Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. JU, 2155-56.

Benjamin Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 201-2; Roy Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (cited hereafter as Basler), Vol. Ill, 256, 534.

13. Halstead, 102; Congressional Globe, as above, Vol. I, 914.

14. Congressional Globe, Vol. I, appendix, 203-4; James Ford
Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of
1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule in the South in
1877 (cited hereafter as Rhodes), Vol. II, 439. Reading the
record of scenes like this, and the earlier row over the speaker-
ship, one sees so much passion and unrestrained invective that
one is almost surprised the war did not come earlier than it did.

15. Nevins, Vol. II, 189-91.

16. Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 125; Congressional
Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. IV, 2848-49.

3. Star after Star

Halstead, 5, 18-19.

Ibid, 10.

Ibid, 23-25.

 

Craven, 320-21, 327; Dumond, The Secession Movement, 1860-1861, 33; John Witherspoon DuBose, The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey, 362-63.

Laura W. White, Robert Barnwell Rhett: Father of Secession, 157.

 

Rhodes, Vol. n, 357.

Halstead, 25-28.

 

Nevins, Vol. II, 214-15; Halstead, 43-44; Edward Stan-wood, A History of the Presidency from 1788 to 1897, Vol. 1, 266-69.

Pamphlet in the Newberry Library, "Speech of the Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama, Delivered in the National Democratic Convention"; Halstead, 47-48.

10. Halstead, 48-50.

11. Ibid, 52, 58-59, 61.

12. Richmond Dispatch, May 5, 1860; Montgomery Weekly
Advertiser, May 16, 1860; Nichols, op cit, 303-4.

13. Halstead, 67-68, 71, 75.

4. "The Party Is Split Forever"

Emerson Davis Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 110-11; Halstead, 76; B. F. Perry, Biographical Sketches of Eminent American Statesmen, 148.

Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 74-75; Halstead, 85-87.

3. Halstead, 97-98.

4. Benjamin F. Butler, Butler's Book, 138-40; Halstead, 88, 92;
Nichols, 308-9.

New York Times, May 2, 1860.

Richmond Dispatch, May 7, 1860.

7. Henry A. Wise to William Sergeant, May 28, 1858, in John
G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. II,
302. (Cited hereafter as Nicolay & Hay.)

8. Halstead, 101-3.

9. Jefferson Davis, Relations of the States: Speech of May 7,
1860, 13-14.

Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 18.

Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 365.

12. Ibid, 355-56.

5. The Crowd at the Wigwam

1. Halstead, 120.

Ibid, 208-12; Rhodes, Vol. II, 454. Note that Dumond (The Secession Movement, 94) insists that this group actually adopted "a distinctly Southern platform." He remarks: "It was not an endorsement of Federal supremacy, nor of majority rule, but rather of state rights and constitutional protection for the rights of minorities."

P. Orman Ray, The Convention that Nominated Lincoln, 5-8, 15.

 

Ibid, 11, 13-14.

Halstead, 122, 140.

6. Willard L. King, Lincoln's Manager, David Davis, 134-36.
According to Don G. Fehrenbacher, in Chicago Giant: A Biogra-
phy of Long John Wentworth, 177, David Davis had previously written to Lincoln recommending Wentworth's talents as a political manager: "You ought to have got him long ago to 'run' you."

King, op cit, 134. For a succinct discussion of the different candidates and their prospects when the convention opened, see William E. Baringer, Lincoln's Rise to Power, 204-7.

King, 138; telegram, Davis and Dubois to Lincoln, May 15, 1860, photostat in the Lincoln Collection, Chicago Historical Society.

Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, 232-33.

 

Halstead, 129.

Ray, op cit, 19, 21.

Ibid, 22-23; Halstead, 131, 138-39.

Ray, 25-26; Halstead, 140.

6. Railsplitter

1. King, 139.

2. For a careful weighing of the evidence on this point, see
King, 137.

3. Halstead, 141.

Thomas Haines Dudley, a delegate from New Jersey, was one of the group meeting in Davis's headquarters suite, and he wrote a detailed account of the night's operations—"Report on Republican National Convention of 1860—Caucuses etc leading to nomination of Lincoln"—which has been followed in the preparation of this chapter. The manuscript is in the Thomas Haines Dudley Papers in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

For the generally accepted version of the deal with the Cameron men, see Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Vol. II, 341-42. Alexander K. McClure Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, 29-30 insists that the Pennsylvania delegation caucused and voted to swing to Lincoln because of the pressure exerted by Governor Curtin and the influence of the Indiana delegation's action; he asserts (139) that the Lincoln managers definitely made a deal with Cameron but that they simply bought something they were going to get anyway. King's version is in his Lincoln's Manager, 140-41, 162-64.

 

Halstead, 143-44.

Ibid, 144-45.

8. For all of the foregoing, the Halstead account (149-51) is a
graphic and detailed bit of reporting.

9. Ray, op cit, 37.

10. Addison G. Procter, "Lincoln and the Convention of 1860:
an Address Before the Chicago Historical Society," 10-12.

11. Halstead, 153.

 

 

Chapter Two: DOWN A STEEP PLACE 1. Division at Baltimore

Letter of Lee to Major Earl Van Dorn, July 3, 1860, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.

cf Nichols (320): "The great majority of Americans no longer wished to compromise."

 

Halstead, 160; Nichols, 314.

Halstead, 176, 185.

Ibid, 154-56.

Dumond, 81-82; Nichols, 316; Halstead, 185.

7. This account follows Halstead, who gives the text of Doug-
las's letter to Dean Richmond and quotes liberally from the de-
bates. (Halstead, 187-99.)

8. Ibid, 205-6.

9. For a resume^ of the voting statistics and an excellent analy-
sis of their significance, see Nichols, 321. Douglas's letter to
Richardson, and Richardson's remarks on it, are from Halstead,
207.

10. Halstead (citing a news story in the Baltimore Sun), 217-
25.

11. Ibid, 227.

2. The Great Commitment

1. Since the Civil War ended, practically every conceivable interpretation of its causes and significance has been advanced. An almost indispensable survey and summary of these varying opinions can be found in Thomas J. Pressly's Americans Interpret Their Civil War. Highly recommended also is Howard K. Beale's What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War (Theory and Practice in Historical Study; a Report of the Committee on Historiography, Bulletin 54, 1946, Social Science Research Council.) Two sharply contrasting analyses which this writer found stimulating and informative are Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War (second revised edition, 1957) and Nevins, Vol. II, 462 et seq.

"The general period in American history from 1825 to 1860 was one of vast material growth and expansion. But it was also one in which the wealth and power of the few grew disproportionately to that of the many. Democracy was not functioning properly. . . . Injustice, lack of material prosperity, loss of equality or failure to achieve American purposes—all became matters of moral significance and evidence of God's plan thwarted." (Craven, "The Coming of the War Between the States: an Interpretation," Journal of Southern History, Vol. II, No. 3, 305.)

"The localization of a great manufacture so distant from its sources of supply was as radical an innovation in industrial geography as was Arkwright machinery in industrial mechanics." (Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, Vol. II, 1.)

 

Clark, op cit, 2.

Ibid, 7.

 

cf Charles and Mary Beard {The Rise of American Civilization, Vol. n, 6-7): "The amazing growth of northern industries, the rapid extension of railways, the swift expansion of foreign trade to the ends of the earth, the attachment of the farming regions of the west to the centers of manufacture and finance through transportation and credit, the destruction of state consciousness by migration, the alien invasion, the erection of new commonwealths in the Valley of Democracy, the nationalistic drive of interstate commerce, the increase of population in the north, and the southward pressure of the capitalistic glacier, all conspired to assure the ultimate triumph of what the orators were fond of calling 'the free labor system.' This was a dynamic thrust far too powerful for planters operating in a limited territory with incompetent labor and soil of diminishing fertility."

Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States in the Years 1853-1854, with Remarks on Their Economy, Vol. I, 19-20. See also Ulrich B. Phillips, The Course of the South to Secession, 152-53.

Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie (cited hereafter as Mrs. Chesnut), 10-11, 21-22, 142.

3. By Torchlight

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. JJ, 284-85.

William E. Baringer, Campaign Technique in Illinois—1860;

Illinois State Historical Society Transactions for the Year 1932, 249.

3. Ibid, 253-56.

4. The Railsplitter was published between Aug. 1 and Oct. 27,
1860. The quotations in the text are from a reprint by the Abra-
ham Lincoln Bookshop, Chicago.

5. Baringer, op cit, 261.

6. Undated paper marked "Form of a reply prepared by Mr.
Lincoln with which his private secretary was instructed to answer
a numerous class of letters in the campaign of 1860," in the John
G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congres.

Memorandum dated Nov. 5, 1860, in the Nicolay Papers.

Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 346.

9. "Speech Delivered by William H. Seward at St. Paul, Sept.
18, 1860," a pamphlet printed by the Albany Evening Journal.

Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 127.

Ibid, 128, citing The National Intelligencer for Oct. 5, 1860.

 

Edmund Ruffin Diaries, Vol. JV, 677, 682; in the Library of Congress.

Emerson David Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 314, 317-18.

4. Little Giant

There is a brilliant analysis of this situation in Craven's Growth of Southern Nationalism. Pointing out that the Industrial Revolution had already pronounced the doom of slavery, Craven remarks (340): "Douglas had simply recognized inevitable trends and had adjusted his course to them. But because Southern men resented what 'progress' had done to them, they saw in Douglas the symbol of it all and hated him accordingly. By rejecting him they were attempting to repudiate the great forces of change that threatened their civilization."

George Fort Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 492; The Campaign Plain Dealer and Popular Sovereignty Advocate, Cleveland, issue of Sept. 1, 1860. (This is an interesting Douglas campaign paper, counterpart of the Republican Party's Railsplitter mentioned in the previous chapter. Facsimile reproductions are published by Lincoln College, Lincoln, 111.)

Milton, op cit, 493; Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 282.

Howard Cecil Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession, 38-39, 71.

5. Lucille Stillwell, John Cabell Breckinridge, 82-83.

6. King, Lincoln's Manager, 154-55, 158-59.

Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. IV; Dwight L. Dumond, Southern Editorials on Secession, quoting the Charleston Mercury of Oct. 11, 1860.

Dumond, op cit, 185; Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Vol. IV, 540.

9. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. II, 306-7.

Ibid, 307-14.

Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 500.

5. Verdict of the People

1. Paul Angle, Here 1 Have Lived: a History of Lincoln's
Springfield, 1821-1865, 251-53; John G. Nicolay to his wife, Nov.
8, 1860, in the Nicolay Papers.

2. McMaster, Vol. VOI, 476, 478-79; Rhodes, Vol. IH, 118.

Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 564-65.

Ibid, 370-71; Basler, Vol. IV, 146, 160. In the former book, Lincoln is quoted as saying ". . . while we think it is wrong and ought to be abolished." The quotation in the text is from Basler.

Memorandum dated at Springfield, Nov. 15, 1860; from the Nicolay Papers.

 

New York Tribune, Nov. 9, 1860.

Dunbar Rowland, op cit, Vol. IV, 541.

Henry Villard, Lincoln on the Eve of '61, 17.

9. Donn Piatt, Memories of Men Who Saved the Union, 30, 33-
34.

6. Despotism of the Sword

Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieut. General Scott, LL.D., Written by Himself, Vol. JJ, 609; James Buchanan, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 99, 287-88; Mss. copy of Scott's views, inscribed "To the Hon. E. Everett with the respects of his friend—W.S." in the Edward Everett Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Buchanan, op cit, 104; Brevet Major General Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, 224; A. Howard Meneely, The War Department, 1861, 21-22, 24-26.

Philip Gerald Auchampaugh, James Buchanan and His Cabinet on the Eve of Secession, 130; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. II, 36-63, quoting from the diary of John B. Floyd.

4. Auchampaugh, op cit, 132-34.

Attorney General Black's opinion is from George Ticknor Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, Vol. II, 319-24. (Cited hereafter as Curtis.)

Letters of Thomas L. Drayton, dated Nov. 10 and Nov. 23, 1860, and letter of R. L. Ripley, dated Nov. 7, 1860, all in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers, Library of Congress.

Letter of William Henry Trescot dated Nov. 17, 1860, in the Robert N. Gourdin Papers, Duke University Library; letter of Trescot dated Nov. 19, in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers; Mrs. Chesnut, 28.

James D. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. VII, 3157-69.

 

 

Chapter Three: THE LONG FAREWELL 1. The Union Is Dissolved

Journal of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, Held in 1860-61, 3-5; John Amasa May and Joan Reynolds Faunt, South Carolina Secedes, 5-7.

Journal of the Convention, 18; Frank Moore, The Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events (cited hereafter as Moore's Rebellion Record), Vol. I, 3; New York Times, Dec. 18, 1860.

3. New York Times, Dec. 19 and Dec. 20, 1860.

Journal of the Convention, 46-47, 53; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. Ill, 13.

James Petigru Carson, Life, Letters and Speeches of James Louis Petigru, the Union Man of South Carolina, 361, 364.

 

Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. TV, 713 ff.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. in, 11-12.

8. Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War; the
Story of Sumter, 1860-61 (cited hereafter as Crawford), 54-55;
New York Times, Dec. 20 and Dec. 22, 1860.

9. May and Faunt, South Carolina Secedes, 18-19.

10. Journal of the Convention, 325-31, 332-44.

11. Letter of William Porcher Miles dated Dec. 20, 1860, in
the Robert N. Gourdin Papers.

New York Times, Dec. 22, Dec. 24, 1860.

Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I; Diary, 3; Documents, 1.

Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, 110-

12; Buchanan's letter of Dec. 20 to James Gordon Bennett, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

 

2. A Delegation of Authority

 

1. The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Rec-
ords of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. I, 68-69. (This
invaluable compilation is hereafter cited as O.R. Unless other-
wise noted in the citation, the volumes are from Series I.)

2. O.R., Vol. I, 70-72.

There is a good brief sketch of Anderson in D.A.B., Vol. I, 274-75. His orders are in O.R., Vol. I, 73.

Anderson's first report from Fort Moultrie, Nov. 23, 1860, O.R., Vol. I, 74; Crawford, 6-7; Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (hereafter cited as B & L.), VoL I, 40.

 

O.R., Vol. I, 74-77

Ibid, 78-79.

Ibid, 81-82.

8. Crawford, 37-40. The letter from the South Carolina dele-
gation to President Buchanan is in the William Porcher Miles
Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Caro-
lina. On the back of this document is a note apparently in Bu-
chanan's handwriting, containing the statement: "I objected to
the word 'Provided' as this might be construed into an agreement
on my part which I never would make. They said nothing was
further from their intentions. They did not so understand & I
should not so consider it."

9. O.R., Vol. I, 82-83.

Crawford, 71-74; O.R., Vol., I, 89-90.

Buchanan, 106; O.R., Vol. I, 103.

 

Letter of Major Anderson to Dr. G. T. Metcalfe, Dec. 15, 1860, in the A. Conger Goodyear Collection, Historical Manuscripts Division, Yale University Library.

Letter of Major Anderson to the Rev. Mr. R. B. Duane, Dec. 19, 1860, in the Goodyear Collection.

Letter of Major Anderson, Dec. 12, 1860, to a friend whose name is not decipherable, in the Robert Anderson Papers, Library of Congress.

 

Crawford, 77-78.

Ibid, 81-84.

17. Unfinished draft of letter dated Dec. 20, in the James
Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

18. Crawford, 88.

3. An Action and a Decision

1. Crawford, 95; O.R., Vol. I, 106-7; Abner Doubleday, Rem-
iniscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-61, 49-50.

2. Doubleday, op cit, 60-64; also in B. & L., Vol. I, 44-45.

Captain James Chester, Inside Sumter in '61, in B. & L., Vol. I, 51-52; Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. IV, 718.

Eba Anderson Lawton, Major Robert Anderson and Fort Sumter 1861, 8.

5. O.R., Vol. I, 2.

Crawford, 142-44; quoting liberally from Trescot's diary, to which Crawford apparently had access but which is no longer available. Buchanan's own account of his meeting with the South Carolina commissioners is in his book, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 181-82.

Auchampaugh, 66-67; Crawford, 37. A copy of Cass's letter of resignation, and a memorandum thereon by Buchanan, both in Buchanan's handwriting, are in the Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Crawford, 146; Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 213; George C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton, Vol. I, 158; Buchanan, 180-81.

Crawford, 148, giving the text of a letter he received in 1871 from James L. Orr with details of the meeting.

 

Crawford, 146.

Winfield Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 613; O.R., Vol. I, 112.

O.R., Vol. I, 109-10.

Buchanan, 182.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. HI, 74.

Frank A. Flower, Edwin McMasters Stanton, 88.

16. Document of John Codman Ropes dated 1870, setting
forth an interview he had had with Stanton in 1869, in the Hora-
tio Woodman Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Rhodes,
Vol. Ill, 231; Crawford, 151.

17. O.R., Vol. I, 114.

4. Footsteps in a Dark Corridor

Mrs. Chesnut, 4-5.

Basler, Vol. IV, 149-51.

3. Letter of John A. Gilmer dated Dec. 10, 1860, in the Robert
Todd Lincoln Papers; Basler, Vol. IV, 151-52.

4. Basler, Vol. IV, 154, 156. . ■

Ibid, 157, 159.

Ibid, 162.

Ibid, 164-65.

 

For a brief discussion of Floyd's odd course, see D.A.B., Vol. VI, 482-83; also Nevins, Vol. II, 372.

Telegram, Trescot to Miles, marked showing receipt at Charleston Dec. 31, 1860, in the William Porcher Miles Papers.

10. Gov. Pickens to Lieut. Col. De Saussure, dated Dec. 31,

1860, in the Wilmot Gibbs De Saussure Order Book, Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

O.R., Vol. I, 120.

Ibid, 120-25; Curtis, 446.

13. Letters of H. Pollock dated Dec. 30; of Charles A. Hamil-
ton, dated Dec. 28, and of Edward Hinks, dated Dec. 26, from
the Robert Anderson Papers, Library of Congress.

14. Rhodes, Vol. in, 239-241; Meneely, The War Department,

1861, 43-45; note from Buchanan to Floyd dated "Christmas Eve-
ning," enclosing a telegram from citizens of Pittsburgh, in the
James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

5. The Strategy of Delay

Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, 115; Nichols, Disruption of American Democracy, 438, quoting a letter from the wife of Senator W. M. Gwin of California.

Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, describing a New Year's Eve conversation with Gen. Scott, in B. & L., Vol. I, 9; O.R., Vol. I, 119.

Buchanan's account of the sequence of orders relative to the dispatch of the Brooklyn is contained in his letter of Jan. 9, 1861, to Jacob Thompson, copy in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The change of plans which led to use of the Star of the West is set forth in Buchanan's The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 189-91. A somewhat different version is in Winfield Scott's Memoirs, Vol. II, 620-21.

4. O.R., Vol. I, 132, 133.

5. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the
War of the Rebellion (cited hereafter as N.O.R.) Vol. I, 220.

6. O.R., Vol. I, 130-31, 252; Crawford, 133, 139.

O.R., Vol. I, 9-10, containing the report of Lieut. Charles R. Wood, 9th U. S. Infantry.

Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie, 102.

9. Crawford, 184-85; B. & L., Vol. I, 61; Miss A. Fletcher,

Within Fort Sumter, or, A View of Major Anderson's Garrison Family for One Hundred and Ten Days, 14.

Crawford, 187; copy of Major Anderson's letter to W. A. Gordon, dated January 11, 1861, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

The letters exchanged by Major Anderson and Governor Pickens are in O.R., Vol. I, 134-36.

12. Crawford, 189.

13. O.R., Vol. I, 137-38, 143-44; Crawford, 191-94, 209; Dou-
bleday, op cit, 117.

14. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. Ill, 118-21.

Letter of Jefferson Davis to Governor Pickens, dated Jan. 20, 1861, in the Miscellaneous Papers, Huntington Library.

Letter of Governor Pickens to Jefferson Davis, dated Jan. 23, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection.

Curtis, Vol. II, 451; Buchanan, 194-96; O.R., Vol. I, 166-68.

 

Crawford, 231-33.

O.R., Vol. I, 326-27.

Ibid, 474-76, 484-85.

 

Dumond, The Secession Movement, 204; Dunbar Rowland, History of Mississippi, the Heart of the South, Vol. I, 781.

Appleton's American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 10-11; O. R., Series Four, Vol. I, 46-47; Rowland, History of Mississippi, Vol. I, 783-84, 790.

On Jan. 19, 1861, the Springfield (Mass.) Republican remarked that the Buchanan cabinet had become about as sectional as that of Abraham Lincoln could ever be, and predicted that "the policy of the outgoing administration by the 1st of March will have become precisely that of the incoming one"—a very fair appraisal. Two weeks earlier the politically observant Edward Mcpherson, clerk of the House of Representatives, wrote that "the Prest is under better influences ... he more clearly sees his duty. The mutterings of the mighty North have reached him." (Letter of McPherson to Francis Lieber, dated Jan. 2 and 3, 1861, in the Francis Lieber Collection at the Huntington Library.)

24. Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 428-29.

 

6. Everything, Even Life Itself

 

1. Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis: A Memoir, by His Wife, Vol. I, 696-98; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part I, 487.

Varina Howell Davis, Vol. I, 699; copy of a letter from Jefferson Davis to Anna Ella Carroll, dated March 1, 1861, in the Anna Ella Carroll Papers, Maryland Historical Society; letter of Davis to Clement C. Clay, dated Jan. 19, 1861, in the Clement C. Clay Papers, Duke University Library; Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 37-38.

Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. L Diary, 9, Documents, 17-18.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 395, 538, 677; Du-mond, The Secession Movement, 220-22, 223.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 477; Pulaski County Historical Review, Vol. V, Number One; Arkansas Gazette, Feb. 16, 1861; the J. M. Keller Papers, in the files of the Arkansas History Commission; Jack B. Scroggs, "Arkansas in the Secession Crisis," in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. XII, Number Three.

Nevins, Vol. JJ, 425-27. In a lengthy letter to J. M. Calhoun, Commissioner from Alabama, Houston acidly remarked that "we have to recollect that our conservative Northern friends cast over a quarter of a million more votes against the Black Republicans than we of the entire South." (O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 77.)

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 728-29; O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 77.

Letter of Douglas to A. Belmont, dated Dec. 25, 1860, in the Douglas Papers, Chicago Historical Society. See also a very similar letter of his in the Lanphier Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.

Gilbert G. Glover, Immediate Pre-Civil War Compromise Efforts, 112-13; Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion, 57; David C. Mearns, The Lincoln Papers, Vol. II, 406.

 

Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part One, 237-38, 267.

Ibid, 341-44; New York Herald, Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 1861; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Diary, 15; Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips: the Agitator, 306.

New York Herald, Jan. 28, 1861; Henry Villard, Lincoln on the Eve of 1861, 58-59; letter of Charles Sumner, dated Jan. 21, 1861, from the Papers of John A. Andrew, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Villard, op cit; also Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 145; W. H. L. Wallace, letter to "Dear Ann" dated Jan. 11, 1861, in the Wallace-Dickey Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; letter of C. H. Ray, dated Jan. 17, 1861, in the John A. Andrew Papers.

McMaster, Vol. VIII, 510-11.

O.R., Vol. XVIII, 772-73.

16. Letter of Lee to Mrs. Lee, dated Jan. 23, 1861, and Lee's
letter to "My Precious Agnes," dated Jan. 29, 1861, in the Robert
E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.

 

 

Chapter Four: TWO PRESIDENTS 1. The Man and the Hour

T. C. De Leon, Four Years in the Rebel Capitals: an Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy, from Birth to Death, 23-24; New Orleans Delta, Feb. 22, 1861.

De Leon, op cit, 24, 33; Burton J. Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 89-90.

"Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, 1860-1862," in Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. XI, 160-63; Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Vol. II, 325.

J. L. M. Curry, Civil History of the Government of the Confederate States, with Some Personal Reminiscences, 42-44, 50; E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 20-21; Hendrick, op cit, 85.

For a detailed comparison of the United States and Confederate Constitutions, see Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. I, 648-73. Howell Cobb believed at the time that the Confederate Constitution was "the ablest instrument ever prepared for the government of a free people." Taking the United States Constitution as the basis for action, he said, "we have written down in the language of truth and simplicity the principles which an honest construction of that instrument has long pronounced its true meaning." (Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 153.)

6. Southern Literary Messenger for February 1861, 152.

7. R. Barnwell Rhett, The Confederate Government at Mont-
gomery, in B. & L., Vol. I, 99 ff; Alexander Stephens, Vol. II,
328-333.

"Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens and Howell Cobb": annual report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Vol. U, 536-37.

Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 385-86.

 

"Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb," 171-78.

Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 230, 236-37; Johnston and Browne, 387.

Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis, Vol. II, 18; postwar letter of Jefferson Davis, dated June 4, 1878, in the Franklin Stringfellow Papers, Virginia State Historical Society.

Montgomery Post, Feb. 20, 1861; New York Herald, Feb. 23, 1861.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 127; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, Feb. 16, 1861; New York Herald, Feb. 23.

2. The Long Road to Washington

1. Paul Angle, Here Have 1 Lived, 260; Basler, Vol. IV, 190;
New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1861; James G. Randall, Lincoln the
President, Vol. I, 274-75.

2. New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1861; Basler, Vol. TV, 193-96.

3. Basler, Vol. IV, 197, 204, 208, 210-11. Southern newspapers
made hay with some of these remarks. The Montgomery Post
Feb. 20, 1861 asked sharply: "What means this civil commotion,
these war-like preparations, this tearing down and building up of
government? is it all imaginary—all a mere phantom fleeing be-
fore our distorted visions? The results of the future will develop
how much of reality there is contained in this 'artificial crisis.'"
The Natchez Courier Feb. 13, 1861, was moved to lament: "Alas!
for our country's welfare! We have no Washington; no Clay; no
Webster! The eagles have fled; the serpents crawl to eminence
where eagles hardly dare to fly."

4. Basler, Vol. IV, 226, 230-33, 238, 240-41.

Villard, Memoirs, Vol. I, 151; New York Herald, Feb. 20, 1861; Montgomery Post, Feb. 22, 1861.

Letter of David Davis to Mrs. Davis, dated Feb. 17, 1861, from the David Davis Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.

The fantastic story of the assassination plot is excellently summarized in Randall, Vol. I, 286-89, and in Benjamin Thomas, 242-44.

L. E. Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 37-39.

9. The furore raised by the soft hat and the cloak, transformed
by rumor into plaid wrapper and tam o'shanter, could have been
even worse if an idea which Secretary John G. Nicolay apparent-
ly toyed with had come to anything. In the Nicolay Papers at the
Library of Congress there is a letter to Nicolay from one A. H.
Flanders of New York, dated Jan. 27, 1861, reading as follows:
"I wrote you a line yesterday from Philada. stating that I had
ascertained that I could certainly get the coat of mail made in
that city. ... I shall be very happy to get this done for Mr.
Lincoln if he will accept of it, and really hope he will not go to
Washington without it. I am confident I can get it done without
anyone knowing it is for him." A picture of Lincoln in a coat of
mail would be worthy to stand beside the one which shows the
mountain man, Jim Bridger, in a suit of armor.

10. Letter of C. F. Adams to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 18, 1861,
in the Dana Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

3. Colonel Lee Leaves Texas

B. & L., Vol. I, 36, n; Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee, Vol. I, 421.

O.R., Vol. I, 579-82, 584. There is a sketch of Twiggs in D.A.B., Vol. XIX, 83.

Twiggs's report, dated Feb. 19, 1861, is in O.R., Vol. I, 503-4. For the orders he issued, see the same volume, 515-16.

A very graphic if somewhat biased description of the doings at San Antonio and of Lee's arrival there is Mrs. Caroline Baldwin Darrow's Recollections of the Twiggs Surrender, B. & L., Vol. I, 33 ff.

 

Col. Waite's report, O.R., Vol. I, 521-22.

Report of Capt. S. D. Carpenter, O.R., Vol. I, 541-43.

O.R., Vol. I, 589, 595; B. & L., Vol. I, 39.

O.R., Vol. I, 598-99.

9. O. M. Roberts, Texas (Vol. XI of Clement A. Evans' Con-
federate Military History), 26; "Correspondence of Thomas Reade
Rootes Cobb," 253; Dumond, The Secession Movement, 209.

A thoughtful analysis of the different votes on secession is in David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 208-15.

O.R., Vol. I, 597; Twiggs to Buchanan, dated March 30, 1861, in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers.

4. Talking Across a Gulf

Henry T. Shanks, The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847-1861, 153-54.

New York Herald, Feb. 5, 1861; New York Tribune, Feb. 6; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part Two, 1247.

L. E. Chittenden, "A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention," 16; Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy, 484; also Crafts J. Wright, "Official Journal of the Conference Convention Held at Washington City, February 1861."

Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 72-76.

Letter of Charles Sumner to Governor Andrew, dated Feb. 20, 1861; letter of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Andrew, dated Feb. 22, 1861; both in the John A. Andrew Papers.

Letter of Charles Francis Adams to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 9, 1861, in the Dana Papers.

Unsigned mss. paper of John A. Campbell, marked "memorandum relative to the Secession movement in 1860-61," in the Memorial Literary Society, Richmond.

The best concise summary of Lincoln's cabinet selections seems to this writer to be in Thomas' Abraham Lincoln, 232-35.

Letter of C. F. Adams, Jr., to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 28, 1861, in the Dana Papers; letter of Sherrard Clemens to an unnamed recipient, dated March 1, 1861, in the William P. Palmer Civil War Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society.

5. Pressure at Fort Sumter

1. Crawford, 290; O.R., Vol. I, 183-84; B. & L., Vol. I, 53-54.

Telegrams from Governor Pickens dated Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, 1861; from the William Porcher Miles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 9, 1861, American Art Association Catalog, Manuscript Room, New York Public Library.

Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 46-47, 55-58; printing the text of the resolutions and of Gov. Pickens' lengthy letter.

 

O.R., I., 258-59.

Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 20, 1861,

498 notes

in the Goodyear Collection; letter of Yancey to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 27, 1861, in the Yancey Papers, Library of Congress.

7. Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beaure-
gard (a book which is virtually Beauregard's autobiography), VoL

I, 25, 30; T. Harry Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard, Napoleon in
Gray, 49, 54; Edward A. Pollard, The First Year of the War, 50;
O.R., Vol. I, 25-27; John S. Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, 161.

8. Roman, Military Operations, Vol. I, 29.

9. "Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb," 182;
New York Herald, Feb. 23, 1861; Harper's Weekly, March 9,
1861; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1861.

Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 232-36, giving the text of his inaugural. His appealing note to his wife is from Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis, a Memoir, Vol. II, 32-33.

The complaint of the Mercury—a journal singularly hard to please—is from Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 30. For the reference to Douglas, see Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 540-41.

Davis describes the making of his cabinet in his Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 241 et seq. Clifford Dowdey argues that Davis's cabinet choices were the sort an ordinary politician would make in time of peace but were not fitted for the stormy times that lay ahead: "However just they all considered their cause, it was revolution. Revolutions must succeed by force, or fail. They have no status quo in which to exist and not be won." (Experiment in Rebellion, 13.) It should be pointed out, of course, that Davis knew from the start that he was going to have to fight; it was just that he never saw himself as a revolutionist. As Roy Nichols remarks, the clubby Senatorial managers from the old government were comfortably in control. (The Disruption of American Democracy, 469-71.)

Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 246, 305-7; Journal of the Confederate Congress, Vol. I, 10 1-2; Pamphlet, "Confederate Flags," Confederate Museum, Richmond.

 

6. First Inaugural

Harper's Weekly, March 16, 1861, 165-66; Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 154.

Charles P. Stone, Washington on the Eve of the War, in B. & L., Vol. I, 20, 24-25; Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, Vol.

II, 494.

3. Winfield Scott, Memoirs, Vol. H, 625-27.

Buchanan, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 211; Curtis, Vol. II, 497.

Curtis, Vol. II, 509, 667; letter of Buchanan to James Gordon Bennett, dated March 11, 1861, copy in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Curtis, Vol. II, 509; Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, 47, 56; letter of Buchanan to Bennett, Dec. 20,

1860, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Penn-
sylvania.

7. Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 156: Harper's Weekly,
March 16, 165; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. JJJ, 371-72.

8. Harper's Weekly, p 166; Cincinnati Commercial, March 11,

1861. For a discussion of the credibility of this anecdote, see
Allan Nevins, "He Did Hold Lincoln's Hat," in American Heri-
tage, Vol. X, No. 2, 98-99.

9. It is interesting to note that in the first draft of this ad-
dress, written during January 1861, Lincoln made the more ag-
gressive statement: "All the power at my disposal will be used to
reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold,
occupy and possess," etc, etc. (Basler, Vol. IV, 254.) In Decem-
ber he had written to Francis P. Blair, Sr., "According to my
present view if the forts shall be given up before the inaugera-
tion, the General must retake them afterward"; and to the former
Whig Congressman Peter H. Silvester of Springfield he had writ-
ten "If Mr. B. surrenders the forts, I think they must be retaken."
(Basler, Vol. IV, 157, 160.) At least partly on Seward's urging
he removed from the speech as finally delivered the pledge to
"reclaim" what had already been lost. Shortly after the inaugura-
tion Charles Francis Adams, Jr., wrote that Seward had talked to
him about the importance of his effort to get that one word taken
out. (Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., entry for March 11,
1861, in the Massachusetts Historical Society.)

Justice John A. Campbell wrote that Lincoln's address was "an incendiary message—one calculated to set the country in a blaze," but added that he believed its recommendations "will be allowed to slide." Campbell predicted that Major Anderson would soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter and he hoped that in the end "a reunion may be affected or be permitted." (Letter of Justice Campbell to his mother, dated March 6, 1861, in the Alabama Department of Archives and History, at Montgomery.)

Isabel Wallace, Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace, 100-1; Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., entry for March 4.

12. New York Herald, March 5 and 6, 1861; Diary of George

Templeton Strong, Vol. LTJ, 106; The Education of Henry Adams, 107; Martin J. Crawford to Robert Toombs, in the Robert Toombs Letterbook, South Caroliniana Library, from Allan Nevins' notes.

13. "Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb," 253;
O.R., I, 261; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, March 5, 1861;
Charleston Mercury, March 5, 1861.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 470, 472, 556, 757.

New York Herald, March 5, 1861.

 

 

Chapter Five: INTO THE UNKNOWN 1, Two Forts and Three Agents

O.R. Vol. I, 197, 198-205; memorandum dated March 4, 1861, in Buchanan's handwriting, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Jeremiah S. Black's report to Lincoln, March 5, 1861, in the J. S. Black Papers, Vol. 35, Library of Congress.

N.O.R., Vol. IV, 74. The situation at Fort Pickens during the winter and early spring is sketched by J. H. Gilman, "With Slem-mer in Pensacola Harbor," B. & L., Vol. I, 26-32.

Braxton Bragg to Mrs. Bragg, letter dated March 11, 1861, in the Braxton Bragg Papers, Missouri Historical Society.

5. N.O.R., Vol. IV, 90; O.R., Vol. 1, 196-205.

Springfield Republican, March 14, 1861, quoting the Washington correspondent of the Boston American; letter of E. M. Stanton to Buchanan, March 16, 1861, in the Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Crawford, 373; O.R., Vol. I, 196; Roman, Military Operations, Vol. I, 36.

Joseph Hawley to Gideon Welles, March 12, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection, Yale University Library.

O.R., Vol. I, 196-205; reports of Blair and Welles in the Goodyear Collection; letter of Chase to B. J. Lossing, dated Aug. 24, 1866, also in the Goodyear Collection.

Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie, 130. At the end of March, Doubleday was writing to his wife: "If government delays many days longer it will be very difficult to relieve us in time, for the men's provisions are going fast." (Letter of March 29, 1861, in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.)

Crawford, 371; N.O.R., Vol. IV, 247, giving Fox's report; O.R., Vol. I, 211; letter of Gustavus Fox to General Crawford, dated May 10, 1882, in the Goodyear Collection.

Hurlbut's report to Lincoln, March 27, 1861, in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.

Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847-1865, 68-79; O.R., Vol. I, 237.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 110; Gideon Welles, Diary, Vol. I, 29.

2. Memorandum from Mr. Seward

1. William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, 20-27.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. HI, 394-5; O.R., Vol. I, 200-1; Crawford, 365.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. HI, 429-33. The cabinet members' replies are in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.

Diary of Charles Francis Adams, entries for March 28 and March 31, 1861, in the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Montgomery Meigs, "The Relations of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton to the Military Commanders in the Civil War," American Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, 299-300.

 

Ibid, 300.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. HI, 445-48; Basler, Vol. IV, 316.

David Mearns, The Lincoln Papers, Vol. I, 447-50.

Basler, Vol. IV, 316-17.

3. "If You Have No Doubt . . ."

1. Robert Toombs Letterbook, letter of Crawford dated March
6, 1861, in the Trescot Papers, South Caroliniana Library, Nevins'
Notes.

2. Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 47.

3. Undated notes by John A. Campbell in the Southern His-
torical Society Papers, New Series, Vol. IV, 31-37.

4. O.R., Vol. I, 277.

5. Campbell's notes, as cited in Note Three, above; Edward
Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: the Diary of
Robert Garlick Hill Kean, Head of the Bureau of War, 112-13;
Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 95-
96. In the William H. Seward Collection of the Rush Rhees
Library, University of Rochester, there is a long letter which
Justice Campbell wrote to Seward on April 13, 1861, setting
forth his version of the long negotiations.

O.R., Vol. I, 284; N.O.R., Vol. TV, 256-57.

N.O.R., Vol. IV, 248-49; O.R., Vol. I, 235.

 

Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Vol. I, 34-35.

Rhodes, Vol. IU, 345, 356; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 7, 11-13.

 

Anyone curious enough to trace the sequence of events in this situation can find a wealth of material. See Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, 30; Rev. R. L. Dabney, "Memoir of a Narrative Received of Col. John R. Baldwin, of Staunton, Touching the Origin of the War," in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. I, No. 6, 443-55; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session, 39th Congress, 102-5; New York Tribune, Nov. 6, 1862, quoting a speech by Charles S. Morehead, former governor of Kentucky, printed on Oct. 13 in the Liverpool Mercury; Allan B. Magruder, "A Piece of Secret History: President Lincoln and the Virginia Convention of 1861," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXXV, April, 1875.

Letter of Gideon Welles to I. N. Arnold, Nov. 27, 1872, photostat in the Lincoln Collection, Chicago Historical Society; letter of Capt. Samuel Mercer to Welles, April 8, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection, Yale; undated letter of Montgomery Blair to S. L. M. Barlow, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library; Gideon Welles, "Fort Sumter: Facts in Relation to the Expedition Ordered by the Administration of President Lincoln for the Relief of the Garrison in Fort Sumter," The Galaxy, Vol. X, No. 5, 620-21, 630-35.

Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 95-96; letter of Campbell to Seward, April 7, 1861, in the William H. Seward Papers, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; Russell, My Diary North and South, 34.

Letter of Stanton to Buchanan, April 11, 1861, in the Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

 

Basler, Vol. IV, 323-24.

O.R., Vol. I, 285.

 

Crawford, 421, quoting a letter from L. P. Walker, Confederate Secretary of War; Pleasant A. Stovall, Robert Toombs, 226.

O.R., Vol. I, 297. One week before this, President Davis wrote a revealing letter to Braxton Bragg, commanding Confederate forces at Pensacola, giving his views on the matter of the forts: "It is scarcely to be doubted that for political reasons the U.S. govt, will avoid making an attack so long as the hope of retaining the border states remains. There would be to us an advantage in so placing them that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations. The case of Pensacola then is reduced to the more palpable elements of a military problem, and your measures may without disturbing views be directed to the capture of Fort Pickins and the defense of the harbor." (Letter of Davis to Bragg, April 3, 1861, marked "unofficial"; in the Palmer Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society.) This letter is especially interesting in view of the charge that Lincoln plotted darkly to "provoke" the Confederacy into starting a war which it otherwise would not have fought

 

4. The Circle of Fire

1. Letter of Chesley D. Evans to Mrs. Evans, March 31, 1861,
in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Caro-
lina.

2. B. & L., Vol. I, 56; O.R., Vol. I, 237-38, 273.

Benson J. Lossing, "Mem. of Visit of Mrs. Anderson to Fort Sumter," in the Goodyear Collection at Yale.

Letter of Anderson to Beauregard, March 26, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection.

Unsigned article, "Charleston Under Arms," in the Atlantic Monthly for January 1861, 488-96.

Fox to Gen. Crawford, May 10, 1882, in the Goodyear Collection.

7. O.R., Vol. I, 294.

Letter of Beauregard to Maj. J. G. Barnard, March 18, 1861, in Letterbook No. 3, the Beauregard Papers, Library of Congress.

Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion, 112; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Diary, 21-22.

10. O.R., Vol. I, 13; Crawford, 422.

11. O.R., loc cit; Crawford, 423-24. In the Houghton Library
at Harvard University, in the papers of the Massachusetts Com-
mandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United
States, there are three notebooks bearing the penciled record of
hearings held in the fall of 1865 on Major Anderson's illness and
retirement. They contain Anderson's testimony on the bombard-
ment of Fort Sumter, and have been consulted extensively in the
preparation of this chapter. Anderson testifies here that he made the remark about being starved out "jocosely."

12. O.R., Vol. I, 299, 301.

The text of Major Anderson's reply is in O.R., Vol. I, 14. There is a copy of the report of Col. A. R. Chisholm in the Palmer Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society. In his testimony before the retirement board, Major Anderson said he suspected that Beauregard "wanted to tie my hands" by stipulating that the major should not open fire prior to the evacuation of the fort. It may be worth noting that Major Anderson's reply, and the decision to open fire, were not referred to the Confederate government. On April 12, after the bombardment had been going on for hours, Secretary of War Walker wired Beauregard: "What was Major Anderson's reply to the proposition in my dispatch of last night?" Beauregard wired back. "He would not consent. I write today." (O.R., Vol. I, 305.)

Stephen D. Lee, The First Step in the War, B. & L., Vol. I, 76. A typed booklet containing portions of his diary bearing on the events of this night is in the Stephen Dill Lee Papers, Southern Historical Collection. At the retirement hearing Major Anderson said he carefully checked his watch with the watches of the Confederates and told them: "Well, Gentlemen, at half past four you will open your fire upon me. Good morning."

B. & L., Vol. I, 76; Martin Abbott, The First Shot at Fort Sumter, Civil War History, Vol. HI, No. I; Robert Lebby, The First Shot on Fort Sumter, The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Review, Vol. XII, No. 3, 143-45; D. Augustus Dickert, History of Kershaw's Brigade, 24; Mrs. Chesnut's Diary, 35.

5. White Flag on a Sword

Wilmot Gibbes De Saussure, Order Book, in the Southern Historical Collection.

Diaries of Edmund Ruffln, Vol. IV, 797-98; Avery Craven, Edmund Ruffin, Southerner, 215-17, 219; Dickert, History of Kershaw's Brigade, 29.

3. Dickert, 17-21.

Major Anderson's testimony before the retirement board in the Massachusetts Commandery papers, Houghton Library.

The figures for the Fort Sumter garrison are Major Anderson's; a return dated April 4, 1861, in the Anderson Papers, Library of Congress. Accuracy in regard to the Confederate figures is impossible. The Charleston Mercury on May 14, 1861, used the figure of 7000; Gov. Pickens, shortly before the battle, estimated Beauregard's strength at 6000 (O.R., Vol. I, 292); Rhodes, Vol. Ill, 355, quotes Russell of the London Times as putting the total at 7025. For a good description of Fort Sumter, see John Johnson. The Defense of Charleston Harbor, Including Fort Sumter and the Adjacent Islands, 17. The fort's guns are listed in the report of Capt. J. G. Foster, O.R., Vol. I, 18-19. See also B, & L., Vol. I, 58-60.

B. & L., Vol. I, 67-68.

Ibid, 69-70.

8. Major Anderson's testimony, Massachusetts Commandery pa-
pers, Houghton Library; B. & L., Vol. I, 71.

9. Fox's report, N.O.R., Vol. IV, 249.

10. Ibid, 249-50.

Major Anderson gives a graphic account of all of this— with due emphasis on the role of Sergeant Hart—in his testimony in the Massachusetts Commandery papers.

Diary in the Stephen Dill Lee Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

Report of Capt. J. G. Foster, O.R., Vol. I, 22-24; Crawford, 441-42; B. & L., Vol. I, 71-73. Russell gives a fine picture of the ineffable Wigfall in My Diary North and South, 46.

Crawford, 446-47; diary in the Stephen Dill Lee Papers; Charleston Daily Courier, April 15, 1861; Miss A. Fletcher, Within Fort Sumter, 64-66.

 

6. The Coming of the Fury

Letter of W. S. Rosecrans to Gen. Marcus J. Wright, March 1, 1892, in the Eldridge Collection, Huntington Library.

George Ticknor, Life, Letters and Journals of George Tick-nor, Vol. II, 433; John B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States During Lincoln's Administration, 35; Russell, My Diary North and South, 41-42.

John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, 14; McPherson, Political History of the United States, 114; Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, Vol. II, 223; Russell, 42.

 

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. TV, 71; Basler, Vol. IV, 330.

Basler, Vol. IV, 331-32.

6. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 80-84; letter of Congressman George
Ashmun to Isaac N. Arnold, printed in the Cincinnati Daily Com-
mercial, Oct. 28, 1864. Ashmun was present when Lincoln and
Douglas had their talk, and he wrote a clear and complete ac-
count of it.

7. Mrs. D. Geraud Wright, A Southern Girl in '61, 52-53. The
author, a daughter of Senator WigfaU, quotes from a letter writ-
ten by a friend in Providence, R.I.

8. McMaster, Lincoln, op cit, 35.

9. For the replies of the governors, see O.R., Series Three, Vol.
I, 70-83.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 735; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 70; letter of W. C. Rives to Robert C. Winthrop, April 19, 1861, in the Robert C. Winthrop Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

O.R., Vol. II, 3-4; John D. Imboden, Jackson at Harper's Ferry in 1861, in B. & L., Vol. I, 111-18; Charlotte Judd Fair-barn, "Historic Harpers Ferry," pamphlet, 41-42.

Douglas Southall Freeman, Robert E. Lee, in D.A.B., Vol. XI, 122; diary of Cornelius Walker, D.D., entry for April 15, 1861, in the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, Richmond.

Capt. Robert E. Lee, Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee, 24-28; letter of Mrs. Lee to Mrs. G. W. Peter, written apparently in April, 1861, on deposit in the Maryland Historical Society. Lee's account of his talks with Blair and Scott is set forth in memoranda by Col. William Allan, who discussed the matter with Lee in 1868 and 1870, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

14. Ticknor, op cit, 434.

 

 

Chapter Six: THE WAY OF REVOLUTION 1. Homemade War

Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 89, 93, 114-15; N.O.R., Series Two, Vol. IH, 191-95; R. Barnwell Rhett, The Confederate Government at Montgomery, B. & L., Vol. I, 109-10.

Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 160-69.

Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis: a Memoir, Vol. n, 80; Basler, Vol. JV, 345.

O.R., Series Three, Vol. I, 79-80; Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 444.

5. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 105; O.R., Vol. II, 577; George
William Brown, Baltimore and the Nineteenth of April, 1861, 43.
Brown was mayor of Baltimore at the time and he says that
notice of the coming of the troops was "purposely withheld" from
the city authorities. Two days before the Baltimore riot, General
Scott and Secretary of War Cameron sent an unidentified agent
north to speed the dispatch of troops and to take measures to
safeguard Washington's railroad connections, which, the agent
was told, were liable to be broken in Baltimore. Reaching Bal-
timore, the agent was told by loyalist citizens that the passage of
state troops would almost certainly cause a riot but that regulars
could go through Baltimore without difficulty; "They could not
see or admit that, when sworn into the service of the United
States, they were no longer State troops but U.S. troops—or
militia in the service of the Government." This agent's report
is in the Cameron Papers, Library of Congress.

Incidentally, John Hay seems to have done the Pennsylvania contingent an injustice in his remark about "unlicked patriotism." This contingent was composed of five militia companies—from Lewistown, Allentown, Pottsville, and Reading—which were well-trained and disciplined, by the standards of that day, and which on their arrival in Washington mounted guard around the Capitol after being greeted by President Lincoln. In its march across Baltimore this battalion was hooted and stoned by a mob; it is asserted that the first blood shed in the Civil War was shed by Nicholas Biddle, a former slave serving as an officer's orderly, who was hit in the head by a brick-bat. I am indebted to Dr. S. K. Stevens, executive director of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, and to Mr. Charles McKnight of Fork, Maryland, for information about these troops.

George William Brown, op cit, 44-46, 49-53; Col. Edward F. Jones in O.R., Vol. LT, 7-9.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 56-57; O.R., Vol. H, 9-11; Basler, Vol. IV, 340-42.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 107-8, quoting Taylor but giving no source; Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 170.

Report of War Department agent in the Cameron Papers, as cited in Note Five, above; Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia, 1861, 752; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 106-7; John Hay, Lincoln and the Civil War, 6-11.

10. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 144-45; Appleton's Annual Cyclo-
paedia, 1861, 535; Diary of Gideon Welles, Vol. I, 43-44.

11. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 146-47; N.O.R., Vol. IV, 288-90;

New York Times, April 26, 1861; Welles, Vol. I, 45-47; John Sherman Long, "The Gosport Affair, 1861," Journal of Southern History, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, 169.

12. N.O.R., Vol. IV, 306-9; J. Thomas Scharf, History of the Confederate States Navy from Its Organization to the Surrender of Its Last Vessel, 132.

 

2. Arrests and Arrests Alone

"A Page of Political Correspondence: Unpublished Letters of Mr. Stanton to Mr. Buchanan," North American Review, November 1879. On April 26, 1861, just after the tension was relieved, John G. Nicolay wrote to his wife that for some days after the Baltimore riot "Our intercourse with the outside world was cut off. We heard frequently from Baltimore and different parts of Maryland, but the news had little of encouragement in it. Uniformly, the report was that all heretofore Union men had at once turned secessionists, and were armed and determined to the death to prevent a single additional northern officer crossing the soil of Maryland. . . . We were not only surrounded by the enemy but in the midst of traitors." (John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress.)

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. JV, 135; Letter of Gov. Hicks to Secretary Seward, April 22, 1861, in the William H. Seward Collection, University of Rochester.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 155-57; unsigned article apparently by Theodore Winthrop, "The New York Seventh Regiment: Our March to Washington," Atlantic Monthly, June 1861.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 444-46; Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, Vol. I, 189; New York Times, April 30, 1861; Rhodes, Vol. Ill, 388.

McPherson, A Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion, 9.

6. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 166; Basler, Vol. IV, 344.

7. George William Brown, Baltimore and the Nineteenth of
April, 1861, 94-95; O.R., Vol. JJ, 29-30.

Carl Schurz, Reminiscences, Vol. II, 223-25.

O.R., Vol. II, 28-30; Butler, Ben Butler's Book, 237, 240.

10. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 174; Basler, Vol. IV, 429-30. For
an excellent discussion of this case, see James G. Randall, Con-
stitutional Problems Under Lincoln, 84, 120-21, 161-62. The
Merryman case was eventually transferred to civil authority
and at last was dropped. (O.R., Series Two, Vol. II, 226.)

11. Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, Third Session, Part 2,
1372-73, 1376.

12. Cited in Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Diary, 61.

3. Diplomacy Along the Border

1. Russell, My Diary, 65-68; letter of Varina Howell Davis to
Clement C. Clay, in the Clay Papers at the Duke University
Library.

O.R., Vol. II, 39.

O.R., Vol. II, 23-27.

4. Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, Vol. L
180-81, 188.

5. Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 193.

J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, ed., The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth, Vol. I, 143; Joseph Carlyle Sitterson, The Secession Movement in North Carolina, 239 ff.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 676-77, 680; Chase C. Mooney, "Some Institutional and Statistical Aspects of Slavery in Tennessee," in the Tennessee Historical Quarterly, Vol. I, 228; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 72, 137.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 22-23; O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 294; Series One, Vol. I, 687; Ted R. Worley, "The Arkansas Peace Society of 1861; a Study in Mountain Unionism," in the Journal of Southern History, Vol. XXIV, No. 4, 445.

Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 264-65. Gov. Magoffin's course in the spring and summer of 1861 was perhaps as unsatisfactory to the governor himself as it was to the partisans who tugged at him so violently. E. Merton Coulter (The Confederate States of America, 45) considers Magoffin "a thorough-going Secessionist" who did his level best to take Kentucky out of the Union; James G. Randall, on the other hand, felt that Magoffin "may be described as anti-Lincoln rather than fully pro-Confederate." (Lincoln the President, Vol. n, 4.)

 

Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. I, 386.

Letter of Garrett Davis to George D. Prentice, in the Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, Second Session, Appendix, 82-83.

Nicolay & Hay, Vol. TV, 235-36; O.R., LII, Part One, 140-41. There is an illuminating examination of the confusing Kentucky situation in Edward Conrad Smith, The Borderland in the Civil War, 263 ff.

4. Collapse of Legalities

Letter of Gov. Jackson to Jefferson Davis, April 17, 1861, in the Jefferson Davis Papers, Duke University Library.

Thomas L. Snead, The First Year of the War in Missouri, B. & L., Vol. I, 264 ff; O.R., Vol. I, 688.

Letter of Gov. Jackson to J. W. Tucker, April 28, 1861, in the James O. Broadhead Papers, Missouri Historical Society. For the May 3 message to the legislature, see Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, 55.

The characterization is William Tecumseh Sherman's, in his Memoirs, Vol. I, 172.

There is an engaging and sharply critical sketch of Lyon written by a former trooper in the 1st U. S. Cavalry, Robert Morris Peck, Rough Riding on the Plains. Trooper Peck remarks that when this regiment learned, late in the summer of 1861, that Lyon had been killed in action, "the almost invariable verdict was 'Well, the old son of a gun is "punished properly" at last.'" I am indebted to Mrs. Raymond Millbrook of Detroit for calling this little-known book to my attention.

Rhodes, Vol. IH, 393-94; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 208-9; O.R., Vol. I, 669-70.

Chicago Tribune, April 29, 1861; letter of William Hyde of the St. Louis Republican to William McKendree Springer, in the Springer Papers, Chicago Historical Society.

Thomas L. Snead, op cit, 264-65; John Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, 13-15; O.R., Vol. HI, 4.

The story is given in detail in Fiske, 16-17. After the war, Sherman wrote to John G. Nicolay expressing deep skepticism about the entire episode and remarking that although he himself had been in St. Louis at the time he had heard nothing about it. Nicolay's answer apparently satisfied him, however, for he wrote "Your proof is conclusive." (Letters of W. T. Sherman dated Feb. 4 and April 2, 1882; letter of Nicolay dated March 24, 1882; in the John G. Nicolay Papers.) The story obviously can be taken or left alone, at the reader's option.