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[Frontispiece: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. (From
a war-time photograph.)]
CAMPFIRE AND BATTLEFIELD
An Illustrated History of the Campaigns and Conflicts of the Great
Civil War
BY
ROSSITER JOHNSON
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D., GEN. J. T. MORGAN, GEN. O. O. HOWARD
GEN. SELDEN CONNOR, HENRY W. B. HOWARD, GEN. JOHN B. GORDON
Art Editors Frank Beard, George Spiel
[Illustration]
New York
Copyright, 1894, by
Bryan, Taylor & Company,
61 East Ninth Street
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY EVENTS.
CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION FOR CONFLICT.
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF BLOODSHED.
CHAPTER IV.
BORDER STATES AND FOREIGN RELATIONS.
CHAPTER V.
ARMY ORGANIZATION NORTH AND SOUTH.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
CHAPTER VII.
EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST UNION VICTORIES.
CHAPTER IX.
THE "MONITOR" AND THE "MERRIMAC."
CHAPTER X.
THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CAMPAIGN OF SHILOH.
CHAPTER XII.
MINOR ENGAGEMENTS OF THE FIRST YEAR.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XIV.
POPE'S CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XV.
THE ANTIETAM CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XVI.
EMANCIPATION.
CHAPTER XVII.
BURNSIDE'S CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WAR IN THE WEST.
CHAPTER XIX.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE SECOND YEAR.
CHAPTER XX.
EMPLOYMENT OF COLORED SOLDIERS.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHANCELLORSVILLE.
CHAPTER XXII.
GETTYSBURG.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE DRAFT RIOTS.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE SIEGE OF CHARLESTON.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE BATTLE OF CHATTANOOGA.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BLACK CHAPTER.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN COMMISSIONS.
CHAPTER XXX.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE THIRD YEAR.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PRELIMINARY OPERATIONS IN THE WEST.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE BATTLE OF MOBILE BAY.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE ADVANCE ON PETERSBURG.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
WASHINGTON IN DANGER.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SHERIDAN IN THE SHENANDOAH.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
CHAPTER XL.
THE NATIONAL FINANCES.
CHAPTER XLI.
THE MARCH TO THE SEA.
CHAPTER XLII.
MINOR EVENTS OF THE FOURTH YEAR.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE FINAL BATTLES.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PEACE.
INDEX.
{4} [Illustration: FORT SUMTER. BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT.]
[Illustration: FORT SUMTER. IN 1865--AFTER ITS REDUCTION BY GENERAL
GILLMORE.]
{5} [Illustration: DEFENCES OF WASHINGTON--HEAVY ARTILLERY.]
CAMPFIRE AND BATTLEFIELD.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARY EVENTS.
CAUSES OF THE WAR--SLAVERY, STATE RIGHTS, SECTIONAL FEELING--JOHN
BROWN--ELECTION OF LINCOLN--SECESSION OF SOUTHERN STATES--"SHOOT HIM
ON THE SPOT"--PENSACOLA--MAJOR ROBERT ANDERSON--SUMTER OCCUPIED--THE
"STAR OF THE WEST"--SUMTER BOMBARDED AND EVACUATED--THE CALL TO ARMS.
On the 9th of January, 1861, the _Star of the West_, a vessel which
the United States Government had sent to convey supplies to Fort
Sumter, was fired on by batteries on Morris Island, in Charleston
Harbor, South Carolina, and was compelled to withdraw.
The bombardment of Fort Sumter began on April 12th, the fort was
surrendered on the 13th and evacuated on the 14th. On April 19th the
Sixth Massachusetts regiment, which had been summoned to the defence
of the national capital, was attacked, _en route_, in the streets of
Baltimore.
Meanwhile, several Southern States had passed ordinances seceding from
the Union, and had formed a new union called the Confederate States of
America. Many Government forts, arsenals, and navy yards had been
seized by the new Confederacy; and by midsummer a bloody civil war was
in progress, which for four years absorbed the energies of the whole
American people.
[Illustration: RIVER GUNBOAT (A CONVERTED NEW YORK FERRYBOAT).]
What were the causes of this civil war?
The underlying, fundamental cause was African slavery--the
determination of the South to perpetuate and extend it, and the
determination of the people of the North to limit or abolish it.
Originally existing in all the colonies, slavery had been gradually
abolished in the Northern States, and was excluded from the new States
that came into the Union from the Northwestern Territory. The
unprofitableness of slave labor might, in time, have resulted in its
abolition in the South; but the invention, at the close of the last
century, of Eli Whitney's cotton-gin, transformed the raising of
cotton from an almost profitless to the most profitable of the staple
industries, and as a result of it the American plantations produced
seven-eighths of all the cotton of the world. African labor was
necessary to it, and the system of slavery became a fixed and
deep-rooted system in the South.
{6} [Illustration: PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET. WILLIAM H.
SEWARD, Secretary of State. SALMON P. CHASE, Secretary of the Treasury.
EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War. GIDEON WELLES, Secretary of the
Navy. MONTGOMERY BLAIR, Postmaster-General. CALEB B. SMITH, Secretary
of the Interior. EDWARD BATES, Attorney-General.]
The self-interest thus established led the South, in the face of
Northern opposition to slavery which might make an independent
government necessary to them, to insist on the sovereignty of the
individual States, involving the right to secede from the Union. The
Constitution adopted in 1789 did not determine the question as to
whether the sovereignty of the States or that of {7} the central
government was paramount, but left it open, to be interpreted
according to the interests involved, and to be settled in the end by
an appeal to the sword. In the earlier history of the country the
doctrine of State sovereignty was most advocated in New England; but
with the rise of the tariff, which favored the manufacturing East at
the expense of the agricultural South, New England passed to the
advocacy of national sovereignty, while the people of the South took
up the doctrine of State Rights, determined to act on it should a
separation seem to be necessary to their independence of action on the
issue of slavery.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT ANDERSON.]
[Illustration: FORT MOULTRIE, CHARLESTON, WITH FORT SUMTER IN THE
DISTANCE.]
[Illustration: SIEGE GUN BEARING ON SUMTER. (Showing carriage rendered
useless before Confederate Evacuation, 1864.)]
From this time onward there was constant danger that the slavery
question would so imbitter the politics and legislation of the country
as to bring about disunion. The danger was imminent at the time of the
Missouri agitation of 1820-21, but was temporarily averted by the
Missouri Compromise. The Nullification Acts of South Carolina
indicated the intention of the South to stand on their State
sovereignty when it suited them. The annexation of Texas enlarged the
domain of slavery and made the issue a vital one. The aggressiveness
of the South appeared in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in
1854; and the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, giving the slaveholder the
right to hold his slaves in a free State, aroused to indignant and
determined opposition the anti-slavery sentiment of the North. The
expression in this decision, that the negro had "no rights which the
white man was bound to respect," brought squarely before the people
the issue of manhood liberty, and afforded a text for preaching
effectively the gospel of universal freedom.
The absence of intercourse between the North and the South, and their
radically different systems of civilization, made them like two
different peoples, estranged, jealous and suspicious. The publication
of sectional books fostered animosities and perpetuated misjudgments
and misunderstandings; and the interested influence of demagogues,
whose purposes would be furthered by sectional hatred, kept alive and
intensified the sectional differences.
There was little feeling of fraternity, then, to stand in the way when
the issues involved seemed to require the arbitrament of war, and it
was as enemies rather than as quarrelling brothers, that the men of
the North and the South rallied to their respective standards.
* * * * *
{8} [Illustration: INTERIOR OF FORT SUMTER AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT IN
1863--FROM GOVERNMENT PHOTOGRAPH. (Presented to participants in Sumter
Celebration, April 14, 1865.)]
An episode which occurred about a year before the war, which was
inherently of minor importance, brought to the surface the bitter
feeling which was preparing the way for the fraternal strife. John
Brown, an enthusiastic abolitionist, a man of undoubted courage, but
possessing poor judgment, and who had been very prominent in a
struggle to make Kansas a free State, in 1859 collected a small
company, and, invading the State of Virginia, seized the United States
Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. His expectation was that the blacks would
flock to his standard, and that, arming them from the arsenal, he
could lead a servile insurrection which would result in ending
slavery. His project, which was quixotic in the extreme, lacking all
justification of possible success, failed miserably, and Brown was
hung as a criminal. At the South, his action was taken as an
indication of what the abolitionists would do if they secured control
of the Government, and the secessionist sentiment was greatly
stimulated by his attempt. At the North he became a martyr to the
cause of freedom; and although the leaders would not at first call the
war for the Union an anti-slavery war, the people knew it was an
anti-slavery war, and old {9} John Brown's wraith hung over every
Southern battlefield. The song,
"John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on."
became a battle-cry, sung at every public meeting, sending recruits to
the front, and making the echoes ring around the army campfires.
So long as the Democratic party, which was in political alliance with
the South, retained control of the Federal Government, there was
neither motive nor excuse for secession or rebellion. Had the Free
Soil Party elected Frémont in 1856, war would have come then. When the
election of 1860, through Democratic dissension and adherence to
several candidates, resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln, the
candidate of the Free Soilers, the die was cast, and the South
prepared for the struggle it was about to precipitate.
* * * * *
The day after the election, on November 7th, 1860, the Palmetto flag,
the ensign of the State of South Carolina, was raised at Charleston,
replacing the American flag. High officials in the Government, in
sympathy with the Southern cause, had stripped the Northern arsenals
of arms and ammunition and had sent them to Southern posts. The little
standing army had been so disposed as to leave the city of Washington
defenceless, except for a few hundred marines and half a hundred men
of ordnance. The outgoing Administration was leaving the national
treasury bankrupt, and permitted hostile preparations to go on
unchecked, and hostile demonstrations to be made without interference.
So little did the people of the North realize that war was impending,
that Southern agents found no difficulty in making purchases of
military supplies from Northern manufacturers. Except for the
purchases made by Raphael Semmes in New England, the Confederacy would
have begun the war without percussion caps, which were not
manufactured at the South. With every advantage thrown at the outset
in favor of the South and against the North, the struggle began.
[Illustration: CHARLESTON HARBOR.]
[Illustration: THE PALMETTO FLAG.]
[Illustration: THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.]
The Southern leaders had been secretly preparing for a long time.
During the summer and fall of 1860, John B. Floyd, the Secretary of
War, had been sending war material South, and he continued his
pernicious activity until, in December, complicity in the theft of
some bonds rendered his resignation necessary. About the same time the
Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Interior,
Jacob Thompson, and the Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, withdrew from
the cabinet. On the election of Lincoln, treasonable preparations
became more open and more general. These were aided by President
Buchanan's message to Congress expressing doubt of the constitutional
power of the Government to take offensive action against a State. On
December 20, an ordinance of secession was passed by the South
Carolina Legislature; and following this example, Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia seceded in
the order named. Virginia held on till the last; and while a popular
vote was pending, to accept or reject the action of the Legislature,
the seat of government of the Confederate States, established in
February at Montgomery, Ala., was removed to Richmond, the capital of
Virginia. Governor Letcher turned over to the Confederates the entire
military force and equipment of the State, which passed out of the
Union without waiting for the verdict of the people. This State was
well punished by becoming the centre of the conflict for four years,
and by political dismemberment, loyal West Virginia being separated
from the original commonwealth and admitted to the Union during the
war.
During the fall and winter of 1860-61, the Southern leaders committed
many acts of treasonable aggression. They seized United States
property, acting under the authority of their States, until the
formation of the Confederacy, when the central government became their
authority. In some of these cases the Federal custodians of the
property yielded it in recognition of the right of the State to take
it. In some cases they abandoned it, hopeless of being able to hold it
against the armed forces that threatened it, and doubtful of support
from the Buchanan Administration at Washington. But there were noble
exceptions, and brave officers held to their trusts, and either
preserved them to the United States Government or released them only
when overpowered.
In December, 1860, the rebels seized Castle Pinckney and {10} Fort
Moultrie in Charleston Harbor, the arsenal at Charleston, and the
revenue cutter _William Aiken_; in January, the arsenals at Mount
Vernon, Ala., Apalachicola, Fla., Baton Rouge, La., Augusta, Ga., and
many forts, hospitals, etc., in Southern ports. By February they had
gained such assurance of not being molested in their seizures of
Government property, that everything within their reach was taken with
impunity. So many of the officers in active service were in sympathy
with the South, that it frequently required only a demand for the
surrender of a vessel or a fort--sometimes not even that--to secure
it. One of these attempted seizures gave rise to an official utterance
that did much to cheer the Northern heart. John A. Dix, who in
January, 1861, succeeded Cobb as Secretary of the Treasury, sent W. H.
Jones, a Treasury clerk, to New Orleans, to save to the Government
certain revenue cutters in Southern ports. Jones telegraphed the
secretary that the captain of the cutter _McClelland_ refused to give
her up, and Dix thereupon sent the following memorable despatch:
"Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Breshwood, assume command
of the cutter, and obey the order I gave through you. If Captain
Breshwood, after arrest, undertakes to interfere with the command of
the cutter, tell Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer and
treat him accordingly. If any one attempts to haul down the American
flag, shoot him on the spot."
These determined words were among the few that were uttered by
Northern officials that gave the friends of the Union any hope of
leadership against the aggression of the seceding States; and they
passed among the proverbial expressions of the war, to live as long as
American history.
[Illustration: A SUMTER CASEMATE DURING THE BOMBARDMENT.]
The firmness of Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer had prevented the surrender
of Fort Pickens, in Pensacola Harbor, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico,
when it was demanded with some show of force, in January, 1861.
Meanwhile, an event was preparing, in which the loyalty, courage, and
promptness of a United States officer was to bring to an issue the
question of "bloodless secession" or war. The seizures of Government
property here and there had excited indignation in the loyal North,
but no general, effective sentiment of opposition. But at the shot
that was fired at Sumter, the North burst into a flame of patriotic,
quenchless fury, which did not subside until it had been atoned for on
many a battlefield, and the Confederate "stars and bars" fell, never
to rise again.
Lieutenant-Colonel Gardner had been in command at Charleston Harbor,
S. C., and when he saw the secessionists preparing to seize the forts
there, so early as November, 1860, he applied to Washington for
reinforcements. Upon this, at the request of Southern members of
Congress, Secretary of War Floyd removed him, and sent in his place
Major Robert Anderson, evidently supposing that that officer's
Kentucky origin would render him faithful to the Southern cause. But
his fidelity to the old flag resulted in one of the most dramatic
episodes of the war.
On reaching his headquarters at Fort Moultrie, Major Anderson at once
applied for improvements, which the Secretary of War was now willing
and even eager to make, and he appropriated large sums for the
improvement of both Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter, but would not
increase the garrison or the ammunition. It soon became apparent that
against a hostile attack Fort {11} Moultrie could not be held, as it
was commanded from the house-tops on Sullivan's Island, near by, and
Major Anderson decided to move his garrison across the harbor to Fort
Sumter, which, unlike Moultrie, was unapproachable by land. The
secessionists in Charleston were active and watched suspiciously every
movement made by the military, and the latter were constantly on guard
to prevent surprise and capture of the fort. The preparations for
removal to Sumter were made with the greatest caution. So well had
Major Anderson kept his purpose secret, that his second in command,
Captain Abner Doubleday, was informed of it only when ordered to have
his company ready to go to Fort Sumter in twenty minutes. The families
of the officers were sent to Fort Johnson, opposite Charleston, whence
they were afterward taken North.
For the ostensible purpose of removing these non-combatants to a place
of safety--a step to which the now well-organized South Carolina
militia could make no objection--Anderson's quartermaster, Lieutenant
Hall, had chartered three schooners and some barges, which were
ultimately used to transport supplies from Moultrie to Sumter. Laden
with these supplies, the transports started for Fort Johnson, and
there awaited the signal gun which was to direct them to land at
Sumter. The guns of Moultrie were trained to bear on the route across
the harbor, to be used defensively in case the movement was detected
and interfered with.
The preparations completed, at sunset on December 26, the troops, who
had equipped themselves in the twenty minutes allowed them, were
silently marched out of Fort Moultrie and passed through the little
village of Moultrieville, which lay between the fort and the point of
embarkation. The march was fortunately made without observation, and
the men took their places in rowboats which promptly started on their
momentous voyage. After several narrow escapes from being stopped by
the omnipresent guard boats, which were deceived into supposing the
troop boats to contain only laborers in charge of officers, the party
reached Fort Sumter. Here they found crowds of laborers, who were at
work, at the Government's expense, preparing Sumter to be handed over
to the Southern league. These men, most of them from Baltimore, were
nearly all secessionists, and had already refused to man the fort as
soldiers for its defence. They showed some opposition to the landing
of the troops, but were promptly driven inside the fort at the point
of the bayonet, and were presently shipped on board the supply
schooners and sent ashore, where they communicated to the secession
authorities the news of Major Anderson's clever ruse. The signal gun
was fired from Sumter, the supplies were landed, and Fort Sumter was
in the hands of the loyal men who were to immortalize their names by
their heroic defence of it.
[Illustration: MAJOR ANDERSON AND OFFICERS DEFENDING FORT SUMTER.
Capt. T. Seymour. 1st Lieut. G. W. Snyder. 1st Lieut. J. C. Davis. 2d
Lieut. R. K. Meade. 1st Lieut. T. Talbot. Capt. A. Doubleday. Major R.
Anderson. Surg. S. W. Crawford. Capt. J. G. Foster.]
[Illustration: GUSTAVUS V. FOX, Commanding the Relief Expedition to
Fort Sumter; afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy.]
Sixty-one artillerymen and thirteen musicians, under command of seven
or eight officers, constituted the slender garrison. Many of these
officers subsequently rose to distinction in the service of their
country, in which some of them died. Major Anderson became a
major-general and served for a while in his native Kentucky, but was
soon compelled by failing health to retire. Captains Abner Doubleday,
John G. Foster and Truman Seymour, Lieut. Jefferson C. Davis and Dr.
S. Wiley Crawford, the surgeon, became major-generals, and were in
service throughout the war; Lieut. Norman J. Hall became colonel of
the Seventh Michigan Volunteers, and was thrice brevetted in the
regular army for gallantry, especially at Gettysburg; Lieuts. George
W. Snyder and Theodore Talbot received promotion, but died early in
the war; and Edward Moale, a civilian clerk who rendered great
assistance, afterward received a commission in the regular army. One
only of the defenders of Sumter afterward joined the Confederacy; this
was Lieut. Richard K. Meade, who yielded to the tremendous social and
family {12} pressure that carried so many reluctant men to the wrong
side when the war began. Commissioned in the rebel army, he died in
1862.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT, Commanding U. S.
Army, 1861.]
At noon on December 27, Major Anderson solemnized his occupancy of
Sumter by formally raising the flag of his country, with prayer by the
chaplain, Rev. Matthias Harris, and military ceremonies.
The sight of the national ensign on Sumter was quickly observed from a
troop ship in the harbor, which hastened to the city with the news,
not only that Anderson had moved from Moultrie to Sumter, but also
that he was heavily reinforced, the sixty soldiers thronging the
parapet making so good a show as to give the impression of a much
larger number. At this news Charleston was thrown into a ferment of
rage and excitement. South Carolina troops were at once sent, on
December 27, to take possession of Castle Pinckney, the seizure of
which was perhaps the first overt act of war on the part of the
secessionists. This was followed by the rebel occupation of Forts
Moultrie and Johnson, which were gotten into readiness for action, and
shore batteries, some of them iron clad, were planted near Moultrie
and on Cummings Point, an extremity of Morris Island near to Sumter;
so that by the time the preparations were completed, Anderson's
gallant little band was effectively covered on four different sides.
But the rebels were not relying wholly on measures for reducing Sumter
in order to secure it. It was diplomacy rather than war which they
expected would place in their hands all the government property in
Charleston Harbor. On the very day of Anderson's strategic move across
the harbor, three commissioners arrived in Washington for the purpose
of negotiating for the peaceable surrender to South Carolina of all
the forts and establishments. But the telegraphic news, which reached
Washington with the commissioners, that the loyal Anderson was doing
his part, met with such patriotic response in the North as effectively
to interfere with the commissioners' plans. What Buchanan might have
released to them under other circumstances, he could not give them
after Major Anderson had taken steps to protect his trust.
Once within the fort, the Sumter garrison set vigorously to work to
put it in a defensive condition. The Government work on the fort was
not completed, and had the Southerners attacked it at once, as they
would have done but for the expectation that the President would order
Anderson to return to Moultrie, they could easily have captured it by
assault. But they still hoped for "bloodless secession," and deferred
offensive action. There were no flanking defences for the fort, and no
fire-proof quarters for the officers. There was a great quantity of
combustible material in the wooden quarters, which ultimately
terminated the defence; for the garrison was rather smoked out by
fire, than either starved out or reduced by shot and shell. The
engineer officers were driven to all sorts of expedients to make the
fort tenable, because there was very little material there out of
which to make proper military defences. The workmen had left in the
interior of the unfinished fort a confused mass of building material,
unmounted guns, gun-carriages, derricks, blocks and tackle. Only two
tiers of the fort were in condition for the mounting of heavy
artillery--the upper and lower tiers. Although the garrison was
severely taxed in performing the excessive guard duty required by
their perilous situation, they yet accomplished an enormous amount of
work--mounting guns with improvised tackle; carrying by hand to the
upper tier shot weighing nearly one hundred and thirty pounds each;
protecting the casemates with flag-stones; rigging ten-inch columbiads
as mortars in the parade grounds within the fort, to fire on Morris
Island; and making their quarters as comfortable as the circumstances
admitted. The guns of the fort were carefully aimed at the various
objects to be fired at, and the proper elevation marked on each, to
avoid errors in aiming when the smoke of action should refract the
light.
To guard against a simultaneous attack from many sides, against which
sixty men could make only a feeble defence, mines were planted under
the wharf where a landing was most feasible, to blow it up at the
proper time. Piles of paving stones with charges of powder under them,
to scatter them as deadly missiles among an attacking party, were
placed on the esplanade. Metal-lined boxes were placed on the parapet
on all sides of the fort, from which musketry-fire and hand-grenades
could be thrown down on the invaders directly beneath. Barrels filled
{13} with broken stone, with charges of powder at the centre, were
prepared to roll down to the water's edge and there burst. A trial of
this device was observed by the rebels, who inferred from it that
Sumter was bristling with "infernal machines" and had better be dealt
with at long range.
[Illustration: HARPER'S FERRY.]
The discomforts and sufferings of the garrison were very great.
Quarters were lacking in accommodations; rations were short, and fuel
was scanty in midwinter. The transition from the position of friends
to that of foes was not immediate, but gradual. After the move to
Sumter, the men were still permitted to do their marketing in
Charleston; for all that Anderson had then done was to make a
displeasing change of base in a harbor where he commanded, and could
go where he pleased. Presently market privileges were restricted, and
then prohibited altogether; and even when, under the expectation of
action at Washington satisfactory to the South, the authorities
relaxed their prohibition, the secessionist marketmen would sell
nothing to go to the fort. Constant work on salt pork, with limited
necessaries and an entire absence of luxuries, made the condition of
the garrison very hard, and their conduct worthy of the highest
praise.
Anderson has been criticised for permitting the secessionists to build
and arm batteries all around him, and coolly take possession of
Government property, without his firing a shot to prevent it, as he
could easily have done, since the guns of Sumter commanded the
waterways all over the harbor. But it is easier now to see what should
have been done than it was then to see what should be done. Anderson
did not even know that he would be supported by his own Government, in
case he took the offensive; and the reluctance to begin hostilities
was something he shared with the leaders on both sides, even
down to the time of Lincoln's inaugural, in which the President
said to the people of the South: "In your hands, my dissatisfied
fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil
war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict
without being yourselves the aggressors." The fact of Anderson's
Southern birth, while it did not interfere with his loyalty, did make
him reluctant to precipitate a struggle which he prayed and hoped
might be averted. Had the issue of war been declared at the time,
freeing him to do what he could, he could have saved Sumter. As it
was, the preparations for reducing Sumter went on unmolested.
Instead of yielding to the demand of the South Carolina {14}
commissioners for Anderson's return to Moultrie, President Buchanan
permitted the organization of an expedition for the relief of Sumter.
But instead of sending down a war vessel, a merchant steamer was sent
with recruits from Governor's Island, New York. The _Star of the West_
arrived off Charleston January 9, and as soon as she attempted to
enter the harbor, she was fired on from batteries on Morris Island.
Approaching nearer, and coming within gun-shot of Moultrie, she was
again fired on. At Sumter, the long roll was beaten and the guns
manned, but Anderson would not permit the rebel fire to be returned.
The _Star of the West_ withdrew and returned to New York. Explanations
were demanded by Anderson, with the result of sending Lieutenant
Talbot to Washington with a full statement of the affair, there to
await instructions. The tacit truce thus established enabled the
preparation of Sumter to be completed, but the rebel batteries also
were advanced.
Then began a series of demands from Charleston for the surrender of
the fort. The secessionists argued with Anderson as to the
hopelessness of his case, with the Washington Government going to
pieces, and the South determined to have the fort and exterminate the
garrison; and still another commission was sent to Washington, to
secure there a settlement of the question, which was invariably
referred back to Anderson's judgment.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. DIX.]
[Illustration: GENERAL DIX'S FAMOUS DESPATCH.]
The winter was passed in this sort of diplomacy and in intense
activity, within the fort and around it. The garrison shared the
general encouragement drawn from the accessions to the cabinet of
strong and loyal men, such as John A. Dix and Joseph Holt, to replace
the secessionists who had resigned. The Charleston people continued
their loud demands for an attack on Sumter. The affair of the _Star of
the West_, and the organization of the Confederate Government in
February, had greatly stimulated the war spirit of the North, and it
was felt that the crisis was approaching. Charleston people began to
feel the effects of blockading their own channel with sunken ships,
for their commerce all went to other ports.
With the inauguration of Lincoln on March 4, the South learned that
they had to deal with an Administration which, however forbearing, was
firm as a rock. Indications of a vigorous policy were slow in reaching
the anxious garrison of Sumter, for the new President was surrounded
with spies, and every order or private despatch was quickly repeated
throughout the South, which made him cautious. But the fact that he
had determined to reinforce Sumter, and to insist on its defence, did
soon become known, both at the fort and in Charleston; and on April 6,
Lieutenant Talbot was sent on from Washington to notify Governor
Pickens to that effect. This information, received at Charleston April
8, was telegraphed to the Confederate Government at Montgomery, and on
the 10th General Beauregard received orders from the rebel Secretary
of War to open fire at once on Sumter.
Instantly there was renewed activity everywhere. The garrison,
inspired by the prospect of an end to their long and wearisome
waiting, were in high spirits. The Confederates suddenly removed a
house near Moultrie, disclosing behind it a formidable masked battery
which effectually enfiladed the barbette guns at Sumter, which,
although the heaviest there were, had to be abandoned. On the
afternoon of the 11th, officers came from Beauregard to demand the
surrender of the fort, which they learned would have to yield soon for
lack of provisions. At {15} three A.M. of the 12th, General Beauregard
sent word that he would open fire in one hour.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL P. G. T. BEAUREGARD, C. S. A.]
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN.]
He kept his word. At four o'clock the first gun of the war was fired
from the Cummings Point battery on Morris Island, aimed by the
venerable Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, one of the fathers of secession.
It was a good shot, the shell penetrating the masonry of the fort and
bursting inside. At this signal, instantly the batteries opened on all
sides, and the firing became an almost continuous roar.
But, as yet, Sumter made no reply. The artillery duel was not to be a
matter of hours, and there was no hurry. Breakfast was served to
officers and men, and was eaten amid a continual peppering of the fort
with balls and shells from columbiads and mortars. After this
refreshment the men were told off into firing parties, and the first
detachment was marched to the casemates, where Capt. Abner Doubleday
aimed the first gun fired on the Union side against the Southern
Confederacy. It was fired appropriately against the Cummings Point
battery which had begun the hostilities; and it struck its mark, but
did no damage. The heaviest guns in Sumter being useless, the fort was
at a disadvantage throughout the fight, from the lightness of its
metal. Notwithstanding Major Anderson's orders that the barbette guns
should be abandoned, Sergeant John Carmody, disappointed at the
effects produced by the fire of the fort, stole out and fired, one
after another, the heavy barbette battery guns. Roughly aimed, they
did little mischief; but they scared the enemy, who brought all their
weight to bear now on this battery. Captains Doubleday and Seymour
directed the firing from Sumter, and were assisted by Lieut. J. C.
Davis and Surgeon Crawford, who, having no sick in hospital,
volunteered his active services, and hammered away on Fort Moultrie.
By the middle of the morning the vessels of the relieving fleet, sent
in pursuance of Lincoln's promise, were sighted outside the bar.
Salutes were exchanged, but it was impossible for the vessels to enter
the unknown, unmarked channel. This expedition was commanded by Capt.
Gustavus V. Fox, afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who had
fitted it out with the coöperation of patriotic civilians--G. W.
Blunt, William H. Aspinwall, Russell Sturgis, and others. The vessels
arriving on the morning of April 12th were the war ship _Pawnee_,
under Commodore Rowan, and the transports _Baltic_ and _Harriet Lane_.
The _Pocahontas_, Captain Gillis, arrived on the 13th. Knowing in
advance the impossibility of entering the harbor with these vessels, a
number of launches had been brought, with the intention of running in
the reinforcements in these, under cover of night and protected by the
guns of Sumter. Except for the delay of the _Pocahontas_, which
carried the launches, this would have been attempted on the night of
the 12th, when the garrison anxiously expected the new arrivals.
Postponed until the 13th, it was then too late, as by that time Sumter
had been surrendered.
The expectation of these reinforcements, the fear of a night {16}
assault by the enemy, and the difficulty of deciding whether any boats
that might approach would contain friends to be welcomed or enemies to
be repulsed, made the night of the 12th a most anxious one for the
garrison. But neither friends nor enemies appeared, and after a
breakfast of pork and water, on the morning of the 13th, a momentous
day's fighting began.
[Illustration: AN ALEXANDRIA ANTE-BELLUM RELIC.]
By nine o'clock in the morning fire broke out in the officers'
quarters, and it was learned that the hostile batteries were firing
red-hot shot. Discovering the flames, the enemy redoubled their
firing. It was impossible, even were it desirable, to save the wooden
quarters, and, after one or two attempts to quench the flames, they
were allowed to burn. Precautions were taken to secure the powder
magazines from danger by cutting away the woodwork and spreading wet
blankets. Many barrels of powder were rolled out for use. But finally
a shot struck the door of the magazine and locked it fast, cutting off
further supplies of ammunition. Powder that could not be protected was
thrown overboard, but some of it lodging at the base of the fort was
ignited by the enemy's shot, and exploded, blowing a heavy gun at the
nearest embrasure out of battery. A trench was dug in front of the
magazine, and filled with water.
So many of the men were required to attend to these precautions, that
the firing from Sumter slackened up almost to cessation, leading the
enemy to think they had given up. The fire became intense, driving
some of the men outside the fort for air, until the thick-falling
missiles drove them in again; and, combined with the bursting shells,
all this produced a scene that was terrific. As the fire subsided for
want of fuel to burn, the {17} damage was disclosed. A tower at an
angle of the fort, in which shells had been stored, had been entirely
shattered by the bursting of the shells. The wooden gates at the
entrance to the fort were burned through, leaving the way open for
assault, and other entrances were now opened in the same way.
Shortly after noon the flag was shot away from its staff. A tremendous
amount of ammunition had been wasted by the rebels in the ambitious
effort to lower the flag, and at last it was successful. But the
exultation of the enemy was cut short by the plucky action of Peter
Hart, a servant, who had been allowed to join Major Anderson at the
fort on condition that he should remain a non-combatant. Making a
temporary flagstaff of a spar, he nailed the flag to it and tied it
firmly to the gun-carriages on the parapet, accomplishing his feat
under the concentrated fire with which the enemy sought to prevent it.
Supposing the fall of the flag to have been a token of surrender,
ex-Senator Wigfall, of Texas, made his appearance at the fort about
two P.M., announced himself as an aid to General Beauregard, and
requested an interview with Major Anderson. He begged that the
bloodshed might cease, and was told that there had been none at
Sumter. He offered Anderson honorable terms of evacuation, and then
withdrew.
At Wigfall's request, a white flag had been displayed during his
presence at the fort, and the firing ceased. Observing this, General
Beauregard sent a boat containing Colonels Chestnut, Lee, and Pryor,
and Captain Miles, to inquire whether he surrendered. A long parley
ensued, during which these officers said that Wigfall had not been in
communication with Beauregard; upon which Major Anderson said, "Very
well, gentlemen, you can return to your batteries," and announced that
he would run up his flag and renew his fire. But at their request he
agreed to delay this until they could see General Beauregard, and they
withdrew.
That evening, another boat-load of officers came, bringing
Beauregard's confirmation of the terms of evacuation that had been
discussed with Wigfall, although permission to salute the United
States flag was granted with much hesitation. It was then arranged
that Anderson should leave Fort Sumter on the following day, taking
all his men and arms and personal baggage, and saluting the flag.
Early on the morning of Sunday, April 14, all was made ready for the
departure. The firing of the salute was a matter of some danger, as
there was so much fire still about the fort that it was risky to lay
ammunition down, and sparks of fire floated in the air. Fifty guns
were fired before the flag was lowered. In reloading one of them, some
spark that had lodged in the piece prematurely discharged it,
instantly killing the gunner, Daniel Hough. The fire from the muzzle
dropping on the cartridges piled below exploded those also, seriously
injuring five other men. This was the only life lost at Sumter, and
the first life lost in the war; and, with the exception of one man
wounded by a bursting shell, these wounded men received the only
casualties of the brave little garrison that defended Fort Sumter.
The men were formed in company, banners were flung to the breeze, the
drums beat "Yankee Doodle," and the order was given to march through
the charred gateway to the transport that lay at the dock in readiness
to carry them to the _Baltic_, on which they sailed to New York.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE, C. S. A.]
When they reached their destination, they were lionized by their
enthusiastic countrymen. Steam whistles and cheers greeted their
passage through the harbor; comforts, long a stranger to them, awaited
them at Fort Hamilton, where they were greeted in the name of a
grateful people by the people's spokesman, Henry Ward Beecher; and the
newspapers sang their praises in one harmonious chorus.
When Fort Sumter was evacuated, it presented very much the exterior
appearance that it did before the bombardment--a few {18} holes
knocked in the masonry were all that the comparatively light artillery
then brought to bear on it could accomplish. Occupied by the
Confederates after the evacuation, it remained in their hands until
the end of the war. When, in 1863, General Q. A. Gillmore bombarded
Charleston, Fort Sumter was reduced to a pile of bricks and mortar;
but such a quantity of cannonballs and shells were poured into its
débris as to form an almost solid mass of iron, practically
impregnable. Sumter never was reduced by artillery fire, and fell into
Federal hands again only when Charleston fell before Sherman's march
to the sea.
On the conglomerate pile which constituted the ruins of the fort, a
dramatic scene of poetic justice occurred on April 14, 1865, the
fourth anniversary of the evacuation of Sumter. An expedition was sent
by the Government to Charleston Harbor to celebrate the recapture by
replacing the national flag on Fort Sumter. The ship _Arago_ bore the
officials in charge of the ceremony, and many invited guests, among
whom were William Lloyd Garrison and the English George Thompson,
leading abolitionists. A patriotic oration was pronounced by Henry
Ward Beecher; and by the hand of Anderson, now major-general, the same
flag which he had lowered in 1861 was drawn to the peak of the
flagstaff, while Sumter's guns and those of every battery in the
harbor that had fired on that flag fired a national salute of one
hundred guns. The flag was riddled with holes, but, as the orator of
the day pointed out, as symbolic of the preserved Union, not a single
star had been shot away. Peter Hart, the brave man who had reset the
flag during the bombardment, was present; and the Rev. Mr. Harris, who
read prayers at the first raising, pronounced the benediction on the
resurrection of the ensign of the nation.
The shot that was fired on Sumter was the signal for a nation to rise
in arms. That Sunday on which Sumter was evacuated was a memorable day
to all who witnessed the intense excitement, the patriotic fury of a
patient people roused to white-hot indignation. As on a gala day, the
American flag suddenly appeared on every public building and from
innumerable private residences. Crowds surged through the streets,
seeking news and conference. The national flag was thrown to the
breeze from nearly every court-house, school-house, college, hotel,
engine-house, railway station and public building, from the spires of
many churches, and from the windows of innumerable private residences.
The fife and drum were heard in the streets, and recruiting offices
were opened in vacant stores or in tents hastily pitched in the public
squares. All sorts and conditions of men left their business and
stepped into the ranks, and in a few days the Government was offered
several times as many troops as had been called for. Boys of fifteen
sat down and wept because they were not permitted to go, but here and
there one dried his tears when he was told that he might be a drummer
or an officer's servant. Attentions between young people were suddenly
ripened into engagements, and engagements of long date were hastily
finished in marriages; for the boys were going, and the girls were
proud to have them go, and wanted to send them off in good spirits.
Everybody seemed anxious to put forth some expression of loyalty to
the national government and the starry flag. In the Ohio senate, on
Friday, the 12th, a senator announced that "the secessionists are
bombarding Fort Sumter." "Glory to God!" exclaimed a woman in the
gallery, breaking the solemn silence which briefly followed the
announcement. This was Abby Kelly Foster, an active abolitionist, who
discerned that at last the final appeal had been taken on the slavery
question--the appeal to the sword--from the triumphant issue of which
would come the freedom for which she and her associates had contended,
and which they believed could come in no other way.
[Illustration: "WAR GOVERNORS" OF THE NORTHERN STATES.]
On Monday, April 15, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five
thousand militia from the several States "to suppress this combination
against the laws, and to cause the laws to be duly executed."
The response to this call was immediate, and within the week some of
the troops thus summoned were in Washington.
While forts and arsenals were being seized by the Confederates all
over the South, while batteries to reduce Fort Sumter were being
constructed and armed, what had been doing at Washington city, the
capital of the nation?
{19}