On the 17th of April, 1861, Virginia in Convention passed an Ordinance
of Secession. The Convention, when elected on the 4th of February
preceding, was largely Anti-Secession; but the events which had taken
place,--the firing on Sumter, its surrender, with the machinations of
the leaders of Secession,--their misrepresentations of the North, of
what Mr. Lincoln would do,--their promises that there would be no war,
that the Yankees would not fight,--their bullyings when they could not
cajole, their threatenings when they could not intimidate,--their
rejoicings at the bloodless victory won by South Carolina,
single-handed, over a starved garrison,--their bonfires and
illuminations, their baskets of Champagne and bottles of whiskey,--all
of these forces combined were sufficient to carry the Ordinance of
Secession through the Convention. But it was hampered by a proviso
submitting it to the people for ratification on the Fourth Thursday of
May following.
John Letcher was Governor of Virginia. Weak in intellect, grovelling in
his tastes, often drunk, rarely sober, at times making such beastly
exhibition of himself that the Richmond press pronounced him a public
nuisance, he was a fit tool of the Secession conspirators. Ready to do
what he could to commit the State to overt acts against the United
States Government, on the evening after the passage of the Ordinance he
issued orders to the State militia around Winchester to seize the
Arsenal at Harper's Ferry,--on his own sole responsibility, and without
a shadow of authority from the people of the State, inaugurating civil
war, a proceeding which he followed up directly afterwards by
proclaiming Virginia a member of the Confederacy, and thus carrying the
State at once out of the Union, without awaiting the formality of a
popular vote.
Already the intentions of the Confederate Government were manifest.
"I prophesy that the flag which now flaunts the breeze here will float
over the old Capitol in Washington before the first of May," said Mr.
L.P. Walker, Secretary of War, the evening after the fall of Sumter, to
a crazy crowd in Montgomery, then the Rebel capital.
"From the mountain-tops and valleys to the shores of the sea, there is
one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington City at all and
every human hazard. That filthy cage of unclean birds must and will
assuredly be purified by fire," shouted John Mitchell, through the
"Richmond Examiner," on the 23d of April.
"Washington City will soon be too hot to hold Abraham Lincoln and his
Government," wrote the editor of the "Raleigh Standard" on the 24th.
"We are in lively hope, that, before three months roll by, the
Government, Congress, Departments and all, will have been removed to the
present Federal capital," wrote the Montgomery correspondent of the
"Charleston Courier" on the 28th of the same month.
"We are not in the secrets of our authorities enough to specify the day
on which Jeff Davis will dine at the White House, and Ben McCullough
take his siesta in General Sickles's gilded tent. We should not like to
produce any disappointment by naming too soon or too early a day; but it
will save trouble, if the gentlemen will keep themselves in readiness to
dislodge at a moment's notice," said the "Richmond Whig" on the 22d of
May.
The Rebel Congress had already adjourned, and was on its way to
Richmond. Not only Congress, but all the Departments, were on the move,
intending to tarry at Richmond but a day or two, till General Scott, and
Abraham Lincoln, and the Yankees, who were swarming into Washington,
were driven out. Thus Richmond became, though only temporarily, as all
hands in the South supposed, the capital of the Confederacy.
A week later Jeff Davis was welcomed to Richmond by the people, says
Pollard, the author of the "Southern History of the War," an implacable
hater of the North, "with a burst of genuine joy and enthusiasm to which
none of the military pageants of the North could furnish a parallel."
President Davis, in response to the call of the populace, made a
speech, in which he said,--
"When the time and occasion serve, we shall smite the smiter with manly
arms, as did our fathers before us, and as becomes their sons. To the
enemy we leave the base _acts of the assassin and incendiary_; to them
we leave it to insult helpless women: to us belongs vengeance upon men.
We will make the battle-fields in Virginia another Buena Vista, drenched
with more precious blood than flowed there."
But Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was in command of the Rebel forces in
Virginia, was not quite ready to take Washington; and so the Rebel
Congress commenced its sessions in the State capital. Mr. Memminger set
up his printing-presses, and issued his promises to pay the debts of the
Confederacy two years after the treaty of peace with the United States;
Mr. Mallory began to consider how to construct rams; while Mr. Toombs,
and his successor, Mr. Benjamin, wrote letters of instruction from the
State Department to Rebel agents in Europe, and looked longingly and
expectantly for immediate recognition of the Confederacy as an
independent power among the nations.
The sleepy city awoke to a new life. Regiments of infantry came pouring
in, not only from the hills and valleys of the Old Dominion, but from
every nook and corner of the Confederate States,--the Palmetto Guards,
Marion Rifles, Jeff-Davis Grays, Whippy-Swamp Grenadiers, Chickasaw
Braves, Tigers, Dare-Devils, and Yankee-Butchers,--fired with patriotism
and whiskey, proud to be in Richmond, to march through its streets,
beneath the flags wrought by the fair ladies of the sunny South, for
whom each man had sworn to kill a Yankee! Lieutenants, captains, majors,
colonels, and generals, glittering with golden stars, with clanking
sabres, and twinkling spurs, thronged the hotels in all the pomp of
modern chivalry. With the marching of troops, and the gathering of men
from every precinct of the Confederacy in search of official position in
the bureaus or to obtain contracts from Government,--with the rush and
whirl of business, and the inflation of prices of all commodities,--with
the stream of gayety and fashion attendant upon the Confederate court,
where Mrs. Jefferson Davis was queen-regnant,--with its gilded
drinking-saloons and gambling-hells,--Richmond became a Babylon.
"ON TO RICHMOND!"
It was a natural cry, that slogan of the North in the early months of
the war; for, in ordinary warfare, to capture an enemy's capital is
equivalent to conquering a peace. It was thought that the taking of
Richmond would be the end of the Rebellion. Time has disabused us of
this idea. To have taken Richmond in 1861 would only have been the
repacking of the Department trunks for Montgomery or some other
convenient Southern city. The vitality of the Rebellion existed not in
cities, towns, or capitals, but in that which could die only by
annihilation,--Human Slavery. That was and is the "original sin" of the
Rebellion,--the total depravity and innate heinousness, to use
theological terminology, without which there could not have been
treason, secession, and rebellion.
But forgetting all this,--looking constantly at effect, without
searching for cause,--hearing only the drum-beat of the armed legions of
the South mustering for the overthrow of the nation,--wilfully shutting
our ears to the clanking of the chains of the slave-coffle,--deaf to the
prayer, "How long, O Lord?" uttered morning, noon, and night by men and
women who were turned back to bondage from our lines,--forgetting that
Justice and Right are the foundations of the throne of God,--the army of
General McDowell marched confidently out to Bull Run on its way to
Richmond, and returned to Washington defeated, routed, disorganized,
humiliated. And yet we now see that to the South the victory which set
the whole Confederacy on flame was a defeat, and to the North that which
seemed an overwhelming disaster was a triumph; for so God changes the
warp and woof of human events. The Southern leaders became
over-confident. They could have taken Washington, but did not make the
attempt to do so till the golden moment had passed, never to return. "We
have let Washington slip through our fingers," was the bitter
lamentation of the "Richmond Examiner," a few days after the Battle of
Bull Run,--after the second uprising of the people to save the Union.
When God takes a proud and wayward nation in hand, and instructs it by
the hard lessons of adversity,--by plans overthrown, ambition checked,
pride humiliated, and hopes disappointed, which wring tears from the
eyes of widows and orphans, and by which men in the prime of life are
bowed down to the grave with grief for sons slain in battle,--He does it
for a great purpose. But the nation was blind to the moral of the
terrible lesson. We are slow to receive and accept eternal truths. And
so, instead of aiming at Slavery as the life of the Rebellion, McClellan
marched up the Peninsula through the mud to capture Richmond, and
conquer a peace simply by taking the Rebel capital. He was learned in
military lore, had visited Europe, and made war after the European
pattern. But in a war of ideas and principles, the mere taking of an
enemy's capital cannot end the contest. In such a strife there is the
war of invisible forces,--the marshalling of Cherubim and Seraphim
against rebellious hosts,--the old contest of the heavenly fields
renewed on earth.
The nation was long in awaking to the consciousness that driving Lee out
of Richmond would not end the Rebellion. It was more than this: it was a
casting-out of prejudice, a discarding of political chicanery and a
time-serving policy, and a recognition of Justice, Right, and Freedom as
the true elements of political economy. There was an increasing desire
on the part of the people to root out Slavery from American soil.
It will be for the future historian to trace the providential dealings
of God with the nation, and to show how far and in what degree the
failure of Burnside at Fredericksburg and of Hooker at Chancellorsville
was affected by the want of moral perceptions on the part of the army
and of the people at that stage of the war: for there were thousands of
officers and soldiers at that time who were not willing to fight by the
side of a negro. We have not advanced far enough even now to allow the
colored man full privileges of citizenship. We are willing that he
should be a soldier, carry a gun, and fire a bullet at the enemy; but
are we willing that he should march up to the ballot-box, and fire a
peaceful ballot against the same enemy? Strange incongruity!
The colored men of Richmond, of Charleston, of Savannah, of all the
South, have been and are now the true Union men of the seceded States.
When or where have they raised their hands against the Union? They have
fought for the flag of the Union, and have earned by their patriotism
and valor a name and a place in history. Citizenship is theirs by
natural right; besides, they have earned it. Make the freedman a voter,
a land-owner, a tax-payer, permit him to sue and be sued, give him in
every respect free franchise, and the recompense will be security,
peace, and prosperity. Anything less than absolute right will sooner or
later bring trouble in its train. Now, in this day of settlement, this
reconstruction of the nation, this renewal of life, it is the privilege
of America to become the world's great teacher and benefactor.
After the disaster at Chancellorsville, there came a season of sober
reflection, and men began to understand that this is God's war. Then
there came a commander who believed that the power of the Rebellion lay
not in Richmond, but in the Rebel army, and that the taking of Richmond
was altogether a secondary consideration,--that the only way of
subduing the Rebellion was to fight it down. He was ready to employ
soldiers of every hue. This brings us to consider