BEFO' THE WAH--CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT--MASTERLY GRASP OF THE SUBJECT
SHOWN BY THE AUTHOR.
A Man named Lopez in 1851 attempted to annex Cuba, thus furnishing for
our Republican wrapper a genuine Havana filler; but he failed, and was
executed, while his plans were not.
Franklin Pierce was elected President on the Democratic ticket, running
against General Scott, the Whig candidate. Slavery began to be discussed
again, when Stephen A. Douglas, in Congress, advocated squatter
sovereignty, or the right for each Territory to decide whether it would
be a free or a slave State. The measure became a law in 1854.
That was what made trouble in Kansas. The two elements, free and slave,
were arrayed against each other, and for several years friends from
other States had to come over and help Kansas bury its dead. The
condition of things for some time was exceedingly mortifying to the
citizen who went out to milk after dark without his gun.
Trouble with Mexico arose, owing to the fact that the government had
used a poor and unreliable map in establishing the line: so General
Gadsden made a settlement for the disputed ground, and we paid Mexico
ten millions of dollars. It is needless to say that we have since seen
the day when we wished that we had it back.
[Illustration: EXCEEDINGLY MORTIFYING TO THE CITIZEN WHO WENT TO MILK
WITHOUT HIS GUN.]
Two ports of entry were now opened to us in Japan by Commodore Perry's
Expedition, and cups and saucers began to be more plentiful in this
country, many of the wealthier deciding at that time not to cool tea in
the saucer or drink it vociferously from that vessel. This custom and
the Whig party passed away at the same time.
The Republican or Anti-Slavery party nominated for President John C.
Frémont, who received the vote of eleven States, but James Buchanan was
elected, and proved to the satisfaction of the world that there is
nothing to prevent any unemployed man's applying for the Presidency of
the United States; also that if his life has been free from ideas and
opinions he may be elected sometimes where one who has been caught in
the very act of thinking, and had it proved on him, might be defeated.
Chief Justice Taney now stated that slaves could be taken into any State
of the Union by their owners without forfeiting the rights of ownership.
This was called the Dred Scott decision, and did much to irritate
Abolitionists like John Brown, whose soul as this book goes to press is
said to be marching on. Brown was a Kansas man with a mission and
massive whiskers. He would be called now a crank; but his action in
seizing a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry and declaring the
slaves free was regarded by the South as thoroughly representative of
the Northern feeling.
The country now began to be in a state of restlessness. Brown had been
captured and hanged as a traitor. Northern men were obliged to leave
their work every little while to catch a negro, crate him, and return
him to his master or give him a lift towards Canada; and, as the negro
was replenishing the earth at an astonishing rate, general alarm broke
out.
Douglas was the champion of squatter sovereignty, John C. Breckinridge
of the doctrine that slaves could be checked through as personal baggage
into any State of the Union, and Lincoln of the anti-slavery principle
which afterwards constituted the spinal column of the Federal Government
as opposed to the Confederacy of the seceded States.
[Illustration: OBLIGED TO LEAVE THEIR WORK EVERY LITTLE WHILE TO CATCH A
NEGRO.]
Lincoln was elected, which reminded him of an anecdote. Douglas and
several other candidates were defeated, which did not remind them of
anything.
South Carolina seceded in December, 1860, and soon after Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed suit.
The following February the Confederacy was organized at Montgomery,
Alabama, and Jefferson Davis was elected President. Long and patient
effort on the part of the historian to ascertain how he liked it has
been entirely barren of results. Alexander H. Stephens was made
Vice-President.
Everything belonging to the United States and not thoroughly fastened
down was carried away by the Confederacy, while President Buchanan
looked the other way or wrote airy persiflage to tottering dynasties
which slyly among themselves characterized him as a neat and cleanly old
lady.
Had Buchanan been a married man it is generally believed now that his
wife would have prevented the war. Then she would have called James out
from under the bed and allowed him to come to the table for his meals
with the family. But he was not married, and the war came on.
Major Anderson was afraid to remain at Fort Moultrie in Charleston
Harbor, so crossed over to Fort Sumter. The South regarded this as
hostility, and the fort was watched to see if any one should attempt to
divide his lunch with the garrison, which it was declared would be
regarded as an act of defiance. The reader will see by this that a deaf
and dumb asylum in Northern Michigan was about the only safe place for a
peaceable man at that time.
President Lincoln found himself placed at the head of a looted
government on the sharp edge of a crisis that had not been properly
upholstered. The Buchanan cabinet had left little except a burglar's
tool or two here and there to mark its operations, and, with the aged
and infirm General Scott at the head of a little army, and no
encouragement except from the Abolitionists, many of whom had never seen
a colored man outside of a minstrel performance, the President stole
incog. into Washington, like a man who had agreed to lecture there.
Southern officers resigned daily from the army and navy to go home and
join the fortunes of their several States. Meantime, the Federal
government moved about like a baby elephant loaded with shot, while the
new Confederacy got men, money, arms, and munitions of war from every
conceivable point.
Finding that supplies were to be sent to Major Anderson, General Peter
G. T. Beauregard summoned Major Anderson to surrender. General
Beauregard, after the war, became one of the good, kind gentlemen who
annually stated over their signatures that they had examined the
Louisiana State Lottery and that there was no deception about it. The
Lottery felt grateful for this, and said that the general should never
want while it had a roof of its own.
Major Anderson had seventy men, while General Beauregard had seven
thousand. After a bombardment and a general fight of thirty-four hours,
the starved and suffocated garrison yielded to overwhelming numbers.
President Lincoln was not admired by a class of people in the North and
South who heard with horror that he had at one time worked for ten
dollars a month. They thought the President's salary too much for him,
and feared that he would buy watermelons with it. They also feared that
some day he might tell a funny story in the presence of Queen Victoria.
The snobocracy could hardly sleep nights for fear that Lincoln at a
state dinner might put sugar and cream in his cold consommé.
Jefferson Davis, it was said, knew more of etiquette in a minute than
Lincoln knew all his life.
The capture of Sumter united the North and unified the South. It made
"war Democrats"--_i.e._, Democrats who had voted against Lincoln--join
him in the prosecution of the war. More United States property was
cheerfully appropriated by the Confederacy, which showed that it was
alive and kicking from the very first minute it was born.
Confederate troops were sent into Virginia and threatened the Capitol at
Washington, and would have taken it if the city had not, in summer, been
regarded as unhealthful.
The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, hurrying to the capital, was attacked
in Baltimore and several men were killed. This was the first actual
bloodshed in the civil war which caused rivers and lakes and torrents of
the best blood of North and South to cover the fair, sweet clover fields
and blue-grass meadows made alone for peace.
The general opinion of the author, thirty-five years afterwards, is that
the war was as unavoidable as the deluge, and as idiotic in its
incipiency as Adam's justly celebrated defence in the great "Apple Sass
Case."
Men will fight until it is educated out of them, just as they will no
doubt retain rudimentary tails and live in trees till they know better.
It's all owing to how a man was brought up.
Of course after we have been drawn into the fight and been fined and
sent home, we like to maintain that we were fighting for our home, or
liberty, or the flag, or something of the kind. We hate to admit that,
as a nation, we fought and paid for it afterwards with our family's
bread-money just because we were irritated. That's natural; but most
great wars are arranged by people who stay at home and sell groceries to
the widow and orphan and old maids at one hundred per cent. advance.
Arlington Heights and Alexandria were now seized and occupied by the
Union troops for the protection of Washington, and mosquito-wires were
put up in the Capitol windows to keep the largest of the rebels from
coming in and biting Congress.
Fort Monroe was garrisoned by a force under General Benjamin F. Butler,
and an expedition was sent out against Big Bethel. On the way the
Federal troops fired into each other, which pleased the Confederates
very much indeed. The Union troops were repulsed with loss, and went
back to the fort, where they stated that they were disappointed in the
war.
West Virginia was strongly for the Union in sentiment, and was set off
from the original State of Virginia, and, after some fighting the first
year of the war over its territory, came into line with the Northern
States. The fighting here was not severe. Generals McClellan and
Rosecrans (Union) and Lee (Confederate) were the principal commanders.
The first year of the war was largely spent in sparring for wind, as one
very able authority has it.
In the next chapter reference will be made to the battle of Bull Run,
and the odium will be placed where it belongs. The author reluctantly
closes this chapter in order to go out and get some odium for that
purpose.