CHAPTER X.

THE BEGINNING OF LINCOLN'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION. Arrival of the President-Elect at Washington--Impressiveness of His Inaugural Address--I am Elected Senator from Ohio to Succeed Salmon P. Chase--Letters Written to and Received from My Brother William Tecumseh--His Arrival at Washington--A Dark Period in the History of the Country--Letter to General Sherman on the Attack Upon Fort Sumter--Departure for Mansfield to Encourage Enlistments --Ohio Regiments Reviewed by the President--General McLaughlin Complimented--My Visit to Ex-President Buchanan--Meeting Between My Brother and Colonel George H. Thomas.

Abraham Lincoln, the President elect, arrived in the city of Washington on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and, with Mrs. Lincoln, stopped at Willard's Hotel where I was then living. On the evening of his arrival I called upon him, and met him for the first time. When introduced to him, he took my hands in both of his, drew himself up to his full height, and, looking at me steadily, said: "You are John Sherman! Well, I am taller than you; let's measure." Thereupon we stood back to back, and some one present announced that he was two inches taller than I. This was correct, for he was 6 feet 3½ inches tall when he stood erect. This singular introduction was not unusual with him, but if it lacked dignity, it was an expression of friendliness and so considered by him. Our brief conversation was cheerful, and my hearty congratulations for his escape from the Baltimore "roughs" were received with a laugh.

It was generally understood when Mr. Lincoln arrived that his cabinet was definitely formed, but rumors soon prevailed that dissensions existed among its members, that Seward and Chase were rivals, that neither could act in harmony with the other, and that both were discontented with their associates. I became satisfied that these rumors were true. I do not feel at liberty, even at this late day, to repeat what was said to me by some of the members selected, but I was convinced that Lincoln had no purpose or desire to change the cabinet he had selected in Springfield, and that he regarded their jealousies (if I may use such a word in respect to the gentlemen so distinguished) as a benefit and not an objection, as by that means he would control his cabinet rather than be controlled by it.

Mr. Lincoln delivered his inaugural address from the east steps of the capitol, on the 4th day of March, 1861. I sat near him and heard every word. Douglas stood conspicuous behind him and suggesting many thoughts. I have witnessed many inaugurations, but never one so impressive as this. The condition of the south already organized for war, the presence of United States troops with general Scott in command, the manifest preparation against threatened violence, the sober and quiet attention to the address, all united to produce a profound apprehension of evils yet to come. The eloquent peroration of Mr. Lincoln cannot be too often repeated, and I insert it here:

"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_ shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.

"I am loth to close. 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 chords 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."

Salmon P. Chase, then Senator, was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. I know with what doubt and reluctance he accepted this office. On the 7th of March his resignation as Senator was communicated to the Senate. In anticipation of it the legislature of Ohio was canvassing for his successor. My name was mentioned with many others. I was in doubt whether I ought to be a candidate, or even to accept the position if tendered. I had been elected as a Member of the next Congress and was quite certain of election as speaker of the House of Representatives. The Republicans had a decided majority in that body and a feeling was manifest that I should have, without opposition, the position to which I had been unjustly deprived by the previous House. This was to me a coveted honor. I, therefore, did not follow the advice of my friends and go to Columbus. A ballot was taken in the caucus of Republican members of the general assembly, and I received a plurality but not a majority, the votes being scattered among many other candidates of merit and ability. My name was then withdrawn. Several ballots were taken on a number of days without result. I was then telegraphed to come to Columbus. I went and was nominated on the first vote after my arrival, and promptly elected as Senator, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Mr. Chase.

I received many letters of congratulation, among which were two which I insert:

"Dubuque, March 23, 1861. "Hon. John Sherman:--Allow me to sincerely congratulate you upon your signal triumph at Columbus. I can assure you that no recent event has given me so much sincere gratification as your election, which I think a most worthy reward to a faithful public servant. Republics are not so ungrateful as I supposed when I was defeated for Dist. Atty.

"Sincerely your friend, "Wm. B. Allison."

"Strafford, April 1, 1861. "Hon. John Sherman, Mansfield, Ohio.

"My Dear Sir:--I congratulate you upon your election to the Senate of the U. S., but still I regret that you have left the House where I think you might have rendered more important services to your country than you will find opportunity to do in the Senate. You could without doubt, I think, have been Speaker, had you possessed any ambition for the position. That would have been for two years only, but it would be at a crisis that will figure in our history. Then you are greatly needed in economical questions with our party --many of whom have no just idea of the responsibility of the Republican party or a Republican Representative. I see no material worth mentioning for leaders in our House, and though I am glad to have you suited, I do much regret your translation to the higher branch. I suppose we may be called back by Seward about the 1st of June.

"Our tariff bill is unfortunate in being launched at this time, as it will be made the scape-goat of all difficulties. In fact the southern Confederacy would have made a lower tariff had we left the old law in force and precisely the same troubles would have been presented.

"Yours, very sincerely, "Justin S. Morrill."

The Senate being then in special session, the oath prescribed by law was administered to me, and on the 23rd of March, 1861, I took my seat in that body. I had, however, before my election, witnessed, with deep humiliation, the Senate debates, feeling that the Republican Senators were too timid in the steps taken to purge that body of persons whom I regarded as traitors. I cannot now read the debates without a feeling of resentment. Breckenridge, Mason, Hunter and Powell still retained their seats as Senators from Kentucky and Virginia, and almost daily defended the secession of the southern states, declaring that the states they represented would do likewise. These and other declarations I thought should have been promptly resented by the immediate expulsion of these Senators. Wigfall, of Texas, though his state had seceded, was permitted to linger in the Senate and to attend executive sessions, where he was not only a traitor but a spy. His rude and brutal language and conduct should have excluded him from the Senate in the early days of the session, but he was permitted to retire without censure, after a long debate upon the terms of his proposed expulsion. I took no part in the debates of that session, which closed March 28, 1861, five days after my becoming a Member. I remained in Washington until after the fall of Sumter in April following.

During this period my brother, William Tecumseh, came to Washington to tender his services in the army in any position where he could be useful. I had corresponded with him freely in regard to his remaining in Louisiana, where he was president of the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy. He had been embarrassed in his position by my attitude in Congress, and, especially, by the outcry against me for signing the Helper book. He was very conservative in his opinions in regard to slavery, and no doubt felt that I was too aggressive on that subject. In the summer of 1860 he made his usual visit to Lancaster, and, finding that I was engaged in the canvass and would on a certain day be at Coshocton, he determined to go and hear me "to see whether I was an Abolitionist." He was greatly embarrassed by a memorable speech made by Mr. Corwin, the principal speaker on that occasion. We sat upon the stand together, and he very excitedly said: "John, you must not speak after Corwin." He was evidently impressed with the eloquence of that orator and did not wish me to speak, lest the contrast between our speeches would be greatly to my disparagement. I told him that he need not trouble himself, that I was to speak in the evening, though I might say a few words at the close of Mr. Corwin's address. He remained and heard me in the evening, and concluded on the whole that I was not an Abolitionist.

After the election of Mr. Lincoln I wrote him a letter, which will speak for itself, as follows:

"Mansfield, Ohio, November 26, 1860. "My Dear Brother:--Since I received your last letter, I have been so constantly engaged, first with the election and afterwards in arranging my business for the winter, that I could not write you.

"The election resulted as I all along supposed. Indeed, the division of the Democratic party on precisely the same question that separated the Republican party from the Democratic party made its defeat certain. The success of the Republicans has saved the country from a discreditable scramble in the House. The disorders of the last winter, and the fear of their renewal, have, without doubt, induced a good many citizens to vote for the Republican ticket. With a pretty good knowledge of the material of our House, I would far prefer that any one of the candidates be elected by the people rather than allow the contest to be determined by Congress. Well, Lincoln is elected. No doubt, a large portion of the citizens of Louisiana think this is a calamity. If they believe their own newspapers, or, what is far worse, the lying organs of the Democratic party in the free states, they have just cause to think so. But you were long enough in Ohio, and heard enough of the ideas of the Republican leaders, to know that the Republican party is not likely to interfere, directly or indirectly, with slavery in the states or with the laws relating to slavery; that, so far as the slavery question is concerned, the contest was for the possession of Kansas and perhaps New Mexico, and that the chief virtue of the Republican success was in its condemnation of the narrow sectionalism of Buchanan's administration and the corruption by which his policy was attempted to be sustained. Who doubts but that, if Buchanan had been true to his promises in submitting the controversy in Kansas to its own people, and had closed it by admitting Kansas as a free state, that the Democratic party would have retained its power? It was his infernal policy in that state (I can hardly think of the mean and bad things he allowed there without swearing) that drove off Douglas, led to the division of the Democratic party and the consequent election of Lincoln.

"As a matter of course, I rejoice in the result, for in my judgment the administration of Lincoln will do much to dissipate the feeling in the south against the north, by showing what are the real purposes of the Republican party. In the meantime, it is evident we have to meet in a serious way the movements of South Carolinian Disunionists. These men have for years desired this disunion; they have plotted for it. They drove Buchanan from his Kansas policy; they got up this new dogma about slave protection, they broke up the Charleston convention merely to advance secession; they are now hurrying forward excited men into acts of treason, without giving time for passion to cool or reason to resume its sway. God knows what will be the result. If, by a successful revolution, they can go out of the Union, they establish a principle that will break the government into fragments. Some local disaffection or temporary excitement will lead one state after another out of the Union. We shall have the Mexican Republic over again, with a fiercer race of men to fight with each other. Secession is revolution. They seem bent upon attempting it. If so, shall the government resist? If so, then comes civil war, a fearful subject for Americans to think of.

"Since the election I have been looking over the field for the purpose of marking out a course to follow this winter, and I have, as well as I could, tested my political course in the past. There has been nothing done by the Republican party but what merits the cordial approval of my judgment. There have been many things said and done by the Republican leaders that I utterly detest. Many of the dogmas of the Democratic party I like, but their conduct in administering the government, and especially in their treatment of the slavery question, I detest. I know we shall have trouble this winter, but I intend to be true to the moderate conservative course I think I have hitherto undertaken. Whatever may be the consequences, I will insist on preserving the unity of the states, and all the states, without exception and without regard to consequences. If any southern state has really suffered any injury or is deprived of any right, I will help reduce the injury and secure the right. These states must not, merely because they are beaten in election, or have failed in establishing slavery where it was prohibited by compromise, attempt to break up the government. If they will hold on a little while, they will find no injury can come to them, unless, by their repeated misrepresentation of us, they stir up their slaves to insurrection. I still hope that no state will follow in the wake of South Carolina; then the weakness of her position will soon bring her back again or subject her to ridicule and insignificance.

"It may be supposed by some that the excitement in the south has produced a corresponding excitement in the north. This is true in financial matters, especially in the cities. In political circles it only strengthens the Republican party. Even Democrats of all shades say, 'The election is against us; we will submit and all must submit.' Republicans say, 'The policy of the government has been controlled by the south for years, and we have submitted; now they must submit.' And why not? What can the Republicans do half as bad as Pierce and Buchanan have done?

"But enough of this. You luckily are out of politics, and don't sympathize with my Republicanism, but as we are on the eve of important events, I write about politics instead of family matters, of which there is nothing new.

"Affectionately yours, "John Sherman."

In December I received this letter from him:

"Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy,} "Alexandria, December 1, 1860. } "Dear Brother:--. . . The quiet which I thought the usual acquiescence of the people was merely the prelude to the storm of opinion that now seems irresistible. Politicians, by heating the prejudices of the people and running with the current, have succeeded in destroying the government. It cannot be stopped now, I fear. I was in Alexandria all day yesterday, and had a full and unreserved conversation with Dr. S. A. Smith, state senator, who is a man of education, property, influence, and qualified to judge. He was, during the canvass, a Breckenridge man, but, though a southerner in opinion, is really opposed to a dissolution of our government. He has returned from New Orleans, where he says he was amazed to see evidences of public sentiment which could not be mistaken.

"The legislature meets December 10, at Baton Rouge. The calling of a convention forthwith is to be unanimous, the bill for army and state ditto. The convention will meet in January, and only two questions will be agitated,--immediate dissolution, a declaration of state independence, and a general convention of southern states, with instructions to demand of the northern states to repeal all laws hostile to slavery and pledges of future good behavior. . . . When the convention meets in January, as they will assuredly do, and resolve to secede, or to elect members to a general convention with instructions inconsistent with the nature of things, I must quit this place, for it would be neither right for me to stay nor would the governor be justified in placing me in this position of trust; for the moment Louisiana assumes a position of hostility, then this becomes an arsenal and fort. . . .

"Let me hear the moment you think dissolution is inevitable. What Mississippi and Georgia do, this state will do likewise.

"Affectionately, "W. T. Sherman."

On the 15th of December I wrote him:

"I am clearly of the opinion that you ought not to remain much longer at your present post. You will, in all human probability, be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor. Separated from your family and all your kin, and an object of suspicion, you will find your position unendurable. A fatal infatuation seems to have seized the southern mind, during which any act of madness may be committed. . . . If the sectional dissensions only rested upon real or alleged grievances, they could be readily settled, but I fear they are deeper and stronger. You can now close your connection with the seminary with honor and credit to yourself, for all who know you speak well of your conduct, while be remaining you not only involve yourself, but bring trouble upon those gentlemen who recommended you.

"It is a sad state of affairs, but it is nevertheless true, that if the conventions of the southern states make anything more than a paper secession, hostile collisions will occur, and probably a separation between the free and the slave states. You can judge whether it is at all probable that the possession of this capital, the commerce of the Mississippi, the control of the territories, and the natural rivalry of enraged sections, can be arranged without war. In that event, you cannot serve in Louisiana against your family and kin in Ohio. The bare possibility of such a contingency, it seems to me, renders your duty plain, to make a frank statement to all the gentlemen connected with you, and with good feeling close your engagement. If the storm shall blow over, your course will strengthen you with every man whose good opinion you desire; if not, you will escape humiliation.

"When you return to Ohio, I will write you freely about your return to the army, not so difficult a task as you imagine."

General Sherman then wrote me as follows:

"Alexandria, La., December, 1861. "Events here seem hastening to a conclusion. Doubtless you know more of the events in Louisiana than I do, as I am in an out-of- the-way place. But the special session of the legislature was so unanimous in arming the state and calling a convention that little doubt remains that Louisiana will, on the 23rd of January, follow the other seceding states. Governor Moore takes the plain stand that the state must not submit to a 'black Republican President.' Men here have ceased to reason; they seem to concede that slavery is unsafe in a confederacy with northern states, and that now is the time; no use of longer delay. All concessions, all attempts to remonstrate, seem at an end.

"A rumor says that Major Anderson, my old captain (brother of Charles Anderson, now of Texas, formerly of Dayton and Cincinnati, Larz, William and John, all of Ohio), has spiked the guns of Fort Moultrie, destroyed it, and taken refuge in Sumter. This is right. Sumter is in mid-channel, approachable only in boats, whereas Moultrie is old, weak, and easily approached under cover. If Major Anderson can hold out till relieved and supported by steam frigates, South Carolina will find herself unable to control her commerce, and will feel, for the first time in her existence, that she can't do as she pleases. . . .

"A telegraph dispatch, addressed to me at Alexandria, could be mailed at New Orleans, and reach me in three days from Washington."

I wrote him the following letter on the 6th of January, 1861:

"Dear Brother:--. . . I see some signs of hope, but it is probably a deceptive light. The very moment you feel uncomfortable in your position in Louisiana, come away. Don't for God's sake subject yourself to any slur, reproach, or indignity. I have spoken to General Scott, and he heartily seconds your desire to return to duty in the army. I am not at all sure but that, if you were here, you could get a position that would suit you. I see many of your friends of the army daily.

"As for my views of the present crisis, I could not state them more fully than I have in the inclosed printed letter. It has been very generally published and approved in the north, but may not have reached you, and therefore I send it to you.

"Affectionately your brother, "John Sherman."

Later he wrote me:

"Alexandria, January 16, 1861. "My Dear Brother:--I am so much in the woods here that I can't keep up with the times at all. Indeed, you in Washington hear from New Orleans two or three days sooner than I do. I was taken aback by the news that Governor Moore had ordered the forcible seizure of the Forts Jackson and St. Philip, at or near the mouth of the Mississippi; also of Forts Pike and Wood, at the outlets of Lakes Bogue and Pontchartrain. All these are small forts, and have rarely been occupied by troops. They are designed to cut off approach by sea to New Orleans, and were taken doubtless to prevent their being occupied, by order of General Scott. But the taking the arsenal at Baton Rouge is a different matter. It is merely an assemblage of store-houses, barracks, and dwelling-houses, designed for the healthy residence of a garrison, to be thrown into one or the other of the forts in case of war. The arsenal is one of minor importance, yet the stores were kept there for the moral effect, and the garrison was there at the instance of the people of Louisiana. To surround with the military array, to demand surrender, and enforce the departure of the garrison, was an act of war. It amounted to a declaration of war and defiance, and was done by Governor Moore without the authority of the legislature or convention. Still, there is but little doubt but that each of these bodies, to assemble next week, will ratify and approve these violent acts, and it is idle to discuss the subject now. The people are mad on this question.

"I had previously notified all that in the event of secession I should quit. As soon as knowledge of these events reached me, I went to the vice president, Dr. Smith, in Alexandria, and told him that I regarded Louisiana as at war against the federal government, and that I must go. He begged me to wait until some one could be found to replace me. The supervisors feel the importance of system and discipline, and seem to think that my departure will endanger the success of this last effort to build up an educational establishment. . . . You may assert that in no event will I forego my allegiance to the United States as long as a single state is true to the old constitution. . . .

"Yours, "W. T. Sherman."

And again:

"Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy,} "Alexandria, January 18, 1861. } "Dear Brother:--Before receiving yours of the 6th, I had addressed a letter to Governor Moore at Baton Rouge, of which this is a copy:--

'_Sir:_--As I occupy a quasi military position under the laws of the state, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a state in the union and when the motto of this seminary was inscribed in marble over the main door: "By the liberality of the General Government. The Union Esto perpetua." Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana withdraw from the federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old constitution as long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event, I beg that you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and munitions of war here belonging to the state, or advise me what disposition to make of them. And furthermore, as president of the board of supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as superintendent the moment the state determines to secede; for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought hostile to, or in defiance of, the United States.

'With respect, etc., 'W. T. Sherman.'

"I regard the seizure by Governor Moore of the United States arsenal as the worst act yet committed in the present revolution. I do think every allowance should be made to southern politicians for their nervous anxiety about their political powers and the safety of slaves. I think that the constitution should be liberally construed in their behalf, but I do regard this civil war as precipitated with undue rapidity. . . . It is inevitable. All legislation now would fall powerless on the south. You should not alienate such states as Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri. My notice is that this war will ruin all politicians, and that military leaders will direct the events.

"Yours "W. T. S."

On the first of February he wrote as follows:

"I have felt the very thoughts you have spoken. It is war to surround Anderson with batteries, and it is shilly-shally for the south to cry 'Hands off! No coercion!' It was war and insult to expel the garrison at Baton Rouge, and Uncle Sam had better cry 'Cave!' or assert his power. Fort Sumter is not material save for the principle; but Key West and the Tortugas should be held in force at once, by regulars if possible, if not, by militia. Quick! They are occupied now, but not in force. While maintaining the high, strong ground you do, I would not advise you to interpose an objection to securing concessions to the middle and moderate states, --Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri. Slavery there is local, and even if the world were open to them, its extension would involve no principle. If these states feel the extreme south wrong, a seeming concession would make them committed. The cotton states are gone, I suppose. Of course, their commerce will be hampered. . . .

"But of myself. I sent you a copy of my letter to the Governor. Here is his answer:

'_Dear Sir:_--It is with the deepest regret I acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th instant. In the pressure of official business I can only request you to transfer to Professor Smith the arms, munitions, and funds in your hands, whenever you conclude to withdraw from the position you have filled with so much distinction. You cannot regret more than I do the necessity which deprives us of your services, and you will bear with you the respect, confidence, and admiration of all who have been associated with you.

'Very truly, your friend and servant, 'Thos. D. Moore.'

"This is very handsome, and I do regret this political imbroglio. I do think it was brought about by politicians. The people in the south are evidently unanimous in the opinion that slavery is endangered by the current of events, and it is useless to attempt to alter that opinion. As our government is founded on the will of the people, when that will is fixed, our government is powerless, and the only question is whether to let things slide into general anarchy, or the formation of two or more confederacies which will be hostile sooner or later. Still, I know that some of the best men of Louisiana think this change may be effected peacefully. But even if the southern states be allowed to depart in peace, the first question will be revenue.

"Now, if the south have free trade, how can you collect revenues in the eastern cities? Freight from New Orleans to St. Louis, Chicago, Louisville, Cincinnati, and even Pittsburg, would be about the same as by rail from New York, and importers at New Orleans, having no duties to pay, would undersell the east if they had to pay duties. Therefore, if the south make good their confederation and their plan, the northern confederacy must do likewise or blockade. Then comes the question of foreign nations. So, look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent changes in the form of government."

These letters, written at their dates, on the spur of the moment, present the condition of affairs as viewed by General Sherman and myself when they occurred.

With the conviction just stated General Sherman came to Washington about the time of my election to the Senate. He was deeply impressed with the certainty of war and of its magnitude, and was impelled by the patriotic sentiment that, as he had been educated at the expense of the government for military service, it was his duty, in the then condition of the country, to tender his services. I therefore escorted him to the White House. His statement of the interview given in his "Memoirs" is not very full, for, while Mr. Lincoln did say, in response to his tender, "I guess we will manage to keep house," he also expressed a hope, which General Sherman knew to be delusive, that the danger would pass by and that the Union would be restored by a peaceful compromise. This was, undoubtedly, the idea then uppermost in the minds of both the President and Mr. Seward. At this time the public mind in the north was decidedly in favor of concessions to the south. The Democrats of the north would have agreed to any proposition to secure peace and the Union, and the Republicans would have acquiesced in the Crittenden Compromise, or in any measure approved by Lincoln and Seward.

The period between the 4th of March and the 12th of April was the darkest one in the history of the United States. It was a time of humiliation, timidity and feebleness. Fortunately for the future of our country the rebels of the south were bent upon disunion; they were hopeful and confident, and all the signs of the times indicated their success. They had possession of all the forts of the south, except Fortress Monroe, Fort Sumter, and two remote forts in Florida. They had only to wait in patience, and Fort Sumter would necessarily be abandoned for want of supplies. Fortress Monroe could not be held much longer by the regular army, weakened as it was by the desertion of officers and men, and public sentiment would not justify a call for troops in advance of actual war. The people of South Carolina were frenzied by their success thus far, and, impatient of delay, forced an attack on Fort Sumter, then held by a small garrison under command of Major Robert Anderson. The first gun fired on the 12th of April, 1861, resounded throughout the United States and the civilized world, touching an electric chord in every family in the northern states and changing the whole current of feeling. From this time forth, among the patriotic people of the loyal states, there was no thought or talk of compromise. That this insult to our flag must be punished, "that the Union must and shall be preserved," were the resolves of millions of men, without respect to party, who but the day before were eager for compromise. The cold and cautious men of the north were at last awakened from their indifference.

The impression made upon my mind by the attack on Fort Sumter is expressed in a letter I wrote from Washington to my brother, General Sherman, as he was then called, at midnight of the 12th of April:

"Washington, April 12, 1861. "Dear Brother:--I was unexpectedly called here soon after receiving your letter of the 8th, and at midnight write you. The military excitement here is intense. Since my arrival I have seen several officers, many citizens, and all the heads of departments except Blair. There is a fixed determination now to preserve the Union and enforce the laws at all hazards. Civil war is actually upon us, and, strange to say, it brings a feeling of relief; the suspense is over. I have spent much of the day in talking about you. There is an earnest desire that you go into the war department, but I said this was impossible. Chase is especially desirous that you accept, saying that you would be virtually Secretary of War, and could easily step into any military position that offers.

"It is well for you seriously to consider your conclusion, although my opinion is that you ought not to accept. You ought to hold yourself in reserve. If troops are called for, as they surely will be in a few days, organize a regiment or brigade, either in St. Louis or Ohio, and you will then get into the army in such a way as to secure promotion. By all means take advantage of the present disturbances to get into the army, where you will at once put yourself in a high position for life. I know that promotion and every facility for advancement will be cordially extended by the authorities. You are a favorite in the army and have great strength in political circles. I urge you to avail yourself of these favorable circumstances to secure your position for life; for, after all, your present employment is of uncertain tenure in these stirring times.

"Let me now record a prediction. Whatever you may think of the signs of the times, the government will rise from this strife greater, stronger, and more prosperous than ever. It will display energy and military power. The men who have confidence in it, and do their full duty by it, may reap whatever there is of honor and profit in public life, while those who look on merely as spectators in the storm will fail to discharge the highest duty of a citizen, and suffer accordingly in public estimation. . . .

"I write this in great hurry, with numbers around me, and exciting and important intelligence constantly repeated, even at this hour; but I am none the less in earnest. I hope to hear that you are on the high road to the 'General' within thirty days.

"Affectionately your brother, "John Sherman."

Two days later I wrote him:

"Washington, Sunday, April 14, 1861. "Dear Brother:--. . . The war has really commenced. You will have full details of the fall of Sumter. We are on the eve of a terrible war. Every man will have to choose his position. You fortunately have a military education, prominence, and character, that will enable you to play a high part in the tragedy. You can't avoid taking such a part. Neutrality and indifference are impossible. If the government is to be maintained, it must be by military power, and that immediately. You can choose your own place. Some of your best friends here want you in the war department; Taylor, Shiras, and a number of others, talk to me so. If you want that place, with a sure prospect of promotion, you can have it, but you are not compelled to take it; but it seems to me you will be compelled to take some position, and that speedily. Can't you come to Ohio and at once raise a regiment? It will immediately be in service. The administration intends to stand or fall by the Union, the entire Union, and the enforcement of the laws. I look for preliminary defeats, for the rebels have arms, organization, unity; but this advantage will not last long. The government will maintain itself or our northern people are the veriest poltroons that ever disgraced humanity.

"For me, I am for a war that will either establish or overthrow the government and will purify the atmosphere of political life. We need such a war, and we have it now. . . .

"Affectionately yours, "John Sherman."

He wrote in reply:

"The time will come in this country when professional knowledge will be appreciated, when men that can be trusted will be wanted, and I will bide my time. I may miss the chance; if so, all right; but I cannot and will not mix myself in this present call. . . .

"The first movements of the government will fail and the leaders will be cast aside. A second or third set will rise, and among them I may be, but at present I will not volunteer as a soldier or anything else. If Congress meet, or if a national convention be called, and the regular army be put on a footing with the wants of the country, if I am offered a place that suits me, I may accept. But in the present call I will not volunteer."

He criticised the call for 75,000 militia for three months, saying that the best of men could only be made indifferent soldiers in three months, and that the best of soldiers could accomplish nothing in three months in such a country as ours. He therefore would not volunteer for such a service, but his mind was occupied with military plans. The correspondence between us shows that he had a better conception of the magnitude and necessities of the war than civilians like myself.

He wrote to Mr. Cameron, Secretary of War, from St. Louis, on May 8, 1861:

"I hold myself now, as always, prepared to serve my country in the capacity for which I was trained. I did not and will not volunteer for three months, because I cannot throw my family on the cold support of charity, but for the three years' call made by the President an officer could prepare his command and do good service. I will not volunteer, because, rightfully or wrongfully, I feel myself unwilling to take a mere private's place, and having for many years lived in California and Louisiana, the men are not well enough acquainted with me to elect me to my appropriate place. Should my services be needed, the record or the war department will enable you to designate the station in which I can render best service."

When Mr. Lincoln was elected President, there was no general feeling among the northern people that war would result from his election. It was not believed, although it had been threatened, that the southern states would take up arms to resist the accession of a President not of their choice. The love of Union and the orderly obedience to constituted authority had been so well established among our people that, while politicians might threaten, but few really believed that war, of which they knew nothing, was to come upon us. The result was that when the southern states, one by one, seceded, and Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the forts and arsenals of the south were captured, a new inspiration dawned upon the people of the north, a determination became general that, cost what it would, the Union should be preserved to our children and our children's children. That feeling was not confined to party lines. I am bound to say that the members of the Democratic party in the loyal States, in the main, evinced the same patriotic determination to maintain the cause of the Union, as those of the Republican party. Their sons and their kindred formed part of every regiment or force raised in the United States.

At this distance of time from the opening of the Civil War, I have endeavored to take an impartial retrospect of the causes that led the south to engage therein. Undoubtedly, the existence of negro slavery in the south was the governing excitement to war. The owners of slaves knew that the tenure of such property was feeble. Besides the danger of escape, there was the growing hostility to slavery in a preponderance of the people of the United States, restrained only by its recognition by the constitution. The slave owners believed that, by secession, they could establish a republic, founded on slavery, with an ample field in Mexico and Central America for conquest and expansion. They had cultivated a bitter sectional enmity, amounting to contempt, for the people of the north, growing partly out of the subserviency of large portions of the north to the dictation of the south, but chiefly out of the wordy violence and disregard of constitutional obligation by the Abolitionists of the north. They believed in the doctrine of an irrepressible conflict long before it was announced by Seward.

South Carolina, far in advance of other southern states, led in promulgating the legal rights of secession, until they came to be acquiesced in by all these states. They committed themselves to it in the Charleston convention. Their speakers declared, during the canvass, that if Lincoln was elected, their states would secede. When elected, the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter, in South Carolina, where all the people were determined on war. The struggle once commenced, the natural sympathy of the southern states was with South Carolina. The States of Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee, where a strong Union sentiment prevailed, hesitated and delayed, but the young and active spirits were with the south, and these carried the states named into the general conflict. Once in the war, there was no way but to fight it out. I have no sympathy with secession, but I can appreciate the action of those who were born and reared under the influence of such teachings. Who of the north can say, that in like conditions, he would not have been a rebel?

Looking back from my standpoint now, when all the states are re- united in a stronger Union, when Union and Confederate soldiers are acting together in both Houses of Congress in legislating for the common good, when, since 1861, our country has more than doubled its population and quadrupled its resources, when its institutions have been harmonized by the abolition of slavery, when the seceding states are entering into a friendly and hopeful rivalry, in the development of their great resources, when they have doubled or trebled their production of cotton, when they are producing the greater part of their food, when they are developing their manufactures of iron and steel, and introducing the spindle and loom into the cities and villages, it seems to me that men of the south surely will appreciate, if they do not approve, what I said in the Senate early in the war:

"I would stake the last life, the last dollar, the last man, upon the prosecution of the war. Indeed, I cannot contemplate the condition of my country if it shall be dissevered and divided. Take the loyal states as they now stand and look at the map of the United States, and regard two hostile confederacies stretching along for thousands of miles across the continent. Do you not know that the normal condition of such a state of affairs would be eternal, everlasting war? Two nations of the same blood, of the same lineage, of the same spirit, cannot occupy the same continent, much less standing side by side as rival nations, dividing rivers and mountains for their boundary. No, Mr. president, rather than allow this war to terminate except upon the restoration of the Union intact in all its breadth and length, I would sacrifice the last man and see the country itself submerged.

"Rather than yield to traitors or the intervention of foreign powers, rather than bequeath to the next generation a broken Union, and an interminable civil war, I would light the torch of fanaticism and destroy all that the labor of two generations has accumulated. Better a desert and universal poverty than disunion; better the war of the French Revolution than an oligarchy founded upon the labor of slaves. But, sir, there is no need of this. The resources, wealth, and labor of twenty millions of freemen are amply sufficient to meet not only the physical, but financial, difficulties of the war. Thank God! the test to which all nations in the course of their history are subjected, is applied to us when we have a insignificant national debt; when our resources were never more manifest; when the loyal states are so throughly united; when our people are filled with a generous enthusiasm that will make the loss of life and burden of taxation easy to bear. If we conquer a peace by preserving the Union, the constitution, our nationality, all our ample territories, the rebound of prosperity in this country will enable a single generation easily to pay the national debt, even if the war is protracted until desolation is written upon every rebel hearthstone."

This, I believe, expressed the spirit and determination of the loyal states of the north, at the beginning of the war. With opinions so widely divergent in the two sections, and with a fixed purpose of each to stand by them, there was no way that poor frail human nature could devise to decide the controversy except to fight.

From the graves of the dead, who fought on opposite sides for their country of their state, there has been a resurrection, honorable to both sections, a Union stronger, more united and glorious than the Union established by our fathers, and with a rebound of prosperity greater than we could conceive of in 1862. This war, though fearful in the sacrifice of property and life, has resulted in a better understanding among the people of both sections. Each has for the other a higher respect and regard. I sincerely hope and believe in the good time coming when sectional lines will not divide political parties, and common interests and a broader nationality will have destroyed sectional feeling and jealousy.

As the result of the war we command the respect of all foreign nations. The United States, as a great republic, has become an example already followed by European nations. It has at least secured the respect and forbearance of the ruling class in Great Britain, who never forgot or forgave the rebellion of our ancestors against King George III and the parliament of Great Britain. It has stamped the language, the laws, and the boasted freedom of Englishmen, upon a population double that in the mother country, and they, in turn, are taking lessons from us in extending to their people equality of rights and privileges.

I remained in Washington a few days and then started for my home at Mansfield, to encourage enlistments, but found that no help was needed; that companies were enlisted in a day. One was recruited by William McLaughlin, a gallant soldier in the war in Mexico, a major general of the Ohio militia who had arrived at the age of sixty years. He dropped his law books and in twelve hours had a company of one hundred men ready to move at the command of the governor. A like patriotism was aroused in all parts of the state, so that in a very short time two full regiments, numbering 2,000 men, were organized under the command of Colonel A. McD. McCook, of the United States army, and were on the way to Washington, then blockaded by the roughs of Baltimore. I met them at Harrisburg and went with them to Philadelphia. They were camped at Fairmount Park, and were drilled with other regiments by Colonel Fitz John Porter, the entire force being under the command of General Patterson.

When the blockade was opened, by the skill and audacity of General Benjamin F. Butler, the two Ohio regiments were ordered to Washington and were there reviewed by President Lincoln, at which time a pleasant incident occurred which may be worthy of mention. I accompanied the President to the parade, and passed with him down the line. He noticed a venerable man with long white hair and military bearing, standing in position at the head of his company with arms presented, and inquired his name. I said it was General McLaughlin and hurriedly told him his history, his politics and patriotism. The President, as he came opposite him, stopped, and leaving his party advanced to McLaughlin and extended his hand. McLaughlin, surprised, had some difficulty in putting his sword under his left arm. They shook hands and Lincoln thanked him, saying when men of his age and standing came to the rescue of their country there could be no doubt of our success. McLaughlin highly appreciated this compliment. He afterwards enlisted for the war and died in the service of his country.

These two regiments were subsequently ordered to Harrisburg, to which place they went, accompanied by me, and there they formed a part of the command of General Patterson, which was to advance on Martinsburg and Winchester to aid in a movement of General McDowell against the enemy at Bull Run. I was serving on the staff of General Patterson as a volunteer aid without pay. While at Harrisburg it was suggested to me that ex-President Buchanan, then at his country home near that city, had expressed a wish to see me. As our personal relations had always been pleasant, though our political opinions were widely different, I called upon him, I think with Colonel Porter, and we were cordially received. I was surprised at the frankness and apparent sincerity of the opinions expressed by him in relation to the war. He said he had done all he could to prevent the war, but now that it was upon us it was the duty of all patriotic people to make it a success, that he approved all that had been done by Mr. Lincoln, of whom he spoke in high terms of praise. I believe he was sincere in the opinions he then expressed, and know of nothing said or done by him since that time that could create a doubt of his sincerity.

About the middle of June the command of General Patterson moved slowly to Chambersburg, where it remained several days under constant drill, then to Hagerstown and to the village of Williamsport on the Potomac. While at the latter place General Sherman, who had been at Washington and received his commission as colonel of the 13th United States infantry, then being recruited, came to visit me at my lodgings in a country tavern. He then met for the first time in many years his old classmate, Colonel, afterwards Major- General, George H. Thomas, who then commanded a regular regiment of the United States army in the force under the command of General Patterson. The conversation of these two officers, who were to be so intimately associated in great events in the future, was very interesting. They got a big map of the United States, spread it on the floor, and on their hands and knees discussed the probable salient strategic places of the war. They singled out Richmond, Vicksburg, Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga. To me it has always appeared strange that they were able confidently and correctly to designate the lines of operations and strategic points of a war not yet commenced, and more strange still that they should be leading actors in great battles at the places designated by them at this country tavern.

The next day General Thomas crossed the river into Virginia, but the order was soon countermanded, it is said, by General Scott, and General Thomas returned to the north bank of the Potomac. General Sherman returned to Washington to drill his raw troops for the battle of Bull Run. I soon after returned by stage to Frederick, Maryland, to take my seat in the Senate, Congress having been convened to meet in special session on the 4th of July.