THE REBELLION.
When, after Mr. Lincoln's election, the South made the North understand
that her threats of disunion meant something more than "tin kettle
thunder," there was little spirit of compromise among the Republicans
and Douglas Democrats of Minnesota, who generally looked with impatience
on the abject servility with which Northern men in Congress begged their
Southern masters not to leave them, with no slaves to catch, no peculiar
institution to guard.
I was in favor of not only permitting the Southern States to leave the
Union, but of driving them out of it as we would drive tramps out of a
drawing room. _Put_ them out! and open every avenue for the escape of
their slaves. But from that spirit of conciliation with which the North
first met, secession, the change was sudden. The fire on Sumter lit an
actual flame of freedom, and the people were ready then to wipe slavery
from the whole face of the land. When Gen. Fremont issued his famous
order confiscating the slaves of rebels in arms, I was in receipt of a
large exchange list, and have never seen such unanimity on any subject.
I think there were but two papers which offered an objection; but this
land was not worthy to do a generous deed. So, President Lincoln
rescinded that order, and the great rushing stream of popular enthusiasm
was dammed, turned back to flow into the dismal swamp of constitutional
quibbles and statutory inventions. There it lay, and bred reptiles and
miasmas to sting and poison the guilty inhabitants of this great land;
and never since have we been permitted to reach an enthusiasm in favor
of any great principle; for history has no record of a great act so
thoroughly divested of all greatness by the meanness of the motive, as
is our "Act of Emancipation."
Long after the war was in progress, the old habit of yielding precedence
to the South manifested itself so strongly as to sour and disgust the
staunchest Republicans. The only two important military appointments
given by Mr. Lincoln's administration to St. Cloud were given to two
Southern Democrats, officeholders under Buchanan and supporters of
Breckinridge, the Southern candidate for President in '60. In the autumn
of '61, I asked a farmer to take out and post bills for a meeting to
send delegates to the county convention. He had been an active worker in
the campaign of '60, had never sought an office, and I was surprised
when he declined so small a service, but his explanation was this:
"If the Democrats win the election, the Democrats will get the offices.
If the Republicans win the election, the Democrats will get the offices,
and I don't see but we may as well let them win the election."
When I explained that the more false others were to a party or
principle, the more need there was for him to be true, he took the bills
and managed the meeting; but running a Republican ticket under a
Republican administration was not so easy as running the same ticket
under Buchanan. Then men had hope and enthusiasm, but this was killed by
a victory through which the enemy was made to triumph.
As Gov. Ramsey was the first to tender troops to President Lincoln for
the suppression of the Rebellion, so the men of Minnesota were among the
first to organize and drill. Stephen Miller raised a company in St.
Cloud, with it joined the first regiment at Ft. Snelling, and was
appointed Lieut. Col.
We went to Ft. Snelling to see our first regiment embark. It was a grand
sight to see the men in red shirts and white Havelocks march down that
rocky, winding way, going to their Southern graves, for very few of them
ever returned.
More troops were called for, and two companies formed in St. Cloud.
While they waited under marching orders, they and the citizens were
aroused at two o'clock one morning by the cry from the east side of the
river of, "Indians, Indians." A boat was sent over and brought a
white-lipped messenger, with the news of the Sioux massacre at Ft.
Ridgley.