THE STORM BURSTS.
Washington City presented a strange spectacle during the first
month after the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. Many of the Southern
sojourners had gone to their respective States, while others, some
of them holding important civil, military, and naval positions,
remained, truculent and defiant, to place every obstacle in the
way of coercion by the Federal Government. The North sent an army
of office-seekers to the metropolis, and Mr. Lincoln was forced to
listen to the demands of men who had made political speeches, or
who had commanded companies of "Wide-Awakes," and who now demanded
lucrative offices in return.
Among other officers of the army who resigned their commissions
was Colonel Robert E. Lee, who was sent for by General Scott, and
asked point-blank whether he intended to resign with those officers
who proposed to take part with their respective states, or to remain
in the service of the Union. Colonel Lee made no reply, whereupon
"Old Chapultepec" came directly to the point, saying, "I suppose
you will go with the rest. If your purpose is to resign, it is
proper you should do so at once. Your present attitude is an
equivocal one." "General," Colonel Lee then answered, "the property
belonging to my children, all that they possess, lies in Virginia.
They will be ruined if they do not go with their State. I cannot
raise my hand against my children." General Scott then signified
that he had nothing further to say. Colonel Lee, with a respectful
bow, withdrew, and the next morning tendered his resignation, which
was accepted five days afterward. Between the interview and the
acceptance of Colonel Lee's resignation, General Shiras was sitting
in the room of Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas, when Colonel Lee
came in and walked up to the side of the table opposite to that at
which General Thomas was sitting, saying: "General Thomas, I am
told you said I was a traitor." General Thomas arose, and looking
him in the eye, replied, "I have said so; do you wish to know on
what authority?" "Yes," said Colonel Lee. "Well, on the authority
of General Scott." Colonel Lee muttered, "There must be some
mistake," turned on his heel, and left the room.
The long expected crisis came at last. Seven thousand armed
Confederates attacked the seventy Union soldiers who garrisoned
Fort Sumter, and forced them to haul down the stars and stripes on
the 11th of April, 1861. Four days afterward President Lincoln
issued his proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand militiamen,
"to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our
National Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough
endured." This proclamation was flashed over the wires throughout
the Northern States, like the fiery cross of Rhoderick Dhu, which
summoned his clansmen to their rendezvous, and it was everywhere
received with the beating of drums and the ringing notes of the
bugle, calling the defenders of the capital to their colors. Every
city and hamlet had its flag-raising, while its enthusiasm was
unbounded. Here and there a newspaper ventured to apologize for
the South, but the editor would soon be forced by a mob to display
the stars and stripes, amid the cheers and the shouts of those
assembled.
The North proved itself ready for the emergency. The arguments of
Daniel Webster against the right of secession, which, when delivered
by him, were regarded by many as mere topics for the display of
political eloquence, had fixed the opinion of the North, and there
was a general uprising for the defense of the capital and the old
flag. Even the Abolitionists, who had denounced the Union, the
Constitution, the national ensign, and its martial defenders,
seriously entered into the military movements, as they saw in the
exercise of the war power the long desired panacea for the faults
of slavery. Those who had jeered at the Southern threats of disunion
as empty bluster, and at the Northern conservatives as cowardly
doughfaces, became zealous Union men, although it must be confessed
that very few of them took their lives in their hands and actually
went to the front. The raising of troops went forward with a bound,
and the wildest excitement and enthusiasm attended the departure
of regiments for the seat of war. The seriousness of the emergency
was not overlooked, but high above that consideration rose the tide
of patriotic feeling, and swept all obstacles before it.
The first troops to arrive at the National Capital were four
companies of unarmed and ununiformed Pennsylvanians, who came from
the mining districts, expecting to find uniforms, arms, and equipments
on their arrival at Washington. Stones were thrown at them as they
marched through Baltimore to take the cars for Washington, where
they were received at the station by Captain McDowell, of the
Adjutant-General's department, who escorted them to the Capitol,
where arrangements had been made for quartering them temporarily
in the hall of the House of Representatives. The sun was just
setting over the Virginia hills as the little column ascended the
broad steps of the eastern portico and entered the rotunda, through
which they marched. With one of the companies was the customary
colored attendant, whose duty it was on parade to carry the target
or a pail of ice-water. He had been struck on the head in Baltimore,
and had received a scalp wound, over which he had placed his
handkerchief, and then drawn his cap down tight over it. When Nick
Biddle (for that was his name), entered the rotunda, he appeared
to think he was safe, and took off his cap, with the handkerchief
saturated with blood, which dripped from it and marked his path
into the hall of the House of Representatives. It was the first
blood of the war.
The next day came the old Massachusetts Sixth, which had been shot
at and stoned as it passed through Baltimore, and which returned
the fire with fatal effect. The Sixth was quartered in the Senate
wing of the Capitol. Colonel Jones occupied the Vice-President's
chair in the Senate Chamber, his colors hanging over his head from
the reporters' gallery. At the clerk's desk before him, Adjutant
Farr and Paymaster Plaisted were busy with their evening reports,
while Major Watson, with Quartermaster Munroe were seeing that the
companies were distributed in the various corridors and obtaining
their rations. After a four-and-twenty hours' fast the men had
each one ration of bacon, bread, and coffee, which they had to
prepare at the furnace fires in the basements. The moment hunger
was appeased the cushioned seats in the galleries were occupied by
those fortunate enough to obtain such luxurious sleeping accommodations,
while others "bunked" on the tile floors, with their knapsacks for
pillows, and wrapped in their blankets. Stationery was provided
from the committee-rooms, and every Senator's desk was occupied by
a "bould sojer boy," inditing an epistle to his friends.
That night the censorship of the press was exercised for the first
time at the telegraph office. Colonel Stone had seized the steamers
which ran between Washington and Aquia Creek, and another steamer,
the St. Nicholas, which had been loaded with flour and other stores,
ostensibly for Norfolk, but which he believed would have gone no
further down the river than Alexandria, where they would have been
turned over to the Confederate quartermaster's department. Colonel
Stone, believing that this seizure should be kept quiet, obtained
from Secretary Cameron an order to seize the telegraph and to
prevent the transmission of any messages which were not of a strictly
private nature. When the correspondents wished to telegraph the
lists of the dead and wounded of the Massachusetts Sixth they found
a squad of the National Rifles in possession of the office, with
orders to permit the transmission of no messages. Hastening to
head-quarters, they found Colonel Stone, but he told them that he
had no discretion in the matter.
The correspondents then drove to the house of Secretary Seward.
The Secretary of State received them very cordially, and would
neither admit nor deny that he had advised the censorship of the
press. He said, however, in his semi-jocular way, "The affair at
Baltimore to-day was only a local outbreak, for which the regimental
officers, who had ridden through the city in a car, leaving some
of the companies to follow on foot without a commander, were
responsible. To send your accounts of the killed and wounded,"
said Mr. Seward, "would only influence public sentiment, and be an
obstacle in the path of reconciliation." Then, having offered his
visitors refreshments, which were declined, he bowed them out.
They returned to the telegraph office, where their wrath was
mollified by learning that the wires had all been cut in Baltimore.
It was nearly a week before telegraphic communication was re-
established between Washington and the loyal North, but thenceforth,
until the close of the war, a censorship of press dispatches was
kept up, at once exasperating and of little real use.
Meanwhile a general uprising was going on. Young Ellsworth, who
had accompanied Mr. Lincoln from Springfield, in the hope of being
placed at the head of a bureau of militia in the War Department,
had gone to New York and raised, in an incredibly small space of
time, a regiment composed almost exclusively of the members of the
Volunteer Fire Department, which stimulated the organization of
other commands. Rhode Island sent a regiment, under the command
of Colonel Burnside, composed of skilled mechanics, gentlemen
possessing independent fortunes, and active business men, all
wearing plain service uniforms.
Communication with Washington was re-opened by General Butler, who,
finding that the bridges between the Susquehanna River and the city
of Baltimore had been burned, went on the steam ferry-boat from
Havre de Grace around to Annapolis at the head of the Massachusetts
Eighth. On their arrival at Annapolis it was found that the
sympathizers with secession had partially destroyed the railroad
leading to Washington, and had taken away every locomotive with
the exception of one, which they had dismantled. It so happened
that a young mechanic, who had aided in building this very engine,
was in the ranks of the Massachusetts Eighth, and he soon had it
in running order, while the regiment, advancing on the railroad,
fished up from the ditches on either side the rails which had been
thrown there, and restored them to their places. They thus rebuilt
the road and provided it with an engine, so that when the New York
Seventh arrived it was a comparative easy matter for it to proceed
to the national metropolis.
Meanwhile, Washington City had been for several days without hearing
from the loyal North. At night the camp-fires of the Confederates,
who were assembling in force, could be seen on the southern bank
of the Potomac, and it was not uncommon to meet on Pennsylvania
Avenue a defiant Southerner openly wearing a large Virginia or
South Carolina secession badge. The exodus of clerks from the
department continued, and they would not say good-bye, but _au
revoir_, as they confidently expected that they would be back again
triumphant within a month. An eloquent clergyman, who was among
those who went to Richmond, left behind him, in the cellar of his
house, a favorite cat, with what he judged would be a three weeks'
supply of water and provisions, so confident was he that President
Davis would, within that time, occupy the White House.
One of the largest, the best equipped, and the best drilled of the
volunteer regiments that came pouring into Washington when the
communication was re-opened was the New York Fire Zouaves, commanded
by Colonel Ellsworth. A hardy set of fellows, trained to fight
fire, they professed great anxiety to meet the Confederates in
hostile array, and they were very proud of their boyish commander.
President Lincoln took a great interest in Colonel Ellsworth, and
when Virginia formally seceded, he obtained from Secretary Cameron
an order for the New York Fire Zouaves and the First Michigan
Infantry to occupy Alexandria. They went on the ferry-boats, very
early in the morning on Friday, May 24th, escorted by the war
steamer Pawnee, and occupied the old borough without opposition.
No sooner were the troops on shore, than Colonel Ellsworth, taking
half a dozen of his men, went to the Marshall House, over the roof
of which floated a large Confederate flag, which had been visible
with a glass from the window of Mr. Lincoln's private office.
Entering the public room of the hotel, he inquired of a man there
whether he was the proprietor, and being answered in the negative,
he took one private with him, and ran up-stairs. Going out on the
roof, Ellsworth secured the flag, and as he was descending, James
William Jackson, the proprietor of the hotel, came from his room,
armed with a double-barreled shot-gun. "I have the first prize,"
said Ellsworth, to which Jackson responded, "And I the second," at
the same time firing at him with fatal effect. Before he could
fire the second barrel, Private Brownell shot him dead, and as he
fell, pinned him to the floor with the sword-bayonet on his rifle.
Colonel Ellsworth's remains were taken to Washington, where President
Lincoln visited them, exclaiming, as he gazed on the lifeless
features: "My boy! my boy! was it necessary this sacrifice should
be made!"
[Facsimile]
E. E. Ellsworth
EPHRAIM ELMER ELLSWORTH, born at Mechanicsville, Saratoga County,
New York, in 1837; removed to Chicago before he was of age, and
studied law; in 1859, organized his Zouave corps, noted for the
excellence of its discipline, and gave exhibition drills in the
chief Eastern cities. On the opening of hostilities, raised a
regiment, known as the New York Fire Zouaves; was sent to Alexandria
on Friday morning, May 24th, 1861, when he was killed in the Marshall
House. He was buried in the cemetery of his native place.