieve Sumter, and upon the Confederate authorities devolved the grave responsibility of reducing the fort before the relief expedition arrived. In discussing this serious question Robert Toombs, the Confederate secretary of state, did not hesitate to declare that "the firing upon it at this time is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."[761]

[Footnote 761: Pleasant A. Stovall, _Life of Robert Toombs_, p. 226.]

Nevertheless, Jefferson Davis, already overborne by pressure from South Carolina, ordered Beauregard to demand its evacuation, and, if refused, "to reduce it."[762] Answering Beauregard's aides, who submitted the demand on the afternoon of April 11, Anderson refused to withdraw, adding, "if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days."[763] To this message the Confederate Secretary of War replied: "Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him, he will evacuate, and agree in the meantime he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Sumter, you are authorised thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides to be the most practicable."[764] Four aides submitted this proposition at a quarter before one o'clock on the morning of April 12, to which Anderson, after conferring two hours and a half with his officers, replied, "I will evacuate by noon on the 15th instant, and I will not in the meantime open fire upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my Government, should I not receive, prior to that time, controlling instructions from my Government or additional supplies."[765]

[Footnote 762: Official Records, Vol. 1, p. 297.]

[Footnote 763: _Ibid._, pp. 13, 59.]

[Footnote 764: _Ibid._, p. 301. Davis's message to the Confederate Congress, April 29; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. 1, Docs. p. 171.]

[Footnote 765: Official Records, Vol. 1, pp. 14, 60.]

The aides refused these terms, and without further consultation with Beauregard notified Anderson that in one hour their batteries would open fire on the fort. Prompt to the minute, at 4.30 o'clock in the morning, a shell from Fort Johnson, signalling the bombardment to begin, burst directly over Sumter. At seven o'clock Anderson's force, numbering one hundred and twenty-eight officers, men, and non-combatant labourers, who had breakfasted upon half rations of pork and damaged rice, began returning the fire, which continued briskly at first and afterwards intermittently until the evacuation on Sunday afternoon, the 14th inst.[766]

[Footnote 766: _Ibid._, Vol. 1, p. 12.]

Within twenty-four hours the prophecy of Robert Toombs was practically fulfilled, for when, on Monday, April 15, President Lincoln called for 75,000 State militia to execute the laws, the people of the North rose almost as one man to support the government. "At the darkest moment in the history of the Republic," Emerson wrote, "when it looked as if the nation would be dismembered, pulverised into its original elements, the attack on Fort Sumter crystalised the North into a unit, and the hope of mankind was saved."[767]

[Footnote 767: J.E. Cabot, _Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson_, p. 605.]

Much speculation had been indulged respecting the attitude of New York City. It was the heart of the Union and the home of Southern sympathy. Men had argued coolly and philosophically about the right of secession, and journals of wide influence daily exhibited strong Southern leanings. Owing to business connections and social intercourse with the South, merchants had petitioned for concessions so offensive to Lincoln that Southern statesmen confidently relied upon their friendship as an important factor in dividing the North. On many platforms Daniel S. Dickinson, James T. Brady, John Cochrane, and others equally well known and influential, had held the North responsible for conditions that, it was claimed, were driving the South into secession. So recently as December 20, in a meeting of more than ordinary importance, held on Pine Street, at which Charles O'Conor presided, and John A. Dix, John J. Cisco, William B. Astor, and others of similar character were present, Dickinson declared that "our Southern brothers will reason with us when we will reason with them.... The South have not offended us.... But their slaves have been run off in numbers by an underground railroad, and insult and injury returned for a constitutional duty.... If we would remain a united people we must treat the Southern States as we treated them on the inauguration of the government--as political equals."[768]

[Footnote 768: _Life and Speeches of Daniel S. Dickinson_, Vol. 1, pp. 700-702.]

In a speech at Richmond on March 14 Cochrane promised that New York would sustain Virginia in any policy it adopted,[769] and on April 4 a Confederate commissioner, writing from Manhattan, reported to Jefferson Davis that two hundred of the most influential and wealthy citizens were then arranging the details to declare New York a free city. Several army officers as well as leading ship-builders, said the letter, had been found responsive, through whose assistance recruits from the ranks of the conspirators were to seize the navy yard, forts, and vessels of war, and to hold the harbor and city.[770] While nothing was known to the friends of the Union of the existence of such a conspiracy, deep anxiety prevailed as to how far the spirit of rebellion which had manifested itself in high places, extended among the population of the great metropolis.

[Footnote 769: New York _Tribune_, March 15, 1861.]

[Footnote 770: Letter of John W. Forsyth, MSS. Confederate Diplomatic Correspondence, April 4, 1861.]

The guns aimed at Sumter, however, quickly removed the impression that the greed of commerce was stronger than the love of country. The Stock Exchange resounded with enthusiastic cheers for Major Anderson, and generous loans showed that the weight of the financial and trade centre of the country was on the side of the national government. But more convincing proof of a solid North found expression in the spirit of the great meeting held at Union Square on Saturday, April 20. Nothing like it had ever been seen in America. Men of all ranks, professions, and creeds united in the demonstration. Around six platforms, each occupied with a corps of patriotic orators, an illustrious audience, numbering some of the most famous Democrats of the State, who had quickly discarded political prejudices, stood for hours listening to loyal utterances that were nobly illustrated by the valour of Major Anderson, whose presence increased the enthusiasm into a deafening roar of repeated cheers. If any doubt heretofore existed as to the right of coercing a State, or upon whom rested the responsibility for beginning the war, or who were the real enemies of the Union, or where prominent members of the Democratic party would stand, it had now disappeared. The partisan was lost in the patriot.

Daniel S. Dickinson travelled two hundred miles to be present at this meeting, and his attitude, assumed without qualification or reservation, especially pleased the lovers of the Union. Of all men he had retained and proclaimed his predilections for the South with the zeal and stubbornness of an unconverted Saul. Throughout the long discussion of twenty years his sympathy remained with the South, his ambitions centred in the South, and his words, whether so intended or not, encouraged the South to believe in a divided North. But the guns at Sumter changed him as quickly as a voice converted St. Paul. "It were profitless," he said, his eyes resting upon the torn flag that had waved over Sumter--"it were profitless to inquire for original or remote causes; it is no time for indecision or inaction.... I would assert the power of the government over those who owe it allegiance and attempt its overthrow, as Brutus put his signet to the death-warrant of his son, that I might exclaim with him, 'Justice is satisfied, and Rome is free.' For myself, in our federal relations, I know but one section, one Union, one flag, one government. That section embraces every State; that Union is the Union sealed with the blood and consecrated by the tears of the revolutionary struggle; that flag is the flag known and honoured in every sea under heaven; that government is the government of Washington, and Adams, and Jefferson, and Jackson; a government which has shielded and protected not only us, but God's oppressed children, who have gathered under its wings from every portion of the globe."[771]

[Footnote 771: _Life, Letters, and Speeches of Daniel S. Dickinson_. Vol. 2, pp. 4-7.]

Fernando Wood, until recently planning to make New York an independent city, now declared the past buried, with its political associations and sympathies, and pledged the municipality, its money and its men, to the support of the Union. "I am with you in this contest. We know no party, now."[772] Of the fifty or more speeches delivered from the several platforms, perhaps the address of John Cochrane, whose ridiculous Richmond oration was scarcely a month old, proved the most impressive. Cochrane had a good presence, a clear, penetrating voice, and spoke in round, rhetorical periods. If he sometimes illustrated the passionate and often the extravagant declaimer, his style was finished, and his fervid appeals deeply stirred the emotions if they did not always guide the reason. It was evident that he now spoke with the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart were filled with the cause for which he pleaded. In his peroration, pointing to the torn flag of Sumter, he raised the vast audience to such a pitch of excitement that when he dramatically proclaimed his motto to be, "Our country, our whole country--in any event, a united country," the continued cheering was with great difficulty sufficiently suppressed to allow the introduction of another speaker.[773]

[Footnote 772: New York _Tribune_, April 22, 1861. New York _Times_, New York _Herald_, April 21.]

[Footnote 773: New York _Herald_, April 21, 1861.]

Of the regiments called for New York's quota was seventeen. Governor Morgan immediately communicated it to the Legislature, which authorised in a few hours the enlistment of 30,000 volunteers for two years. Instantly every drill room and armory in the State became a scene of great activity, and by April 19, four days after the call, the Seventh New York, each man carrying forty-eight rounds of ball cartridge, received an enthusiastic ovation as it marched down Broadway on its way to Washington. Thereafter, each day presented, somewhere in the State, a similar pageant. Men offered their services so much faster than the Government could take them that bitterness followed the fierce competition.[774] By July 1 New York had despatched to the seat of war 46,700 men--an aggregate that was swelled by December 30 to 120,361. Loans to the government, offered with an equally lavish hand, approximated $33,000,000 in three months.

[Footnote 774: New York _Tribune_, July 21, 24.]

To aid in the purchase and arming of steamships and in the movement of troops and forwarding of supplies, President Lincoln, during the excitement incident to the isolation of Washington, conferred extraordinary powers upon Governor Morgan, William M. Evarts, and Moses H. Grinnell, to whom army officers were instructed to report for orders. Similar powers to act for the Treasury Department in the disbursement of public money were conferred upon John A. Dix, George Opdyke, and Richard M. Blatchford. These gentlemen gave no security and received no compensation, but "I am not aware," wrote Lincoln, at a later day, "that a dollar of the public funds, thus confided, without authority of law, to unofficial persons, was either lost or wasted."[775]

[Footnote 775: F.W. Seward, _Life of W.H. Seward_, Vol. 2, p. 552.]

The Union Square meeting appointed a Union Defence Committee to raise money, provide supplies, and equip regiments. For the time this committee became the executive arm of the national government in New York, giving method to effort and concentrating the people's energies for the highest efficiency. John A. Dix, who had seen sixteen years of peace service in the regular army, equipped regiments and despatched them to Washington, while James S. Wadsworth, a man without military experience but of great public spirit, whose courage and energy especially fitted him for the work, loaded steamboats with provisions and accompanied them to Annapolis. Soon afterwards Dix became a major-general of volunteers, while Wadsworth, eager for active service, accepted an appointment on General McDowell's staff with the rank of major. This took him to Manassas, and within a month gave him a "baptism of fire" which distinguished him for coolness, high courage, and great capacity. On August 9 he was made a brigadier-general of volunteers, thus preceding in date of commission all other New Yorkers of similar rank not graduates of West Point.

A few weeks later Daniel E. Sickles, no less famous in the political arena, who was to win the highest renown as a fighter, received similar rank. Sickles, at the age of twenty-two, began public life as a member of the Assembly, and in the succeeding fourteen years served as corporation attorney, secretary of legation at London, State senator, and congressman. A Hunker in politics, an adept with the revolver, and fearless in defence, he had the habit of doing his own thinking. Tammany never had a stronger personality. He was not always a successful leader and he cared little for party discipline, but as an antagonist bent on having his own way his name had become a household word in the metropolis and in conventions. In the anti-slavery crusade his sympathies were Southern. He opposed Lincoln, he favoured compromise, and he encouraged the cotton States to believe in a divided North. Nevertheless, when the Union was assaulted, the soldier spirit that made him major of the Twelfth National Guards in 1852 took him to Washington at the head of the Excelsior Brigade, consisting of five regiments, fully armed and equipped, and ready to serve during the war. He reached the capital at the time when more regiments were offered than General Scott would accept, but with the energy that afterward characterised his action at Gettysburg he sought the President, who promptly gave him the order that mustered his men and put him in command.[776] Other leaders who had voiced Southern sentiments, notably John Cochrane, soon found places at the front. Indeed, those who had professed the warmest friendship for the South were among the first to speak or take up arms against it.

[Footnote 776: "He went direct to the President, and asked him, in proper language, if he approved of the petty intrigues that sought to defeat his patriotic purpose. 'I know nothing of them, General,' said the President, 'and have only this to say, that, whatever are the obstacles thrown in your way, come to me, and I will remove them promptly. Should you stand in need of my assistance to hasten the organisation of your brigade, come to me again, and I will give or do whatever is required. I want your men, General, and you are the man to lead them. Go to the Secretary of War and get your instructions immediately.'"--New York _Herald_, May 17, 1861.]

The Confederates, entering upon the path of revolution with the hope of a divided North, exhibited much feeling over this unanimity of sentiment. "Will the city of New York 'kiss the rod that smites her,'" asked the leading paper in Virginia, "and at the bidding of her Black Republican tyrants war upon her Southern friends and best customers? Will she sacrifice her commerce, her wealth, her population, her character, in order to strengthen the arm of her oppressors?"[777] Ten days later another influential representative of Southern sentiment, watching the proceedings of the great Union Square meeting, answered the inquiry. "The statesmen of the North," said the Richmond _Enquirer_, "heretofore most honoured and confided in by the South, have come out unequivocally in favor of the Lincoln policy of coercing and subjugating the South."[778] The Charleston _Mercury_ called the roll of these statesmen in the several States. "Where," it asked, "are Fillmore, Van Buren, Cochrane, McKeon, Weed, Dix, Dickinson, and Barnard, of New York, in the bloody crusade proposed by President Lincoln against the South? Unheard of in their dignified retirement, or hounding on the fanatic warfare, or themselves joining 'the noble army of martyrs for liberty' marching on the South."[779] Other papers were no less indignant. "We are told," said the Richmond _Examiner_, "that the whole North is rallying as one man--Douglas, veering as ever with the popular breeze; Buchanan lifting a treacherous and time-serving voice of encouragement from the icy atmosphere of Wheatland; and well-fed and well-paid Fillmore, eating up all his past words of indignation for Southern injuries, and joining in the popular hue-and-cry against his special benefactors."[780] The _Enquirer_, speaking of Daniel S. Dickinson as "the former crack champion of Southern Rights," sneered at his having given his "adhesion to Lincoln and all his abolition works."[781] To the South which believed in the constitutional right of secession, the contest for the Union was a war of subjugation, and whoever took part in it was stigmatised. "The proposition to _subjugate_," said the _Examiner_, "comes from the metropolis of the North's boasted conservatism, even from the largest beneficiary of Southern wealth--New York City."[782]

[Footnote 777: Richmond _Examiner_, April 15, 1861.]

[Footnote 778: April 26, 1861.]

[Footnote 779: April 23, 1861.]

[Footnote 780: April 24, 1861.]

[Footnote 781: April 22, 1861.]

[Footnote 782: April 30, 1861.]

In the midst of the patriotic uprising of the North, so disappointing and surprising to the South, an event occurred that cast a deep shadow over New York in common with the rest of the country. The press, presumably voicing public opinion, demanded that the army begin the work for which it was organised. Many reasons were given--some quixotic, some born of suspicion, and others wholly unworthy their source. The New York _Tribune_, in daily articles, became alarmingly impatient, expressing the fear that influences were keeping the armies apart until peace could be obtained on humiliating terms to the North.[783] Finally, on June 27, appeared a four-line, triple-leaded leader, printed in small capitals, entitled "The Nation's War-Cry." It was as mandatory as it was conspicuous. "Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the 20th of July! By that date the place must be held by the National Army!"[784] This war-cry appeared from day to day with editorials indicating a fear of Democratic intrigue, and hinting at General Scott's insincerity.[785]

[Footnote 783: June 24, 1861.]

[Footnote 784: _Ibid._, June 27.]

[Footnote 785: "Do you pretend to know more about military affairs than General Scott? ask a few knaves, whom a great many simpletons know no better than to echo. No, Sirs! we know very little of the art of war, and General Scott a great deal. The real question--which the above is asked only to shuffle out of sight--is this: Does General Scott contemplate the same ends, and is he animated by like impulses and purposes, with the great body of the loyal, liberty-loving people of this country? Does he want the Rebels routed, or would he prefer to have them conciliated?"--_Ibid._, July 1, 1861.]

General Scott did not approve a battle at that time. He thought the troops insufficiently drilled and disciplined. On the other hand, the President argued that a successful battle would encourage the country, maintain the unanimity of the war sentiment, and gain the respect of foreign governments. General McDowell had 30,000 men in the vicinity of Bull Run, Virginia, of whom 1,600 were regulars--the rest, for the most part, three months' volunteers whose term of enlistment soon expired. At Martinsburg, General Patterson, a veteran of two wars, commanded 20,000 Federal troops. Opposed to the Union forces, General Beauregard had an effective army of 22,000, with 9,000 in the Shenandoah Valley under command of Joseph E. Johnston. In obedience to the popular demand McDowell moved his troops slowly toward Beauregard's lines, and on Sunday, July 21, attacked with his whole force, gaining a complete victory by three o'clock in the afternoon. Meantime, however, Johnston, having eluded Patterson, brought to the field at the supreme moment two or three thousand fresh troops and turned a Confederate defeat into a Union rout and panic.[786]

[Footnote 786: Of 49 regiments engaged, 19 were from New York, and of the 3,343 killed, wounded, and missing, 1,230 were New Yorkers.--Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 2, pp. 314, 315, 351, 387, 405, 426.]

After coolness and confidence had displaced the confusion of this wild stampede, it became clear that the battle of Bull Run had been well planned, and that for inexperienced and undisciplined troops McDowell's army had fought bravely. It appeared plain that had Patterson arrived with 2,300 fresh troops instead of Johnston, the Confederates must have been the routed and panic-stricken party. To the North, however, defeat was the source of much shame. It seemed a verification of the Southern boast that one Confederate could whip two Yankees, and deepened the conviction that the war was to be long and severe. Moreover, fear was expressed that it would minimise the much desired sympathy of England and other foreign governments. But it brought no abatement of energy. With one voice the press of the North demanded renewed activity, and before a week had elapsed every department of government girded itself anew for the conflict.[787] The vigour and enthusiasm of this period have been called a second uprising of the North, and the work of a few weeks exhibited the wonderful resources of a patriotic people.

[Footnote 787: See the New York _Tribune_, _Herald_, _Times_, _World_, _Evening Post_, July 22, 23, 25, and later dates.]