President's Proclamation Calling for Seventy-five Regiments--Responses
of the Governors--Maryland and Virginia--The Baltimore Riot--Washington
Isolated--Lincoln Takes the Responsibility--Robert E. Lee--Arrival of
the New York Seventh--Suspension of Habeas Corpus--The Annapolis
Route--Butler in Baltimore--Taney on the Merryman
Case--Kentucky--Missouri--Lyon Captures Camp Jackson--Boonville
Skirmish--The Missouri Convention--Gamble made Governor--The Border
States
The bombardment of Fort Sumter changed the political situation as if by
magic. There was no longer room for doubt, hesitation, concession, or
compromise. Without awaiting the arrival of the ships that were bringing
provisions to Anderson's starving garrison, the hostile Charleston
batteries had opened their fire on the fort by the formal order of the
Confederate government, and peaceable secession was, without
provocation, changed to active war. The rebels gained possession of
Charleston harbor; but their mode of obtaining it awakened the
patriotism of the American people to a stern determination that the
insult to the national authority and flag should be redressed, and the
unrighteous experiment of a rival government founded on slavery as its
corner-stone should never succeed. Under the conflict thus begun the
long-tolerated barbarous institution itself was destined ignobly to
perish.
On his journey from Springfield to Washington Mr. Lincoln had said that,
devoted as he was to peace, he might find it necessary "to put the foot
down firmly." That time had now come. On the morning of April 15, 1861,
the leading newspapers of the country printed the President's
proclamation reciting that, whereas the laws of the United States were
opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas,
by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of
judicial proceedings, the militia of the several States of the Union, to
the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, was called forth to
suppress said combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed. The
orders of the War Department specified that the period of service under
this call should be for three months; and to further conform to the
provisions of the Act of 1795, under which the call was issued, the
President's proclamation also convened the Congress in special session
on the coming fourth of July.
Public opinion in the free States, which had been sadly demoralized by
the long discussions over slavery, and by the existence of four factions
in the late presidential campaign, was instantly crystallized and
consolidated by the Sumter bombardment and the President's proclamation
into a sentiment of united support to the government for the suppression
of the rebellion. The several free-State governors sent loyal and
enthusiastic responses to the call for militia, and tendered double the
numbers asked for. The people of the slave States which had not yet
joined the Montgomery Confederacy--namely, Virginia, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and
Delaware--remained, however, more or less divided on the issue as it
now presented itself. The governors of the first six of these were
already so much engaged in the secret intrigues of the secession
movement that they sent the Secretary of War contumacious and insulting
replies, and distinct refusals to the President's call for troops. The
governor of Delaware answered that there was no organized militia in his
State which he had legal authority to command, but that the officers of
organized volunteer regiments might at their own option offer their
services to the United States; while the governor of Maryland, in
complying with the requisition, stipulated that the regiments from his
State should not be required to serve outside its limits, except to
defend the District of Columbia.
A swift, almost bewildering rush of events, however, quickly compelled
most of them to take sides. Secession feeling was rampant in Baltimore;
and when the first armed and equipped Northern regiment, the
Massachusetts Sixth, passed through that city on the morning of April
19, on its way to Washington, the last four of its companies were
assailed by street mobs with missiles and firearms while marching from
one depot to the other; and in the running fight which ensued, four of
its soldiers were killed and about thirty wounded, while the mob
probably lost two or three times as many. This tragedy instantly threw
the whole city into a wild frenzy of insurrection. That same afternoon
an immense secession meeting in Monument Square listened to a torrent of
treasonable protest and denunciation, in which Governor Hicks himself
was made momentarily to join. The militia was called out, preparations
were made to arm the city, and that night the railroad bridges were
burned between Baltimore and the Pennsylvania line to prevent the
further transit of Union regiments. The revolutionary furor spread to
the country towns, and for a whole week the Union flag practically
disappeared from Maryland.
While these events were taking place to the north, equally threatening
incidents were occurring to the south of Washington. The State of
Virginia had been for many weeks balancing uneasily between loyalty and
secession. In the new revolutionary stress her weak remnant of
conditional Unionism gave way; and on April 17, two days after the
President's call, her State convention secretly passed a secession
ordinance, while Governor Letcher ordered a military seizure of the
United States navy-yard at Norfolk and the United States armory at
Harper's Ferry. Under orders from Washington, both establishments were
burned to prevent their falling into insurrectionary hands; but the
destruction in each case was only partial, and much valuable war
material thus passed to rebel uses.
All these hostile occurrences put the national capital in the greatest
danger. For three days it was entirely cut off from communication with
the North by either telegraph or mail. Under the orders of General
Scott, the city was hastily prepared for a possible siege. The flour at
the mills, and other stores of provisions were taken possession of. The
Capitol and other public buildings were barricaded, and detachments of
troops stationed in them. Business was suspended by a common impulse;
streets were almost deserted except by squads of military patrol;
shutters of stores, and even many residences, remained unopened
throughout the day. The signs were none too reassuring. In addition to
the public rumors whispered about by serious faces on the streets,
General Scott reported in writing to President Lincoln on the evening of
April 22:
"Of rumors, the following are probable, viz.: _First_, that from
fifteen hundred to two thousand troops are at the White House (four
miles below Mount Vernon, a narrow point in the Potomac), engaged in
erecting a battery; _Second_, that an equal force is collected or in
progress of assemblage on the two sides of the river to attack Fort
Washington; and _Third_, that extra cars went up yesterday to bring down
from Harper's Ferry about two thousand other troops to join in a general
attack on this capital--that is, on many of its fronts at once. I feel
confident that with our present forces we can defend the Capitol, the
Arsenal, and all the executive buildings (seven) against ten thousand
troops not better than our District volunteers."
Throughout this crisis President Lincoln not only maintained his
composure, but promptly assumed the high responsibilities the occasion
demanded. On Sunday, April 21, he summoned his cabinet to meet at the
Navy Department, and with their unanimous concurrence issued a number of
emergency orders relating to the purchase of ships, the transportation
of troops and munitions of war, the advance of $2,000,000 of money to a
Union Safety Committee in New York, and other military and naval
measures, which were despatched in duplicate by private messengers over
unusual and circuitous routes. In a message to Congress, in which he
afterward explained these extraordinary transactions, he said:
"It became necessary for me to choose whether, using only the existing
means, agencies, and processes which Congress had provided, I should let
the government fall at once into ruin, or whether, availing myself of
the broader powers conferred by the Constitution in cases of
insurrection, I would make an effort to save it with all its blessings
for the present age and for posterity."
Unwelcome as was the thought of a possible capture of Washington city,
President Lincoln's mind was much more disturbed by many suspicious
indications of disloyalty in public officials, and especially in
officers of the army and navy. Hundreds of clerks of Southern birth
employed in the various departments suddenly left their desks and went
South. The commandant of the Washington navy-yard and the
quartermaster-general of the army resigned their positions to take
service under Jefferson Davis. One morning the captain of a light
battery on which General Scott had placed special reliance for the
defense of Washington came to the President at the White House to
asseverate and protest his loyalty and fidelity; and that same night
secretly left his post and went to Richmond to become a Confederate
officer.
The most prominent case, however, was that of Colonel Robert E. Lee, the
officer who captured John Brown at Harper's Ferry, and who afterward
became the leader of the Confederate armies. As a lieutenant he had
served on the staff of General Scott in the war with Mexico. Personally
knowing his ability, Scott recommended him to Lincoln as the most
suitable officer to command the Union army about to be assembled under
the President's call for seventy-five regiments; and this command was
informally tendered him through a friend. Lee, however, declined the
offer, explaining that "though opposed to secession, and deprecating
war, I could take no part in an invasion of the Southern States." He
resigned his commission in a letter written on April 20, and, without
waiting for notice of its acceptance, which alone could discharge him
from his military obligation, proceeded to Richmond, where he was
formally and publicly invested with the command of the Virginia military
and naval forces on April 22; while, two days later, the rebel
Vice-President, Alexander H. Stephens, and a committee of the Richmond
convention signed a formal military league making Virginia an immediate
member of the Confederate States, and placing her armies under the
command of Jefferson Davis.
The sudden uprising in Maryland and the insurrectionary activity in
Virginia had been largely stimulated by the dream of the leading
conspirators that their new confederacy would combine all the slave
States, and that by the adhesion of both Maryland and Virginia they
would fall heir to a ready-made seat of government. While the
bombardment of Sumter was in progress, the rebel Secretary of War,
announcing the news in a jubilant speech at Montgomery, in the presence
of Jefferson Davis and his colleagues, confidently predicted that the
rebel flag would before the end of May "float over the dome of the
Capitol at Washington." The disloyal demonstrations in Maryland and
Virginia rendered such a hope so plausible that Jefferson Davis
telegraphed to Governor Letcher at Richmond that he was preparing to
send him thirteen regiments, and added: "Sustain Baltimore if
practicable. We reinforce you"; while Senator Mason hurried to that city
personally to furnish advice and military assistance.
But the flattering expectation was not realized. The requisite
preparation and concert of action were both wanting. The Union troops
from New York and New England, pouring into Philadelphia, flanked the
obstructions of the Baltimore route by devising a new one by way of
Chesapeake Bay and Annapolis; and the opportune arrival of the Seventh
Regiment of New York in Washington, on April 25, rendered that city
entirely safe against surprise or attack, relieved the apprehension of
officials and citizens, and renewed its business and public activity.
The mob frenzy of Baltimore and the Maryland towns subsided almost as
quickly as it had risen. The Union leaders and newspapers asserted
themselves, and soon demonstrated their superiority in numbers and
activity.
Serious embarrassment had been created by the timidity of Governor
Hicks, who, while Baltimore remained under mob terrorism, officially
protested against the landing of Union troops at Annapolis; and, still
worse, summoned the Maryland legislature to meet on April 26--a step
which he had theretofore stubbornly refused to take. This event had
become doubly dangerous, because a Baltimore city election held during
the same terror week had reinforced the legislature with ten secession
members, creating a majority eager to pass a secession ordinance at the
first opportunity. The question of either arresting or dispersing the
body by military force was one of the problems which the crisis forced
upon President Lincoln. On full reflection he decided against either
measure.
"I think it would not be justifiable," he wrote to General Scott, "nor
efficient for the desired object. _First_, they have a clearly legal
right to assemble; and we cannot know in advance that their action will
not be lawful and peaceful. And if we wait until they shall have acted,
their arrest or dispersion will not lessen the effect of their action.
_Secondly_, we cannot permanently prevent their action. If we arrest
them, we cannot long hold them as prisoners; and, when liberated, they
will immediately reassemble and take their action. And precisely the
same if we simply disperse them: they will immediately reassemble in
some other place. I therefore conclude that it is only left to the
commanding general to watch and await their action, which, if it shall
be to arm their people against the United States, he is to adopt the
most prompt and efficient means to counteract, even if necessary to the
bombardment of their cities; and, in the extremest necessity, the
suspension of the writ of _habeas corpus_."
Two days later the President formally authorized General Scott to
suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_ along his military lines, or in
their vicinity, if resistance should render it necessary. Arrivals of
additional troops enabled the General to strengthen his military hold on
Annapolis and the railroads; and on May 13 General B.F. Butler, with
about one thousand men, moved into Baltimore and established a fortified
camp on Federal Hill, the bulk of his force being the Sixth
Massachusetts, which had been mobbed in that city on April 19. Already,
on the previous day, the bridges and railroad had been repaired, and the
regular transit of troops through the city reëstablished.
Under these changing conditions the secession majority of the Maryland
legislature did not venture on any official treason. They sent a
committee to interview the President, vented their hostility in spiteful
reports and remonstrances, and prolonged their session by a recess.
Nevertheless, so inveterate was their disloyalty and plotting against
the authority of the Union, that four months later it became necessary
to place the leaders under arrest, finally to head off their darling
project of a Maryland secession ordinance.
One additional incident of this insurrectionary period remains to be
noticed. One John Merryman, claiming to be a Confederate lieutenant, was
arrested in Baltimore for enlisting men for the rebellion, and Chief
Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court, the famous author of
the Dred Scott decision, issued a writ of _habeas corpus_ to obtain his
release from Fort McHenry. Under the President's orders, General
Cadwalader of course declined to obey the writ. Upon this, the chief
justice ordered the general's arrest for contempt, but the officer sent
to serve the writ was refused entrance to the fort. In turn, the
indignant chief justice, taking counsel of his passion instead of his
patriotism, announced dogmatically that "the President, under the
Constitution and laws of the United States, cannot suspend the privilege
of the writ of _habeas corpus_, nor authorize any military officer to do
so"; and some weeks afterward filed a long written opinion in support of
this dictum. It is unnecessary here to quote the opinions of several
eminent jurists who successfully refuted his labored argument, nor to
repeat the vigorous analysis with which, in his special message to
Congress of July 4, President Lincoln vindicated his own authority.
While these events were occurring in Maryland and Virginia, the
remaining slave States were gradually taking sides, some for, others
against rebellion. Under radical and revolutionary leadership similar to
that of the cotton States, the governors and State officials of North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas placed their States in an attitude of
insurrection, and before the middle of May practically joined them to
the Confederate government by the formalities of military leagues and
secession ordinances.
But in the border slave States--that is, those contiguous to the free
States--the eventual result was different. In these, though secession
intrigue and sympathy were strong, and though their governors and State
officials favored the rebellion, the underlying loyalty and Unionism of
the people thwarted their revolutionary schemes. This happened even in
the northwestern part of Virginia itself. The forty-eight counties of
that State lying north of the Alleghanies and adjoining Pennsylvania and
Ohio repudiated the action at Richmond, seceded from secession, and
established a loyal provisional State government. President Lincoln
recognized them and sustained them with military aid; and in due time
they became organized and admitted to the Union as the State of West
Virginia. In Delaware, though some degree of secession feeling existed,
it was too insignificant to produce any note-worthy public
demonstration.
In Kentucky the political struggle was deep and prolonged. The governor
twice called the legislature together to initiate secession proceedings;
but that body refused compliance, and warded off his scheme by voting to
maintain the State neutrality. Next, the governor sought to utilize the
military organization known as the State Guard to effect his object. The
Union leaders offset this movement by enlisting several volunteer Union
regiments. At the June election nine Union congressmen were chosen, and
only one secessionist; while in August a new legislature was elected
with a three-fourths Union majority in each branch. Other secession
intrigues proved equally abortive; and when, finally, in September,
Confederate armies invaded Kentucky at three different points, the
Kentucky legislature invited the Union armies of the West into the State
to expel them, and voted to place forty thousand Union volunteers at the
service of President Lincoln.
In Missouri the struggle was more fierce, but also more brief. As far
back as January, the conspirators had perfected a scheme to obtain
possession, through the treachery of the officer in charge, of the
important Jefferson Barracks arsenal at St. Louis, with its store of
sixty thousand stand of arms and a million and a half cartridges. The
project, however, failed. Rumors of the danger came to General Scott,
who ordered thither a company of regulars under command of Captain
Nathaniel Lyon, an officer not only loyal by nature and habit, but also
imbued with strong antislavery convictions. Lyon found valuable support
in the watchfulness of a Union Safety Committee composed of leading St.
Louis citizens, who secretly organized a number of Union regiments
recruited largely from the heavy German population; and from these
sources Lyon was enabled to make such a show of available military force
as effectively to deter any mere popular uprising to seize the arsenal.
A State convention, elected to pass a secession ordinance, resulted,
unexpectedly to the conspirators, in the return of a majority of Union
delegates, who voted down the secession program and adjourned to the
following December. Thereupon, the secession governor ordered his State
militia into temporary camps of instruction, with the idea of taking
Missouri out of the Union by a concerted military movement. One of these
encampments, established at St. Louis and named Camp Jackson in honor of
the governor, furnished such unquestionable evidences of intended
treason that Captain Lyon, whom President Lincoln had meanwhile
authorized to enlist ten thousand Union volunteers, and, if necessary,
to proclaim martial law, made a sudden march upon Camp Jackson with his
regulars and six of his newly enlisted regiments, stationed his force in
commanding positions around the camp, and demanded its surrender. The
demand was complied with after but slight hesitation, and the captured
militia regiments were, on the following day, disbanded under parole.
Unfortunately, as the prisoners were being marched away a secession mob
insulted and attacked some of Lyon's regiments and provoked a return
fire, in which about twenty persons, mainly lookers-on, were killed or
wounded; and for a day or two the city was thrown into the panic and
lawlessness of a reign of terror.
Upon this, the legislature, in session at Jefferson City, the capital of
the State, with a three-fourths secession majority, rushed through the
forms of legislation a military bill placing the military and financial
resources of Missouri under the governor's control. For a month longer
various incidents delayed the culmination of the approaching struggle,
each side continuing its preparations, and constantly accentuating the
rising antagonism. The crisis came when, on June 11, Governor Jackson
and Captain Lyon, now made brigadier-general by the President, met in an
interview at St. Louis. In this interview the governor demanded that he
be permitted to exercise sole military command to maintain the
neutrality of Missouri, while Lyon insisted that the Federal military
authority must be left in unrestricted control. It being impossible to
reach any agreement, Governor Jackson hurried back to his capital,
burning railroad bridges behind him as he went, and on the following
day, June 12, issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand State
militia, and denouncing the Lincoln administration as "an
unconstitutional military despotism."
Lyon was also prepared for this contingency. On the afternoon of June
13, he embarked with a regular battery and several battalions of his
Union volunteers on steamboats, moved rapidly up the Missouri River to
Jefferson City, drove the governor and the secession legislature into
precipitate flight, took possession of the capital, and, continuing his
expedition, scattered, after a slight skirmish, a small rebel military
force which had hastily collected at Boonville. Rapidly following these
events, the loyal members of the Missouri State convention, which had in
February refused to pass a secession ordinance, were called together,
and passed ordinances under which was constituted a loyal State
government that maintained the local civil authority of the United
States throughout the greater part of Missouri during the whole of the
Civil War, only temporarily interrupted by invasions of transient
Confederate armies from Arkansas.
It will be seen from the foregoing outline that the original hope of the
Southern leaders to make the Ohio River the northern boundary of their
slave empire was not realized. They indeed secured the adhesion of
Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, by which the
territory of the Confederate States government was enlarged nearly one
third and its population and resources nearly doubled. But the northern
tier of slave States--Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and
Missouri--not only decidedly refused to join the rebellion, but remained
true to the Union; and this reduced the contest to a trial of military
strength between eleven States with 5,115,790 whites, and 3,508,131
slaves, against twenty-four States with 21,611,422 whites and 342,212
slaves, and at least a proportionate difference in all other resources
of war. At the very outset the conditions were prophetic of the result.