THE QUESTION OF ALLEGIANCE.
1860-1861.
When Captain Farragut returned to Norfolk in October, 1860, he was,
albeit unconsciously, rapidly approaching the turning point of his life,
the tide in his affairs which taken at the flood should lead on to
fortune. That he seized the opportunity was due to no dexterous weighing
of the effects of either course upon his personal future, but to that
preparedness of mind which has already been mentioned as one of his
characteristic traits, and to the tenacity with which were held his
convictions thus deliberately and maturely formed. For several years he
had watched with unquiet mind the gathering clouds which preceded the
approaching storm, and in common with others had felt the distress and
perplexity which would attend the rupture of the Union. He did not,
however, remain a merely passive spectator, agitated as such by hopes
and fears, but trusting withal to the chapter of accidents. He had
considered the effect of the alternatives before the country, and what
his own duty should be in any case. He could not, in his modest
position, control the course of events; but, whatever befell, he would
be ready to take his stand, strengthened in so doing by the settled
principles to which his conscientious meditation had led him. Thus his
fixed purpose, enlightened by reason, had in it nothing of obstinacy;
yet resisted those appeals to affection, to interest, or to prejudice,
under which so many succumbed.
Within a month after his leaving the Brooklyn, on the 6th of November,
1860, the presidential election was held, and resulted, as had been
expected, in the choice of Mr. Lincoln. On the 20th of December South
Carolina seceded, and her course was followed within the next six weeks
by the other cotton States. In February, 1861, delegates from these
States met in convention at Montgomery, Alabama, adopted a constitution,
and elected Jefferson Davis to be president of their confederation. On
the 18th he was inaugurated, and the new government was thus formally
constituted.
Here for a moment the secession movement paused, and Farragut earnestly
trusted would stop. Born in a Southern State, and passing his childhood
in the extreme Southwest, his relations with both had been severed at
too early an age to establish any lasting hold upon his affections; but,
though he was to the end carried upon the Navy Register as a citizen of
Tennessee, the tenderest and most enduring ties of his life had been
formed in Virginia. Nowhere were local bonds stronger, nowhere State
pride greater or more justified, than in the famous Commonwealth, which
had stood in the center of the line in the struggle for independence,
and had given to the nation so many illustrious men from Washington
downward. It was impossible that Farragut--who at so early an age, and
when attached to no other spot, had married in Norfolk, and
thenceforward gone in and out among its people--should be insensible to
these influences, or look without grief to a contingency which should
force him to sunder all these associations and go forth, on the verge of
old age, to seek elsewhere a new home. Nor is it possible to many,
however conscious of right, to bear without suffering the alienation and
the contempt visited upon those who, in times of keen political
excitement, dare to differ from the general passion which sways the mass
around them.
Farragut therefore naturally hoped that this bitter trial might be
spared him. The Virginian people had taken what seemed then to be a
conservative attitude; and, although he was determined to abide by the
Union if it were severed by violent action, he was anxious to believe
that his home might be saved to him. The Legislature of the State met
early in January and recommended all the States to appoint deputies to a
peace convention, which accordingly met on the 4th of February; but the
propositions made by it were not such as the National Congress could
accept. On the 13th of the same month there was assembled at Richmond a
State convention, the majority of the delegates to which were Union men,
in the then sense of the word in that State. This fact, and the
character of some of the speeches made, tended to encourage the belief
to which Farragut's wishes led him; but this hope was soon damped by the
passage of resolutions affirming the right of secession, and defining
the grounds upon which Virginia would be justified in exercising the
right. Among these grounds were the adoption of any warlike measures by
the United States Government, the recapture of the forts which had been
seized by the States already seceded, or any attempt to exact duties
from them. True, this was followed during the first week in April by the
rejection of a proposition to secede by a vote of eighty-nine to
forty-five; but, as Farragut held that the President would be justified
in calling out troops when the forts and property of the nation had been
violently taken from it, the contrary avowal of the Legislature of his
State showed that he might soon be forced to choose between it and the
National Government. In that case his mind was fully made up; the choice
was painful, but not doubtful. "God forbid," he said, "that I should
have to raise my hand against the South!" but the words themselves
showed that, however bitter the decision, he was ready to make it. If
separation between the sections came peacefully, by mutual consent, he
would abide in the only home his manhood had known, and cast his lot
thenceforth with the people to whom he was allied and among whom his
interests lay; but if the rupture took the form of violent rebellion
against the Central Government, whose claims he admitted and to which he
owned allegiance, he was prepared to turn his arms even against those
who in the other alternative would have been his countrymen. The
attitude thus held during those long months of suspense and anxiety was
honorable alike to his heart, which responded warmly to the calls of
natural affection, and to his conscience, which subordinated the
dictates of the heart to his convictions of right; while the
unhesitating character of his resolution, amid the uncertainties that
unsettled so many men, must be attributed to that habit of preparing for
emergencies which characterized his career.
On the 12th of April, 1861, the long period of waiting and watching was
brought to an end by the attack upon Fort Sumter. On the 15th President
Lincoln issued his proclamation formally announcing the condition of
affairs which existed in the seceded States, the defiance of the Central
Government, and the seizure of its property. In consequence he called
for seventy-five thousand men from the militia of the various States,
and avowed clearly that "the first service assigned to the forces hereby
called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and
property which have been seized from the Union." This was clearly an
appeal to arms, provoked finally by the assault upon Fort Sumter, but
which the convention then sitting in Richmond had pronounced to be a
lawful cause for secession. In the excitement of the hour the Union men,
whose attitude toward the more violent party had been almost apologetic,
were swept away by the current of feeling, and an ordinance of secession
was passed by the convention on the 17th of April, 1861.
During the previous winter Farragut had been residing in Norfolk,
unemployed by the Government, but in daily association both with
citizens and naval officers; many of whom, like himself, were married
and settled there. He and his friends met daily at one of those common
rendezvous which are to be found in every small town, and there
discussed the news which each day brought of change and excitement. In
this way Farragut became acquainted with the views of most of the
resident officers, and realized, without being himself swayed by, the
influences to which all of them, and especially those of Southern birth,
were subjected. With the conservatism common in seamen who have been
for long periods separated by their profession from their native places,
the great majority of these officers, already men of middle age, could
not but feel keen sorrow at the prospect of changes, which would remove
them from the navy and separate them from the flag which had hitherto
stood to them for country. But, moved by feeling and prejudice, wrought
upon by the strong appeals of those they loved, and unfortified by the
well-reasoned convictions which made the strength of Farragut, it was
equally impossible for the greater part of them to imitate his example.
The sense of duty and official honor which they owed to their long
training in a generous service stood by them, and few were the cases of
men false to trusts actually in their charge; but theirs was not that
sense of personal allegiance to the Government which gave the light of
the single eye, and enabled Farragut's final decision to be as prompt as
it was absolute.
On the 18th of April, the day after the ordinance of secession had been
passed, Farragut went as usual to the place of meeting, and saw,
immediately upon entering, by the faces of those there, that a great
change had passed over the relations between them. He spoke with his
usual openness, and expressed his deliberate convictions. He did not
believe that the action of the convention represented the sober judgment
of the people. The State had been, as he phrased it, "dragooned" out of
the Union; and President Lincoln was perfectly justified in calling for
troops after the seizure of the forts and arsenals. One of those present
remarked impatiently that a person with such sentiments could not live
in Norfolk, and this feeling was evidently shared by the bystanders;
there was, indeed, some danger, in those excited moments, of personal
violence to those who dared gainsay the popular passion. "Very well,"
replied Farragut, "I can live somewhere else." No time was needed to
take a decision already contingently formed, and for executing which he
had, with his customary foresight, been accumulating the necessary
funds. He at once went to his house and told his wife the time had come
for her to decide whether she would remain with her own kinsfolk or
follow him North. Her choice was as instant as his own, and that evening
they, with their only son, left Norfolk, never to return to it as their
home. Mrs. Farragut's sister and her young family accompanied them in
the steamer to Baltimore. Upon reaching the latter city they found it
also boiling over with excitement. The attack upon the Massachusetts
troops had just taken place, and the railroad bridges over the
Susquehanna were then burning. The usual means of communication being
thus broken off, Farragut and his party had to take passage for
Philadelphia in a canal boat, on which were crowded some three hundred
passengers, many of them refugees like themselves. It is a curious
illustration of the hardships attending a flight under such exigency,
even in so rich a country as our own, that a baby in the company had to
be fed on biscuit steeped in brandy for want of proper nourishment.
From Philadelphia the journey to New York was easy, and Farragut there
settled his family in a small cottage in the village of Hastings, on the
Hudson River. Here he awaited events, hoping for employment; but it is
one of the cruel circumstances attending civil strife that confidence is
shaken, and the suspicions that arise, however unjust, defy reason and
constrain the Government to defer to them. No man could have given
stronger proof than Farragut had of his perfect loyalty; but all shades
of opinion were known to exist among officers of Southern origin, even
when they remained in the service, and there were those who, though
refusing to follow the South, would willingly have avoided striking a
blow against the seceding States. Men were heard to say that they would
not go with their State, but neither would they fight against her; or
that they would remain in the navy, but seek employment that might spare
them the pain of taking part in such a contest. These illogical
positions were soon abandoned as the spirit of war gained more and more
hold upon the feelings of men, but for Farragut they never existed after
the first blow was struck. Through whatever struggles with himself he
may have passed in the earlier stages of the secession movement, his
decision, when reached, admitted no half-measures, nor halted between
two opinions. "He stood on no neutral ground, he longed to take an
active part in the war." Nevertheless, the Government could not at once
accept, as a title to full and implicit confidence, even the sacrifice
of home and life-long associations which he had made to the cause of the
Union. If given any duty, a man of Farragut's rank and attainments must
needs have one involving much responsibility, failure in which would
involve not only himself but those who had employed him. The cry of
treachery was sure to follow, and prudent officers of Southern birth
found it advisable to decline employments where they foresaw that delays
were unavoidable, because they felt that what might be explained in the
case of a Northern man would in them be stamped by public opinion as the
result of disaffection. In Hastings and its neighborhood the most
grotesque suspicions were spread concerning the Southern captain who had
thus come to dwell among them, and who, for conscience and country, had
given up more than had been demanded of those who thus distrusted him.
Time was needed to allow men's minds to reach a more reasonable frame,
and for the Government itself to sift and test, not merely the fidelity,
but the heartiness and the probable capacity of the officers at its
command.
Farragut's first employment was as a member of a board to recommend
officers for retirement from active service, under an act approved
August 3, 1861. The object of this act was to assist the Department in
the discrimination necessary to be made between the competent and those
disabled by years or infirmity, for up to that time there had been no
regular system of retirement, and men were retained on the active list
past the period of efficiency, because no provision for removing them
existed. The duty, though most important with war actually existing, was
delicate and trying, and far from consonant to Farragut's active,
enterprising character. More suitable employment was, however, fast
approaching.
[Illustration: SCENE OF FARRAGUT'S OPERATIONS, 1862-1864.]