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THE AMERICAN CIVIL ^W

THE AMERICAN

CIVIL WAR

Interpretation by

CARL RUSSELL FISH

LATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

EDITED BY
WILLIAM ERNEST SMITH, PH.D.

OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY AT
MIAMI UNIVERSITY

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

LONDON • NEW YORK • TORONTO
1937

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THE AMERICAN CIVIL W4R

FOREWORD

THIS book on the straggle between the North and South from
1861 to 1865 was written by my husband after years of thought
and research. His mother was a Georgian and his father a New
Englander. Carl was young enough to be free of prejudices and
hatreds concerning the war. To him it was not a "lost cause"
or a Northern victory ; it was the history of the two sections of
his country, with both of which he had vital ties, gripped in a
death struggle. He wished to understand it and to make others
understand it by approaching it from the detached point of view
of an historian.

To all his students wherever they may be this book is dedicated.

JEANNE L'HOMMEDIEXJ FISH

PREFACE

PROFESSOR FISH worked for many years on the manuscript which
he intended to be his "American Civil War : An Interpretation"
and "Reconstruction," but death cut short his labors at an early
age. Fortunately for his readers he had written the fourteenth
chapter of the first volume and had quoted from President An-
drew Johnson's first annual message to Congress (December 4,
1865) when his hand was stayed, leaving the greater portion of
the work in its first long-hand draft. Professor Fish wrote his
chapters deliberately. Three of them were read once or twice
to his classes in his course on the Civil War and Reconstruction,
which was repeatedly given at the University of Wisconsin. His
conclusions, which came as a result of wide reading and extensive
research in this country and in Europe, were checked in his semi-
nars on the Civil War, in two of which I was privileged to be a
graduate student.

Professor Fish was broadly sympathetic with the intentions
of the North and the trials borne by the South, as any reader of
this volume may soon discover. He intended this work, together
with a second volume on reconstruction, to be his best contribu-
tion to historical writing, for his interest as an historian lay pri-
marily in the Civil War period. His former students will here
find some of his brilliant statements which they so thoroughly
enjoyed in his courses.

The editing of the manuscript has been a pleasure, albeit a dif-
ficult task, for I have endeavored at all times strictly to retain the
Fishian thought, interpretation, organization, and flavor. Pro-
fessor Fish's handwriting is not as easy to read as Horace Gree-
ley's. Many paragraphs and pages have been rewritten, and
punctuation and rearrangement of sentences which would natu-
rally follow in the revision of a first long-hand draft have been
made ; it would have been unfair to the author to publish the first
draft which he had corrected only for fact and thought. I have
omitted footnotes because most of the originals were lost and I

vii

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

have found it impossible accurately to supply them. I assume full
responsibility for the arrangement of and the greater part of the
bibliography. The signed supplementary chapters XIV and XV
are designed primarily for general use, not for a definite contribu-
tion to the study of the Civil War.

In the intriguing task of reading the manuscript I am indebted
to Miss Anna Nunns of the Library of the Historical Society of
Wisconsin, who made a first typewritten draft ; to Dr. Louise
Phelps Kellogg, who read the manuscript ; and especially to my
wife, who has repeatedly gone over it with me, typing and re-
typing as we found changes necessary, and who has been of great
assistance to me in numerous other ways in the preparation of this
manuscript. Finally, I owe grateful acknowledgment to Thomas
P. Martin, Library of Congress ; to Dr. E. M. Coulter for his
corrections ; to Dr. J. Franklin Jameson who read some of the
chapters and advised me ; to Dr. Paul Knaplund, Chairman of the
Department of History in the University of Wisconsin, for his
valuable suggestions ; and to Professor E. W. King, head librarian,
and Miss Margaret Clark, research librarian, at Miami University,
who have kindly assisted me in many ways that required patience
and time.

W. E. S.

Oxford, Ohio
January 1937

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE ELECTION OF 1860 i

II. SECESSION 29

III. COMPROMISE 65

IV. PEACE OR WAR 98

V. DIVISION 125

VI. THE CONTESTANTS 153

VII. DIPLOMACY 178

VIII. THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 207

IX. THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 237

X. THE CRASH OF BATTLE 268

XL EMANCIPATION 301

XII. VICTORY 332

XIII. THE RUTH OF WAR 367

XIV. THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 393

XV. CIVIL WAR FINANCE 420

XVI. CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR . . 445
BIBLIOGRAPHY 479

ItfDEX 523

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Lincoln and Davis Frontispiece

Harper's Ferry Facing page 6

Barnwell Rhett 36

Members of Lincoln's Cabinet 100

Lincoln in 1860 174

Atlanta, 1864 296

"The True Issue" 350

Pledge signed by Lincoln and his Cabinet before the election

of 1864 352

CHAPTER I

THE ELECTION OF 1860

THE key to the political situation in 1860 was the action of the
Republican party. It was the aggressive element that stood for
change. Upon the question of what that change should be, its
leaders and its personnel were divided ; but they were united in
realizing that preliminary to any change they must secure con-
trol of the government.

>\The Republican party had come into existence in 1854 as a
result of the wave of indignation that swept the North against
the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Jhe essential point was that terri-
tory from which slavery had been excluded by law was now
by law opened to the possibility of slavery, ^tt was widely and
strongly felt that the South was the aggressor. The attitude of
the North was one of defence. This view is nowhere put forward
more strongly than by Abraham Lincoln. In his Springfield
speech of 1856 he set forth on ingenious circumstantial evidence
a charge that this aggression was the result of a plot between
James Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, Roger Taney, and Frank-
lin Pierce. ""When events must have convinced him that this
charge was untrue, he still believed that design or the tendency
of events would make the country "all free or all slave," with
the probability of "all slave" unless action were taken. Moved
alike with him in 1854 were men who never before or after de-
serted the Democratic party. Some feared, others were deter-
mined to resist.

Joyfully there leagued themselves with this militia of resistance
that active cohort which had long been intent on combatting
slavery in its lairs : Liberty party men, Free Soilers, and with
loose tether the uncompromising Abolitionists. It was quite cer-
tain that every Republican was opposed to slavery, but it was
entirely uncertain in most instances whether a particular Re-

2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

publican was ready to act only to preserve the status quo or
would urge attack. Between the Abolitionists and the advocates
of defence were all shades of opinion, but they tended to coalesce
into a radical wing and a conservative wing ; though full crystal-
lization did not take place until after the war began. It is held
by numbers of recent scholars that as 1860 approached the in-
tensity of feeling declined and radicalism withered. The facts
seem to reveal the opposite. To give the negro a vote even in a
Northern state was without question radical. Again and again
during the 'fifties this question was put up for a referendum vote,
first in one state and then in another. The proposal always failed
to carry, but it won increasing support, and the figures afford
evidence that by 1860 two thirds of the Republicans voted for it.
This evidence shows that the radical wing of the party was in the
majority and was gaining strength.

This fact, however, was not likely to determine the Republican
platform of 1860. Political platforms are not written for the
ninety and nine that need no salvation, but to attract the errant
sheep wandering between the two folds ; whence arises the vulgar
comment that there are no essential differences between major
American political parties because both use the same bait. Po-
litical leaders in 1860 were well aware that two thirds of the Re-
publicans could not win the election ; that it was necessary to
hold the third who willed no aggression, and also to win those
as yet afraid to vote Republican lest the Union be endangered.
To hold all but a few extremists and to win all who had the
slightest tinge of anti-slavery coloration was the problem of the
constructive Republican leaders.

A second problem was no less disturbing. In 1856 the Re-
publicans were what we know in America as a "third party" ;
that is, a party with one idea, opposition to slavery. It drew to
itself Whigs and Democrats in not very unequal numbers. An
enlarged program of economic measures must lean to the one
group or the other of these old antagonists ; and yet how long
would men in a rapidly developing country forego the expres-
sion of their views on the multifarious questions that were daily
arising ? In either direction danger loomed : on the one hand

THE ELECTION OF l86o 3

division, on the other stagnation. In this uncertainty the Demo-
crats, particularly the Southern Democrats, presented the Re-
publicans with a golden opening. In 1857 Congress revised the
tariff. Howell Cobb, of Georgia, secretary of the treasury, led
the way, and the South gained for the moment a spectacular
triumph. It marked another step, after that of 1 846, toward free
trade, and it was voted for not only by South Carolina but by
the mercantile interests of Massachusetts. QFor years before and
after this period it was a dynamic factor" in the situation that
Northerners generally feared the wiles of Southern leaders, as
Americansof a later generation have dreaded the guile of British
diplomats.^ After 1857 they should have feared no longer, for
seldom have politicians made as great a political error as did those
Southerners on the eve of an election which they thought might
be as fatal as it proved to be. By reducing the protection on iron
they alienated Pennsylvania, which from the beginnings of
American politics to the present day has shown a strong predilec-
tion toward Democracy or Progressivism but also a fixed de-
termination to secure protection. By lowering the rates on raw
wool they angered that fringe of farmers in the Northwest who
swung between the two parties in the hope of increased profits
on their wool clip — that critical Northwest where the balance
teetered as the crowds hung on the words of the great debaters.
So by their tariff triumph the Southern leaders gave an opportu-
nity to the Republicans. It became the problem of the latter
whether or not to venture to take up the challenge at the risk of
losing supporters who, up to 1854, had been Democrats and who
would regard a protective tariff plank as a victory of their old-
time enemies, the Whigs, with whom they were precariously
fraternizing on the slavery issue.

Still a third problem worried those who hoped for Republican
success. Since 1854 the anti-foreign movement had competed
in both North and South with the other issues, but the greater
schism of slavery was disrupting it, and its Northern and Southern
wings were falHng apart. In the North its many leaders, some
with effective organizations at their command, were open to Re-
publican advances. Great blocks of votes could be secured by the

4 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

mildest of anti-foreign declarations. It was, however, a gift from
the Greeks. Seward in New York had always counted on at
least some Irish support. In the critical Northwest the Germans,
who had from their arrival been Democrats, were anti-slavery
and many were drifting to the Republicans. Such a drift would
be effectually stopped should the Republicans deny the principle
that America was the refuge and promised land of all who sought
it. Franticly the busy and precocious Carl Schurz travelled from
one headquarters to another, bursting with ardor to lead his old
compatriots against slavery, but hopeless of doing so and unwill-
ing to try if tied by the antagonism of his new countrymen. In
general he met with sympathy, but responsible leaders could not
dispel their anxiety in deciding between the two gifts and hoped
to obtain both.

For the most part the Republican leaders to whom these prob-
lems were presented were not casual persons nor infants with six
years' life in politics. The party was an aggregation of long-
coherent groups surrounded by vast numbers of individuals. Most
important of its constituents was the Seward- Weed machine of
New York state. Flexible and with slight paraphernalia this has
proved one of the most enduring political groups in American
politics. Its foundations were laid in the 'thirties by the uncanny
discrimination of Thurlow Weed in selecting in the towns of the
state a list of men who passed about among the inhabitants ideas
received from the chief, and who shrewdly reported to Albany
the trends of public opinion. This machine had remained a po-
tent factor in American politics under the management of Weed
and his descendants. Its cohesion has inherently rested on an
aristocratic conception that "the wisest are the fewest," which
renders their union and keen policy essential. Weed was fortu-
nate in finding in one of the most pleasing friendships in our his-
tory a partner and mouthpiece in William H. Seward, who never
shared that opinion and who glowed with the conviction that
right was bound to win.

It is necessary to list the full procession of these allied influ-
ences. Young Oliver P. Morton carried over to the new party the
junior democracy of Indiana. Of even more importance was the

THE ELECTION OF 1860 5

leadership of Simon Cameron in Pennsylvania. In Missouri was
the only notable body of Republicans in the slave states. About
seventeen thousand of them were grouped mostly in one congres-
sional district in St. Louis county, and were remarkable for their
ability and the complexity of their membership. A small but
significant body of liberals, centering in one of the few Unitarian
churches of the West, was closely allied in social and intellectual
interest with a number of outstanding German Forty-eighter
families. To these was added a powerful unit of what may be
called old Democrats, friends of the late Senator Thomas Hart
Benton, who considered that Polk and Calhoun had in 1844 stolen
the Andrew Jackson Democracy from the people and who now-
accepted the leadership of the wise and subtle Blair family, the
champions and heirs of Jackson, and especially of young Frank,
whom they elected to Congress in 1856 and were to choose again
in the coming election of 1860. As the sole refutation of the
charge that the Republican party was purely sectional, the lib-
erals had great weight in Republican councils. If leaders chose
to listen to St. Louis, they could not fail to hear the left-wing
radicals, who had no qualms and no doubts. They knew where
they were going and where the world was going. Theirs was
the interesting news copy of the day, and they were men and
women of intellect and education who could not be despised.
Individualistic to the core, they possessed, at least when in oppo-
sition, considerable unity. Around the charming dinner table of
Julia Ward Howe in Boston, at the hospitable board of the
Tappans in New York, in the comfortable leisure of long visits
at Gerritt Smith's estate in western New York, in the quiet
friendship of Quaker Philadelphia, on the beautiful Blair planta-
tion at Silver Spring near Washington City, they met and heart-
ened each other. In conventions of many reform associations
they quarrelled and divided among themselves but joined in radi-
cal denunciation of others. About these organized reformers
there had gathered of late great numbers of intellectuals of the
North. In 1856 George William Curtis had delivered at Wes-
leyan College (Middletown, Connecticut) an oration on "The
Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the Times," which

6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

was both a symptom of the entrance into politics of those who
had ignored them and a means of accelerating the movement. If
concessions to the right wing should outrage this left wing with
its driving purpose, the party would lose not only votes but the
spirit and nerve system which gave it enthusiasm and power.

Enthusiasm, hope, and energy marked the convention which
was to decide these questions. With strategic skill it was called
in Chicago, the ambitious young centre of the growing North-
west, which must be won. Chicago rose to die situation by the
construction of a gigantic Wigwam, probably the greatest cov-
ered area in America. When the convention met on May 16
trainloads of delegates and supporters arrived to see the West for
the first time, and tens of thousands of Westerners poured in to
mill around the Wigwam shouting for their local candidates.
In a hubbub before unequalled in America the members sat down
to hammer out a platform.

The result was a good piece of political workmanship. On
the question of foreigners it spoke firmly against a change of nat-
uralization laws ; after all, the Know Nothings could find no com-
fort from the Democrats. This decision simply marked the
death of that party and it gave the Republicans Carl Schurz, their
most effective worker in the coming campaign. The platform
boldly set forth a varied and constructive program, declaring for
a protective tariff and a homestead law, risking the loss, which did
occur, of many confirmed Democrats. It grasped the gift of the
enemy and set forth the claim of the party to be a permanent or-
ganization taking its constructive part in the life of the nation, not
merely a surgeon intent on one dreadful operation. The tariff
declaration of the platform was reinforced by a bill, drawn with
great care, presented to Congress by Justin S. Morrill of Ver-
mont, and passed by the House of Representatives May 10, 1860.
The passage of a homestead bill by the same body on May 1 2 gave
similar evidence of good faith.

On the question of slavery its position was that of the serious
members of the right wing. No attack on slavery where it ex-
isted was envisaged. No mention was made of the fugitive slave
law nor of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,

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THE ELECTION OF i860 7

and the John Brown raid was condemned. On the other hand,
no statement could have been firmer on the question of slavery-
extension. The Dred Scott decision was not mentioned, the
admission of Kansas as a free state was demanded, and a curious
constitutional interpretation was flaunted against Southern lead-
ers and the Supreme Court to the effect that the party denied "the
authority of congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individ-
ual to give legal existence to slavery in any territory." So the
party stood firm in opposition to slavery while it was silent on the
ultimate fate of slavery. This was a blow to the radicals, who
were not to remain silent. Joshua R. Giddings was a veteran re-
former who was also a politician. As an Abolitionist he had been
antedated only by John Quincy Adams, being elected to Con-
gress in 1848 by the Western Reserve district in northeastern
Ohio which had been settled by New Englanders and, with the
region about Rochester, N. Y., constituted a far-flung nucleus of
New England blood and ideas. He now moved the insertion in
the platform of that portion of the Declaration of Independence
beginning "All men are created equal." The managers of the
convention feared the implications that might be put into it by
the other parties. By a stinging speech, however, George Wil-
liam Curtis, aided by Frank Blair, stampeded the convention into
adoption. In all probability the avowal of aim unconnected with
particular threats strengthened the appeal to the public, for an
element of thrill and conviction was needed if the Republicans
were to sweep the North.

If the Republican leaders had been merely political tricksters,
the right-wing platform might well have been offset by a left-
wing candidate. In fact, it seemed that this would be the net re-
sult. The leading candidate for nomination was'Seward of New
York. He came to Chicago with all the forces of a great machine
powerfully displayed. He, however, was far more than a New
Yorker. Since the early 'forties, when as governor of New York
he had opposed the governor of Alabama on the censorship laws
of the latter state, he had been widely appreciated as the most suc-
cessful anti-slavery man in public life. He was a man of educa-
tion and he had the sanguine and emotional nature of his Welsh-

8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Irish ancestry. He longed for the title of reformer even more
than that of statesman, though his geniality and hatred of strife
led him to seek accommodations of the most opposite views. In
stature he was small and even wizened, but on the platform he had
the orator's capacity for drinking strength from his audience.
Like all orators whose power depends upon applause, the moment
led him to extreme statements. His appeal to the "higher law"
and his reference to the "irrepressible conflict" had endeared him
to the radicals. He was the only candidate with a reputation
truly national, and he was probably desired by a majority of the
party. In his strength lay his weakness. He was indeed old in
politics, but during most of those years he had been a Whig say-
ing hard things against the Democrats, many of whose votes were
necessary. His radical statements would scare away lovers of the
Union and the Constitution, shocked even to think of a higher
law. He being the leading aspirant, there was a tendency for the
supporters of the lesser candidates to unite against him.

Much of the organization of the field against Seward was car-
ried on by Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune and
a personal enemy of Seward and Weed. With the support of
the moderate managers who were conducting the strategy of the
convention, the field was soon confident of winning. Only sen-
sation and the milling crowd could have pushed Seward to suc-
cess ; the public about the Wigwam was not for him. If Seward
were rejected there would not be much argument for the other
chief radical, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio. Statuesque, with the
finest head on masculine shoulders since the passing of Webster,
he was an orator who knew what he was to say when he arose.
Clear, calm, confident, he was widely regarded as having the
American brains of his time, as had Hamilton and Webster ; nor
was any other more impressed with this fact than himself. Vain,
he was susceptible to flattery, and his supporters were in general
men of more profession than accomplishment. He remained one
of those whom many continued to regard as ideal presidential
timber, but now he was at least as radical as Seward. He was
connected in more minds with the minority — the Democratic
wing of the Republicans — though he was regarded rather un-

THE ELECTION OF i860 9

favorably as a man to whom party affiliations were unimportant.
If, on the other hand, conservatism was to be the criterion., Ed-
ward Bates of St. Louis would have been ideal, but the presidency-
was rather too large a concession to make to so small a faction,
and Bates was a dry, meticulous person whose name was probably
submitted for trading purposes only.

Abraham Lincoln was the candidate of the Chicago mob voic-
ing its choice about the Wigwam. It might have been remem-
bered against him that he had said : "A house divided against itself
cannot stand." In the West, however, he was known for his
debate with Douglas and for his long consistent fight against the
aggressions of slavery rather than for attacks against it. Speakers
everywhere had studied his arguments against Douglas and knew
the quality of his mind. In the East he had made a deep impres-
sion in his Cooper Institute address of February 1860, which was
a sound historical disquisition on the attitude of the f ramers of the
Constitution upon slavery. He was popular in a critical state, he
was a Whig, but his prominence was as a Republican. Gradually
his lieutenants united the field for him, and on the third ballot
he was chosen. With this Western Whig was joined, as vice-
presidential candidate, Hannibal Hamlin, a former Democrat of
Maine. Thus candidate and platform harmonized, firm against
the extension of slavery, without threats against that institution as
it was established. It appealed to the North to cease from com-
promise, to put away fear of Southern disruption of the Union,
and to use its overwhelming majority to carry out its wishes,
limited only by its own sense of justice.

The Republicans did not enter the campaign without money
or experience. The Seward-Weed machine entered heartily into
the conflict and generously contributed the sinews of war. Manu-
facturers of Pennsylvania opened their pockets. Money was
available for printing and travel and organizing expenses. Still
greater was the contribution of voluntary workers. Carl Schurz
was paid, but the majority of speakers gave their services, and
some paid their own expenses. The amount of work was for-
midable. In many states each individual voter was canvassed.
In Philadelphia this was done by the police, who happened to

IO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

be under Republican control. In New Hampshire the enumera-
tion was so careful that the pre-election estimate came within a
few hundred of the final result. Fun was added to labor by
parades which surpassed anything of the kind yet shown in Amer-
ica. Thousands of men with capes and "Wide Awake" hats,
carrying oil-dripping torches, marched for hours through the
streets of the great cities, impressive as casters of votes and omi-
nous in their martial array.

Most parades rounded up at stands for speech-making. In
Pennsylvania the stress was upon the tariff, and drama was added
by the appearance of the candidate for governor, Andrew Curtin,
formerly a leader of Know Nothings, on the same platform with
Carl Schurz. Elsewhere the stress was upon the necessity of
curbing the South, the assertion of the will of the North, and the
allaying of fear that the South would leave the Union. The
most profound speech of the campaign, if not the most politically
effective, was that of Carl Schurz at St. Louis. He painted the
aggression of the South as inherent in the struggle of a dying in-
stitution to protect itself. He held that slavery could survive
only by political control, but that secession or war in case of po-
litical defeat would only hasten the process of extinction. He
represented the struggle as one between the systems of slave labor
and free labor and the triumph of the latter as a boon to the whole
country, North and South. The protective tariff and the limita-
tion of slavery were but reverse sides of the same program for the
elevation of America and the laborers. In philosophic grasp of
the situation none of his contemporaries had reached so far ; in his
failure to understand the psychology of the Southerners he did
not stand alone. The Republican orators were widely successful
in creating a belief that Southern control of the government for
sixty years had rested upon bluff and that their hand might safely
be called.

The hopes of the Democratic party lay in those who were satis-
fied. Its appeal lay in its continuity as the oldest political party
in the nation. For years national organizations had been falling

THE ELECTION OF 1860 II

apart ; the Methodist and Baptist churches had split ; the Presby-
terians no longer met ; railroad systems were Northern or South-
ern ; the Whig party had ceased to be ; Southern students were
being withdrawn from Northern schools ; the South used the
Hussey reaper, which was made in Baltimore, rather than the Mc-
Cormick, which was manufactured in Chicago. The Demo-
cratic party, the Roman Catholic Church, the Episcopal Church,
the American Medical Association, and the Constitution were
among the few ties that had not snapped. In addition to its claim
of tested age, the Democratic party was pre-eminently the party
of the Union. Its hero in 1860 was still Andrew Jackson, who
had said, "The Federal Union : It must be preserved." This tra-
dition was always on the lips of the orators, but their appeal was
becoming less militant and was more and more directed to the
spirit of sacrifice, which meant that each must surrender some of
his desires in order to preserve the union of all.

The problem of the Democratic leaders in preparing for the
contest of 1860 was to preserve their unity. The party was na-
tional, but it was torn ; no one could tell how seriously. Its
Northern and Southern extremists had been held together since
1 854 by what must be regarded as political trickery, but trickery
so apparent that it could never have succeeded unless people had
wished to be deceived. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which had
outraged the North, was no longer satisfactory to the South.
Governor Wise of Virginia effectively pointed out that to open
Kansas and Nebraska to slavery, subject to the vote of the first
settlers, was to give it to freedom, since slave-holders could not
migrate to a wild prairie frontier where even property without
legs was insecure. The majority of the Southerners felt that if
the North was giving up a law excluding slavery, they were sur-
rendering a constitutional right ; for by one road or another they
had reached Calhoun's position that slavery was permitted by the
Constitution in all the territories subject to the United States gov-
ernment. So strong and prompt had been their reaction to his
bill that Douglas, in order to pass it, had been forced to include
the statement that the rights of the settlers over slavery were
"subject to the Constitution." In the campaign that followed

12 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the act was defended in the West on the ground that it confirmed
the frontier conception that the people, even in territories, had
the right to determine their destinies ; the South contended that
it was a recognition of constitutional control.

Temporary cohesion of such opposites was secured by a play
on words. Douglas' idea of taking the vexed question out of
Congress and turning it over to the settlers was not new. His
contribution was in dropping the term "squatter sovereignty"
and denominating his principle "popular sovereignty." To his
Illinois constituents this seemed merely a change of words. To
the South "popular sovereignty" was an established phrase, of
old usage, having nothing to do with territorial government, but
expressing the idea so well formulated by William Pinkney in
the Missouri debate that states could not have their sovereignty
abridged by limitations placed upon them on entrance into the
Union, that in spite of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, for in-
stance, Illinois or Ohio might adopt slavery. Their orators,
therefore, proclaimed it a confession that the Southern position
was constitutional. The Democratic platform, adopted at Cin-
cinnati in 1856, prolonged the wilful misunderstanding because
there was a will to union.

Events soon jarred this delicate equilibrium. Whether it was
"squatter sovereignty" or "popular sovereignty" that was at work
in Kansas, the result was not harmony but bloodshed. In 1857,
in the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court declared for the
Southern position that the Constitution forbade the exclusion of
slavery from the territories. In the same year arose the question
of admitting Kansas with a constitution embodying slavery,
which was undoubtedly opposed by a majority of its inhabitants.
Douglas took his stand against the proposal and so prevented the
South from realizing even the minimum that might have been ex-
pected from his Kansas-Nebraska Act. In 1858 he was a candi-
date for re-election from Illinois to the Senate and met Lincoln as
his opponent. Lincoln set himself to burst the bubble of illusion
which Douglas had blown. In asking Douglas what was left of
the rights of the people of a territory to determine upon slavery
now that the Supreme Court had declared that prohibition was

THE ELECTION OF i860 13

illegal, Lincoln forced him to the dilemma of deciding between
the two wings of the Democratic party. Should he answer that
the Dred Scott decision fixed slavery upon the territories he
would undoubtedly lose his election ; should he question the Su-
preme Court his position as a national figure was gone. Douglas
accepted the Court's decision but pointed out, in terms that the
generation of the 1920'$, with its experience with the Eighteenth
Amendment, could well understand, that law, even the Constitu-
tion, is powerless against public opinion. It was a statement as
dangerous as Seward's ''higher law," though Seward probably re-
ferred to the "right" and Douglas to the "people." He won his
re-election, but Southern confidence in him was shaken.

Douglas' house of cards was falling, and yet he remained the
best hope of Democratic unity. His position depended upon his
personality and his representative character. He was the most
vital man in the party. - He was as yet only forty-seven. His
short, stocky figure, attractive and well groomed, radiated force.
He was quick in anger and affectionate in friendship, a good
companion. He was both an adaptable orator and a ready de-
bater, with a mind active in expedients. His statement that he
did not care whether slavery was voted up or down was prob-
ably sincere, but was merely a part of the truth. Undoubtedly
the slavery question irritated him. He was equipped to take
the lead in national development. He was interested in expansion
Df railroads, in the growth of the West, in leading the United
States into association with her Latin neighbors. He saw the
greatest nation in the world with progress beckoning her, he felt
:he impulse and the power to direct, and he felt both himself and
:he nation halted and almost estopped by a moral issue in which
ne had little interest. One does not need the specific evidences
that exist to realize that he did not stand alone. Disgust at the
shrieking Abolitionists, at fire-eating pro-slavery advocates, at
Republicans who allowed this side issue to dominate their ac-
tions, was not confined to mere worshippers at the altar of busi-
ness ; it was a compelling motive with many of the staid and
reasoning. Douglas was ready and seemingly as capable as any-
one, by hook or by crook, to push this foolish issue out of the

14 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

way of progress. He was put before the Democratic convention
with most of the organization of Northern Democracy behind
him and over half of the delegates pledged to his support.

Under the rules of the Democratic convention he could not be
nominated by less than a two-thirds vote. In spite of the prestige
that would come from such a nomination it would hardly be
effective in the campaign were there to be a solid block of South-
ern opposition. He had not lost all his friends in the South, and
his recent second marriage with a Southern lady owning a
plantation with slaves in Mississippi was something of a pledge of
conduct, if it was not an intentional gesture. Still, after his flout-
ing of the Dred Scott decision, an agitated South, which for years
had been feeling that it could be safe only under a Southern
president, and where thousands in 1848 had voted for the South-
ern Whig, Taylor, for president at the same time that they cast
their ballots for Democratic congressmen, could scarcely have
been expected to accept Douglas unless bound by an explicit plat-
form pledge. Yet would Douglas have had any better chance of
securing Northern states in 1860 if committed to enforce the
Dred Scott decision than he would have had in Illinois in 1858
without his equivocation ? Democratic unity seemed doomed ;
its only hope seemed to be in mutually contradictory candidate
and platform, but such unity might well be at the expense of
success.

A decision of four years before brought the convention, on
May 9, to Charleston, South Carolina. This was intended to
conciliate the South as the Republican meeting at Chicago was
expected to influence the Northwest. It was, however, a more
dangerous expedient The Democratic party had never had the
social cohesion which had knit the Whigs. From the days of
Jefferson, separation was the best cement to bind Southern Demo-
cratic gentlemen and the city Democrats of New York. From
those days even to the era of Alfred Smith the South has re-
garded her Tammany Hall allies as most British officers re-
garded the Red Indians under their command. Genteel Charles-
ton found the reality worse than it had expected, and at the same
time failed to give the boys from the North the kind of good

THE ELECTION OF i860 15

rime to which they had looked forward. The convention
opened in an atmosphere far from soothing.

In all conventions the committee on resolutions was made up
of one member from each state. This gave the South an ad-
vantage, as it was necessary to secure only two votes from the
North to control. California and Oregon acted with the rep-
resentatives of the slave states, and the committee reported out
the essential resolution in a form expressing the duty of the
federal government to protect slavery in the territories. After
debate, delay, searching of hearts, and prayer, this resolution was
rejected in the convention, where representation was propor-
tional, 165 to 138, and the Douglas plan of a reaffirmation of the
deceptive Cincinnati platform of 1856 was carried out. Ala-
bama, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina,
and Texas therefore withdrew from the convention and the
Democratic party was disrupted.*

For over a month after adjournment, substitutions, projects of
reconciliation, appeals, and angry recriminations kept public men
and the press busy and held the eye of the country. Finally out
of the chaos emerged two Democrats, nominated for the presi-
dency on June 20. Douglas was set forth at Baltimore with
Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia as his mate. John C. Breckin-
ridge of Kentucky, actual vice-president, and Joseph Lane of
Oregon were selected by groups at Baltimore and at Richmond.
Both claimed the name and prestige of the Democratic party ;
neither was a legal candidate according to the rules of the Dem-
ocratic conventions. The Democratic National Committee,
headed by August Belmont, had a slight majority for Douglas,
but practically adjourned, leaving the conduct of the campaign
to the committees of the states.

Breckinridge was far from lacking the insignia of party regu-
larity. He was supported by President Buchanan and the cab-
inet, while the patronage was used to his advantage. The regular
party committees of many states attended to die details of his

* Some historians maintain with considerable reason that the Charleston con-
vention held the key to the election. Had compromise ended in a show of unity
on one candidate a different nomination might have resulted at Chicago and a
different ending could have resulted in November. -Ed.

1 6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

campaign ; many voted for him because he was held to represent
the continuity of the Democratic party. His orators emphasized
their intention of protecting the South. The method and degree
of protection, however, involved change. They set forth the
idea so often presented with exquisite clarity by Calhoun : that
the Union was a partnership of the states, the national government
was an agent to carry out the will of the partners and owing to
each partner the services characteristic of an attorney who, with
no judgment or will of his own, defends his client. The question
of slavery in the territories was the immediate issue, but the claim
involved foreign affairs, also, and Calhoun himself had used his
argument as the convincing reason for the annexation of Texas ;
it made the whole defense of whatever a Southern state might
maintain to be its rights the automatic responsibility of the United
States government. It was not looking very far ahead to see that
the acceptance of this interpretation would achieve what Lincoln
feared — the Union would become all slave.

This platform won sympathy in the South, as the Republican
program did in the North. The problem of Breckinridge's sup-
porters in his home region was the same as that of the Republican
debaters of the North — the convincing of sympathizers that an
agreeable stand might be taken with impunity ; though they
stressed still more that the South could not be safe without ac-
knowledgment of their position. Bound to be beaten in the
national election, the Breckinridge adherents questioned what to
do when it was over, for loyalty to the Union was strong almost
everywhere. The question of secession was glossed over and
evaded, but nevertheless the answer was obvious j:o all. If a
president were to be elected who not only rejected this inter-
pretation of the Constitution but was committed to a policy dis-
tinctly Northern, the South must leave the Union. The leading
speech of the Breckinridge campaign was made in New York,
October 10, by William L. Yancey : "Now, friends, we do not
stand upon compromise. . . We stand upon the constitutional
compact made by our fathers with your fathers. . . With the
election of a Black Republican all the South will be menaced. , .
Then comes the question, what will the South do under these cir-

THE ELECTION OF i860 IJ

cumstances ? Will the South submit ? Some men imagine that
she will. I do not." Dissolution of the Union would be the in-
evitable next step. Yancey, speaking in New York, was not
speaking hopelessly to a hostile audience. He was hoping to
win votes. Yet the Northern Democrats who were listening to
him were by tradition and conviction Union men who believed
the Union to be the supreme political good and secession to be
directly contrary to the Constitution. His purpose in address-
ing them was to carry home to their rninds that if the North per-
sisted in the election of a Republican president, the South would
leave ; and that the only method of preserving the Union was to
bow to the wishes of the South. Unlike Lincoln, Breckinridge
was a national candidate supported in all sections, yet there was a
fundamental weakness in his position. The bulk of his support-
ers, those in the South, were men who took the Union most
lightly and would give up the least for it, while those in the North
took it most seriously and to preserve it would pay the highest
price in secondary wishes and principles. The Breckinridge
party was a combination of extremes.

The Republicans, exponents of Northern desires, were chiefly
occupied in arousing among the Northerners the courage to assert
themselves ; in the South the Breckinridge leaders were the cham-
pions of Southern desires, and their eif ort also was to make the
cautious brave. Both argued rather with reluctant sympathizers
than with each other. Debate was already sectionalized.

It was the task of Douglas to oppose both the radical con-
testants ; Lincoln, in the North, and Breckinridge, in the South.
He had the support of most of the state committees in the Northv
but in the South he was in the position of an intruder. His plat-
form was of little help to him. No one could seriously think
that the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska Act would serve as a
solution of the slavery problem. His reliance was upon the fear
of disunion and upon his offering an ingenious mind untram-
meled on the subject of slavery. His personality was his strong-
est asset, and he was prepared to use it to the limit of his strength.
One obstacle stood in his way. It was a tradition based on the
practice of the fathers and expressed in William Lowndes' fa-

1 8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

mous epigram that the presidency was an office "neither to be
sought nor declined" ; in other words, a presidential candidate
should not canvass. His rivals followed this dignified custom of
not canvassing the American public which was highly sensitive
to the violation of such unwritten laws. Douglas did not venture
to break this one without excuse, which he found in the illness
of his mother in her Vermont home. In reaching her from
Chicago and returning, he contrived to visit and speak at the
strategic points of the North and even to invade the South.

One feels from reading his speeches that Douglas did not gain
much from his tour. It was natural to one of his temperament
to act rather than to wait ; his sincerity was never so apparent,
but he gave one the impression of a spent force. His plea was
still for the democratic right of American people, wherever they
were, to make what local laws they wanted. He believed in
such democracy, and so did perhaps a majority of Americans ;
but as a political program the application of the principle to the
slavery question was in the position of a remedy that had been
tried and had failed. To say it ought not to have failed was
mouthing vain words. Douglas attacked Lincoln and Breckin-
ridge with the same weapon ; both stood for intervention in the
territories and for controlling free people in their desires. Doug-
las insisted that the election of Lincoln was likely to produce
secession ; but his heat was reserved for the supporters of Breck-
inridge ; for he set forth, and probably believed, that they had
split the Democratic party in order to elect Lincoln because they
wanted an excuse for secession. At Raleigh, August 30, he said :
"If Lincoln is elected and does not give the seceders all the post-
offices in the government, I say that he will be the most ungrateful
wretch that ever lived. I never would receive such support from
a body of men without acknowledging it afterwards." Secession
meant war : "You cannot sever this Union without blasting every
hope and prospect that a Western man has on this earth. Thus,
having so deep a stake in the Union, we are determined to main-
tain it." "I can render my country as much service while I am
in the Senate of the United States for the next four years. I can
there make as much reputation for myself as in the presidential

THE ELECTION OF i860 1 9

chair, and if i any attempt be made at disunion, leave a record for
my children of which they will be more proud than they would
be of my election to the Chief Magistracy of this glorious Re-
public." His program was "to banish the slavery question from
the Halls of Congress ; remand it to the people of the territories
and of the states." His appeal was to the essential fraternity of
the American people and their love of liberty and union. His
analysis was that his political failure would result in division and
war. Such an appeal was at a disadvantage in the vivid, con-
fident America of 1860, as compared with that of his chief op-
ponents, each of whom urged in his own section that it was
possible to have all their desires, had they but the courage to assert
themselves. The American people are constitutionally skeptical
of impending disaster.

One might suppose that with a candidate representing each of
the contending sections and principles, and another standing for
compromise based on principle, the issue was framed for presen-
tation to the people. A fourth candidate, however, was already
in the field before Douglas was finally nominated. This candi-
date, like Douglas, stood for peace and if logic ruled politics
their forces should have combined. The complexities, how-
ever, of human motives, associations, prejudices, and points of
view, prevented logic. The members of this fourth group had
for the most part been Whigs. After the break-up of that party '
they had wandered like lost sheep, the larger group becoming
Know Nothings or, as they called themselves, Americans. They
belonged to the better-established classes, to some extent they
represented wealth — cotton and slaves in the South, and manu-
factures and the professions in the North ; to a still greater ex-
tent they represented current respectability and conservatism.
Relatively to the others their leaders were men of reputations
already won and careers that might be considered complete.
They even talked of nominating General Scott, commander-m-
chief of the United States army, at the age of seventy-six. With
more humor than is generally credited him he commented that

20 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

he was afraid he would enjoy the presidency so much that he
would demand a re-election.

These men could not accept the principle of squatter sover-
eignty ; their democracy was theoretical, and they could not
accept Douglas. The fact is that Douglas was not quite a gentle-
man. With his new wife he splurged in Washington, associating
with the flashy nouveaux riches ; he inspired no confidence in the
established members of society when confidence was what was
called for. The new party met in Baltimore, the traditional
convention city, and instead of a wigwam the meeting place was
a Presbyterian church. Only nine states were represented, but
this must not be taken as an indication of the limits of its spread ;
it was actually national. Its roster of delegates shone with asso-
ciates of the giants of the preceding decade, with names illus-
trious in debate and public service, with men mellowed by ex-
perience into disinterested patriotism. Hoping to swell the
scanty ranks that had voted for Fillmore in 1856, they discarded
old names and adopted that of Constitutional Union. For presi-
dent they put forward John Bell, a senator from Tennessee, with
a record of over thirty years of efficient public service, a Whig
who had fought Jackson in his home state. Linked with him was
a vice-presidential candidate more distinguished than himself,
Edward Everett, a Whig in politics, who had served as gov-
ernor of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain, secretary of
state, and senator. He was still better known as president of
Harvard. He was fresh in the public mind as chief supporter
of one of those counter waves of nationalism which had recently
been flooding back against the incoming tide of sectionalism. A
movement started by a lady of South Carolina had embodied it-
self in the Ladies' Mount Vernon Association. To the campaign
for funds the greatest contribution had come from Everett's ora-
tion "Washington and Union," an oration modelled on the classic
•examples of Greece and Rome and delivered a hundred times,
each phrase pointed by the identical raising of the eyebrow and
play of eloquent finger. The drive was successful, and in 1858
Mount Vernon was bought for the nation, the unity of which
Everett now sought to preserve.

THE ELECTION OF 1860 21

Discussion brought out differences among the delegates as to
specific policies, and so the public statement of the Constitutional
Unionists : "Whereas, experience has demonstrated that plat-
forms adopted by the partizan conventions of the country have
had the effect to mislead and deceive the people, and at the same
time to widen the political divisions of the country by the crea-
tion and encouragement of geographical and sectional factions,
therefore," — "Resolved, That it is both the part of patriotism
and of duty to recognize no political principle other than the
Constitution of the country, the union of the states, and the en-
forcement of the laws. . ." The orators of the party attacked
Douglas on the ground of impracticability, claiming that he could
carry but few states in the North against Lincoln and none in
the South. Upon Breckinridge they concentrated the venom
of their gall, echoing Douglas' charge that the reason for his
separate candidacy was to secure the election of Lincoln in order
to render secession inevitable. They offered to the country the
services of tried and able men, who could not, as Douglas might,
be held responsible for the present crisis, but who, at the same
time, hardly symbolized the vigor of the rising generation. Per-
haps recognizing this they appealed to glory. H. W. Hilliard
of Alabama, speaking for Bell in New York, said : "The Union
must be preserved ; glory lies before us ; our duty as a nation is
not yet fulfilled. Mexico, Cuba — those great problems — can
only be solved by us. Europe is just now rising under the in-
spiring teaching of our example."

The outstanding strategic fact of the campaign was that only
one of the four candidates could be elected by the electors of the
people, while that very candidate had no chance should it come
to a second running. Owing to the numerical preponderance of
Northern population, Lincoln might carry sufficient states to
win the presidency, but it was certain that no other candidate
could. Were there no election, then the choice would go to the

22 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

House of Representatives, where each state would have one vote
to be cast as a majority of its delegation decided ; but these votes
would have to be cast for one of the three who stood highest with
the electors. The representatives who would exercise the power
of voting were those of the previous Congress, elected in 1858
and 1859. In the House the Republicans controlled fifteen of
the thirty-three states. Since none would join them, Lincoln
would have no chance of being elected by however inspiring
plurality his name might be presented. The same situation prac-
tically ruled Douglas out of the contest. Even a considerable
success could bring him but a few Northern electors and a mere
handful from the South ; it seemed to be certain that he would
be eliminated by coming in fourth. The contest then would lie
between Breckinridge and Bell, with Breckinridge supported by
the administration Democrats, the second most powerful fac-
tion, and Bell by the Americans. Neither could win, however,
except by alliances and the fact that Douglas' little flock of anti-
Lecompton Democrats would probably prefer the old Whig Bell
to Douglas' political assassin. Breckinridge would give the Bell-
Everett group an advantage in the bargaining. The election of
Lincoln was perhaps more probable than his defeat, but the issue
was not beyond the influence of accident or skill. Should he
fail, betting would favor Bell with slight odds over Breckinridge.
Douglas had been put hors-de-combat at Charleston but, with
open eyes, he remained the most active figure in the campaign
as the best bell-wether to lead from Republicanism the errant
sheep of the North.

This opened the South to a free campaign between Bell and
Breckinridge, and the success of either would further his ad-
vantage in the House referendum. Clever moderates such as
Alexander Stephens of Georgia and his brother Linton favored
the intrusion of Douglas, as his Democracy might win from
Breckinridge confirmed party men whose keen scent would de-
tect the whiggish Bell under the cover of his Constitutional
Unionism. They were concerned less with the House vote,
which would follow Lincoln's defeat, than with the Southern

THE ELECTION OF 1860 23

post-election contest, which they feared in case of Lincoln's vic-
tory. They wished to pile up votes against Breckinridge.

In the North it was Lincoln against the field. The advantage,
which this division in the face of an enemy whose forces might be
calculated as roughly equal to theirs combined, was too evident
to be ignored. Many efforts were made to secure the with-
drawal of the three candidates and the substitution of one satis-
factory to all factions. Breckinridge and Bell are said to have
consented, should they be satisfied with the man proposed, but
such a phenomenon could have secured a larger salary from Bar-
num than as president of the United States. Had the impossible
occurred, it might have reduced Lincoln's chance of winning by
pluralities, but it would have undoubtedly reduced the total vote
against him, for doubtful adherents from every camp would have
crossed the lines to Lincoln or stayed at home. Actually, while
amalgamation failed, fusion took place in the most doubtful states,
and there was even more co-operation in management. New
York vindicated her reputation for skill in the art of politics and
set forth an electoral ticket of thirty-five, of whom eighteen
were known to be for Douglas, ten for Bell, and seven for Breck-
inridge. Similar arrangements, generally less formal, were made
in other states, and the five-hundred-thousand-dollar campaign
fund raised by John Jacob Astor was not so much to elect Bell
as to defeat Lincoln. The failure of fusion in New Jersey gave
Lincoln four electoral votes.

The political artillery of orations and parades ; of faithful can-
vassers and bullying ward bosses ; of prayer and singing and bet-
ting and pledges of post offices ; of commands by factory own-
ers ; of cash payments, without which many a fanner from New
Hampshire and Rhode Island to Ohio and Indiana would not
deign to vote ; of appeals to Irish and to Germans, to lovers of
the Constitution, the tariff, the Union, moral principle, common
sense, national glory, to haters of foreigners, Southerners, ne-
groes, Democrats, Whigs, Abolitionists, to the extremists who
wished to go farther than the candidates, to those wavering in
doubt, to the indifferent who might not come to the polls — all

24 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

this was not fired haphazard but to some degree co-ordinated,
particularly by state committees, though with consultation with
the national committees, especially with the Republicans. On
May 22, 1 860, Carl Schurz wrote to Lincoln :

I was elected a member of the National Central Committee and,
as a matter of course, the "foreign department," if it may so be
called, fell to my special charge. The plan I wish .to carry out is as
follows : I intend to get up a complete list of all the Germans, Nor-
wegians, Hollanders etc. who can serve our cause in the way of
public speaking and to make regular contacts with them. I would
then send them in little squads into those states in which the prin-
cipal work is to be done, have them stump township after township
in regular succession as the exigencies of the case demand, and as
soon as they get through with the work in that particular state, have
them relieved by another party and sent off into another State. . .
In order to carry out this system of canvassing the doubtful States
efficiently, it will be necessary for me to take a survey of the whole

§ round first, to make my arrangements in detail with- the different
tate central committees, to organize local committees and clubs
where there are none, and to establish a complete system of corre-
spondence. In 1856 piles of money and much work were spent for
no purpose, because it was done at random and without plan and
direction. . . By a canvass of this systematic kind I have no doubt
we can at least double the foreign Republican vote in the Northern
States and may secure Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New York beyond
peradventure.

Additional to this organized urgency was the press. From the
point of view of independent influence the American press of
1860 was probably more representative of American opinion and
more powerful in welding it than at any other period. In the
Jackson campaign of 1828 the press played a significant part, but
it was in large measure subservient to the politicians ; few news-
papers paid and most editors looked to aid from contracts for the
public printing or to securing offices. The press today is a
much better purveyor of news than ever before, but its very tech-
nical excellence is costly, and the political expression of most pa-
pers is controlled by large corporations which the reader cannot
visualize. In 1860 the editors nearly all owned their papers, and

THE ELECTION OF 1860 25

their incomes compared well with those of the representative
men of their communities. Twenty-five thousand dollars, or
less, would start a new paper, and every angle of opinion had its
organ. Most editors were partisan, but were independent of
party organizations. Horace Greeley craved political recog-
nition as a leader, not as a lieutenant. Editors were famous ;
their faces were as well known as those of politicians, and many
were quoted as frequently as individuals as by the name of their
paper.

The Boston Advenizer commanded expert assistance from the
Harvard faculty. The Springfield Republican was a sound ex-
ponent of interior New England. The New York press had
nosed the Washington press from its metropolitan position.
Greeley's Tribune was carried by the post westward to the
frontier ; its rival, the Herald, which, under James Gordon Ben-
nett, was its superior in all but editorial verve, followed and an-
swered it ; William Cullen Bryant and Henry J. Raymond were
catering more locally for the self-conscious intellectual and the
conservative. The Ledger in Philadelphia, the Enquirer in
Cincinnati, the Tribune in Chicago, were all held to the mark by
local competition. The German-language press was at a very
high level, and the Westliche Post of St. Louis ranked with any
paper in the country. In the South the Richmond Examiner,
the Charleston Mercury, and the New Orleans Bee radiated their
views over a wide area.

None of these papers was national. To command a national
hearing a periodical was reduced to having nothing to say, that
is, nothing to say on such issues as clashed in 1860. Families
North and South subscribed to Harper's and Lippincotfs, with
their carefully emasculated fiction, but the barest handful in
either section read the popular debate of the other, though edi-
torial names such as Greeley and Rhett were known and were
anathema outside the spheres of their influence. Even the pow-
erful religious press was divided in its opinions, and as the opinion
of each periodical, so were its readers. The Washington press
had ceased to lead, having lost its financial basis and its reputation
as a result of the decision of the government to do its own print-

26 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ing. Still, in 1860 Joseph Gales and William W. Seaton were
editing the stately, venerable, and slightly senile National Intelli-
gencer, which clipped widely from the press of all sections, giv-
ing somewhat the same service previously offered by Niles* Reg-
ister and now by the Literary Digest, but emphasizing calm and
unity rather than danger.

• Many observers commented that the campaign of 1 860 was less
exciting than that of 1856. Possibly there was, and the circum-
stances would justify it, a greater degree of seriousness. It was
still more important that effort be better concentrated. In 1856
the weight of the Republican wave was to be determined ; most
states in the North were doubtful. In 1860 the new political
map was understood. In great areas the Republican movement,
for instance, could be left to its inherent surge. The heat was
directed to those points where the issue was held in suspense bal-
anced by conflict. It is doubtful if the American people, unless
possibly in 1 896, ever participated in a campaign more enlighten-
ing than that of 1 860 in the regions of doubt. It was a campaign
built on six years of constant debate, preceded by another six
during which points of view had been sharpened. If ever the
people were prepared to speak it was in November 1860.

The result most important and most remarked was that Lin-
coln was elected president, 180 electoral votes to 123. He car-
ried every free-state elector except three from New Jersey. Ex-
cept for California, Oregon, and New Jersey he won his states by
majorities, not pluralities — 1,780,022 to 1,575,131, with 180 elec-
toral votes to 3. The North had taken advantage of its nu-
mercial preponderance and had spoken.

A second result of equal, if not of greater, significance was
evident. The Lower South had endorsed Breckinridge and no
compromise as emphatically as the North had put forth its cham-
pion. In Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas, there were as few patches of opposition to Breckinridge
as to Lincoln in his area. South Carolina would not make her
choice until her legislature met, but her preference for Breckin-
ridge was well known. Without counting South Carolina,
Breckinridge's vote there was 220,460 to 173,314 for his op-

THE ELECTION OF i860 2J

portents. The extremists had each carried his own section. To-
gether they won 252 electoral votes to 51.

A third condition plainly apparent was that these two sections,
which were determined and convinced, were separated by a mid-
dle area. This region was not bounded by state lines. Indeed,
if the results be examined by pluralities in counties instead of by
states, it becomes evident that the free states were not standing
in opposition to the slave states. This middle section included
the valleys of the Ohio and the Missouri, edging upward to the
northwestern border of Iowa. Doubt, however, extended much
farther into the South. Two tiers of slave states, Missouri, Ken-
tucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, Arkansas, Tennessee,
and North Carolina, were rent into a patchwork of preponder-
ances. In these states Lincoln carried but two counties, both in
Missouri. The contest had been between Breckinridge on the
one hand and Bell and Douglas on the other. The compromisers
carried 506,102 voters to 377,002, and 48 electoral votes — 9 for
Douglas and 39 for Bell — to 25 for Breckinridge. In the dis-
tribution of these votes there was no evidence of a North-South
influence, though geography, geology, racial and economic status,
and political traditions were clearly apparent. Sectionalism was
threefold ; but of the three, the two which were isolated and
radical knew their minds and the middle was in doubt, unready
for action.

Of less general significance was the fact that the metropolitan
area about New York and Philadelphia was against Lincoln.
How this vote was divided among his opponents it is impossible
to say because of the fusion. Certainly the figures which gen-
erally attribute all such votes to Douglas are radically wrong, and
Breckinridge may be safely assigned at least 250,000 in the North,
while Bell must be credited with a much larger support than the
total 646, 1 24 usually assigned him. On the other hand, the other
strategic free area which rejected Lincoln, the southern half of
Illinois, was voting solely with Douglas in their minds.

Some historians have emphasized the fact that Lincoln received
but 1,857,610 to 2,787,800 for the field. In a unified democracy
this would have been of significance. But the United States,

28 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

even disregarding sectionalism, has never been a unified democ-
racy. Area has counted as well as people, and location gives
weight recognized by the Constitution. So far as totalizations
have meaning, it is more important to note that the radical candi-
dates received 2,749,233 votes and the Unionists 1,856,836. It
is well also to remember that the American system of government
was a system balanced in three branches. Only the executive
was elected in November 1860. The Supreme Court was not
open to choice. Nor was Congress actually in question ; its
elections would not be complete until the following September.
One knew that the Republican organization could not hope to
control Congress, but no one knew how much support they
could collect from other parties, from Bell men who had been
Whigs, or from Democrats who must look to Northern constit-
uents in voting on measures of domestic economy. The new
fact in the world was that on March 4 a Republican would be-
come president of the United States — were a United States still
in existence. The administration which for sixty years, since the
election of Jefferson, had been controlled by the South, would
be controlled by the North.

CHAPTER II

SECESSION

THE American people as constitutionally organized had, in No-
vember 1860, instructed their electors to name Abraham Lincoln
in February to take his oath as president on March 4, 1 86 1 . Un-
til then he would have no authority, and the actual administra-
tion of James Buchanan stood upon a rejected mandate powerless.
This hiatus in government had been arranged on no principle
but purely because of the transportation inadequacies of 1789.
By 1 860 it was already an anachronism, but it was retained until
the adoption of the Twentieth Amendment. Three times it en-
dangered the republic, and in no instance did men by means of
political accommodation seek to remedy the defects of the Con-
stitution. For four months the national government was stalled.

In the November elections three sections had spoken, two very
distinctly ; but no immediate action could be looked to from
them, for they possessed no political organization. Powerful as
sectionalism has been in our history it has no organic official life.
Business, transportation, and religion have recognized it, but not
government. Many people believe in the advantages of such a
provincial system intermediate between state and nation, but even
yet the dangers of subdivisions so large in area, so coherent in in-
terests and organism, give cause for hesitation. Had such or-
ganizations existed from the beginning it is quite possible that the
Union would not have reached 1860 without a break. In 1860,
had the South been a corporate body, action would probably
have been delayed by the hesitant states of the North. As the
situation actually stood, it was these states only that were pre-
pared to react immediately and precisely to the decisions of the
electorate.

It was not a "fire bell in the night," as Jefferson said of the
Missouri crisis, that they had to confront, but rather the first con-

30 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tact of Poe's descending pendulum with the skin. Thought and
conference had preceded the event, not conspiracy, as John Hay
and John Nicolay, Lincoln's faithful secretaries, still thought
when they brought out his biography in 1 890, but the forethought
of hospital and surgeon that take shape in the family mind before
the x-ray makes necessary the fatal word, cancer. Southern
governors had corresponded, Southern representatives at Wash-
ington had conferred, men's opinions and the movements of their
minds were known long before the ballots were cast on Novem-
ber 4. It was not a new event but a subconscious reaction to the
election itself that turned all eyes to Charleston and South Caro-
lina-
South Carolina was geographically, economically, socially, and
politically the most unified state in the Union. This unity was
due both to nature and to effort. She had not merely grown but
had been founded with an idea. This idea was clumsily ex-
pressed in the first charter, that erratic expression of the talent
rather than the genius of John Locke ; but the failure of his
charter as an instrument of government did not frustrate the in-
tention of his principles, which was to appeal to a certain class,
a class always large in England, bred to the gentle life and without
the means of maintaining it at home. Scions of country families,
officials wary of retirement, the educated without posts, found
here for a time their Mecca. They were joined by a numerous
group of French Huguenot refugees of similar tastes, and by
planters from the Barbadoes who sought a better climate.

Wealth came soon as Charleston gathered the quick returns of
the fur trade, drawing in deer hides from the West to the Missis-
sippi and clothing English bodies and legs while New York was
covering heads with beaver hats. These profits financed the cul-
tivation of rice and indigo which spread up and down the lush
lands of the coast hemmed in between the ocean and the Pine
Barrens. By the time of the Revolution these plantations were
among the best examples of industrialized agriculture in the
world. Middletons, Pinckneys, Ravenels, developed them into
estates whose gardens still enthrall the spectator at the proper sea-
son, but for "the season" their owners sought the coolness of

SECESSION 3 1

Charleston and the columned and many-galleried houses on the
water front. Boys were educated at Eton and the Temple, girls
made their debuts at the balls of the Saint Cecilia Society ; dying
men bequeathed fortunes of a million dollars, and dedicated their
sons to the public service.

In the meantime a hundred and fifty miles to the westward the
long valleys of the Appalachians were leading down from Penn-
sylvania and Virginia a new element, a mixed stock intellectually
dominated by the Scotch-Irish. John Mair, visiting Charleston
in 1791, wrote in his journal : "I am told the country beyond the
Hills is a fine Climate and soil It is inhabited by Refugees from
Virginia, whose manners are more savage than the Indians, but
that they are a strong hardy race, and I make no doubt in time
will become respectable to their neighbors." Already they in-
cluded the boys, Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun. Jack-
son went west, but it was as typical that the Calhouns spilled out
of the valleys eastward into the Piedmont. Soon such hardy
invaders outnumbered the white aristocracy of the coast, and the
state was rent by their strife. The burning question was that of
representation ; the coast controlled by prescribed electoral dis-
tricts and by counting slaves for representation ; the up country
would control should equality of white representation be estab-
lished. Material policies must wait upon this preliminary con-
test, which became a training school for the statesmen of South
Carolina's great period. They solved it in 1 808 by a compromise
which assured the coast region of the Senate and the up country
of the House of Representatives. They solved it and peace was
the result. The universality of the principle involved, that of a
mutual veto by discordant elements, became a conviction in their
minds, and Calhoun glorified and beautified it in his supreme
thesis, his Disquisition on Government.

However sound the theory, it was not the sole cause for the
harmony which followed its adoption. For some time many of
the coast planters had been substituting for their indigo the beau-
tiful long staple sea-island cotton. Now Eli Whitney's cotton
gin made profitable the short staple variety which could be grown
abundantly on the broad Piedmont that stretched from the Pine

32 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Barrens to the Hills. The mountaineers who had descended into
this region had not been living their simple life of adventure
and hardship because they loved it. They had memories and
hopes of better things, and cotton offered them their oppor-
tunity. The story of many of their families is illustrated by that
of the Calhouns, who but barely afforded John a secondary school
education ; but when it was achieved could send him to Yale, then
keep him North for two additional years of professional study
and when he returned offer him a plantation for sustenance and
the possibility of public life. The rival factions of the state were
blended by plantation, by cotton, and by slavery.

This condition had scarcely come into existence when there
was applied to it the welding power of a common grievance :
the fall, rapid and permanent, of the price of cotton. On this
subject, and on that of the mutual veto, South Carolina opinion
was formed by the acceptance of one undoubted fact and the
exclusion of another of equal weight. Leaders, particularly
George McDuiEe and John C. Calhoun, proved without the pos-
sibility of refutation that for an economy such as theirs a pro-
tective tariff was detrimental, and they accepted with joy the
idea of Calhoun that free trade and the international specialization
that it represented were superior to the old idea of national self-
sufficiency. The unquestionable fact that the protective tariff
injured them caused them to overlook the equally unquestion-
able fact that the chief reason for the decline of cotton prices was
the rapid westward extension of cotton planting. With a com-
mon grievance and a common remedy the two parts of the state
became as one.

In 1860 South Carolina constituted the outstanding example
in America of a slave-holding aristocracy. Eight of her citizens
owned five hundred or more slaves each, while only seven iri all
other states possessed so many. Seventy-two owned between
three and five hundred, while in Louisiana, the next in rank, were
only twenty such holdings. The number of slaves was 4Q,z.,4o6,
of free negroes 9914, of whites 291,300. The gulf between the
races was here the deepest, the proportion of mulattoes was no-
where else so small. No state was more native. Except for

SECESSION 3 3

Vermont, South Carolina had sent out a greater proportion of
her population than any other, but she was the home of only
9986 foreigners and of 14,366 migrants from other states. The
aristocracy was a real one, with a function, and was quite success-
ful. Until about 1830 the pushful poor could enter it, while
after that the strongly dissatisfied had migrated. The electorate
had stood for thirty years at about forty thousand, elections were
fewer than elsewhere, and here only were presidential electors
still chosen by the legislature. The ruling aristocracy consisted
of about ten thousand persons, nearly all of whom a liberal in-
terpretation of cousinship made "connections" ; but they ruled
by consent, the less fortunate consoled by the loving thought
that in the presence of slaves every white man was an aristocrat.
Among the upper ten thousand wealth was of no social sig-
nificance, nor was it common ; the ordinary plantation but barely
supported the recognized standard of good living. The richest
man was Wade Hampton who, with fifteen hundred slaves, drew
most of his reputed income of three hundred thousand from his
plantations in Mississippi. Old Mr. Chesnut had half a million
dollars in investments to help out his crops, and it required three
plantations to make his son Johnny a gilded youth.

This aristocracy was differentiated from those of other states
and still further crystallized within itself by two factors. Mrs.
Chesnut, witty and wise diarist of the coast society, wrote in
1862 : "This race has brains enough, but they are not active-
minded like those old Revolutionary characters, the Middletons,
Lowndeses, Rutledges, Marions, Sumters. They have come di-
rect from active-minded forefathers, or they would not have
been here ; but, with two or three generations of Gentleman
planters, how changed has the blood become ! Of late, all acrive-
rniricled men who have sprung to the front in our government
wete immediate descendants of Scotch or Scotch-Irish — Cal-
hbun, McDuffie, Cheves, and Petigru, who Huguenotted his
name, but could not tie up his Irish." This leadership gave to its
community a moral correctness quite different from the moral
'and intellectual force of Virginia with her philosophers such as
Jefferson and Madison and the high practicality of Washington

34 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

and Marshall. When slavery was put upon the defensive, South
Carolina set herself to improve the condition of her slaves,
working a minor revolution between 1850 and 1860. Calhoun
brought to politics the qualities which John Knox had devoted to
religion. When he laid down his theses his fellow citizens ex-
erted themselves, not in the constant re-examination of the prem-
ises, but in the logical exegesis of accepted dogmas.

All the throbbing currents of South Carolina pulsed through
Charleston drawn by its fan-like system of rivers, canals, and
railroads, its command of capital and trade, and the charm of its
social life. From Charleston, boys of old families now went
forth together to Northern colleges and schools. Europe, for-
eign travel, and cousins from Philadelphia and New York pro-
vided association with the rest of the world, but the life of the
city remained uncontaminated. Literature was less dwelt upon,
but culture was more embracing than in Boston. Fashions
flowed in from across the ocean, but were accepted only as they
responded to the touchstone of local good taste. Men were ex-
pected to be gracious, even to each other ; and ladies, without
being blue-stockings, were expected to converse on many sub-
jects. Charleston possessed a society which did not quarrel with
gaiety and a gaiety which drew a line against the fast. For a
hundred and fifty years she had been the delight of visitors of
refinement and the joy of her people. Her charm has found
more recognition in her post-war desolation, but in 1860 it was
charm combined with power. Her outlook on the world in
1860 was not that of old ladies from their curtained windows but
of young gentlemen conscious of force and action.

It was no deadening agreement, killing the joys of conversa-
tion, that united South Carolina. The Hamptons disliked slav-
ery, while Mr. Petigru, practically alone in his acceptance of
Marshall's views as to the sovereign character of the United
States Constitution, was welcomed at dinner for his witty tongue
and found ample employment for his legal talents. Politics were
keen. While the state had for forty years been calculating the
value of the Union there was wide divergence as to how its
advantages might be preserved without its evils. By the middle

SECESSION 35

of the 'forties hope in political alleviation was well nigh dead.
Nullification had proved a failure, and the Constitution by itself
was not trusted. In the South, chief reliance was placed on that
balance of slave states and free states, which seemed an adaptation
of South Carolina's own device of mutual veto. When the ad-
mission of California broke that balance the majority in the state
despaired of safety and wished to leave the Union, but only a
minority was ready to do so without support of other states.
Her conservatism placed little reliance on the hope of new slave
states won by expansion, and between 1850 and 1860 the move-
ment for separation grew. The victory of Breckinridge in the
"Cotton South" merged those who wished to leave the Union
only with neighbor states and those who would act alone. South
Carolina might now depart with reasonable confidence of sup-
port. Debate was over and action called.

In September 1860, there had been formed at Charleston the
"1860 Association," which engaged in correspondence, collected
information, and distributed 166,000 pamphlets preparatory to
the crisis. Early in October Governor Gist sent a private agent,
General S. R. Gist, to inform the governors of nearby states that
in the event of Lincoln's election South Carolina would probably
secede even if alone, and asked what action might be expected
from their states. By November 9 answers had been received
from all the "Cotton South." None was ready to act alone, de-
siring consultation in a convention of sympathetic states ; but
perhaps most significant was the reply from Georgia : "The ac-
tion of other states may greatly influence the action of the peo-
ple of this state/' Meanwhile, on October 12, Governor Gist
called the legislature to a special session to choose presidential
electors and to consult for the safety of the state. When it met
this legislature chose electors and called a convention "to take
care that the Commonwealth of South Carolina shall suffer no
detriment/' Similar calk in 1832 and 1851 had been followed
by sharp contests, but in 1860 there was no dispute. Calmly
and with common purpose the people chose in their districts the
most venerated leaders, not doubling what was to be done but
wishing it done in decency and order.

36 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

On December 17 the convention met in Columbia, but because
of conditions dangerous to good health adjourned immediately
to Charleston. Unanimously on December 20 it passed an Or-
dinance of Secession and on the twenty-fourth adopted a Declara-
tion of Causes. The latter set forth the formation compact
theory of the Constitution ; it asserted that the Northern states
had violated this compact by their personal liberty laws, throw-
ing obstructions in the way of the return of fugitive slaves, and
that the anti-slavery agitation, long a peril to Southern institu-
tions, had become intolerable now that the former was in the
hands of a Northern president, elected by the North alone, who
was pledged to create a Northern Supreme Court and who had
said that the Union could not long endure half free and half
slave. On the same day an "Address" drawn by R. B. Rhett
was adopted which was intended particularly for the people of
the other slaveholding states. This listed the grievances which
the South had suffered at the hands of the North. Among these
was the tariff, and Mr. Rhodes in his classic study finds an incon-
sistency in the fact that South Carolina had voted in 1857 f°r ^
existing one : this may have been a formal illogicality, but of
course the imminence of a change of policy on the subject was
indeed one of the major reasons for South Carolina's action.

Desiring separation, the convention also desired peace. The
tariff was left for the moment unchanged, to be collected by the
same officials ; and the revenue was to be held for account, thus
obviating an immediate break and the application of the Force
Act of 1833, which South Carolina had repudiated, but which
was still on the statute books of the United States. Three com-
missioners, R. W. Brownell, J. H. Adams, and J. L. Carr, were
appointed by the convention to go to Washington to arrange for
the transfer of all forts and other real estate of the national gov-
ernment to the state, the division of all other property and debts
accumulated and contracted by the "Government of the United
States as agent" of the states with which South Carolina had re-
cently been a partner, and to negotiate on all other measures nec-
essary for the continuance of peace and amity. Commissioners
were appointed also to Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas,

Barnwell Rhett, Secessionist
From The Illustrated Times, London, May 25, 1861

SECESSION 37

Georgia, and Texas. Informal conventions were held with the
Charleston consuls of Great Britain and France, but in the ex-
pectation of a new union with congenial states no formal step was
taken regarding trans- Atlantic relations. That there were hopes
for an extension of the new union beyond the states directly ad-
dressed is indicated by the passage of an ordinance providing for
the registration of vessels of "any of the slave-holding common-
wealths of North America," but of no others.

Thus South Carolina had made her great decision with dig-
nity and precision. It was greeted with shouts and church bells
and cannon, with revelling in the saloons, popping of champagne
corks in private mansions, prayers and sermons in the churches, in
general with deep earnestness and with pleasure. As the Hamp-
ton boys said, one did not want to be understrappers for ever to
the Yankees, those busy, self-righteous Yankees with their un-
gentlemanly concern for other people's business. South Caro-
linians had hated participating with them for thirty years in
Congress and might now look forward to a new congress of
men of congenial minds. It would not only be cheaper to trade
with Great Britain and France than with Pennsylvania and New
England, but the associations which trade brought would be more
mellow and agreeable. Meanwhile, as the new year opened,
posts shuttled back and forth as before, trains crossed the bor-
der unquestioned, and goods and travellers and creditors went
and came.

Yet the possibility of war was in the air. Barnwell Rhett
thundered hate in the old Mercury. Young men preened them-
selves in uniforms, some of them gay at the idea of playing a new
game, some like Johnny Chesnut : "No use to give a reason —
a fellow could not stay away from the fight — not well." Out
across the bay was the United States flag flying from historic
Fort Moultrie, its garrison a rat in a trap ; but on the morning
of December 27 the flag revealed that the garrison had shifted
and was now ensconced in the modern armor of the new Fort
Sumter. It faced the Palmetto flags of the new nation rippling
over bristling batteries manned by five or six thousand of the
flower of South Carolina, gorgeously caparisoned cavalry and

38 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

artillery companies of young aristocrats, and regiments with
gentlemen officers, each with his body servant and surrounded
by loyal poorer neighbors in the ranks. Behind the show of war
was the solemn confidence expressed by the venerable Mrs.
Charles Lowndes : "God help us. As our day, so shall our
strength be."

Across the savannah lay Georgia. Beginning with well-
shaded Augusta with her cotton mills and agreeable young North-
ern cotton factors, the broad and fertile Piedmont stretched west-
ward, with a hill region to the north much larger than that of
South Carolina, with pine barrens to the south, and a coast plain
of less importance. Georgia was a land of politics. Superfluous
counties, which had been created by the desire for office-holding,
still milked her resources. In most counties were courthouses,
stately, expensive, and inflammable. Her population was more
emotional and less metaphysical than that of her eastern neigh-
bor. In religion the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches were
less strong than the Methodist and Baptist and that modified
American form of Scottish theology known as Cumberland Pres-
byterian or Christian.

Georgia knew how to enjoy politics. Whole oxen and sheep
were barbecued in some pleasure grove ; ladies flocked there in
their silks and muslins and country girls in calicoes, all pow-
dered in a way to shock the sensibilities of New England matrons,
but as innocent as they of rouge. In these surroundings orators
swayed the throngs with rolling periods. No county was with-
out its corps of orators, golden-voiced, silver-tongued, each
"probably the most eloquent in the South." In the art of speak-
ing there were at least half a dozen who could compete with
those of any state. In the South, Georgia was the state of de-
bate, as Illinois was in the North, It was in Georgia, particu-
larly, that it would be decided whether South Carolina would be
left alone in her schism. From November to the middle of Jan-
uary discussion seethed in courthouse and home, in train and bar,
on leisurely river steamers, at the parliaments of crossway stores,

SECESSION 39

and at prepared forums of prize protagonists ; no state of this
period was so immersed in the war of arguments.

Unlike South Carolina, Georgia was sectionalized geographi-
cally and socially, with an extensive hill country where slavery
petered out as one went north. In no other Southern state, how-
ever, had such difference been so minimized by good treatment.
The cotton-planting majority had built through their region,
from Atlanta to Chattanooga, the Georgia state-line railway —
perhaps the most successful public work undertaken by any state
after the Erie Canal. The governor since 1857 was Joseph E.
Brown, a mountaineer, the favorite leader of his fellows in spite
of his education in South Carolina and Yale. There were shad-
ings of opinion, but not hostility as one went northward.

Wherever he spoke there were two assumptions that a Georgia
orator must make. The first was that the states had the right to
secede. In 1832 Georgia had checked South Carolina's nullifica-
tion program, and she never adopted the subtleties of Calhoun's
logic ; but she had asserted her sovereign rights before South
Carolina had done so. In 1793 she prepared to resist the execu-
tion of judgments by the United States in the case of Chisholm
vs. Georgia ; she prepared to resist John Quincy Adams in his
attempt to protect the rights of Indians as he saw them. In both
cases it had been the national government that avoided the issue.
In 1860 there was no Unconditional Union man in public life
in Georgia. During the discussion, states which had already
seceded were referred to as independent republics. All agreed
that secession was legal, but its expediency was always questioned.
The second assumption was that Southern rights must be de-
fended* Just what those rights were was not, and could not be,
defined. They were realized only when attacked, but then the
reaction gave immediate conviction. An extreme instance was
the argument of T. R. Cobb that the electoral votes of the North-
ern states having personal liberty laws should not be counted, as
they had violated their constitutional duties. A list of the rights
chiefly in mind in 1 860 may be deduced from amendments to the
Constitution of the United States proposed in the Georgia con-
vention by Herschel V. Johnson. Two provided for equality

40 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

of slave property in the territories, with other property, contra-
dicting usquatter sovereignty" ; one for the admission of new
states "as the people thereof may determine it at the time of ad-
mission" — an assertion of "popular sovereignty" ; three for the
efficient administration of the constitutional provision for the re-
turn of fugitive slaves ; one for the protection of inter-state slave
trade ; two for the protection of property in slaves accompany-
ing persons "travelling or temporarily sojourning" anywhere in
the Union ; and one to the effect that "The Supreme Court [in
the Dred Scott case] having decided that negroes are not citizens
of the United States, no person of African descent shall be per-
mitted to vote for Federal Officers nor to hold office or appoint-
ment under the government of the United States." No man who
was not prepared to defend such rights could hope for public
recognition in Georgia. When one remembers that Herschel
V. Johnson had just been Douglas' running mate and could not
be considered a secessionist, one may assume that Lincoln's elec-
tion called for some change either by direct action by the one
side or reassurance from the other.

Thus the substance of Georgia politics was not disagreement
on principle, but difference as to policy. This indeed is the clue
that gave order to the kaleidoscope of shifting alignments and
personal formations which, in the years from 1850 to 1860, baffle
one who attacks the problem from the point of view of geo-
graphic and social statistics. There were trends of interest but,
for the most part, it was the secondary motives of affection and
personal rivalry and the gleams of opportunist expedients that
made the Georgia elections for ten years as close and unpredict-
able as any in the country and which abetted the zest of orators.
After the election of Lincoln the question of policy was whether
Southern rights could best be obtained by immediate secession,
or by first conferring with the other Southern states in the hope
that some means of remaining safely in the Union might be found.
On the recommendation of the governor and by the advice of the
chief protagonists their point was submitted to a convention in
which the people might express their views through their dele-
gates.

SECESSION 41

No more picturesque duel could have been arranged than that
which then shaped itself. The two rival leaders were Robert
Toombs and Alexander Stephens. Toombs, who led for direct
action, was big, lazy, perverse, and not too well informed, but
when he spoke he glowed with the certainty and magnetism of
perfect faith. Stephens, slight and frail, and considered the most
intellectual of contemporary Southern leaders, was firm in his
basic conviction, but came to decisions on policy only with diffi-
culty and with a haunting sense of uncertainty in his mind, while
he argued them, perhaps over against them, with the genius of a
lawyer born and trained. High-minded and honorable, he was
aware of facts and of the currents of world thought ; with deep
affection he loved liberty and union and Georgia. Piquant in
their physical contrast, the contest of the two was still more fas-
cinating for their long, close co-operation in politics and the
friendliness that made the bachelor Stephens an inmate of the
Toombs household when in Washington. Earnest and admiring
crowds knew that their affection was undiminished by their pres-
ent division. Stephens and his supporters were properly called
at home "co-operationists" ; they were improperly and disas-
trously known in the North as Unionists. Undoubtedly, Ste-
phens himself, and probably a majority of his followers, hoped
that their plan would result in an amended United States Consti-
tution under which union would be possible. His plan of a con-
vention of Southern states to frame terms for submission at Wash-
ington, however, could be upheld by those who merely wished to
make the case for withdrawal more convincing by offering the
old Union every chance to do justice ; for Stephens stood for
secession as the ultimate remedy. With his winning eloquence,
Stephens pictured the actual property of the South and the spirit
of union as the "oxygen," "the simple, unseen and unfelt agent"
that produced it. He reviewed the history of the United States
as evidence that the South had not been oppressed, and he main-
tained that Lincoln, even if willing, would be restrained by the
good judgment of the whole people from taking action deleteri-
ous to slavery : "I am for exhausting all that patriotism demands,
before taking the last step. lam ... for maintaining the Union

42 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

as it is, if possible." Stephens, however, was strongest in paint-
ing the alternative, the result which he believed would follow
direct action. Cassandra-like he foresaw war : "I look upon
this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the World,
the Paradise of the Universe. It may be that out of it we may
become greater and more prosperous, but I am candid and sincere
in telling you that I fear if we yield to passion, and without suf-
ficient cause shall take that step, that instead of becoming greater
and more powerful, prosperous and happy — instead of becoming
Gods, we will become demons, and at no distant day commence
cutting one another's throats. This is my apprehension."

Toombs, back and forth from Washington, led for immediacy.
One argument, powerfully insisted upon by the Washington
caucus of secessionists, was that the golden opportunity of an
impotent national government should be improved, that Lincoln
should be confronted by an accomplished fact. On December
23, Toombs telegraphed from Washington: "Secession by the
fourth of March next should be thundered from the ballot box
by the unanimous voice of Georgia . . , such a voice will be
your best guarantee for liberty, tranquility, and glory." Believ-
ing this to be a more practical policy, he also believed it to be
safe. One sometimes wonders at the Southern insistence on
secession at a time when revolution was an honorable word in
the vocabulary of every American ; the difference was in their
implication. Revolution was honorable, but it was violent and
must achieve its end by force. Even Stephens hardly thought
that would be possible. He feared the rejection of the just de-
mands of his prepared Southern constitution, but "in this way
our sister Southern States can be induced to act with us ; and I
have but little doubt, that the States of New York and Pennsyl-
vania, and Ohio, and the other Western States, will compel their
Legislatures to recede from their hostile attitude, if others do not.
Then, with these, we would go without New England, if she
chose to stay out." A voice in the assembly shouted : "We will
kick them out."

To most Southerners, secession was legal, no violation of the
structure of the law, but a voluntary change of status under law ;

SECESSION 43

and therefore it should be peaceful. Would it prove so ? After
the event it seems a mere mouthing of vain words ; but in January
1861, a chance untried, it loomed as the major uncertainty in the
minds of the undecided. Did not even Northerners know in
their hearts that the Constitution was really a compact ? If a
whole people by orderly process, by stately deliberation, asserted
their desire to govern themselves, would the modern enlightened
world of the second half of the nineteenth century brook inter-
ference ? - One was confident in the broad light of day ; one's
confidence melted through a sleepless night ; it grew again with
the rising sun. Assurance came with the breezy resilience of
Toombs, with the news of other states seceding, with the very
excitement of the debate ; as men in the North scoff ed at the
fear of secession and voted for Lincoln, so in the South fear was
a poor argument. All were men of the same generation, close
to self-reliant ancestors who had scorned the counsels of the cau-
tious because, in the circumstances of their lives, direct action was
so frequently the only means to safety. As men answered Ste-
phens' arguments to their neighbors, they naturally fed each
other's hopes. Toombs had a concrete program and an appeal.
Stephens, like Douglas in the presidential canvass, could offer
only undefined chances and a threat. The substance of Toombs's
speeches was a counter-review of history to show that the South
had suffered more than she had gained from union ; to the date of
speaking he had the weaker case, but he was strong in pointing
out that worse was yet to come.

Into the balance that rose and fell as Toombs and Stephens,
Cobb, Johnson, Nesbit, and others succeeded one another, Gov-
ernor Brown advanced another argument, which perhaps turned
the scale for Toombs. Stephens said, "Let us not anticipate a
threatened evil" ; and many historians have judged the election
of Lincoln an insufficient reason for action because of his own
sympathetic and constitutional attitude and the fact that the
Republicans would not control Congress. Governor Brown set
forth that the mere administrative powers of the president were a
menace surpassing that of war, to Southern institutions, and that
no president is free from the passions of those who elect him.

44 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

"So soon as the Government shall have passed into Black Republi-
can hands, a portion of our citizens, must if possible, be bribed
into treachery to their own section, by the allurements of office ;
or a hungry swarm of abolition emissaries must be imported
among us as officeholders, to eat out our substance, insult us with
their arrogance, corrupt our slaves, and engender discontent
among them, while they flood the country with inflammatory
abolition documents, and do all in their power to create in the
South, a state of things which must ultimately terminate in a war
of extermination between the white and the black race."

The validity of his fears is revealed by the fact that almost the
only statement volunteered by Lincoln, while president-elect,
was a promise not to appoint local officers distasteful to their
communities. Lincoln recognized the situation and he gave
his pledge, but who can be surprised that the word of this un-
known Illinois lawyer was not accepted by Southerners as suf-
ficient in a matter of life and death. The apprehensions of the
South were based immediately upon the possibility that a South-
ern wing of the Republican party might be built up among the
non-slaveholding whites. This fear had been brought home to
them in 1857 by the appearance of Hinton R. Helper's Impend-
ing Crisis, a book built up on statistics and setting forth the thesis
that slavery was a millstone around the neck of Southern progress,
giving the rich a monopoly which kept the poor in poverty ; the
endorsement of the book by various Republicans had brought the
national House of Representatives almost to blows. The fear
of a political invasion, however, was but a minor factor in the
general problem of preventing propaganda from reaching the
negroes. It had so happened that the beginning of the abolition-
ist campaign had been closely followed by one of the most serious
and bloody slave insurrections in the United States, that of Nat
Turner in 1831. No connection has been proved between the
two events, and such outbursts had not been uncommon, par-
ticularly in the eighteenth century ; but the conceivable connec-
'tion had redoubled in the hearts of the Southerners the terror
always felt of the strange, unfathomable race about them, who
were familiar with their most secret dwellings, who handled and

SECESSION 45

served their very food and might rise to decimate their rulers
and owners, could they but plan their moment. All Southerners
were aware of the revolution in Haiti and the genius of Toussaint
L'Ouverture, whose praises Wendell Phillips had put into the

mouths of Northern school bovs. The educated knew of the

.»

Roman servile wars, much more horrible than struggles between
conflicting nations.

In the 'thirties the South had determined that such a calamity
should not fall upon them. By laws and by private co-operation
they had set themselves to patrol their country roads ; to attune
their table talk to the black ears about them ; to prevent the as-
sembling of negroes ; to prohibit reading the incendiary literature
of the North, which yearly grew in volume ; and to banish
Northerners who did not conform to the universal taboo. In
large measure they had been successful, but not without the co-
operation of the national government. Should such co-operation
turn to opposition, how long would the dike of silence stand ?
Could Lincoln, if he would, appoint postmasters and a postmas-
ter-general eager to suppress the circulation of the Liberator ?
Would Republican marshals and judges in the North, whatever
their instructions, enforce the fugitive slave law ? Even Web-
ster, as secretary of state, had but lamely defended the Southern
coastal trade in slaves against the pitfalls of the British West In-
dies. Were Lincoln sincere, would he prove strong enough to
resist his party, intent as were so many of its members on spoils,
and its greater wing anxious for action against slavery ? Or
should he make the attempt, how long could he defend the
bridge ? A Virginian, who chose to remain anonymous, wrote
at the time a history of the four forthcoming years. He took for
granted Lincoln's honesty, and pictured his repudiation by his
party and the election of Seward in 1864. If one were to guess,
this prophecy was as remarkable as any, but domestic security
could not be built upon such flimsy guesses. As Lincoln saw
the "house" in danger of becoming "all slave" by legal process,
unless determination checked it ; so Governor Brown saw it be-
coming "all free" by fire and bloodshed, his vision all too real-
istically driven home by John Brown's raid. He might well have

46 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

quoted from the speech of Carl Schurz at St. Louis : "Can you
deny that slavery for its own protection needs power in the cen-
tral government ?" Slavery could not thrive under an adminis-
tration merely not hostile ; it needed sympathetic understanding.
It was an agreement that should not have sounded strange to
those who were nursing infant industries in the North. Schurz
believed that slavery was an anachronism in Western civilization,
and that old age and infancy have similar necessities ; both North
and South were demanding protection ; both offered the pro-
tection the other called for, and the North had won. Governor
Brown seemed to touch the deepest chord. Before the peril he
revealed, mere war paled into insignificance, and Stephens' most
powerful appeal lost its force. Toombs's call for immediate ac-
tion best met this psychology of fear, which was not craven but
resolved to avoid the breakers ahead.

The test vote was in favor of immediate secession by 165 to
130. When the formal vote for the ordinance was taken on
January 19, 41 of the 130 changed their votes to the majority
side. All members signed the document when it had become
law, many of them formally protesting their fidelity to the new
order. Georgia stood solid for making a success of the policy
which the greater number desired. That the majority, as in
South Carolina, wished secession for its own sake is improbable.
There were those who wished to separate from the North, there
were those who preferred the British system of government,
there were even those who hoped for a monarchy, but the greater
number reluctantly broke their old associations in the sorrowful
conviction that their old associates were unreliable. Somewhat
ominous for the future was the fact that of the 89 who voted
against secession in the final vote, nearly all came from counties
where there were few slaves, and 52 of them constituted a ma-
jority from the mountain area of the northern part of the state.
Such sectionalism might constitute a danger should the new order
be too severely tested, but for the present the laws of sovereign
Georgia ran throughout her limits of authority without force-
No Georgian expected his state to stand alone. Some Geor-
gians still hoped that once Georgia became independent, she might

SECESSION 47

re-enter the Union after negotiating for satisfactory terms ; some
hoped that the Northern states, except New England, would in
time ask entrance into the new union that was to be shaped.
These two classes were known as "reconstructionists." In op-
position stood those who would limit the new union by the
Mason-Dixon line, including only slave states. It was significant
that the propagandist delegates of Georgia were sent not only to
Louisiana and Texas, but to the eight upper slave states — Dela-
ware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky,
Missouri, and Arkansas.

Meanwhile all cases pending in United States courts were held
in status quo. All laws of the United States, not inconsistent
with the Ordinance of Secession, except that which made the
slave trade piracy, and all United States officers, were to operate
under the authority of the state ; and Georgia made herself re-
sponsible for "all treaties and contract obligations made and en-
tered into by the General Government which Georgia was a
member thereof, as far as the same are applicable." No customs
dues were as yet to be levied against the states of the old Union,
nor was the prohibition of the slave trade to apply to them.
Negotiations with the United States, as with foreign countries,
were left to the new union. Trains continued to run freely
across the state borders, which were now frontiers ; letters came
and went bearing the stamps of the old government, though some
thought the mails not safe. For the defense of Savannah the
governor ordered heavy cannon in Pittsburgh and rifles in New
York. The cannon were withheld from shipment by a mob and
the rifles were seized by New York customs officials. In reprisal
he seized New York vessels found in the ports of Georgia. To
relieve Georgia of her dependence on Northern school books, the
convention offered prizes for those locally produced, but such
,&>ooks did not spring immediately into existence.

The Georgia arguments were those that shuttled against each
uther throughout the other states of the Lower South ; yet each,
by the showing of its political boundaries, presented some differ-
ent combination of geographical and economic forces, and indi-
viduals ive to each contest a distinctive slant. Alabama con-

48 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tinued the geographical characteristics of Georgia ; her hill
region, however, slithered down half-way across the state, and its
differences had been less modified by good treatment. Planters
were indeed interested in the possibilities of its iron ore and were
thinking of developing it in combination with English capital, but
Birmingham was as yet a dream of the future. On the other
hand, the cotton area of Alabama, safely tucked away among
congenial neighborhoods, was the most completely Southern of
the country. Its life was the most provincial, its tongue had the
softest drawl, and its convictions were the simplest and firmest.
Its leader was William L. Yancey, tall and slender, with kindly
eye and perfect faith. In him was found the ablest spokesman of
the religious and moral reaction to the lashings of the abolition-
ists, which had for thirty years been arousing a conviction that
slavery was a positive good founded on the word of God and the
dictates of science, and whose fruits were revealed by compar-
ing the condition of slaves with that of free laborers of Old and
New England. With the steadfast conviction of a Garrison, he
expounded slavery and its consequences, and carried most of his
community with him. He favored the reopening of the slave
trade. A follower, a clergyman named Morgan, said : "If I were
to feel at liberty to carry out my convictions of what a pure
Christian philanthropy requires at the hands of this generation —
if I were to consent to commit any State to the active work of
evangelization — I should pledge all its powers to go to Africa
and to bring over ship loads of poor, savage slaves to a country
where they would be raised to the condition of Christian slaves,
which is the highest point that the negro race can reach, consti-
tutionally with Divine Law, and their natural and physical or-
ganization."

As early as February 24, 1860, the legislature had authorized
the governor to call a convention in case of "the election of a
President advocating the principles and actions of the party in the
Northern States calling itself the Republican Party." On De-
cember 6, the governor issued the call and, on January 7, 1861,
the convention met. The most significant vote was taken Jan-
uary. 10 on a resolution for Southern co-operation, which was

SECESSION 49

defeated, 54 to 45. Every vote for co-operation came from the
hill country, except one from the Pine Barrens. The next day on
the final vote for secession the vote stood 61 for and 34 against.
The "ultimate secessionists" had joined the "straight-outs" and
left the Unionists in a hopeless minority. Of the minority, 33
refused to sign the document, but signed a declaration of loyalty
to the new regime. Mr. Clemens, who signed neither document
and who declared, "The act you are about to commit is, to my
apprehension, treason," nevertheless pledged his support to the
state. The Unionists argued that secession was not a cure-all for
evils which they suffered ; some of the co-operationists argued
that a convention of all the Southern states might secure satis-
factory redress for their grievances and might thus avoid the
necessity of secession. The latter, therefore, were for delay, and
appealed to the "ultimate secessionists." In Alabama, as in
Georgia, the shift of authority was successful, but the rift was
more ominous for the future.*

Such a situation called for moderation and made particularly
necessary the winning of the Northern slave states to the new
union, for northern Alabama would plainly constitute a provoca-
tive frontier. On January 25, the convention passed a resolution
recommending to the impending convention of seceded states the
necessity of making the navigation of the Mississippi river free.
After a debate running through the entire session it also recom-
mended to the same convention that it adopt "Such restrictions
as will effectually prevent the reopening of the African Slave
Trade." The first measure was intended to obviate the hostility
of the Northwest, the second to win the favor of the Upper
South. Alabama's ideas of the future were fairly definite ; a
union of all the slaveholding states and none others. It was a
co-operationist who said : "A United South ! What music to
the patriot's ear ! In it would be realized the brightest dreams of
Southern statesmanship — the life-long ambitions of the great
Calhoun consummated — and the institution of slavery protected
forever against the propagandism of the Northern Maniacs. A

* See C P. Denman, The Secession Movement in Alabama (Montgomery,
1933)-

50 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

united South implies all that is profitable in practise, beautiful in
theory, and stupendous in conception."

In level Mississippi the cotton belt swung upward to continue,
bearing its typical civilization, into middle Tennessee. In the
central portion of the state it touched the rich valley lands of the
Mississippi, and linked together the cotton lands of the Pied-
mont with that of the rivers and lowlands of the gulf. There
was no mountain area, with its strong, crude life ; but on either
side, to southeast and northwest, were regions thinly occupied
by typical poor whites. The planter aristocracy therefore en-
countered no vital opposition and was almost as supreme as in
South Carolina. It was, however, of a more mixed character.
While there were settlements about Natchez almost a hundred
years old, Mississippi, as a whole, was the real frontier of planta-
tion culture. Here the oldest plantations were hardly touched
by the finger of land exhaustion, and new gangs of hardy slaves,
brought from the Northern slave states and purchased by capital
from the East, were breaking down the forests into cotton fields.
Slavery was more native, less sentimental, and more profitable
than elsewhere. It was more highly industrialized and, in many
cases, plantations were managed by overseers responsible to ab-
sentee owners, such as Wade Hampton of South Carolina. Its
resident planters drawn from many states were, for the most
part, able administrators who had created their own estates, as
had the great Virginians of the Revolution ; they were not such
inheritors as Mrs. Chesnut deplored. Its tone was derived from
South Carolina both by migration and by the appeal of self-
confidence which the South Carolina program offered.

It was by agreement with the South Carolina leaders that Mis-
sissippi called the Nashville Convention in 1850. In 1860, it
was commonly felt that the pupil had become master and that
Calhoun's mande had fallen upon Jefferson Davis, his tall Ken-
tucky frame held straight by West Point drill, successful in love
and war, husband of Zachary Taylor's daughter, with a first-
class record as a junior in the Mexican War, plantation creator,
and statesman. In 1850 he ran unsuccessfully for governor on

SECESSION 5 1

the program that the Compromise of 1850 was unsatisfactory to
the South, and was beaten by 1009 votes. He lost nothing, how-
ever, in prestige ; and by 1860 his had become probably the most
influential voice in the Washington caucus of Southern members ;
while the North recognized his leadership more completely, per-
haps, than did the South. In 1860 he canvassed his state, not so
much to assure the victory of Breckinridge, which was certain,
as to prepare the public for the consequences of Lincoln's elec-
tion, which he foresaw. Debate in Mississippi after the election
was almost as unnecessary as in the Palmetto State.

The convention met on January 7. The opening prayer ex-
pressed its emotions : "Thou, Oh, God ! hast seen the malign and
mighty agencies which many of the sister States of this great
national family have for years past employed for our annoy-
ance, reproach, and overthrow, as equals in a Confederated
Union ; and how they have pursued the process of depriving us
of our just rights, and destroying in our midst the institution
which Thy Providence has solemnly bound us to uphold, defend
and protect. . . And, now, Heavenly Father, we commend to
Thy special care and blessing the Welfare and interests of the
several Nationalities of our own, and distant lands." Seriously
and with little argument the convention did its work. On Jan-
uary 9 the test between the immediate secessionists and the co-
operationists resulted in the victory of the former, 84 to 1 5. All
members but one immediately signed the ordinance, and that one
soon enlisted in the Confederate army.

In all the states whose action has been discussed, as well as in
Florida, which quietly took her place with them on January 10,
by a vote of 62 to 7, there had been the basic thesis, debatable but
with strong arguments to support it, that successful separation
and a new union with a revenue system adapted to local needs
would bring increased prosperity. To this was often added the
subsidiary, but not entirely logical, corollary, that by such a gov-
ernment local manufactures might be nursed to greater strength.
One must be careful, however, not to exaggerate the weight of
what to the modern mind might seem a major consideration ;

52 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

for these arguments could not then, and cannot now, be made to
fit the situation of Louisiana, which not less willingly went out
to its seeming economic detriment.

Louisiana did indeed produce cotton and consume Northern
manufactures. Her characteristic and practically- active agricul-
tural interest, however, was in her sugar plantations and great in-
dustrial plants, which were highly organized, economically uni-
tive and with profits that connoted not mere comfort but wealth.
The essential difference was that the land available for the culture
of sugar cane was not sufficient to supply the people of the
United States, and that, consequently, the sugar planters could
profit by a protective tariff. The manufacturers of the North-
east, ever anxious to find agricultural allies to give protection a
majority, were generally willing to write sugar protection into
their tariff schedules, and their co-operation had been one of the
mainstays of the Whig party. A Southern confederacy would
as surely afford a smaller consuming public and a legislature sym-
pathetic to plans for high duties.

Still less could a case be made out for New Orleans — New Or-
leans the luxurious and wicked, where river planters, lodged
sumptuously in the St. Charles hotel, sold their cotton and often
spent their profits — New Orleans with its opera, its famous
restaurants, its French-speaking, Roman Catholic aristocracy, and
its Creoles, suspect by the Protestant Anglo-Saxon gentry of the
cotton belt. Scarcely were the courtesies of social intercourse
maintained between these groups, which had as little mutual
understanding as the societies of London and Paris. But re-
cently a special strain had been added in the adhesion of so many
of the leading families of the eastern South to the American party,
which hardly regarded foreign-speaking people as natives and
was sure that Roman Catholics were not. It was well to keep
South Carolina in the background and leave mediation to the
river planters of Mississippi. Social cohesion barely maintained
could not be strengthened by appeals to interest. It was true
that in 1857 ^ ^ow °f Northwestern trade began to turn from
Mississippi and New Orleans to the railroads and New York, but
this was not yet apparent, and if observed would merely call New

SECESSION 53

Orleans to improve her facilities, rather than to throw her cus-
tomers outside the boundary. In fact, it was the war which so
quickly dug the eastern channel which without the war must
have but gradually won the West to its use. The greatness of
New Orleans, and the vision of that greatness before it existed,
had always rested upon its being the mart of the valley, and a
division of the valley must diminish its importance. Robert
WicklifFe, the retiring governor, did indeed assert in January
1860, that a tariff, or rates-tax, on Northern goods would make
New Orleans the greatest importing, as it was the greatest ex-
porting, port of the nation, but the fact was that in 1860 New
Orleans was still to one side of Southern wealth and there was
more substance in the hope held out by A. R. Wright, the Georgia
commissioner to Baltimore, that she might become the successor
to New York and the metropolis of Southern commerce and
finance. Perhaps New Orleans merchants were over-confident
in the impregnability of her position, forgetting that in the nine-
teenth century geography had become mobile, and thought to
use its power, as had the Spanish governors until 1803 ; they
should have remembered, however, that the Spanish governors
had failed, and that there existed upstream the descendants of the
men who had made good John Jay's boast that God had made
for them the Mississippi by which they might go to sea. But
confidence had just been strengthened by the fact that Louisiana
banks had held firm while so many of those of the North had
broken, and feeling was strong that the economic preponderance
of the North was an illusion in contrast with the stability of the
South.

In Louisiana, therefore, it was rather the contagion of en-
thusiasm and movement that weighted the balanced arguments
on policy to the side of action* The press spread the excitement
and the restlessness. The public mind was fed with news from
the seceding states and, with the activities of the Northern aboli-
tionists, pride had long been roused by the slurs of self-righteous
New England orators, and fear was stirred by evidences that such
oratory was having its results in direct attacks. An item that
excited passion was the letter of the somewhat scholarly James

54 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Redpath to an anti-slavery convention which met at Boston in
May 1860, in which he stated that he "had no faith in conven-
tions, but only in the sword and insurrection,5' that he was
"pledged to the work of inciting an armed insurrection among
the slaves of the South, and therefore could have nothing to do
with peaceful agitation."

Were John Brown a sincere fanatic, as the governor of Vir-
ginia reported, it enhanced the dangers. Criminals may be dealt
with by the ordinary weapons of organized society, but extraor-
dinary measures become necessary when conviction drives the
conscientious to violence. When wounded pride and fear com-
bine there are certain to be leaders who develop the emotions
which they excite. By 1860 the wave of indignation and the
demand for some plan of meeting the mounting tide of abolition
gave power to those leaders who knew what to advocate. Pride
and fear and hatred, those forerunners of war, were fanned by
the press, and in the cosmopolitan community of New Orleans
their flame overcame the motives of self-interest. On December
10, 1860, Governor Moore stated : "In the temper of the north-
ern mind it is not possible to foresee the course of policy that
Congress may determine upon, and it is the part of wisdom to
prepare ourselves for any emergency that its legislation may pro-
duce." On December 12, he issued a call for a convention
which met on January 25, 1861. On January 26, an Ordinance
of Secession was passed, 113 to 17, seven of the 17 immediately
signing the Ordinance. The flag of the new nation was blessed
by Father Hubert, and a military board was established with a
million dollars to spend.

It would be difficult to imagine the smooth running of a cam-
paign, such as so rapidly took six states out of the Union, without
the combination of a ready public mind and leadership. Sen-
ator Chesnut of South Carolina, Senator Toombs, Senator Cle-
ment C. Clay of Alabama, Senator Davis, Senator Benjamin of
Louisiana, Mrs. Clay, Mrs. Davis, and their circles knew not only
their purposes but the methods calculated to carry them out.
Mrs. Chesnut was somewhat skeptical of their wisdom but rather
consented than opposed. It was in Texas that their program

SECESSION 55

encountered the first obstacle to its functioning. This obstacle
was her governor, Samuel Houston, who, except for Frank Blair,
was the last of Andrew Jackson's young men. Houston was a
man of some mental abilities, an obstinate will, and a strong pen-
chant for the picturesque. Heroes of Wild West dramas could
do no better than to copy the costume in which he became gov-
ernor of Tennessee, and senators ambitious for newspaper space
might well adopt his practice of whittling in the Senate. Be-
neath, he had a powerful emotional nature which had sent him so
dramatically from his governorship into the wilderness, and no
emotion was stronger in him than that of loyalty — loyalty to his
old chief, to his old party, to the Union. Like Benton, he bit-
terly resented the control of the West by the united Democratic
vote of the South. He foresaw the current of events and threw
himself into the contest as he had earlier thrown himself into the
birth struggles of Texas. In 1859 he sent a card to the papers :
"Announce [as candidate for governor] Sain Houston as a Na-
tional Democrat, a consistent supporter of James Buchanan in his
struggle with Black Republicanism, and the little but dangerous
Fanatics and Higher Law men at the South." He scored the ex-
istence of slavery on the Texas coast and the attempts of Southern
leaders legally to reopen the slave trade. Everywhere, and par-
ticularly on the frontier to which he promised defense against the
recurring Indian raids, he rallied moderate opinion. He won his
election, but his victory could hardly be considered a triumph
of his Unionism, for beyond all opinions and policies was the fact
that he was the grand old man of Texas, her only national figure,
victor at San Jacinto, captor of Santa Anna, and a lovable man ;
nevertheless, his election placed an Unconditional Union man in
the governor's seat.

In the election of 1860 Houston supported Bell, but did not
carry his state with him. He had failed to secure national aid
against the Indians, and people were frightened by a characteris-
tic frontier panic rumoring that abolitionists were poisoning
wells. Bell received 14,463 votes to 47,584 for Breckinridge.
Houston expressed his willingness to appoint delegates to a
Southern convention, but he would not call a special session of

56 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the legislature, fearing that it would vote for a state convention
which would secede. Sentiment, However, was too strong to be
stayed and extra-legal methods were resorted to. A self-
appointed committee of prominent men issued an address calling
for popular elections (December 3) for a convention to meet
on January 28. The elections were so frequented that Houston
recognized a mandate from the people and now called the legis-
lature, which simply legalized the convention which was on the
point of assembling.

The convention met as arranged and was opened with prayer
by the Protestant Episcopal bishop. On the next day, January
29, it voted in favor of secession, 152 to 6. This vote could not
be considered so representative as that in other states on account
of the irregular character of the election, and perhaps on this
account the convention accepted a proposal which had been made
and rejected in some other states, that the matter be submitted to
a referendum vote, which was ordered to take place on February
28. This popular vote almost reflected that for president in the
preceding November ; 46,129 for secession where Breckinridge
had received 47,584 and 14,697 against, where Bell had received
14,463. There was, however, some shift of support. A row of
counties in the north along the Red river, settled chiefly by Ken-
tuckians and Tennesseeans, small patch farmers, had voted for
Breckinridge as the standard-bearer of the Democratic party, but
BOW followed the lead of Houston and stood by the Union. The
only other counties giving majorities against secession were on
the central Colorado, two to the west of San Antonio, where
there was a strong German colony, and one, Angelina, in the
east ; the plantation area and the frontier were stronger than in
November for the party of action. The chief importance of
the election, however, is the light it throws upon the general
character of the secession movement. It was freely charged in
the North, and the charge has been repeated by historians, that
secession was carried by a skilful minority unwilling to run the
risk of a vote by the people and enforcing the views of terrorism.
In Texas, newest of the states of the South, with a population
containing many rough characters, turbulent and reckless of hu-

SECESSION 57

man life, their election was carried out at the very end of the
campaign, and it brought out a vote almost as great as that of
November and as much divided. In nearly every county there
were votes against secession, sometimes a mere handful daring to
express such convictions ; evidently terrorism was not a major
factor. The Southern states had indeed never been so given to
ref erendums as had those of the North, but the main reason for
the failure in the first wave of secession to submit the question
elsewhere than in Texas was that of time, to take advantage of
the interim before Lincoln took his seat. The debate on the re-
lation of the Southern states to the Union was spread over a
longer time than that which preceded the American Revolution,
and there is no evidence that in its last phases co-operationists
were not as free to speak and act as were secessionists. Indeed,
it may be said that throughout the country opinion shifted little
from that expressed in the presidential election. The decision of
the South for good or for ill was not the result of trickery or /
force but of conviction.

Some subsequent Daniel Webster might well have argued
that the union of the Southern states was older than their seces-
sion, for such union was in the minds of all ; the only question
was of method. On December 31 the South Carolina conven-
tion suggested the basis for such a regrouping. The essential
point it urged was time ; the new organization should be in work-
ing order by the fourth of March to confront Abraham Lincoln
when he became president. In order to have their organization
functioning smoothly, new elections should be dispensed with ;
legally the conventions in the several states were their people em-
bodied ; actually they accurately represented the existing mind
of the people. Let each convention choose delegates in number
equal to the representatives and senators their states had been en-
titled to and send them to a general convention in which each
state should have one vote. It would be easy to draw up a pro-
visional working plan of co-operation by taking the Constitution
of the United States as a model, correcting a few manifest errors,
and eliminating those antiquities which had served as leverage
points for Hamilton and Webster.

58 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

On January 1 1 the Alabama convention invited all the slave-
holding states to attend a convention to meet at Montgomery,
their capital, on February 4. This invitation was accepted, per-
haps because of Montgomery's central location, perhaps by pre-
arrangement, perhaps because Alabama had been clearly divided.
The Alabama managers decided on January 31 to use for or-
ganization the South Carolina proposals which had been submit-
ted to them by A. P. Calhoun, commissioner from that state.
On February 4 "certain deputies and delegates from the several
independent Southern States of North America, Alabama, Flor-
ida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina" met,
were called to order by Mr. Chilton of Alabama, and the kindly
and revered R. W. Barnwell of South Carolina was made tempo-
rary chairman. The next decision was important. The conven-
tion chose as its permanent chairman Howell Cobb of Georgia,
thus eliminating one of its most promising candidates for the
presidency. Cobb had been speaker of the national House, gov-
ernor of Georgia, and had just resigned (December 12, 1860)
from Buchanan's cabinet as secretary of the treasury. During
the 'fifties he and R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia were the only out-
standing Southern leaders who had kept themselves national
statesmen, possible candidates for the presidency of a united
country. Cobb's executive ability was high, his attitudes were
reasonable, and he might have served well as the Southern presi-
dent. Some of the Georgia delegates felt rather bitter over his
shelving, while others still hoped for Toombs.

On February 8 a "Constitution of the Provisional Government
of the Confederate States of North America" was adopted. This
followed the lines suggested by South Carolina. Its form is un-
important, as a committee was soon appointed to draft a perma-
nent document, which actually went into effect February 18,
1862. The significant point in the provisional form was that
by it the convention then meeting was to become, without new
elections, the congress of the new government. The next day,
by the unanimous vote of the six states, Jefferson Davis was
elected provisional president. It was a choice embodying the
best characteristics of democracy, for Davis had made himself

SECESSION 59

beyond any other individual the leader of the movement which
was taking form ; not an originator nor a controller as Caesar or
Mussolini, but distinctly priwius inter pares. Whether it was a
wise choice was for the future to tell. The selection of Alex-
ander Stephens as vice-president was purely political Nowhere
else could his high abilities have been so well concealed, but his
acceptance was a demonstration of the fact that the former co-
operationists were now in harmony with the victors in the late
debate.

Davis delivered his inaugural address on February 18 and
promptly organized his administration. His cabinet contained
a large amount of governmental experience. The naming of
Robert Toombs as secretary of state was unfortunate, as he was
too much an individualist satisfactorily to co-operate. Charles
G. Memminger, a German-born South Carolinian, was doubtless
selected as a treasury expert, but proved none too efficient. L. P.
Walker of Alabama, made secretary of war, was, like Toombs,
soon to be replaced. Stephen R. Mallory of Florida became
secretary of the navy on the basis of experience as chairman of
the United States Senate committee on naval affairs, and J. H.
Reagan of Texas, appointed postmaster-general, had been chair-
man of the House committee on the post-office. The attorney-
general, Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, possessed, as events
proved, one of the finest legal minds in America or England, and
had long been the friend and confidant of Davis, and he became
the alter ego of the president in the conduct of the government.
When one notices that with Davis as chief executive all the sev-
eral states were represented in the cabinet, one recognizes the
continuity of American political experience.

This continuity was confirmed in minor appointments. Gen-
eral Reagan promptly telegraphed to Washington, offering ap-
pointments to a number of clerks whom he had observed as effi-
cient ; and they promptly accepted, perhaps foreseeing that the
incoming Republican administration would have little use for
their services. Reagan was under a mandate to make his depart-
ment self-supporting, and succeeded in making postal contracts
the railroads at reduced prices, while he arranged plans for

60 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the transfer of business from the old government to the new,
which were satisfactorily carried out and might have served as
an example to others, had the road of peace been followed. In
all departments local officers, generally favorable to the new gov-
ernment as Buchanan appointees, were retained, administering
the old familiar laws except where these were inconsistent with
the new constitution or had been specifically changed. Mili-
tary and naval officers of Southern birth were accepted for serv-
ice without change of rank or duty. When the Texas delegates
arrived on March 2, they found Montgomery at least as familiar
as Washington would have been, the same hostesses receiving,
and the chief change the absence of Northern members, so many
of whom were uncongenial. The machine of government was
functioning as of yore, and no new flag had yet supplanted the
stars and stripes.

All over the South, continuity was more marked than change.
Newspapers carried accounts of riots, but that had not been
uncommon in the 'fifties, and they were confined to no one sec-
tion of the country. Social ostracism banned Northerners who
were not openly pro-Southern, but they had been rare anyway,
except in ports such as New Orleans and cotton-buying cities
such as Augusta. Plans to spend the summer at Newport and
Waukesha were generally abandoned, but not business trips
North for the spring restocking. By boat and railroad Southern
merchants were receiving from the North their usual consign-
ments of goods, domestic and foreign ; but credit was reduced.
The tariff law which had been altered on February 18 worried
the business men somewhat, but the changes consisted chiefly in
the additions of agricultural products of the Northwest and of
military supplies to the free list.

The possibility of war was continually in the background and
received legislative recognition, but not on such a scale as could
be considered threatening or militaristic. Various legislatures
had begun strengthening militia and increasing supplies from the
time of the John Brown raid in 1 858 ; now legislatures and com-
munities made modest new provisions. Still, war seemed less
probable than it had during the January debate. On February

SECESSION 6 1

9 Junius Hillyer wrote Howell Cobb from Washington : "As
to compromise, it is impossible. . . But the chances are good
that the Republican party will acquiesce in the secession move-
ment. I am sure of it if we can prevent a collision till the 4th
of March." In February Gazaway B. Lamar of the Bank of the
Republic of New York wrote Cobb : "My opinion is that the
Republicans will show their teeth after 4 March and blockade
and collect the revenues after their fashion to which you will
submit of course, after your fashion." On March 8 he again
wrote, discouraging Mr. Memminger's project of floating in New
York a loan for the Confederacy. The less intelligent did not
worry, since they believed that one Southern gentleman could
whip ten Yankees ; the leaders did not believe that the majority
of the North could long be kept at war should one begin. More
and more Southern independence became attractive, and less and
less was said and thought of reunion. As early as February 1 6
Howell Cobb wrote to his wife : "I cannot better give you an
idea of the sentiment of Congress than to say that my speech
on taking the chair is approved by everybody — Stephens, Hill,
Wright and Kenan are as strong against reconstruction as any
of us." On March 2 1 at Savannah Stephens limited his hope of
extension of the Confederacy to such states as would accept slav-
ery as a fundamental institution.

This growing elation was principally due to the accomplish-
ment of one of the most successful revolutions ever consum-
mated : "Without a drop of blood," said Stephens. As com-
pared with the Revolution of 1776, there had been less violence
beforehand, more instantaneous obedience ; and whereas that
movement had been born in war, this was as yet unattacked. In
fact, it seemed almost to contradict the historic axiom that revolu-
tion, however desirable, must be costly. So far as nine tenths
of the public functions were concerned, there was no revolution,
for state governments merely continued to act, resting upon the
same sanctions as in the past. With respect for an habitual law
and order, those who disapproved, even in large and separated
sections, accepted the will of the state majorities. The Lower
South had returned the only possible answer to the prophets

6 2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Lincoln and Schurz. Its "house" was now "all slave" ; and if
slavery were doomed unless it could control the central govern-
ment, it now had a central government of its own which it could
control.

It remained true, however, that many of the contests of the
past between slavery and freedom had related to subjects that
were not local, to the divisions of territory and to the return
of fugitive slaves. Would the change of condition facilitate
favorable solutions of such problems ? To the rninds of South-
ern leaders it afforded the only possible remaining means of do-
ing so. As early as the i Sio's James Hamilton of South Carolina
had urged that minority representation in a legislative body irri-
tated more than it clarified. Calhoun, building on the principle
of George McDuffie, had urged that the natural selfishness of men
is intensified by their union in corporations or sections, and that
a sectional majority could for ever use its power to oppress a
permanent minority such as that of the slave area in the United
States. Their views had won wide acceptance through interven-
ing experiences. In the Union the South would always be out-
voted ; as a recognized sovereign nation it would under the aegis
of international law meet the North as an equal Independence
would give that balance for which they had vainly striven in the
Senate, and which the dying Calhoun had hopelessly suggested
in 1850 might be obtained by a double presidency. So far as
mutual concerns were involved. North and South would each
possess a veto ; but the bounds of their co-operation by mutual
assent would be unlimited. Diplomacy might well redress the
disparity in population which had swamped the South in legisla-
ture and administration, and which would soon engulf the Su-
preme Court.

Small actions evinced the principles of their diplomacy. The
road of secession for the Northern slave states was left open by a
constitutional provision prohibiting the import of slaves except
from "other slaveholding States of the United States." The
Northwest was to be placated by a law establishing the free navi-
gation of the Mississippi, subject only to dues for lighterage and
pilotage, and certain provisions for supervision. On February

SECESSION 63

25 committees were appointed to investigate the questions of
New Mexico and of Indian affairs, showing an intention to press
for a westward extension of territory. The appointment of these
committees was doubtless to strengthen the hands of the com-
missioners appointed on the same day to the government at Wash-
ington, but no action was taken to prejudge their negotiations.
The commission was an able one, consisting of A. B. Roman of
Louisiana, J. A. Crawford of Alabama, and John Forsyth of
Georgia, and their only instruction as to immediate action was
to secure the surrender of forts, such as Sumter and Pickens,
in the area actually seceded and still held by national forces. On
the same day W. L. Yancey and P. A. Rost were appointed com-
missioners to European countries.

The Confederacy thus in order fronted the world with a clear
brow. No body of Americans of that date would have been sat-
isfied unless conscious of being leaders in the progressive thought
of the day. The credo of the nation was presented by Alexander
Stephens in a speech at Savannah on March 21, which was almost
identical with one reported much later before the Virginia con-
vention on April 23. One advanced position which he set forth
was the fact that even in its constitution the South aligned her-
self with the basic economic principle of Adam Smith, which in
1 860 seemed to be winning the world for free trade and the nat-
ural differentiation of economic areas. With more insistence he
argued on slavery. Probably with Lincoln's Cooper Institute
speech in mind he stated that the old Constitution had been
founded on the "evanescent" assumptions of slavery and on the
"equality of the races/5 "This was an error. It was a sandy
foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the cstorm
came and the wind blew/ " "On this subject a change is evi-
dently going on in the intellectual world — in the republic of
thinkers." "Theories must yield to facts" ; though "all new
truths progress slowly." If slavery "is not best for the negroes
as well as the whites . . . it is wrong in principle," but "the great
objects of humanity are best attained when they are in conform-
ity to [God's] laws and decrees. Our confederacy is founded
upon principles in strict conformity to those laws. This stone

64 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

which was rejected by the builders is become the chief of the cor-
ner — the real corner stone in our new edifice." "The process
of disintegration in the old Union may be expected to go on with
almost absolute certainty if we persevere in the right course.*'

CHAPTER III

COMPROMISE

WHILE the Cotton South was seceding, the rest of the country
was giving its chief attention to Washington, through whose
agency alone it might affect the situation. There were two
forms that such action might take ; one was typified in many an
editorial that asked : "Oh, for one hour of Andrew Jackson !"
and the other in the prayer for "one hour of Henry Clay." The
first was an appeal for action by the executive, the second by
Congress ; and neither the executive nor Congress was deaf to
the appeal.

It may as well be stated at once that the executive failed to
"command the storm," but the manner of his failing is not without
interest, and was of some importance. James Buchanan, in con-
fronting disunion, differed from Andrew Jackson, not only by
a good proportion of the degree in which one human being may
differ from another, but he was the left-over fragment of a shat-
tered regime instead of a victor fresh from a new triumph at the
polls. He faced, moreover, a South conscious of unity, whereas
Jackson had had the warm affection of Georgia just won by his
Indian policy. Curiously enough, Buchanan had at his command
the same General Scott who had been at Jackson's right hand,
and had in addition the Force Act of 1833, which gave him legal
authority to collect at sea customs revenues due at Southern
ports. The forces at the disposal of General Scott, however,
were less equal to the occasion. Scott reported that there were
available for immediate action only one thousand of the regular
army, the remainder of the sixteen thousand being located in
posts guarding frontier forts and post routes from which they
could not be spared. The forty-two vessels of the navy, not by
conspiracy, but according to the naval tenets of the time, were
scattered at foreign stations at the Far East and the African
Coast, and no cables existed to summon them hastily. Short of
a rising of the people there was no force at the president's com-

66 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

mand which could have done more than inflame the self-
sufficiency of Southern opinion. The president might have an-
swered the argument that secession would be peaceful, but the
blow he might have struck would have been so puny that irrita-
tion would have fed confidence.

Yet Buchanan continued to reveal ineffectiveness in a position
which probably would have rendered an efficient man powerless.
A weary plodding through twelve volumes of his writings and
the substantial Life, which so able a man as George Ticknor
Curtis was moved to write, shows a mind far more apt than most
at arranging picture puzzles, but innocent of a third dimension.
He was deeply sentimental ; the tragedy of a lover's quarrel,
the mending of which was prevented by the death of the young
lady, kept him all his life a bachelor. A native refinement led
him always to a dignified mode of living, and to pleasure in as-
sociation with those more cultured than the friends of his youth.
He reached his acme in the White House, which was never
more charmingly administered than by his delightful and de-
voted niece, Harriet Lane. His keeping of this engaged niece
with him for four years at Washington and then for six years of
retirement at Wheatland indicates that his sentimentality was
not devoid of selfishness. A host is not important in America,
if he is powerful and the hostess competent, so that although so
acute a critic as Van Buren wrote him down a bore, the execu-
tive mansion in his day became the fortress of old Washington,
the playground of the Clays, the Davises, and Pryors. Its per-
fection impressed ministers from Siam and Japan ; the young
Prince of Wales remembered it all his life ; and it gave to
Buchanan the satisfaction of a man who had arrived. In its
heyday this regime turned his sympathies to the South, and no
administration was so completely dominated by the South as was
Buchanan's. As the meeting of Congress in December 1860,
approached, this pleasant circle began to disintegrate with the
Union. Trouble began to infest Washington, the White House,
and Buchanan's respectable but small brain and soul.

The preparation of his message was the subject of hot debate
in the cabinet and among his advisers, of whom Jefferson Davis

COMPROMISE 67

was one. The message was Buchanan's work but was continu-
ally revised, and certainly Davis was not his last adviser. It
contained a presentation of that theory of the Constitution in
which Buchanan had been brought up, and which had been so
many times set forth by more robust minds, that the Union was
intended to be perpetual and the national government sov-
ereign within its limits. Buchanan set forth that secession was
unconstitutional, but on the other hand he could find no author-
ization for action by the national government should a state se-
cede. This sense of impotence made him the more anxious not
to be the cause of actual friction. When South Carolina's action
was still impending, on December 8 and 10, he had conferences
with congressional representatives from South Carolina who were
anxious to forestall violence. The representatives found the
president in responsive mood for advice and troubled lest the
United States garrison under Major Anderson at Fort Moultrie
be attacked ; while they feared that the same garrison might be
reinforced and made a focus for the control of Charleston. The
result was an understanding on "honor among gentlemen" that
neither action should be taken pending formal negotiations. On
December 26 the official South Carolina commissioners, R. W.
Barnwell, J. H. Adams, and J. L. Orr, arrived in Washington,
where their path to an informal interview with the president
had been prepared by William H. Trescott, also a South Caro-
linian, fresh from serving as assistant secretary of state and per-
haps the most brilliantly endowed for diplomacy of any Amer-
ican of his generation.

Before the interview could take place, however, the situa-
tion had been dramatically changed. There were three forts in
Charleston harbor. Anderson, with his little force of sixty ef-
fective men, was stationed in Fort Moultrie, the rear of which
was practically unprotected, and open to capture by a mob, to
say nothing of ordered military forces. On December 1 1 An-
derson had been instructed by a personal messenger from John
B. Floyd, secretary of war, acting without consultation, to take
no action of offence but to resist attack, and as he could not
defend all the harbor forts, to select whichever seemed to him

68 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

best. Opposite him loomed the almost-completed Fort Sumter,
the last word in military defence, isolated on the little islet which
it covered. On the night of December 26 Anderson transferred
to it his garrison. No reinforcements had been received ; there
was no augmentation of supplies ; but the military situation had
been changed. The South Carolina commissioners who had
taken Buchanan's understanding as a pledge, who could not be-
lieve that Anderson had been moved without the president's or-
ders, arrived hot at the interview on December 28, and insistent
that Anderson be ordered back. Buchanan gave them notice
that he could meet them only as private gentlemen. "But Mr.
President," said Barnwell, "your personal honor is involved in this
matter ; the faith you pledged has been violated ; and your per-
sonal honor requires you to issue the order," Buchanan said that
he must have time for prayer ; and prayer sometimes with tears,
but without fasting, was his habit.

On the twenty-ninth Buchanan submitted his proposed reply
to his cabinet. This body had been changing character. Lewis
Cass had resigned December 14, 1860, because Buchanan had not
taken action ; Howell Cobb resigned December 8, because of a
sense of duty to the state of Georgia. Floyd's resignation had
been requested for reasons unconnected with the national crisis
and became effective December 24. Jacob Thompson of Mis-
sissippi alone represented the Lower South, and the pleasant
coterie of the last three and a half years no longer sat about the
council table. To their places Buchanan had called less con-
genial but older friends, the harsher, harder Democrats. Jere-
miah S. Black, one of the ablest lawyers of the generation, was
moved up from attorney-general to be secretary of state, and
Edwin M. Stanton became attorney-general. Joseph Holt of
Kentucky, who had served for a while as postmaster-general,
became acting secretary of war ; and on January u, 1861, John
A. Dix of New York became secretary of the treasury. These
men were all strong Unionists, and they, with his own funda-
mental beliefs, defeated Buchanan's sentimental attachment to the
South. Anderson was kept at Fort Sumter. In a message of
January 8 the president announced, on the advice of Black, that

COMPROMISE 69

while he could not make war on a state, "the right and duty to
use military force defensively against those who resist the Fed-
eral officers in the execution of their legal functions and against
those who assail the property of the Federal Government is clear
and undeniable." On January 5 a merchant steamer, the Star
of the West, was sent with reinforcements and supplies to An-
derson. South Carolina officials were informed of the expedi-
tion, and when on the morning of the ninth she appeared off
Charleston harbor she was fired on by South Carolina batteries.
Her commander hoisted the United States flag, but the firing
continued ; no response came from Fort Sumter, and she turned
back. This was distinctly an act of war on the part of South
Carolina ; and a call to action came from John A. Dix, secretary
of the treasury, in an instruction to a treasury official at New
Orleans : "If any one attempts to haul down the American flag,
shoot him on the spot." Had the North been ready to fly to
the defence of the Union at the call of a leader, which James
Ford Rhodes believed was true as early as the time of Cass's
resignation, then was the moment for demonstration ; but the
assault on the flag was taken with comparative calm.

Buchanan's avoidance of direct action was not without design
and was probably representative of the state of the public mind.
In his message of January 8, he said : "If the political conflict
were to end in civil war, it was iny determined purpose not to
commence it nor even to permit an excuse for it by any act of
the Government. My opinion remains unchanged that justice
as well as sound policy requires us still to seek a peaceful solu-
tion." His policy was to give time for compromise. His mes-
sage of December 3 had plainly placed this duty upon Congress,
with the added statement that the South had grievances which
should be redressed. Andrew Jackson called upon Henry Clay,
and for three months the possibilities of adjustment mainly occu-
pied the country. It is probable that at the beginning the ma-
jority expected such efforts to succeed. In 1819, 1832, in 1849
Congress had been confronted by a similar discord of the same
elements ; and peace, if not harmony, had been attained. Tradi-
tion heartened the peace seekers, and their success seemed still

70 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

more probable to those such as Charles Sumner and Robert
Toombs who feared it. Nor was their cause dependent upon
the chance inspiration of the moment or upon any single as-
sembly of advisers. For at least two years many of the leading
minds of the country had been at work on the precise problems
now become insistent, and their programs had been set before
the public. Now every newspaper became the forum of pro-
posal and debate. Governors were laying down in states, slave
and free, what could be conceded and what could not. Men
were hastening to and fro for conference, and the mails were
heavy with suggestions. It was with such recommendations and
in such an atmosphere that Congress assembled on December 3,
1860.

It proved a chameleon body. Soon it was deserted by the
South Carolina senators, the South Carolina representatives fol-
lowing ; and during January there was an exodus of members
from seceding states. At the end of the exodus from Congress
there was left from Confederate territory only Senator Wigfall
of Texas. At the meeting of Congress all four parties in the
late campaign were represented. The Constitutional Union
party, the members of which retained the old term "American,"
and who were united in their desire for compromise, consisted
of two senators — John J. Crittenden, who sat in Henry Clay's
seat for Kentucky, and John Bell — and twenty-four members
of the House of Representatives. This party constituted the
balance of power between the major parties, Douglas was his
own senator, but he had six supporters in the House, while the
large public behind him made his voice powerful. Thirty-six
administration Democrats opposed by twenty-six Republicans
controlled the Senate, which was presided over by their late
presidential candidate, John C. Breckinridge ; eighty-seven
Democrats in the House confronted one hundred and fourteen
Republicans and a speaker who was practically a Republican.
The Republicans, with their victory at the polls and with their
interpretation of the Constitution, were satisfied with the pros-
pect. Before the session was over they were still better pleased,
when the withdrawal of Southern members enabled them to pass

COMPROMISE 7 1

the Morrill Tariff Act. Compromise was called for by the
defeated, and the bait must be the more attractive, as those most
interested were not to be kept in the Union, as in previous
crises. This bait, moreover, must be taken from the spoils of
the victors when visions were most dazzling and when no actual
accomplishment had soothed them or divided their ranks. It
was a harder task than they had ever faced.

The recognized leader for compromise was Crittenden. At
the age of seventy-three, whatever he had to hope of fame and
domestic felicity was rooted in his success. He brought with
him to Washington a list of proposals, the fruit of two years'
thought and work. This list he presented to the Senate on De-
cember 1 8, and on the same day it was submitted to a committee
of thirteen. The committee represented all parries and sections :
Crittenden for the Americans ; Douglas for himself ; Davis and
Toombs for the Cotton South ; Powell, Hunter, Bigler, and Rice,
Democrats from Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Min-
nesota ; and five Republicans, Collamer, Seward, Wade, Doolittle,
and Grimes. The House appointed a similar committee of thirty-
three, headed by Thomas Corwin of Ohio. Charles Francis
Adams was the most important member of the committee. These
two groups, however, seem not to have worked together in any
sense as a joint committee.

The Crittenden proposal consisted of six suggested amend-
ments to the Constitution, the sixth making the first five un-
amendable, and four resolutions. All were concessions to the
South except for two resolutions that the prohibition of the
African slave trade be made more effective and an amendment
to the fugitive slave law of 1850 which did not touch the main
Northern objection that no jury was required. The classic story
of the compromise, which will be first discussed, deals with
the first amendment. As first reported this provided that slav-
ery be prohibited in all territory of the United States "situate
north of latitude 36° 30' " (the compromise line of 1820). "In
all territory south of said line of latitude . . . slavery is hereby
recognized as existing, and shall not be interfered with by Con-
gress, but shall be protected as property by all the departments

72 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

of the territorial government during its continuance." States
from either section were to be admitted slave or free as their
constitutions should provide. This appeared to be a mutual con-
cession, for each section claimed the whole government. When
one scanned the vague scope of the wide West, however, it was
apparent that the South received little but the contentious in-
clusion of the word slavery in the Constitution. With Cali-
fornia already a state and free, there remained only the Indian
territory (now Oklahoma) and New Mexico, then including
Arizona, from which Webster in 1850 had said that slavery was
excluded by the laws of God and the ordinances of nature. In-
deed, in January the Republicans of the House committee made
the direct offer of this territory, and Lincoln wrote on Febru-
ary i, "Nor do I care much about New Mexico" ; but this pro-
posal was rejected by the South.

It was not, however, in this sense that Crittenden intended his
words, as is shown by his immediate acceptance of the following
amendment clarifying his meaning : "In all the territory of the
United States now held, or hereafter acquired." It was the status
of future territory that was in question. Without assurance of
what that status would be, the South was unwilling to carry on ;
it was upon the question of the giving of such assurance that the
Republicans turned against the compromise. That such a debate
could be held without apparent thought of the feelings of those
under foreign flags whose status was in question seems today
incredible. To most people in the United States of 1860, the
territorial expansion of the nation seemed as natural and in-
evitable as the development of a growing boy. It was based on
the progressive occupation of vast spaces, waste except for the
Indians, who obviously did .not know what to do with them.
The country was utterly unmilitaristic, as the tally of army and
navy plainly shows ; nor was our expansion movement imperial-
ism, for control was not its object. What the country desired
was benevolent expansion of the American system of govern-
ment, which all believed a boon to any it enfolded. The coun-
try was national, with the exception of a few rocks of resistance
as in Boston and Charleston.

COMPROMISE 73

In the campaign of 1860 both Democratic factions endorsed
expansion and Buchanan had recommended to Congress such
definite points of commencement as Cuba and northern Mexico.
Bell-Everett orators had lauded it, and the most inclusive speech
ever delivered on the subject was that of William H. Seward
on September 18 from the steps of the capitol at St. Paul, where
he felt himself "in almost direct and immediate communication
with the Almighty Power/' and, forgetful of him who takes
men up on high mountains and shows them the kingdoms of this
earth, he scanned the continents. He saw the Russians to the
north and said : "Go on, and build up your outposts . . . they
will yet become outposts of my own country" ; he saw the Ca-
nadians and said : "It is well, you are building excellent states
to be admitted hereafter into the American union" ; he saw "amid
all the convulsions that are breaking the Spanish-American re-
publics, and in their rapid decay and dissolution, the prepara-
tory stage for their reorganization in free, equal and self-govern-
ing members of the United States." Not war, but an idea, a
universal specific, was to produce this result. "Society tried for
six thousand years how to live and improve and perfect itself
under monarchical and aristocratical systems of government,
while practicing a system of depredation and slavery on each
other. The result has been all over the world a complete and
dissolute failure. At last, at the close of last century, the failure
was discovered, and a revelation was made of the necessity of
a system by which henceforth men should cease to enslave each
other, and should govern themselves. . . It has only one vital
principle — what is it ? It is the equality of every man who is a
member of the state to be governed."

These idealistic expansionists had been unproductive of results
for the last dozen years largely because of division within the
United States over this very problem of the status of the terri-
tory to be acquired and because of the strength of Great Britain
combined with a strange reluctance on the part of the Canadians
to rush into the American system. This latter situation had pre-
cluded such compromise campaigns as that of 1844, when Texas
was offered to the South and Oregon to the North. Impatience

74 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

at this halt was keenest in the South. Some Southern writers, as
essayists in De Bow's Commercial Review of New Orleans, rec-
ognized new territory as necessary to the existing system of eco-
nomic exploitation, which burned the fertility out of the land
it fed upon. To the great majority, however, politics was more
a motive than economics, and was in a condition still less satisfac-
tory. Expansion was needed to provide slave states with votes
in the Senate. It was this which drew the reluctant support of
Calhoun and of South Carolina — the hope of restoring that bal-
ance which he believed was the vital principle, the philosophic
rule of harmony.

There is evidence that when Crittenden asked Toombs : "Will
this compromise ... be acceptable to you ?" Toombs replied
"Not by a good deal ; but my State will accept it and I will fol-
low my State." There is also evidence that Davis would have
voted for it, provided that the leading Republicans would accept
it also ; for a compromise carried by the middle area and one of
the opposing sections could hardly have been operative when
one extreme section was leaving the country and the other about
to govern it. The responsibility for the movement fell upon
Seward, as the leading Republican and the secretary of state-
elect in the new administration. As was entirely proper, he
shifted it to Lincoln. He opened his whole mind to his bosom
friend, Thurlow Weed, and Weed undertook the extraordinary
expedient of a trip to Springfield for the sole purpose of a few
hours' interview with the president-elect. There can be no
doubt that Se ward's negative vote of December 22 on this first
hern in committee, which was accompanied by the negative votes
of Davis and Toombs and its defeat 7 to 6, was the result of their
conference. The importance of this vote may be variously esti-
mated. Rhodes believed that the contrary result would have
held South Carolina and prevented war ; the present author con-
siders it less patent ; but no one can deny the solemnity of this
first action by Lincoln as a national figure.

There is no evidence that their decision cost Lincoln sleepless
nights or profound meditation. He was ready and he answered ;
as an honest man and a democrat, he did not on this subject speak

COMPROMISE 75

as a free man, but as a mouthpiece. After six long years of debate,
during which he had exerted the utmost powers of his mind to
make his position on this very question clear, he had been chosen
by a party which expressed its support of his views. After a
well-fought campaign in which this same question had been
presented from every angle he had been chosen under the Amer-
ican Constitution to be chief executive on the program of no
compromise. If democracy were aught but a pretense the peo-
ple had spoken, and he existed but to be true to their decision.
In saying no, Lincoln was but expressing one aspect of his con-
ception of democracy. His reasons for believing that this de-
cision was in itself right were open to every reader, but he did
not now refrain in conversation and in letters from setting forth
the existing crisis as he saw it. He wrote Seward February i :

I say now, as I have all the while said, that on the territorial ques-
tion — that is, the question of extending slavery under national aus-
pices—I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or
permits the extension of the institution on the soil owned by the
nation, and any trick by which the nation is to acquire territory,
and then allow some legal authority to spread slavery over it, is as
obnoxious as any other. I take it to effect some such result as this,
and to put us again on the high road to slave empire, is the object
of all these proposed compromises. I am against it.

On December 1 3 he had written of the proposed fixed line :
"Let that be done and immediately filibustering and extending
slavery recommences." Should secession in 1860 succeed in
thwartitig the opinion expressed by the people in 1860, would it
not be employed in 1864 to enforce the acquisition of slave ter-
ritory ?

All thought of compromise was not over with the committee's
vote against Crittenden's first proposal ; Congress was fertile
with suggestions, and other agencies were created. The legisla-
ture of Virginia, the home of Washington and the mother of
presidents and governors, invited their own state to send dele-
gates to a peace convention to meet at Washington, February 4.
President Buchanan commended this invitation in a message to
Congress on January 28. In its invitation the Virginia legisla-

j6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ture gave a general endorsement to the Crittenden proposals, but
added a requirement that owners of slaves have "the right of
transit with their slaves, between and through the non-slavehold-
ing states and territories/* The response was quick from the
states of the middle area, but the seceded states sent no delegates,
and there was strong opposition in many Northern states. In the
end all states still recognizing the Union were represented except
Arkansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and three of the Pacific coast,
where distances, if not other considerations, prevented the send-
ing of delegates. It was in general a convention of gentlemen,
men of education and family. It chose ex-president Tyler of
Virginia as president ; and the most active member was James
K. Seddon, who stood for rather extreme Southern views. The
leveling Republican member was Salmon P. Chase, lately gover-
nor of Ohio and soon to be secretary of the treasury under Lin-
coln, whose view was that the full Republican program — ad-
mission of Kansas, tariff, and homestead law — should be enacted
before March 4 and then followed by a firm, just, kindly, and
limited administration. The most interesting proposal was an
elaborate plan for the application of Calhoun's idea of balance
by giving North and South each what amounted to a veto on
obnoxious legislation. In its final report the convention adopted
this idea as a final solution of the territorial problem : that no
territory should be acquired "except by discovery, and for naval
and commercial stations, depots, and transit routes, without the
concurrence of a majority of all the Senators from States which
allow involuntary servitude, and a majority of all the Senators
from the States which prohibit that relation," It will be ob-
served that in this and in its other proposed amendments the
convention avoided using the word "slave," which was excluded
from the Constitution in 1787. The recommendation of the
convention, submitted to Congress February 27, 1861, had no
after-history, and may be considered as the last attempt at con-
ciliation on the question of territory. Perhaps the rupture is
well indicated by the actual mouse of compromise that did
emerge from the mountain of discussion. On March 2 Congress
finally passed an amendment, recommended by the House com-

COMPROMISE 77

mittee of thirty-three, embodying the idea of creating strata
of laws of varying degrees of permanence in the same document
upon which the Cromwellian charter had been wrecked, and
which in addition met none of the points of major issue : "No
amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will au-
thorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within
any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that
of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."
Only Maryland, Ohio, and Illinois ratified this suggestion.

Meanwhile Congress was increasingly deluged with advice as
the people woke more and more to the seriousness of the situa-
tion. On February 12 the president submitted with high ap-
proval the suggestion of the legislature of Kentucky for the call-
ing of a general constitutional convention as provided for by
Article V of the Constitution, under which such call could be
made by a two-thirds vote of Congress or by two thirds of the
states, a proposal that was kept alive throughout the war. Many
1 petitions put forward still another idea, which was the submis-
sion of the Crittenden compromise to a popular referendum. As
to the first, it may be said that it is difficult to conceive of such
a convention as other than a resifting of the same minds which
had for so long been exhausting themselves on the problem, or
as dealing with other than permutations and combinations of
the same ideas. Its results, moreover, would have to be sub-
mitted to the states of which three fourths must approve ; as
the seceded states would not take action and yet, by the consti-
tutional theories of the Unionists, were still states in the Union
counting negative when silent, it would require the approval of
every loyal state but one to put the new amendments into the
Constitution. The same situation would obtain with regard to
a referendum. By the withdrawal of one radical section the
conservative element might well have outvoted the remaining
no-compromise area. The vote, however, would not change the
legal situation, and the value as an expression of opinion would
depend on whose votes were lost. To estimate the value of
these proposals, therefore, it is necessary to re-examine the North-
ern mind to discover whether secession had moved it from its

78 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

convictions of November. Fortunately the material exists for
such a re-examination.

In Rhodes's careful summary of evidence that the South would
have accepted the Crittenden compromise and in evidence that
has since appeared, there is only one item that can be deemed
completely authentic. This is the statement of Toombs to the
Senate on January 7 : "I said to the committee of thirteen, and
I say here, that, with other satisfactory provisions, I would ac-
cept it [the territorial compromise]." It is entirely clear what
the most important of these "other satisfactory provisions" were.
It was that stipulation, embodied in Crittenden's resolutions i
and 2, which was to the effect that the South was entitled to a
fair execution of the fugitive slave laws and that Congress recom-
mend to the states the repeal of laws obstructing such execution.
No one can suppose that Toombs and his constituents were so
ethical that the passage of such a resolution would of itself prove
sufficient ; his assent and theirs depended on the response made
by those states ; and while the Lower South was seceding and
Congress was talking compromise, the legislatures of the North
were already at work in framing the response to their challenge.

The situation with regard to fugitive slaves in 1860 was as fol-
lows : Article IV of the Constitution provided : "No Person held
to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escap-
ing into another, shall in consequence of any Law or Regulation
therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be
delivered upon Claim of the Party to whom such Service or La-
bour may be due," In 1 793 Congress passed an enforcing act pro-
viding for the delivery of such a fugitive upon presentation of
proof of ownership to a local magistrate and for a fine on those
who hid or assisted him. In 1842 the United States Supreme
Court in Prigg vs. Pennsylvania ruled that the local authorities
could not be compelled to aid in the execution of this act. This
decision was both preceded and succeeded in various states by
laws forbidding the use of state agencies for the purpose, their
professed purpose being to protect their own free negro popula-
tions. Such acts were known as personal liberty laws. In the
'thirties there came into existence in the North an organized at-

COMPROMISE 79

tempt to incite slaves to escape. The Liberator suggested it to
the illiterate by its cartoons, and a network of stations for the
passing over of fugitives from the slave states to the Canadian
border came to be known as the Underground Railway and
handled many passengers. Undoubtedly many of the personal
liberty laws were designed to impede the recovery of the fugi-
tives as well as to protect free negroes.

In 1850 this obstruction in the recovery of fugitive slaves was
one of the chief complaints of the South, and the passage of a
stricter enforcement law was the main concession it received in
Clay's compromise of that year. This law followed the earlier
one, which again had colonial precedent in excluding jury trial,
and in general favoring the alleged owner ; and it heavily penal-
ized all obstructions. Its most important feature, however, was
that it provided federal commissioners especially to serve its
purpose and so rendered enforcement free of state aid. It was
followed by two marked effects. The first was a greater effi-
ciency, under the administration of friendly presidents, in pre-
serving slave property; in 1850 the number reported escaping
was ion, in 1860 it was 803. The other effect was to arouse
a far wider and deeper opposition in the North, which was ex-
pressed in jail-breakings led by respected citizens and in a new
crop of personal liberty laws intended to meet the changed
situation. The Northern purpose was now plainly to impede the
execution of the federal law by forbidding the use of all state
agencies such as jails and officials, the issue of writs, and in some
cases by such positive provisions as the arrangement for jury trial
and public defence attorneys. California, New Jersey, and Min-
nesota alone offered aid in carrying out the law ; New York,
Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa had little or nothing on the subject ;
the other states showed in varying degrees the intention to render
the law futile. The United States Supreme Court declared the
law constitutional ; but this made little impression on Northern
opinion, for the court was presided over by Roger Taney, and
a majority of its members were from the slave states. The law
was attacked on the ground that the constitutional clause placed
the obligation on the states, and its enforcement was not a func-

80 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tion of the national government— strange ground for the broad
interpretations of the North. If this was true, the personal
liberty laws were plainly a breach of faith. If it were wrong,
they constituted effective nullification. On March 19, 1856, the
Wisconsin legislature, in connection with the Booth case in-
volving the rescue of a fugitive slave in Racine, voted the en-
dorsement of the famous Kentucky Resolution of 1799, with
the substitution of a "positive defiance" for "a nullification" as
"the rightful remedy" in case the national government passed a
law plainly beyond its assigned powers. In the same year Byron
Paine was elected by a vote of 40,500 to 38,555 to the supreme
court of the state on a platform proclaiming the right of a state
court to override that of the United States in such cases.

These laws threatened the South, not only by the actual loss
of property, but by the insidious demoralization of slave labor
generally. With the change in national administration these
laws became a menace, and many Southerners expected an exo-
dus of slaves to Canada. It was true that Lincoln promised en-
forcement of the law of 1850, but no American of 1930 could
maintain that the honest determination of a president is a guar-
antee of the enforcement of a law in territory hostile to it.
Much more profoundly the South felt the personal liberty laws
as evidence of an incompatibility between the sections so great
as to render union a mockery. John Brown's raid was an affair
of individuals ; the personal liberty laws were the deliberate
judgments of majorities of the several states which passed them.
Slave property was legal in the South. It was protected by the
national Constitution. In the North societies publicly meeting
and reporting to the public press professed and demonstrated
their purpose to steal this property, and the governments of states
abetted these projects. This incompatibility between the states
of the South and many of those in the North was the most con-
vincing argument for secession. As Yancey said, "the defeat
was not in the constitution but in the conscience of the North."
The time had come when unless the North changed its conscience
or the South its institutions the two could not dwell together
in amity.

COMPROMISE 8 1

Although the first anti-slavery movement arose among the
Quakers, and Pennsylvania was prompt in its personal liberty law,
the South attributed, and rightly, this militant conscience to New
England. New England, however, consisted not solely of its
six granite-based and ocean-washed states, but of a homogeneous
population which, like the Southern plantation system, had swept
westward, carrying its ideas and institutions with it. Colonial
migration had carried self-sufficing communities into Long Is-
land, Westchester county in New York, and northern New
Jersey. Post-Revolutionary migration had won large areas in
central New York around Rochester, northern Ohio around
Cleveland, and in southeastern Ohio, which regions were
thoroughly New England. Even when individuals during the
first half of the nineteenth century ventured beyond these
planned colonies, ties of affection and acquaintance and con-
venience of accustomed habits gathered them in swarms, and
made southern iMichigan, northern Illinois, southeastern Wis-
consin, and middle Iowa homelike ; while churches and colleges
such as Oberlin, Beloit, and Grinnell kept alive their spiritual
and intellectual ideals. Southward were flung coherent groups,
as in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and St. Louis, and thousands of
individuals, largely teachers and members of other professions,
were welcomed because of their New England education, among
kindred or mixed populations, where some changed their opin-
ions, but most retained their characteristics and mental habits.

The antipathy between New England and the South was mu-
tual and of long standing. Their co-operation during the Revo-
lution was in large part due to the intermediary moderation of
the middle colonies, and Samuel Adams was very doubtful if
the co-operation could survive the war. When the South
seemed in the saddle under the Jeffersonian regime, New Eng-
land seriously considered separation, not on the basis of seces-
sion, but of revolution ; and a powerful element at the Hartford
convention in 1814 set forth a program which might have led to
it had the War of 1812 continued longer. The knitting of eco-
nomic ties between 1815 and 1860, extensive as it was, did not
bring the sections closer in harmony. In fact, those very ties

82 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

brought into being sharp issues like that of the tariff. In part
the South grew more Southern with the intensification of cotton
culture, while New England grew increasingly industrial.
Their dominant philosophies, both social and political, grew
ever more dashingly defiant ; and perhaps more vitalizing than
all else was the fact that it was good form in the South to appear
less occupied than one was, while in New England it was con-
sidered proper to simulate activity when no reason for it existed ;
in the South it was bad manners to betray too great an interest
in one's neighbor ; in New England it was sinful sloth to disre-
gard his salvation.

In 1860 most New Englanders lived in the economic stage of
semi-sufficient contounal life where all labored and all labor
was performed by members of the same stock. Farther west-
ward, class lines based on occupation became dimmer, employ-
ing the essential equality which throughout the area received at
least lip service. In spots, however, the industrial revolution
had been for some time changing this life, and there came a
tendency to delegate the cruder new functions to foreign immi-
grants of different traditions. These foreign immigrants were
received on the same basis of equality ; no legal bars existed
to prevent their rise and, while there was little assimilation,
social barriers were not prohibitive. The old New England
stock, however, was still dominant in its own areas. The Irish
were the most active of the foreign elements but were partly
offset by the French Canadians, with whom they were uncon-
genial, and the cotton operatives from Lincolnshire who, except
in a few points of conviction, were docile followers of the New
England mill owners. It was only because of the division of the
ruling stock that the foreign voters counted. In the states of
which the New Englanders occupied only a part this stock con-
stituted an aggressive political bloc.

The majority of the New Englanders had from the beginning
of United States history supported the idea represented by the
Federalist and Whig parties. There had existed, however, from
colonial times a strong opposing element, based primarily on class
lines, which had been knit into a firm organization by the genius

COMPROMISE 83

of the Jacksonian party leaders. This division was stronger at
home in the six states than among the western immigrants, and
it did not run so deep as to split the basic convictions of contract
as the proper foundation of all relationships human and divine,
considering the United States Constitution as such a contract, nor
weaken the strong tendency to bring all issues to the test of con-
science. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century a new
division had been produced by the appearance of a renaissance
of New England intellectual life which did split the stock from
end to end into the orthodox and the unorthodox. Minds were
thrown open to all ideas, and the glory of free intellectual in-
quiry threw a roseate light over the remembrances of a Puritan-
ism that was losing its fire.

By 1860 this intellectual chaos of the 'thirties had assumed
some order. It had become evident that intellectual heresy was
not destroying orthodoxy of character and habits in the existing
generation. The reformers were as neighbors, gentle, moral,
and interesting ; and irritating as were their comments upon the
communal life, this friction was lessened by the focusing of their
chief attention upon the sins not of neighbors but of slaveholders
living in distant states. This was not a strategy on the part of
the reformers but inherent in their philosophy. Their creed was
individualism and equality ; their mission was to free men from
the shackles of law in the belief that once free their equality
would assert itself. The main activities of those at home were
directed to destroying the last evidences of Puritan control,
which were relatively unimportant, whereas the worst example
of legal inequality in the world was the status of the slave, which
was very important to the South. It is true that not all their *
proposals were consistent with their philosophy ; they were keen
humanitarians as well as philosophers and, as is true of most
ardent reforming groups, any proposal of uplift, labelled reform,
could win their support. Thus most of them were supporters
of state prohibition of the liquor traffic, which more consistency
would have led them to oppose. They were, in fact, even in
their opinions, sons of their sires, and their belief in individualism
and freedom could not expel their long-inherited sense of the re-

84 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

sponsibility of the community for its members. Thus so far as
they were nationalistic — and all except the extremists were —
their sense of community in the Union gave weight to their in-
tellectual hatred of slavery in any part of the nation.

Slavery had never been popular in New England and through-
out the eighteenth century had been under attack. By the time
of the Revolution it was generally regarded as contrary to Ameri-
can principles, as it was at that time in most of the colonies. The
obstacles to its abolition were fewer in New England than in the
states where slaves were more numerous ; it was between 1777
and 1784 that slavery was abolished or put in the process of
abolishment. To the succeeding generation it had become an
anachronism that called for moral reprobation. It was to their
children that it first presented itself as the crying evil of the age
to be cured by eradication immediate and without compromise.
The number who felt at once this supreme urge was of course
small, and the commotion into which their activities threw the
Union, combined with their insistence on racial equality, turned
the majority against them, perhaps with the greater violence be-
cause nearly all were at one in their belief that slavery itself was a
cursed institution. At home the Abolitionists were gadflies
stinging the New England conscience to action. For twenty
years their progress was slow and to them unsatisfactory, but
the penumbra of those who were stung to action, though to deeds
less violent than they demanded, grew rapidly. In 1 847 John G.
Palfrey prevented the election of Robert C. Winthrop to the
speakership of the national House because of shades of difference,
and in the election of 1848 the Free Soil party held the balance
between the Whig and Democratic parties in the North and were
soon able to send Seward, Chase, and Sumner to the Senate,

In the 'fifties the anti-slavery movement swept the New Eng-
land area like a whirlwind. One potent factor was the new
fugitive slave law, which brought slavery in the most offensive
form, the recapture of the slaves who wished to be free, to the
very hearthstones of New Englanders, At least as much as the
Kansas-Nebraska Act it made Theodore Parker and Abraham
Lincoln intelligible when they warned that the "house" might be-

COMPROMISE 85

come "all slave." Another factor was the driving home of an
appeal, long powerfully made in England, to the class conscious-
ness of labor, by the insistence that slavery anywhere was a
danger to all who worked in freedom and an affront to the dig-
nity of labor. From 1 854 the majority of New Englanders were
openly anti-slavery. By 1 860 a majority were willing to extend
to the relatively few negroes who were resident among them the
suffrage which some of their states had in fact long accorded
them. The new Republican party, of which they constituted
the majority, became to them a divine instrument for the cleans-
ing of the nation ; though their leaders exhibited the acumen to
clothe it in moderation and to direct its banners against attack
rather than to rush them forward against the enemy citadel, as
the genuine abolitionists had done. Not since the Revolution
had one object so obliterated the differences between this con-
tentious people. Not since then had they been so animated by
a se#se of right. As the average Southerner believed so strongly
in the constitutionality of secession that he thought Northerners
must, under their skins, know it to be legal, so the average New
Englander was convinced that Southerners could not but be
aware of the wickedness of slavery and so were sinners against
their own consciences.

Greater New England was not held together by an enchaining
gossamer of social relations as was the South, but a rich blend of
ideas and opinions pulsed through all its strata of classes and to its
remotest firesides. The stately periodicals of a dozen denomina-
tions presented every question as one of religion and morals ; a
reform press of several hundred papers, some persistent, some
ephemeral, advocated such a cause with general approval of
other causes ; a few leading weekly newspapers were circulated
or quoted to the farthest confines, and lecturers, many of them
like Emerson, the finest intellectual products of America, braved
the perils and hardships of travel to address audiences prepared
for them, and many listeners discussed their messages for months
afterward. Massachusetts was the most important New England
state, earlier looked upon as the Northern rival of Virginia and
lately of South Carolina. She was in fact less a leader than they.

86 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The distributing centre of New England ideas to the westward
was "York state," where Horace Greeley thundered in his Trib-
une, Henry Ward Beecher in his Independent, and whence came
Thurlow Weed's moderating voice in the Albany Evening Jour-
nal, but "York state" New Englanders, with the allies which they?
won by their earnestness and their public policies, constituted but
half a state. They produced their "up state" majorities only to
have them met at the Harlem river by counter majorities in the
"city." Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost ; they were in-
spired by the continual conflict, but they could not put into law a
rounded program. Their personal liberty law, which was passed
in 1840 when Seward was governor, no longer operated. In
January 1860, therefore, the entire New England community
turned its questioning gaze upon Massachusetts.

Massachusetts possessed an aristocracy of singular durability.
Its leader in 1860 was Robert C. Winthrop, descendant of the
first colonial governor, and it constantly, though grudgingly, re-
ceived those who proved their quality as Cabots and Lowells.
Without great estates but with skill in shifting their capital from
land to shipping, from shipping to manufacturing, and now, un-
der the guidance of J. Murray Forbes, to railroads, its families
passed on manner and importance to generation after generation.
It has stood for three hundred years less for leadership than for
stability. Moving more slowly than the mass of the population,
it had divided dangerously in the Revolution, losing many of its
citizens to England and Canada ; but it retained sufficient lustre
to draw new and kindred blood by which it rose again to sub-
stantial control from the days when it followed the alien Hamil-
ton to those when Webster was its revered attorney. In 1860
this aristocracy was anti-slavery, but it was still more strongly
Unionist. It produced radical extremists such as Wendell Phil-
lips and Charles Sumner, but it repudiated them. Its commercial
wing opposed protection, and its manufacturers realized the exist-
ence of interests common to the producer and manufacturer of
cotton ; during the existence of the Whig party they had been
mostly "Cotton Whigs" in contrast to those fewer "Conscience
Whigs" who would put slavery first. To them and to their in-

COMPROMISE 87

fluence must be credited most of the 22,331 votes which Bell
and Everett received in the state. They elected William Apple-
ton to Congress from a district consisting of residential Boston
and suburban towns, and their weight would be solid for the re-
peal of the personal liberty laws.

In uncongenial co-operation with them were the two Demo-
cratic factions. A small but persistent aristocratic element had
always been in opposition ; and in 1860, led by one of the most
brilliant minds in the state, Caleb Gushing, and in alliance with
one of the shrewdest of politicians, Benjamin F. Butler, it led
nearly six thousand votes to Breckinridge. The real nucleus of
the Democracy, however, was among the farmers of the inland
rocky areas, where in a process lasting through the first half of
the nineteenth century, local leaders arose and freed their towns
from the spell of the local squires and turned their supporters into
lifelong adherents of Jefferson or Jackson. They were nourished
under Democratic administrations by partnerships and passed
on to their sons the burning brand of party loyalty. These farm-
ers of the hills, with some groups of immigrants, clung in 1860 to
Douglas and gave him over thirty-five thousand votes.

From the days of Anne Hutchinson, however, through the
Reconstruction that followed the Civil War, the latent power in
Massachusetts which took command when moved to action was
that of the average citizen led by a separate aristocracy of intel-
lect and profession. There are in history few examples of fam-
ilies maintaining through so many generations an inheritance of
such ability and power as did the ecclesiastical dynasties of Massa-
chusetts ; each generation was sent almost literally naked into the
world save for education, blood, and discipline. While a fam-
ily proud of seven generations of ministerial ancestors could not
be said to be of the people, and while their austerities kept them
from much intimacy with their flocks, yet they showed at all
times that capacity for leadership which put them in the front
of progress, yet not so far ahead as to lose their following of
farmers, merchants, mechanics, and native laborers. It was
chiefly from this ecclesiastical class that the leaders of the ren-
aissance had come ; and during the 'fifties, with protest and

88 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

argument, the rest rapidly took fire from this new flame and
passed on the light to their followers, Unitarians and Congrega-
tionalists, Baptists and Methodists. In 1852 J. P. Hale, the Free-
soil candidate for president, received 28,025 votes ; in 1856 John
C Fremont, the Republican, 108,190. Meanwhile a majority
of the membership of their congregations voted Know-nothing
in state elections from a nativist and economic distrust of the
rapidly rising flood of immigration. When in 1860 the Republi-
cans won Carl Schurz and many Germans by their platform
declarations in favor of the foreign-born, they lost some of the
"sifted grain" of New England, and Lincoln received but 106,555
votes, about sixty per cent, of the total.

Massachusetts never underestimated her importance and was
fully aware that the secession of South Carolina was a challenge
to her. The situation was tense. The Springfield Republican
and the Boston Transcript urged substantial changes in the per-
sonal liberty laws. As was customary, .reputation was drafted
into service ; the signatures of thirty-five eminent leaders of the
bench and bar, of scholarship and of finance, were secured for
an address favoring the accommodation of the South, while a
petition with fifteen thousand signatures was sent to Washington
in the august custody of Edward Everett and Robert C. Win-
throp. On December 3, and again on December 12, Wendell
Phillips was rudely handled in Boston by a well-dressed mob of
those who agreed with the president that Phillips' tongue was
endangering the Union. The great annual meeting of the Aboli-
tionists, which petitioned that the laws be made more strict, was
mobbed in Boston on January 24. Wealth and organization
were for a gesture of good will, and the total number of Massa-
chusetts signatures on petitions favoring compromise was roughly
forty thousand to thirty-seven thousand for standing by the posi-
tion which the state had assumed.

Charles Sumner, the leader of the Republican haters of slavery,
was mad with anxiety lest the anti-slavery parapets already won,
which were to him but the merest approach to the fortress to be
taken, should be abandoned by their defenders ; and he tried by
his correspondence to be present at the real battlefield of his own

COMPROMISE 89

state, but his duty as senator kept him at Washington. On Jan-
uary 3, 1 86 1, the retiring governor, Nathaniel P. Banks, elected
as a Know-nothing, recommended revision, not so much in the
hope of compromise as to meet the basic grievance in South
Carolina's "counterfeited Declaration of Independence." The
newly-elected governor, John A. Andrew, was of a different
stripe. Like Sumner, he was representative of the Republican
extremists. As an able lawyer he had given liberally of his serv-
ices to prevent the enslavement of free negroes under the fugitive
slave law which seems in a few cases to have taken place, and he
had arranged the legal defence of John Brown. His radicalism
frightened some Republican orators, and about a thousand Lin-
coln supporters had preferred his Constitutional Union rival.
On January 5 he met the issue : "This whole matter involves no
question of comity, or interstate politeness. It is a naked ques-
tion of right. . . I have searched the position of Massachusetts
with all the disinterested patriotism which I could command
. . . and I find nothing by which I can reproach her with re-
sponsibility. Upon this issue, over the heads of all mere poli-
ticians and partizans, in behalf of the Commonwealth of Massa-
chusetts, I appeal directly to the warm hearts and clear heads of
the great masses of the people." Both he and others in his posi-
tion, however, accepted the last election as representative and
based their actions on the legislatures already elected rather than
on a new referendum vote. To Andrew, Sumner wrote : * "In
God's name stand firm ! Dorit cave, Andrew. God bless you !
Save Massachusetts from any 'surrender.' THE LEAST." On
February 17 Andrew arranged for an amendment to the per-
sonal liberty laws which removed certain obvious illegalities but
which left their protective features unimpaired, and as this seemed
satisfactory to Sumner it could scarcely have been expected to be
so to South Carolina. Rhode Island, the "Isle of Errors and sink
of New England," was ever different. The moderating influ-
ences were much the same as in Massachusetts but stronger.
The relations of "Cotton Whig" manufacturers and cotton grow-

* A. H. Grimke, Life of Charles Sumner, The Scholar In Politics (N. Y. 1892),
p. 325.

90 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ers were more pleasant and were made intimate at Newport,
whither so many rich planters and statesmen came to pass the
summer. Her governor was William Sprague, perhaps the most
feudal of textile manufacturers, who had been elected on a fusion
ticket. The state had personal liberty laws and also "sojourner"
laws to protect the slave property of her welcome visitors. Here
moderation won the day ; the former laws were repealed and the
latter retained. While aristocracy thus yielded, democracy did
not. In New Hampshire the Democratic faction of the aris-
tocracy had always been more powerful than elsewhere and with
the support of the hill farmers often controlled the state. Per-
sonal liberty laws had been staved off, and on January 29, 1860,
permission had been given to commissioners authorized by the
United States to issue writs. Nevertheless, on June 26, 1860, a
personal liberty law had been passed, indicating that this rocky
stronghold of Democracy had yielded to the rising tide of New
England sentiment. The legislature was not to meet again until
May, and the governor felt no need of a special session to recon-
sider a decision so recently made.

On the solid boulder that was New England the elements that
made up her Republicanism were more predominant than in these
coast regions. Maine stood by her laws. Vermont changed
them, as Massachusetts did, to render them less open to attack.
Connecticut possessed a strong democracy, recruited from rock-
bound fanners and keen mechanics who had rendered her name
famous for invention and craft. Her ruling caste, however, ex-
cept when too negligent of popular demands as in 1818, was a
large and evenly distributed aristocracy of character and intellect,
steeped when young in the powerful alembic of Yale and kept
in harmony by her commencements. They were set off by a
great economic gulf and lived too near the margin of subsistence
to find many occupations infra dignitatem ; they were as remark-
able for their inventions as for their lawyers, and their migrant
sons were doing much of the banking of New York. A moral
thrill affected all classes and was here entangled in no mesh of
textiles. Here Lincoln received a greater proportion of the vote
than in either Massachusetts or Rhode Island. The personal

COMPROMISE 91

liberty laws, passed in 1844, 1848, and 1854, were secure ; but
the governor found no reason for convening the legislature be-
fore its May meeting.

As a result of the balance between the New England and the
metropolitan sections, New York had nothing to repeal Peti-
tions to the legislature asked for sojourner laws favorable to the
South, and others that the Republican triumph be celebrated by
a genuine personal liberty law ; but no action was taken either
way. The influence of New England penetrated westward, less
and less inflamed by a moderating aristocracy or a democracy of
discontent. Michigan had a strong law, and a bill to repeal it
lay long in committee. On March 8, 1861, this bill was in-
definitely postponed. The recent battle in Wisconsin on the
right of her supreme court to over-rule that of the United States
in cases such as the fugitive slave law involving the limits of
federal authority gave warning that her law would be main-
tained. Her new governor, Alexander Randall, in his message
of January 10, 1861, said : "Personal liberty laws are found or
should be found upon the statutes of every State. They ought
to be there. All States have them both North and South, varying
in their character and provisions yet still personal liberty laws. .
We will abide by, and have never refused to abide by, the com-
promises of our common Constitution. But, subject to that
Constitution, the civil and religious liberty, for which the flesh
of martyrs melted and their bones crackled in the flames ; for
which the Pilgrims became Pilgrims, and for which our fathers
fought, shall travel down to other generations as they came
careering on in the midst of the ages, with not one right impaired
or one attribute lost/' No action was taken.

Meanwhile, south of the New England area other forces were
at work. In New Jersey, with her complex elements, Demo-
cratic hill farmers in the north united with metropolitan elements
just south of their hills, with her sparse New England element,
her many Quakers, and the plains farmers of the south. With
the balance teetering between Democracy and Republicanism,
the moderates were able to tip the legislature to reconciliation.
Her personal liberty law was repealed, though her law allowing

92 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

privileges to those enforcing the fugitive slave law was main-
tained. Much more important was Pennsylvania. Here was a
moral force in Quakerism as strong as the Puritanism of New
England, arid with methods quite its own. More than the New
Englanders, the Quakers had opposed slavery. They had long
since purged themselves by freeing their own slaves, and many
of their Southern communities had migrated in mass from slave
territory to free. They had been the first to organize against
slavery, and their persistent propaganda had seventy years of his-
tory behind it. They indulged less in denunciation and resorted
to persuasion, which New England neglected. They did not
control the government of their own state, where the other ele-
ments of a varied population so far outnumbered them ; but on
moral questions they were powerful. Many of the communities
of the Pennsylvania Dutch were Quaker in religion and organiza-
tion, and through them Quaker views penetrated the great cen-
tral portion of the state. The Scotch-Irish of the mountains and
the West, Presbyterian and in many respects more like New Eng-
lander than Quaker, were prone to test all their views by a moral
standard, and most of them accepted that which their environ-
ment supplied. Pennsylvania, so long sharply divided between
parties, nevertheless, possessed many points of unity. It believed
as a whole in a protective tariff and it was as determined to main-
tain freedom in its borders as South Carolina to preserve slavery.
Pennsylvania, therefore, while in many respects conciliatory,
was the first to adopt laws to protect her free negro population
and had been consistent in adapting them to circumstances.
Through her territories ran some of the most important routes
of the Underground Railroad. In 1861 her retiring governor,
William F, Packer, defended her position. He threw into the
teeth of the Southern states their own laws curtailing free speech
and forbidding the entrance of free negroes from the North.
He recommended that the state's personal Uberty laws be amended
to avoid the conflict, which he admitted to exist, with the Con-
stitution, but that after such alteration they must be enforced.
His successor, Andrew Curtin/ repeated the recommendation
with less emphasis upon repeal. The legislature dallied with the

COMPROMISE 93

matter, and it was allowed to die. In the only vote taken, there
was no evidence of sectionalism or of lines of difference based on *
origin. On both sides names of English, German, and Scottish-
Irish origin were divided fairly equally.

In Ohio, a miniature of the United States, the Northern forces
of Puritanism and Quakerism converged, and met opposing ele-
ments from the South, making Ohio the most significant state of
conflict. The Western Reserve, in the northeastern corner, was
as purely New England as any of the six states actually in New
England, and its population had overflowed its boundaries to
the south and west. Since 1848 it had sent Joshua R. Giddings,
the radical, to Congress. Around Marietta was a population
which had been longer in the state and was almost as pure a stock
as in Western Reserve, though it was recruited from a wider
area of expanded New England. Between the two was a popu-
lation blended of all types of Pennsylvanians. Between the
Scioto and the Little Miami rivers the Ohio river formed the base
of a wedge that extended to the middle of the state, settled by
holders of Virginia military land warrants, whose descendants,
although deprived of slavery in the first place by poverty and
then by the Northwest Ordinance, remained true to Virginian
principles as enunciated by Thomas Jefferson, and who now re-
turned Clement L. Vallandigham to Congress. In the northwest
was an area settled during the Jackson regime by migrants and
immigrants firm for Democracy of that type. For over a hun-
dred years Ohio has been divided in this manner, in spite of the
political changes that have taken place. Even when elections
have been landslides the old organization is still visible in the dis-
tribution of votes. A man who could swim amid the cross cur-
rents of Ohio politics was at home when he turned to national
affairs ; seven presidents and almost that number of defeated
candidates have attended her training school.

In 1860 the balance between the elements was fairly close ;
and it hung largely upon Cincinnati, just outside the Virginia
area. Cincinnati was in 1860 the largest, richest, and most cul-
tured city west of the mountains, her most powerful rival being
St. Louis, with Louisville a lesser one. Her thoroughly Ameri-

94 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

can population was of all elements, including the oldest German
group of the West, substantially established in the finer crafts.
The tone of society was Southern, and Kentucky was her recrea-
tion ground, but a valiant New England group had long fostered
every advanced idea that came out of Boston and Rochester.
Her function was distinctly amalgamating ; she manufactured for
the South, she imported from the East and from Europe for the
South, and she was to a lesser degree a distributing point for
Southern products. Though it was of course with the upper
South that her business was most bulky, her banks and her credit
were important from western Virginia to New Orleans, and
Southern prosperity was at least as important to her as her own
hinterland, with its fat cattle and hogs and corn. Her affections
and her conscience were partly divided ; but, for the most part,
her interests lay with the Union when war threatened.

Ohio did not have a genuine personal liberty law, but a kid-
napping act of 1857 served in lieu thereof, and as the shortest and
most frequented routes of the Underground Railroad lay in her
borders, she was looked to for action. The governor, William
Dennison, recommended that when the obnoxious clauses of the
fugitive slave law were repealed, Ohio should revise her act.
Senator Salmon P. Chase was of the same opinion which he had
expressed at the Peace Conference, that the Republicans should
"do nothing in their way until they became responsible, under
the recent decision of the people, for the Administration of the
GovV On January 12 the House passed resolutions including
the following : "It is incumbent upon any states having enact-
ments on their statute books conflicting with or rendering less
efficient the constitution or laws of the United States to repeal
them." On January 25 the Senate committee on the judiciary
reported that certain sections of the kidnapping act fell in this
category. The subject was discussed off and on for a month,
but no action was taken nor was any decision reached on a bill
inaking it a crime to assist anyone owing service in another state
to escape. The emergency did not move the state to changes.

Indiana, with her much stronger Southern element and a north

COMPROMISE 95

of blended stocks meeting in Indianapolis, has always been
famous for the closeness of her votes and powerful by the rapidity
with which her majorities shift, but she possesses no such fas-
cinating sectionalism as Ohio ; rather the whole state resounds
with debate. Her retiring governor, A. A. Hammond, con-
sidered that the South should have justice. The newly-elected
H. S. Lane on January 14 rightly declared that: "Indiana has
not now, and never had any such legislation," and he recom-
mended to those states that did, a "voluntary and prompt repeal."
In Illinois, projecting so far into the South, between Kentucky
and Missouri, the first settlers were from the South and many
of them by no means expectant that the Northwest Ordinance
would for ever deprive them of slave property. This element
working northward up the river valleys had until recently con-
trolled the state. Its doubtful struggle with the incoming New
England element that occupied the northern sections and the
prairies and with the Germans who settled the lands of the Illi-
nois Central made Douglas and Lincoln closely balanced rivals,
and Lincoln so eligible a Republican candidate. The triumph
of the Republicans was so recent that it was not yet fully re-
flected in state legislation. The Illinois code about free negroes
represented the Southern point of view, and there were no safe-
guards for the liberty of negroes. Both the outgoing and the in-
coming governors recommended the repeal of any unconstitu-
tional laws that the legislature might find, though the incoming
governor, Richard Yates, asserted that the South, with her laws
directed against the North, could complain with but bad grace.
Iowa, like Illinois, had been long dominated by her first South-
ern settlers, and the triumph of the growing stream from the
North was again too recent to have put into die statutes such
sectional legislation as a personal liberty law, though some of the
most tempestuous trips on the Underground Railroad had been
carried out in her territory. Minnesota had in 1858, perhaps in
gratitude for her admission under a Democratic administration,
opened her jails to federal officials enforcing the fugitive slave
law. Her new Republican governor, Alexander Ramsey, ,in

96 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

January 1861, was of the opinion that "The alleged non-execu-
tion of the fugitive slave law, and so-called personal liberty bills,
seem to be mere pretexts for a course resolved on."

From this review it is evident that the South could make no
immediate complaint about New York, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa,
or Minnesota, and had cause for gratitude to Rhode Island and
New Jersey. The position of Maine, New Hampshire, and
Connecticut was unsatisfactory in law ; these states had taken no
pains to change their position, and the indications were that they
would not. Six states, Massachusetts, Vermont, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, had reconsidered their position
and decided adversely. The decision of Massachusetts was most
dramatically important, but Pennsylvania's failure to repeal or
modify was more significant. It was plain that in spite of the
defections of Rhode Island the New England element was hold-
ing as firmly to its position of November 1860, as was the Lower
South ; and it had the support of the Pennsylvanian element,
while the Confederacy was not yet sure of the Upper South.
The recent growth of Republicanism in states such as Illinois,
Iowa, and Minnesota, based as it was on the flow of New Eng-
land and Pennsylvania populations and the increasing support of
foreign immigrants in the West, made the future more menacing
than the present, but with reference to compromise the actual re-
sults were sufficient unto themselves. If the seceded states re-
fused to vote, any two states of the North could defeat an amend-
ment of the Constitution ; an amendment accepted by the seceded
states might yet be defeated by the votes of nine Northern states.
Six had declared themselves, three more had not felt moved to
act, and the attitude in at least Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Minne-
sota was that conformity to the existing constitutional guarantees
of slavery constituted the limit of their yielding. The North,
in its legislatures, had reviewed its stand of November in the
light of secession, and it still stood by its decision for no com-
promise.

The repeal of the personal liberty laws, invoking as it did the
law of the Constitution against the "higher law" of conscience,
was the smallest sacrifice the North could make, and it was prob-

COMPROMISE 97

ably the most vital of the compromise proposals. Had it been
granted, had the South seen evidence that the North would put
the obligations of the law over those of conscience, she might
well have proved herself considerate in other things. For com-
promise a spirit was necessary as well as a bargain. It was this
that had always given Clay his strength, for he was able to im-
part an enthusiasm and a sense of sacrifice for harmony to his
compromises. The reply of the North on the personal liberty
laws was taken by the South, and rightly so, as an indication
that there was no change of spirit. John Randolph's northern
"dough-faces" of 1820 could no longer control the situation.
The North was as firm in refusing to tarnish her conception of
right as the South to risk her rights. By March 4 compromise
was dead.

CHAPTER IV

PEACE OR WAR

ON MARCH 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated at Wash-
ington. Protection was afforded by the usual force of marines
at the navy yard and by 653 additional troops ordered there
by President Buchanan. In addition, numbers of Republican
office-seekers had organized a president's guard. The retiring
president, as usual, escorted his successor to the capitol, and Sen-
ator Douglas held Lincoln's hat during the delivery of the address.

Lincoln had just passed his fifty-second birthday and was in
full physical vigor. Matured in mind and character, he still
possessed the capacity to grow. His physique was of a type
purely American, developed in the mountainous frontier, tall and
lanky, with inadequate chest. In many ways he belonged to
another type as old as our civilization. He was the village sage.
America in 1860 was essentially rural, and in tens of thousands
of communities informal groups of men met in crossroads stores,
in saloons and hotel bars, for association and debate. Thousands
of natural leaders gave unity to such associations by wit and
wisdom and the qualities of leadership. The more important
emerged into legislatures, there to wrestle with each other until
a few stood out. It was from such a school that Lincoln had
now graduated, to be at least titular leader among the prophets
of a free democracy.

Though belonging to types by no means unusual he possessed
marked elements of distinctiveness ; his looks, his trick of phras-
ing, his gestures, and his thoughts were always a bit different and
were remembered. He had been known to the American people
for only about two years. They knew his features, which they
regarded as homely and good-natured. They knew him also as
a humorist. This humor was two-fold. He had a capacity for
telling stories or making unexpected comparisons which hit off
some situation or problem in terms of both laughter and convic-
tion. The material he used was that of the common daily life

PEACE OR WAR 99

pf mankind, and sometimes it offended the sensibilities of the
Victorian age ; but at their worst his stories were coarse rather
than ribald, and they were told more for effect than for them-
selves. A deeper humor came from the alignment of Lincoln
against the world, which, if he did not emphasize, he did not
conceal. His figure was not rendered less striking by his ex-
tremely tall hat and the long cloak or shawl he so frequently
wore. They undoubtedly added to the humor of his appear-
ance to which he was always the first to call attention, but they
were not unconventional garments and did not prevent a transi-
tion into impressiveness. He never wore a low-crowned broad-
brimmed hat, for such a hat would have rendered him comic.
Innately or by design there was always an essential congruity
about him. He did not tell obscene stories to Charles Sumner ;
whether used consciously or instinctively, his humor was one of
his most valuable assets. It secured him his hearing without clos-
ing minds against him ; the cultured Mrs. Chesnut noted in her
diary that, given time, he would laugh South Carolina out of
secession.

The development of his mind, at least, had not been left to
chance. His strongest mental traits were a profound sense of
reality and a power of concentration which put him at times into
a condition almost trance-like. From his youth, with unremit-
ting effort, these powers had been bent to securing clear thought
and clear expression. He had but recently studied geometry to
discipline his mind, and his inaugural address was submitted to a
local school-teacher for verbal criticism. He never made a pub-
lic statement without preparation or published one without proof-
reading. Because his qualities were high, this process led to
profundity on the few subjects to which he could apply such
processes. On these he spoke with the conviction and emphasis
of a prophet. It remained to be proved how he would handle
those many subjects on which an executive must speak and act
before he has the rime to probe their depth ; for up to this mo-
ment he had exercised no executive authority.

The subjects to which he gave his attention had been deter-
mined by his ambition from early manhood to be a leader of men.

100 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Political life was high in the society he had frequented, and his
pleasure was in associations and contests with men. He was not
goaded by dissatisfaction ; but his mind was evolutionary, and
with reverence he regarded the political institutions of the United
States as instruments of continual progress. He undoubtedly
hoped as president not to create a revolution, but to help man-
kind toward those ends which he thought were beneficial and to
escape conditions that were detrimental. In general he had al-
ways stood for. an active government and for the policies of
Hamilton, and in particular, for those of Henry Clay.

The spirit in which he would handle his office was better
known to his neighbors than to the rest of the country, and best
known to himself. He regarded patience as his greatest quality,
and in it he had had good schooling. He was devoid of passion,
lacking temper either as a weapon or a curse. He did not hate.
He was no fanatic, forgetting that method may be as important
as principle, but he could be drastic on matters of conviction.
His attitude toward himself was as realistic as that toward others,
and neither personality nor interests ever intervened between his
policies and their accomplishment.

The first taste the country had of his abilities was in the forma-
tion of his cabinet. It was his own structure. In the nomina-
tion campaign one of his managers, acting contrary to instruc-
tions, had made a pledge ; Lincoln accepted the obligation, but
it is probable that he would have made the same appointment
under any circumstances. In the first place, he recognized the
voice of the people in selecting all his chief rivals for the Re-
publican nomination for the presidency, Seward became secre-
tary of state ; Chase of the treasury ; Simon Cameron of Penn-
sylvania, of war ; while Edward Bates of Missouri was chosen
attorney-general. For the navy he chose Gideon Welles of Con-
necticut, an editor, formerly a Democrat ; for the interior, Caleb
B. Smith of Indiana ; and for postmaster-general, Francis P.
Blair's son, Montgomery, of Maryland. With Lincoln included,
four members had been Whigs and four had been Democrats.
Two members were from slave states. All factions and the chief
leaders of the party were about the council table. There was the

MEMBERS OF LINCOLN'S CABINET

Top: Gideon Welles, Postmaster-General. Second Row: Simon
Cameron, Minister of War; Montgomery Blair, Minister of
Marine; Caleb B, Smith, Minister of Home Affairs. Bottom
Row: S. P. Chace, Minister of Finance; W. H. Seward, Prime
Minister; Edward Bales, Minister of Justice.

The titles used for each member arc those used by The Illustrated Times
(London). An error is made in the designation of Gideon Welles and
Montgomery Blair, who were Secretary of the Navy and Postmaster-
General, respectively.

PEACE OR WAR IOI

opportunity for unity of action ; there was the chance for quarrel
and disruption. It was evident that Lincoln possessed the req-
uisite knowledge of the intricacies of national politics. It was
plain, too, that he faced with confidence the handling of men.
Whatever the disadvantages of his upbringing, they had their
compensation in that intensive knowledge of human nature which
frontier equality of condition, with so many conventions swept
away, affords. The mixed stock of some strong, some decadent,
and some commonplace strains among which he had lived had
given him contestants of every stripe, and he was as devoid of
fear of man as a Quaker.

After the inauguration and the appointing of the cabinet came
fog. No special session of Congress was called, though the Sen-
ate remained to confirm appointments. The new administra-
tion took no more active measures than the old. Lincoln visibly
spent his days listening to the rival appeals of office-seekers, and
conducting one of the greatest divisions of spoils among the vic-
tors, which had ever taken place. The Republicans were con-
fronted by a civil service more completely hostile than any party
which had so far come to power. It was not only politically
hostile but, owing to Buchanan's tendency in appointment, pre-
ponderantly Southern in its sympathies. Washington, a South-
ern city, shuddered at the invasion of the Northerners and
parvenus and was suspected of resistance. None of these con-
ditions, however, deterred the Republicans in seeking offices or
Lincoln in giving them ; it was simply the way things were done,
and the only voices of protest were those of the disappointed
and the deprived and a few who thought time should be spent
otherwise.

The sweep was carried so far and fast that public business was
deranged, and the old Union lost much of the prestige of order
to the new Confederacy. The virus of disorder penetrated to
the cabinet, where no one seemed chief, where departmental limits
were forgotten and each went his way unrebuked. For half a
month there were no regular cabinet meetings, but there were
many called interviews with those especially interested in the
matter at hand, plus Seward, who considered himself, and was

102 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

widely regarded, as the leading figure of the party, only acci-
dentally not president. Chase was determined that Seward should
not rule and was not too busy in needed studies of finance to
concern himself chiefly with matters of general policy and to
offer suggestions to other departmental heads. The confusion
was so obvious that on April i Seward addressed to Lincoln a
memorandum, "Thoughts," for the president's consideration, sug-
gesting policies and offering to assume what amounted to a pre-
miership under a nominal head. Such uncertainty was inevitable
in the first meeting of so many strong men. Some presidents
would have used the whip, as did Polk in 1845, but such action
was contrary to Lincoln's nature, and might in 1861 have led to
resignations. Lincoln, confident in his strength, bided his time.
After April i, Seward was transformed from a factional leader
to the most perfect of lieutenants, and none of the cabinet re-
signed of his own free will. The game as Lincoln played it was
worth the candle, should the house not burn down during the
vigil.

The primary reason, however, why time was taken was that
there was time to take. Lincoln, on becoming president, found
a new issue other than those upon which he had been elected
and on which there was no public mandate. When he said
"No" to compromise he executed a trust. Now the question was
how should the North regard the separated South. On that
question the people had not spoken ; there could be no six years
of debate for the presentation of the subject. There was no
apparatus for a referendum, and should one be taken it would
represent but the hasty and ill-informed voice of the people. It
was a time for leadership, and by his position Lincoln was re-
sponsible for the formulation of a decision and the winning of
the people to peace or war as he should judge best — not that the
commonwealth should receive no injury, but that it should re-
ceive as little as possible. Compromise was dead, but peaceful
separation was still a matter of choice.

The choice lay with the North. The Confederacy would not
begin a war. The only act of offence which had so far been
taken by the seceding governments was the firing on the Star of

PEACE OR WAR 103

the West. Since no actual injury had been inflicted, the episode
was one which in diplomatic usage could be atoned for by a
salute to the flag. This, moreover, was the act of the state of
South Carolina before the Confederacy took over external rela-
tionships. The seizure of the United States forts and other
property by various states was indeed regarded by the people of
the North as acts of offence, but this was a matter of constitu-
tional interpretation. By the Southern theory the states were
wholly sovereign and possessed the right of expropriation. They
had expressed their willingness to pay their adjusted share of the
cost of such property. The seizure was not with intent to war.
Indeed, the Confederacy had no cause for war unless subsequent
negotiations should prove unsatisfactory, and it had particular
reasons for peace, not only in that the majority of the popula-
tion preferred it, but because hostilities must bring the first clashes
with those more northern slave states which it was hoped to bring
into the organization. On March 5 its commissioners of peace
arrived in Washington.

The fact that the North, after hesitation, made its naked de-
cision for war instead of for peaceful negotiations was disguised
by the fact that the discussion revolved about the Constitution.
It left few traces, because the war proved more popular, and men
forgot that they had hesitated. Historians have for the most part
conformed to their material. The present generation cannot,
however, fail to arraign its grandfathers for a defence of a choice
against which so many moral and economic forces would today
inevitably be opposed. One must be careful not to read one
generation's actions in the light of another generation, but chang-
ing attitudes properly cause the present generation to interpret
differently the different phases of past situations. War in 1860
was indeed not so horrible as in 1914-18, and the feeling against
it was less keen and was confined to a much narrower circle.
The Quakers had always been opposed to it, and a well-organized
Peace Society was urging the arguments for its cessation. The
propaganda of either, however, had not touched the conscience
of New England, and war was still generally regarded as an in-
strument rather than an iniquity, as a method to be employed

104 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

only in an extreme emergency, but not without its trappings of
glory and virtue. The thought of war did not shock ; it de-
terred some and undoubtedly kindled others.

Hesitation can be caught only in documents absolutely con-
temporaneous ; no man's memory or honesty may be trusted a
week, hardly a day, after Fort Sumter had been fired upon.
Even so, in reading public utterances one must not forget that it
was not accident but national character which made poker the
great American game. Bluff was an element in politics and
never more so than in this supreme crisis. North and South mu-
tually believed the other bluffing, and even peaceful men were
prepared to bet on their hands to the point of actual armed con-
flict, confident that the other side would then yield rather than
fight to an extremity. Others, too, would fight for the Union
but believed that time, with peace, would recall the recalcitrant,
and so tuned their voices. Yet the evidence abundantly justifies
the prediction of George Ticknor in his letter of November 17,
1861, to Sir Charles Lyell : "One thing, however, is certain.
There will be more profitable, concentrated thinking upon po-
litical subjects done in the United States during the next six
months, than has been done during the last ten years." The
question of what should be done if states seceded and compromise
failed began to engage the attention in December 1860, but it
gained in emphasis as the three succeeding months waxed and
waned.

The centre of this debate was in New York and its metro-
politan district, the only large area of the North where Lincoln
had not won a majority. In favor of peaceful separation were
the two rivals — the Herald and the Tribune. On that issue
Greeley wrote as late as February 2, 1861 : "While it must
awaken feelings of regret and mortification in all patriotic hearts,
the consolation will yet remain that, so far as man can discover,
no great interest of humanity will suffer by it." The Herald
on April 9, 1861, stated : "Far better that the Union should be
dismembered forever than that fraternal hands should be turned
against one another to disfigure the land by slaughter and car-
nage." With them the Journal of Commerce and the Observer

PEACE OR WAR 105

combined to stay the curse of war. Steadily against them were
the Times and the World, but particularly William Cullen Bry-
ant, veteran editor of the Evening Post. Leading citizens such as
General Dix, Abram S. Hewitt, Hamilton Fish, and James W.
Gerard, favored peace, while Charles Spencer of Alabama, in a
letter to the Charleston Mercury, reported that the majority of
those he met in New York were for peaceful dissolution. James
G. Thayer, before a Democratic convention at Albany during the
first week of February, asked for a New York convention to
decide on terms of separation. John W. Edwards on February
22, at a celebration arranged by the Republican central com-
mittee in the city, expressed the opinion that the country had
been too large and that separation might be an advantage. Fer-
nando Wood, mayor of New York and boss of one of its partizan
Democratic groups, in a message of January 6 to the Council,
looked with complacency to the "dissolution of the Confederacy
[Union] " as affording an opportunity for the city to break away
from the state.

In New England discussion raged and individual thought wa-
vered from Maine to Connecticut. Liberals, both in and out of
the Republican party, followed Garrison's lead in the Liberator
in rejoicing at the cleansing of the Union from the contamination
of slavery and hoped that "all fifteen slave states would depart
in peace." Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote : "There is no end
to the shades of opinion. Nobody knows where he stands but
Wendell Phillips and his out-and-outers." Of course Phillips
stood for peace ; with Emerson, Whittier, S. G. Howe, James
Freeman Clarke, and their coterie deluging Sumner with their
views. Intellectuals such as Amasa Walker were of the same
opinion, and they were now joined by the most virulent Demo-
crats such as Caleb Gushing. Edward Everett attempted to lead
the Whig aristocracy in the same direction, but they seem to have
been less united than they had been for compromise. Young
Charles Francis Adams wrote on November 8, "Let the experi-
ment [secession] be tried." On December 22, 1860, William
Pitt Fessenden, Republican and United States senator from
Maine, wrote his law partner : "I am ready to part company with

106 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the slave states and trust God and the people for reconstruction
on narrower ground, but on a sounder and firmer basis." The
sense of relief, so akin to that in South Carolina, swept westward
with the New England stock. From western New York Ger-
ritt Smith said on February 6, before the judiciary committee of
the New York legislature : "Our States cannot be held together
by force, and should not if they could." In Ohio the veteran
member of Congress from Cleveland, Joshua Giddings, expressed
himself warmly in favor of a purely free republic, a plan which
he insisted should be adopted by the North regardless of all other
considerations. Young Rutherford B. Hayes wrote his uncle
on January 12 : "I arn not in favor of a war policy with a view
to conquest of any of the Slave States ; except such as are needed
to give us a good boundary," The Democrat Clement L. Val-
landigham wrote on November 28, 1860 : "I never would as a
Representative in the Congress of the United States vote one
dollar of money whereby one drop of American blood should be
shed in civil war." The Cincinnati papers were divided, and
Salmon P. Chase was reported as leaning toward his liberal asso-
ciates.

Pennsylvania Quakers naturally inclined in the same direction
and had the powerful aid of the Inquirer, The thought of peace,
however, did not extend far from Philadelphia, and the legisla-
ture sought words to express its insistence upon union. Nor did
the passive element of the New England opinion extend beyond
Ohio. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, in Illinois, Iowa,
and the territory of Kansas, there was little discussion, and war
was thought the sole answer after compromise failed. Yet in
Washington, Douglas, the hero of almost half of Illinois, in a
series of speeches running from March 6 to March 15, was en-
deavoring to interpret Lincoln's inaugural address as a peace
document and declared there were but three lines of policy open
- compromise, which was the best ; peaceful separation ; and
war, which was the worst. "I expect to stand by my country
under all circumstances ; and hence I will save her, if I can, from
being plunged into a Civil War." On the west coast, however,

PEACE OR WAR IOJ

thought was given a new angle. Joseph Lane, senator from Ore-
gon, wrote on November 20, 1860 : 'The Union was not formed
by force, nor can it be maintained by force," and on March 4,
1861 : "I will urge the Democracy of Oregon to adopt the Con-
stitution of the Confederate States as their platform." On March
3, 1 86 1, the Breckinridge state central committee of California,
in a call for a meeting, said : "Let us have Union if we can, peace-
ful dissolution if we must, but conflict never" ; and put forth
Senator Gwin's query asking, should the Union dissolve or a
civil war ensue, should not a Pacific nation take its independent
stand. The strength of this peace movement was not brought
to the test of a vote. The actions of legislatures show that most
political leaders did not think it dominant.

Yet in every community and class, argument for peace was
countered by argument for war. Except in New York and New
Jersey the proponents of war seemed the most numerous, and
reports indicated that the proportion grew as the weeks passed.
Most of the orthodox clergy urged war ; all reports of working-
men's opinions aligned them on the side of action ; naturalized
citizens were said to be generally on the same side and, most im-
portant, it was conceded that the interior, the rural regions with
their village sages, stood for force. It is with the motives of
those who took this stand that one is deeply concerned.

The bulk of material is enormous, but it cannot be weighed by
bulk. Times set fashions in debate as in clothes, and the his-
torian must estimate to what degree these represent difference of
condition and mental attitude and how far they are mere whims
and conventions. The contrast in public debate between the
whole period of the Civil War and Reconstruction and the pres-
ent day is so great that one would think another race were
speaking ; and yet human nature changes slowly, and sixty years
is but a brief span. Almost invariably in the speeches of that
period the greater space and the most conspicuous position were
devoted to expositions of the Constitution. Following this in em-
phasis was insistence on the "higher law" of right and wrong.
Statistics were few and appealed to expediency and self-interest

108 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

in general. Did this indicate a higher moral plane ? Was it
hypocrisy ? Was it due to a different synthesis of ideas by which
the ideal was more closely related to the materially real ?

Alexander Stephens, in his Savannah speech, stated that he had
met in Congress only two Northerners, Webster and Douglas,
who took the Constitution seriously. This was plainly an un-
fair statement. One finds, indeed, few men, either in the North
or South, who were deterred from satisfying their desires because
of prohibitions contained in the Constitution, which, in a general
way, had become the symbol of progress. To most people it
came to be regarded as the chief cause of American prosperity.
In defending the Constitution men were protecting all the ele-
ments of a life which satisfied them and made them happy, and
which gave promise of progress for their children's children.
Undoubtedly in 1861 many were ready to die to defend the Con-
stitution ; in their defence there was more religious fervor than
had ever before attached to a purely political document. Almost
universally in the North it was believed that the Constitution was
intended to be perpetual, and so it was identified with the con-
tinuance of the Union. These two ideas, while few distinguished
between them, are distinguishable. Some held the Constitution,
some the Union, the higher, and in consequence leaned in differ-
ent directions.

For those who most highly regarded the Constitution the
sense of responsibility for war was veiled. Secession was in it-
self aggression, and the lovers of the Constitution must turn the
other cheek or fight. Still more was the state seizure of forts
and other property an act of war, and the refusal to obey the laws
was the equivalent of armed rebellion. Such thinkers, however,
were not yielding purely to a legal brief ; obedience to the Con-
stitution was also a desperately practical consideration in which
were bound the whole order of their lives and being. They had
been brought up on Webster's argument on the impracticability
of nullification and secession. If one state could legally leave
the Union, why not another ? If there were two confederacies
of states bound merely voluntarily, would not each be for ever
bidding against the other for the attachment of the vacillating ?

PEACE OR WAR 109

Or would there be merely two ? Men in New Jersey were
thinking of joining the South, the Pacific was thinking of inde-
pendence and so was New York City. Let the idea once be
established, and the very foundations of law would be loosed,
and the triumphant structures of American civilization, the hope
of the world, would crumble.

To preserve the Constitution some would even sacrifice, the
Union. They urged that a constitutional amendmenr be passed
especially allowing the departed states to sever their connection.
Thus at least the precedent would be established that none could
leave without the assent of the rest, and the Constitution would
not be robbed of its authority. The evidence indicates that the
Constitution and the political system it embodied were the most
powerful motives urging toward war.

Others looked at the Constitution as fundamentally the instru-
ment of a unity which was itself the supreme object. Many of
these had been ready to compromise to save both Constitution
and unity. Now they became the most ardent of the war ad-
vocates. Unquestionably the Union was more materially ad-
vantageous to the North than to the South. While the South
might well have profited by free trade, schism must cause im-
mediate loss to the free states and hamper their growth. All
parts of the North emphasized what the passing of the Mississippi
waterway would mean to the Northwest, which was almost hys-
terical on the subject. It was but forty-five years since the full
possession of the Mississippi had passed definitely into the hands
of the United States. Memories of the riches of its great fields
bottled up by Spain or threatened by Great Britain were still
lively. Such memories had not passed forty-five years after the
Civil War, when interest in Cuba and Panama was intensified by
the argument that they were but the portals to the Mississippi.
When the mayor of New York threatened the secession of that
city, the Northwest found itself confronted with political isola-
tion, economically dependent upon the whims of others. Union
and the Constitution were the breath of its life, and it was as
sensitive to movements of dissolution as is Poland today to the
conditions surrounding her corridor. Under such stimulus more

110 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

than one began to see the world in terms of geographical unities
and to respond to Lincoln's statement that "physically we are
one."

Much less was said of the economic dependence of the East,
though much was said of the economic dependence of the South,
overlooking the fact that she might shift her patronage. But
whither could New England shift the sale of her textiles now sold
to the South under the protection of a tariff and of a monopolized
coast trade ? Connecticut novelties perhaps needed no protec-
tion, but Pennsylvania could not compete in a foreign market
with the cheaper and sometimes better products of England.
There was good reason for workmen to support the Union, and
while this argument was less emphasized than that of the Missis-
sippi, it was actually more vital and cannot have escaped the active
minds of those concerned. Nor had New York merchants sound
cause for confidence that they would not suffer in pocket and
prestige when Southern orators were offering New Orleans and
Baltimore her place in Southern economy and finance. They
were still for peace, they were for compromise, they would
sacrifice almost all for Southern good will, but one may doubt
their ultimate willingness to see their customers divided.

It was not practicality alone which brought its legions to up-
hold the Constitution. This was a generation very conscious
of abstract ideas and strongly moved by them. Ideas did not
clash with law, and economics but blended with them in many
minds. One ideal of the day was that of national unity, repre-
sented by the liberal movements in Italy and Germany. Italian
art was in the ascendant, the German Santa Claus was everywhere
triumphing over Saint Nicholas and driving out the roast beef
of Old England. Garibaldi and Carl Schurz were heroes to
thousands of native-born ; and the German thinkers, having left
the multi-monarched homeland, had strong convictions against
state rights. Precisely those elements which in 1819 saw virtue
in the self-determination of small states, in 1860 gave their sym-
pathy to aspirations for large ones.

It was, of course, another phase of idealism that was now to
prove its power ; that centred in the movement against slavery.

PEACE OR WAR III

Many of the leading Abolitionists were now exultant because the
withdrawal of South Carolina left them uncontaminated, and
they hoped that all her tarnished sister states would follow ; yet
satisfaction in personal sainthood was not a characteristic New
England trait. No sooner, in fact, had those aroused by Gar-
rison's trumpet in the 'thirties become numerous than they had
divided, and though the few refused to soil their souls by recog-
nizing a Constitution which sanctioned slavery, the greater num-
ber entered politics and followed American tradition of reform
by the ballot. As the inspiration spread more widely among the
New England stock, action became increasingly the cry. The
great majority of those who in 1860 recognized slavery as a curse
were not content to cross their fingers to avert the evil eye.
They gave the driving force to the Republican party, and they
did not intend that it should stand upon the defence. They
would not compromise, and in war they saw the hand of God
making national the intent of John Brown's raid. An old man
once told me that when he enlisted his father said to him : "Shoot
once for the Union and twice against slavery." A crusade was
in progress ; the South, by seceding, had assumed the role of the
infidel. War would release the Republican party from the tram-
mels of its moderation and would put a sword into the hands
of the righteotis. There could be no doubt that slavery would
perish in the strife, and no price was too great to pay. It was in
this spirit that John A. Andrew began his term of office by set-
ting the military resources of Massachusetts in better order than
those of any other state. Pure, keen, and valiant, he should have
led them to the field, a cross upon his shoulder, the light of a holy
contest in his eye. Those crusaders were a minority of the
population, but before them was an opportunity which only
cowards would shirk.

A sense of fate came to aid legality, practicality, and purpose.
Gustave Koerner wrote to Lyman Trumbull, January 21, 1861 :
"A collision is inevitable. Why ought not we test our govern-
ment instead of leaving it to our children ?" Such men realized
that many of the questions between the North and the South, as
territories and fugitive slaves, would remain in spite of separation,

112 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

and that new questions, such as foreign affairs and the tariffs,
would arise. Few seemed to sense the difference that the di-
vision of American strength would make in relation to Europe,
but they were fully aware that the "irrepressible conflict" be-
tween North and South was not one of items but of cultures.
The Philadelphia Inquirer on March 21 and 22 proposed the
arrangement of a truce, providing that the question of secession
be submitted to the people of the South. The New York Times
on April 9 remarked, "If the two sections can no longer live to-
gether, they can no longer live apart in quiet till it is determined
which is master. No two civilizations ever did, or can come into
contact as the North and the South threaten to do, without a trial
of strength, in which the weaker goes to the wall. . . We can
henceforth have no permanent quiet till it is decided which is to
triumph. . . We must remain master of the occasion and the
dominant Power on this continent."

This discussion of peace or war cut across political parties, and
completely broke the alignment on compromise. The radical
wing of the Republicans, and the independents beyond them,
who had most strongly opposed compromise, were most willing
to let the erring sisters depart in peace. Many Democratic pa-
pers and organizations still clamored for peace as a means of
ultimate compromise, but it was they who had been willing to
surrender most to keep the Union and who would most regret its
passing. Particularly was this true of the Breckinridge Demo-
crats, who included some friends of the South, but who for the
most part had been intent on keeping the South in the Union.
Many of the Constitutional Unionists were genuine moderates ;
some philosophically accepted the fact of two civilizations, but
they had been bred in the school of Webster, and should modera-
tion fail to preserve unity were likely to turn to force.

In this welter of controversy Lincoln had a triple duty of lead-
ership. He must make up his own mind, he must unite the
North, and he must divide the South. He could not fight a war
should all those who voted against him in November 1860 be in
opposition and his own party remain divided. He could not
fight it advantageously should the eight slave states that remained

PEACE OR WAR 113

loyal to the old Union join the Confederacy. For him it was
first a problem of policy and then no less a problem of politics.

It seems reasonably certain that he came to Washington de-
termined so far as it rested on himself to maintain the Union by
force if necessary, and without compromise. In his inaugural
address he stated : "I therefore consider that in view of the Con-
stitution and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of
my ability I shall take care . . . that the laws of the Union be
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be
only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform it so far as
practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people,
shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative man-
ner direct the contrary." There can be no doubt, however, that
with a biting consciousness of the bitter seriousness of this de-
cision he was throughout March in turmoil of soul, restlessly pac-
ing the White House corridors at night after the jesting and the
petty business of the day were done.

In coming to his decision Lincoln was doubtless strongly in-
fluenced by his views of the permanence of the Constitution.
He was strongly a constitutionalist. The Constitution repre-
sented to him the American ideal as well as the law, and he deeply
felt his position as its guardian. Not without its separate force
was the oath he had taken to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
With his scientific mind he was deeply impressed with the geo-
graphical oneness of the country ; "physically speaking, we can-
not separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from
each other nor build an impassable wall between them. A hus-
band and wife may be divorced and go out of the presence and
beyond the reach of each other, but different parts of our country
cannot do this. . . Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight
always ; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on
either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms
of intercourse, are again upon you," He felt, too, the essential
Americanism of the people of all sections : "This country, with
its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it."

From his first utterances there is evident a broader vein of ideal-
ism, which sustained him throughout the war. In his inaugural

H4 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

address he stated : "A majority held in restraint by constitutional
checks and limitations ... is the only true sovereign of a free
people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or
to despotism." He believed anarchy would not be tolerated by
circumstances ; he feared tyranny. On May 2, in an informal
talk with his young secretary, John Hay, he said : "For my own
part I consider the central idea prevailing in this struggle is the
necessity that is upon us of proving that popular government is
not an absurdity. We must settle this question now whether in
a free government the minority have the right to break up the
government whenever they choose. If we fail, it will go far to
prove the incapacity of the people to govern themselves. There
may be one consideration used in stay of such final judgment, but
it is not for us to use in advance : That is, there exists in our case
an instance of a vast and far reaching disturbing element, which
the history of no other free nation will probably ever present.
That, however, is not for us to say at present. Taking the gov-
ernment as we found it, we will see if the majority can preserve
it." On July 4, 1861, he said to Congress : "And this issue em-
braces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to
the whole family of man the question whether . . * a govern-
ment of the people by the same people — can or cannot maintain
its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes." In his
Gettysburg Address he set forth : "Four score and seven years
ago our fathers brought forth a new nation, conceived in liberty
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
We are now engaged in a war testing whether that nation or any
other nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."
As Winthrop, as Henry Clay, as so many who worked in the
founding of the nation, he regarded the United States as an ex-
periment, a testing ground, for the benefit of humanity at large ;
and he regarded himself, at the moment, as a trustee for ideals
that were not merely national, but universal. Democracy, the
chief of those ideals, was in 1 860 struggling in some countries for
existence, and in some for triumph. He believed that we could
not give up without a struggle that for which so many in the
past had died and which we had inspired others to emulate.

PEACE OR WAR 115

With his determination made in accordance with his own con-
science — perhaps before that conscience was wholly satisfied —
Lincoln was faced by the maze of politics, through which must
be found a path to the realization of his ideals. His most im-
portant objective was the unity of the North ; his second was to
win as many as possible of the hesitant border states ; he .was not
without a lurking hope that the seceded South might repent in
time ; but he could do little unless he could bring his cabinet to
his views without division. For all his purposes it was of supreme
significance that he should not be the first 'to give offence. In
securing his objectives his responsible antagonist was Jefferson
Davis, whose aims were similar but differently weighted. Of
chief value to Davis was the adherence of the unseceded slave
states, next to obtain the sympathy of the Democratic party at
the North ; to him, as to Lincoln, the hope of peace was small,
and he was equally aware of the necessity of not striking the first
blow. It was a duel in which the antagonist sought to hold his
position but to keep his rapier in the air.

Lincoln's was of necessity the first thrust, for in his inaugural
address he had to declare himself. He did so with precision,
taking exactly that minimum of firmness which would command
the widest support,

I shall take care . . . that the laws of the Union be faithfully
executed in all the States. . . In doing this there needs to be no
bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced
upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be
used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging
to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts ; but be-
yond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no
invasion. . , where hostility to the United States in any interior
locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resi-
dent citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no at-
tempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that ob-
ject. . . The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in
all parts of the Union.

This was not a peace document, as Douglas endeavored to inter-
pret it ; but desire colored its reading and many took it as such.

Il6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

It avoided the ominous word "coercion," which in the literature
of the time corresponded to "mobilization" at the beginning of
the World War. The Confederacy considered that the aim
mentioned did imply coercion. All awaited an overt act.

Davis's counter-thrust was the dispatch of his peace commis-
sioners, two of whom reached Washington on March 5. Their
purpose was to secure to the Confederacy the delivery of na-
tional property within its territory as preliminary to negotiations.
This again was not regarded in the South as an unfriendly de-
mand but as an inevitable consequence of secession, while the
North considered it a hostile claim only, not an act. Thus thrust
and parry ended in a feint.

There followed weeks of inaction which neither Lincoln nor
Davis regretted. Lincoln, confident that the people would in
the end see things as he saw them, realized that they needed more
rime to come to this decision. From a point of view wholly
military it would seem these weeks might have been spent in
strengthening the national hold at points which were certain to
be soon contested, such as the Norfolk Navy Yard and the
arsenals at Harper's Ferry and St. Louis. The political situa-
tion, however, paralysed the organs of administration. Military
force was the sensitive point in the question of coercion. Not
merely the sending of troops into an area still loyal, such as Vir-
ginia, would have been proclaimed the first act of war, but their
mere shifting, the increase of armament, even the introduction of
a bag of flour into Fort Sumter, would have been taken as the
symbol of thundering power directed against people still peace-
ful. And yet the span of waiting was not unlimited. On the
day after the inauguration Lincoln and his cabinet were informed
by General Scott that in about six weeks Fort Sumter must be
abandoned unless furnished with provisions. Once more the
spotlight was swung on Charleston, and the question of Fort
Sumter became the pivot of policy.

The actions and reactions of all those responsible during these
weeks have been closely examined, but historians still disagree.
Charles Francis Adams saw only Seward guiding the crude
product of the prairies. Nicolay and Hay in their monumental

PEACE OR WAR llj

work, Abraham Lincoln, saw their hero always first. Rhodes
supports Lincoln but is gentler than the facts in treating Seward.
The plain truth seems to be that Seward, the admirable and lov-
able, during these weeks ran amuck with confidence, energy, and
optimism. His confidence was due to his belief, shared by so
many others, that he would rule the new administration ; his en-
ergy exerted itself in planning the whole scheme of government,
and he used his access to Lincoln to put through his plans with-
out thought of informing those department heads who were con-
cerned. His optimism glowed from his solution for the whole
national problem — the rally of American pride and patriotism
by the call of a foreign war, the causes of which he would easily
find. On the very day on which he presented to Lincoln his
memorandum, "Thoughts for the President's consideration," he
took advantage of Lincoln's abstraction and careless confidence
in him to secure his signature to documents giving orders for the
first steps toward that foreign war which was to spell domestic
peace.

Naturally Seward wished no encounter over Fort Sumter and
strove for time in the cabinet and in his dealings with the Con-
federate Commissioners. His opinion was in part supported by
that of Chase, who after a hasty glance at the financial situation
was dallying with the idea of peaceful separation ; and by Gen-
eral Scott, who reported that the fort could not be relieved by
the navy unless accompanied by twenty thousand soldiers, who
were unattainable in the time given. Even Welles yielded to his
naval expert, and on March* 15 the cabinet voted 5 to 2 that an
attempt at relief would not be politically wise. Chase, who was
one of the two, was in doubt, and only Montgomery Blair was
firm for action. Lincoln held his decision in abeyance, but
Seward's triumph seemed complete, and Blair wrote out his
resignation.

Meanwhile the administration was handling the Confederate
Commissioners with more discretion than had Buchanan, but
without escaping similar misunderstandings. Lincoln refused to
see them even informally, and Seward resisted the mediation of
Senator Hunter of Virginia and the friendly Russian minister,

Il8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Baron Stoeckl. A channel of communication, however, was
necessary ; and Justice Nelson of the United States Supreme
Court and Justice Campbell, still of the same body, though about
to resign and return to his home in Alabama, conferred with each
other and with the commissioners, and finally, with Seward on
March 15, urging him to reply to a communication from the
commissioners giving them assurance of peace and forbearance.
In reporting the interview, Campbell, who was the most reliable
witness, stated that Seward rose in his excitement and said : "I
wish I could do it. No, there is not a member of the cabinet
who would consent to it. . . The evacuation of Sumter is as
much as the administration can bear." The cat was out of the
bag ; Fort Sumter was more than they had hoped for, and Camp-
bell straightway passed on his assurance to the commissioners, but
without mentioning Seward. On March 2 1 Campbell drew up
a memorandum which he showed Seward and then presented to
the commissioners : "As a result of my interviewing of today I
have to say that I have still unabated confidence that Fort Sum-
ter will be evacuated." The skirt of the secretary of state was
undefiled, but William H. Seward was committed to do that
which it did not appertain to him to do.

That the views of Montgomery Blair and Lincoln often co-
incided may easily be observed throughout the administration.
It may be said without derogation to a worthy and able man that
one would not select Montgomery Blair as a member of the
cabinet likely to be most powerful with the president. Mont-
gomery was the son of the soft-footed old Francis P. Blair, the
most seasoned figure in Washington life, astute and subtle, whose
suburban residence, Silver Spring, was the refuge of convalescing
statesmen, and who knew the Democratic party as a mother
knows her child. It was as intermediary between Lincoln, who
could already gauge the Republican psychology, and his father,
the sage of Democracy, that Montgomery owed his special im-
portance. It is not necessary to surmise, as did Welles, that Blair
converted Lincoln, but he brought him conviction as to the re-
actions of the Democrats who must bear their share in the coming
war. One may surmise that both realized it was not the actual

PEACE OR WAR Up

relief of Fort Sumter that was in question. Fort Sumter would
have been a liability in war. The question was, should it be
abandoned without a blow ? It seems that from this time Lin-
coln pursued his own way while leaving Seward unmolested.

That way was indeed halting and curious. It began by Lin-
coln's obtaining his own facts about the situation at Fort Sumter.
Without hindrance, by the ordinary means of communication,
three agents were sent to South Carolina : Hurlburt, an Illinois
friend of Lincoln and a former student of Judge Petigru, was sent
to probe for Union sentiment ; Gustavus V. Fox, brother-in-law
of Montgomery Blair, and a retired naval officer soon to become
a leading figure in the war, went to confer with Anderson ; and
Lincoln's former law partner, Ward H. Lamon, went to inter-
view the governor. Hurlburt reported that there was no Union
sentiment ; Fox assured the president that Fort Sumter could
be relieved ; Lamon, who had no authorization save to collect
information, informed Governor Pickens that the evacuation of
Fort Sumter would soon be ordered.

On March 28 the president gave his first official dinner, and
at its conclusion told the cabinet that General Scott had just in-
formed him that not only should Fort Sumter be abandoned, but
also Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, Florida, before which Secretary
Welles had already assembled most of the home squadron and
which as a station to the Gulf of Mexico was more important
than Fort Sumter from every point of view except politics. By
this time only Seward and Smith were willing to accept Scott's
views. The majority were ready for action, and preparations
for two expeditions to hold these properties were hastened.

Meanwhile it irked South Carolina that her fairest prospect
was still marred by the reminiscent flag of the Union, and her
governor and the Confederate Commissioners began to doubt the
validity of statements they had received as to evacuation. On
that fateful April i their intermediary, Campbell, sought Seward
and had two interviews with him. Seward consulted the presi-
dent and on his return wrote : "I am satisfied the government will
not undertake to supply Fort Sumter without giving notice to
Governor Pickens." "What does this mean ?" asked Campbell,

I2O THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

"does the President design to attempt to supply Sumter ? " "No,
I think not," replied Seward. "It is an irksome thing for him to
surrender it. His ears are open to every one, and they fill his
head with schemes for its supply. I do not think he will adopt
any of them. There is no design to reinforce it."

Lincoln's reply to the commissioners through Seward to Camp-
bell, who passed the message to the commissioners, indicated a
new policy which was not Seward's. Plainly Campbell saw
this, but Seward did not ; or if he did, was not worried. His
"Thoughts" were in the president's hands, and his nature was
such that he did not doubt their acceptance. Lincoln, however,
was no longer a fumbling country lawyer. His reply to the
"Thoughts" is in his best style (which was rarely without prepa-
ration), was prompt, tactful, but emphatic. Without resent-
ment and without arrogance he rested upon the simple, homely
fundamentals. He had been chosen to assume the responsibility
of government ; however inadequate he might prove he could
not delegate his supreme functions. It is a reasonable assump-
tion that he had been giving Seward the rope with which to hang
himself. Politically, Seward was still stronger than Lincoln, nor
could Lincoln well afford to lose Seward's abilities, which were
probably highest in the cabinet. Lincoln would not quarrel and
could not come to an issue on a minor matter. Probably he had
not yet sensed that love of office which would keep Seward from
resigning, that sweetness of disposition — so rare in those about
him — that would not harbor a grudge, and that adaptability
which could turn all his galvanic energies from one object to an-
other — from independent command to subordination. During
March, when Seward irritated the other cabinet members, Lin-
coln assumed the entire blame. Now, however, Seward had so
clearly exceeded the limits of decorum that he could not show
offence at the president's reply, which spoke with the inexorable
logic of fate. Without a quiver, but with obvious understand-
ing, Seward accepted his answer and abandoned his premiership.
On April 7, reports were becoming rife that Sumter and Pickens
would be reinforced. Justice Campbell asked Seward whether
the reports were well founded. Seward replied : "Faith as to

PEACE OR WAR 121

Sumter fully kept — wait and see." He was, of course, thinking
of Lincoln's promise to do nothing without notice. It is not un-
natural that the Confederate Commissioners supposed he referred
to his own earlier pledges of abandonment and later charged the
government with bad faith. Who indeed would have supposed
that the president and the secretary charged with foreign affairs
had been working at cross purposes ?

On April 6, Robert S. Chew, a clerk of the state department,
departed for Charleston with instructions drafted in Lincoln's
own hand and which on April 8 he read as directed to Governor
Pickens, with whom as a constitutionally chosen state executive
the president might communicate : "I am directed by the Presi-
dent of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will
be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only ; and that if
such an attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms,
or ammunition will be made without further notice, or in case
of an attack on the fort." Lincoln had taken the full time
allowed him to enable Northern sentiment to unify. He de-
cided upon the absolute minimum of action, action which he did
not fail to point out later was merely to supply food to hungry
men ; but yet the thrust was enough to force Davis to a quick and
dangerous parry. The crisis swung to Montgomery.

Jefferson Davis, systematically conducting his orderly admin-
istration, avaricious of detail, slaving over his desk like a New
England clerk on the rise, and with high intelligence, was less
surprised by this turn of the wheel than were his commissioners.
He had always thought war probable and on April 2 wrote his
secretary of war that he had no confidence in the assurances by
the government at Washington. Neither prescience nor in-
dustry could avert the new thrust which Lincoln had made. It
must be received or parried. The question of what action should
be taken was discussed in the Confederate cabinet with the seri-
ousness it deserved, and there was not unanimity of opinion.
Toombs, after hesitation, was opposed to violence. Yet it is
hard to see how Davis could have done other than he did. It
was his duty as executive not to be rushed by the excitement
about him, but the basic fact remained that to the Southern mind

122 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the holding of positions by the national government was a denial
of Southern independence. Negotiations had been refused, and
after six weeks of waiting the Lincoln administration was now
confirming by action that portion of the inaugural address which
the South believed spelled war.

By this time the forces at Charleston were under Confederate
rather than state control, General Beauregard of Louisiana being
in command. On April 10 Davis ordered him to demand the
evacuation of Fort Sumter and in case of refusal to reduce it.
The demand was made by three aides ; and on handing them his
refusal, Anderson added he would be starved out in a few days.
Beauregard promptly telegraphed this fact to Montgomery and
received the reply that if Anderson would indicate the time and
would agree to use his guns only if fired upon, such terms could
be accepted. Anderson answered to this, that unless he received
orders or supplies, he would evacuate on April 15 at noon and
that he would use his guns only if "compelled to do so by some
hostile act against the fort or the flag of my government." This
was of course a rejection, as it left him free to assist the relief
expedition should it arrive. In accordance with orders Beau-
regard's representatives gave command to fire. At 4.30 A.M.,
April 12, the first shell burst over the fort. With dawn the relief
expedition arrived but was able merely to stand by and watch
the bombardment and later to bring home the little garrison which
surrendered with the honors of war late on the thirteenth. Rhodes
considers the Confederate order to fire a blunder, but at least it
made no diff erence. The relief expedition appeared before the
hour set for Anderson's evacuation. Its attempt at relief would
have been met by fire, and Fort Sumter would have joined the
melee. Circumstances and Lincoln had spread a net which could
not be escaped ; the first fire could not but come from Con-
federate batteries. Meanwhile the expedition for the relief of
Fort Pickens successfully accomplished its purpose.

The importance of this first shot is illustrated by its effect. As
fast as the telegraph carried the news, both North and South
literally sprang to arms, some with relief, some with sorrow, but
single in the conviction that this was the moment. Quickly the

PEACE OR WAR 123

response came back to Lincoln from the governors of fifteen
states that old parties had disappeared and that there was now but
one party, that of the Union. Democrats hastened to declare
their loyalty. Douglas left Washington to make a whirlwind
campaign for the Union among his Western supporters. James
Gordon Bennett, but overnight writing peace editorials, assured
the president of the support of the New York Herald. Benja-
min F. Butler, Breckinridge leader in Massachusetts, annoyed
Governor Andrew by being the first to offer a regiment. Bu-
chanan wrote General Dix, April 19 : "The present administra-
tion had no alternative but to accept the war initiated by South
Carolina or the Southern Confederacy. The North will sustain
the administration to a man ;-and it ought to be sustained." Wil-
liam Lloyd Garrison declared for war but not for union. By the
time that Lincoln on April 14 issued his call for 75,000 men,
probably ten times that number were, not indeed under arms, but
earnestly, awkwardly drilling to avenge the flag, symbol of union,
of the happy life, of freedom. The shot at Sumter was to the
Northern mind the declaration of war.

Equally to the Southern mind the president's proclamation was
such a declaration. He did state that the purpose of the call was
not coercion, but the suppression of "Combinations too powerful
to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings
or by the powers vested in the marshals by law/' which existed in
the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Missis-
sippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Those combinations, however, were
the ordinary, constitutional governments of those states. The
Cotton South responded to this as the North to the shot at Fort
Sumter.

The first encounter between Davis and Lincoln was not de-
cisive, for Davis compelled a coercion which united his con-
federacy and carried its flame of resentment northward beyond
his borders. Lincoln, however, had compelled Davis to strike
the first blow and so to fuse the North into one determination
to preserve the Union. Lincoln had also made his many-minded
cabinet a unit for his policies and had presented to the undecided
slave states a case based upon long suffering and patience. He

124 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

could not have struck later without an exhibition of weakness.
Whether he might have struck earlier with safety no one can
tell. In dealing with a subject so subtle and intangible as public
opinion, the historian often can merely note results. If April 1 2
was not the proper moment at which to bring the North to its
decision on peace or war, it was at least one moment in which it
could be done. George Ticknor's six months of thinking were
not fully over, but he could write on April 28, 1861 : "Through
the whole of the last six months, you see the working of our own
political institutions most strikingly. The people were the prac-
tical sovereigns, until the people had been appealed to, and had
moved, the Administration, whether of Buchanan or of Lincoln,
could act with little efficiency. We drifted. Now the rudder
is felt." Already on April 21 he had written : "But there are
other things to talk about now. The heather is on fire. I never
knew before what popular excitement can be. Holiday en-
thusiasm I have seen often enough, and anxious crowds I remem-
ber during the War of 1812, but never anything like this. In-
deed, here at the North, at least there was never anything like it ;
for if the feeling were as deep and stern in 1775, it was by no
means so intelligent and unanimous ; and then the masses to be
moved were as a handful compared to our dense population now.
The whole people, in fact, have come to a perception that the
question is whether we shall have anarchy or no."

CHAPTER V

DIVISION

IN APRIL 1 86 1, North and South were agreed to fight. The ma-
jority in both sections estimated that the war would last three
months. Actually more than five months had passed before they
were able to join in serious conflict. When the two extreme
sections had reached their irrevocable decision, they were still
separated from each other by the middle area, which extended
north and south from three to four hundred miles and stretched
from the Atlantic seacoast to the western confines of Missouri
and Arkansas. This region had in November voted for com-
promise when the North and South had voted against it. On
April 12 it was still unreconciled to war. It was divided into
eight slave states and was made up of sections differing in their
economy, their political and religious creeds, and their histories.
Among its population all the opinion of North and South met in
controversy. Families were rent in twain and individuals tossed
at night with divided minds. This middle region was torn in
its sympathies, beliefs, and interests. It did not wish to fight,
but in it most of the war would be fought. In the great conflict
it stood an innocent victim of the desire of others, the land of
tragedy even before blood was spilt.

Theoretically three roads were open. The region might re-
main neutral, forbidding hostility within its borders and letting
North and South rage against each other on the seas. Or, it
might choose alliance with the one or the other, severing its ties
with the rejected. Although neutrality was tried, it evaporated
in the heat of the fire burning so hotly upon both sides. In the
remaining choice of taking sides between the contestants it stood
for the most part free, though circumstances in some regions bent
its will.

In determining its choice, conditions long ago created by man
or nature were the most important factors. In the determination
of the most doubtful, however, the actions and arguments of

125

126 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

North and- South had their weight, and Lincoln and Davis en-
tered into a new contest to enlist allies. Beyond this region,
moreover, swept the great expanse of the West, states, territories
and vaster areas unorganized, some masters of their own fate,
some puppets to be controlled by the master contestants. Not
until November was the division of the Union completed and the
opportunity for strategy of strength fully opened.

In three states, Virginia, Arkansas, and Missouri, the people
were already sitting in specially called conventions when the con-
flict began. Of these the chief was Virginia, mother of the Un-
ion and of commonwealths, proud and revered not only for her
record but for her wisdom. The Virginia that was so conscious
of herself and lived in the minds of others was not a matter of
boundaries or of statistics. It was the land washed by the slow
rivers of the tidewater region, the pleasant slopes of the Pied-
mont and the long valleys of the Shenandoah and the Roanoke.
It was the richest region of the South and the most diversified
in its agriculture and its industry, but it was dominated by its
planter aristocracy, though the prosperity of the plantations had
passed its zenith. Investments played a part in their support,
and Baltimore was their financial centre, though some dealt di-
rectly with New York as their grandfathers had with London.
There was a superabundance of production, and necessity caused
many of their slaves to be sold south by the despised slave traders.
Thus interest linked Virginia with both contestants.

While South Carolina was governed by an aristocracy, Vir-
ginia was governed by aristocrats. Of almost pure English
stock, the Virginians were less given to metaphysics than the
South Carolinians, but rather meditated on philosophies of living.
Their code was based on that of chivalry modified into that of
the English gentleman of the seventeenth century and again
colored by the progressive refinement of two centuries of Ameri-
can life. Proud of their hospitality, they loved such stories as
that of the lady who came to visit and stayed seventeen years,
being treated always with the exacting courtesies due a guest.
Proud of their attitude toward their women, they liked to tell of
twenty-year engagements or of the Richmond belle, ageless, on

DIVISION 127

whose entrance the theatre audience always rose. Their women
were indeed the flower of their civilization. While the master of
an inherited plantation did not have enough routine occupation
to keep him reasonably busy, his wife was not without respon-
sibility from her rising to unlock the food cupboards in the morn-
ing until they were relocked at night, but her grace must never
be marred by hurry, while continual charm was considered even
more requisite than managerial ability.

Virginia gentlemen were known, as were French nobles, by "
their estates, and it was on them that they spent most of their
time and were most themselves. Richmond was no such unify-
ing centre as Charleston, and opinions differed much more widely.
For twenty years a powerful effort had been made to win favor
for the Caihoun doctrines, which were thundered from the Rich-
mond Enquirer , but Calhoun's system never won a majority.
More were attracted to the earlier philosophy of Jefferson, and
many were followers of Washington and Marshall. Virginia
was never proud of slavery. For fifty years, from 1780 to 1830,
she seemed on the point of voting for gradual emancipation and
probably would have adopted it, had not the presence of her
large free-negro population made her conscious of the race prob-
lem. Many — Robert E. Lee for one — regarded it not so much
a necessary evil as a temporary one, and recognized a duty to
assist in the development of the negroes.

The course of politics between 1830 and 1860 gave little in-
dication of where Virginia, would stand in such a conflict as was
now upon her. She no longer furnished the leaders in national
politics. Most conspicuous of her own politicians was Henry A.
Wise, the Democrat, whose minority support was often turned
into a majority by the votes of that western section of the state
which was politically united with her but which was alien in
most respects. Wise's supporters in old Virginia included the
most violent secessionists, whose views were voiced by A. E.
Pollard in the Richmond Enquirer ; those in the west were de-
voted Unionists. The Whigs, as in most portions of the South,
included the larger part of the wealthier plantation owners. Their
cohesion was based more on social interest than on constitutional

128 THE AMERICAN" CIVIL WAR

views or public policies. Few were Websterian ; Clay was pow-
erful among them ; but probably more of them agreed with
Tyler that the Constitution was a compact. They are rather to
be taken as moderates, constituting a brake on action, than as a
party with a program. The Richmond Whig was more certain
of its opposition to the Enquirer than of its own stand.

The impending trouble strengthened the Whigs. Bell carried
the state by an extremely small majority. When his vote is added
to that of Douglas, it is clear that the majority stood for compro-
mise. Nor was Virginia passive in supporting compromise. On
November 1 5, 1860, Governor Letcher, in calling a special session
of the legislature, stated that should the state present to the North
such terms as he proposed, he believed that they would be "freely,
cheerfully, and promptly assented to." Even after the failure of
the Peace Conference, which was her proposal, Virginia did not
abandon her position of mediation. The legislature also called a
state convention, and in the election which took place on Feb-
ruary 4, 1861, the Whigs were triumphant. Of more than a
hundred Whig members, only thirty were secessionists. This
convention refused to take action and was in the North widely
proclaimed Unionist.

Many in the North, however, were deceived as to the degree
of Virginia's Unionism. There was during the period of debate
a strong realization of what her ultimate decision would be when
the compromise and mediation failed and she would have to take
a side. During December and January, thirteen county meetings
passed resolutions ; all took their tone from the first — those of
Clark County — December 12, 1860 : "That we should resist any
attempt to coerce a seceding state ; and that the government has
no right to collect revenues in a state that has withdrawn from the
Union." The Richmond fast-day sermons on the first Sunday in
January called for resistance, and one minister offered to lead the
army. The Lynchburg Virginian, January 9, 1861, suggested
a separate republic of "Border States" to keep the peace. On
March 9, the majority report of the legislature's committee on
federal relations recommended that power be given the federal
government to recognize the independence of seceding states ;

DIVISION 129

the minority report of Henry Wise recommended time for adjust-
ment and the arming of Virginia. The only voice favoring the
exercise of force by the federal government was that of John
Miner Botts. It was evident that Virginia favored compromise,
that only a minority wished secession, but it was plain that she
would resist what she considered aggression — not solely aggres-
sion against herself, but as a principle.

The act which finally gave her unity was not the firing on Fort
Surnter but Lincoln's call for troops. The revulsion of feeling
obliterated differences of constitutional interpretation. Those
who believed that the Constitution was intended to be perpetual
were as opposed to its maintaining its perpetuity by force as were
those who believed it a compact only ; they simply reverted to the
older and still hallowed doctrine of revolution. Fundamental was
that dislike of restraint which for a century had been the domi-
nant motive with Virginians, aristocrat and yeoman ; that sense of
individual freedom which had worked the first stirring of revolt
against Britain in George Washington. Stronger than self-interest
with the Virginian was his determination to have no master, and
before this basic impulse the metaphysics of constitutional in-
terpretations were a futile web. He spoke of coercion against
states, but he was equally opposed to coercion of the individual
man.

This ingrained and inherited antipathy for coercion indicated
where the Virginian's sympathy was to be. When sides had to
be taken his likes and dislikes became a factor, and there could be
no doubt that it was with the South and its plantations ; the South
and its cousins, one may say even the South and its docile, singing
slaves, rather than the rude mechanics of the North, that appealed
to his heart when coercion goaded his pride. It was such sym-
pathy that gave the South her greatest leader, for Robert E. Lee
had no doubt of the intended permanence of the Constitution or
of its powers, but he believed in the right of revolution ; he could
not desert his neighbors, whose manners and intents were like his
own. It was perhaps ironic that the state which more than any
other had given of its intellect to the solution of problems of gov-
ernment should be swept into action by its emotions. Virginia

130 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

shared the fate of the unoffending Border which, amid the top-
pling of its ideals, was forced to march to the call of trumpets not
its own. Virginia left the Union with no elation, as did South
Carolina, but with anger amounting in many cases to a fury.

This fury tore the state from the old government and put her
into the arms of the new with such speed that legalities followed
events. The people anticipated the governor and the governor
anticipated formal votes. On April 1 6 Governor Letcher refused
Lincoln's call for militia, and on April 1 7 the convention passed
a secession ordinance subject to a popular referendum. On April
1 8 the United States guard at Harper's Ferry arsenal withdrew
just in time to escape approaching state troops, but not in time to
escape the town mob ; on the twenty-fourth the garrison of the
Gosport navy yard at Norfolk departed when mobs threatened to
set fire to fifty million dollars' worth of property, including a
considerable portion of the national navy. On the twenty-
second, Alexander Stephens had arrived in Richmond and de-
livered a speech counselling alliance with the Confederacy until
the vote of the people made effective union possible, and on April
25 Letcher, confident of popular support, proclaimed alliance.
On May 6 Virginia was admitted to the Confederacy, and on
May 30 Jefferson Davis arrived in Richmond with his govern-
ment. It was not until June 25 that the popular vote was an-
nounced : 128,844 for secession to 32,134 against ; but as will be
seen, the segregated minority had already left the state. The
real Virginia was as solid in her defiance of the Union as any
state of the Cotton South.

Had the Virginian movement grown out of the aristocracy
only, one might have doubted the position of North Carolina.
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson had always looked across
the border for support when in doubt as to their position at home.
When, however, Jeff ersonian individualists united with the tide-
water aristocrats, the two states constituted a unit. The slight
differences in their action were chiefly due to the fact that the
mountain area in North Carolina was more firmly embodied in
the state and could not be so easily disregarded as could the west-
ern part of Virginia. Thus her action during the period of doubt

DIVISION 131

was more reassuring to Northern lovers of union than was the
action of Virginia. The legislature proposed a convention but
submitted the question to the people who, in February, voted it
down 47,325 to 46,672 ; undoubtedly they did not wish to secede.
When, however, the question was changed to one of coercion and
of taking sides, realization of the inevitable was as immediate in
North Carolina as in Virginia. On April 2 r the mint at Charlotte
was seized by the state ; on the twenty-ninth Governor Ellis seized
United States supplies and the arsenal at Fayetteville. In the
February election members for the proposed convention had been
elected but had found themselves without a job. Now they were
called, and on May 20 voted to secede, and the state was soon ad-
mitted to the Confederacy.

The flame of anger leaped the Potomac and flared northward
through the quiet plantations of the Maryland estuaries into Balti-
more, one of the greatest cities of the slave states. For a time it
took possession of the city and shot forth to come for the first
time into actual contact with the anger of the North at the Mason-
Dixon line. Of a color with North Carolina and Virginia, Mary-
land had shades of difference in its composition, and it occupied
a unique position. Its territory ran north of Washington, cut-
ting the national capital from that portion of the Union which
supported the national government, and Baltimore was essential
to the connection. Baltimore was in tumult, and soon the seces-
sionist mob, abetted by the police, was in control. When on
April 19, the Sixth Massachusetts, the first regiment to respond to
Lincoln's call, detrained at the northern station to march to the
station for Washington, a mob of ten thousand jostled them, kill-
ing two. The soldiers fired. An. unarmed Pennsylvania regi-
ment, which was following, turned back. That night the bridges
carrying the railroad north were burned and Washington was iso-
lated ; while by way of Relay House junction and Harper's Ferry
Baltimore communicated with Richmond. Here was a problem
that demanded immediate solution ; the national government must
keep open the road north or abandon its capital, its prestige, its
archives, and perhaps more.

Of the state of mind of Maryland, the only generalization that

132 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

may be safely made is that it was tragic. Its western districts,
Hagerstown and Allegany county, knew their mind and de-
clared for the Union on April 23, but plantation Maryland, with
its metropolis, was immersed in doubts. Sympathy was South-
ern, but the population had never been as restive under the hand
of authority as had been Virginia, and there was always impend-
ing the fear that war might be fought in her territory. Her will
was for compromise and for the Union, and, failing these, for neu-
trality. Her responsible officials strove for peace. The mayor
of Baltimore marched through the city at the head of the Sixth
Massachusetts and then joined with Governor Hicks in beseech-
ing Lincoln to send no more troops that way. A committee of
the Baltimore Y.M.C.A. supported their request. The governor
on April 25 suggested that hostilities be stopped and that the medi-
ation of Lord Lyons, the British Minister, be accepted. In the
June elections for her six congressmen, all but one district, that of
Baltimore, chose Unionists. Yet this was after thousands of young
voters had begun drilling in Virginia ; even so, Baltimore cast
6702 votes for secession to 6200 for union, and the plantation area
about Ann Arundel county gave 4305 for secession to 4467 for
union. Here, one feels, Southern sympathies were thwarted by
circumstance.

When the government found itself cut off from the North by
the breaking of railroad connections and besieged by Virginia
batteries on the Potomac, it did not lie supine. On April 24 Massa-
chusetts troops arrived at Fortress Monroe and thence they were
sent to Annapolis. From there ran a railroad to meet the regular
Baltimore-Washington line, but this was torn up. In command
of the troops was that erratic genius, General B. F. Butler. He
lined up his regiment of Lowell mechanics and asked for volun-
teers to repair the road. Some of the very men who had built the
lone available locomotive stepped out, and within a few hours the
whole road was workable and communication with Washington
was reopened. On the twenty-seventh the Fourth Massachusetts
and the Seventh New York entered the capital and solemnly took
the oath of allegiance. The next day the Baltimore Sun, which
had throughout the crisis maintained a position strongly Southern,

DIVISION 133

declared it was not for secession but wished to have a convention
of the people of the state. Lincoln feared that the legislature
which assembled on April 27 would call such a convention and
that the convention would vote the state out of the Union, or at
least delay the assembly of troops. He decided for drastic ac-
tion.

On May 6 General Butler moved up from Washington to Re-
lay House, and now it was Baltimore that was isolated. On
May 14 he entered the city and occupied Federal Hill, and on
May 1 8 disbanded the Baltimore militia. Arrests were made, and
the case of one Merriman was brought before the federal court on
a writ of habeas corpus. Chief Justice Taney promptly handed
down his decision that any lawyer could suspend that writ and
that Merryman should be released or tried. General George
Cadwalader refused to honor the writ, and the government con-
tinued to arrest and imprison on suspicion. Among those ar-
rested was Ross Winans, the great inventor and iron manufac-
turer, who had just endeavored to send a much discussed "steam
gun" to Richmond. Finally on September 18 the Maryland leg-
islature was closed by the provost marshal, and the members
suspected of secessionist sentiments were imprisoned in Fort Mc-
Henry, from which they were subsequently removed to Fort
Warren in Boston harbor. Thus Maryland was deprived of the
opportunity for making her own decision, and the historian can
only conjecture what that decision would have been. Lincoln's
first demonstration of force was effective.

It is obvious that little Delaware would not have been more
free to decide to leave the Union than was Maryland. The evi-
dence is that she did not wish to leave. Her territory was an-
other watershed away from the area of contagion, and all lay in
the wash of the great Delaware river that linked her with the
North. On April 17 what was reported to be the largest public
meeting ever held at Wilmington declared for union. Senator
Bayard was reprimanded for having taken a trip south and for the
laxness of his Unionism, and all subsequent actions of the state
denote loyalty to the national government.

Simultaneously the same conditions were operating to the west-

134 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ward. The ride of secession had risen enough in Arkansas to ef-
fect the calling of a convention but not to float her out of the
Union, and the convention adjourned. This was undoubtedly
a disappointment to the leaders of the Cotton South who had
counted on her, but it was dispelled when antagonism to coercion
was added to their arguments. Governor Rector and the people
immediately took her out of the Union de -facto, and the conven-
tion, reassembling, voted secession on May 6, 69 to i.

The conservatism of the planters of the rich lands of the Nash-
ville district of Tennessee, who were supporters of Bell and had
been even in the reign of Andrew Jackson, had prevented in that
state even the calling of a convention to consider the question.
No less substantial, however, was the April reaction. Governor
Harris had no doubt of what was expected of him. On April 1 8
he refused troops to the Union. On April 23 Bell declared him-
self for the South. A military league was formed with the Con-
federacy — an action totally contrary to any theory of law and
constitution, but unchallenged on the plantations of the Cumber-
land, the Tennessee, and the Mississippi. Regularity was to fol-
low upon haste. The legislature called a convention in which an
ordinance of secession was passed and submitted to the people
who, in May, accepted it by a vote of 1 1 2,564 to 47,238. Here,
however, as in Virginia, the vote was sectional ; the middle area
was for secession by 58,269 to 8198, and the Mississippi 29,127 to
6117. East Tennessee voted it down by a large majority.

The enthusiasm of the lesser planters of the Mississippi was
more vociferous than that of the stately homes of the inland cot-
ton belt, and it ran upstream full tilt into collision with Unionism
in St. Louis and, without sweeping that obstacle away, reached
beyond it up the Missouri river to Jefferson City, the capital of
Missouri. For ten years Missouri seemed almost a second Missis-
sippi in Southern leadership. She had unseated Senator Benton,
and in the North her "Border Ruffians," despoilers of virgin Kan-
sas, were thought the final word in the villainy of slavocracy. In
November 1860, Douglas and Bell had run neck and neck, with
Breckinridge far behind. Missouri stood with the Border for

DIVISION 135

compromise, but it seemed a normal expectation that she would
react to coercion as did Virginia.

Surprising economic changes, however, had been taking place,
changes which slavocracy hardly realized. Farm production was
led by tobacco, hemp, and corn, which had jumped from 9,000,-
ooo pounds, 36,000,000 pounds, and 17,000,000 bushels, respec-
tively, in 1840 to 25,000,000, 219,000,000, and 72,800,000 in 1860.
By the latter date vegetable, fibre, and animal products were quite
well diversified. Improved farm lands increased seven-fold. Val-
ues of local manufactured products were about doubled over the
same period while iron and lead mines were almost as prosperous.
The significant fact was the change in transportation routes ; be-
fore 1 840 Missouri's exports were shipped down the Mississippi,
but by 1860 a large percentage of them were sent eastward over
the fast developing railroad systems. Her interests were no longer
solidly plantationist, but her state government was in the hands
of Southern sympathisers, and a state convention was called for
February 18, 1861, to consider the state of the Union. Why the
secessionists who controlled the state assembly gave up their op-
portunity to take Missouri straightway into the Confederacy can
be answered only in their faith in the full sovereignty of the peo-
ple. Delay proved fatal to their cherished desire, however, for
this convention which first met in Jefferson City and then moved
to St. Louis was cleverly manipulated by the Frank Blair Union-
ists and voted against secession and adjourned. Such was the sit-
uation when the guns boomed at Fort Sumter and Lincoln called
for troops. On April 19, Governor Claiborne F. Jackson hurled
back defiance at the call and anticipated the action of his people
by organizing troops, State Guards, among whom Mark Twain
was caught up. The arsenal at Liberty was seized and camps
were established to train the state militia.

From the Mason-Dixon line south and southwestward into the
plains of clays and rich loams, alluvial river bottoms, and pine
grown sands, towered a mountain mass several hundred miles long
and from a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles broad. It
consisted of many parallel ridges often unbroken by passes for

136 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

hundreds of miles, between which were long, narrow valleys.
Politically, the mountain region was divided between eight states,
constituting western Maryland, Virginia, North and South Caro-
lina, eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and northern Georgia and
Alabama. It contained, however, its own civilization. Its pop-
ulation had been drawn from most of the colonies, from all of
the stocks of Great Britain and Ireland, but particularly from
Scotland and Ulster, and from Germany. Its Germans, filtered
through Pennsylvania, were strongest to the east, the Scotch and
English to the west. There had been little immigration for a
hundred years, and there had developed a unity of characteristics
as marked as that of New England or Virginia. The people were
typified by a recognizable physique of tall and sinewy figure, en-
during but loosely knit. Intelligence was high, but most of the
population had been separated from schools for generations, while
continued emigration from the days of Daniel Boone had drained
away much of its initiative. Sons of the stock were journeying
to East and West, in South and North, and were raising Pitts-
burgh and Chicago to greatness, but those who stayed at home
had changed less since the Revolution than any Americans.

Modes of life were determined by geography, which isolated
the dwellers of one valley from those of the next, and all from
other regions by the rough trails down each valley to some pass,
and thence irregularly to the plains. Geology was a visible force.
Here and there, as in Virginia, iron was near the surface, and
iron-masters lived in some states. Where the valley bottoms lay
on limestone, a vegetation flourished which gave opportunity for
rich farms or plantations with slaves. For the most part, however,
a living was scratched out, scantily but not laboriously, by hunt-
ing and by crops of corn and rye, much of which was turned into
whiskey, the only easily transportable article of export. Each
family, brooding in an isolation broken only by infrequent church
services or rough dances, or by an occasional visit to the store,
nourished its resentments and passed on personal and political
feuds to its descendants*

In general the people of the mountain valleys cared little about
either slavery or the negro and would not go far to defend either-

DIVISION 137

They were sensitive to control, strongly independent, and pre-
ferred local laws. Since the repeal of the whiskey tax by Jeffer-
son, there were no federal taxes and few federal officers. The
governments they encountered were those of the states, in each
of which they were a minority. Their attitude was in each case
much affected by the policy which their particular state had pur-
sued. Georgia had done most for them ; in Tennessee they had
played the most important part, one of her senators now being
Andrew Johnson from their district ; and in Virginia they were
most discontented, paying taxes for transportation facilities which
did not benefit them. Yet everywhere the state meant strife and
a political inferiority dating back of the Revolution ; the Union
was a vague beneficence and the Constitution an ideal lauded by
their leaders and meaning whatever they wished it to mean.

Nowhere in this region was secession popular. We have seen
that the chief opposition to it was in Georgia and Alabama where
the decision to secede had been generally accepted, but trouble
was yet to come. The division of allegiance was more marked in
North Carolina, and was to cause great anxiety to the Confeder-
acy. In Maryland it helped swing the state to the Union, and in
Kentucky all were waiting. In Tennessee and Virginia, how-
ever, reaction was immediate and important.

East Tennessee was differentiated from the rest of the state by
its earlier settlement and the part it had played in the Revolution,
as well as by geography. Struggles for supremacy when An-
drew Jackson was young had nourished a rivalry which was em-
bittered by the gradual rise of the West. When Governor Harris
made his alliance with the Confederacy the people of the East
remained passive, awaiting, though without much hope, the pop-
ular vote. In that vote East Tennessee stood 32,923 to 14,768
against secession. Harris, on his part, sent to the region the per-
sonally popular General Zollicoffer who occupied Cumberland
Gap, the outlet of the great mountain valleys of the Tennessee
and the Cumberland rivers into Kentucky. The other three great
gates all opened into Confederate territory, northeast to Virginia,
southwest by the Tennessee river into middle Tennessee, and
southward over the Georgia state line to Atlanta. Through the

138 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

valley from Chattanooga, junction point for Atlanta, Memphis,
and the Southwest, to Knoxville and on to Lynchburg and Rich-
mond, ran the only complete east-west railroad of the Confed-
eracy, almost as vital to its success as was the Baltimore connec-
tion to the Union. Soon trains were passing through, carrying
troops on the way to the Virginia front, and Confederate officials
were performing the functions previously executed by officials of
the United States. At the same time W. G. Brownlow in his
Whig editorials was denouncing secession and proclaiming his
loyalty to the old government.

On May 30, a convention of counties met in Knoxville, attack-
ing the governor's policy and declared for regional neutrality.
Meeting on June 17, in an adjourned session at Greenville, the
convention adopted resolutions for the creation of a new state of
East Tennessee. This request was to be referred in the first
place to the state legislature, but unpublished resolutions ex-
pressed the determination to proceed even in the event of refusal.
Peace, however, still prevailed, and in August the usual elections
took place, including those to Congress. Three members elected
from East Tennessee considered themselves chosen to Washing-
ton, while three in the rest of the state proceeded to Richmond.
Only one, Horace Maynard, actually reached Washington where
he joined Senator Andrew Johnson who had not ceased to sit in
the United States Senate. Meanwhile, group after group dribbled
through the "Gap" to enter the Union army.

Such a situation of calm in the midst of opposition so extreme
could not endure for ever ; it is almost incredible that it lasted un-
til November. On the eighth of that month the storm broke in
the concerted destruction of railroad bridges. This was indeed
an overt act that the Confederacy could no more ignore than
could Lincoln ignore the action of the Baltimore rioters, nor
could the state brook such an assault on her sovereignty. If there
were no nation, and states could not hold together, what ties of
government and society would remain ? Could counties main-
tain their integrity ; or if they could, would they much modify
anarchy ? Governor Harris sent ten thousand troops by way of
Chattanooga ; and Benjamin, Confederate secretary of war, sent

DIVISION 139

as many through Lynchburg. Martial law was proclaimed in
Knoxville ; and political prisoners filled the jails which over-
flowed ; while the more feared gentlemen, among them state Sen-
ator Pickens, were sent to Alabama. Davis was as effective as
Lincoln in the use of force when necessity demanded, and the
vital passageway of East Tennessee was held to the Confederacy
against her will, as was Maryland held to the Union.

In Virginia the valleys whose waters flowed eastward stood,
for the most part, by the state ; and from them "Stonewall" Jack-
son drew his incomparable corps. Those to the west of the cen-
tral ridges, however, were even more dissatisfied than the East
Tennesseeans, and they were more free. Quarrels between the
coast and the frontier had begun with frontier history. Quarrels
over defence against the Indians and representation in colonial
days had been replaced by those over taxation and the improve-
ment of transportation. Washington had sought to bind the
coast and frontier by canals, and Jefferson did much to remove
the fuel of controversy by his policies of freedom, and particu-
larly by the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church, which had
few adherents in the West. Governor Wise sought to have the
state meet some of the demands of the mountaineers. Sectional
strife was no new problem ; it had resisted for a century all at-
tempts at assuagement. Fundamentally it was a problem of dis-
parity of cultures, each freely flowering from its own soil. Ac-
tual schism was no new idea and was encouraged by the opening
of the valleys to broad bottoms of the westward-flowing Ohio.
Only the Baltimore and Ohio railroad traversing its northern tip
carried thoughts eastward. The Great and the Little Kanawha
and other rivers had for a hundred years led these to the west.

When secession was voted in Virginia the western members
of both convention and legislature returned to their homes across
the mountains. They voted in the referendum and with their
constituents stood almost solidly against secession, giving almost
all the ballots cast on that side in the state. Promptly they took
action. A convention met which proceeded to create a new
state and draft a constitution for it. Under the United States Con-
stitution, however, no state can be divided except by its own

140 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

consent. There was, of course, no hope in Richmond, but the
promoters of separation were resourceful. They argued that by
voting for secession the majority of the Virginia legislature had
committed treason, and that the state officers, by acting in accord-
ance with them, were equally guilty. "To the loyal people of a
state belongs the government of that state." Acting on this the-
ory the western members, who had returned home after the se-
cession vote, reassembled at Wheeling, chose F. H. Pierpont as
governor in place of John Letcher, who was illegally exercising
these functions in Richmond, and chose new and loyal senators to
Washington. On June 26 Lincoln recognized the Wheeling gov-
ernment as that of Virginia, and he proceeded to give legal sanc-
tion to the dignified birth of the new state of West Virginia.

To Virginia and to the Confederacy the action of the West
Virginians was as distasteful as the recalcitrancy of East Tennes-
see. Since no important transportation routes ran through West
Virginia, it was less vital to the Confederacy's existence and was
more difficult to control. All during the summer state and Con-
federate troops sought to win it to obedience. They were met
by volunteer regiments from Ohio. Here in West Virginia
Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan first clashed, and Mc-
Clellan drove Lee across the mountains. It was popular resent-
ment rather than arms that triumphed. Neither North nor South
in 1 86 1 possessed a military force sufficient to restrain an unwill-
ing population, except in such vital spots as Baltimore and Knox-
ville, both of which were cut off from their sympathisers, while
West Virginia was nearer to Ohio than to Richmond.

The division of the vast empire to the west, the bone of con-
tention which had done so much to bring about the conflict,
was in part the result of self-determination, in part of manage-
ment. Kansas, with her Free-soil majority, naturally followed the
North ; and feeble Nebraska went with her neighbors, Kansas
and Iowa. To the making of Oregon, the Oregon Trail had car-
ried over the mountains a population composed of the lesser farm-
ers chiefly from Missouri, southern Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee,
and Arkansas. Still struggling for subsistence in their new homes,
they had little concern with slavery as an asset or an evil They

DIVISION 141

should have been followers of Douglas, but leadership had drawn
them into the more radical camps. First Joseph Lane, senator
and vice-presidential candidate with Breckinridge, won them ;
and then Edward D. Baker, one of Lincoln's dearest friends, had
preached Republicanism to them. In 1860 Lincoln led Breckin-
ridge by a few hundred votes, while Douglas carried about one
fourth pf the total votes. When the Union came in question, not
only were the Douglas supporters added to the Republicans but,
as in Missouri, a large proportion of the Breckinridge men turned
in the same direction. Baker was elected senator, and allegiance
to the Union did not falter. A similar population in the territory
of Washington reached a similar decision. Had it not, it would
have been controlled by the United States military posts com-
manded by Philip Sheridan.

California, the prize of the whole region because of her popu-
lation and particularly because of her gold, was controlled by
somewhat different conditions, most of which she shared with the
other mining districts, the territories of Nevada and Colorado.
Nearly all her population had been attracted by the lure of gold
and adventure within the last dozen years. This magnet had
pulled not unevenly from all parts of the Union and from foreign
lands. Most foreigners were indifferent to American problems,
and the Americans were divided on them in much the same pro-
portion existing in the rest of the country. This difference of
opinion had caused the state to refuse slavery, and it meant as-
suredly that the majority would be for union. In 1860 Lincoln
received 39,173 votes — his slight plurality due apparently to a
speech in San Francisco by E. D. Baker — Douglas 38,5 1 6, Breck-
inridge 34,334, and Bell 6817, the conservative temperament nat-
urally being the least represented among the emigrants. The
situation, however, was not simple or resolved without anxiety.
Since throughout this region Southern political technique had
proved the more winning and radical, Southern Democrats held
more than their share of local posts. Senator W. M. Gwin, from
Mississippi, had been close to Buchanan and almost the czar of the
Far West, so that federal positions were largely held by those of
his stripe. The military command of the district, with head-

142 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

quarters at the San Francisco Presidio, had been held since Janu-
ary by General Albert Sidney Johnston, probably at the request
of Gwin. The Southern sympathizers, conscious of being a mi-
nority, were better organized than their opponents, and eighteen
thousand were said to be enrolled as Knights of the Golden Circle.
Clashes seemed imminent in the mining camps, and a San Fran-
cisco minister prayed for "the Presidents of the American States."
On March 8 the legislature, by a vote of 40 to 32 only, declared
the secession of the South treasonable.

It is probable that Albert Sidney Johnston, whose resignation
was on its way to Washington, would not have countenanced a
plot to use the military forces to seize San Francisco. It is certain
from events in Texas and other places that the rank and file of his
soldiers would not have obeyed his orders had he given them. Nor
is it likely that the followers of Lincoln and Douglas, representing
two thirds of that virile, free, and self-willed population, would
have lain dormant before the secessionist minority. Yet Lincoln
did not neglect the situation which he understood by his usual
method, the information of a trusty friend — in this instance
Baker, the new Oregon senator. In spite of Scott's confidence
in Johnston, General Edwin V. Sumner was appointed to displace
Johnston, and was sent in haste with sealed orders. While Sum-
ner was travelling at top speed by way of Panama, Southern
friends of Johnston rushed the news of the appointment over the
Pony Express to Johnston, and Sumner arrived the morning after
Johnston had received the message. Sumner at once assumed
command and vigorously handled the situation. Southerners
drifted out to join the South. Loyal volunteers, organized and
eager to go East, first played their part in holding the rest of the
West. Nevada and Colorado had situations not very different ;
but most ominous to the Confederacy was the fact that the astute
Brigham Young set his face to the North, hoping to use the war
emergency to secure statehood for Utah.

Davis, however, was not without his triumphs. As a Mississip-
pian, as a military officer, as secretary of war, and as advocate of a
transcontinental railroad, he knew the West well. Unable to
send large forces, he relied on individuals and on Texas. New

DIVISION 143

Mexico was supposed to be pro-Southern ; and her delegate in the
late Congress, Otero, was a secessionist. The military officers
were able and Southern. While the federal officers appointed by
Lincoln on the advice of the new delegate, Watts, proved effi-
cient, the native Mexican population proved staunchly loyal to
the Union and the regulars maintained their flag and posts when
their officers fled. All, however, was not lost to the South ; and
in July 1 86 1 came what is known in New Mexican history as the
Texas invasion, led by General H. H. Sibley. He occupied and
held Santa Fe and sent on Colonel Baylor to the west. Here
Davis cleverly took advantage of a local situation. Such slight
population as had settled western New Mexico— what is now
Arizona — disliked their connection with the native Mexicans of
the Rio Grande valley and had made several attempts at separa-
tion. Colonel Baylor rode into Tucson and proclaimed the new
territory of Arizona. A convention was summoned and, appeal-
ing to the Confederate government, Arizona was voted a new ter-
ritory, with slavery, on January 18, 1862. From July 1861 to
April 1862, the Confederacy thus possessed two territories, and
there were hopes and fears that southern California would be
linked up with them. In the spring of 1862 converging columns
from Colorado and California overcame the first few families of
Arizona and released the Unionist sentiments of New Mexico.

There remained the Indians — not so much the wild Indians of
the Plains, who chiefly profited by the withdrawal or weakening
of the federal garrisons, as those settled in southern Kansas and
the Indian Territory. The great majority of the members of
these tribes had been removed from the South, and had brought
with them negro slaves whom they retained. They inhabited the
region just west of Arkansas, with the residents of which were
their chief trading relationships. Most of their religious connec-
tions also were with Southern organizations, though Congrega-
tionalism was strong among the Cherokees. Southern statesmen,
also, had generally supported policies most favorable to them.
Jefferson's policy of civilization was partly responsible for their
condition ; and Calhoun, as secretary of war, had striven to give
them permanence of location. Of late years Southerners had

144 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

called attention to their orderly government, modelled on tha J of
the American states, and had suggested territorial status with the
hope of statehood.

Texas and Arkansas were first to take action, and Texan troops,
dispatched February 27, the day before the Texas vote on se-
cession, caused the flight of the United States garrison. The
Confederacy, however, soon took charge and sent a military com-
mandant, General Ben McCulloch, and diplomatic representa-
tives, of whom the most important was Albert Pike who had wide
familiarity with conditions and a unique talent for dealing with
the Indians. From a welter of negotiations during the summer
of 1 86 1, amid factional strife and inter-tribal jealousies, he finally
secured nine main treaties with the Creek, Choctaw and Chicka-
saw, Seminole, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca and Shawnee, Quapaw,
Wichita, and Comanche tribes. In securing these treaties he un-
doubtedly profited by the unsatisfactory appointments first made
by the Lincoln administration.

These treaties represented a new and, of course, temporary,
phase of Indian policy. The Confederacy assumed the financial
obligations of the United States government and it guaranteed
territories and political integrity. Three Indian delegates to the
Confederate Congress were provided for, and the Choctaw and
Chickasaw treaty contained provisions for statehood. Slavery-
was recognized, the fugitive slave law was extended to cover the
slaves of the Indians, Indian rights were recognized in the light of
past history, and courts were arranged for. Some of the treaties
embraced an active alliance, the Creeks, for instance, agreeing to
furnish a regiment which was to be armed and paid for by the
Confederacy but was to be moved out of the Indian territory
only by the consent of its men. Enlistment went on apace. These
treaties were presented to the Confederate Congress in Decem-
ber 1 86 1, and after serious discussion and slight amendment were
adopted.

Pike had converted the tribes to his plan in the face of many
local differences of opinion. The Cherokees had at first declared
their nation neutral, and after the consummation of the alliance a
large portion separated themselves and a minor war ensued. The

DIVISION 145

discontented were finally driven into Kansas where they were
held in spite of attempts, particularly by Senator Jim Lane of that
state, to re-establish them. Thus battles were fought on the bor-
ders of Kansas. On March 17, 1862, six thousand Indians took
part in the Battle of Pea Ridge over the border in Arkansas. The
Confederates were defeated and the Indians retreated to their de-
fences at Fort McCulloch.

The most important and the most doubtful of the hesitant areas
was Kentucky which stretched four hundred miles east and west,
separating the contestants. Her adhesion was the more signifi-
cant to the Confederacy as it would give considerable defence
along the Ohio river. Should she remain in the Union her weight
would be added to that of the North pressing against the long,
slight, artificial north line of Tennessee.

Kentucky illustrated with almost mathematical precision the
degree to which geology may sometimes mould civilization. The
Kentucky of romance was an area of about five thousand square
miles lying in the northern part of the state, rich soil weathered
from a limestone base naturally yielding a blue grass unrivalled
for stock and especially for thoroughbred horses. Lexington was
its capital and Louisville its metropolis. As Virginian ideals were
drawn from those of the English gentry, so those of Kentucky
were by inheritance and design a development of those of Vir-
ginia. Nowhere was slavery so attractive as here, where the pro-
portion of slaves, coming into close contact with their masters,
was increased by interest in the stables and the races resulting
from the favorite occupation. The darker side of the picture
shows that betting losses and other circumstances often forced
the sale of slaves "down the river," while ill treatment or ambition
forced other slaves to attempt escape across the Ohio river. The
life of the blue-grass area was that of the plantation region ; social
ties and much of its trade were with the South, but business linked
it inextricably with Cincinnati with whose families its sons and
daughters freely intermarried and to which it contributed some
of its charm. It honored its beautiful daughters and heroic sons
and revered its greatest statesman, Henry Clay. Opinions varied
over a wider range than in Virginia. Whereas the majority of

I4<5 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Virginians believed in the compact theory of the Constitution, the
majority of the Kentuckians accepted its permanence. On the
whole, intellect was on the side of the North, kinship and liking
were with the South.

Sharply the limestone ended in a carboniferous area round
about where crops were scant, slaves were few, and small fanners
raised families of barefooted children and voted for Douglas — a
population not unlike that which kept Missouri and Oregon in
the Union. With variations where the bottoms of the Green,
the Kentucky, and other rivers afforded a richer soil, this element
stretched southward to the Tennessee border. Eastward it met
the ridges, with their mountain race purer and less modified by
outside contacts than in East Tennessee and West Virginia. Far
westward it encountered in the triangle between the Cumberland,
the Tennessee, the Ohio, and the Mississippi, the loud slavocracy
of the smaller tobacco-growing planters about Columbus and
Paducah.

In all these four areas statistics of every kind were beautifully
responsive to geological structure, density of population, propor-
tion of slaves, wealth, products, and votes. The state was always
politically divided. Clay had never been able to dominate, and
now in 1 86 1 leaders drew strength from all directions. One wan-
dering son was Lincoln in the White House, another was Jeffer-
son Davis : at home were John J. Crittenden, leader for compro-
mise ; John C. Breckinridge, defender of Southern rights ; and
Cassius M. Clay, a nationally known abolitionist. In 1860 Bell
received 66,058 votes, Breckinridge 55,143, Douglas 25,651, and
Lincoln 1364. This vote, however, could not be taken as in-
dicative of whither Kentucky would go. The mountaineers
voted generally for Breckinridge because he was a Democrat, but
they were firm for the Union. The Bell vote included much of
the blue-grass aristocracy which wanted peace and hoped for
compromise. In spite of the majority for Bell and Douglas, the
new governor, Beriah Magoffin, was, as was the governor in Mis-
souri, for secession, and Breckinridge was elected to the United
States Senate ; and yet the legislature refused to call a convention
to consider secession.

DIVISION 147

When war came Kentucky would have none of it. Strong in
her position and her desirability, she was able to put into effect
that policy of neutrality which had been talked of from Mary-
land to the Cherokees. Magoffin refused to honor Lincoln's call
for troops. On May 16, 1861, the legislature adopted by 69 to
26 a resolution : "That this State and the citizens thereof shall
take no part in the civil war now being waged, except as mediators
and friends to the belligerent parties ; and that Kentucky should,
during the contest, occupy the position of strict neutrality." Such
a position was of course as contrary to the interpretation of the
Constitution upon which Lincoln was operating as was secession.
It did not, however, imply fruition in action, for the ordinary
United States laws would be respected, and it was regarded as
favorable to the Union rather than the Confederacy. The oppo-
sition at this stage came from the secessionists.

During the next four months conditions in Kentucky defied
logical analysis, Magoffin corresponded with both governments.
Over the Louisville and Nashville Railroad went cars to the con-
fusion of the commercial policies of both governments, though
each gradually lessened its scope. Kentucky, moreover, if peace-
ful, was not passive. Her population was drawn in unusual de-
gree from the blood of Revolutionary veterans and was proud of
its fighting record in every war. When the country was resound-
ing with military preparations one could not expect Kentucky
youth to go about its ordinary occupations. In March 1860, an
elaborate new militia law had been passed, drawn up by Simon
B. Buckner, a West Point graduate, who was made inspector-
general. Under it enlistment into active companies of State
Guards was rapid, and twelve thousand muskets and rifles were
distributed to them. It was fully understood that this body fa-
vored secession. In May 1861, as a result of pressure by Union-
ists, a military board of five was organized, under which a new
body of Home Guards, in which only Unionists enrolled, was
organized to receive equal treatment from the state. Armed neu-
trality existed, supported by two official armies, one in sympathy
with each belligerent. Yet clashes were avoided, and young men
reporting to drill came together in the ordinary intercourse of life.

148 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Preparation, however, was not enough for all. Thousands, in-
cluding Breckinridge, streamed across the Tennessee boundary to
join the Confederate ranks in Camp Boone. Smaller numbers
crossed the Ohio from Newport to Camp Clay and from Louis-
ville to Camp Joe Holt, and tendered their services to Lincoln.
Early in August the mountaineers of East Kentucky and East
Tennessee assembled in Kentucky at Camp Dick Robinson for
the Union army.

While the young men were expecting conflict and choosing
their sides, their elders were in hot but profound debate. On
May 27 a border slave-state convention was held at Frankfort, the
capital, which was attended by Kentucky and Missouri and two
delegates from Tennessee. The convention recommended com-
promise or a national convention to discuss compromise. A usual
number of men of ability campaigned the state in a spirit of deep
earnestness, but perhaps the greatest impression was made by a
letter from Washington by the enigmatic Joseph Holt, member
of Buchanan's cabinet and adviser of Lincoln, who pronounced
emphatically for union. Twice the voters had an opportunity
to express themselves. In June members to Congress were elected.
The secessionists largely refrained from participation and elected
but one of ten, and that one from the extreme western district.
More important was the August election of the legislature. Here
again the secession element made little effort, which must in this
case be taken as a clear indication that they felt a majority against
them- The House stood 74 Unionist to 24 state rights and the
Senate 21 to 1 1 ; but it must be remembered that the term Union-
ist covered genuine supporters of neutrality as well as those who
wished to enter the war.

This situation was naturally exasperating to her neighbor states
and particularly to Lincoln and Davis, all of whom, however,
were forced to be polite. Lincoln as recognized chief magistrate
had the most chances for error ; Davis was nervous about his
northern line of defence. Lincoln was fully aware of Kentucky's
importance. It cannot be said that this was the chief considera-
tion that caused him to base his action on the preservation of the
Union, for that was his conviction ; but undoubtedly it had much

DIVISION 149

to do with the punctiliousness of his attitude toward slavery. He
kept informed in particular through James Speed, the friend of
his young manhood. He could not recognize neutrality, but he
respected it. In July he dictated a statement which he did not
sign, but allowed Crittenden to use : "So far I have not sent an
armed force into Kentucky, nor have I any present purpose to do
so. I solemnly desire that no necessity for it may be presented ;
but I mean to say nothing which shall hereafter embarrass me in
the performance of what may seem to be my duty." As a matter
of apparent routine on May 28 a Military Department of Ken-
tucky was set up. To its command Lincoln designated Major
Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter, the first hero of the war and a
native son of Kentucky. Davis, or rather his secretary of war
Walker, refused Magoffin's request for arms for the State Guards,
while Lincoln secretly furnished a large number for the Home
Guards. Lincoln's authorization of Camp Dick Robinson was
taken by some as an affront to the state's neutrality, and led to a
sharp correspondence between Lincoln and Magoffin, but passed
as action not actually aggressive. Daily the situation became
more tense. Local commanders feared lest when the inevitable
movement came their opponents would have anticipated them ;
the authorities behind them feared that the first side to take the
aggressive would, like Samson, pull the temple of neutrality upon
their heads. The point of suspense was Columbus, supposed to
be the key to the Mississippi, with a United States force opposite
Belmont and the Confederates twenty miles south in Tennessee.
On September 4 by order of the acting-general Leonidas Polk,
General Pillow and his Confederate forces occupied Columbus,
and Davis justified the action "by the necessities of self-defense
on the part of the Confederate States" and "by a desire to aid the
people of Kentucky." The patience of Lincoln had once more
caused his opponent to strike the first blow. On September 10
a state-rights convention assembled at Frankfort and, hopeless of
secession, declared for peace — a significant shift of position. On
September 4 Lincoln followed up his advantage by revoking Fre-
mont's unauthorized proclamation of emancipation in his military
district. On September 18 the legislature practically declared

150 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

war on the Confederacy and gave command of its forces to An-
derson. Magoffin remained in office for nearly a year, but the
state did its duties to the Union and kept its quotas full in spite of
the thirty or forty thousand who were fighting for the South.

This, however, is not quite the full story. Buckner and many
of his State Guards went South. Troops and refugees, repre-
senting 44 counties, assembled at Bowling Green, where they re-
pudiated the United States and the government of the state and
set up a provisional government instructed to enter into alliance
with the Confederacy. This organization was recognized by the
Confederate Congress — for a moment in September 1862, during
Bragg's invasion, it sat in the legislative halls at Frankfort — and it
functioned in its limited way until the end of the war. Probably
a majority of the Kentuckians, except in the east and the west,
favored neutrality. When the choice of sides came, the moun-
tains of the east and the small farm regions preferred the Union,'
the west the Confederacy. To the Blue Grass section decision
brought no unity. As in Maryland, no physical force was ex-
erted, but the atrophy of indecision yielded to the constraint of
isolation. Judgment conquered but did not dominate sentiment.
Most families were divided. Crittenden had one son who became
a major-general in the Union army, and another who held the
same position in the Confederate army. Boys in grey secretly
stole home, sure of concealment by family and negroes. Some-
times they could meet, sometimes they never again consented to a
meeting. Under such circumstances some peoples would have
relieved their emotions in literature, some societies would have
broken under the strain. The Blue Grass met its fate in silence
and with a lifted chin. John G. Carlisle said many years later :
"I never made a speech or gave a vote that was not in favor of the
Union . - . but I confess to you, gentlemen, that when I heard
of a Confederate victory, I could not help feeling sympathy with
it." When the war was over, politics removed the creators of
state sectionalism, but the special honors peculiar to the Blue
Grass — the elections of racing officials — went for this generation
to the boys who fought for the South.

When the division had taken place Lincoln held the states

DIVISION 151

which had voted for him, plus Delaware, Maryland, and all the
territories except New Mexico, and he had, also, a new state,
West Virginia. Davis held ten states, the territory of New Mex-
ico, and the new territory of Arizona. Both governments, North
and South, and their congresses accepted members from the states
of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. In addition the United
States Congress had actually a senator and a representative from
Tennessee, while that of the Confederacy had two delegates from
Indian tribes, with a place for a third. No delegates for New
Mexico appeared in the Confederate Congress, even though its
capital was occupied by Confederate troops. The South had a
valuable asset but a constitutional anomaly in the official recog-
nition of the troops of the "Maryland Line." Physically the di-
vision ran from Chesapeake Bay up the Potomac, along the cen-
tral ridge of the Alleghanies to about Cumberland Gap. Thence
it extended irregularly across southern Kentucky, crossing the
Mississippi, where it was lost in the confusion of sentiment and
military operations, the Southern-sympathizing section being sep-
arated for the most part from Arkansas by the loyal centre. Be-
yond Missouri it followed the boundary between Kansas and the
Indian Territory, between Colorado and New Mexico, while
Arizona carried theoretically to the Gulf of California.

It is plain that when set for action this division did not consti-
tute a "War between the States." The facts in West Virginia
alone and the actions of the Confederate Congress with regard
to Kentucky were a repudiation of state-rights constitutional
theories. To call it a "Rebellion" is merely to indulge in epithets.
Actually it was to be a "War of the Sections." Civilizations de-
veloped by two centuries and a half, during which economic and
social institutions had responded to the promptings of nature,
proved to be stronger entities than political boundaries, and the
problem was whether their diversities were too great for union
under one government. Popular usage, however, resists change,
and such a name will probably never win familiarity. "Civil
War" denotes a strife of factions under one government. Most
Southerners deny that the United States had in 1860 such a gov-
ernment and reject the designation. The war itself, however,

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

settled the question of the sovereign functions of the central gov-
ernment as a matter of fact and relegated the constitutional con-
troversy to the closet. There was a central government in 1 860,
and there has been one since 1865 ; the wide acceptance of the
term has made it that best comprehended. On that basis it is
used in this work and in its title.

It remains in drawing the threads of these five chapters together
to emphasize the conclusion that the divisions being made by the
American people were their own. It would seem that the small
farmer element in Missouri, in Oregon, and to some degree in
Kentucky, were in 1860 misrepresented, as was, in a smaller de-
gree, the mining area in California and Colorado. This was un-
doubtedly due to the superior political talent of the Southern
leaders, and it may have given them and their associates over-
confidence. When the crisis came, however, the people were
able to repudiate their leaders and to go as their own preferences
carried them. Eastern Maryland and East Tennessee were held
against their wishes, not by political trickery but by physical
force ; the Blue Grass was not happy in its decision, but it made
it. Obviously in 1860 the American people constituted a de-
mocracy and a democracy capable of thought and decision. In
a brief ten months North and South decided to compromise no
longer. The South, defeated, decided to withdraw. The North,
reviewing its decision, reaffirmed it ; and then, confronted by a
new problem, made up its mind to war rather than to admit sep-
aration. The middle area, always preferring that old policy of
compromise, now rejected by the sections on both sides of it, ex-
erted its ingenuity to bring them to terms and failed. It tried
neutrality and failed. Reluctantly its component elements then
turned this way and that as ties were strongest. The sovereign
in each locality was indeed its people ; would a majority of all the
people prove to be sovereign in the whole land ?

CHAPTER VI

THE CONTESTANTS

OFTEN it has been remarked that had the Southern statesmen been
versed in statistics they would not have ventured into the war.
This is to overlook several antecedent miscalculations. Many
Southerners did not expect war to follow secession. When war
was begun the majority on both sides thought it would be settled
by a few brilliant frontier victories ; only gradually did they come
to the realization that it was becoming a struggle to the death.
Nevertheless, statesmen who lead their followers to a risk with-
out thought of such possible chances cannot plead their short-
sightedness in extenuation, and when they hazard their own lives
and fortunes they stake their intelligence as well. The statesmen
of the South were not the first who failed to read the future, nor
the last ; nor can it be said that statistics have made a science of
prophecy. It remains yet to be proved whether the human mind
can estimate, either for war or for economics, the impact of con-
flicting forces for any period of five years. The question is
merely whether the handwriting on the wall was writ so large
and clear in 1860 that chances became certainties.

In so contrasting the resources of the two contestants it must be
kept constantly in mind that the objective of the North was not
mere victory but conquest — as Grant voiced it, "unconditional
surrender." From this point of view it is clear that the attacking
party would have to wield the greater force, not only larger ar-
mies in the field but secondary armies to protect communications
through hostile country, and that the fighting value of its men was
likely to be decreased by their living in an unfamiliar climate.
On the other hand, the ordinary life of the attacked would be sub-
ject to the greater demoralization. Each element of strength
gained or lost significance by the conditions of its use.

Of the region of organized warfare, including Texas with the
first tier of states west of the Mississippi, the Confederacy con-
trolled approximately- seven hundred and eighty thousand square

154 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

miles, the Union six hundred and seventy. Of population the
South could count on about nine million one hundred and fifty
thousand, the North on about twenty and three-quarter millions.
Its size was a distinct military advantage to the South which was
increased by the distribution of its people. The bulk of its popu-
lation lay in a wide belt, running with a density of between eight-
een and forty-five to the square mile, from Virginia southward
and then westward into Louisiana, protected toward the coast by
the sparsely settled Pine Barrens and to the rear by the mountains.
According to the traditions of war, the comparatively harrow
frontier between the Virginia ridges and Chesapeake Bay should
have served for chief defence. No army large enough to be dan-
gerous could have found sustenance in the poor lands of southeast
Tennessee, northern Alabama, and Georgia ; Napoleon's invasion
of Russia was warning enough of the peril of taking large armies
through a thinly populated agricultural region. Those casually
familiar with the Civil War at once recall in rebuttal the march of
Sherman : when cutting his connections at Atlanta he fared forth
feeding his army on the plantations of Georgia. From Atlanta,
however, Sherman had before him the fat lands of the Black
Belt ; to arrive at Atlanta had been the crux of his problem, and he
could not have succeeded had not a new factor differentiated
physiography and the military art from those of Napoleon's day
in a manner that few of the experts realized in 1860 — the intro-
duction of the railroad. It is arguable that without the railroad
the South would have proved unconquerable, and when it is re-
membered that the most important lines had been constructed be-
tween 1850 and 1860, the significance of the great compromise of
Clay and Webster in r 850 ceases to be that of a futile patching of
an irrepressible conflict. If the South were bound to defend her
rights by war, it was the South Carolina leaders, rather than their
conservative opponents, who had, if not wisdom, then fate on
their side.

The fact that the railroad increased the penetrability of the
South was, of course, but one of its effects. It changed and
twisted almost every military condition and made the first great
war fought after its introduction a game for the bold and original

THE CONTESTANTS 155

intellect rather than for the trained soldier. It was the South
that seems first to have realized the chaos. The Virginian Lieu-
tenant Marcy of the Navy wrote : "The part that railroads and
magnetic telegraphs are to play in the great chance of war with
this country had not yet been cast, much less enacted. In a mili-
tary point of view, they convert whole states into compact and
armed masses. They convey forces from one section of the
Union to another as quickly as reinforcements can be marched
from one part of an old-fashioned battlefield to another." With
annoyance the student McClellan wrote August 4, 1861 : "It
cannot be ignored that the construction of railroads has intro-
duced a new and very important element into the war. . „ It is,
intended to overcome this difficulty by the partial operations sug-
gested."

The first American railroads were constructed with a local or
state outlook ; between 1850 and 1860 they had been planned as
sectional developments. No such thing as a national system could
be said to exist in 1 860. At Washington connections were made
by hack and dray across Long Bridge ; at Louisville by crossing
the Ohio ; from Cairo, Illinois, to Columbus, Kentucky, was a
gap spanned by river steamers. The southern system comprised
about 9000 miles, the northern about 22,000. That of the South
was on the whole the better planned. Its roads were generally
built by state aid, the state taking two fifths of the stock ; general
jurisdiction was maintained by a state board exercising care to
prevent competition. Largely by the influence of Calhoun the
aim of bringing Western produce to the Southern coast cities had
for some time modified the influence of state rivalry. The result
was that in 1 860 the South had, in addition to the older lines run-
ning fan-like from the ports, what must be considered a first class
east-west line from New Orleans to Richmond, through Chatta-
nooga and Knoxville, with connections to Mobile, Vicksburg,
Memphis, and Nashville. It had also another such line through
the Black Belt, south and east of the mountains but for two short
intervals at the Virginia-North Carolina and Alabama-Mississippi
boundaries, which gaps were actually filled in by the Confederate
government. This railroad system was supplemented by raft-

156 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

like steamers built for the navigation of Southern rivers, and by a
countless fleet of small craft which brought the cotton to collec-
tion points and returned home with supplies ; these boats were
frequently rowed by negroes. Rain, which was in part seasonal,
but not wholly so, rendered the roads bad, but on the whole the
transport facilities of the South were adequate to its economy of
peace.

The northern system was less important in actual military oper-
ations than that of the South but, in "converting" the whole into
a "compact and armed" mass, its value cannot be estimated. With
more than double the mileage in an area somewhat smaller, the
North was obviously better served. Four lines, being now rep-
resented by the New York Central, the Erie, the Pennsylvania,
and the Baltimore and Ohio, crossed the mountain barrier. Un-
doubtedly in 1 860 the North was overbuilt but thereby was ready
for the war-time exigency which indeed saved the roads from
financial ruin. The contrast between the two sections, how-
ever, went far deeper than the matter of mileage. It was to the
advantage of the South that most of its roads were of a standard
five-foot gauge, while those of the North had at least eleven differ-
ent gauges, though the South's opportunity for through traffic
was offset by local jealousies such as caused Lee's supplies from
Wilmington to be unloaded, carted, and reshipped at Petersburg ;
this the building of a mile of track would have obviated. It was
to the credit of the South that her roads were more economically
built and managed and more scantily stocked to meet their rela-
tively lighter traffic. On the other hand, the great variety of the
Northern roads and their exuberant financing were signs of an
enthusiasm and a vitality which meant power to experiment and
to expand. At the very moment of the war the romance of
railroading was at its zenith, calling out perhaps a wider com-
bination of mechanical, financial, scientific, and political tal-
ents than has been produced by any other modern invention.
Boys collected locomotive numbers ; the workshops of the Penn-
sylvania road were forerunners of modern commercial labora-
tories ; the desire to win this market for their own was strong
among the motives which made Pennsylvania miners Republicans.

THE CONTESTANTS 157

The South did not miss all this elation. Ross Winans at Balti-
more competed with Matthias W. Baldwin at Philadelphia in
building locomotives, and the Tredegar Ironworks of Richmond
were as effective as any in the country ; but Baltimore was lost
because the Tredegar Ironworks shifted largely to the making of
cannon, and on the whole the Southern railroads were slight,
not easily expansible or defensible in the face of those of the
North, which drew the chief abilities of its population and eagerly
adapted their personnel to the new tasks of war.

The contrast in railroad systems was not so sharp as that in
other mechanical industries, yet the disparity is sometimes exag-
gerated. The South was beginning to manufacture ; some looked
to the protection of her home market from the rivalry of the
North as one of the advantages to be won by independence. With
peace she would gradually have diversified her livelihood, while
the war probably set her back at least twenty years. It remains .
true, however, that the difference in 1 860 was tremendous. Mas-
sachusetts alone produced manufactured goods to a value of over
sixty per cent, more than the whole Confederacy, Pennsylvania
to nearly twice, and New York to more than twice. Here again
it was not value only but adaptability that separated them. After
the first year of the war the North manufactured practically all
her war supplies. The Southern armies were always armed chiefly
by foreign guns, fired much foreign ammunition, and were de-
pendent on foreign drugs and surgical supplies. In fact, the cata-
logue of Southern lacks and Northern adequacies wearies till it
obscures the simple fact that the North was mechanically self-
sufficient and the South was not. No thinking person was un-
aware of their difference, the only question being as to their im-
portance.

The strength of the South was in its agriculture which was
efficient and productive and more highly organized than that of
the North. Its agricultural implements and ks live stock stood at
a higher proportion than those of the North, and the value of its
products exported to the North and to Europe was sufficient to
pay for what it chose to buy. These imports were necessary to
a cultured standard of living, but to a much smaller extent to the

158 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

maintenance of life during a period of strain ; a farmer in such
circumstances needed not to tighten his belt, though he might
have had to go without a belt. The South had an immense re-
serve of resistance accumulated by merely not spending ; but, on
the other hand, purchase alone, and not ingenuity, could supply
it with the arms of war. In a balanced and complicated indus-
trial organization such as that of the North no such simple adjust-
ment was possible. It could change its products, but the break-
ing of a belt here or a wheel there might throw, not the West, but
the whole East out of gear. It was a test, and the greatest up to
that time, of strength between an agricultural community and one
to a large extent industrialized.

This thought was as familiar to the thinking Southerner as the
problem of predestination to a Scotsman, and their opinion was
almost as much a matter of creed. They knew the story of how a
boycott by American farmers before the Revolution had brought
industrial England to terms. They knew how eagerly France
had in the Revolution assisted prospective customers to change
their markets. Napoleon had indeed failed to bring England to
heel by somewhat similar means and Jefferson had failed with his
embargo, but the South in 1860 was stronger than the colonies
in 1776 and more desirable. In theory, specialization of products
was no longer the stigma of colonies ruled by the mercantile sys-
tem, but the mark of a developing world economy where each
locality would do what nature intended and all be united by the
interchange of free trade. In practice, the chief item of South-
ern trade was no longer tobacco, without which the world, how-
ever loath, could survive, but cotton, a necessity of existence ;
Southern cotton did not, as tobacco had, sell in competition, but
enjoyed the greatest monopoly the world had ever seen. By as
much as the North was self-supporting, she was uninteresting to
the world ; the South controlled the key industry of her day.

It was for this reason that Southerners read the census unap-
palled. The North could, of course, mechanically block their
ports, but the world would unblock them. Nor was it certain
that the North could long maintain her blockade if left alone.
Cotton was a leading industry of New England as well as of Eng-

THE CONTESTANTS 159

land and France. It actually caused Massachusetts and Rhode
Island to consider compromise and hesitate at war. Who knew
what New England's condition would be when the key that
locked the white stream from her busy looms was turned ? In
his fast-day sermon, November 21, 1860, the Reverend J. H. El-
liott of Charleston urged his hearers to soften their hearts toward
the North, which was on the verge of commercial revolution and
ruin as a result of the law of the South. "Let us thank His good
Providence, which has permeated the South with a means of de-
fence as peaceful as it is strong — a product which renders us in-
dependent of any single nation simply because it renders all civi-
lized communities dependent upon us. Wielding such a power,
if we but wield it wisely, we may achieve a victory both blood-
less and complete/' The importance of cotton as a factor in un-
dermining the pretentious facade of Northern strength and in
bringing assistance to the South, should the North prove more
enduring than was believed, was yet to be tested ; and he would
have been rash, who would have expressed in 1860 an opinion as
to whether cotton or statistics was the greater illusion. As Cal-
houn had indicated to John Quincy Adams in a conversation
forty years before, diplomacy was the first line of Southern de- .
fence.

Figures of national wealth are generally deceptive and always
require analysis. Undoubtedly, the Southerners took undue satis-
faction in those of the census of 1850. To count a value for
slaves and none for the laboring population of the North was to
court disillusionment. Yet one could borrow on slave property,
and the North was foolishly proud of its hay crop which was
merely compensation for a climate that made preparation of win-
ter forage a drastic necessity. The question of chief importance
in 1 86 1 was to what extent the basic wealth of the sections could
be made fluid for the purposes of war.

At the moment, the financial position of the South was steadier.
Her banks had better survived the panic of 1857, and the private
bankers who handled a large share of her transactions stood high
for integrity. The spirit of speculation did not run so wild, and
budgeting was more general. On the other hand, the division of

l6o THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the country threatened the demoralization of Southern credit.
Her financial centres were New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati,
Louisville, and New Orleans, of which four were outside her
boundaries. Charleston was independent but hardly strong
enough to take over the work of New York and Baltimore. Yet
the Confederacy reaped more advantage from the established
good reputation of her people. As had always been true, much
of the mercantile business of the South was done on long-term
credit, chiefly through New York. No reasonably exact state-
ment can be made of the amount of such indebtedness, but it was
roughly estimated at three hundred million dollars. The South
had the goods, but payment would naturally not be made in war
time. These debts, undoubtedly, had much to do with the anti-
war sentiment of New York City, and creditors had long mem-
ories, which continued to be a factor in Northern politics, as the
British debts of 1776 had affected the Anglo-American relations
for twenty years. Meanwhile the debts were taken over in most
instances by the states where the debtors resided and became an
element in public finance. Apart from this floating debt were the
long-term bonds issued by Virginia and other states to pay for
internal improvements. These were widely held, and a consider-
able proportion were in the hands of public trusts. In Wiscon-
sin, for instance, much of the state bank reserve was so invested,
and upon the news of Virginia's secession the paper worth of her
citizens melted to nothing. It was also of advantage to Albert
Pike in his negotiations with the Indians that practically all their
tribal funds were represented by the bonds of Southern states.
In cases where such bonds were held by enemies the Confederate
government expropriated them. Southern bonds held in England
were hostages to off set those of Northern railroads in influencing
English opinion.

The North was thus put at an immediate disadvantage, and
there was a wide realization that this might prove permanent and
would certainly call for a rapid remapping of the routes of com-
merce. Not all the Southern debts due in New York were for
Northern products, but a large proportion were for goods im-
ported from Europe for which New York still owed. The North

THE CONTESTANTS l6l

was accustomed to large profits from agency and transport work
for the South. Northern goods sent South were to a great ex-
tent paid for in European imports which, in turn, were paid for
in Southern cotton. The fact that New York was supplanting
London as a financial centre for foreign exchanges, as Nicholas
Biddle had striven to make Philadelphia, did not change the funda-
mental economic facts. That North and South had been po-
litically part of one nation had disguised a condition which sepa-
ration at once revealed. The old triangle still existed. The North
did not export enough to Europe to pay for what it bought ; it
met the difference by its services to the South. Others seemed
more willing to do these services for the South than to accept the
discarded services which the North had to offer.

Whether this loss of market would prove fatal to the North, or
whether her self-sufficiency would be able to write off the loss, or
luck and her ingenuity might render it nugatory, was in 1861 in
balance. What Northern services -the South could do without
or find substitutes for was less a problem. It is significant that
neither government made any considerable attempt to secure for-
eign credit. The total amount obtained during the war was less
than that received by the colonies during the Revolution and had
more bearing on diplomacy than on the military situation. The
South reverted chiefly to sophisticated barter, the North supplied
herself. The adequacy of both processes would be affected by
many circumstances.

While the South relied upon diplomacy to keep open her paths
of commerce, and perhaps for even more direct assistance, diplo-
macy must have the assistance of military power, and in this
power the South was clearly unequal to the North. Although
her population was almost half that of the North, she had only a
little over a quarter of the man-power of the North. Of white
males, between fifteen and forty years of age, the North had ap-
proximately four million and seventy thousand, the South, one
million, one hundred and forty thousand. In this estimate the
South is credited with three quarters of the fighting man-power
of the old state of Virginia and with one quarter of that from
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. The West is not included,

1 62 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

although it contributed to both sides, chiefly to the North. In
fact, this startling difference was in some degree due to the large
immigration of the late 'forties and 'fifties, which had gone for
the most part to the North, and in which males of fighting age
were proportionately more numerous than among a settled popu-
lation. This difference was due mainly, however, to the number
of Southern negroes. Slave and free they constituted 3,653,-
872 of the Southern population. There remained, indeed, in the
North 429,401 slaves and many free negroes, but these cannot
be counted out of the ranks ; whereas in the South, although Jef-
ferson Davis in November 1864 recommended their enlistment,
no action to use them in the line was taken during the war. To
the difference in potentiality of white males must be added these
thousands of Northern negroes.

Of course, the three and a half million negroes of the South
were not without their military weight. Doing, as they did, so
large a proportion of the manual labor, they gave the South the
tragic possibility of sending a higher proportion of her sons to
battle. Again, although it was not until December 1863 that the
Confederate Congress authorized the employment of negroes as
messengers, nurses, and cooks, many of them, from the begin-
ning, had performed auxiliary military functions as body servants
and attendants. These values, however, diminished or were off-
set as the war went on and Northern forces penetrated the South-
ern territory. Thousands of negroes began to go to Fortress
Monroe as refugees as early as June 1861 ; and, after the capture
of Port Royal and Fort Pulaski, other thousands fled the planta-
tions of the South Carolina and Georgia coast. Grant's invasion
of central Tennessee early in 1862 brought great swarms who
were a burden to him but a loss to the economy of the South. As
Union armies pierced down and up the Mississippi, literally hun-
dreds of thousands came under Northern control, either in situ
on captured plantations or as refugees. A careful balancing of
vague figures, themselves but estimates, seems to indicate that
somewhat over ten per cent, of the negro population of the South
was dislocated during the war. Yet as over sixty thousand of
these were followers of Sherman in his march in the late autumn

THE CONTESTANTS 163

of 1864, it seems plain that the disorganization of the Southern
labor system was progressive and averaged less than might have
been expected ; it was in fact less than in the Union territory of
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. In spite of negro regiments
and emancipation the negro must be considered as one item in
Southern strength, though hardly in the constitutional propor-
tion of five to three.

The white males of both sections cannot be considered as
military-minded, but they were good fighting material. Con-
scientious objectors were mostly confined to the small and re-
spected body of Quakers and were generally used in some aux-
iliary service. Americans always had fought, and generally
expected to fight, at least one war in a generation. They thought
to fight it chiefly on the basis of natural aptitude rather than
preparation. The military system of the United States included
a navy to fly the flag about the world, a rather well-planned coast
defence, and a regular army sufficient to fight Indians at heroic
odds, but hardly adequate to keep the coast guns clean. Back of
this was the militia, a term with many legal meanings. Basically,
it embodied the old Teutonic idea of the service of all males be-
tween sixteen and sixty years of age, while detailed laws made
exemptions, as of Quakers. In some states the militia was en-
rolled, and fees were scattered widely to make the lists. In New
York the paper system was extraordinarily elaborate, with county
regiments and brigades and divisions whose officers on the gov-
ernor's staff wore elaborate uniforms. This militia, however,
had become since colonial times almost everywhere a matter of
paper only, though important as constituting the legal link for
universal military obligation. Numbers of this militia, however,
could and did form "voluntary" companies which, on the adop-
tion of certain regulations and the undertaking of certain un-
supervised promises to drill, received from their state government
arms furnished to the state by the national government under the
militia act of 1793.

A visitor to the United States in 1856 or 1857 might have con-
cluded that the Americans were indeed military in spirit and
might have predicted a conflict. Everywhere were volunteer

164 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

companies, which created much public interest. The Army and
Navy Journal boasted of a million and a half so organized. Com-
pany picnics and regimental balls were bright spots of social in-
terest, and Ellsworth's Zouaves travelled the country challenging
local companies to drills as elaborate as the acrobatics of the con-
temporary circuses. Such a demonstration on the eve of a war
so serious might well seem an omen, but the evidence is plain that
it was the result of fashionable imitation rather than a spontane-
ous product of democratic anxiety. Quite direct are the links
that bind it up with the Crimean War enthusiasm of France and
England ; its tone was that of a sport rather than of grim pre-
paredness, and most of its mushroom companies had vanished by
1 860, leaving to Northerners and Southerners little but a knowl-
edge of some military terms.

In fact, the militia had never fought a war. When emergency
arose, as in 1775, 1798, 1812, 1 846, and now in 1 86 1, and again in
1898 and 1917, a new organization was called into being, an army
of volunteers. The members of such bodies, of course, belonged
to the enrolled militia and some to the volunteer militia ; some
were seasoned militia regiments, such as the Louisiana Tigers, the
Seventh New York, and the Sixth Massachusetts, with here and
there military companies transferred as organized units from the
one service to the other, but in the main, previous organization
was lost to sight and the individuals reassembled. Both North
and South would fight with armies created for the purpose.

In his message of July 4, 1 861 , Lincoln said : "So large an army
as the Government has now on foot was never before known
without a soldier in it but who had taken his place there of his
own free choice. But more than this, there are many single regi-
ments whose members, one and another, possess full practical
knowledge of all the arts, sciences, professions, and whatever else,
whether useful or elegant, is known in the world ; and there is
scarcely one from which there could not be selected a President,
a Cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps a court, abundantly competent
to administer the Government itself. Nor do I say this is not true
also in the army of our late friends, now adversaries in this con-

THE CONTESTANTS 165

test." While this high estimate of the individual quality of the
armies may be accepted in moderation, there is a general impres-
sion that as fighting forces those of the South were superior, espe-
cially in their quicker readiness for the field. In general, this is
attributed to the aristocratic system of the South and a greater
familiarity with guns and horsemanship. This impression calls
for examination.

It would, of course, be absurd to say that Northern farm boys
were not as accustomed to guns and horses as most Southerners,
yet the hard-riding and hunting gentry of the South undoubtedly
had a more varied capacity, and Southern cavalry possessed an
advantage which it maintained until lost by inability to obtain
good mounts. The more important Southern superiority, how-
ever, was in the earlier bringing of large bodies of men to work
together. Jackson's corps was the first force of any size — almost
twenty thousand — to be an efficient unit, constituting early in
1862 a single weapon. Lee in 1863, moreover, had the first full
army that could be considered on a par with the organized armies
of history. This, however, cannot be attributed to an aristo-
cratic system. The Southern aristocrats were not leading feudal
retainers or tenants but independent men over whom they had
possessed no economic or traditional hold. Nor can their fol-
lowers be regarded as of a dependent type easy to whip into shape.
Rather, they possessed more than most Northerners a touchy
sense of independence.

Two factors seem to have been chiefly responsible for the
quicker welding of the Southern machine. One was the habit of
command and the sense of responsibility which their position had
given the Southern aristocrats ; the other was, not the system of
slavery itself, which did not furnish its own rank and file, but the
spirit and the manner engendered by that system. Officers born
and bred were fewer in the North, particularly in the West, and
they encountered not only personal independence but especially
a keen sense of equality. Diaries of soldiers are filled with criti-
cisms of their officers, high and low, of their intelligence, their
manners, and particularly their morals. One regiment on first

1 66 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

sleeping in the open was disturbed that their officers rolled them-
selves up a few paces out of line. Many as were the exceptions,
this spirit delayed the development of Northern discipline.

In both armies desertion was common ; the ordinary amount
from ordinary causes, some from political dissatisfaction, but an
excessive amount resulting from the old frontier practice of ex-
ercising individual judgment as to the immediate need for serv-
ice and the relative calls of home and army. This independence,
however, had its strength. The fierce ragged charges of South-
erners, shouting the rebel yell, had an intensity multiplied by each
separate soldier engaged. Battles did not destroy armies. The
routed vanished as causes offered, and reassembled as instinct drew
them. Europeans read of great victories and grew skeptical as
great results failed to follow. In the towns unprejudiced harlots
awaited the troops of both sides, and about the winter camps
sprang up romances generally to wither with tragedy ; but, on the
whole, both armies were exceptionally clean. Among the North-
ern troops total abstinence was more common than drunkenness,
among Southerners there was somewhat less of each. Good na-
ture was a characteristic, and hatred was rarely personal ; damned
Yankees and rebels swapped coffee and tobacco in the long inter-
vals between fighting and sang each other's songs. Few questioned
the world order which had sent them out to fight ; their uniforms,
their letters, and their memories were treasured throughout their
lives.

Between the two opposing forces the division of the military
equipment possessed by the United States government in 1860
was a matter of hot dispute and has continued to excite much
controversy. The impression that the South got more than her
share can possibly be traced to the assumption of the North that
for the South to take any of the equipment of the Union was theft,
and that for a soldier who had pledged allegiance to the Union
and had fought against it was perjury. The moral question here
was one of constitutional interpretation. To most Southerners
the states alone, being sovereign, had the right to expropriate what
they found within their limits ; officers had sworn loyalty to the
government as representing a relationship which they held to have

THE CONTESTANTS 167

been dissolved by secession. In equity all United States property
had been bought at the common expense of the people of all
the states. Where officials with foreknowledge of events used
their position to favor those antagonistic to the Union, breach
of faith was obvious. This was appreciated by most Southern-
ers, and instances of it were few. Perhaps the most conspicuous
breach of faith was when the secretary of war, John B. Floyd,
ordered South no columbiads to Southern forts not ready to re-
ceive them. The execution of the order was prevented by the
populace of Pittsburgh, where the guns had been manufactured.

The net result was that the South received much less than the
North held, probably barely her proportion. The physical navy
remained with the Union, though most Southern-born officers
went with their states. The Southern states, as a result of their
greater interest, had somewhat more than their proportion of
federal small arms. The greatest national asset that the South se-
cured was the system of coast defence, but from this must be sub-
tracted Fortress Monroe in Virginia, Key West, and Fort Pick-
ens at Pensacola. The value of the coast forts, moreover, was
seriously affected by the fact that the rank and file of the regular
United States army remained surprisingly loyal. Guns without
gunners are of little value, and early in the war battle ships, run-
ning almost scatheless, were able, as at Port Royal, to reduce forts
of the strongest masonry. Indeed, it was not until Beauregard,
appointed to the defence of Charleston in 1861, spent one third
of his ammunition in target practice that the Southern coast be-
gan to resist attack.

Of all that had been prepared for war, however, the most im-
portant asset proved to be the knowledge and experience of
trained officers. Throughout the war and ever afterwards the
value of the West Pointer has been disputed. The looming fact
that emerges from the controversy is that in spite of the oppor-
tunities offered to civilians, particularly in the North, every single
first-class military reputation of the war was made by West Point
graduates. Military authorities are loath to admit that the studies
it offered, so inadequate by modern standards, can account for
this excellence. It must be remembered that those officers of an

1 68 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

age to assume chief responsibility in the Civil War had followed
their course at the Academy by post-graduate work in the Mex-
ican War, most of them under the tutelage of General Scott,
whose fussy vanity and political aspirations must not be allowed
to obscure his remarkable military intelligence and knowledge.

The fact that both sides were directed by graduates of the
same school, who knew each other's abilities and idiosyncrasies,
gave to it a distinctive character and to Lee the opportunity of
exercising the greatest psychological power among military com-
manders. Of these trained leaders the South took with her less
than her due share. Appointment to West Point was according
to state representation as, roughly, were its graduates. Some
Southerners, as George Thomas, remained loyal to the Union,
but no graduate from the North joined the ranks of the South.
Judging by their action, the showing was less unequal in ability
than in representation, if not to the advantage of the South. This
was no unnatural consequence of the fact that the military pro-
fession stood higher in the South. Southern boys of good fam-
ily expected to become masters of plantations and also to engage
in public service. In their minds the army, the navy, and the bar
were equal in importance as professions, with the ministry a, call-
ing of more questionable importance. Southern states supported
military institutes, as that of Virginia at which Jackson taught,
and Louisiana which was employing Sherman. Few Northern
boys possessed such an asset as a plantation, and they looked for-
ward to more varied careers, with business standing high. The
fact that in 1 86 1 Grant and even McClellan were out of the army
trying for fortunes in business, while Lee, Joseph Johnston, and
Albert Sidney Johnston were still in service, illustrates the differ-
ence and indicates a situation which resulted in the South's find-
ing a greater percentage of her genius trained for war than was
true of the North.

It is plain, however, that whatever its initial advantage, the
South was in time bound to succumb in a purely military conflict,
if waged with equal intensity by both sides. The question of
relative intensity was one that did not escape attention. The
North started the war in the belief that the Southern majority had

THE CONTESTANTS 169

been dragooned by its militant leaders, and that belief was one of
the bases of its policy. The South counted on a weakening of
the Northern spirit. Her leaders had been led by such North-
ern advisers as ex-President Pierce to expect riots in Northern
cities coincident with war. The failure of riots to materialize
did not vitiate the more fundamental consideration that the North
was fighting for a lesser stake. At any time in the contest the
North could have peace with independence and without bonds,
whereas to the South defeat meant alien government to such an
extent as the loose construction of the North might choose to find
powers in the national government. How long would the free
people of the North fight to retain an unwilling population with
which they could make good terms for the mere grant of sepa-
ration ? The third line of Southern defence was Northern poli-
tics. It was in the light of this and of diplomacy that relative
military resources were to be considered.

The handling of their forces was in the hands of governments
more remarkable for their similarities than for their diff erences.
The permanent Confederate Constitution, which was adopted by
the Provisional Congress March 4, 1861, and which went into
effect February 18, 1862, was modeled on that of the United
States. It included some minor changes resulting from experi-
ence, as a six-year term for the president without re-eligibility,
the powers of the president to veto items of appropriation bills,
and the restriction of the power of Congress to appropriate money
not called for by the executive, except by a two-thirds vote.
Old controversies were settled by the prohibition of bounties and
internal improvements and by the permission to lay export duties
by a two-thirds majority, and to acquire and govern new terri-
tory. A provision allowing Congress to give a seat on the floor
to the heads of departments has been much commented on as
looking toward the English parliamentary system. As a matter
of fact, it represented a defeat of such a system as was earnestly
desired by such men as Stephens and Toombs. This small con-
cession, which left those heads still responsible to the executive
and the balance of powers unimpaired, was all they were able to
wring from a public as devoted to the old Constitution as were

170 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the Northerners, though Northerners and Southerners read it
differently.

Ambiguity was avoided in the new preamble : "We, the people
of the Confederate States, each state acting in its sovereign and
independent character ... do ordain and establish this Consti-
tution for the Confederate States of America." The newer school
of Southern writers on the Civil War are inclined to place the
blame for final failure upon one or another item of mismanage-
ment. Most, as did Pollard of his own day, lay the onus upon
Davis. Professor Owsley, than whom no one is better entitled
to speak, places it upon the factor of state rights, not, of course,
upon this clause of the Constitution alone, but upon the in-
heritance of Jefferson's strict construction and Calhoun's state
sovereignty. To realize that state rights must be temporarily
abandoned in a war to defend those rights, required a mental
grasp that one could not expect to be universal. Owsley's in-
dictment rests heavily upon Stephens and Toombs, and upon
Governors Brown of Georgia and Vance of North Carolina, and
his evidence leaves few of those representing the sovereignty of
their states free of responsibility, including even Governor Pick-
ens of South Carolina. The most serious charge is that, by with-
holding from the Confederacy in 1 86 1 the arms which the states
had in abundance, enlistment was checked to the extent of two
hundred thousand men. It is interesting to note that during the
same months the Northern states were offering regiments to the
Union, which the national government rejected, thereby incur-
ring a like condemnation for dulling the first fine edge of enthu-
siasm.

Concentration of resources for war in the face of a spirit of
local independence was no new problem. It was a difficulty
with which Icings of the feudal period were thoroughly familiar
and which had characterized all wars in America. It was the
despair of colonial administrators, it almost wrecked the Revolu-
tion, and it made Madison's path rough in the War of 1812. It
had yielded somewhat to such leadership as that of Pitt and Wash-
ington, and leadership was still a factor in 1 860. Lincoln did not
escape the problem, for Northern states were not docile de-

THE CONTESTANTS 17 I

partmental divisions, and when they were headed by such men
as John A. Andrew, they threatened the formulation of national
policies as well as their execution. Wisconsin, before the war,
had given evidence of a state determination that equalled that of
South Carolina. Still, Lincoln's difficulties were less than those
of Davis. The division of the country had of course concen-
trated particularism on the one side and nationalism on the other.
Where Lincoln had to deal with appeals, Davis faced threats,
many of them carried out ; and while after the first year the
power of the Union government was generally accepted, though
with protest, the Southern states grew pertinaciously resistant.

Southern state legislatures, indeed, scarcely sabotaged the cen-
tral government as did some of those of the North after the elec-
tion of 1862, but Lincoln certainly had more sympathetic co-
operation from the governors, who were in a position to do more
than the law-making bodies. If, from the administration point
of view, Andrew of Massachusetts was a wasp, and Lyman of
New York a slug, Brown of Georgia was a bull in a pasture, and
Vance of North Carolina a mule in the intense pursuit of his own
purposes.

Owsley shows how the Southern state governments continu-
ously, and with some success, hampered the Confederate control
of man-power, how they injuriously competed for the manage-
ment of the vital foreign trade, and how they interfered with and
finally secured the repeal of the system of improvement of war
supplies at fixed prices. Chief in controversy was the matter of
the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the declaration
of martial law. These were particularly necessary in an invaded
country, as when the constitutional government of Arkansas
practically dissolved. Davis did not venture to take either step
without power voted by Congress, and such votes were given
reluctantly and in partial form. Of course, such powers as con-
trol of foreign trade and impressment of goods were not con-
sidered in the North, and Davis did wield powers not undertaken
by Lincoln, but this was because of greater economic pressure in
the South. One Southern element of cohesion existed : when
Governor Brown tentatively suggested separate terms for his

172 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

state, the suggestion proved repulsive to honor among gentle-
men. One must conclude that state-rights sentiment was more a
detriment to the South than to the North, although in making it
the chief cause for the South 's failure Professor Owsley overlooks
its effect on the federal administration.

The state governments, North and South, however, must be
considered from another point of view. They were the govern-
ments with which the people were actually familiar. Except for
the post and the partial administration of justice, the national gov-
ernment had had few contacts with the people, except on the
coasts and the frontiers ; it was simple and understandable. Peo-
ple felt confidence in the state administrations because they were
intimate with them. How great was this familiarity can scarcely
be appreciated without the reading of thousands of letters, un-
orthodox in grammar and spelling, but on the whole in a better
penmanship than today, which poured in on the people's gov-
ernors. Letters with the aspirations of youths and maidens, the
schemes of grafters, the visions of old men, the plans of cranks,
the plaints of widows seeking aid and advice — letters which,
taken together, reveal the mind of the nation and express a de-
mocracy genuine and fully conscious that government was of,
by, and for the people.

State governments were growing conscious ; the war services
of both governments for the assemblage of troops and the raising
of taxes must be created. Military critics have regretted that
the North did not adopt the plan of Chase for the raising of regi-
ments by Congressional districts. Such plans on paper seem most
promising, but the time could not be taken to bring such machin-
ery into being. For the starting of the war the state governments
were essential because they were operating, and without them de-
lay would have been greater than it was. The states bridged the
interval during which the Confederacy was being organized, and
while the government at Washington was developing its new
services. Nor can one quite ignore the continual activity of
these efficient organisms, even where they had been partially sup-
planted. It may be doubted whether the Confederacy could
have accomplished so much in the way of effective development

THE CONTESTANTS 173

of local resources as did those contentious governors Brown and
Vance — Brown in promoting manufactures, as at Atlanta, and
Vance in watching after the welfare of North Carolina troops.

The central administration of the Confederacy ran more
smoothly than that of the Union. Davis was less bothered than
Lincoln by politics. Beginning his six-year term under the perma-
nent constitution in February 1862, he could not be re-elected,
but could expect the war to end under his direction. His policy
was daily attacked by Pollard in the Richmond Enquirer, but
party divisions actually did not exist. In 1 864 he was confronted
by a peace-at-any-price candidate, William W. Holden, running
for the governorship of North Carolina, as Lincoln had been con-
fronted by Vallandigham the year before in Ohio ; but Holden,
as was Vallandigham, was overwhelmingly defeated. Contro-
versy abounded only on minor points. Davis's political policy
was simplified by the attitude of the North ; the issue was that of
war or surrender.

In the Confederacy, government was centralized in the execu-
tive much more than at Washington, Davis was a hard, regular
worker, and business passed under his hand to such an extent that
responsibility for nearly all actions rests at his door. Like Wood-
row Wilson, he seems to have found it difficult to work with men
of the first ability. Toombs and R. M. T. Hunter did not stay
long in the cabinet ; those who did were men of talent rather
than genius. Memminger, the secretary of the treasury, was not
the intellectual equal of Chase, nor was his policy as bold or as
consistent. His successor, George A. Trenholme, was much
abler than Chase but was in office too short a time to carry out a
comprehensive plan. Southern finance, indeed, is a story inter-
esting to the student of financial experiments alone. From the
point of view of the war it is chiefly important to remark that it
secured from the South a contribution in proportion to apparent
wealth almost double that exacted from the North. Had the
South won the war, financial ruin would probably have stared
her in the face. Exceptions to this general estimate of the cab-
inet must be made in the case of Judah P. Benjamin, successively
attorney-general, secretary of war, and secretary of state. His

174 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

mind was tested after the war in the drastic competition of the
English bar, and from it he emerged at the top. No one could
question his high ability but, without a mutual correspondence to
afford a basis of debate among historians, it is difficult to assess
his statesmanship, for he was merged with Davis in a co-operation
which leaves as many questions unanswered as does the relation-
ship between Wilson and Colonel House. He and Davis are
eternally conjoined, though there seems to be no reason to sup-
pose that Davis had not the capacity and the personality to as-
sume the leadership for which his position gave him opportunity.

Davis certainly ranks well with the list of men who have been
American presidents. He had in marked degree those qualities
of integrity, seriousness, and devotion to duty which the Ameri-
cans desire in that office. His personality had about it the aus-
terity generally associated with New England, but it was graced
with some Southern charm of manner, and tales of his relation-
ship to his Mississippi slaves reveal an appealing humanity. His
marriage with the daughter of General Taylor might seem to in-
dicate luck as a factor in his career, but it would appear to have
been rather a result of his qualities than a cause of his fortunes.
Like the majority of Northern leaders of the Revolution, he had
made his own plantation, and when he went into politics he rose
to leadership by the respect that he excited. His intellect re-
veals itself as high as those other qualities which Americans deem
more important in a chief magistrate. He was every inch a
president.

John Winthrop remarked that magistracy is not a craft for
which one can vouch his skill or be held responsible ; one's com-
mitment is for the faithful attempt to do his best. Criticisms of
Davis must be more an estimate of his success than a reflection
upon the man. That most common is probably the most un-
just — that Davis undertook too personal a control of the opera-
tions of the war. Whether his decisions were wise or unwise,
and the question of the degree to which a civil magistrate should
interfere with the commander of his armies, are proper matters
for those who wish to learn from the examples of history. That
Davis was doing his duty as he saw it cannot be doubted, and

Lincoln in 1860

This photograph is "not mentioned by Meserve"
From an original in the Library of Congress

THE CONTESTANTS 175

there is reason to believe that if he exceeded his functions his ex-
cuse was not a slight one. Civil magistrate as he was, he was also
a trained and experienced military officer, regarded as of great
promise ; nor is it improbable that this was in the minds of those
who chose him president and subsequently moved the capital to
Richmond just behind the battle line. ' It was no time for mod-
esty, and total abstinence from military interference might have
been as justly condemned as too great activity.

Exoneration of the man does not, however, carry endorsement
of his actions. It is already evident that, measured against Lin-
coln, Davis was weaker in the enduring virtue of patience. Keenly
sensitive and ardent, he could not wait, and lost what there was
of the advantage of being fired at ; and he gave occasion for the
perhaps inevitable toppling of Kentucky's neutrality. Nor was
there lack of evidence of an impatience that ran at times to bad
temper. The most specific charge against him, however, is one
of favoritism. In some degree all executives must incur it, but its
basis is sounder in the case of Davis than is often true. No one
can doubt that Joseph E. Johnston, whom Davis employed as
little as possible, was an abler general than Braxton Bragg, whom
he retained in spite of obvious fiascos. With less agreement it is,
nevertheless, arguable that the exuberance of Beauregard was an
offence to Davis and led to the hampering, rather than the har-
monizing, of Beauregard's genius. The appointment of Hood to
succeed Johnston at Atlanta is almost universally regarded as an
error. There can be no doubt that Davis's personal judgments
were at times unfortunate, but there is no possibility of proof that
they were based on other than his opinion as to fitness.

Lincoln was an executive but not an administrator. His whole
genius was for concentration, and he carried it over to his new
office. When he found men whom he could trust, with relief he
left them to their work. His own time was spent more in per-
sonal intercourse and in meditation than at a desk, and rather
than his own office he frequented the offices of others, wander-
ing about and appearing unexpectedly where etiquette and rou-
tine would have excluded him. His cabinet was abler than that
of Davis, and some of its members could be trusted. Lincoln,

176 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

knowing Chase and nothing of finance, left him a free hand ; and
he left the direction of the navy to Welles and his accomplished
assistant secretary, G. V. Fox. Nevertheless, he saw the whole
machine operating ; he put his hand in one way or another on
weak spots, and he did not refrain from consulting any who
seemed to him worthy, regardless of official position. Recogniz-
ing Seward's general competence, he realized also his occasional
irresponsibility, and even after bringing him to book on April 6,
1 86 1, continued quietly to read and amend his despatches and to
bolster up his own judgment on foreign affairs by consultation
with Charles Sumner.

On the conduct of the war he had many ideas which he freely
discussed with those in authority ; and he maintained a personal
relationship with his leading generals, but did not impose his
thoughts, though sometimes he abandoned them with reluctance.
It was in the war department that the chief weakness in his cab-
inet appeared — the appointment of Simon Cameron who, as sec-
retary, did not add to the grafting instincts of a politician the
ability that might have proved a compensation. This vital de-
fect, Lincoln dealt with by amputation anaesthetized by the hon-
orific appointment as minister to Russia. The replacement was
remarkable. Lincoln's greatest legal opportunity had been in his
selection as assistant in a McCormick reaper case tried at Cincin-
nati in 1855. Here the senior counsel, Edwin M. Stanton, had,
with a lack of even the merest courtesy of the bar, ignored him.
Nevertheless, Lincoln treasured a memory of unusual ability
which seems to have been enhanced by Stanton's open attacks
upon the conduct of his administration. On the estimate of his
power Lincoln chose this unrepentant Democrat and former
member of Buchanan's administration to replace Cameron, and
so won the greatest administrative genius of the war.

Stanton added to a mind of unusual grasp and striking original-
ity a personality uniquely powerful. Casuistical to an excep-
tional degree, he was able to play for years a double game which
still astonishes the observer. His contempt for Lincoln, however,
changed to admiration and respect. Temperamental as a prima
donna, he visibly trembled when the Virginia (the Merrimac) be-

THE CONTESTANTS 177

gan to destroy the fleet at Newport News, and at the same time
he was the boldest of his generals. He awed strong men. When
Congress in an unusual moment of comprehension gave the gov-
ernment control of the Northern railroads, he summoned their
executives to Washington, announced his terms, and left them in
full control of their roads, docilely carrying out his orders. He
took the advantages of special contracts rather than bidding in
supplying the army without the usual accompaniment of graft.
Erratic, hating and loving, loved and hated, often wrong, more
often right, giving and exerting the last ounce of strength, he,
though often dissolved in tears, swung the forces of the nation as
one man.

When one reviews the powers of the North in its mechani-
cal strength and potentialities, its man-power, its equipment, and
those of the South in its inaccessibility, its fighting edge, and its
international desirability, and considers also those things that were
in doubt, as the determination of the Northern people and the
balanced efficiency of the two governments, no one can say that
to the contemporary mind the result was a foregone conclusion.
It may be that complete intelligence and knowledge might today
declare the result inevitable, but to the mortal mind there would
seem to have been sufficient balance to render conduct and de-
cisions significant in the final determination.

CHAPTER VII

DIPLOMACY

THE WAR was to be fought before an audience of nations whose
interest was far from being curiosity alone. War is contagious,
and since the days of Columbus few wars had failed to cross the
ocean ; as Voltaire had said, a torch lighted in the forests of
America had, in 1756, put all Europe in conflagration. Even
without participation, it is human to take sides in any contest
from contract to international politics. All who read had their
sympathies, though they were far from being united in opinion.
In Italy, where there were aspirations for national unity, feeling
was generally for the North. Since nearly all the hundreds of
thousands of recent German emigrants were living in the North,
the same sentiment, aided by personal ties, animated Germany.
Russia, as always, was favorable to the Union.

Diplomatically, however, the powers that counted were those
of the West, Great Britain and France, bordering on the Atlantic,
with strong navies and with some of their trade at stake. In addi-
tion to their greater natural interest was the fact that they had
just emerged triumphant from the Crimean War, a struggle of
East and West. For the moment the dominance of Europe was
at rest. It would have been natural for the student of interna-
tional affairs to expect now a contest of strength between the two
victors — France and Great Britain, the traditional enemies. They
remained, however, united by an entente which had a strength
arising from the weakness of the regime of Napoleon III. His
popularity at home was in question, and he was in no position to
bring the rest of Europe upon his unprotected back. It was one
of the understandings of this entente that the affairs of the United
States fell within the sphere of British influence. The situation
was thus rendered relatively simple. The Confederacy was less
fortunate than were the colonies in 1776, when they had found
the European balance poised and when merely a slight change of

178

DIPLOMACY 179

circumstances was necessary to bring France to their aid as an
ally against England.

The question of what attitude Great Britain would assume,
however, was not simple or plain, even for her own public men
to read. There, more than in any country, public opinion was
alert to follow and control the details of foreign policy, and such
opinion was a complex of more points of view and interests. It
is this intricate force working on so responsive an organ as the
British government, which gives fascination to any study which
involves British diplomacy, and new light may be brought to bear
upon it almost indefinitely. In general, the British had hoped for
the preservation of the Union. When, however, a division took
place, the larger part of that which was articulate, led by the
Times and reinforced by Punch, perhaps at that time the most
powerful combination of papers that ever existed, expressed itself
in favor of the South.

Various considerations induced this quick sympathy. In gen-
eral, Americans were and had been disliked, but to those who
used American as a scornful epithet, Southerners seemed least
American. Britain was still predominantly an aristocratic coun-
try, and those who expressed its mind found the planters of the
South more congenial than Northerners. The full vials of dis-
satisfaction with the nation were therefore poured upon that por-
tion of it which still professed to be the whole. Losses by false
representations, by financial irregularities, by repudiation, for
which one finds so much disgust in the writings of Dickens and
Thackeray, were lumped as charges against the Union. It was
not without pleasure, too, that the majority saw the American
experiment, so blatantly boasted and rousing a nervous doubt in
their realistic minds, "coming the cropper" that they had so often
predicted. In 1863 the historian, Freeman, brought out his His-
tory of Federal Government -from the "Foundation of the Achaean
League to the "Disruption of the United States. Those politically
minded knew that the United States was increasingly difficult to
deal with diplomatically, and that its growing strength rendered
problems of the American continents precarious of settlement.
America had interfered with British dreams of influence in Texas

l8o THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

and California, and for the last ten years rasping persistency had
threatened actual British interests in Central America. Every
Englishman of any importance could translate the dictum Divide
et impera and appreciated that if the United States divided, the
two parts might be turned against each other and the whole neu-
tralized. Nor did doubts, which some might still cherish as to
their own policy of free trade, blind any to the disadvantages
Great Britain would suffer from the new Northern policy of pro-
tection.

Such considerations appealed most simply to the party in op-
position, Tories of both old and new schools, who, in addition,
were no more blind than Lincoln to the implications of the strug-
gle for democracy. Those in power, the Whigs, led by the
Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, and incipient Liberals, headed
by the foreign minister Lord John Russell, who became Earl Rus-
sell in 1 86 1, and Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, were
more divided. The old Whigs had been brought up in the tra-
dition that the American Revolution had been a mistake of their
Tory opponents, and many had come to regard George Wash-
ington as an English country gentleman who fought for the rights
of Englishmen ; but by analogy was not Jefferson Davis such a
gentleman fighting for the same rights ? In the liberal wing of
the party were such men as John Bright, Richard Cobden, W. E.
Forster, and the Duke of Argyll, who had personal associations
and kept up correspondence with American liberals of New Eng-
land, such as Charles Sumner and John Lathrop Motley. To them
the radicals of the North looked for sympathy and aid. They
were strongly anti-slavery, and in opposing that institution they
appealed to their widest constituency at home, for since Britain
had in 1807 abandoned the slave trade and in 1833 emancipated
the slaves of her West Indian colonies, it had been an axiom of
national portcy to seek its extinction everywhere as fast as op-
portunity was afforded. To the observers at a distance of three
thousand miles, however, the difference between the Confeder-
acy, with its three million slaves, and the Union, pledged to pro-
tect as property its half million slaves, was indeterminate. Puz-
zled by the ambiguous situation in the United States, the English

DIPLOMACY l8l

liberals were more influenced by their sympathy with ebullient
nationalism, and Davis to them was a Garibaldi facing a Franz
Joseph. Many of them were "Little Englanders," expecting their
colonies to drop away when ripe, and their horror was not at
separation but at coercion to a unity maintained by force.

In facing this situation it was the purpose of the North to keep
other nations neutral and of the South to bring about interference
in its own behalf ; in diplomacy the South must be the aggressor.
From neither side did there emerge a champion equal to Ameri-
can tradition. Seward was watched over most competently and
successfully by Lincoln ; but, however marked his defects, his
ability should not be too much overshadowed by the president.
While without the bearing that is a necessary part of the equip-
ment of a diplomat of the first class, he was abundantly gifted.
His swiftly changing emotions were always sincere ; his mind was
inexhaustively fertile, his personality winning, and his vision and
wisdom above that of most public men of his generation. He
could learn, and while at the beginning he was active chiefly in
off setting his mistakes, nevertheless, by the middle of the war he
had acquired the poise and technique of an expert diplomatist.
He had the advantage that he could practise his diplomacy at
home and was fortunate in the presence at Washington of Lord
Lyons, the friendly and competent minister for Great Britain.
His staff abroad was new and inexperienced. Perhaps the best
was John Bigelow, consul-general at Paris. The two most im-
portant posts, the ministries at London and Paris, might seem to
have been given as consolation prizes to defeated vice-presidential
candidates — Charles Francis Adams, Free-soil candidate in 1 848,
and W. L. Dayton, Fremont's running-mate in 1856. Dayton
did nothing to suggest other reasons for selection, but Adams was
of different calibre. He had become, indeed, almost the type of
diplomatic excellence, and such an estimate may be justified by a
comparison of his despatches with the ordinary conception of a
diplomat's duties. As an intermediary between governments, his
conduct was letter perfect ; but as a representative of one peo-
ple to another, many lesser men have proved more effective. He
possessed the well-known Adams character and mentality in full

182 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

degree, though with less force than some of his ancestors and de-
scendants. New blood strains and ease of life had not destroyed
the family pugnacity, but there was apparent in him some of that
contempt for life and aloofness from conflict which became so
much an obsession in his son Henry. When English society went
Confederate he was not bowled over, but he shut his doors and so
not only did not influence sentiment but was unable to inform
his government what the sentiment was. At a moment when the
tense situation was approaching a crisis he wrote to his govern-
ment at Washington that the danger was for the time past.

Davis was his own policy-molder, but in the absence of foreign
legations at Richmond he was more dependent than Seward upon
his foreign representatives. He had no experience to draw from,
and his major appointments were defensible. His first were, in-
deed, unfortunate. He sent as a general commission to arouse
European support, William L. Yancey, Pierre A. Rost, and A.
Dudley Mann. The last had had a varied diplomatic experience
and possessed some address, but Yancey was inevitably the soul
of any body of which he was a member. Essentially he was too
provincial for his task, and was recalled from a position for which
he was not fitted. Late in 1862 a more permanent arrangement
was made by the sending of James M. Mason to Great Britain and
John Slidell to France. Both had been ministers — Mason to
France, Slidell to Mexico — and were proper and respectable ap-
pointments for any government to make. Slidell may be said to
have succeeded completely. He won the unwilling ear of Na-
poleon and brought him to whatever position he desired, except
that of acting without Great Britain. This obstacle, which Frank-
lin had encountered when Louis XIV feared to move without
Spain, he failed to overcome as Franklin had ; certainly the ob-
stacles in 1 86 1 to 1865 were greater, perhaps were insurmount-
able.

The crucial point was London, and Mason was not the equal
of Slidell. In ancestral inheritance he was on a par with Adams
and resembled him in his correctness. Adams could outmatch
him in such a contest and Mason proved to have no more of the
supplementary arts of arousing interest and conciliating opinion.

DIPLOMACY 183

Certainly the second Southerner in ability should have been at the
Court of St. James. Had the South possessed a Franklin to send
and had they sent him, he might by making all anxious to see him,
by talking of the common interests of humanity and persever-
ingly presenting his ideas of the interests of those to whom he
talked, have tipped the tottering balance in favor of the South.
One can still think that to have sent Alexander Stephens, accom-
panied by Trescott, would have been the part of wisdom. As
things stood, the Confederacy, if not putting its best foot for-
ward, at least stood respectably before the world.

The first stake in blocking out the international situation was
driven by the Lincoln government on April 19, 1861, in pro-
claiming a blockade of the entire Southern coast. As this was
done after a discussion in the cabinet in which Welles strongly
opposed it, it cannot have been an inadvertence ; yet certainly it
was an inconsistency and quite possibly a mistake. That the
South was to be blockaded, in the ordinary sense, was open to
doubt, but that an international blockade was the instrument best
designed to do it is by no means so clear ; and it is not impossible
that the cabinet, still so unfamiliar with international law, did not
fully realize what it was doing. The United States had always
maintained in the face of Great Britain that a blockade to be legal
must be effective, and it is perfectly plain that the North was not
in a position to enforce such a measure in April 1861. This was
of course a difficulty that time would mend, and one may believe
that the North did surmount it. More glaring was the fact that
the Washington government was maintaining, and continued to
maintain, that it was dealing with "illegal combinations/' with a
domestic situation for which it was prepared to assume full re-
sponsibility, and with rebels whom it must punish. A blockade
is an international measure, a recognition of a state of war, the
conduct of which must be regulated by the international laws of
war. So the United States Supreme Court decided in the case of
the Amy Warivick, and such has been the conclusion of every
student of international law. The alternative was the closing of
the ports, a drastic regulation invoking no foreign supervision but
conferring no belligerent rights over foreigners and their vessels.

184 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

It may well be that such rights were necessary in the attempt to
isolate the South, and it was certainly more proper that hostilities
should be conducted under the accepted code of warfare than
under a riot act, but the presentation to the world of these two in-
consistent positions hardly enhanced the international reputation
of the North.

The proclamation of blockade was followed quite naturally,
and a little more promptly because of the urging of a friend of the
North, William E. Forster, by a proclamation of neutrality by
Great Britain on May 13, in which action she was speedily fol-
lowed by other nations. This action of Great Britain's, and not
that of their own government, was taken by the people of the
North as giving the Confederacy a status that they denied her,
and like a grain of mustard seed it grew into a great tree, casting
its shadow over all other relationships between the two countries
for many years.

The international law that was thus applied to the contest was
not without its uncertainties, for Great Britain and the United
States had never seen eye to eye on the subject. In 1856, in the
Declaration of Paris, England had bound herself to two of the
earlier American conceptions : that a neutral flag should protect
the goods beneath its folds and that a blockade to be legal must
be effective ; that is, that vessels should not be seized and con-
demned under such a proclamation unless sufficient force was
maintained off the port of destination to render entrance really
hazardous. That convention also contained a clause which abol-
ished privateering. Amid a welter of interests and compromises,
all these provisions taken together were generally regarded as
steps in the direction of that enlightenment of which the mid-
nineteenth century was so proud. The United States since colo-
nial times had been the chief privateering nation. With the sec-
ond merchant marine in the world, which many thought would
soon be the first, privateers, the militia of the seas, and an inex-
pensive protection against the professional navy of Great Britain,
were highly thought of by Americans. William Marcy, secre-
tary of state under Pierce, caught in the dilemma of resisting
progress or surrendering a main weapon of national defence, had

DIPLOMACY 185

countered with a proposal to accede to the abolition of privateer-
ing should the capture of all private property at sea be barred and
the predatory powers of professional navies be thus limited. His
proposal was rejected, and thus the matter rested when the Civil
War began.

At war, both North and South wished the advantages which
this Convention of Paris afforded. Seward offered his adhesion
in toto, and Davis offered that of the Confederacy to the first two
clauses, omitting that concerning privateering. Both govern-
ments had a perfect right to declare their intentions as to their
own conduct, which was what actually happened at the outbreak
of the Spanish-American War in 1898. This, however, was not
what either the North or the South was aiming at. Seward wished
international countenance for his declared intention of treating as
pirates the privateers to whom Davis was already giving letters
of marque and reprisal. Davis was still more interested in secur-
ing international supervision of the Northern blockade, which he
knew would be troublesome, but he did not believe that the
North could maintain it at a legal standard. Both, therefore,
wished recognition of their adhesions.

To expect such recognition in either case was a betrayal of ig-
norance and of diplomatic ineptitude. Acceptance of Davis's
offer must wait upon the more vital question of the recognition of
the Confederacy as an independent nation capable of making
diplomatic agreements. That of the United States involved a
principle more subtle but equally vital. No responsibility rests
more heavily upon a neutral than that of maintaining without
change throughout a war the rules adopted at the beginning to
guide its conduct. Any change must be of advantage to one bel-
ligerent or die other, and to shift official attitude is more plainly
indicative of favoritism than any careless indifference of execu-
tion. It was this point that had made Washington so loath to
sign the Jay treaty in 1795 and that had brought on most of our
subsequent difficulties with France. It was strongly presented
by Wilson in the World War in the matter of armed merchant
vessels. In 1861 France and England quite properly welcomed
the adherence of the United States to the Declaration of Paris,

1 86 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

but both stated that they could recognize no obligations on their
part to change their conduct in the existing war. Angered, Sew-
ard withdrew his offer, and Davis threatened to withdraw his.
The relations and obligations of Europe to both remained as they
would have been had the Declaration of Paris never existed.

Such mutual blundering was more ominous to Seward who
wished merely to skate on the surface, than to Davis whose ob-
ject was to break the ice. Any accident might give him what he
wanted, and suddenly at Christmas time, 1861, he expected for a
moment to receive the gift. Mason and Slidell had arranged
their trip, as was customary, by way of Havana, at which port
they took passage on the British packet Trent for Southampton.
It happened that the adventurous naval explorer, Captain Charles
Wilkes, was in harbor with his ship, the San Jacinto, which he had
brought home for service in the war. What passed through Cap-
tain Wilkes's mind will probably never be known, but naval cap-
tains who have charge of exploring expeditions among savage
peoples must make quick judgments and are not unaccustomed to
receive popular applause for them. At any rate he followed and
stopped the Trent, and took off Mason and Slidell after a formal
resistance. The San Jacinto sailed for Boston and the Trent
sailed for Southampton, each ship carrying to its respective na-
tion the first news of the event.

What followed the arrival of both was certainly inexcusable
and not easy to understand. That ancient barometer of British
national sensitiveness, the eighty-year-old Lord Palmerston, the
Prime Minister, entered the cabinet meeting, flung his hat on the
table, and exploded : "You may stand this but damned if I will."
As on so many occasions, he reflected the opinion of the public,
but such hostile excitement was quite unjustified. The attorney-
general had been asked what legal action could be taken in the
more extreme case of the stopping of packet boats between Dover
and Calais, and he had replied that there was none to be based on
British practice. It was only by adopting the American position
with regard to right of search and impressment that complaint
could be made. Yet complaint must be made. British feeling
had been hit on its funny-bone — its pride in and reliance on the

DIPLOMACY 187

wooden walls of its merchant marine. Southern sympathy was
hardly a factor, though, of course, those who felt it rejoiced.
Parliament voted supplies to send troops to Canada ; and Lord
Russell, the seventy-year-old foreign minister, was forced to write
a dispatch that corresponded to the will of the public. Prince
Albert, dictating (in his last illness) to the Queen, modified its
tone, but it remained in the inexcusable form of an ultimatum —
inexcusable because there was no overt reason to suppose that the
American government would not disavow the rash act of an un-
instructed naval officer, and should it not do so it would con-
stitute a vindication of British action which Americans had so
strongly denounced during the Napoleonic wars.

Still more remarkable was the American reception which
awaited the message. Wilkes had been received at Boston not so
much as a hero as a savior. Lawyers who were familiar with in-
ternational law lauded him to the skies. Enthusiasm flared through
the country with that vibrancy of tone which marks the genuine
from the prearranged. The intelligent joined with the unin-
formed in a joy apparently universal. Mason and Slidell might
well have basked in the importance attached to their capture, but
it was not this material gain that was in mind. An insult of the
British flag on the high seas was relished by those who remem-
bered the abuses which our merchant marine had suffered be-
tween 1793 and 1812. More potent still was the gathering anger
at the British recognition of belligerency which was taken as full
proof of Southern sympathy, particularly by the liberals, who felt
that a positive demonstration should have been made in favor of
those fighting slavery, even though their own .government dis-
avowed such purpose. The moment was psychologically right.
Eight months had passed and no striking evidence had been given
of the power of the North nor of the process of conquest. The
two most important military engagements had been Bull Run
and Wilson's Creek, both Confederate victories. Reports from
McClellan's army were "All quiet along the Potomac." But in.
the Wilkes episode there was action, and Seward had been cor-
rect in his belief that a majority of Americans would rather fight
Great Britain than their countrymen.

1 88 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Now was a time to avoid error, for it was a crucial time.
Sumner was at Lincoln's elbow counselling caution, and Seward,
as always, was awed by the event. Lord Russell's dispatch ar-
rived, and Lord Lyons read it to Seward, omitting the eight-day
ultimatum, daringly risking his reputation and career in the con-
fidence that moderation would prevail. It did. Seward was in-
structed to hand Mason and Slidell over to the British, and the es-
sential issue was thus met. He has been criticized for the grounds
upon which he based his action. Had he possessed genuine cour-
age instead of rash impetuosity he might have rested it on Ameri-
can tradition and scored a point in the age-long controversy
between the two countries over the freedom of the seas. His
dispatch, however, had to be read by the American public, as
well as by the British government, and perhaps public opinion
would not have been content with so brash a handling of their
hero Wilkes. Instead Seward wrote long and cleverly. He de-
clared that Mason and Slidell were contraband and so were liable
to seizure. Wilkes's mistake had been in not bringing the Trent
into port with him for the presentation of evidence before the
court. The government was not backing down but was calling
for action still more radical. The episode was over, and the
American government courteously gave permission for the Brit-
ish troops sent for the defence of Canada to land at Portland and
to go overland to their destination. Davis saw his hopes snatched
away without a chance of interfering in the process. Yet the
influence of public opinion ran on, and few British and Ameri-
cans who had experienced the anger of those hot moments en-
tirely freed themselves from its power either during the war or
thereabouts.

Davis naturally was not relying solely upon accident in his for-
eign relations. His first objective was to secure from foreign
countries those goods which were necessary for the prosecution
of the war. Could the mechanical superiority of the North be
thus offset, the South might be able to defend her independence,
at least until the North grew weary. The problem narrowed it-
self down to breaking the blockade by foreign assistance. In a
partial way, which was not much considered at first, this might

DIPLOMACY 1 89

be done by stimulating individual effort to blockade running.
More satisfactory would be a protest by foreign governments
against the blockade, which if undertaken would be likely to em-
broil them with the North. There was hope also that they might
be brought, jointly or singly, to offer mediation in some one of its
varied forms for the restoration of peace in America. The prob-
able rejection of such an offer by the North ^ould not of itself
mean war, but it would injure the government in foreign eyes,
and so might promote the final purpose — recognition of the Con-
federacy as an independent nation. Such recognition, if it came,
would of itself give no legal advantage greater than the recogni-
tion of belligerency already granted, but it would materially en-
hance the credit of the South. Whether it would produce still
further consequences would depend upon circumstances. Recog-
nition of the independence of a revolting segment of a nation by
nations declaring themselves neutral in the contest is not equiva-
lent to a declaration of war. War did follow the, recognition of
American independence by France but not that of the Spanish
colonies by the United States. The recognition of the Confed-
eracy by Great Britain probably would have meant war. The
North was constantly growing more angry at that nation as our
own conflict progressed, and as the figures of the Union navy
grew there came a desire to try it out against Britain's navy, which
desire even Secretary Welles shared. If the Union navy had
fought the British navy, the balance of forces would have been
reversed, and the statisticians might well have predicted the tri-
umph of the South. The chances of diplomacy have seldom
seemed more important.

To his main objectives Davis added that of harrowing the
North by attacks upon her commerce. Without a navy or the
power of building one at home, he was dependent almost entirely
on outside co-operation in carrying out this idea. His first plan
was initiated by a proclamation offering to commission privateers.
It was true that the South had too small a merchant marine to
make as much of privateering as the United States had in the
Revolution and the War of 1 8 1 2, bnt it was hoped that the profits
of the business would attract ships and sailors of other nations, as

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Genet had planned in 1793. In fact, with that low estimate of
the morality of their opponents which is so characteristic of peo-
ples at enmity, it was supposed that most of the fleet would come
from the North, One New Orleans paper estimated seven hun-
dred privateers with two hundred from New England. When
for various reasons, possibly among them Seward's threat to treat
privateers as pirates, the plan failed, Davis turned his thoughts
to a professional Confederate navy built in foreign shipyards,
officered by Southern Annapolis graduates, and manned by Brit-
ish sailors. Throughout the war the securing and management
of their navy occupied much of the attention of Confederate
agents abroad.

The weapons in Davis's hands for the accomplishment of his
purposes were fairly numerous, but the responsibility for the
choice among them and their handling was not entirely his own.
Very great emphasis was laid in the memorials presented by Ma-
son and Slidell to due governments to which they were accredited
upon the ineffectrraiess of the blockade, and their statements
were strongly backed by Davis's public messages. These docu-
ments present a very strong case, and their figures might well
have given a basis for remonstrance by Great Britain and France
to the United States, Their argument, however, lacked definite-
ness, for no one had yet declared what degree of effectiveness
constituted legality and, more important still, the United States
was not bound by die Declaration of Paris to maintain whatever
standard that might be. It was true that that government might
be convicted out oi its own mouth from diplomatic statements
made between 1790 and 1812, but hardly without more than
usual strain on consistency by France with its record of the
blockade of Great Britain when she had no ships upon the high
seas, or by Great Britain, which had blockaded Europe with a
few ships off the peaceful harbors of New York and Chesapeake
Bay.

Comparatively little stress was placed upon what would seem
to have been the safest, if not the strongest, weapon in the South-
ern armory - freedom of the Southern market for foreign manu-
factured goods as compared with the tariff wall that would be

DIPLOMACY Ipl

about it if brought back into the Union ; or the belief of the
Southern majority in free trade, as compared with the triumph of
protection in the Union. Considerations of revenue and hopes
that local manufacturing would grow up if delivered from the
competition of Northern factories kept the tariff of the Confeder-
acy relatively high and prevented Davis from making commit-
ments of policy as to the future. Of course, the economic facts
were plain, and foreign observers were not blind to such obvious
considerations, but it might well have been dramatized by a new
tariff based upon the ordinary principles of Adam Smith and Cob-
den and flaunted before the world as an illustration of good things
to come, as the Republicans had used their proposed Morrill bill
in the campaign of 1860. Franklin had never allowed France to
forget that American independence might mean the transfer to
her of our trade which had been such a great source of British
prosperity ; the Confederate diplomatists paid but little attention
to the much more probable consequence that Southern independ-
ence would shift to Great Britain and France the market which
had enriched New England and Pennsylvania.

The point was that the South as a whole felt the need of one
weapon only, all-sufficient to bring, not hosts of angels, but
armies of starving propagandists to her aid. As the Times corre-
spondent, William Russell, wrote, every Southerner thought the
"Lord Chancellor sits on a cotton bale." King Cotton was held
to rule the civilized world. There could be no doubt of his po-
tency but, as with electricity, there might well be different theo-
ries as to the methods of its use. Alexander Stephens would have
used cotton as an asset, have had the government buy it, ship it,
and hold it in foreign warehouses for a rise in price, which would
have swamped the North in the resultant shower of gold. En-
ticing as such a plan seemed, the obstacles to its adoption were
certainly great. To have reorganized the oceanic transport serv-
ice of the South in time to export the current crop would have
been well nigh impossible and yet, inadequate as the Union navy
was in 1861, it would still have been able to match numbers of
the clumsy ocean-going cotton freighters which must have been
used. Nor would the security of the cotton, stored among a

192 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

population hungry for its use, have been unquestioned. His pro-
posal, however, was not rejected upon argument, but because
preconceived opinions were so strong that Davis himself could
not have opposed him.

Almost a century of discussion had crystallized the Southern
mind along the lines of Jefferson's reasoning in days when the na-
tion had possessed no material as valuable as cotton or which it so
monopolized. He had urged the superiority of raw materials in
a conflict with manufactured products, and now the South was
in a position stronger than he had ever envisaged. Cotton manu-
facturing was at least the second industry of Great Britain. It
was the key to the prosperity of France. Without the raw ma-
terial to feed the mills, thousands of stock-owners would go with-
out their profits and millions of employees without their wages.
Starving, they would come in their might to their governments
demanding any action necessary to relieve the plight. Here the
popular conception rose to drama. The situation needed to be
made so plain and obvious that not the dullest could remain in ig-
norance. The proper policy was to stop all exports of cotton
completely and at once. So widespread was this idea that the
Confederate government was not forced to take action, but was
able to throw some sop to foreign anger. Much more than state
governments, the local organizations, mass meetings, and public
opinion enforced an embargo more effective than that which
Jefferson had established by law. Southern cotton did not cross
the Atlantic in 1861, and preparations were made materially to
reduce the next crop. The world could not but know that only
on terms would the South again feed the jennies and looms of
Western Europe.

The effect remained to be proved, but one cannot fail to re-
mark one danger in such a policy. In international affairs, as in
those of individuals, a threat may prove a boomerang. It has so
often been proved in history that man lives not by bread alone
that one would expect statesmen to avoid so crudely basing their
action solely upon fear and greed. Powerful as cotton undoubt-
edly was, it was not omnipotent ; and it was perilous, indeed, to
base hope of assistance by foreign nations so emphatically upon a

DIPLOMACY 193

threat to destroy the livelihood of their people. The South, in
1 86 1, was unquestionably inclined to approach the world with a
high hand, and the tone of Davis was in harmony with such in-
clination. Nor is it good salesmanship to stake all on a first
impression. When soon the Confederacy was forced to resort
piecemeal to Stephens' method and to modify the embargo by the
exportation of cotton to buy war materials, the edge of its sword
was dulled. In addition, this Southern abstinence from export in
1 86 1, and in some degree in 1862, made the Northern blockade
seem more efficient than it was, and so weakened that aspect of
the Confederate case. Yet one cannot deny that cotton famine
was an arm of power and that it cut deep into the flesh of Great
Britain and of France.

In 1 86 1 the armory of the North was not well stocked to meet
the onrush of the South. It had the advantage, which all estab-
lished governments possess in such emergencies, that other gov-
ernments are generally cautious in giving encouragement to revo-
lution and are not inclined to welcome disorder. For special
argument it rested its case chiefly upon the charge of conspiracy
and the coercion of the Southern majority by well-organized
leadership, the "slavocracy" of Northern folk history. This point
was well urged by Charles Francis Adams who believed it and
made it the basis of his own support of the war ; for, regardless of
his constitutional views, his soul revolted from the idea of the
coercion of unwilling states. It was, however, an instrument not
without its dangers, for it tacitly accepted a time element. A
majority so dull as to remain inert amid the clash of arms and with
Northern forces penetrating the interior, as they began to do
early in 1 862, was not likely to remain long a factor in the oppor-
tunist mind of Palmerston. Time was granted, but how much
would be necessary was a legitimate question for the considera-
tion of the governments addressed.

The first plays were all to the advantage of the South. Slidell
easily won the sympathy of Napoleon. As early as September 30,
1 86 1, Mercier, the French minister to Washington, approached
Lyons with the proposal that France and Great Britain unite in
recognizing the Confederacy and in breaking the blockade. Early

194 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

in 1862 Napoleon brought pressure, though not in official form,
upon Great Britain for the same action. In November of 1862
he formally presented a proposal for a less drastic intervention.
France, who was making full use of the opportunities in Mexico,
the sphere of certain allotted lines by the entente, continued to
urge Great Britain to action, though curiously the South had less
popular support in France than in Great Britain. Meanwhile,
Slidell, with the assistance of financial agents, was negotiating a
loan. The financial relations between New Orleans and Paris
had been close, and SlidelTs daughter was soon married to the
son of one of the leading Paris bankers, Emile Erlanger. Er-
langer and Company in July 1862, offered their services in the
form of a loan on terms by no means eleemosynary. The im-
portance of the loan, however, was not primarily financial. The
Confederacy had other credit and means with which to buy, but
such a loan would be evidence of stability. After long consul-
tation the Erlanger terms were accepted ; and on March 19, 1863,
the issue was placed on sale in Liverpool, London, Paris, Frank-
furt, and Amsterdam, and when the books were closed it had
been over-subscribed more than five times.

Meanwhile successes less dramatic but more sustaining were
being reported from Great Britain. On May 9, 1861, Mallory,
the Confederate secretary of the navy, had ordered James Dun-
woody Bulloch to England to purchase or build sk steam-pro-
pelled ships to act as commerce destroyers, and a few days later
Lieutenant James H. North was sent to secure two ironclads in
England or France. Bulloch was the first to secure action. In
February 1862, he had ready his first cruiser, the Oreto, which
became the Florida and slipped into Mobile Bay ; its construction
was followed in April by the powerful "290," which at sea be-
came the Alabama. In May, North signed a contract at Glas-
gow for the building of an ironclad, and soon afterward a con-
tract for two more ironclads, the famous rams, was made with the
Birkenhead firm of Laird & Sons. This improvisation of a foreign-
built navy brought up one of the most complex problems of in-
ternational law — that of neutral duties. The United States had
a record of leadership in recognizing such duties and in enf ore-

DIPLOMACY 195

ing them. Her acts of 1 794 and 1 8 1 8 marked a record in recog-
nizing the responsibility of a neutral nation to prevent the use
of its territory by belligerents in carrying on their conflict. The
British act of 1819 accepted that principle and closely followed
American precedents. Both countries accepted trade in mu-
nitions as legal, subject, of course, to the right of belligerents to
stop it ; both stated that, on the other hand, it was the duty of the
neutral to prevent a belligerent from using its territory as a base
for military operations. Guns, men, saddles, and quinine were
munitions ; an armed ship and enlisted men were military expedi-
tions. It is plain that confusion might arise. United States of-
ficers at New Orleans in 1836 saw hundreds of men marching
aboard ships cleared for Galveston, but were informed that they
were individual passengers, and evidence of preconcert was dif-
ficult to obtain. Consequently, in 1837, the Van Buren adminis-
tration, confronted by an insurrection in Canada, which the ex-
isting American sympathy might turn into a war between the
United States and Great Britain, secured passage of an act au-
thorizing the seizure of vessels where there was "probable cause
to believe" that they were intended to act against a friendly
power. This was the position which Great Britain had neglected
to take. American and British officials were therefore instructed,
in case their nations were neutral, to stop all expeditions destined
to take part in the strife. American officials were authorized to
act on suspicion, but the British could act legally only when in the
possession of evidence convincing to a court of law. In conse-
quence of this deficiency in British legislation, the cruisers built
for the Confederacy with loud acclaim from the press sailed from
British ports, minus their guns, which were sent to meet them.
The armament was assembled by British crews and Confederate
officers, and the vessels then proceeded, flying the Confederate
flag and endowed with the rights of war, including that of the
limited hospitality due a belligerent naval vessel in foreign ports.
Adams urged that they were obviously intended for the purpose
which they actually performed. Lord Russell replied that the
courts must have positive evidence before stopping them. Adams
collected evidence which was rejected as not legally sufficient.

196 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

He replied that a nation was responsible if its laws were not equal
to its duties. The argument waxed warm, the cruisers proved
efficient, the rams grew in the dock yards. The Confederacy
had a navy, and it had provoked a controversy.

Meanwhile the British cabinet dispersed for its game-shooting
in the summer of 1862 ; and Palmerston, thinking over the next
session of Parliament, wondered, in a letter to Lord Russell, if it
were not about time that something happened with respect to
America. Lord Russell not over-eagerly undertook the prepara-
tion of a memorandum on recognition. Lord Granville, in at-
tendance on the Queen, reported her as favoring the North. On
October 7, at Newcastle, the brash young Gladstone, a youth of
fifty-four, undertook to rush his elders by declaring that Jeffer-
son Davis had created an army, that he was creating a navy, and
that he had created what was more than either, a nation. Palm-
erston and Lord Russell were shocked at this breach of cabinet
etiquette and determined not to act without an official discussion.
Sir Cornwall Lewis was asked to draw up a memorandum against
recognition. Sentiment was generally pro-Southern, though in
some cases, as at Inveraray Castle, the seat of the Duke of Argyll,
there was strong Union talk. No decision had been made when
Parliament met, and through all the winter and spring American
affairs with their continual twists and surprises continued to excite
interest and at times passion.

The first important change was Lincoln's welding of a new
bolt for the North — the emancipation proclamation. To com-
mit the North to the freeing of the slaves was to put its case in-
ternationally upon a basis much stronger in the i86o's than to
fight merely for the Union. The question was, did the procla-
mation of September 23, 1862, constitute an international issue ?
It applied to no slaves in the loyal states nor in the reconquered
regions ; it did not become effective until January i, 1863. Did
it mark a change of heart, the sincere adoption of a purpose, or
was it a gesture of desperation ? Fully aware of the necessity of
convincing the British mind, Lincoln and Seward gave their at-
tention to propaganda. Henry Ward Beecher delivered a series
of speeches in Great Britain ; Thurlow Weed was sent over to

DIPLOMACY 197

manipulate the British press ; Archbishop Hughes toured Ireland ;
young J. Pierpont Morgan was made an agent to secure a loan,
not so much for the money to be obtained, as to interest the capi-
talists ; and Robert J. Walker, popular in England as the author
of the liberal tariff of 1 846, was sent to confer with British finan-
ciers. Lincoln himself sent public letters to the workingmen of
London and of Lancashire — all to the disgust of Adams, who
was distressed by these amateur diplomats.

The Northerners were met by one of the most effective propa-
gandists since Franklin. In November 1861, the Confederate
government had sent the twenty-seven-year-old Henry Hotze of
the staff of the Mobile Register to educate British public opinion,
and Edwin de Leon to France. The latter was a failure and was
recalled, but Hotze was able, and with an incredibly small allow-
ance he directed and drove all the elements of pro-Southern opin-
ion. His chief instrument was a paper of his own, the Index, of
small circulation, but high in quality and reliable, which became
a mine of fact and argument for the whole British press.

Both sides had their native allies. Foremost for the North were
John Bright and W. E. Forster, with their enthusiastic liberalism.
The South had the larger number of advocates, including great
numbers of members of Parliament, who deluged the press with
books and articles. James Spears published in 1 86 1 the American
Union, in which he set forth the Southern constitutional point of
view and the difficulties of its pure British stock in the face of the
racially conglomerate North. Lord Montague in 1861 published
A Union of America. In 1 862, Alexander James Beresf ord-Hope
brought out England, the North and South, and Hugo Reid, The
American Question in a Nut Shell, or Why We Should Recognize
the Confederacy. Southern clubs were organized from Glas-
gow to London, but particularly in suffering Lancashire. Union
meetings of Beecher, Bright, and Forster were broken up. It
seemed as if the Civil War was being fought out as a political
question in the British forum.

Seward did not remain quiescent, and made use of a proposal
by the House of Representatives to undertake privateering, which
was certain to injure British trade. Adams, on September 5,

198 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

1 863, brought his argument for the staying of construction on the
Laird rams to a famous conclusion in the sentence : "It is superflu-
ous to point out to your Lordship that this is war." Already,
however, when Adams wrote, the British government had taken
action and the rams were estopped. This did not mean that the
South would not be recognized, but to a degree it made the ques-
tion a matter of party, although Disraeli fought shy of commit-
ment. Napoleon, however, would not keep silent, and gave an
interview to his old friend, John A. Roebuck, indicating to him
his desire for action. In June, Roebuck moved in Parliament
that the government enter into negotiations with the principal
powers of Europe looking to the recognition of the Confederacy,
and debate on it was set for June 30. Lee, not unmindful of the
diplomatic situation, was advancing into the North, and Southern
aspirations seemed on the eve of fulfillment. Roebuck's motion
was adjourned from time to time. Excitement was great and
tempers were raw. Politicians sniffed the air and gradually they
got a sense of direction. Pressure was brought by the wise upon
the enthusiasts, and on July 13, 1863, Roebuck withdrew his mo-
tion. Without a division in Parliament, but by a general feeling
for the blowing of the stronger currents of the wind, the decision
of Britain had been made. In discussing the reason for that de-
cision, one must keep in mind precisely what was the issue. It
was not primarily a decision against the South. Had Lee won
at Gettysburg the question might have revived ; had the South
actually won, of course, she would have been recognized with
acclaim. The decision of the summer of 1863 was that Great
Britain would not take part in the contest and would await with-
out intervention the American solution. From the American
point of view the North had resisted the diplomatic assault of the
South.

The causes that brought so sudden an end to a movement that
seemed so powerful demand consideration. Several may be briefly
dealt with. Military successes were of minor weight. While
stocks soared and fell with rival victories, governments were
much less affected. When the collapse of the pro-Southern move-
ment came, Lee was menacing Washington, Baltimore, and Phila-

DIPLOMACY 199

delphia with considerable chances of capturing them. On the
one hand, none of the victories had proved smashing and decisive,
as had the battles of Napoleon ; and this perplexed the minds of
public men who found it difficult to interpret facts. On the other
hand there was a general impression that the South would main-
tain her independence. It was not easy for Southern advocates
to argue that the Confederacy deserved recognition and at the
same time to claim that assistance was necessary for it to win.

There were so many irresponsible and uncontrollable spokes-
men that the British situation was badly handled by Southern ad-
vocates. The assumption of leadership by a man of Roebuck's
low standing in Parliament was a strategic error, and his quoting
of Napoleon III in debate was unwise, for nothing was more
likely to disturb the British public than a hint of foreign interfer-
ence. It must be remembered, moreover, that British diplomacy
was confronted by more questions than was American diplomacy.
Europe was full of smoldering fires. The Schleswig-Holstein
problem, Polish unrest, rivalry of Austria and Prussia, might at
any moment bring an explosion ; and any disturbance of the status
quo, as war between Great Britain and the North, might serve
as a match to tinder. The American Civil War was not so all-
absorbing to the world as to the contestants or to many who have
written about it. Another element not to be ignored was the
extremely powerful factor of Northern support in the habitual
relationship of British and American financiers. Agreeable as
were Southerners, it was chiefly with Northerners that business
was done. The great house of Baring, with its ramifications in
both "The City" and the West End, was as Northern as it had
.always been American. One of its partners, Joshua Bates of
Massachusetts, was governor of the Bank of England. George
Peabody, soon to become world famous for his great gifts to the
London poor and to the emancipated negroes of America, had
been born in Massachusetts, had remained an American, and had
long been known to London business men as a sound counsellor
and to the Victorian humanitarians as a man interested in all good
causes. Such men had sold to British investors more bonds of
Northern railroads than of Southern. New York merchants had

200 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

handled more of the Southern trade than had the ports of the
Confederacy, and the nervous system of credit recoiled at a breach
of long established custom, however golden the chances of a new
regime. Like ships of the line, the great financial houses sailed
among the lesser war profiteers, and their helm was set for peace.

It is impossible to attribute a relative weight to these and the
other factors. Very important was the growing conviction that
the war was really one between freedom and slavery. To the
North the value of this belief lay in its incidence. The British
government had been committed for fifty years to use what in-
fluence it properly could for freedom and so could not without
inconsistency favor the South when the issue was chosen. The
anti-slavery feeling, moreover, was strongest where it could do
the most ; in Lancashire it modified the economic grievance
where King Cotton was most powerful. With amazing courage
and an intelligence with which the aristocrats of the South had
not credited them, the Lancashire factory workers faced pres-
ent hardship in the firm conviction that slavery was wrong and
detrimental to free labor.

When abolition and King Cotton met in this region it was the
latter that succumbed. Indeed, his armor proved less perfect
than was supposed, and chance caused him to stumble. In the
first place, the stocks of cotton were unusually large when the
war began, while the fear of shortage drove up prices so high that
many fortunes were made. Manchester, moreover, had long
been, as it still is, restive under the Southern cotton monopoly,
and many thought that in the end Manchesterians might profit by
tightening their belts and stimulating production of cotton in
other countries. Nor was this feeling rendered the less keen by
the arrogant use of cotton famine by the South as a threat to com-
pel diplomatic action. For centuries Anglo-Saxons have resented
monopolies. The Southern monopoly, moreover, did not rest on
the fact that cotton was grown only in America, but on low prices
resulting from organization of its agricultural system. The cot-
ton manufacturing industry could well pay higher prices for its
raw material. In fact, as prices rose, increased crops were planted
in Egypt and India and, while less satisfactory, their multiplying

DIPLOMACY 201

bales at least prevented starvation. By 1862, also, the Confed-
eracy was getting out every bale it could put through the block-
ade, while the Northern government was capturing cotton and
providing for its continued growth in conquered districts.

The British imports of American cotton from 1860 to 1865
were 5,286,300 bales, while the price rose from 7 1/8 d. in 1860
to 28.3 3 d. in 1 864. In France and elsewhere, undoubtedly, there
were limits to the intensity of the suffering caused by the shortage
and adjustment of cotton in Lancashire. Arnold's famous His-
tory of the Cotton Famine is really a history of poor relief. In
general these were years of unparalleled prosperity to Great Brit-
ain as a whole. Her imports rose from £ 2 10,000,000 in 1 860 to
,£269,000,000 in 1864, and her exports rose from ^164,500,000
to ;£ 240,000,000. Wealth was ample, and it had reached the
stage of conscientiousness where it at least would not allow the
idle to starve. King Cotton also encountered King Corn. One
of several pieces of what can hardly be described as other than
good luck for the North was that during the first years of the war
there occurred a series of bad harvests in Europe coincident with
good ones in the American Northwest. British imports of Amer-
ican wheat rose progressively from 17,500,000 bushels in 1860 to
53,000,000 bushels in 1861, and to 62,000,000 in 1862. The de-
ficiency of Northern credit was thus partially reduced, and a
break with the North threatened a calamity not so complete, but
even more vital, than the loss of cotton. Seward waxed as elo-
quent over California gold and Northern wheat as did the South-
ern press over its long-heralded product.

And what, indeed, had Great Britain to gain by recognition,
with its possible concomitant of war ? No war could give her
more certain gain than that which was actually being waged.
Not merely was Britain at peace, winning the usual profits of
neutrality in supplying goods ; but her premier industry, far
dearer to her than the factories of Lancashire, was by the very
action of the war winning that position of pre-eminence for which
in 1860 it seemed hopelessly struggling. In 1857 the merchant
marines of Great Britain and the United States were running neck
and neck. In 1 860 the iron ship, which gave Britain an advantage

202 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

still existing, was beginning to make its eff ect obvious. Suddenly
Davis's navy created an element of risk for vessels flying the
American flag ; the increased risk made necessary an increase in
insurance and therefore an increase in freight rates. So great a
merit was attached to the Union Jack that in the course of the
war 800,000 tons of American ocean shipping were transferred to
that flag, a practice which by the time of the World War had been
forbidden by international law. The British merchant marine
was overcoming its principal competitor by British ships and
British guns and without the risks and horror of a national war.

Of equal importance was the fact that the United States gov-
ernment, the most persistent advocate of broad neutral rights, was
daily piling up precedents in favor of the exercise of power by
belligerents. The British government had no tradition to violate
by recognizing an ineffectual blockade. All the interests of the
greatest naval power in the world were in favor of a law which
recognized a navy as possessing all possible authority. It is dif-
ficult to conceive the obstacles that Great Britain would have en-
countered in her dealings with Germany during the World War
had not American traditions of the freedom of the seas been modi-
fied by United States practices between 1861 and 1865. Still
more was it to the advantage of her professional navy that the
improvisation of navies in neutral countries during war time
should be discouraged. Wise Britons began early to point out
that in allowing Confederate cruisers to be fitted out, Britain was
selling for a mess of pottage a security that would expose her to
incalculable harm in the future. It was that thought that chiefly
led to the reversal of her policy in the spring of 1 863, and she was
soon willing to cry peccavi and to pay wergild.

By August 1863, the end had come to the great hopes of the
Confederacy, as Davis recognized in a bitter message of Decem-
ber 1 863. Once more his patience failed him ; and he threatened
to withdraw his promise to respect enemy goods in neutral ves-
sels, and began to break off relations with British and French con-
suls on the ground that their exequaturs were derived from the
federal government. These were futile gestures, and no new

DIPLOMACY 203

consuls came. One can imagine how long the Alabama would
have survived had she begun seizing vessels under the British flag.
Yet foreign intercourse and diplomacy continued.

When one sets arguments and opinions which were at the serv-
ice of North and South, respectively, in this contest to control
world action, in opposition to each other, it is impossible to say
that the result was inevitable. While both sides made errors, it
would seem that the errors of the South were most damaging,
while the luck was for the most part in favor of the North. Prob-
ably the case of the South was strongest in 1861, when surprise
was greatest and minds unsettled. With each passing month
after September 1862, latent powers for peace became more pow-
erful, and peace became increasingly probable, though never be-
yond the chance of some sudden episode or change of .condition.

Napoleon was not the friend of the South for reasons purely
altruistic. He was mainly interested in his adventure in Mexico,
which had been made possible only by the division of the Union ;
and it might perish by its reunion. Pecuniary claims against the
Union had been made the basis for intervention, and intervention
had led to the establishment, under French guidance, of an em-
pire to which had been called the Austrian Archduke Maximilian.
Thence were to come glory, intercourse, and gratitude from Aus-
tria and, from the Church of Rome as well. Barred from inter-
fering in the United States by the entente. Napoleon was free to
resist interference. It seemed that he might have an opportunity
to exercise that freedom when in 1 864 the United States House of
Representatives resolved that the Monroe Doctrine had been vio-
lated by Napoleon's action and called for the expulsion of the
French. "Do you bring peace or war ? " asked the French for-
eign minister, Thouvenel, when Dayton next called upon him.
He brought, in fact, a dispatch from Seward, now expert in dip-
lomatic finesse, stating that the House of Representatives did not
control diplomatic policy and that the American government,
while it would prevent European interference with the political
system of the Americas, was not sufficiently informed to take ac-
tion and was pursuing a policy strictly neutral in the struggle

204 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

between Maximilian and his republican opponent, Juarez. No
commitment was made, but no loophole was afforded Napoleon
to plead the necessity of self-defence.

Davis, meanwhile, secured a minor triumph through the ac-
tivity of A. Dudley Mann. The county system which the North
employed for raising troops caused mongers of human life to
search Europe for likely material to enter as immigrants, to enlist,
and to share the bounties. This business was facilitated in Ire-
land by the thought of the Sinn Feiners that the Civil War af-
forded good training ground for troops afterward to be employed
in the Irish war against Great Britain. Thousands of youths
crossed the Atlantic and took part in the war ; their numbers were
overestimated by the South, which accredited to such activity
large numbers of obviously foreign-born, who were actually nat-
uralized citizens of our earlier immigration. Had this movement
been concluded by government agents it would have been a vio-
lation of neutrality in the strictest sense ; and, even so, the propa-
ganda which actually was circulated was proper material for
remonstrance under the belligerency proclamations of the various
governments. They did, indeed, take the matter up with the
United States government, for which Great Britain had good
precedent in the protests of the United States against the activi-
ties of British enlistment agents during the Crimean War.

Mann conceived the idea of an appeal to the Pope, as the re-
gions of their activity were Ireland and Belgium. Proceeding to
Rome^ he had agreeable interviews with Pius IX and Cardinal
Antonelli and secured an official letter addressed to Jefferson
Davis, president of the Confederate States of America. This he
widely heralded as an official recognition of Southern independ-
ence by the Papal States. It did not have such a significance in
diplomacy, being merely the courteous acceptance of the title as-
sumed by the person addressed. Nevertheless, the letter was not
without its influence in checking the rush of Irish lads to Grant's
army.

Davis's final play was made in the autumn of 1864, following
the advice which his friend, Duncan Kenner, Confederate con-
gressman from Louisiana, had been urging upon him for over a

DIPLOMACY 205

year. Many Southerners realized that the war, whether won or
lost, was disrupting the system of slavery. They were aware
how much it hurt the Confederacy in its dealings abroad. The
proposal was to off er slavery in return for recognition. Thus to
reject the corner-stone of the edifice as exalted by Stephens would
seem a revolution, indeed. It meant that to some, independence
had come to be the supreme goal. Davis's message of December
1864, with its recommendation of the enlistment of slaves, who
should receive freedom in return for military service, was a pre-
monition of this new policy which Kenner was committed to
present to the governments of Europe. It must be remembered,
moreover, that negro codes could be so framed to make the
change less vital than it seemed, and what would have been the
reception of the proposal had Kenner returned with a protocol is
questionable. Congress had not, when the Confederacy fell, acted
upon the suggestion of negro troops, and behind Congress were
the far-from-docile states. The armies would have had the re-
sponsibility of keeping the country open for a new discussion, a
task which they showed themselves unable to accomplish, though
some hold that they might have maintained the struggle longer
had they been animated by genuine hope. As it was, some leak-
age concerning this secret mission seems to have given rise to a
mysterious rumor of the coming of foreign intervention at last,
which gave some comfort to the troops about Petersburg.

Though this final effort completely failed, it remained true that
the outside world did find ways of sending essential supplies to
the South, and the little navy continued to distress the shipping
of the North. The turn of events, however, began when in a
spectacular and advertised duel off Cherbourg on June 19, 1863,
the Alabama succumbed to the Kearwge, leaving only the Florida
at sea. On January 1 5, 1 865, Fort Fisher at Wilmington fell, and
the last road to Europe was finally blocked, leaving the South en-
tirely to its own resources.

The failure of the Confederacy in its foreign relations has been
variously attributed to Queen Victoria, to Lincoln's emancipa-
tion proclamation, to Charles Francis Adams, and even to the
necessity of disciplining Gladstone for his seeming attempt to

2O6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

hurry the cabinet. Some of the responsibility should undoubt-
edly fall on Davis, whose handling was not adroit, and some to
the public opinion of the South, which forced that particular man-
ifestation of the cotton argument which was calculated to arouse
the most resentment. Mainly, however, it was the result of cir-
cumstances. The South wished aid in the struggle ; the govern-
ment of Great Britain did not see sufficient advantage in American
separation to promote it, and was largely preoccupied with the
desire to be on good terms with whoever emerged, whether one
nation or two. Delay would work no injury unless the South
was too weak to stand alone. Actually the accidents, as the de-
ficiency in wheat, were favorable to the North. Delay, in fact,
strengthened the forces producing it. While opinion oscillated
with battles, none of the Confederate victories materialized in
concrete advantages ascertainable on pin-pricked maps, while
point after point fell into federal possession. The best hope of
the South lay in rushing the government of Britain off its feet, but
Palmerston and Russell were too seasoned players to be rushed ;
to them and to the realistic solidity of British opinion which they
interpreted must probably be assigned a greater influence than to
those in the North and South who struggled to persuade them.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN

THE triumph of the North in diplomacy meant that foreign na-
tions were not to take a part in the contest. It did not automati-
cally shut the South within herself ; she might burst her bonds,
and she might entice foreign individuals to help her. It was the
business of the North to enforce the blockade which she had de-
clared. The Northern policy of blockade had long been fore-
seen, and at the moment it was put forward by General Scott as
part of a plan of isolation intended to reduce the South by stran-
gulation. This plan was based upon such economic considera-
tions as have already been mentioned, and it was thoroughly in
accord with the principles of scientific warfare. To the non-
military population of the North it seemed absurd and was dubbed
"Scott's anaconda," yet the coiling of fold after fold of the en-
veloping Union about the South, a unicorn with cotton its one
horn of offence, became one of the three chief themes of the con-
test.

The circumference which the anaconda must encircle was
roughly five thousand miles. Of this, fifteen hundred was land
frontier between the two contending peoples, five hundred miles
of it was a neutral river frontier between the Confederacy and
Mexico, and there were three thousand miles of ocean. There
was work for the army, for diplomats, and for the navy. The
task of the navy, the blockade in a technical sense, is that with
which we will first deal. Those three thousand miles of sea front
were all low-lying. There were no rock-bound coasts upon which
to shatter stout oak, but no mountain cliff is more dangerous than
deceptive, sandy Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. The whole
extent was divided not very unequally by the long peninsula of
Florida into an Atlantic and a Gulf section, the latter being at a
distance of over fifteen hundred miles from the nearest ports of
the North. This strand was practically double — long stretches

207

2O8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

of sand bars with interior lagoons, as in North Carolina, Florida,
and the Gulf, and sea islands separated from each other by intri-
cate and changing channels, as in South Carolina and Georgia.
Ports were few compared to such rugged shores as those of Eng-
land and New England, but each possessed many paths of ingress
from the ocean. The nearest marine neighbors were under for-
eign flags. British Bermuda was 720 miles from North Carolina's
chief port, Wilmington, British Nassau about 600 miles from
Charleston, and Spanish Havana 650 miles from New Orleans.

To seal this coast was the task of Gideon Welles. He had been
appointed secretary of the navy chiefly because he had been a
Democrat, was an editor, and came from New England, in
particular from Connecticut. All these characteristics displayed
themselves in his conduct. His Democracy was not apparent
until Reconstruction. His editorial experience accounts in great
part for his successes. As a New Englander he did not spare
plain speech to his colleagues, which speech he preserved for pos-
terity in his diary. His origin crept out equally in the economy
,with which he collected his navy and in the ease with which he
disposed of much of it after the war was over. Conspicuously
the Connecticut Yankee showed in his interest in new devices and
his willingness to experiment with mechanical novelties. Withal,
he had an eye for men. His immediate selection of Gustavus V.
Fox as assistant secretary gave him an aide with experience and
talent whose work is inextricably blended with his own, though
without the alchemy of friendship. The country found him, with
his patriarchal beard, amusing, but he did a difficult job well.

When the war began he had a navy of 42 vessels in commission,
with 555 guns and 7600 men. There were squadrons in the Far
East, the Mediterranean, Africa, Brazil, and the Pacific, while
from the home squadron of twelve vessels several had been sent
to Vera Cruz to watch the European intervention in Mexico ; and
on April i Seward wished to increase the number so detached.
In addition, Welles had posts on the Southern shore, Fortress
Monroe, commanding the James and York rivers in Virginia, a
supply station at Key West off the point of Florida, and Fort
Pickens opposite Pensacola ; and, of course, until April 13, 1861,

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 2OQ

Fort Sumter, Fortunately for him It was easier in 1861 than in
191 7 to improvise a navy. The North rejected privateering, for
such free lances would have been of little use in maintaining a
blockade. Welles proceeded to make use of the merchant marine
by purchase, employing a general agent and making, on the whole,
good bargains. He also immediately ordered the building of a
number of light-draft craft suitable for Southern waters, and the
construction of vessels thus specially designed continually in-
creased.

On December 2, 1861, he was able to report 264 vessels, 2557
guns, and 22,000 men. These were divided into a flotilla for the
Potomac and independent squadrons charged with maintaining
the blockade of Virginia and North Carolina, of the coast south
to Key West and of the Gulf region, which was subsequently
divided into two regions. He reported 153 captures, but when
he maintained that no blockade in history had been so effective
he revealed either ignorance or bumptiousness. In the Gulf his
squadron had hovered off New Orleans, and ingress to other
ports was merely rendered slightly hazardous. He continually
increased his navy ; and in 1864 reported 671 vessels, 4610 guns,
and 51,000 men, and could boast that his total expenditures had
been but $238,647,762.35.

It was not, however, upon ships alone that Welles relied. Al-
ready, in 1 86 1, he had begun to stop up rat holes by sinking old
ships laden with stone ; but this practice was given up on remon-
strance from foreign governments at thus permanently injuring
the avenues of trade. Much more important was the project
of securing ports in the South, each of which would mean one
fewer open gates and a point of support for the blockaders. He
promptly appointed a board consisting of Captain (later Ad-
miral) Dupont, General J. G. Barnard, Chief Engineer of the
Army, and Alexander Bache of the Coast Survey to report on the
problem of amphibian expeditions to snatch up the most desirable
of such positions. Aided by their full knowledge of the enemy's
coast and its chief defences inherited from the joint government,
their plan was carried out with surprising success. The first raid
was a modest one of ten vessels and nine hundred men, com-

2IO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

manded respectively by Commodore Stringham and General
Butler, who on August 27, 1861, captured the Confederate forts
at Hatteras Inlet, closing that break in the bar and obtaining a
base from which attacks were subsequently made on New Bern
and other towns across the broad lagoon.

More important was the expedition commanded by Commo-
dore Dupont against Port Royal in South Carolina. This admi-
rable harbor was defended by two substantial forts, Walker and
Beauregard, and a small Confederate fleet. The attacking force
consisted of 74 craft, including 34 steamers, and a land force of
12,000 men. With his wooden ships Dupont sailed boldly be-
tween the forts concentrating first on one and then on the other,
his ships arranged in an ellipse, each firing and then moving out
of range. The Confederate lack of trained gunners was soon ap-
parent, and the forts were reduced, having made few hits on the
moving targets of the revolving fleet. This capture, made on
November 7, 1 86 1, gave a good base for the South Atlantic squad-
ron and brought under federal guns some of the best plantations
in the South, where abolitionists were soon conducting experi-
ments in- the social uplift of the negroes. Soon after a post
was established on Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah,
whence operations were conducted against Fort Pulaski, which
fell on April 12, 1862. This again gave the navy a valuable sta-
tion, but it did not fully cut off Savannah from the sea, secured
as she was by the mazy waterways of the Georgia littoral.

An undertaking of far greater difficulty and significance was
meanwhile in contemplation — some manner of dealing with New
Orleans. The obstacles were of many kinds. Co-operation of
land and naval forces had never proved certain. Which depart-
ment should furnish transport for the troops ? And where should
one command cease and the other begin ? McClellan, too, in
general command of Northern armies at the time, was impatient
at the detachment of troops from the central field of action.
Complaining but never firm, he submitted to a widely irregular
arrangement by which Butler raised troops to be under his own
command. Who, then, of the untried officers should head the

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 211

fleet? The navy was rent by factions and muscle-bound by
seniorities ; but at least all the ambitious were trained profession-
als. With the aid of Fox, Welles cut through rivalries, and his
selections for the most part stood the test of success and of criti-
cism. For New Orleans he chose David Glasgow Farragut, a
Southerner, a hero and a genius, whose most famous remark,
"Damn the torpedoes," places him as the last of the race of Nelson
rather than of the generation of Mahan, Jellicoe, and von Tirpitz.
With him was the hereditary naval leader, David Dixon Porter,
in command of a novel arm, a fleet of little vessels each armed
with a mortar to throw shells high in the air to drop and explode
within the fortifications of the enemy — a triumph for the offence.

The modern generation wonders at the appointment of Gen-
eral Benjamin F. Butler to the command of the army section. He
was soon to become "Beast Butler," anathema to world opinion,
and stained for ever in the public mind with the mythical theft
of the silver spoons. It must be remembered first that while most
in the North recognized that in the management and clash of men
ability was more important than training — an opinion at*that mo-
ment confirmed for many by the apparent inaction of the scholar
McClellan, to whom every editor felt competent to give advice.
Thus politics was admitted to the whole range of army appoint-
ment and direction, and it was, in fact, at the moment sitting em-
bodied in Benjamin F. Wade, the industrious chairman of the
Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War.

From the point of view of politics, Butler's eligibility could not
be surpassed. He was exuberantly enthusiastical over the war,
and he had been a Breckinridge Democrat. So long as he was in
high command the war could not be stigmatized as Republican,
but his removal would be hailed as evidence of partisanship. It
was his political background, too, that was responsible for his
selection for tasks involving the administration of Southern terri-
tory, for it was thought that this intimate associate of the extrem-
ists of the South could not but prove persona grata and an evi-
dence of the kindly intention of the government. Thus logic
might well have determined him as the ruler of Baltimore, of the

212 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

area about Fortress Monroe, and now for that about to be recov-
ered, New Orleans. So far the war had enhanced his reputation.
His utter military incapacity was yet to be revealed, but his high
and versatile clemency was already in evidence. Put in any po-
sition of authority he was as busy and eff ective as a housekeeper,
seeing most unusual and non-military opportunities to do good,
and acting on them with promptness and publicity, cleaning up
sewage, devising savings, regulating morals, and bringing to the
lazy Southland some of the blessings of sanitary Lowell. At
Fortress Monroe he had opened Washington to the North and
was confronted by the curious legal situation of negroes escaped
from slavery ; he declared them contraband of war and the term
"contraband" clung. Moreover he had made himself dangerous.
He surpassed any man of his day in a capacity for self -advertise-
ment. His method, always the same, was to do or say something
quite outrageous, which was bound to bring upon him the un-
loosed venom of attack. When abuse was about to burn itself
away he would come forward with some prepared answer or ex-
planation that would turn the laugh on his assailants. Upon
landing in Maryland he addressed a letter to Governor Hicks,
offering his services to Maryland in case of a slave insurrection.
Governor Andrew rose to the suggestion of using boys of Massa-
chusetts to fight negroes ; but no insurrection took place, and if
it had, Butler's position was absolutely correct ; he was offering
nothing that his oath of allegiance to the government did not re-
quire. He was becoming a figure who stood for action, who
amused, and who knew just how to appeal to a peculiar instinct
of the American public which made many trustful of a clever
scamp, so that he could raise troops and generally win votes.

The expedition assembled at Ship Island, long before selected
for a fortification commanding New Orleans, and plans of action
became the topic of conversation and correspondence. Some
thought simply to create a new port to attract the cotton of the
region and ship it out ; some to enter by a back way through Lake
Pontchartrain. Farragut, however, seems not to have hesitated
and gave orders to enter and ascend the Mississippi river. Such

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 213

preparations were not kept secret, and New Orleans prepared and
was confident. Had she not held, or been held, in 1815 against
overwhelming numbers of British veterans fresh from the Penin-
sula ? Ait since then had assisted nature. Forts St. Phillip and
Jackson fronted each other at a dangerous bend, tied by the tradi-
tional iron chains buoyed up across the river. Back of them was
a squadron by no means contemptible, though it was poorly or-
ganized. Farragut had nothing so modern as an ironclad, but
invention had given him a weapon still more decisive. Since
1815 man had learned to master river currents, and Farragut could
steam his vessels up the Mississippi in spite of a current approach-
ing four knots. Farragut's fighting fleet consisted of 17 steamers
with 192 guns and Porter's mortar division of 26 vessels with 192
guns. Opposed to him, in addition to the forts with 126 guns,
were six vessels of the Confederate navy with the formidable but
incomplete armored battery, the Louisiana and a clever iron ram,
the Manassas ; a state navy of two vessels ; and a river-defence
squadron ; the whole totalling 14 vessels and 40 guns. On neither
side was there unity of command, but Farragut secured better co-
operation than did General Mansfield Lovell who, as chief mili-
tary officer, might be regarded as responsible for the city. The
three naval defence squadrons were quite unco-ordinated, and
neither Lovell nor anyone else could control their action.

The Union fleet began to cross the bar on March 18, 1862, and
by the middle of April was bombarding the forts. Farragut, how-
ever, was impatient of such slow tactics and, having contrived a
breach in the boom, at two o'clock in the morning on April 24 in
his flag ship, the Hartford, led his fleet upstream, with chains
looped alongside the engines, the only protection of his wooden
waUs. With shot and shell, even with musketry, as vessels came
close to the forts, with fire rafts for light, with the dark smoke of
soft coal now obscuring the enemy, now friends, fighting the
current and the daring Confederate rams, he pushed through the
most picturesque contest of the war. By dawn, with few losses,
he was above the boom, with New Orleans unprotected before
him. Leaving Porter and Butler to reduce the forts, he sailed up

214 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

river, and in the early morning of April 25 his guns looked down
over the angry, helpless city, which by rule he should not have
captured.

After the fall of New Orleans, the Southern seacoast became
more resistant, and the conditions of blockade were more or less
stabilized for the remainder of the war. The next obvious ob-
jective was Charleston, and the preparations for its reduction by
Admiral Dupont seemed better than had those of Farragut for
New Orleans. On April 7, 1 863 , a beautiful and sunny day, Du-
pont steamed slowly against the harbor forts with nine new iron-
clads, the most formidable naval force for attack the world had
ever seen. In the evening the fleet withdrew, one ship soon to
sink, several seriously injured, and all except the flag ship more
damaged than the fort they were attacking. The difference in
the effectiveness of Dupont's superbly modern mechanical instru-
ments and Farragut's old-fashioned implements at New Orleans
can be attributed to several causes. On the Union side Farragut
was handling weapons that he and his men knew how to use,
whereas when iron plate was in question all were amateurs ; no
one knew how vessels so heavy would manoeuvre, how powerful
the engines should be, what would be the effect of recoil of can-
non, or what would be the effect of shots received. Chiefly,
however, the difference was on the Confederate side. In the fall
and winter of 1861-62 General Lee had spent four months or-
ganizing the defence of the Atlantic coast-line. Command was
then given to General P. G. T. Beauregard, who possessed all of
Butler's cleverness plus military genius, and who had lavished his
scanty stores of powder and shot in target practice which, when
occasion arose, brought his shots direct to the spots they aimed at,
entering the port-holes of the enemies' turrets and jamming their
guns. It is notable, too, that the powder he used, a new manu-
facture at Augusta, Georgia, proved superior to any previously
employed on either side. With persistency the attack was re-
newed, with heroism and ingenuity it was repelled. Characteris-
tic of Beauregard's inventiveness was the Confederate diving-
submarine made out of a disused boiler tank which, after three
times sinking with all her crew, on February 17, 1864, under the

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 215

command of Lieutenant Dixon, sank the Housatonic and finally
perished with her victory.

Charleston continued to face her enemy by sea until in Febru-
ary 1865, the failure of the armies brought Sherman to her back
door, and her coast defences were evacuated. Farragut, damn-
ing the torpedoes and losing ten ships to them in ten days, had on
August 5, 1864, won control of Mobile Bay. Porter took Fort
Fisher at Wilmington, North Carolina, January 15, 1865. These
events, however, were symptoms of the end. In the conduct of
the war one may say that the fall of New Orleans marked the cre-
ation of an equilibrium on the coast and established the conditions
under which the blockade was maintained during the heat of the
conflict.

The Confederates could not be content with holding off the net
which was enclosing them ; they must break it. For both pur-
poses they needed a fighting navy in addition to their foreign-built
commerce destroyers. Considering that before the war only
seven steamers had been built in Confederate territory and only
two of those furnished with locally-made engines, the results were
more astonishing than those achieved by Welles. When, on Feb-
ruary 21, 1 86 1, Stephen Russell Mallory, like Welles, of Con-
necticut stock, became secretary of the Confederate navy, he in-
herited from the old government ten vessels with fifteen guns and
a little navy yard at Pensacola, to which was soon added the dam-
aged but still valuable yard at Norfolk. He obtained the services
of 3 2 1 former officers of the United States navy, while Welles re-
tained 1 242, of whom 350 were of Southern origin. In Novem-
ber 1 86 1, Mallory had 35 ships afloat. Construction under in-
credible handicaps continued throughout the war, and until the
end the number of ships grew in spite of casualties. To operate
this navy called for more seamen than the Southern population,
unaccustomed as it was to seafaring, could easily furnish, and
transfers to it from the army had constantly to be made by law.
Secretary Mallory turned his attention particularly to new de-
vices, ironclads and torpedoes, the proper weapons of a service
designed to defend a coast and break a blockading cordon ; de-
fence gained distinctly over offence.

2l6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The most famous of his ironclads was the Virginia, created out
of the partially-burned hull of the United States Merrimac. Her
construction was a national effort which excited the zeal of all
concerned, from the secretary to the humblest workman in the
Tredegar works at Richmond, where her plate was rolled. On
March 8, 1862, she worked her difficult way up the channel from
Norfolk and emerged into the broad reaches of Chesapeake Bay,
where the main unit of the United States fleet lay under the guns
of the Fortress Monroe. The mechanical age at once achieved its
first spectacular triumph in the field of war. With dignity and
calm the Virginia sailed into the midst of the Union fleet, sank by
gunfire and ramming two of the largest of its vessels, seriously in-
jured three others, engaged in a casual interchange with the shore
batteries, and retired for the night unharmed, as from a pleasure
jaunt, having shaken the world. Now, indeed, was the blockade
of Virginia broken by arms without waiting on the slow processes
of diplomacy ; the Confederacy proved able to cut through
Scott's anaconda with its own bright sword. At the moment
this momentous consequence was hardly considered in compari-
son with the appalling thought of more direct action, such as the
bombardment of the Northern coast. Welles reports Stanton,
with trembling knees, gazing down the Potomac for the ascend-
ing dragon.

On the morning of March 9 the Virginia steamed forth once
more to realize her potentialities. By one of those dramatic cross-
ings of different lines of causation which are often deemed co-
incidences, the night had been marked by the arrival of Welles's
reply to Mallory, the first Northern sea-going ironclad, the Moni-
tor, designed by John Ericsson, already famous in marine archi-
tecture for the novel and unhappy Princeton. The Monitor was
not only ironclad, but she also embodied the intricate principle
of the revolving turret which constituted a second revolution in
naval warfare. In the face of the rival hosts, as in the days of
David and of Hector, the two champions engaged. From eight
o'clock till twelve the battle raged with the ships for hours within
fifty yards of each other. Once the Virginia rammed the Moni-
tor, but neither was seriously injured, and the duel ended in a

THE ANACONDA AND THE XJNICORN 21 J

draw. The abandonment of Norfolk by the Confederates in
April, however, left the deep draft Virginia with no place of re-
cruitment, and she was destroyed by her friends. Thus ended
the first and greatest attempt of the Confederacy to break the
blockade by its own power ; her failure to secure foreign-built
rams we have already discussed.

There remained, however, penetration and evasion. In 1861
there was neither effective blockade nor blockade-running ; in
1 862" both became systematic ; by 1863 they were in full running
order. In and out of the many ports still remaining to the South
slipped the blockade-runners, now no longer the slow and stately
cargo-boats of previous times, but for the most part built for their
task on the Clyde and Mersey — fast, low, grey, and agile, si-
lently melting into the misty dawn. Many were hardly fit to
cross the Atlantic when full burdened, but their purpose was only
to ply from the coast to the nearest British colonial ports where
they found ready markets to buy and sell, or more often simply
transhipped the cotton which they brought out for the war sup-
plies, which they were commissioned to take back. The chief
supply station was Nassau ; a leading Confederate port was
Charleston ; and most significant was Wilmington on the Cape
Fear river, whose mouth was guarded by Fort Fisher, which
government and trade combined to keep at the top notch of effi-
ciency, and from which ran a railroad, via Petersburg, to Rich-
mond and Lee's army. For three years this was the leading spec-
ulative trade in the world ; many grew fat on it, and innumerable
hands were stretched out to share its profits. Merchants and ad-
venturers, British and Southerners, individuals and companies car-
ried on the greater part, but Governor Vance of North Carolina
had his state fleet, and the Confederate government had four ves-
sels which Davis wished to multiply. Many of those engaged in
blockade-running were concerned purely with business, having
no interest in the struggle unless perhaps to prolong it.

Just as Franklin, during the Revolution, had been shocked at
the gewgaws imported into the United States when credit was so
low and war supplies vitally necessary, so now Davis and others
were disgusted at the character of the cargoes that arrived in re-

2l8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

turn for their grudgingly-sent cotton. On February 6, 1864, an
act was passed for regulation, under which exports and imports
were strictly limited, and provision was made that one half of all
outgoing space be reserved for the government at fixed rates.
The meshes of the net laid to prevent this intercourse were
woven closely enough. The number of vessels employed was all-
sufficient ; the patrol of Wilmington, one might think, would
have blocked a cat, and the crews were not without the stimulus
of gain, sharing as they did in prizes captured. The main reason
for the difference between the effectiveness of such work in the
Civil War as compared with the World War is doubtless to be
found in the absence of searchlights and the wireless telegraph,
although heliographs were sometimes used. The coast, too, was
difficult, as wind either on or off shore forced the blockaders far-
ther to sea, while a good pilot of a blockade-runner could send his
craft into or with the gale for the short time necessary to come
from the sea to the protecting shelter of Fort Fisher. In fact, the
chief effectiveness of the blockade was in the second line main-
tained by a flying squadron off Bermuda and Nassau, where the
larger vessels coming in from Europe were more easily taken than
the little runners choosing with discretion their times of departure
and arrival.

The seizing of vessels, flying the British flag and plying between
Britain and a British colony, involved the comity of nations and
the passivity of Lord Russell, and aroused the South much as the
building of the Alabcmw did the North. The British, however,
made no important protest, though at points the United States
procedure strained international law more than had the British
blockade of New York during the Napoleonic wars. It was the
American attitude of that earlier period that was violated rather
than the British, and the decisions of the United States Supreme
Court were watched with interest, though the action of one's own
courts is not very important during a period of war, as it may al-
ways be delayed until the emergency has passed. The leading
cases were those of the 'Bermuda, and the Springbok, both cap-
tured in 1862, and decided in 1865 and 1866, respectively. In
both cases, however, the legality of the seizure was upheld, the

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 219

judgments being based upon the doctrine of continuous voyage,
which was evolved in the British courts by Sir William Scott ;
that is, in the one case, while the Bermuda was apparently bound
for Nassau, her "ultimate destination" was a Confederate port ;
and, in the case of the Springbok, her cargo was so destined. To
evince the probability of such an object in the case of the latter,
it was brought in evidence that the cargo consisted of warlike im-
plements far beyond the customary demand at Nassau. These
decisions, extending a guilty voyage to that part of it between
ports of the same neutral country and the study of the normal
trade of a neutral as evidence of intentions in the case of contra-
band goods, form the connecting link between the international
law of blockade in the Napoleonic and the World wars.

The use just made of the word blockade is grammatical rather
than legal, indicating the general idea rather than the juridic
principle. Goods may be stopped on the way to the enemy on
the ground of being contraband of war and on that of breaking
a legal blockade. The decisions of the United States courts do
not make clear upon which ground they justified the action of the
navy. It was not necessary for all the goods seized to be contra-
band ; and this fact has a profound bearing upon the ultimate
question of the effectiveness of the anaconda, or rather of its
oceanic segment, in the conquest of the South. As has been
pointed out, the United States was not under obligations during
the Civil War to preserve any particular standard of blockade
efficiency, yet the blockade was instituted for a military purpose,
and the question is as to its success from that standard. Owsley
in his King Cotton Diplomacy states : "Old Abe sold America's
birthright for a mess of pottage" ; and such a judgment demands
consideration.

There are no comprehensive figures on blockade-running,
either for number of entrances or for goods carried. The num-
ber of captures can be fixed as between fourteen and fifteen hun-
dred. Successful voyages cannot be counted, but their number
was amazing. My mother, living with her New England hus-
band, told me that she heard regularly from her family at Augusta,
Georgia, through one Charleston captain. Owsley calculated

22O THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

7500 violations, and estimated that captures as compared to eva-
sion were as one to ten in 1861, one to eight in 1862,. one to four
in 1863, one to three in 1864. In 1864 Davis, in recommending
a larger commercial fleet for the Confederate government, esti-
mated eleven per cent, as sufficient for insurance. This ex-
tremely moderate rate may have been suited, perhaps, to gov-
ernment purposes only, as naval officers were particularly
successful, only one vessel under their command being captured.
One armed government steamer in nine trips netted $600,000, but
if the risks of private traders were greater, so were their profits.
Salt costing $7.50 at Nassau sold for $1700 within the line, and
coffee bought for $240 sold for $5500. Davis reported to Con-
gress that between November i and December i, 1864, 43 steam-
ers had arrived at Charleston and Wilmington alone. The trade
was active in January 1865, and perhaps the most astonishing ex-
ploit of all is that of the Chicora, which ran into Charleston,
found the city captured, and successfully ran out-
It is plain, then, that the blockade was not one hundred per
cent, effective ; it is impossible to give it a percentage value. Most
attempts have been based on the exports of cotton, but these are
subject to two difficulties. As will be seen, not all Southern cot-
ton reached market by this route, and it must be kept in mind that
the Northern government was not anxious to prevent its export.
Indeed, it was Lincoln's policy to get out every bale available to
relieve the pressure upon industry, and thereby ease the political
situation at home and abroad. There is some evidence that the
Union government winked at blockade-running. For the Con-
federacy, the whole business of shipping cotton out was in the
nature of a defeat in policy, to which it was compelled by the
necessity for vital things. Lincoln's interest in the foreign trade
of the Confederacy was in those goods which the South obtained
by bartering her cotton. That the blockade had some degree of
effectiveness is indicated by those very differences in price which
rendered its running so worth while. Two generalizations may
be made on undoubted grounds which may sum up the situation
from a military point of view. Until the fall of Wilmington the
Confederacy was able to obtain military supplies, without which

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 221

the contest could not have been continued, and which it was the
duty of the blockading fleet to prevent. On the other hand, I
have never seen reference to the importation of a ton of railroad
iron, which was vital to the circulation of Southern resources.
On April 23, 1863, P. V. Daniel, president of the Richmond,
Fredericksburg, and Potomac railway wrote to the secretary of
war that 49,500 tons of rails were needed annually by the roads of
the Confederacy and that the Tredegar Works had never, even
when not engaged in more direct war work, rolled more than
eight thousand tons, while he did not expect that the Georgia
mill, now constituted at Atlanta, could be counted on for the ten
thousand it had promised. While Lee's armies were armed and
there were great regions rich in supplies, they starved because the
roads could not perform their proper functions. If so plain a
necessity as railroad iron could not be brought in, and when the
United States courts did not have to confront the legality of the
blockade because the cargoes brought before them fell under the
very limited definition of contraband then admitted by their gov-
ernment, the deficiency in goods needed to maintain the morale
of the population can be inferred. My conclusion is that the
blockade played a part by no means inconspicuous in the reduc-
tion of the Confederacy, but that Southern skill and courage and
the attraction of cotton prevented as complete isolation as the
United States navy aimed to secure. The problem of the neutral
frontier of the Confederacy toward Mexico is generally treated
in connection with the blockade of the coast, but it had a different
history and implication. Throughout the period of the Civil
War, Mexico was in a condition of more than usual confusion.
Foreign interventions had begun before Lincoln was inaugurated,
and even then the country was rent by factions holding different
sections. During most of the war in the United States the empire
of Maximilian was conducting its own civil war with the repub-
lican Juarez. These conditions rendered strong executives of
states extremely independent, and among the most powerful was
Santiago Vidaurri of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, who often con-
trolled also the other states of the northeast, which lay contiguous
with the border.

222 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The first Confederate mission was that of John T. Pickett,
whose name is immortalized by his sale of the archives of the Con-
federate state department to the United States government in
1868, whence it comes that they will probably for ever be quoted
as the "Pickett Papers." He was received by the foreign minis-
ter and was assured of the friendship and neutrality of Mexico.
This was better than the commissioners to Europe were able to
secure, but it was a transitory triumph. His opponent, Seward's
minister, was Thomas Corwin, whose very name brought into
operation the prejudices of the past. Pickett and the Confeder-
acy were identified in the Mexican mind with Southern support
of the Mexican War and the subsequent propaganda for expan-
sion ; Corwin had been an opponent of that war and a violent an-
tagonist of expansion. Vainly Pickett argued that with independ-
ence new states to balance the senate were no longer necessary to
the South and that the policy of the Confederacy was peace. He
was, however, impetuous and indiscreet ; Corwin was careful,
and he offered a treaty, never ratified by the United States, offer-
ing Juarez an $i 1,000,000 loan. This loan was to be based on the
security of northern Mexico and was expected to be an instru-
ment of ultimate annexation, but $i 1,000,000 was very useful at
the moment and the Confederacy was a nearer danger. Corwin
won his duel with Pickett. The Juarez regime was tied to the
North, where Juarez became a fetish comparable to Garibaldi,
though on his side sentiment remained entirely subordinated to
policy.

Meanwhile, however, Davis sent separate missions to the gov-
ernors of nearby Mexican states. The most important was that
of Juan A. Quintero at Monterey to Vidaurri, a diplomatist of
genuine genius. Vidaurri was more than friendly ; he saw the
possibilities of great profit, and thoughts of separation and inde-
pendence from Mexico floated in his mind. He, a state execu-
tive, could not take formal action, but soon complete co-operation
was established between his states and the Confederacy. His ter-
ritory could supply lead, copper, saltpeter, powder, and specie,
and he commanded the fort at Matamoras in the state of Tamauli-
pas, from which intercourse, entirely neutral, could be established

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 223

with Europe. Quintero visited Richmond, where he was ap-
plauded, and whence he returned with orders for five hundred
tons of lead and two hundred thousand pounds of powder. Mer-
chants followed him, and the border became alive with exchange.
In October 1862, Quintero wrote that he could employ five hun-
dred wagons, and soon the Confederate secretary of war reported
that the governor of Texas was using as wagoners five thousand
men wrho should be in the army. Matamoras hummed with a
business it had never before known. Merchants flocked its streets,
and at times as many as a hundred and twenty-five vessels an-
chored off the bar that prevented the city from being a good har-
bor. By 1863 Vidaurri collected revenues averaging at least
$121,000 per month.

Misunderstandings, frauds, remonstrances, and reprisals kept
Quintero busy ; and finally the impact of the war in Mexico be-
gan to press upon him. Maximilian drove Juarez north, and
Juarez drove Vidaurri. The circle closed ; Vidaurri fled to join
Maximilian, and Juarez reigned in his stead. Yet the trade went
on. The $i 1,000,000 loan from the North had failed to materi-
alize, and the revenues on this new trade became the price of
liberty. Juarez permitted and protected this trade, as had his pred-
ecessor ; and former animosities were drowned in gold. Ulti-
mately Maximilian ousted Juarez, but again Quintero manipulated
the new personnel, and still the trade went on until the conditions
that created it passed away.

The United States was not unconscious or quiescent in face of
this gap, which its strangle-hold failed to cover, even inade-
quately ; and, furthermore, new difficulties confronted it. Mili-
tary operations could not be conducted in Mexican territory, nor
did the Northern blockade cover Matamoras. The region, too,
was very far from Northern bases, and the climate was trying.
There were operations on the Texan coast .; Galveston was cap-
tured, recaptured, and again threatened. In 1863 Brownsville,
the Confederate mart across the river from Matamoras, was taken
and held, but the trade re-established itself upstream. Appar-
ently it was easier to stop the trade of Matamoras with the outside
world than to police the hostile valley of the Rio Grande. On

224 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

February 13, 1863, the Peterhoff, a British vessel inbound to that
port, was stopped and taken before the prize court. The decision
of the United States Supreme Court was that the vessel must be
released since no blockade existed, but that a portion of the cargo
consisting of contraband of war should be condemned on thet
ground that its ultimate destination was for the use of the Con-
federate forces. This second part of the decision was of great
importance in the World War in the case of trade with Germany
through countries such as Holland and Norway. The limita-
tion in the first part was no bar to federal operations during the
Civil War, for the case was not decided until 1866. Yet full ad-
vantage of the new policy does not seem to have been taken, and
goods came in and cotton went out. Matamoras could not be
blockaded, but only her trade and the fact that there was a real
Mexican market for contraband and that imports were often actu-
ally for sale and not by consignment complicated the problem.
Nor can it be overlooked that Matamoras was not the only avenue
of exchange, and that such supply and market as Mexico herself
afforded were never interfered with.

Here, indeed, was a Confederate victory almost complete, and
a definite limitation was set to the process of encirclement. The
question is as to its importance. This was chiefly of a local char-
acter. There was no railroad from Texas to her associate states,
and the coast trade was subject to all the difficulties of the ordi-
nary blockade. At no time was the Mexican outlet of much
direct significance to that portion of the Confederacy east of the
Mississippi, and after the fall of Vicksburg on July 4, 1863, t^16
separation, as respects all trade of bulk, was complete. Texas, in
other words, became once more a nation within herself. That
Texas, in proportion to her population, continued to be better
equipped for war than the eastern segment of the Confederacy no
one can doubt. While few arms came from Mexico, her trade
more nearly supplied the normal wants of her population. She
was able, for instance, to import for her slaves cheap cloth of
Mexican manufacture which previously had come from New
England. Her open land frontier enabled her to protect the

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 225

blockade-running on her coast. In 1863 she defended Sabine
Pass and in 1864 recaptured Galveston.

Thereafter, with increased supplies, she was able to fight a self-
contained war with decided success. She controlled her Indians,
protected her frontier against New Mexico, and in 1864 defeated
General Banks's Red river expedition before it reached her terri-
tory. She asserted her state rights in the face of the Confederate
government ; and General E. Kirby Smith, in command of the
Trans-Mississippi department, did not have to surrender until
May 13,1 865, a month after the surrender of Lee. The compar-
ative immunity of Texas from the disasters of the war was due
chiefly to her distance from the centre of operations and also, in
some measure, to her free trade with Mexico. The influence of
this trade, of course, extended throughout the Confederacy by
relieving the East from the necessity of supplying the even less
self-sufficient West, but the measure of this relief was slight.

When one turns to the hostile land frontier, it is necessary to
visualize some of its essential features. In the first place, there
was no continuity of confronting trenches, as in the World War,
nor lines of strategic fortified positions, as has been more usual in
European warfare. There were fifteen hundred miles, or for
practical purposes about a thousand miles, of rolling country in-
tersected by roads and rivers and railways, with towns situated
where trade called for them. Soon some of these towns, as Wash-
ington, St. Louis, Richmond, Knoxville, and Bowling Green,
were military forts. Here and there were armies, sometimes re-
maining for a long time at one place, often here today and gone
tomorrow. Along the rivers were patrol boats, growing in num-
ber and armament, and soon constituting strong, land-locked na-
vies ; the rivers were really connecting links, rather than bound-
aries, between the inhabitants along their banks. Between the
occupied towns, the wandering armies, and the boat patrols with
their limited paths, there were not even the invisible lines of states.
There was no barrier of language or even of hostility. Unionist
and Confederate sympathizers were intermingled, in the West at
least, from northern Alabama to southern Ohio. In the East,

226 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Confederate loyalty ran flush to the Potomac and crossed it into
Maryland. Many in this whole region sympathized with both
sides, and many were indifferent. Therefore Northern military
campaigns must be carefully planned to avoid crushing its own
people or letting the enemy go free.

Use and custom increased the difficulty. In the dubious bor-
der states, those who were Confederates and Unionists still in
1 86 1 often attended the same church and were married by the
same pastors. In Tennessee they went together to the polls and
elected congressmen who went to Washington or Richmond as
they chose. It might be thought that one could divide them by
the allegiance of the judges before whom they probated their
writs, but some judges continued unchanged, though armies
clashed and regions altered. They went to the same banks to
cash the checks for their sales, and they sought the same stores to
buy California gold made into jewelry at Attleboro, Massachu-
setts ; Georgia cotton woven in Rhode Island ; Wisconsin hides
made into shoes at Lynn, Massachusetts ; musical instruments de-
signed by Germans in Cincinnati ; or pottery from Britain's "Five
Towns," imported by New York and paid for by a bill of ex-
change for Virginia tobacco. Interstate trade in 1 860 was vastly
greater than that with other nations, but it was subjected to no
census enumeration and had not known the eye or hand of gov-
ernment since the Revolution.

It was true that there were generally community majorities, but
their pattern was intricate — country against trading-centres, river
bottom against highlands. At first sadness was more prevalent
than enmity, and minorities simply kept silent. As the war waxed
bitterness grew. A man's basic feeling could not escape his
neighbors, and majorities began to force outward conformity.
Toward the end the disaffected and the guerrillas banded to-
gether, despoiled those who were known to be of the other party,
and were countenanced by those of their own people who them-
selves would not resort to violence or theft. At the beginning,
however, there was no mark of Cain, and mutual tolerance was
amazing, as has been instanced in rugged Tennessee and chival-
rous Kentucky.

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 2 27

It would require a Saladin's sword to sever the subtle ties that
still crossed the border ; there were not sentinels enough to pa-
trol the line ; there was nothing else to mark that line as it wan-
dered between farmstead and farmstead and in and out among the
customers at the village store. In fact, throughout the summer
of 1 86 1 the line was actually broken for nearly half its length by
neutral Kentucky, a buffer state, on terms with both sides, a chan-
nel for communication, like Switzerland between France and
Germany. Louisville was an entrance port on the Ohio, accessi-
ble to the whole North and under the same government. South-
ward from it ran the Louisville and Nashville railroad across the
boundary into the friendly state of Tennessee.

The outlining of even a nominal dividing line was gradual and
the result of many forces. Lincoln and Davis were both dis-
turbed, Davis the more so, as the key could not be turned on cot-
ton while such an avenue of export existed ; but each was hesitant
to act lest he tip the trembling balance of Kentucky's favor.
Local action, therefore, came first. Cincinnati, loyal and the
rival of Louisville, was determined that traffic should cease. On
April 15 and 17, bacon and arms consigned southward were
seized, and the city commissioned two steamers to watch the river.
The Louisville Courier replied : "To arms ! To arms ! — Cin-
cinnati seizes southern property ! Kentucky, will you stand
back ! " Ohio negotiated with Kentucky, and when her Gover-
nor Dennison proved too gentle, mob and legislature forced him
to severity. On May 24 the governors of Ohio, Indiana, and Illi-
nois met and memorialized Lincoln to stop traffic. Already Gov-
ernor Yates of Illinois had ordered his garrison at Cairo to block-
ade the trade going south on the Mississippi ; and as a consequence
Columbus, Kentucky, south of Cairo, suddenly jumped to impor-
tance by her trade with Memphis in goods which reached her
overland.

On May 2, 1861, the United States government stepped into
the breach by a circular from Chase, the secretary of the treasury,
ordering search of all boats and trains and seizure of goods that
"you have good reason to believe is for any port or place under
insurrectionary control." The execution of this order was lax,

228 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

and the trade was stimulated by the profits, for the prices of
Northwestern food products in the Confederacy were double
what they were in the North. On June 21 the surveyor of the
customs at Louisville announced that no shipments for Tennessee
would be allowed over the Louisville and Nashville railroad with-
out a permit. With alacrity the trade changed, and goods were
shipped to points in southern Kentucky, from which they were
carried on by wagon. On July 13 the Washington Congress
closed trade with the insurrectionary states, and on August 16
Lincoln proclaimed this domestic blockade, four months after the
beginning of war.

The trade at this point seems to have been to the advantage of
the South, but her people feared that cotton would escape to re-
lieve Northern mills. The Confederate Congress on May 2 1 pro-
hibited the export of that product by sea or the Mexican border,
and on August 2 the prohibition was extended to tobacco, sugar,
rice, molasses, syrup, and naval stores. Governor Harris of
Tennessee was a vigilant warden of the marches, and on July 4
General Anderson of Tennessee seized rolling stock of the Louis-
ville and Nashville railroad on the ground that too large a propor-
tion of it was left at Louisville in danger of seizure by the Union.
It will be observed that the bans of the federal government did
not cut off trade with Kentucky ; those of the Confederacy did.
This was logical, as Kentucky professed to be in the Union, but
was foreign territory, even though neutral, in relation to the Con-
federacy. Yet the Confederate action, more hampering than
that of the Union, was one of the causes that turned opinion in
that state, and Lincoln's laxity had its political reward.

It is estimated that the neutrality of Kentucky gave the South
1,200,000 pairs of shoes, enough flour to feed the Tennessee troops
for a year, and the product of 3,000,000 hogs. In return there
was little cotton and in general much smaller amounts of goods.
The Louisville and Nashville railroad reported that ninety-five
per cent, of its freight revenue was for goods going south. It was
not barter but purchase paid in bank balances, exchange, specie,
and even credit.

It is evident that neither government was in a position to carry

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 229

out a policy with regard to the land frontier during 1861. The
only effective action was that of the South barring the export of
cotton, which was enforced by the self-conscious class of cotton
growers. During this period, however, future policies were out-
lined. The rule of both governments was that trade with the
enemy was illegal, but both allowed exceptions. The Confeder-
acy soon had in addition the problem of its relation to conquered
portions of its territory, and on April 19, 1862, included them in
the prohibited area. It continued to place emphasis on prevent-
ing the export of cotton. Orders were given to military com-
manders to destroy any cotton that might fall into the hands of
the enemy as a result of military operations, this practice being
continued to the end ; and its execution caused eternal controver-
sies as to the responsibility of the retreating defenders or the con-
querors for the burning of Southern cities, such as Columbia in
South Carolina. Necessity, however, caused the Davis govern-
ment to modify even this basic principle. The war department,
as early as April 14, 1862, allowed exchange of produce for mu-
nitions of war, and trade extended until, on February 6, 1864,
Congress once more repeated its prohibitions with the elastic
clause "except under the regulation of the President." Trade,
therefore, was not cut off but was regulated, the enforcement be-
ing in the hands of military officials under the direction of Davis.
Need forced acceptance of a situation that was distasteful, but
exchange was kept at a minimum, particularly in case of the com-
modity most desired and most disposable.

The Union government recognized the whole country as one ;
it maintained that large numbers of loyal persons were living
within the Confederate lines ; it was anxious to get out all the
cotton possible in order to ease the industrial situation at home
and the pressure from abroad. Promises of cotton formed more
than a minor consideration in Seward's foreign dispatches. It
may be added that Lincoln's constant insistence upon and belief
in the essential unity of the country inclined him to yield to the
operation of natural forces expressing that unity. Yet to permit
Northern traders and factories, many quite willing, to put arms
into the hands of the enemy to use against the boys of the North,

230 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

who were fighting to preserve the Union, was unthinkable.
Grant wrote July 21, 1863 : "Any trade whatever with the re-
bellious states is weakening to us of at least 33 per cent, of our
force." While his position was based on his firm belief in the
policy of attrition^ the general opposition to trade on the part of
military officers was doubtless affected by the fact that its regula-
tion was by the treasury department and meant the presence in
the field of officials not under their command. There is certainly
this difference in the position of the two governments that the
Confederacy was moved to allow trade by necessity, the Union
by choice.

On August 1 6, 1 86 1, Lincoln proclaimed all intercourse with
the belligerents unlawful except by special license through the
secretary of the treasury. On March 4, 1862, the treasury issued
its first formal regulations. The purpose of these regulations was
control, with special emphasis on getting cotton out of the South
and in preventing articles for military use from reaching the
Southern forces. Chase, however, was not a good judge of men,
and his regulations were far from effective. The conditions of
the frontier, too, were such that much trade was carried on with-
out let or hindrance. On March 31, 1863, an entirely new sys-
tem was set up establishing a boundary for enforcement well
within Union control, ranging the Potomac, the Ohio, except for
Louisville, and the Mississippi, except for St. Louis, south of the
Des Moines. No general licenses were to be issued but merely
permits for simple transactions. This system which placed the
loyal states of Missouri and Kentucky for the most part under
federal control was high-handed and illustrates the difficulty of
legislating for a boundary which did not exist. A new act of
July 2, 1864, passed perhaps at the instance of the new secretary
of the treasury, W. P. Fessenden, put particular emphasis on sup-
plying loyal persons in the South with the necessities of existence
and in large measure made the government itself the trader, elimi-
nating in some degree the private licenses.

The most important centre for such trade after it fell into
Union hands was New Orleans. The dislocation which the sep-
aration of so great a mart from its hinterland must make was ob-

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 23!

vious, and it was the intention of the Union government to
moderate the shock rather than to aggravate it. Seward was pre-
maturely promising the world two million bales of cotton as the
result of victory. General Butler at once attempted to restore
trade to the normal. He authorized both railroads and vessels to
bring provisions from Mobile and offered protection to cotton
brought in for sale. These efforts were not successful, for the
Confederacy still in 1862 had popular support in withholding
cotton, while the Union was unwilling to send in arms. This
was not, however, the whole picture nor probably what Butler
had visualized. The official system failed, but commerce under
the protection of General Butler persisted. The circumstances
of themselves — a city population intensely loyal to the dispersed
armies across the line, hordes of speculators with noses keen for
profit, salt for sale at $1.25 a sack and worth sixty to a hundred
dollars beyond the bayous over which rafts could be silently poled
on a dark night from the warehouses to the Confederate camps,
would have kept trade open, whoever the general and whatever
his policy. Policy, however, was worth money. Chase's col-
lector, Dennison, wrote that one man had offered him fifty thou-
sand dollars in cash for permission to take salt over the lake. But-
ler, whether for cash or credit, winked as was required. The
profits were enormous. His brother William was believed to
have made two hundred thousand dollars in three months.

In December 1862, Butler was removed and replaced by N. P.
Banks who, on February 2, 1864, wrote to Lincoln that unless
federal restrictions were relaxed bribery and corruption could
not be suppressed. Banks was succeeded by E. R. S. Canby, who
reported : "The rebel armies east and west of the Mississippi
River have been supported mainly during the past twelve months
[1864] by the unlawful trade carried on upon that river. The
City of New Orleans, since its occupation by our forces, has con-
tributed more to the support of the armies . . . than any other
portion of the country with the single exception of Wilmington."
This was doubtless an exaggeration. Illegal trade leaves no sta-
tistics ; judgments are likely to be weighted by the point of view
of the person reporting, and conscientious military officers saw

232 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the unknown looming into vastness. Still, one may conclude
that the capture of New Orleans did not mean its complete loss
to the Confederacy, and perhaps it was not much less useful in
federal hands than it would have been had it been blockaded by
the federal navy.

With the successes of federal arms, new areas for trade pene-
tration continually opened up, and every river bank became a
collecting point for traders and speculators. Those who pro-
fessed to be loyal to the Union at New Bern sold the supplies they
purchased a few miles away as good Confederates, and those who
were indifferent to both sides, but avaricious of profits, were will-
ing to take any oath proffered them. Trade was not free, but
control was not clean-cut, even under honest agents and efficient
army commanders. Meanwhile, soldiers were trading coffee for
tobacco across the lines, adventurers were drinking champagne
in New Orleans and Memphis, and shrewd Yankees were salting
down war profits into real estate and railroad shares. Malodor-
ous fraud muddied the names of the good with the bad and,
reaching to Washington, stained the skirts of Mrs. Lincoln. It is
a picture of a curious war, but less curious when looking forward
to it than when looking backward from the point of view of the
twentieth century. Of the extent of the trade as a whole, no
estimate can yet be given, but it was large enough to be a military
factor. Opinions still differ as to which side profited more.

To estimate the total effect of the anaconda as an instrument
of war involves contradictory considerations, and many of them
have so far resisted exact measurement. On the export of cotton
the long-accepted estimate was made in his Cotton Industry by
M. B. Hammond, who placed the amount received in Europe as
550,000 bales. The more careful calculation of Owsley makes
this at least 800,000, with a possible 200,000 more coming largely
through Mexico. In addition, about 900,000 bales went from the
South to the North. This latter included much of the ordinary
process of blockade-running, a great deal captured by Northern
forces on land or sea, some by way of internal trade, and a further
amount legally raised and sold in conquered territory such as the
sea islands about Beaufort and plantations along the Mississippi.

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 233

This would make a total of 1,900,000 bales, of which Owsley as-
signed one half to the blockade-runners. While he is inclined to
press the proportion of that passing the blockade, thus calling at-
tention to its ineffectiveness, his figures will probably stand as not
very far from correct.

The question of the effectiveness of the blockade, however, is
a matter of importation. It was the Confederacy that wished to
create a cotton famine. The North exerted every effort to pre-
vent it, and did apparently secure better supplies for its own spin-
ners than Europe was able to obtain. The actual effect of the
coast blockade lies between the facts that field equipment, but not
railroad iron, penetrated its lines. It was not complete enough
to strangle the South, but it did weaken her resistance. The
South, completely isolated, could probably not have held out be-
yond 1862; the South, in free communication with the world and
with its railroads running at full capacity, would probably not
have lost Vicksburg in 1863, Atlanta in 1864, nor surrendered in
1 865. The measure of success which the blockade did attain was
due to the clash of the courage and ingenuity of the Confederates
with the power of the North. The coast could not be bottled up
while Southerners were unsubdued and while within its borders
products which acted as a magnet to adventurers were held.

In handling the neutral frontier of Mexico the South achieved
a decided victory. It was marred but not nullified by seizures off
Matamoras. Here normal trade conditions existed, except that
the route of trade was abnormal and unprepared. Had Jefferson
Davis succeeded in his plan when secretary of war for the United
States in building a railroad from New Orleans westward to or
towards California, the result might have been different. In the
absence of such a road the effects of this open space of free ingress
and egress were localized and rendered conspicuous in the suc-
cessful resistance of Texas. Of course, had such a railroad ex-
isted, it might have meant a shift in the whole operation of the
war, and might have produced a condition entirely unpredictable,
but such conjecture is not the task of history, and the absence of
the road is the significant fact.

Of the land blockade one may say that total prohibition of

234 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

trade was physically and morally impossible. The governments
had the choice of regulation or freedom, of restraint or encour-
agement. The Confederate policy was most restrictive and best
administered. The North on the whole encouraged it within
limits. In doing so, political considerations out-weighed military
considerations. Theoretically it was sound to allow trade to
follow the flag and to reach the loyal beyond the lines. Contin-
ued trade had some effectiveness in decreasing opposition to war
in the North, and doubtless it injured the morale of the South.
Even good Confederates, who became habituated to getting their
supplies from United States agents or fly-by-night traders and
who sold their products unmarketable at home by the same media,
began to calculate the value of independence. Not a few stored
away beneath their hearth stones their greenback profits, reluc-
tantly more confident of them than of the abundant Confederate
notes losing their value as they passed from hand to hand.

Undoubtedly this political advantage would at the best have
been at the cost of some military efficiency. Badly administered
as it was in fact it added another hole by which the South received
more things essential to war than did the North, and whatever its
eff epts on Southern morale it was injurious to the morale of the
North and forms a proper introduction to the financial debauch-
ery of the period of Reconstruction. Trade could not have been
stopped, but it would probably have been better honestly to have
made the attempt off the coast than to have let the government
become a partner in fraud.

One may wonder at the wealth which enabled people in the
Confederacy to buy $1.25 salt for one hundred dollars, to equip
her armies with Enfield rifles, to create a navy at home and abroad,
to stand the losses of captures and of destruction and at the same
time to create fleets of blockade-runners and fortunes for the
bold, the clever, and the wicked. After all, however willing one
may be, there must be wealth if fortunes are to be built up on
malpractice. The secret lies chiefly in the rise of the price of
cotton, which increased more nearly in geometrical than in arith-
metical relation to the diminution of the world supply. The
average Liverpool price for middling upland cotton was 5.97

THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN 235

pence in 1860, and 27.17 pence in 1864. Prices in America,
meanwhile, less affected as they were by the increased production
of India and Egypt, rose still more rapidly, from 1 1 cents in 1860
to $i.oiy2 in 1864. About 160,000 bales, exported by way of
the blockade, were imported from Liverpool to New York and
Boston. Cotton had, indeed, a Midas touch and turned all con-
cerned with it to gold.

By far the larger portion of this enhanced price went into the
costs and profits of war-time exportation. In the financial nego-
tiations of the Confederacy, when debts or bonds were estimated
in cotton, it was generally at a fixed price not very different from
the rate prevailing before secession, fourpence or sixpence per
pound. The purchases of the Confederacy and of planters,
therefore, are to be estimated as limited by the actual amount got
out at usual peace-time rates rather than as inflated by the rise in
the world price. It would probably be too liberal to suppose that
Southerners and their government got during the four years more
than $50,000,000 spending money for their cotton. In carrying
on this trade the processes were more nearly primitive barter than
those of a new financial system. Finance tangled up relationships
at home and would have enmeshed the whole population had
credit bonds not vanished with the peace, but across the borders
cotton, and in lesser degree tobacco and other characteristic prod-
ucts, counted as cash and, except for her $50,000,000 loan, the
international trade transactions of the Confederacy left no con-
tinuing problem for future generations to unravel. Cotton, in-
deed, proved to be the horn of the power of the unicorn and ef-
fectively prevented that complete isolation which General Scott
had aimed at. If the Confederate government and its supporters
had not overestimated the power of cotton in the realm of inter-
national affairs and had used it intentionally as it was forced to do
by necessity, as a lure instead of a threat, she might have proved
more resistant than she was. The crop of 1861 exported and its
proceeds held to account abroad would have been a weapon of
rare potency.

The enveloping policy of the North then was far from realizing
such a military ideal as the blockage of Germany in the World

236 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

War. The South, however, was less self-sufficient, and the pres-
sure actually brought rendered her less a unit for defence and an
easier prey to Northern armies than she would have been had no
such policy been pursued or had diplomacy or the Merrimac
opened her ports.

CHAPTER IX

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS

WAR to most Americans of 1860 meant the clash of armies. It
was in such terms that the majority conceived their obligations,
and it was this plan that for four years chiefly filled the news-
papers and controlled hope and despair and the betting of specu-
lators. Armies were thought of as bodies of men who fight battles,
and there was general impatience at the time taken for prep-
aration. Even Rhodes, when- writing of the battle of Bull Run
thirty years later, thought it sufficient reply to those who con-
tended that the battle should not have been f ought to say that the
South was as ill-prepared as was the North. Ignoring the fact
that the importance of a battle is its aftermath, he failed to see that
its purpose was the penetration of the South and that even the
peaceful transportation of thirty thousand tourists into a region
unaccustomed to handle such numbers requires painful and care-
ful planning and calls for a touch of genius. There was little
appreciation of the fact that a national army is a complex and
delicate organism requiring trained leadership and careful co-
ordination. An offset to this immature conception, which had
already caused so much unnecessary suffering to ourselves and to
those with whom we had fought in other wars, was the vivid re-
alization that it was men who were fighting and not hirelings or
machines. It was more deeply fixed in the public mind than in
any previous war of history that Johnny or Sammy must be kept
warm and well-fed, taken care of when ill or wounded, and that
he possessed a mind and soul that should not be neglected.

To one travelling through the United States in the spring of
1 86 1 a first impression would have been of uniformity, of the
existence of an American people with its own way of doing things.
The news of Sumter and of Lincoln's proclamation met every-
where a similar response. Where companies of organized militia
existed they were promptly called out, welded into regiments by

238 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the enlistment of those companies ready for immediate service,
and offered to the governor. In Boston, New York, and New
Orleans whole regiments were ready, though only those of Massa-
chusetts were supplied with overcoats or had engaged in field
manoeuvres. Such prepared units were few indeed, and nearly
everywhere the work was to do from the ground up.

The initiative was undertaken by localities or individuals.
Sometimes a mass meeting on the village common or in the largest
church, with prayers and speeches and the exhortations by young
girls, called for enlistments, and those who enrolled their names
met afterwards and elected a captain and the other officers pre-
scribed in the regular army regulations. More frequently some
ardent and ambitious man of the right age undertook the gather-
ing of his company. He solicited his associates and rode about
the country-side calling the youth of the farms. In either case
the nucleus gathered for drill, their officers thumbing the manual,
and the men awkwardly shouldering, and presenting broom-
sticks. So far expense was personal, the boys mostly living at
home, the officers paying the board of those from a distance, and
for exciting posters, broadsides, and books.

When a minimum number was enrolled word was sent to the
governor who, if satisfied, assumed certain expenses on behalf of
the state. He gave the elected officers commissions and author-
ized them to board their men at local hotels, boarding houses, or
private houses, at a rate of $ i .50 or $ i .75 a week. Thus collected,
officers and men studied the art of war together. At first such
groups were nearly all neighbors. One town had an embryo
company, the next had none. Later appeals were made to other
associations that drew from larger areas. Regiments were made
up of Irish or Germans or Scandinavians. While none were called
as Republicans or as Democrats, leaders of the one faith or the
other sought service and popularity by enlistment campaigns and
attracted those who had been accustomed to give them their
votes. Suggestions were made, and have since received the ap-
proval of military writers, that each congressional district 'be
made responsible for the raising and the maintenance of a regi-
ment. Such districts, however, were but cold geographic terms,

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 239

unorganized and changing with constant gerrymandering. The
living centres of American life were the villages or towns, the
country within the distance of a day's wagon-drive and return,
and the state. Both armies began with such communal living
and, in spite of the wash of larger waves as the war went on, it
remained true that most soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder with
those they had known.

The state soon called the companies, for the most part unarmed
and ununiformed, to camp. They came on foot to the nearest
railroad, a means of transportation \vhich many saw for the first
time, and were carried to some hastily improvised field with rude
shacks — for lumber was easier to find than tents — located on the
outskirts of a centrally situated city, large or small. There they
were marshalled into regiments with colonels appointed by the
governor, sometimes from among the rival captains, sometimes a
West Point graduate or a naturalized citizen with foreign experi-
ence ; and for weeks discussion would rage over such interference
with the rights of free citizens to elect their own leaders. Con-
tracts were made for mass feeding, so unusual in America, house-
wives protesting that mere men could not be trusted to do their
own cooking. To make them look like soldiers was a commu-
nity effort. Ladies began to get together in sewing circles to
make shirts and flags. Widows and spinsters bought one of the
newfangled sewing machines and contracted to supply garments
at sweatshop rates. Governors appointed buying-agents to se-
cure other necessary supplies. In one state such an agent re-
ported that he could obtain only twelve dozen socks in the leading
city, and an agent was sent on to New York. The matter of
arms was most disturbing. The Southern states were better sup-
plied than those of the North, but they raised objections to turn-
ing their supplies over to the Confederacy and made difficulties.
In the North the national government held most of the arms and,
as we have seen, issued some to the St. Louis troops to save that
city ; but in general it expected the states to arm their own troops.
Soon state agents were bidding against each other and, in some in-
stances, making bad bargains for guns discarded by the armies of
Europe. In the end many regiments were handed over by their

240 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

states to the national government with cheering crowds and gaudy
banners, but without arms and some without uniforms.

Ideas of equipment, however, did not end with such material
things. The mass meetings which first stimulated enlistment
gave enthusiastic assurance that the dependents of those who en-
rolled would be cared for. In many cases employers guaranteed
continued wages and jobs upon return. In making such promises
a three-months' war was in mind, and it is possible that they were
carried out on that basis, but as the struggle was prolonged such
individual pledges must have lapsed. The commitment of the
community, however, was not forgotten. In various ways, ac-
cording to their administrative habits, states North and South
looked after deprived families. In some there was state aid, in
some it was by towns or counties. As time went on in the South
contributions came to be made in kind, taxes in agricultural prod-
ucts being turned directly to the needy. In time, also, in the
North the matter became one of politics, and some communities
were left without public provision. A careful study of the five
states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan makes
the amount thus contributed for soldiers' families over $25,000,-
ooo, to which should be added about $12,000,000 of soldiers' pay,
collected for the most part from the men by state agency and dis-
tributed as they directed. Taken as a whole, the movement is
strikingly significant. Dependents of fighting soldiers were not
to be recipients of charity but were to be maintained as a just due.
A democracy was at war, and it was confronting this problem in a
manner more truly democratic than had been before achieved.

Many kindly and familiar touches were added according to the
character and the habits of the different states. Wisconsin pro-
vided for the usual regimental staff an extra surgeon paid for by
the state. At state expense manuals of drill were furnished at the
rate of one for every three soldiers that they might learn instead
of simply being taught, and local newspapers were regularly for-
warded to the troops. That state also sent with each regiment a
commissioner to look after its general welfare, hear complaints,
and see to their settlement. It may be imagined that such irregu-
lar officials were far from popular with the military commanders,

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 241

and this parental practice was given up ; but from all states special
commissioners, who transferred the soldiers' pay to their families,
collected votes, and performed all sorts of special missions, were
constantly keeping close the ties with home.

Such volunteer soldiers serving for an emergency were felt to
stand in a different relationship to the commonwealth than those
of the regular army. They were citizens away from home for
the public good and should not be deprived of their right to de-
termine public policy. The first state to give them the right to
vote in the field was North Carolina, and six Southern states fol-
lowed during 1861. The Northern states began to legislate on
the subject in 1862, but in most of them it became a party ques-
tion ; the Democrats almost universally opposed the practice on
the ground of the power it gave the administration with its cen-
tralizing authority. Nevertheless one state after another yielded
to popular pressure and in the election of 1864 all were free to
cast their ballots in absentia, except soldiers from Indiana, Illinois,
Delaware, New Jersey, Oregon, and Massachusetts. In critical
elections in these latter states soldiers were often allowed, after
much friction between anxious political leaders and the war de-
partment, to go home on furlough to vote in their home towns. A
large percentage of the Northern army was under age, but age was
far from being an absolute bar in the camp elections, and many a
man made his boast in later life that he cast his first vote for Lin-
coln1 when nineteen or twenty. In general, one gathers from
these separately-reported soldier votes that the army was more
heavily Republican than the home communities, but the one result
of major importance aff ected by their inclusion was the adoption
in 1864 of a new constitution in Maryland abolishing slavery
which would have been rejected by the stay-at-homes.

The story of Florence Nightingale was widely known and pop-
ular, and in the Northwest, particularly, almost as many girls
were eager to get to the front as boys. They wrote to their gov-
ernors for permission to serve as nurses in companies with broth-
ers, fathers, or sweethearts. Governors, however, were forced
to reply that this was a service conducted by the national govern-
ment alone. On April 19 the foremost woman in the country,

242 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Dorothea L. Dix, started for Washington to offer her services.
On June 10 she was commissioned Superintendent of Women
Nurses, and her powers were increased as the war went on. Pro-
vision was made that women nurses should be used in the ratio of
one to ten men, the superintendent having full charge of their se-
lection. Autocratic and efficient, she ruled out youth and beauty
but probably provided more woman's care for the wounded and
ill than any army had ever before received.

More important still was the spontaneous uprising of the
women who stayed at home. Their clubs and organizations
originated simultaneously with the mobilization of the troops, and
local bodies merged into larger units almost as rapidly as did the
companies into regiments. The most important was the central
women's organization of New York City whose leaders, more
diffident than Miss Dix, secured the co-operation of the Reverend
Dr, Bellows and other gentlemen. A committee went to Wash-
ington and, after dispelling the suspicious fears of the surgeon-
general and other army officials, obtained the official appoint-
ment of the United States Sanitary Commission. Its membership
represented the best elements in American life, and it chose as its
secretary Frederick Law Olmsted, whose later work at the Chi-
cago World's Fair of 1893 was to revolutionize American ideas of
beauty. In general, the Commission may be said to have done
those things which otherwise would have been neglected. It
afforded a splendid opportunity for the rich individualism of the
war generation, while the tact of its members prevented clashes
with and interference -by the military authorities. Its practice
was to initiate services, such as railroad cars equipped as field hos-
pitals, and when their worth was proved, turn them over to the
army. Its most important work was with regard to health.
With the best medical advice in the country it issued pamphlets
for the use of the untrained volunteer officers on such subjects as
the selection of camp sites and diet. To the latter subject it
made a real contribution which may be considered the effective
basis from which developed the post-war study that has so much
affected the lives of all Americans. Quite definitely it was the

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 243

activity of the Commission that formed the impulse for the
foundation of the International Red Cross.

The work of the Commission was loosely affiliated with the
local women's organizations everywhere. When some need or
idea arose, as for lint, tourniquets, or havelocks, word ran from
Maine to Minnesota, and women often sat up all the night meet-
ing that need. Supplies would then be sent in to central depots,
as Chicago or New York, and thence forwarded to the point of
call. Most constant was the demand for pickles, preserved fruits,
and vegetables capable of transportation, to supplement the regu-
lar army ration, which was lacking in vitamins and produced
scurvy and other dietary diseases. For the first time tens of thou-
sands heard of a balanced diet. Money was received from many
sources and from two in particular. California, unable to par-
ticipate in most ways, poured over one million dollars into the
coffers of the Commission, while in the large cities as much more
was produced by great Sanitary Fairs. Its carefully kept ac-
counts reveal the handling of $4,924,048.99, and it estimated the
material given for distribution at fifteen millions.

The Young Men's Christian Association called attention to
.other needs and on November 15, 1861, appointed a Christian
Commission, which was also officially recognized. Its main pur-
pose was to supply friendly counsel and literature. Delegates,
largely clergymen, volunteering their services without pay, were
sent, generally for short terms, to the various camps, where they
advised, exhorted, and led revivals. In all, 4886 were so em-
ployed. Christian Commission tents or huts were maintained in
many places, and diet kitchens prefigured the Young Men's Chris-
tian Association practices of the World War, though licensed
sutlers, plying for profits, often large, supplied most minor wants.
Two hundred and fifteen libraries of selected works were sent
hither and yon and there were many smaller ones. One camp re-
ported that the works most in demand were Boardman's Higher
Life, Haven's Mental Philosophy, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Smith's
Greece, LiddelTs Rome, Students'* Gibbotfs Rome, Students'
Hume's England, and Sargent's Three Temperance Tales. Some

244 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

delegates distributed many copies of The Silent Coinjorter, a re-
ligious text to be hung upon the wall for the consolation of the sick
and dying. Soldiers looked forward to the arrival of the Commis-
sion's bundle of periodicals, often grumbling that tracts were too
numerous and the finer magazines too few. In the long winter
encampments much reading was done, and good conversation was
not lacking. The Commission reported the receipt of $2,524,542
in cash and of materials to the value of $2,952,767.75. The
whole was administered at an overhead charge of 3.8 per cent.

There is almost no feature of this Northern relief work which
is not found also in the South. It lends itself less well to enu-
meration there, however, because of the absence of centralizing
organizations. The Southern armies were fighting nearer home
in a familiar country and assistance was more direct. Southern
individualism, too, was less disciplined to community effort. A
typical illustration is the hospital maintained by a Southern
woman, chiefly by her own efforts, on her own Alabama planta-
tion, though with some assistance from her friends and recogni-
tion by the state and Confederate governments.

The governmental organizations to which the men thus raised
and fostered were turned over differed in detail but were founded
on the same memory. The North possessed a continuing regular
army and navy. The navy was expanded, but the army only to
a limited degree. Lincoln called in his proclamation of May 3
for the enlistment of 18,000 more men in the navy and 22,714 in
the regular army. His first call on April 15 had been for 75,000
militia enlisted for three months. This was obviously a tem-
porary measure, as no war had been fought with militia and as no
such number of men could be expected, for the call included such
states as Virginia and Tennessee. The May 3 proclamation,
however, looked to the main traditional reliance of the United
States in case of emergency — an army specially created — for it
included a call for 42,034 three-year volunteers. It is difficult to
see the legal status of these men, as the creation of a new army
stretched executive authority to a surprising limit. As became
usual with him, Lincoln anticipated necessity by action and then
awaited confirmation from the legislature. In this instance he

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 245

secured it on July 29, 1861; when Congress gave a legal founda-
tion to the volunteer army that mainly fought the war, though
the regular army remained an active unit and the local militia was
brought out in times of peril, as in Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania
in 1863 and Morgan's raid into Indiana and Ohio in 1864.

Jeif erson Davis had a simpler problem. The Confederacy had
no continuing regular army but provided for a provisional army
on February 27, 1861, and made it permanent on March 4.
Henceforth there remained only the question of expansion.
While, however, there was but one uniform Confederate mili-
tary service, there were many state bodies as armies, provided for
even before the Confederacy was formed, militia, home guards
and others, whose co-operation with the Confederate forces was.
awkward, often involving acrimonious controversy. Davis not
only had his fighting organization started first, but he kept it
better in hand. The Confederate Congress adopted the principle
of transferring officers of the old United States regular army to
equivalent rank and seniority in the new Confederate service, and
so Davis was in a position to resist political pressure, though not
immune from personal and factional complaint. Lincoln's regu-
lar officers stayed where they were unless specially transferred,
and so the leadership of the new army was all to be arranged.
Governors of states contributing enough regiments to make a
brigade claimed the right to name field officers. They had no
right, but they had power. Lincoln often yielded to them, and
many a new brigadier-general was as innocent of arms as a raw
recruit. In his first list of four major-generals, too, Fremont and
Banks were purely and unfortunately political appointments.
Halleck was a genius, a man with military scholarship, who had
spent most of his life as a professor ; and only one, McClellan,
could be considered as chosen for genuine military reasons ; and
his nomination also was good politics.

In both North and South the fact that the central military or-
ganization was not ready delayed the assembling of men. The
more flexible state administrations brought them together before
the national governments were ready to handle them. Benja-
min, as Confederate secretary of war, estimated the first rush to

246 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

arms in the South as representing six hundred thousand anxious to
serve. He complained he could not receive anything like that
number, owing to the fact that the states withheld the necessary
arms. There is no estimate of the corresponding number of en-
thusiasts in the North. Probably Benjamin overstated the South-
ern response ; and the likelihood is that, barring particular locali-
ties, there was no great disparity in proportion throughout the
country. In the North, however, the responsibility for turning
men away was at the door of Washington and of Simon Cameron,
the secretary of war, who was quite overwhelmed with the mag-
nitude which his office had assumed. In both sections peoples
and states offered at once more material than their national gov-
ernments could handle, and rejections cooled the blood of many
an ardent youth.

By the spring of 1862 the situation had changed. Arms and
ammunition and boots and quartermasters' supplies had been
diked into their proper channels ; the governments could set in
order all who came and were watching their forces. It was be-
coming plain that it was not a struggle to be decided by cham-
pions but by mass effort, and both sections must turn out their
cannon fodder. The proportion of a population that will volun-
teer even in a popular war seems to be about seven per cent. The
South must do better than the North and consequently felt the
strain first. The result was that on April 19, 1862, the Confed-
erate Congress passed a conscription act. This was an intelligent
piece of legislation which rested on the old Anglo-Saxon concep-
tion of the obligation of all males between the ages of sixteen and
sixty to come to the defence of the state. The act fixed ages,
provided proper exemptions, and was from time to time amended
to adjust defects or meet new conditions. The result was that
everyone in the South could know what the government expected
of him.

The first effect of the law was to retain in service, without the
necessity of re-enlistment, thousands who would otherwise at
least have been shifted about. It was largely responsible, there-
fore, for the trained army with which Lee executed his first great
campaign of the Seven Days. The application of such a system

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 247

to the individualistic population of the South could not, however,
be easy. Controversy was constant between the Confederate
government and even the most helpful of governors. There was
the usual shirking from service and many changes, and some lesser
proportion of actual instances of evasion. There were districts,
lukewarm for secession in 1861, that became cold when they felt
its consequences. Yet in spite of friction and the losses that it
caused, there can be little doubt that to the end of 1 864 the system
worked as well as any system so opposed to an inherited psy-
chology could have worked, nor can there be any doubt that it
enabled the South to prolong its resistance.

The North should have put into the field at least twice as many
men as the South. Volunteering failed to attain this result. Re-
cruitment was taken over from the state by the national govern-
ment in 1 86 1, and at first, at least, results were less satisfactory.
In 1863 the proportion in numbers was turning in favor of the
South. While there were enough willing to serve, those who
were eager to do so were not sufficiently numerous, and it was
plain that some form of compulsion was required. Davis had to
deal with recalcitrants among a reasonably united population,
while Lincoln dealt with the politics of a population where the
balance tottered. The Northern government, therefore, ap-
proached the subject by indirection. On March 3, 1863, an act
was passed calling for the enrollment of persons liable to military
service. Under this act Lincoln called for stated numbers of
troops. The first complete draft proclamation was issued on
October 17, 1863, and called for three hundred thousand men,
each state to supply a distinct quota. This system was changed
the next year to one of a draft conducted by the national govern-
ment.

Probably no system so bad was ever devised for the raising of
an army. If there were sufficient volunteers there would be no
compulsion. If not, no man knew where he stood until the neces-
sary number to fill the deficiency of his district had been drawn
from the box by some little girl or blindfolded veteran. It en-
countered all the difficulties that conscription met in the Soutft,
resistance being particularly strong in districts with large foreign

248 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

populations. In some communities of Wisconsin, largely popu-
lated by Germans who had left their homeland because of op-
position to compulsory service, troops had to be used, and in New
York City there were three days of riots. Conscientious ob-
jectors, however, made little difficulty. Quakers were allowed
to do hospital and other work behind the lines. The quotas were
based on population and were manifestly unjust, as the propor-
tion of eligible males was much higher in the states of the West,
with their recent migration and immigration, than in those of
New England, which for years had poured forth so many of
their young men. Governor Andrew, loudly complaining, de-
manded the right to enlist negroes anywhere and to charge them
against the Massachusetts quota.

The great object in each community, however, was to escape
the draft by raising volunteers, both as a matter of pride and be-
cause of the uncertainty of fate which hung over all those of draft
age. One community would vote a bounty to all who would
enlist from its bounds, and thus attract the eligible young men
from nearby towns. Another would raise the bid. County bid
against county, village against village, ward against ward. Boun-
ties rose sometimes to a thousand dollars. Willing, patriotic
youths hung back waiting for a rise. Bounty jumpers volun-
teered and then deserted. Agents ransacked Ireland, Belgium,
and other countries and brought over sturdy immigrants to en-
list and divide the bounty money. Some of them practised de-
ception and some force and drugs ; it was charged that men across
the Canadian borders were kidnapped. Under the first act the
situation was still worse, for a man drafted might pay three hun-
dred dollars for a substitute and so escape. This provision was
later repealed ; but still, in place of either spontaneous enthusiasm
or ordered acceptance, the whole picture was washed over with
greed. The system did serve its purpose as a spur to volunteer-
ing ; it did give bounties to a certain but unfair proportion of the
men who fought ; it kept the entire North in uproar, and gave to
the raising of the later armies a sordid aspect which was not
necessary.

One almost inevitable consequence was that stimulation was

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 249

given to the constant creation of new units instead of bringing in
new recruits to veteran organizations. Ambitious junior officers,
particularly if endowed with power of oratory, succeeded in get-
ting themselves detached to raise their own companies or regi-
ments and carne back to camp with a hundred or a thousand nov-
ices to take their places next to their old organization, which was
trained and efficient but depleted to a mere handful. Generals
swore and administrative officers raged, but excitement and am-
bition, political favor, and the general hullabaloo prevented the
serious business of placing men where they would do the most
good.

The figures for the number raised by the Union government
are reasonably accurate. The total number of Union enlistments
was 2,898,304, but this included many re-enlistments ; 1,580,000
different men are reported as having served, and the North is esti-
mated as having received in gross 1,516,678 three-year terms of
service. The numbers on the Confederate side cannot be ascer-
tained because of lost records. Many Southern writers estimate
them as between six and seven hundred thousand. The reports
from those states, such as North Carolina, where figures are rea-
sonably exact, indicate that this figure is much too small ; and all
evidence points to the fact that the proportion of the white popu-
lation in service was much higher than that in the North. By
very careful calculations Livermore reached a figure of 1,227,890
enlistments, a gross service amounting to 1,082,119 three-year
terms. Livermore's methods, however, are somewhat arbitrary,
and his results seem to me too large. Perhaps more important
than total figures are those of the numbers confronting each other
at specific times. In July 1861, the Union rolls carried 186,751,
the Confederate 112,040 ; in January 1862, the Union 575,917,
the Confederate 376,406 ; on March 31, 1862, the Union 637,162,
the Confederate 424,018 ; on January i, 1863, the Union 918,-
211, the Confederate 446,622 ; on January i, 1864, the Union
860,737, the Confederate 463, 1 8 1 . There is no reason to suppose
that to this date there was any striking difference in the propor-
tion of those on the rolls to those actually present. Afterwards,
and particularly from the late summer of 1864, the Confederate

250 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

rosters contained many names of men no longer available ; 270,-
ooo on the rolls when the war closed were not present to sur-
render.

The Northern figure, therefore, grew irregularly greater until
it reached, and during 1864 surpassed, the point of doubling its
opponents. The Confederate strategy, during the period of great-
est stress, rested upon an approximate force of four hundred thou-
sand men which could not be increased or even indefinitely main-
tained. This total was far from being completely available for
army work. The South was on the defensive ; and, however it
might hover between the policies of concentration and of local
defence, there was a minimum requirement for local needs that
could not be ignored. A typical arrangement was that of April
i, 1862, when the total enumeration did not correspond exactly
with the enrollment. At that time 16,897 were assigned to the
defence of the "Valley" of the Shenandoah. This Valley army
was a mobile force trained and led by Stonewall Jackson ; and, if
not the best fighting infantry in either army, it was at least the
first large body prepared to fight. Its function was to defend the
gathering of the crops of the district and to possess the priceless
key of Southern strategy. Its valley was connected with Rich-
mond by railroad on the south ; and its upper entrance at Har-
per's Ferry, northwest of Washington, pointed at central Penn-
sylvania.

About twenty thousand were assigned to the defence of Rich-
mond. It was always necessary to have a shield against the Un-
ion garrison at Fortress Monroe on the tip of the famous peninsula
between the York and the James rivers — the cradle of American
civilization. Nevertheless this force was never again so large,
and the Richmond earthworks were sometimes almost stripped of
defenders. In 1 862, Lee relied chiefly on the immense cleverness
of General John B. Magruder who, with Quaker guns — logs
properly set up — and a skeleton force, succeeded in alarming the
beleaguering corps. When in 1864 Sheridan's men brushed the
works in his famous raid, their defenders were mostly clerks
drawn from offices. At this time (April i, 1862) there were
troops at Norfolk, but they were soon withdrawn and that city

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS

given up as too separated and exposed. Some fraction of that
number, however, was always required to watch on the southern
banks of the James against amphibious raids that might hit the
vital Wilmington railroad on its way through Petersburg.

In the south Atlantic states, North and South Carolina, Georgia
and Florida, chiefly along the coast, were stationed 70,796 sol-
diers. This arrangement, which had been worked out by Lee
during his survey of coast defence, was in relatively small de-
tachments which could reinforce each other. Their total num-
ber was gradually reduced, and from time to time numbers were
hurried north to meet emergencies. Yet they proved adequate.

This left ninety thousand for the eastern offensive force, the
army of northern Virginia. This total number was never free
for a blow, as upon it rested many responsibilities ; the protection
of the whole countryside from the mountains to the coast, with
railroads, homes, and growing crops to guard. Its strategic posi-
tion, however, was exceptionally good ; as, if on the offensive, it
could unite with the Valley force or, if driven back, could aid the
Richmond garrison. As it set out on its campaign to Gettys-
burg it was a splendid organization. Each of its three corps was
a little army containing all the services, and each was under a
competent and tried commander, James Longstreet, Richard S.
Ewell, and A. P. Hill. In addition, there was a strong and bril-
liant cavalry division under J. E. B. Stuart. If a staff had been
developed it would have fully anticipated the organization of
separate armies combined under one administration which was
used in the World War.

In the West, 16,199 troops were on patrol and garrison duty
in East Tennessee. Their function was to control a hostile popu-
lation and to guard the most useful railroad in the Confederacy.
Their number could never be lessened and was generally very
much greater than 16,000. There were ir,ooo in Alabama and
West Florida, mostly for coast defence and certainly no more
than were needed ; in fact, they had been depleted recently by
transfers to the north. In the Indian territory, 9395 were chiefly
Indians and drawn only once from their district. The trans-
Mississippi was credited with 20,000, a number which was split

2 $2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

into many separate detachments covering a vast area. Their du-
ties were soon to be immensely increased by the f all JD£ New Or-
leans, and still more in 1863 when the loss of Vieksburg and of
Port Hudson opened all the tributaries to the West to Commo-
dore Foote's effective fleet of river iron-clads. To this region
belonged also the Confederate army of the West, credited with
34,035, but sometimes forced east of the Mississippi. During
most of the war one might then count on about 50,000 men, ex-
clusive of Indians, west of the Mississippi, but their location, com-
mand, and subdivisions varied as a kaleidoscope, yet with some
tendency for the Texas contingent to grow stronger. At the
close of the war Richmond was considering the changing of some
ten thousand Texans to the East, but many things stood in the
way.

A garrison of 3847 was reported at Fort Pillow, the citadel of
Memphis, and finally 93,883 were reported in the Army of the
Mississippi, the offensive weapon of the West. When one re-
members that its function was the defence of the Mississippi and
of a line of three hundred flat, defenceless miles to the mountains
the number was certainly not excessive. At the moment, Albert
Sidney Johnston and Beauregard were marshalling all who could
be spared to the far west of this line to defend Corinth, the junc-
tion of railroads to Memphis, Vieksburg, Mobile, and Chatta-
nooga. Their defence failed, and the unity of Confederate opera-
tions in the West was thus destroyed. To move from northern
Mississippi to East Tennessee it now became necessary to touch
the coast at Mobile. One army could no longer strike east or
west, while from their central post at Chattanooga the Union ar-
mies could be so combined. The Confederate authorities there-
fore rushed Braxton Bragg and thirty-five thousand men by way
of Mobile to East Tennessee, and thenceforth this became the
main Confederate force in the West, with a smaller separate army
located in Mississippi.

The distribution of Northern troops was of a more changing
pattern. The advantages seemed to be with them. There was
less necessity for garrisons, and a small force in transports could
immobilize a much larger number waiting on the coast appre-

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 253

hensive and uncertain where the blow would strike. The advan-
tages, however, were fully offset in practice by the fact that they
were occupying conquered and hostile territory in which every-
thing must be guarded, particularly the long lines of communica-
tion. The Confederacy took the full value of this opportunity,
and such daring and resourceful raiders as -Forrest and Morgan,
in their turn, immobilized probably fifty times their own num-
bers. The chief Northern offensive force was the Army of the
Potomac. It was the creation of McClellan, who divided it into
corps, less complete than those of the Army of Northern Virginia,
and inspired it with a spirit and a sense of unity which remained
throughout the war. Its numbers, however, varied much more
than those of Lee's opposing forces, and differing counsels con-
centrated its strength or detached segments to other commands.
Two other main offensive armies were in the West, those of the
Tennessee and of the Cumberland. Each was habitually larger
than its opponent, and their communications were better. The
combination and co-operation of these forces formed much of the
drama of the war. Beyond the Mississippi on the Union side, as
on the Confederate, there was no pattern ; but there was shift,
dismission, reorganization, and isolated adventure by armies, of
many sizes and leaders, generally co-operating with gunboat at-
tachments.

In the encounters of these armies there was a rather constant
tendency of those of the South to suffer more heavily in killed and
wounded than those of the North. There is no reason to suppose
that this was due to the superiority of Northern marksmanship.
Rather it was the result of a difference in tactics, the charge, with
or without artillery preparation, being much more freely used by
the Southerners. Welles criticized what he considered the de-
fensive tactics of the North as being the result of West Point
training. He was surely mistaken, for a greater proportion of
the Southern generals were West Pointers than their opponents.
One might say that it was because they were more careful stu-
dents, for on the whole the tactics of the period were formed on
those of Napoleon who never failed to hit the centre. The
effective argument was that one should play for a smashing vie-

254 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tory which, achieved, would inflict incomparable loss upon the
riven foe. At Malvern Hill and Gettysburg, Lee aimed at such
victories, as did Hood before Atlanta. No Northern army, how-
ever, was so smitten ; for the flexibility of the Northern armies
compensated for their defects in formal bearing. Lee and other
Southern generals, however, used the charge to bewilder and stun
armies that outnumbered them, and with continual success. The
difference, however, was probably as much temperamental as in-
tellectual. It is significant that the one Northern general who
sought to annihilate the army of his opponent, and the only one
on either side who did so, was the Virginian, George H. Thomas.
The charging line, rushing forward with their rebel yell, could
have been created only of soldiers of that Southern temperament.

The administration, oversight, and supply of these forces were,
in both governments, in the hands of a war department. The
first Confederate secretary of war was Leroy P. Walker of
Alabama. In September 1861, his place was taken by Judah P.
Benjamin who, in spite of his acknowledged abilities, was not re-
garded as successful. G. W. Randolph and G. A. Smith fol-
lowed, and in November 1 862, James Seddon of Virginia came in.
Most observers considered his abilities slight ; and, like Welles,
he was a boaster. It is probable, however, that the assiduous
Davis, who had held the same post in the United States govern-
ment from 1853 to 1857, was in t^6 main his °wn war secretary.
One gets from documents and from comments a general impres-
sion of smooth working. Naturally, there were complaints and
there were errors. There was friction inevitable from the causes
that have been mentioned, and supplies could not be spun from
wishes. It remains remarkable that so little seems to have been
lost from lack of arms or ammunition. That boats and horses
and, toward the end, corn and beef were not enough was in-
herent in the situation. The task was done at least reasonably
well ; and it is no reflection upon the department if, tending to
decentralization, it allowed Lee to attend to much of his quarter-
masters' work, for no one was better fitted to do it.

The history of the war department in the North was more
varied and colorful. In part, it was characterized by the excel-

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 255

lent work of some of its departments. Two of these, inherited
from the old regular army, enlarged their capacity with ease and
efficiency. R. M. Meigs, as quartermaster-general, did his diffi-
cult task smoothly and well. The surgeon-general's work, also,
while subject to the constant and bitter attacks of the suffering
and those interested in them, did what medical knowledge at the
time allowed and left a record of its activities far surpassing in use-
fulness any that can be produced in such work in the United
States army in the World War.

New developments were wisely allowed to evolve without in-
terference. A separate organization for military telegraphs was
begun almost immediately, young Andrew Carnegie being one of
the first called. On October 16, 1861, Anson Steger was ap-
pointed superintendent of government telegraphs with rank of
brigade-quartermaster and developed for the first time in warfare
that function which is now a vital factor in every army move-
ment. More important was the question of railroads which, after
various experiments, were unified under the management of Gen-
eral Daniel Craig McCallum. His work ranks with that of Erics-
son in originality and in its importance to future warfare. The
unification of railroads was more important to the Northern ar-
mies than to the Southern armies, for the Northern troops were
continually occupying new territory, finding the roads destroyed ;
and the supplies of the troops advancing into hostile territory
were dependent on tracks that were continually being damaged
by enemy raids. McCallum's gangs were ever ready to rebuild
tracks and trestles, to repair, to build, to operate. Nothing in the
war so interested the skilled German observers, of whom Qne was
Count Zeppelin ; and on the basis of their observations the Prus-
sian system of 1866 and 1870 was largely modelled. The Count
of Paris, too, gave unhesitant mention to this novel arm of war.
American observers at the time and subsequent commentators
took it largely for granted. Without McCallum, Sherman could
not have taken Atlanta. The railroad revolutionized warfare, but
it was McCallum who made the revolution manifest.

The first secretary of war was Simon Cameron, a political boss
of Pennsylvania. The war was too much for his ordinary ability.

256 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

His colleagues, particularly Chase, sought eagerly to help him, but
his administration was chiefly controlled by what in 1860 was big
business. He appointed Thomas Scott, president of the Penn-
sylvania Railroad, to the position of assistant secretary of war.
Amasa Stone of Cleveland gave advice, but Cameron never
emerged from his chaos and graft in all its forms — from shoddy
material to unreasonable railroad contracts. He was replaced on
January 15, 1862, by Edwin M. Stanton, and was finally trans-
ferred to the ministry to Russia.

Stanton was a well-known lawyer of Pittsburgh, a Breckin-
ridge Democrat, attorney-general under Buchanan, and a severe
critic of the conduct of the war. He became increasingly a per-
sonage, and ultimately was involved in a situation which will for
ever divide those who study his career as to the fundamentals of
his character. I may anticipate by stating that I believe those
fundamentals were sound. At the same rime the methods of rais-
ing the Northern troops and the political nature of many of the
military appointments prevent a description of him as a great war
secretary. Excuses indeed exist. Politics were certainly impor-
tant, and the constant interference of the Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War, composed of members of both houses of
Congress and headed by the dynamic Ben Wade of Ohio, made
difficult an administration purely military. Nevertheless, wher-
ever the fault, the picture was marred. Stanton, moreover, was
slower than Welles to adopt new devices, and on the whole his
department fell behind that of the navy in general efficiency.
Yet Stanton was a great man acting as secretary of war. He had
some of that power of inspiring effort which Lloyd George ex-
hibited as British minister of munitions in the World War. His
decisions on important matters were decisive and stood the test of
time.

Military leadership was more changeable in both governments
than was political leadership. Both Lincoln and Davis were
commanders-in-chief of their military and naval forces. Lincoln
always employed an intermediary. He favored General Scott as
general-in-chief. As it was not expected that the octogenarian
Scott would continue in that position, it was offered to Robert

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 257

E. Lee. When Lee chose service with his state, there was hesi-
tation until successes in West Virginia made McClellan the logical
candidate. On November i, 1861, McClellan was appointed.
His chief attention, however, was given to the Army of the Po-
tomac, and because he failed in the peninsular campaign against
Richmond, he was replaced, July 13, 1862, by Henry W. Halleck
who had just captured Corinth. Halleck's appointment was de-
cidedly not a success and he possessed little influence. On March
1 2, 1 864, his office was given to Ulysses S. Grant, and Halleck was
made chief -of -staff. Grant, though accompanying the Army of
the Potomac, did not assume its command and kept himself free
for his more general duties. Davis, when he came to Richmond,
made Lee, who had been serving as commander of both land and
naval forces of Virginia, his military adviser. When on May 31,
1862, Lee was assigned to the Army of Northern Virginia, his
post of adviser was left vacant; and it was only on February 9,
1865, that he was made general-in-chief of the military forces of
the Confederacy.

The active command of the engaged forces changed rapidly.
Both the character of the terrain and the spirit of the people gave
opportunity, almost boundless, for the display of individuality.
The list of heroes and of scapegoats on both sides is as rich as the
Iliad. Eight at least stand out with characters and careers that de-
serve study. None has received more consideration than Thomas
Jonathan Jackson, creator and leader of the Army of the "Val-
ley." Son of an English mother of exceptionally strong char-
acter and of a Scotch father, he was sturdy, fearless, and rigid in
his beliefs. He could never have fought in a cause which he be-
lieved to be unjust, and he believed singly and simply. His con-
viction was contagious and inspired a like intensity in his men.
Like the Ironsides in the Civil War of England, they fought for
the right. Familiar with his region from residence there as pro-
fessor in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington, he used his
knowledge with genius. Called to join the Army of Northern
Virginia, at Richmond and at Chancellorsville he served as a sub-
ordinate and as a commander. His death after the battle of
Chancellorsville was the heaviest single blow the Confederacy

258 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ever received, and perhaps a blow of vital importance, for he
might have won the charge at Gettysburg. His sendee was not
without its limitations, for he was slow at a crucial moment in the
Seven Days' Battle and may have lost Lee the routing of McClel-
lan's army ; but perhaps the impossible was being asked. One
doubts, however, the wisdom of the emphasis given to the study
of his campaigns by the British staff, for his problems were little
affected by changing modern conditions. He was fighting on
the old terms of Hannibal and Caesar, and his ability to formulate
great strategic conceptions was never tested by the command of
large bodies of men. As leader of a compact unit of his own he
has not been surpassed, and it is useless to compare him with those
who "ride the whirlwind and command the storm."

Beauregard was of French Louisiana stock, and was French to
the finger tips. Doubtless he modelled himself after Napoleon,
and dramatized his personality and his achievements. He pos-
sessed a vigorous and active mind and was one of the most success-
ful of the generals after the war. He perhaps invented the cable
car ; he made a fortune out of the Louisiana lottery — which one
must remember was not immoral to the Latin mind as it ulti-
mately became to the New England mind. His military concep-
tions were clear-cut. After Bull Run he would have invaded
Maryland, At Shiloh he would have attacked in column instead
of in line. While creating no such body of troops as did Jackson,
he inspired his men and gave them elan in action. Personally he
was unpopular with the powers that were in the Confederacy,
who were strictly Anglo-Saxon instead of Latin, and he was never
given command on an opportune occasion. His defence of
Charleston, however, was brilliant ; and one imagines that if
placed in charge in Tennessee in place of Bragg, results more de-
cisive, one way or another, would have followed.

The great centre of controversy for those who believe that the
South might have won the war in the field, however, is Joseph
E. Johnston. Less striking in his individual characteristics than
Jackson or Beauregard, he possessed enough personality to irk
Jefferson Davis and to raise supporters. No one can challenge
his ability to command large forces or his mastery of the art of

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 259

war, but the chance of giving final proof of success was twice
snatched from him by circumstances. It cannot be said with
certainty whether his plans for the defence of Richmond against
McClellan in 1862 would have triumphed, for he was wounded
just when their execution began and the movements he had
planned were halted. Under changed circumstances he pursued
a different method. Johnston's duel with Sherman between Chat-
tanooga and Atlanta is a classic story in technique, but at the
moment when' his intended day of reckoning arrived he was re-
moved by Davis. Many Southern military critics believe that
he would have turned the tide ; but, sound as was his policy of
withdrawing until he could fight near his own base, his strategic
conception had already failed of its expectations. He had sup-
posed that Sherman, drawn into a barren and unfriendly coun-
try, would be easy prey ; but the miracle of McCallum's railroad
management had kept Sherman before Atlanta as well supplied
as was Johnston himself.

On the Northern side McClellan remains a foremost figure.
About his personality there can be less question than of the tech-
nical questions that arose between him and the administration.
His letters from the front in the Mexican War show him as he was
fifteen years later, a clearer thinker on military problems than
most, a master of military art, and an egotist that scorned those
about him. It must not be forgotten, and he did not forget, that
he was always somewhat of a political figure, nephew of William
F. Marcy and with the loyal support of that particular and power-
ful New York machine. This combination made him difficult to
work with and, where politics were concerned, not a supine vic-
tim, but a focus of contending forces. No one can deny his
good work in organizing the Army of the Potomac nor the qual-
ity of leadership which made him always popular with his crea-
tion. On the contrary, it cannot be denied that, approaching
Richmond with his army straddled across the Chickahominy, he .
exposed himself first to Johnston's attack on his weak south wing,
which was halted by the latter's wound, and then to Lee's suc-
cessful attack on his weakened north wing. His skill and his sup-
plies prevented ruin ; but it is not surprising that when, after

260 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Malvern Hill, he proposed a new attempt, the authorities at Wash-
ington preferred to try someone else. He was probably right in
saying that in the Peninsula he was not well supported by the ad-
ministration, which kept too many troops for the defence of
Washington ; but at Antietam, with an ample superiority of force
and after a victory, he allowed Lee to slip away across the Poto-
mac. He certainly failed in the Napoleonic quality of destroy-
ing his foe, waiting for the combination of circumstances which
he was unable to produce.

The military man's favorite Northern general is George
Thomas. His career is, indeed, flawless, and his general reputa-
tion dimmed only by the fact that he was less conspicuous than
others. This, if he had any, was his fault. When in 1 862 Bragg
invaded Kentucky, the administration wished to transfer the de-
fending army from Buell to his command. He refused from a
sense of loyalty, and probably damaged thereby the Union cause.
His successful defence of his position when Bragg unexpectedly
turned on the Union army in 1863 prevented a rout and gained
him the title of the "Rock of Chickamauga" and command of the
Army of the Cumberland. His chief task was set him by Sher-
man's cutting loose into Georgia and leaving him the defence of
the West, and by Hood who then attempted to break up the
Union transportation system. Thomas excelled Hood in num-
bers, in skill, and in equipment. Nevertheless, he withdrew to
Nashville and faced a partial siege. The administration, anxious
for a victory, urged him forward, stormed at him, and threatened
him with removal. Unlike McClellan, he neither blustered nor
yielded. He was not, however, idly waiting. He was intent on
doing his job to a finish. When on December 15, 1864, his
troops poured over their breastworks, they did a thing unique in
the history of the war — they destroyed the army that opposed
them.

Sherman was distinctly an intellectual. His mind was extraor-
dinarily fertile, and his pen flew, dashing into brilliant English —
only a little too much of it. He himself stated that his inferiority
to Grant lay in his indecision between the many lines of action
that opened up before him* More than most men of his genera-

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 261

tion he was a professional. He was trained for military work,
and to that work he would stick. This singleness of purpose was
somewhat blurred for the record by the fact that his wife and her
father, former Senator Thomas Ewing of Ohio, did not share it.
He stated that he was master in his own house ; and in the end he
generally was, but there were intervals when he slipped, as when
before the war he retired from the army to make from the in-
cipient street railway of St. Louis a fortune that did not material-
ize. In temperament he was social and kindly, preferring, in
spite of his Ohio birth, the Southern coloring of St. Louis to post-
war Washington, and having always a liking for the South and
Southerners. His military skill is attested by his duel with John-
ston through the mountains of Georgia.

His genius and his claim to fame rest upon the aftermath of that
duel. Knowing that the rich Piedmont lay before him, aware by-
study that it could support his army of sixty thousand, he cut his
connections and launched forth amid his enemies bound for Sa-
vannah. His purpose was to bring the war to an end by showing
the South its helplessness and his power. He did not say that
"War is hell" — his style was much less simple — but that was his
belief. His philosophy was that attributed to the German high
command in the World War. The greatest mercy in war was to
have it over quickly by fighting it to the limit. The minor con-
troversies of his march through Georgia and his still more ter-
rible march through South Carolina will never be stilled, but his
general intention is proved by its very limitations. He would
not allow maltreatment of persons. He court-martialled the first
offenders, and thus maltreatment was held in control. When it
came to property, private or personal, he let his soldiers go with-
out let or hindrance, and they felt secure in the belief that their
commander was with them. There was no pretence that they
should act as gentlemen. Ruin was limited only by the physical
knowledge of the day. Least, though from a military point of
view most important, was the process of tearing up railroad tracks
and then with general rejoicing twisting the rails at bonfires of
the fences that had made agriculture civilized. Convinced that
such methods would bring speedy and desirable peace, he could

260 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Sherman was distinctly an intellectual. His mind was extraor-
dinarily fertile, and his pen flew, dashing into brilliant English —
only a litde too much of it. He himself stated that his inferiority
to Grant lay in his indecision between the many lines of action
that opened up before him. More than most men of his genera-

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 26 1

His genius and his claim to fame rest upon the aftermath of that
duel. Knowing that the rich Piedmont lay before him, aware by
study that it could support his army of sixty thousand, he cut his
connections and launched forth amid his enemies bound for Sa-
vannah. His purpose was to bring the war to an end by showing
the South its helplessness and his power. He did not say that
"War is hell" — his style was much less simple — but that was his
belief. His philosophy was that attributed to the German high
command in the World War. The greatest mercy in war was to
have it over quickly by fighting it to the limit. The minor con-
troversies of his march through Georgia and his still more ter-
rible march through South Carolina will never be stilled, but his
general intention is proved by its very limitations. He would
not allow maltreatment of persons. He court-martialled the first
offenders, and thus maltreatment was held in control. When it
came to property, private or personal, he let his soldiers go with-
out let or hindrance, and they felt secure in the belief that their
commander was with them. There was no pretence that they
should act as gentlemen. Ruin was limited only by the physical
knowledge of the day. Least, though from a military point of
view most important, was the process of tearing up railroad tracks
and then with general rejoicing twisting the rails at bonfires of
the fences that had made agriculture civilized. Convinced that
such methods would bring speedy and desirable peace, he could

262 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

never understand why his Southern friends refused to renew their
ties after the war. His active mind, meantime, conceived solu-
tions for the problems of the freed negroes and of peace. Act-
ing on his military authority, he initiated a new agrarian system
in South Carolina and accepted Johnston's surrender in April
1865, in terms intended to control the restoration of the Union.
A hero, a devil, an overweening subordinate, he arrived with his
army for the great post-war review at Washington, and shop-
keepers boarded up their windows.

Above all those in the popular mind and in significance stand
the contrasting figures of Lee and Grant. Lee inherited and em-
bodied that thousand-year development from Mallory's Morte
D* Arthur, through chivalry of the English gentleman to the Vir-
ginia gentleman typified by Washington, with whose tradition
he was so closely associated. For centuries his ancestors had
been told on their nurses' knees that there were certain things
that some little boys might do, but not little gentlemen ; and
above all, little Lees. Different as were the reactions to such
training, it was maintained by those who received and accepted
it and passed it on. Virginia life modified and softened the code
that its inhabitants inherited or copied. Younger sons were bet-
ter treated than in England ; and the wife, instead of the husband,
ruled the social life of the home. Between Washington's day
and Lee's the code had grown more tender and had incorporated
more elements of democracy. Lee carried thoughtfulness for
others almost to an extreme, even suffering genuine embarrass-
ment and discomfort at failing to recall the names of persons en-
countered after many years. As president of Washington Col-
lege, he gave one of the noblest descriptions of a gentleman ever
penned, based on the existence of superiority, which he said cre-
ated responsibility for others and prevented interference with
them wherever possible.

Lee was one of those strong souls not afraid of losing them-
selves by conformity. He bore his social inheritance as he did his
beautiful physique, not as something alien but as something en-
abling him to obtain a higher liberty. He was strongly indi-
vidual, and it is impossible ever to think of him as a type. His

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 263

was no such simple problem as that of Andrew Jackson. He
could not be all-absorbed in one side, but that which he finally
chose received all his devotion. He was sustained by no convic-
tion that the South was right and must win ; but as its champion
he must do his best to give her the victory, unhampered by
thoughts of the outcome. When that end arrived he recognized
it and its consequences, surrendering his army and urging its
members again to become loyal citizens of the triumphant Union.

His military ability was distinguished in its universality. As
commander of the Virginia forces he made fifty thousand men
ready for service more promptly than was done elsewhere in
North or South. His ordering of the defences of the Atlantic
seaboard has been mentioned. In his campaigns and battles he
made use of every historic device of war as well as of the new art
of newspaper publicity, advertising false movements to the en-
emy. His army seems a rapier in his hand, and his control was
perfect. If a major objective were lost, then a minor one was
won. Repulsed, he withdrew in good order. He fought a de-
fensive war offensively, and the drives within his entrenchments
showed him a master in their management, veiling for nine months
a crumbling regime. So cautious that he was never caught, he
dared to risk even adverse odds when victory would mean
enough. At Malvern Hill the chances were against him, but
there was a chance, and if he had succeeded the war probably
would have ended. At Gettysburg the same situation existed,
and he did not let the chance go by.

One special feature in which he stands supreme may, however,
be singled out — that is in the reading of the mind of his opponent.
He had the advantage of the West Point acquaintanceship which
signalized this war, but no one else used it as he did to defy the
rules of war, cannily estimating what the other army could be led
to do. It is unlikely that he would have left Richmond prac-
tically defenceless in 1862 had he not been confronting McClel-
lan. No general in his sane mind confronting a stranger would
do as Lee did at Chancellorsville, divide his force in the face of an
opponent of almost twice his strength, march one half of his army
straight across the enemy's front, and then slap both cheeks, leav-

264 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ing the main army free to march between his wings on to Rich-
mond. The fate of the Confederacy, for the time being, hung on
Lee's estimate of Hooker. In his judgments of his opponents he
seems never to have gone wrong, and in those of his subordinates
he was too trusting. His organization was weak in staff work,
and the too great latitude allowed Stuart in the Gettysburg cam-
paign may have affected the result. In that battle he should not
have allowed Longstreet, who opposed the final charge, to have
its ordering. His innate tenderness and his unwillingness to hurt
or to control may thus have been his only military weakness.

As Lee came from the best of Virginia, Grant was an offshoot
of the worst New England element. A decadent of Puritan
tendencies, his father knew the law and knew not equity ; he kept
out of jail. The boy hated what he saw ; he despised his father's
bloody tannery business, and he revolted against that life. Quite
early he shrank within himself to avoid oaths and smutty stories
and people who touched him. Hard-worked always, the time
came at length for him to enter his father's business and, with un-
usual courage, he asked respite. His father, always with some
wires to pull, secured him an appointment at West Point ; and
young Ulysses, conscious of the wrong of turning from the
slaughter of beasts to that of men, could not fight fate, and so
learned the trade of soldier. In the Mexican War he took a post-
graduate course in quartermaster work ; he learned to drink in
solitude to escape the boon companionship of the mess, and he
soon married a wife who was personally worthy of him but of a
family that with difficulty clung to a meagre Southern gentility.
In an army where most of the men were drunk on proper occa-
sions he lost his place for being inopportunely drunk. He tried
his hand at little businesses and failed, and with his wife and chil-
dren took refuge at last in his father's tannery, now moved from
Ohio to Galena, Illinois. At thirty-nine, with opportunities be-
yond those of most American boys, he was a failure whose disgust
of life was drowned sometimes in whiskey but more often in ro-
mantic novels, and still more in the dreams of an imagination ut-
terly detached from the sordid facts of reality ; he could not live
on what he had but he would spend a million wisely.

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 265

When war came he quite simply offered to the United States
the training he had received. The governor of Illinois made him
a colonel and fortunately put him in independent command at the
important post of Cairo. Knowing the trade of military organi-
zation but with no knowledge of the history or philosophy of war,
he began to learn. He got nothing from books, but he was one
of those rare persons who can actually learn by experience. He
needed but one experience of each kind ; the chance came rap-
idly, and soon his mind was stored with matters ever kept before
his inner eye. Here were those resources which he had spent so
often and so well in his solitary, cigar-illumined dream life, not
meagre pittances for which he had no contriving sense. Now,
too, companions ceased to bruise his sensibilities : if the com-
mander did not like oaths, they became few ; if he objected to
stories of a certain color, they could be kept untold. His fond-
ness of companionship upon his own terms, which had been con-
fined largely to horses, unfolded itself without fear of hurt. He
rose with his opportunities and exhibited a freshness, untram-
melled by the rules, which brought confidence and results. He
was unworried because railroads upset some of the tenets of Na-
poleon ; perhaps he did not know that Napoleon did not have
railroads. He saw the pictures of war and of life, realistically
and somewhat grimly, as it was. He liked war no more than he
had liked the tannery ; he never liked war ; it was not to him glori-
ous or beautiful, but it was his trade in this poor world, and in it
he had a job with the resources which he had possessed so often
in his imagination.

He won the first military success for the North at Forts
Henry and Donelson. Set back at Shiloh, he was not beaten in
battle, and while confidence in him was shaken and once more he
sought relief in whiskey, the failures of others gave him a second
chance. He captured Vicksburg, which Sherman had failed to
take. He opened the Mississippi and became the hero of the
West. When Rosecrans was blocked in Chattanooga he was
called to the rescue, and soon the bonds were broken and the en-
circling armies for the moment scattered. No man had three
such marks to his credit, and he was called to the curious, hopeful,

266 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

but critical East. Without showing us the processes of his ra-
tionalization he now arrived at the most modern conception of
the war which was attained during the contest* The purpose of
the North with its superior forces was to wear away the forces of
the South. Fighting must be forced ; immediate victories were
immaterial. With no disparagement of his own personnel, he be-
lieved that one man was worth more to the South than two to the
North. He would not exchange prisoners. His policy was at-
trition. To him war was no game to be played with chivalric
rules ; it was not a matter of honor or of glory. It was a bloody,
dirty business to be ended as soon as possible. If he could be su-
perior, he did not feel the thrill of defeating superior forces of the
enemy. He did not see ten thousand dead as more awful than
one thousand, if the desired result were obtained. On the other
hand, he fought without animosity and succored the suffering
enemy the moment they were helpless. Thoroughly individual-
istic, he was modern. War was business, but in business he re-
mained humane.

His silence and his bull-dog appearance, his square mouth and
eternal cigar, with his sensitive chin hidden behind the beard of
the period, have perhaps caused Grant's minor qualities of mili-
tary resourcefulness to be overlooked. His Vicksburg campaign
was remarkable for its originality and skill, and the matter of
prisoners shows him not lacking in that kind of humorous shrewd-
ness which has been a trait of so many Americans. The North
was filled with stories of the horrors of the Southern prisons,
based partly on facts which resulted from poverty of resources,
partly on exaggerations, and partly on the malign psychology of
war. Should Northern boys be exposed to such conditions when
the North was keeping thousands of Confederates in comparative
comfort ? The public was not satisfied by the response that they
also were serving ; it demanded release by exchange. Grant
yielded ; but he appointed as exchange commissioner "Beast" But-
ler who, for his conduct at New Orleans, had been officially de-
clared by the Confederate government an outlaw to be treated,
not as a soldier, but as a criminal. The clamor quieted, and the

THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS 267

Southern prisoners did not find their way to the dwindling ranks
of Lee and Johnston.

A failure in small things, Grant was incontrovertably successful
in large ones. Self-educated in the strategy of war, like Lincoln,
he achieved originality. When Lincoln was assassinated, Grant
became at once the most potent rnan of the nation.

CHAPTER X

THE CRASH OF BATTLE

EXCEPT for the general Northern policy of the anaconda, these
forces were not animated by any general strategic concept until
Grant was given command. Ideas were not lacking, and some
had their effect. Lincoln was anxious to concentrate Northern
forces among a loyal population in the mountain valleys, connect
them with the North by a railroad to be built through Cumber-
land Gap, and then raid the Piedmont much as John Brown had
proposed to do. This plan, however, was not carried out. The
Northwest considered that the first and most important objective
was the opening of the Mississippi, and its political pressure caused
some emphasis to be given to that plan. Southern authorities
were divided in 1861 over the possibility and propriety of invad-
ing states not yet seceded. Davis withheld invasions in that year,
but thereafter such offensives were carried out whenever possible,
the objective in the case of Maryland and Kentucky being to win
the states ; elsewhere it was to gain prestige. Southern move-
ments have since the war been much criticized as being hampered
by the defence of Richmond. It must be remembered, however,
that military critics are not devoid of a tendency to be doctri-
naire ; and Richmond was not only the chief industrial city of the
South but was a bulwark which defended the northern end of the
vital Piedmont. Undoubtedly the defence of Washington was
still more hampering to Northern strategy, and it was probably
less important.

The chief criticisms of Southern strategy, however, have been
that the armies of the East and the West lacked co-ordination and
that the Confederacy did not take advantage of its interior lines.
There does seem to be some justification for such complaint, and
yet its degree must be limited. However much the Southern
lines were within their own border, they were poor. When
Longstreet was sent to join Bragg it took him sixteen days, while
in ten days Hooker moved from the Army of the Potomac to that

268

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 269

of the Cumberland to meet him. A simple strategy might have
had its gains, but these gains would certainly have been lessened
by the superior mobility which the more intricate transportation
system of the North gave the opposing Northern troops. In fact,
transportation systems dictate the location of action, sometimes
in spite of intellectual planning. The chief military feature of
the war was the division of the fighting into eastern and western
areas, and in the latter area a primary objective was the capture
of the Southern routes of communication.

In considering the military events of 1861, one must remember
that armies did not yet exist and that neutral Kentucky prevented
any operations from the Appalachian mountains west to the Mis-
sissippi. Hostilities were of two kinds — local clashes, where
doubtful regions were determining their allegiance, and larger
movements purposeful but immature. Small irregular conflicts,
generally ending in a quick victory for one side and the dispersal
of the other with few casualties, were taking place here and there,
particularly in Missouri. The fallen were widely eulogized in
editorials and poems. Most conspicuous was Colonel Elmer Ells-
worth of the famous Chicago Zouaves who was shot by an inn-
keeper of Alexandria, Virginia, while taking possession of that
city so nearly opposite Washington on the Potomac.

More systematic was the conflict for West Virginia. This was
almost an inter-state affair between Ohio and Virginia. The ad-
vantage was all with Ohio, the troops of which had but to cross
the river to enter the river valleys that ran up into the mountains.
Virginia was obliged to send her forces far from home across the
successive ridges of the Alleghanies, which she had so negligently
failed to provide with roads. The chief factor, however, was
that the local population stood for the Union. McClellan, com-
manding the department of the Ohio, although invited across by
West Virginia Unionists, would not move until after the Virginia
vote on secession with its double significance, the secession of the
state, and the demonstration of Union sentiment in its western
area. On May 26 he sent General Cox up the Kanawha, while
he himself penetrated to the north. Victories were won at
Philippi, Rich Mountain, Beverly, and Carrick's Ford. He tele-

2 JO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

graphed on July 14 : "Our success is complete, and secession is
killed in this country." On July 16 the House voted him its
thanks. Virginia, however, was insistent and sent Wise, who
had always been popular in the West, and, finally, Lee to retrieve
her errant sons. They were, however, unable to hold a hostile
territory in the face of the Union armies. McClellan, having
been called to Washington on July 22, was succeeded by Rose-
crans who was in full possession of the mountains by October.
In all, about eight thousand Virginians and about twenty thou-
sand Unionists, nearly all of whom were from Ohio, had been
engaged. It was only when their territory was thus freed that
the inhabitants of the region were able to marshal their military
forces.

Meanwhile, troops from all parts of the North had been pour-
ing into Washington. It was not until McClellan's West Vir-
ginia victories in July had cleared the Baltimore and Ohio rail-
road of raiders and bridge burners that that most convenient
route to the West was free. Until then troops from the north-
east had come by way of Philadelphia, those from the West by
way of Harrisburg, the two routes converging at Baltimore,
which Butler's prompt action had opened up in May. The south-
ern bank of the Potomac opposite Washington was soon occu-
pied, earthworks were thrown up, and by July about thirty thou-
sand men. were free to march forth. Facing them at a distance of
about thirty miles, was the Confederate army of the Potomac of
much the same size under Beauregard, with its headquarters at
Manassas Junction, where the railroad from Alexandria to Rich-
mond met a branch penetrating the Blue Ridge by Manassas Gap
and so entering the Shenandoah. In front of this as a defence
ran the deep-gullied Bull Run. About fifty miles to the west the
Confederate Joseph Johnston faced the aged Patterson in the
"Valley." Northern opinion was very strong that something
should be done. The three months that the war should last were
almost over and the three months' enlistments of the militia were
soon to expire. The press, headed by the New York Tribune
and members of Congress, now in special session, voiced the senti-
ment loudly and scoffingly* General Scott was opposed to ac-

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 271

tion, but he always opposed action. It would have taken an
administration convinced of its own wisdom, and with the con-
fidence of the people, to resist ; and neither condition existed. A
move was ordered.

Brigadier-General Irvin McDowell was in command, and the
plan of battle was his, It was conditioned upon assurance that
Patterson would keep Johnston employed in the "Valley." On
July 1 6 he marched out with a precision remarkable for troops so
new and established himself at Centerville within striking dis-
tance of the enemy. His arrival was not silent, and Beauregard
decided to take the initiative and advance by the right flank.
McDowell, too, determined to attack by the right flank, and he
was the first to strike. The result was that his attack was in su-
perior force, and he drove through to the centre of Beauregard's
position. At two in the afternoon he commanded the field, but
his troops, on foot for twelve hours, were now confronted by the
concentration of the unused Confederate right wing and then by
the dramatic arrival of some of Johnston's force which had es-
caped the notice of Patterson. The tide turned and became a
race. The Union troops, except for a contingent of regulars,
broke and stampeded. The roads were soon choked by men and
artillery, Congressmen in victorias, and abandoned knapsacks,
The Confederates, too, were demoralized in the pursuit and de-
sisted at the fall of night. The rout, however, continued until
the Union men were safe behind their breastworks, and some had
crossed Long Bridge into Washington. It is useless to say that
had the chances fallen differently, it would have been the Con-
federate forces that would have been demoralized. The losses
show that the fighting was much less resolute than in later battles,
and comments on the soundness of the commander's plan all fall
before the fact that they were based on the existence of an army
and not of an aggregation of partially-trained units. The re-
sponsibility was on the public, and the public took it well. The
South rejoiced and the North girded itself for new efforts. Had
the results been the reverse, the North would have rejoiced and
the South would have girded herself anew. By no possibility
would the Southern soldiers have retreated far, nor could Me-

272 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Dowell have advanced perceptibly into Virginia. The fact that
with men so ill prepared the advantage rested with the defence
was confirmed by the small but bloody encounter at Ball's Bluff,
on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where Lincoln's friend,
General-Senator Baker, was killed, and Oliver Wendell Holmes,
later of the Supreme Court, was wounded.

At the far west of the line the war was being fought with
little interference from Washington or Richmond. Governor
Jackson of Missouri and the legislature gave formal authority for
the raising of a Confederate army under "Pop" Price, the political
leader of the state, though the supreme command passed to Ben
McCulloch who was sent out by Davis. The Union forces were
organized by Frank Blair and by General Nathaniel Lyon, joint
saviors of St. Louis. Five thousand strong, Lyon's forces ad-
vanced southwestward to Springfield ; and near by, at Wilson's
Creek, on August 10, they encountered seven thousand Con-
federates under McCulloch. The battle was much harder fought
than at Bull Run. General Lyon was killed at the beginning of
a promising career, and the Confederates were again victorious.
Price inarched triumphantly through the divided state and on
September 20 captured Lexington, on the Missouri river, which
had been stoutly defended by an "Irish Brigade" of Illinois volun-
teers under Colonel John A. Mulligan. The attack, after Mulli-
gan's water supply had been cut off, was marked by the clever
device of advancing against the Union intrenchments behind
movable bales of wet hemp, which resisted bullets and round shot.

In the meantime, at the instance of the Blairs, John C. Fremont
had been appointed to the command of the Western Department,
with headquarters at St. Louis, where he arrived on July 2 6. Fre-
mont was a spoiled child of fortune. Handsome and talented,
two things had given him importance before he was seasoned to
its use. By courage and good luck he had discovered a new and
desirable pass down the American river into California ; and,
while his subsequent explorations were less successful, his literary
productions and his ability at mapping gave him the sobriquet of
"Pathfinder." The second event was his romantic marriage with
Jessie Benton, the brilliant and assiduous daughter of Thomas

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 273

Hart Benton, who brought Fremont into the lime-light of poli-
tics. His dashing, though probably unadvised, conduct in Cali-
fornia at the outbreak of the Mexican War had led to his election
as one of the first two senators of the new state, and an investment
placed in his behalf by a friend made him, for a time, one of the
first of the California millionaires. A popular reputation, some-
what like that of Lindbergh at a later period, and his political con-
nections, made him in 1856 a presidential candidate for the Re-
publican party which had as yet to find its leaders. In 1860 he
was obviously an important figure, and the Benton stronghold in
Missouri seemed the proper locale for his employment. With-
out the tempering of trial, his nature was not such as to resist the
heady wine of responsibility. He was, indeed, somewhat in the
position of a Persian satrap, and he behaved like one.

He organized his command with some splendor and little
economy. Difficult of access, he appeared in public surrounded
by a brilliant body-guard. Fretful of opposition, he arrested
Frank Blair, member of Congress and his patron. Sensitive to
flattery, he allowed himself to be surrounded not only by patriots
but by sharpers. He assumed the formulation of political poli-
cies, declaring the slaves in his district emancipated. Lincoln's
disavowal of this act divided public opinion ; investigators sent to
St. Louis advised his removal, and supporters threatened riots and
the loss of the support of the German Unionists should he be re-
moved. Toward the end of September Fremont moved forward
with thirty-eight thousand men, recaptured Springfield, and faced
Price with somewhat over twenty thousand troops. On No-
vember i, they signed a convention for the exchange of prisoners,
hitherto refused by the Union government ; for the suppression
of guerrilla warfare ; and for the maintenance of order by the
state courts. On November 2, when he was preparing to meet
the enemy which he thought was at hand but which proved to
be miles away, the order for his removal arrived. His place was
immediately taken by General Hunter, and the department of
the West was confided to the scholarly Halleck.

The year, therefore, ended with lines intact. On both flanks
the Confederates had won decided victories. The November

274 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

raids of the Union fleet and army at Hatteras and elsewhere did
something, but not enough to redress the public impression of
failure by the North. Her people recognized that the struggle
was not to be a three months' affair, and the South had equally
to accept the fact that a few frontier successes would not win her
point. Both sides then settled down to earnest preparations for
a war.

The fighting in the Gvil War differed greatly from that in the
World War. Several winter months were generally spent in
camps, the men being housed partly in tents and partly in log cab-
ins, such as Washington had used at Valley Forge. The enemy
was far away and, after the inevitable earthworks and cabins had
been built, there was much leisure, which each soldier employed
in his own way. With the coming of spring began the weary
business of marching. The railroads were more important for
moving supplies than for troops. In the West, where distances
were greater, river transports were much used, but for most sol-
diers the chief business of life was to keep afoot. As summer ad-
vanced, the heat made this very exhausting to the Northern
troops and many dropped by the wayside ; most of them rejoined
their commands in time. No commander could be certain that
any considerable proportion of his men would be at his disposal
at any particular moment. According to their temperament
some, as McClellan, saw only their dwindling forces ; some, like
Grant, guessed that their opponents were suffering also.

Except for sentinels, patrols, skirmishers, and cavalry, one sel-
dom saw the army. Months frequently passed, even in the active
armies, without a glimpse of the main army. On the other hand,
when battle was joined, the enemy was generally in full sight.
One looked out at the panorama of the sldrmishing line, the hast-
ily constructed earthworks, the cannon shining in the sun, and
regimental lines beyond with flags waving in the distance. When
the firing began the lines were seldom a mile apart ; at Gettys-
burg, Lee's artillery was less than a mile from Cemetery Hill.
The day of battle was one of hard work. Fatigue is constantly
mentioned as a factor in events ; fresh troops often meant victory.
One rose early, had breakfast, generally having cooked it, and

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 275

started on with loaded knapsack through the misty dawn to the
battlefield five or six miles away. On the spot there was the long
and tiring task of finding one's place, often made more confusing
by conflicting orders and changes of plan. Several more miles
were thus frequently covered before all were ready. Then came
the business of standing in line or deploying during the usual
artillery duel which seems to have been, in general, more deadly
than in earlier or later wars ; particularly feared was the twist-
ing shot of the rifled cannon, tearing holes in the serried ranks.
Then came the charge and the resistance. Usually, both ad-
vancing and retreating troops fired their musketry. Overhead
were shrieking shells which, compared with those of today, were
toys, but they took their toll. Nearly always the defenders were
behind a slight earthen breastwork and, if their position was a
prepared one, an abatis of felled trees before it — a slight premoni-
tion of the barbed wire entanglements of the World War. The
moment of personal conflict was brief. Gunners were bay-
oneted defending their guns, but the infantry generally repulsed
the charge or withdrew. Several such charges and counter
charges, made in quick time, pushed f orward from a mile to a few
hundred feet, generally determined the fate of the day. After
sixteen to twenty hours, in many cases, of continued effort and
tension, fighting ceased, patrols were set, camp-fires lighted, and
both armies slept.

Most battles were fought in a single day and almost never ex-
tended beyond three days ; the pace was too gruelling. One
army or the other then withdrew and both recuperated from the
strife. Under modern conditions whole armies are seldom, if
ever, so heavily engaged or suffer such concentrated losses. The
incidence of death or wounding, when one actually faced the
enemy, was seldom as little as one in ten and was sometimes one
in three. Of course, a large percentage of this was the liability
to wounds which were frequently slight. If one were healthy,
as most were, the chance was for a speedy recovery, but antisep-
tics were unknown, and treatment gave small hope of recovery if
infection actually set in.

Only at Vicksburg and before Petersburg, where men could

276 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

serve in relays, was there continuous night fighting. Except in
the Sherman- Johnston campaign between Chattanooga and At-
lanta, and the Grant-Lee campaign from the Wilderness to Peters-
burg, there was seldom daily fighting, and both of these were
in 1864. It was, in general, a life of strenuous moments and long
intervals of work, which intervals many regarded as play and en-
joyment of companionship. Opportunities for distinction were
frequent and heroes many. Officers often led their men, as the
grey-haired Charles Ferguson Smith at Fort Donelson, who led
his raw regiments through showers of bullets, picked their way
through the abatis, and with cap on sword showed where to
mount the parapets. At Perryville, Bragg, thinking that two
Confederate regiments were firing at each other, ordered the
one nearest to cease firing. He discovered that the firing was
from Indiana troops and, enforcing his command by cool insist-
ence, retraced his way to his own men. At Gettysburg the spec-
tacular Pickett, with his long golden locks, well-kept as those of
a Spartan, was visible to both armies as his charge advanced.
Advancing at Vicksburg, Grant with a few companions found
night lodging a mile and a half ahead of his troops. Prudently
he withdrew and awaited their oncoming. Leaders mingled with
their men and the enemy, and some were lost or shot, as was
Jackson at Chancellorsville. The commander of the Confeder-
ate ram, Arkansas, fought three naval duels exposed on the up-
per deck and, knocked onto his main deck with the dead and
wounded, picked himself up and returned to his post.

Cavalry seldom fought on the ordinary battlefield or against
infantry. When bodies of cavalry found each other, there came
the dashing charge, the sharp encounter of saber and pistol, but
success depended chiefly on the quality and management of the
horses. Their major joy was in raids about the enemy's en-
campments — as Lincoln said when J. E. B. Stuart circled McClel-
lan for the third time, "Three times round and out." Their more
proper work of reconnoitering was not brought to such a fine an
as in some other wars. Possibly in no other war was the alterna-
tive of using spies so easy. Both armies possessed thousands who
could not be distinguished from the enemy by voice or manner.

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 277

Each army pressed into service sympathizers of the other side.
Deserters from both armies were numerous and valuable. Ne-
groes wandered between the armies, and loyalists and pseudo-
loyalists were in and out of both camps. In Washington were
men and women who were anxious for the success of the Con-
federacy, yet they were accepted in the best society. Little
could be kept secret, but the true was so mingled with the false
that essential points were often disguised, and less seems to have
been known of the movements of the army in the Civil War than
in the World War, though it was in the Civil War that the Pin-
kertons got their training and the impetus to found a new craft in
America.

In the East, operations were chiefly confined within a triangle
with a base of two hundred miles from Gettysburg to Fortress
Monroe and sides of almost one hundred and fifty miles meeting
at a peak at Staunton near the south end of the Shenandoah Val-
ley and connected by railroad with Richmond. The two ob-
jectives, Washington and Richmond, lay almost due north and
south about one hundred miles apart. Between them lay a plains
country, changing west of this north-south line into a rolling and
mounting piedmont. It was broken by rivers and creeks running
from west to east : Bull Run, Acquia Creek, the Rappahannock ;
the Mattapony and the Pamunkey, joining to make the York at
West Point ; the Chickahominy and, south of the James, the Ap-
pomattox. While not unconquerable, these were obstacles to
direct approach. This route had the advantage to the North that
it covered Washington and so allowed a maximum concentration
of the Union army ; it permitted, also, or rather forced, the
union of the Richmond garrison with the Army of Northern Vir-
ginia. This was the route approved by popular sentiment in the
North ; and it was attempted by McDowell and Scott in the Bull
Run campaign in 1 86 1 ; by Burnside in that of Fredericksburg in
1862 ; by Hooker, whose attempt ended in Chancellorsville in
1863, and it was the line on which Grant said in 1864 he would
fight it out if it "took all summer." In all cases it failed. The
alternative Northern method of approach was by transport to
Fortress Monroe, and thus up the banks of the James with the

278 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

navy operating on the river. Its disadvantage was that it un-
covered Washington and so required a division of forces. This
division was perhaps the cause of McClellan's defeat when he at-
tempted his attack by the north bank in 1862. When in 1864
and 1865 Grant deflected his frontal assault to the south bank, he
was strong enough in prestige to prevent the division of his troops
by the administration, and was strong enough in numbers to meet
Lee on all fronts.

From the Southern point of view this checker-board gave op-
portunity for more combinations. A force sufficient to cover
Richmond could be held in the East, and then a large body could
be speedily conveyed to the "Valley," whence by taking advan-
tage of its many ridges and intervening valleys it could surprise
some little garrison guarding a valley mouth on the Potomac and
debouch to the rear of Washington. As a method of permanent
occupation this was subject to the difficulty that the whole Army
of the Potomac could be concentrated to meet it, while the num-
ber of the attacking army must be diminished to defend Virginia.
As a method of defence, if played with skill, it was perfect, for
it drew the attacking army northward. Beauregard used it in
1861 ; Lee used it in 1862 and 1863 ; and in 1864, too occupied
to leave, he sent one corps under Early to repeat the manoeuvre.

McClellan's campaign of 1862 has been almost as much fought
over afterwards as it was at the time. When he took command
after Bull Run it was universally realized that he must have more
troops and time. The public, however, soon grew tired and "all
quiet along the Potomac" became a byword scarcely concealing a
jeer. McClellan was justifiably pleased when winter fell and
prolonged his interval for preparation. An illness, the severity
of which is subject to dispute, caused a further delay of action
and intensified the urge for it. When in March he landed at
Fortress Monroe he had as good an instrument as was possible
without the tempering of battle ; and he was still in time, by a
swift march up the Peninsula, to catch Johnston with a force
barely half as large as his own. He allowed himself to be held for
a month by a skeleton defence at Yorktown ; and, when he did
move, his strategy of straddling the Chickahominy was based on

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 279

the expectation of co-operation with a body advancing south
from Fredericksburg. When this body was withdrawn by the
administration, frightened by Jackson in the Valley, McClellan
was slow in readjusting his plans. He was still divided, with his
larger wing to the north of the river, when Johnston attacked his
south wing at Fair Oaks and Seven Pines. This faulty disposition
was compensated for by good fighting and by Johnston's wound.
West Point, the supply station for his northern forces, having
been burned by Stuart, and co-operation with northern forces
being at an end, McClellan now determined to change his base
to the James river. Again he was slow, and a weak right wing
was left north of the Chickahominy. Lee, assuming command,
was quick to see his opportunity. Counting on McClellan's de-
liberation, he left a screen in front of Richmond, moved from
Richmond a large force by train west in the direction of the Val-
ley, and frightened Washington by threatening a raid past Har-
per's Ferry. Instead of making the raid, he ordered Jackson
from the Valley to join him to the northwest of Richmond and
swept down on McClellan's right flank. In the battles of Me-
chanicsville and Gaines' Mill he cramped the Union defence and
was prevented only by the heroic stoutness of General Fitzhugh
Porter and his corps from driving the Union troops into the river
or to surrender. In the night they crossed. There followed
five more days of active battling. McClellan sought to transfer
himself to the James, Lee to smash his army during its transfer.
On the whole one must here credit McClellan with the advantage.
The shift was made, and Lee vainly dashed himself against Mal-
vern Hill, where the Union army was finally stationed. The
Confederate losses in the whole seven days were over twenty
thousand men and those of McClellan were over fifteen thou-
sand. Nevertheless Richmond was saved. McClellan urged
that he was now in a better position than hitherto to attack, and
he took the occasion to advise Lincoln on the political situation,
In fact, his military chance had passed, and the administration,
now advised by Halleck, was through with him. Fearful, how-
ever, of rallying his supporters by too drastic action, the adminis-
tration failed to remove him but brought his best troops round to

280 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Acquia Creek into the new command of Pope who, with "Head-
quarters in the saddle,7' was to try again the straight downward
thrust at the Confederate capital.

Lee, however, his army tired of conflict and elated by success,
did not wait to receive the enemy. Moving northwest with Jack-
son in his van, he cleared the Valley in the battle of Cedar Moun-
tain in August ; and then, by clever movements from behind the
shelter of the Blue Ridge, surprised Pope's command on the old
field of Manassas and sent it scattering to the protection of the
Potomac flotilla. He then left there and crossed the Potomac
north of Washington, capturing Harper's Ferry with its garrison
of eleven thousand, and offered Maryland freedom to loose her-
self from the iron bands by which the Southern leader believed
her to be held. It was, in intention, the march of a liberating army
and was conducted with order and due payment in Confederate
currency, as yet little depreciated, for the harm done and for pro-
visions that were impressed. Confident in the demoralization of
the foe, his forces spread over a wide area, and Washington and
Baltimore trembled with fear or palpitated with hope as senti-
ment dictated. At the same time, Bragg was giving Kentucky a
like chance to declare herself and was threatening Louisville and
Cincinnati. Palmerston was suggesting that it was time for the
British cabinet to take up recognition, and the Lincoln adminis-
tration was being attacked by both Democratic and Republican
radicals. It was the high tide of the Confederacy.

McClellan was called to take over the army he had created and
to save the situation. Always better at defence than at offence,
he gathered his forces, which cheered his return, before Lee
thought it possible and concentrated seventy-five thousand to
Lee's forty, separated only by Antietam Creek. Both armies
were in fighting spirit and wore out the day of September 16,
1862, with about as heavy fighting as took place during the war.
Night found the Union lines advanced but the Confederates un-
broken. All expected that on the next day, with fresh troops at
his disposal, McClellan would renew the attack. To break the
Confederate line with its back to the Potomac would go far
toward ending the war. That day, however, was quiet, and

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 28 1

during its night, Lee, leaving his camp fires burning, made his
way to friendly Virginian soil. McClellan followed, safely and
slowly, and the indications pointed to another winter of quiet
along the Potomac. When, however, once more Stuart circled
his army, McClellan was removed on November 5, 1862, this
time definitely, and the Army of the Potomac was given to Burn-
side, whose corps had fought well and who had led the land
forces in the capture of New Bern and Port Royal

General Burnside knew why he was appointed, and the public
wish coincided with his own ; he would fight. Hitting be-
tween the plans of McDowell and of McClellan, he made his ap-
proach through Fredericksburg, where the Chesapeake brought
him half-way to Richmond and almost directly north of it. A
stickler for form and a master of technique, he splendidly aligned
his army opposite the town, then successfully on December 13,
1862, crossed the Rappahannock on a pontoon bridge and occu-
pied the lowlands along the river. Next morning he displayed a
hundred thousand men in orderly array upon a plain stretching
five miles along the river and about one mile to the encircling
amphitheater of low hills, where Lee awaited him with somewhat
over seventy thousand. Burnside's artillery glittered from the
bluffs on the far side of the river ; Lee's was partly concealed by
wood and brush. It was a master stroke of theatrical arrange-
ment, and motion-picture producers may well lament a lost op-
portunity to depict the glories of blue and steel, with banners fly-
ing, that swept up the hill to be mowed down with musketry and
tearing shot. J. T. Meagher's^ Irish brigade from New York was
so slaughtered that many Irish believed it purposely sacrificed and
were hardened into hostility to the war and, next year, to the
draft. There was no such intention to sacrifice but, if stupidity
be culpability, few generals of ancient or modern times rank with
Burnside in the guilt of manslaughter. On January 26, 1863,
he was replaced by another of the corps commanders, Joseph
Hooker.

Hooker gave the armies four months to recover and moved for
the spring campaign in May. Using the same base as Burnside,
he moved more cleverly and outwitted Lee. Feinting at Fred-

282 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ericksburg, he crossed farther up, where he flanked Lee and stood
on the straight road to Richmond with nothing but its earthworks
to keep him out of the city. Lee, caught away from his base with
less than sixty thousand men and a hundred thousand foes threat-
ening both flanks, confronted the greatest emergency of his ca-
reer, but so did Joe Hooker. Lee's calculating rashness never
rose higher. Leaving one of those prickly divisions, which knew
so well how to simulate an army, to hold the feinting force of
Sedgwick at Fredericksburg, he detached Jackson to march
straight across Hooker's front, his dust visible to the Northern
line, with orders to attack from the west. He himself led a
marching assault from the east. Both Union flanks were driven
back, and Hooker, partly dazed by a falling pillar of the Chancel-
lorsville House, was finally forced to turn the command over to
General D. M. Couch. After desperate fighting and terrific
losses, he withdrew across the Rappahannock. Another offen-
sive had recoiled.

Then followed the most momentous strategic decision of the
war, the wisdom of which may for ever be debated. All was
quiet on the eastern front. In the west Grant was pounding
Vicksburg, and Rosecrans was manoeuvring into Chattanooga.
It may well be argued that one of Lee's three corps might well
have been sent west and might have turned the scale at one or
both of those pivotal points. Lee chose to invade the North.
Of course, no one can tell what would have been the result of a
western division or how many Northern troops would have been
speeded to meet Longstreet or Ewell. It must be remembered,
too, that Lee was not in general command and was loath to proffer
advice outside his own territory. The motives for his action,
however, deserve consideration. One was the matter of supply.
His army moving north could live on the enemy, and the drawing
of the Northern army to follow him would free Virginia to raise
a season's crops. These results were attained. There was now
no hope of detaching states, but the elections of 1 862 had shown a
large proportion of Northern voters against the administration.
If this meant, as the South argued, opposition to the war, would
not invasion — an orderly invasion without horrors — deepen this

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 283

sentiment ? Then, too, Lee hoped to win a battle, hardly to dissi-
pate the Army of the Potomac and certainly not to occupy hos-
tile territory, but might not such a battle won on Northern soil
clinch the argument of those Southern advocates who just at the
moment were driving for recognition in the British Parliament ?
This was not the highest tide, but Napoleon and Roebuck and
Hotze and Lee, with the Times behind them, were making a final
bid for victory. The Southern cause could hardly win merely
by staving off the ever-increasing weight of Northern resources.
Lee chose, as so often, attack as the best weapon of defence.

Lee carried out his campaign brilliantly but not perfectly.
With complete success he withdrew his army from Hooker's
front, launched it through the mountain valleys, and was first
heard of as his column advanced with no opposition into the heart
of Pennsylvania. Hooker volte-faced and started to hit Lee's
communications, but with the troops on the march he was super-
seded and the command given to still another corps leader, George
Meade. Unflurried by the change, the army proceeded at top
speed, Meade aiming to parallel Lee's march in a valley nearer
Washington. Stuart's cavalry on Lee's right flank had the func-
tion of watching for such a movement but, fascinated by the easy
road through enemy territory and the joy of alarming with their
guns the burghers of Harrisburg, they let Meade advance unno-
ticed so far as to render the concentration of Lee's corps, scat-
tered for the collection of supplies, difficult. Of course Lee ex-
pected to be followed, but he was unwarned as to the imminence
of the Union army and was surprised at its speed in following
him. Guarding his return route, he had selected a defensive
position where he could stand and await attack. In fact, the site
of the expected battle was the result of accident and obliged him
to take the offensive.

Gettysburg was a site well designed for battle and not unfavor-
able to Lee, as the Union army was on a ridge plateau too small
for the effective use of its superior numbers. Opposite and op-
posing the Union troops, Seminary Ridge was a good situation for
his artillery. Lee was first to assemble his army and two days of
battle drove the Union army to its citadel on Cemetery Ridge and

284 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Round Top, where a break in the lines must mean rout and
demoralization. Lee determined to attempt the break. Long-
street, whose force occupied the centre from which the bolt was
to be launched, opposed the charge. Controversy has ever since
raged on the main point and on minor issues involved in it. Had
the charge not been made, critics would for ever have agreed that
it should have been made. As to its making, it seems that the
artillery preparation was ineffective, partly because ammunition
for Lee's guns was running low and partly because of atmospheric
conditions. Longstreet is charged with using fewer men than
Lee expected. Upon Lee, however, must fall the chief onus which
he gracefully accepted. He should not have given the supreme
chance of the war to an officer opposed to his policy ; and he
should have ordered, not advised, the composition of the advanc-
ing line. That line reached and poured over the Union front.
It fought, staggered, and returned.

The day following, July 4, the two armies bound up their
wounds and rested, watching each other. Lee had shot his full
bolt, every Confederate had taken foot, but what of Meade ?
He had thirty thousand troops unused or used but little, his en-
emy was more tired than he ; its artillery ammunition, though Lee
did not know it, was almost exhausted. Victory must catch and
destroy the sword of the Confederacy ; defeat would not have
endangered the North. In the night Lee with his rich train
started, veiled by a ridge, for the Potomac. Meade followed and
reached him before he crossed, and for some days the armies faced
each other. Lincoln fumed, but no order for attack was made,
and Lee once more retired to Virginia, thwarted but intact.

The victory made Meade impregnable, but the administration
did not regard him as the man to win the war. He remained in
command of the Army of the Potomac, but an undistinguished
man from the West arrived at Willard's Hotel, in shabby uniform
with four stars sewed to his collar, and was entrusted with the
whole field of war. Grant kept Meade at his post but he accom-
panied the army and gave it the tasks. When spring came, Grant
ordered the forward movement of the whole line with the double
object of thinning the Confederate line by employing it at every

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 285

point and of weakening it by continued hammering. In the East,
Butler was sent, escorted by the fleet, up the James to City Point
to threaten Richmond while Meade, with Grant accompanying
him, made the usual attack on Lee. The latter movement began
on May i, 1864, to the north and west of Hooker's advance. Lee,
as ever relying on offence to ward off his opponent, assaulted in
the Wilderness, and battle raged for three days. Lee held his
ground, the losses were much as they had been at Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville. The Union men expected the usual recoil
and respite. Instead, they were ordered southward by the left
flank, beyond Lee's position. Fatigued and sick of battle as they
were, they cheered this new strategy, and from that time their
confidence in Grant did not falter.

The campaign became a wrestling match. Lee met Grant at
Spotsylvania on May 10 and 12. Once more both armies held
and drew apart, once more Grant moved southward by the left
flank. A similar encounter occurred May 2 1 to 3 1 on the North
Anne ; and on June i Grant found himself at Cold Harbor, a
post in the central defence of Richmond. Once more he pre-
pared attack. His men believed the attempt hopeless and their
lives forfeit ; many made their wills. They were right. The
Union losses were among the heaviest of the war, those of the
Confederates slight. It was a disproportion too heavy even for
a policy of attrition — a mistake. To this point Lee must be held
to have had the better of the encounter. Butler had been immo-
bilized by a small force across the bottle-neck of Bermuda Hun-
dred, as Grant, to his later discomfort, had remarked. Richmond
held. Grant, however, still moved by the left flank. Unexpect-
edly he crossed the James below Richmond, incorporated Butler,
and all but broke Lee's vital line to Wilmington at Petersburg.
He did not quite succeed, and the bulk of the two armies faced
each other anew behind growing entrenchments between the
James and Petersburg and then southward along the railroad.
After an attack June 15 to June 18, Grant prepared a mine which
exploded on July 30, but which failed to open a way.

Lee, held by continued hammering, could not take his spring
jaunt northward but sent Early in hopes of diverting Grant and

288 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the little church of Shiloh, and but twenty miles from Corinth,
Mississippi, through which passed the Charleston and Memphis
railroad, with connections to Vicksburg and Mobile. The sti-
letto had pierced to a main artery.

Behind the screen of woods at Corinth, Johnston sought to rally
for a counter-blow. Abandoning the conception of a fortified
frontier, he sought to defend by concentrated effort. Beaure-
gard was sent to advise with him, and forty thousand troops were
collected. Grant had about as many, and Buell with twenty
thousand more was on his way to join him. The clock was set
for Johnston if he were to deflect the final threat. He determined
on attack and, in spite of difficulties with raw troops and mis-
understandings, achieved on April 6 a surprise. In line, it is sup-
posed in contradiction to his own desire for columns, he drove
the Union army almost into the river — almost, but not quite, for
Grant maintained his final stand until Buell reached him. Next
day they counterattacked, and in that night Beauregard withdrewr
to Corinth.

It was the bloodiest battle yet fought, and the heart of the West
poured out. Governor Harvey of Wisconsin, heading a relief
expedition, in the darkness stepped between his steamer and its
mooring-place into the river and was lost. Grant was blamed
for the surprise, and his fame was tarnished. Halleck came up to
assume command and with slow majesty moved on Corinth which
fell, without a battle, on May 30, 1862. The hosts dispersed.
Opinion in the Northwest demanded the opening of the Missis-
sippi, and Halleck moved the larger part of his forces toward
Memphis. Buell was dispatched to take Chattanooga. On the
Confederate side Beauregard was in ill health, and his place was
taken by Bragg, who left an army in Mississippi for the move-
ment under Van Dorn and Price, while he himself with thirty-five
thousand, his infantry by rail and his cavalry and artillery by
horse, went eastward to meet Buell with the hope of retaking
Nashville and so cutting federal communications, already im-
paired by active Confederate cavalry. The Union advance had
been too sudden and far-reaching to be maintained without a con-
test.

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 289

Corinth itself was too valuable a prize to abandon and, its gar-
rison being depleted, was attacked by Van Dorn on October 3
and 4. Rosecrans, however, routed Van Dorn's dramatic wedge-
shaped assault and gained new laurels. The main contest, how-
ever, shifted eastward and was waged with planless inconse-
quence. Buell, aiming at Chattanooga, moved very slowly up
the Tennessee through northern Alabama. Bragg, spurred by
Kirby Smith who possessed an army of about twenty-five thou-
sand in East Tennessee and urged by eager Kentuckians, aban-
doned his blow at Nashville and determined to strike north.
Smith emerged from his mountains and moved on Cincinnati ;
Bragg from the Chattanooga gateway started for Louisville, con-
fident that Buell must follow him. The Blue Grass saw again its
wandering sons, and the governor they had elected was inaugu-
rated at Frankfort. Their designs were suspected and their armies
were apprehended at Cincinnati and Louisville, which franticly
girded themselves for attack, throwing up works and gathering
thirty thousand raw troops. Fat cattle and horses renewed the
slender supplies of these swarms from the hungry mountains, and
wagons creaked with hog and hominy ; but less than a brigade of
recruits applied for rifles which Smith and Bragg had brought for
them.

Buell beat Bragg to Louisville and, collecting scattered com-
mands, moved out to meet him. Surprised though he was, Bragg
took the offensive and won a victory at Perryville on October 8.
He used, however, the respite it offered him to withdraw Smith's
army and his own, with their trains, behind their mountain bar-
rier, with Buell in slow, respectful pursuit. Both Bragg and
Buell were scorched by the press of their sections and were criti-
cized within the commands when the end of the campaign found
them where they were at its beginning. Buell was replaced by
Rosecrans, fresh from the defence of Corinth, and Joseph John-
ston was put in general charge of the Confederate West, but he
was not allowed to assume direct command of either the army in
Mississippi or in Tennessee, and Bragg still held direction of his
troops, though without the confidence of his corps commanders.
Bragg, perhaps to retrieve his reputation, but more probably be-

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

cause he believed that Chattanooga could best be defended from
a position west of the mountains, once more moved out before the
year ended and established himself at Murfreesboro with the
Stone river in his front. Rosecrans, appointed to do something
where Buell was supposed to be lethargic, advanced against him.
On December 31, 1862, and January i, 1863, they fought —
Bragg with about thirty-five thousand, Rosecrans with forty-two
— one of the fiercest battles of the war with losses proportionately
heavier than in any large encounter that had yet taken place. Of
the Union army, 225 in each thousand were hit, of the Confed-
erate, 266 in each thousand. Neither army broke, but Bragg
withdrew, and winter brought a needed rest. The end of 1862
confirmed the Union triumph of the spring ; rich territory had
been taken, and the northern line of Confederate rail communica-
tions had been definitely broken.

Meantime the struggle for the Mississippi was developing, fol-
lowed by a popular interest rivalling that directed at Virginia,
and was crowded with dramatic incident. The arms of sea and
land often mingled in a whole that was barely one or the other.
Torpedoes and cavalry, gunboats, skiffs in plenty, canal diggers,
sappers and miners, lumberjacks, and railroad engineers played
their part ; the river, with its swift currents, its bends, its swamps
and bluffs, its tributaries, and its snags gave unity. One wonders
if Mark Twain, away in Nevada, would not have been drawn by
Lincoln, his hero, into a different life had he not made that false
start by first taking the side on which he did not belong.

Grant, on November 7, 1861, made the first move to Belmont,
but it ended disastrously. His next was indirect but more effec-
tive. The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson caused the evac-
uation of Columbus, the Gibraltar of the West, without the
necessity for a shot. He had struck the proper mode of attack
and, with the capture of Corinth and its railroad connections,
Memphis and everything above had to be abandoned •, with a de-
termined drive from Corinth south he would probably have met
Farragut who, on April 25, 1862, awed New Orleans, and have
had the run of die river north to Vicksburg. This, however,
was too slow and too paltering for insistent public opinion. Is-

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 291

land No. 10 in a sharp bend in the Mississippi river had been forti-
fied as a new gate and early in April was attacked by Foote with
his fleet and by Pope wkh troops in transports. It fell on April 8,
and Pope took seven thousand prisoners and made a reputation
which soon caused him to be called east, where he lost his reputa-
tion. On June 6 Charles H. Davis, having succeeded Foote as
flag-officer of the Mississippi flotilla, encountered the Confederate
river fleet before breakfast, and in one hour and a half destroyed
it in a spectacular manner, only one Confederate ship escaping.
The river was now open north to Vicksburg, but Port Hudson,
which had been successfully fortified by the Confederates, limited
the activities of Farragut and Banks. Those fortresses, almost
one hundred and twenty miles apart on a straight line, protected
the river between them and the mouths of the Red and Arkansas
rivers and bits of railroads that penetrated a few miles westward,
thus preventing the Confederacy from breaking at this dangerous
crack.

On March 8, 1863, Farragut and Banks attempted to capture
Port Hudson, but were forced to retreat. On May 27 they tried
again and were defeated with serious loss. They then settled
down to a siege, during which the honors seem to have been with
the garrison. Similar attempts fell equally harmless against Vicks-
burg, stately on her high bluffs, at the inner end of a long bend,
each lane of which was raked by her guns. To the north her
flanks were protected by the swampy mazes of the Yazoo, flanked
far up by Haines' Bluff, the clayey slope of which was difficult
enough to climb undefended. Sherman and McClernand and,
finally, Grant beat against this soft but prickly front in vain.
The strongest inland navy of all time, in mere numbers, and per-
haps as effective as Dupont's fleet at Charleston, could not get
near enough to do its work. Through it ran the Confederate
ram, the Arkansas, and lay defiant at the Vicksburg docks, a mag-
net for daring but futile enterprises.

To the south and west of Vicksburg the country was dry and
highly cultivated. To reach this was Grant's aim, and he exper-
imented with a canal through the far end of the low neck oppo-
site the city. Finally he marched his troops across, and in April

2p2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

two successive fleers of gunboats and transports ran the gauntlet
of the batteries through a hurricane of shot and shell. The Union
forces could not return against these guns plus the swift current,
but they could operate between the south side of the land and
whatever southern point Grant should select. Sherman advised
Grant to establish such a base before venturing forth. This was
not Grant's intention. He found himself with thirty-three thou-
sand men behind positions in which were about sixty thousand.
He aimed to defeat Johnston and Pemberton separately before
they could concentrate on his army, meanwhile living off the
country, and it was perhaps here that Sherman acquired the con-
fidence for his own breaking away from his supply base the next
year. Wherever they passed the night Grant's men set the plan-
tation mills grinding, subsisting while they mixed their coffee and
sugar. Grant was not eager for destruction, but took what he
needed and burned factories which supplied goods to the Con-
federate armies.

Meanwhile he struck first eastward, defeated Joseph Johnston
and captured Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. Abandoning it,
he turned west and on May 1 6 defeated Pemberton in the bloody
battle at Champion Hill. Always he continued to have the su-
perior force. Driving Pemberton into his defences at Vicks-
burg, he twice assaulted them and failed with heavy losses. On
the nineteenth he began a long siege. He established communi-
cation with the Union army north of the Yazoo, fortified his lines
to the rear against possible relief from Johnston's growing army
and, with the aid of the fleet, for forty-seven days directed all the
engines of warfare, with shell and mine and sealed gateway,
against the doomed city. On July 4, while Lee was planning his
withdrawal from Gettysburg, Grant accepted surrender and pa-
roled the garrison. Port Hudson could not stand alone and capit-
ulated on July 9.

The Mississippi was free to the sea, the Confederacy was riven
in two. Such statements must not, of course, be taken as abso-
lute. Danger still hung over Unionists who used the river and,
with over three thousand miles of inland waterways to patrol, no
complete blockade could be established. Mail, troops, and sup-

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 293

plies still stole by night from one bank to the other, piloted by
those familiar with the river, but not in such bulk as to determine
major operations. This clearance of the great river may be
taken as the second real step in conquest. Corinth halved the
east-west railroad system of the Confederacy, while the fall of
Vicksburg cut off a division of it. A third step was already be-
ing taken. Halleck, after Corinth, had been right in striking for
Chattanooga. It was the key to the shortest line from the south-
west to Richmond, with Atlanta to the south in Georgia and with
Lynchburg opening Virginia. When Rosecrans supplanted Buell,
Chattanooga was still the objective, and with the opening of the
season in 1 863 he began his movement, using his superior numbers
to flank Bragg by pushing his right wing far to the south. Push-
ing eastward of the Tennessee where it began its turn to the
north, he worked himself between Bragg and the Georgia line.
Bragg vainly sought to distract Rosecrans by a raid northward,
which Morgan made across the Ohio river, alarming and rousing
southern Indiana and Ohio and ending in prison. Whether by
Rosecrans' skill or Bragg's lack of it, the former succeeded in
forcing the latter out, and on September 9 achieved his goal with
almost no bloodshed. Burnside, meanwhile entering the north-
ern end of the Valley, cut off the garrison at Cumberland Gap
and occupied Knoxville. This was a loss the Confederacy could
ill brook, and now occurred the one striking instance of correla-
tion between the eastern and western fronts. Meade seemed con-
tentedly resting from the victory of Gettysburg, and Lee dared
to send westward Longstreet, with a portion of his corps, to
Bragg's command. With sixty-six thousand men Bragg turned
unexpectedly on Rosecrans with fifty-three thousand. For two
days, September 19 and 20, a battle of fierce intensity was waged,
and the Union army was driven from the field of Chickamauga,
except for the corps of Thomas, the "Rock" which finally had to
be called in. Rosecrans took refuge in Chattanooga itself, and
Bragg followed. That city was not easy to take, nor was it con-
venient to hold. To the west a solid ridge, rugged going for
hardy footmen, ran to within a few feet of the river brink. To
the south were other ridges from which Confederate artillery

294 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

commanded the roads. To the west were mountains and hos-
tile territory. Northward ran the broad valley which was
blocked by Longstreet. The very size of the Union army might
be its destruction, for men must be fed. Bragg complacently sat
on his hills and awaited the process of starvation. So confident
was he that he dispatched Longstreet up the valley to deal with
Burnside at Knoxville which at the northern end blocked the road
to Virginia as did Chattanooga to the south ; and perhaps Long-
street went the more eagerly, as it brought him nearer the en-
trance to Virginia in case Lee needed him.

Aieade, however, did not take the occasion to march south but
detached Hooker with his corps and other troops to equalize the
balance in the West. Grant meantime arrived to deal with the
Rosecrans dilemma. The Northern army was on half rations,
but Bragg was unwary in supposing that Northern ingenuity
could not deal with the supply question before winter came to
complete the blockade. Grant created a "bread line" across a
narrow neck beyond reach of the Confederate batteries. He
visited Chattanooga, then Hooker to the west ; he replaced Rose-
crans with Thomas, and made his plans. With all in readiness,
on November 24, Hooker attacked Bragg's weak left flank, con-
fident in its position on Lookout Mountain, and won the small
but brilliant Battle of the Clouds. The next day Thomas at-
tacked Bragg's centre in the valley, while Sherman attacked the
key to the position — their right flank on Missionary Ridge. In
a battle of small losses the Confederates, now inferior in numbers
owing to Longstreet's absence, gave up the field, and Chattanooga
was safe. Reinforcements sent north saved Burnside at Knox-
ville, and Longstreet retired toward Virginia. The third major
objective had been achieved ; the Confederate transportation sys-
tem was still further demoralized, and the loyal inhabitants of
East Tennessee were freed from hostile control. In taking each
of these three steps Grant had played the leading part. He was
now summoned to Washington to direct the field. His place in
the West was given to his trusted Sherman, with Thomas in com-
mand of the Army of the Cumberland which he had saved.

From Chattanooga south the Western and Atlantic railroad

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 295

ran twisting round ridge ends, nosing its way to Atlanta. This, it
was clear, was the next point of attack, for Atlanta was another
junction point, the main manufacturing centre for war supplies
outside of Richmond, and it lay fronting the rich empire of the
Georgia piedmont. Neither government was unaware of the
vital nature of this struggle. Grant ordered Sherman forward
and bent every energy to give him all the power at his command,
an army, all told, of a hundred and ten thousand. Davis finally
overcame his dislike of Joseph Johnston, put him in Bragg's place,
and gradually raised his army to seventy thousand. It was Grant's
idea to aid this operation by a combined land and water attack on
Mobile. It was necessary, however, to humor Banks who felt
the temptation of the Mississippi's western tributaries. Arkansas
had mostly fallen into Union hands and was with scarcely a sem-
blance of state government, and now the Red river lured him to
Shreveport and beyond to Texas. Farragut, released from the
Mississippi, was to attempt Mobile alone. He succeeded in the
long battle of Mobile Bay, August 5 to 23. Banks, with forty
thousand men and a gun-boat fleet, went boldly up the Red river ;
but before he reached Shreveport he was met and checked by
Dick Taylor. The river fell, and not only were supplies en-
dangered, but the squadron was caught above shoals and rapids.
Repulse was certain, but Banks was saved from draining the full
cup of ignominy by a regiment from the woods of Wisconsin.
Familiar with rivers and their ways, they dammed the Red river
and brought out the fleet, swept by the rush of released waters
down to calmer, deeper stretches.

The main interest and the crucial contest was the duel between
Sherman and Johnston, both now experienced by victory and de-
feat, and their veteran armies in the height of their powers. All
rose to their tasks. Johnston took position after position, not
with the idea of finality, but to inflict greater losses than he sus-
tained. Sherman took every advantage of topography to flank
Johnston out of them without too great a sacrifice. During May
1 864 there were encounters at Buzzard's Roost, Snake Creek Gap,
and New Hope Church, with Sherman suffering about twelve
thousand loss to Johnston's ten thousand. At Kenesaw Moun-

296 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tain, June 27, Johnston, with a loss of about four hundred, took a
toll of two thousand. Soon they reached Atlanta, and Johnston
prepared to hold by the usual Confederate method of attack*
The order was given and the men were ready when a dispatch
from Davis removed Johnston and put Hood in his stead.

For Davis' action there is little excuse. At the close of 1864
he was beginning that experimentation by which Lincoln had
earlier weeded his generals ; if by this time Davis did not know
his men he should have done so. To suppose, however, that the
fate of Atlanta was thereby changed is to take blindness rather
than even conjecture as a guide. Already the battle had been
fought and lost, not on the successive fields on which the armies
had faced one another, but behind Sherman's line. Every re-
source of daring and border ingenuity had been exhausted to de-
stroy the single line of track upon which Sherman depended, not
for ammunition alone, but for sustenance in the barren area of
north Georgia. From Nashville to Chattanooga, two hundred
miles were defended by thousands of guards, who yet could not
prevent the raids of cavalry that still found horses upon which to
dash in, burn, and escape. From Chattanooga to Atlanta was
practically nothing but battle-field. Spies stole locomotives and
sped ainuck along the tracks, spreading alarm and damage ; tracks
were torn up and bridges burned. Union guards, however, drove
away the intruders, and then straightway came the railroad con-
struction gangs of Daniel C. McCallum. Prepared wooden tres-
tles were slipped into place on the masonry piers which had
resisted destruction. Ties were replaced, track laid, and train des-
patchers, untrammelled by red tape, sent trains through dangers
to the front. Never has the mechanical genius of the American
people been so concentrated upon one industry as it was upon
railroads between 1840 and 1870 ; organization and individuality
joined hands to put Sherman in fighting fettle three hundred
miles from his base. Hannibal, having crossed the Alps, needed
recruitment, but Sherman had never lost form. To the engineers
belongs the glory. That Johnston could have worsted Sherman's
superior force so placed before him, there is nothing in the rec-
ord of either general to indicate.

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 297

Hood at once began an offensive defense and from July 20 to
September ^ bloody battle succeeded battle. Hood's losses were
very much heavier than Sherman's, totalling about fifteen thou-
sand to five thousand, but he was able by abandoning the city to
extricate the army. With the loss of Atlanta the possibility of a
constructive military program by the Confederacy fell. Tech-
nically the war was lost. There remained the question as to
whether the South would recognize this result and fight to the
finish, or continue the resistance of an irreconcilable populace
wheii the war was at an end. On the side of the North the ques-
tion still remained whether the sacrifices necessary to complete
the conquest would be made. On March 16, 1864, Alexander
Stephens made a speech at Milledgeville, the capital of Georgia,
in which he pointed out that four years of war had not yet
brought the Northern armies into the heart of the South, that it
was only the outer shell of the Confederacy that they had broken.
Ominous as such an analogy was, it was true that the meat of the
nut yet remained practically intact. One could still post letters
which were reasonably certain of delivery in Texas. Laws of
the Confederacy were still of moment to a population of about
five millions, and even on the frontiers men anxious to escape con-
scription had to band themselves together, while political mal-
contents were still in prison. State laws and courts and taxes
still ran in about three quarters of Virginia, including the fertile
valley of the Roanoke, in most of North Carolina, South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama and Texas, and in substantial portions of Flor-
ida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. This territory, moreover, was
the richest in the South, and on the majority of plantations the
women, bred to chivalric endurance, to gaiety and reticence, gave
warm welcomes to heroes, turned their own clothes, experimented
in substitutes for coffee and other imported luxuries, still found
choice vintages in their cellars for high occasions, furnished still
groaning abundance of the substantial necessities of pork and
corn meal, and made furloughs festivals.

The reactions to this situation of Hood and Sherman deter-
mined the later phases of the war. Hood, despairing of meeting
Sherman in the open fields of the Piedmont after Johnston's un-

298 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

successful resistance in the mountains and his own failure with the
entrenchments of Atlanta as a refuge, withdrew from his enemy
and lunged northwestward through middle Tennessee in a last
effort to break communications. Hood has been severely con-
demned by military critics, but it was a desperate situation, and
at best it was a chance. On November 30, 1864, he fought a
hard battle at Franklin, and General Thomas, with a superior
army, withdrew to stand a siege at Nashville.

Sherman equally departed from the conventional methods of
warfare. Knowing the country before him to be filled with pro-
visions, which the lack of transportation prevented from being
sent to Lee's hungry7 veterans, he resolved to seek food where it
was. He would break his communications entirely and live on
the country, seeking the sea at Savannah. Meanwhile he would
convince the ruling element in the Confederacy of the futility of
resistance and, by making wrar horrible to all, would stimulate the
desire for peace. On November 1 5 he burned Atlanta and with
sixty thousand men, marching on a broad front, swept like a for-
est fire through the heart of the South. Lost to the outside world,
his army ''Marching through Georgia" met little opposition,
found food in abundance, and left a trail of smoking court-houses
and homes, a country bereft of fences and of live stock, and a
population more bitterly intent on resistance than when his raid
began. Had the South possessed the resources for recuperation,
the recoil would have annihilated his forces, but the South was
spent. All about the central core of the Piedmont morale was
exhausted and there was impotence. From Macon he dispatched
Wilson with his cavalry on a more rapid movement through cen-
tral Alabama, destroying factories, bridges, and war material in
Montgomery, Selma, Tuscaloosa, and finally back to Tennessee.
On December 10 Sherman reached Savannah, where Hardee had
rallied fifteen thousand to its defence. For eleven days the city
held, but on the 2ist Hardee withdrew and Sherman's junction
with the fleet was accomplished. On December 1 5 and 1 6 Hood's
army before Nashville was dispersed ; some fragments were re-
assembled far from that point and were consigned to Beauregard.

When 1865 began, the Confederate Congress was considering

THE CRASH OF BATTLE 299

the use of negro soldiers ; Davis \vas considering giving the gen-
eral military command to Lee ; an inner circle was hoping for the
success of the Kenner mission to Europe. Grant was making per-
fect plans to envelop Lee, and Sherman was planning to push his
lesson home. The success enabled Sherman to move first ; and,
crossing the Savannah, he moved through South Carolina more
like an angry war god than he had been in Georgia. In the whole
North, South Carolina was held chiefly responsible for the war,
and a desire to inflict punishment added a zest to destruction.
Officers combined with men and sent home as souvenirs rich heir-
looms, some of which were returned in after years. There is
dispute as to the responsibility for the destruction of the capital,
Columbia, but not in the valley of the Ashley, where every man-
sion was ruined except Drayton Hall, saved by a clever negro boy
who told the raiding party that the mistress was ill with smallpox.
Charleston fell before this attack from the rear, A swath many
miles wide, zigzagging through the state, was laid waste; and
Sherman turned into North Carolina, where he found before
him a small army under Joseph Johnston.

Grant, starting earlier than was usual, began to withdraw his
left flank beyond the reach of Lee's shrunken army and prepared
to meet him ; but this flank had lost its value with the fall of Wil-
mington. On Sunday, April 2, Lee notified Davis that he must
prepare to evacuate Richmond and that the army would seek
quarters with Johnston. The armies moved southwest, the vastly
superior Northern forces, now exultant and with fresh horses,
gradually surrounding the Southern army. At Appomattox Court
House on April 9 the circle was completed. Lee surrendered,
advising his men to become loyal citizens of the now triumphant
Union, and discontinued all attempts to sustain a guerrilla resist-
ance. Grant allowed them to disperse for the spring harvest,
permitting them to take with them their own horses. On April
1 8 Johnston surrendered to Sherman ; on May 8 Dick Taylor in
Alabama surrendered to General E. R. S. Canby ; on May 10
Davis was captured in Georgia. The war was over.

In reviewing the military resistance of the South, it would seem
that Gettysburg represented its last chance of winning a peace

3OO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

by arms. It then became the function of its armies to maintain
their front until the Northern people had a chance to declare
themselves in the November election of 1864. The fall of At-
lanta in September represented a partial failure in this objective,
though Lee's firm front at Petersburg disguised the event. After
that election in the North there remained for the South no signal
military purpose. It is not easy to estimate the efficiency of the
final Northern drive. It is not probable that had Hooker moved
on Richmond instead of retreating, submission would have fol-
lowed, but if Aleade had routed Lee at Gettysburg the war might
well have ended a year earlier. From the time Grant took com-
mand, hostilities were pushed to the limit of capacity. His judg-
ment was undoubtedly correct in estimating that the South would
yield only with the exhaustion of her resources.

CHAPTER XI

EMANCIPATION

As THE military struggle was divided into an eastern and a west-
ern scene, largely unrelated in action but interdependent, so the
three great fields of war activities — foreign relations, battles, and
politics — seem singularly separate in spice of their vital relation-
ship one to another. The Confederacy failed in diplomacy but
kept a door sufficiently open to foreign trade to provide for the
needs of the battle-field. It failed to win victory in the field but
held its face to the North long enough to allow that section two
opportunities for a change of attitude. While generals and min-
isters were marshalling and employing the resources of the two
sections, the statesmen and politicians of the North were exerting
the utmost of their powers to determine the mind of the North.

This was indeed the pivot of action. The North was certain
to conquer an isolated South if the North maintained its determi-
nation for a long enough time. Would it do so ? The decision
was almost unanimous in April 1861, that the Union wras worth a
three months' war. Was it worth the cost of two years of mount-
ing effort ? Was it worth four ? Would more time be neces-
sary ? At any moment it could have peace by recognizing sep-
aration. It was but a minority who would be affected in their
pockets by the loss, and it "would take many years of peace to
compensate for what the war took from those pockets. Daily
the horror of the war was brought home to families and commu-
nities by the casualty lists, and it rested on those communities to
stay the death of those loved young lads who look at us today so
stiffly from their tintypes and daguerreotypes, immortal youths
with just enough of maturity to give their lives to a holy cause.
Issues never remain static, and what one starts to fight for under-
goes continual changes which shift and divide allegiance. Would
the hot fire of enthusiasm of April 15, 1861, weld old divisions
into stable unity, or would they reappear, or would blows shatter
the vessel of unity into new fragments ?

301

302 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The attitude of the Southern leaders toward this situation was
surprisingly passive. They knew the importance of Northern
politics but made little attempt to play them. Not until the elec-
tion of 1864 did Jefferson Davis appear as a figure, and then his
gesture was ill conceived. Stunned by the unexpected unity
which started a war of invasion where they had hoped for the
neutralization of Northern strength by internal strife, Southern
politicians abandoned all effort to deal with a psychology which
they could not understand, if indeed the actual leaders of the
South had not abandoned it when they nominated Breckinridge
in 1860. They played their own game and guessed, generally
incorrectly, how the cards of their opponents would fall. In this
respect the contrast between Davis and Lincoln is most marked,
for the latter never lost sight of Southern opinion ; and while he
was very far from a complete understanding of the Southern
point of view, he related it to his actions and aimed with his en-
during patience and shrewrdness to undermine the morale of the
Confederacy, both as a war measure and in preparation for the
restored Union which he sought.

It might seem that the Confederacy was safe in abandoning the
field of Northern politics, since the South retained in the old
Union the governments and representatives of four slave states —
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. It must be re-
membered, however, that the Confederacy and the South were
two separate things, one an organization, the other an interest.
Sympathetic as were such men as Senators Bayard of Delaware
and Powell of Kentucky with their Southern brethren, their main
effort was to preserve a Union to which the seceded states might
return rather than to secure their independence. While, there-
fore, they gave diversity and complications to the Northern stage,
they were far from being attorneys for the Confederate cause.
Politics in the North were chiefly internal, though moved by im-
pacts from the outside.

The central figure in this contest, from its beginning until his
death, was Abraham Lincoln. The preservation of the Union
under the Constitution was his task by the implications of his
office ; it was the work for which his training had particularly

EMANCIPATION 303

fitted him. To it he gave with that power of concentration,
which was among the most marked of his characteristics, all the
powers and all the time which the exigency of not thoroughly re-
sponsible subordinates in departments allowed him. His aim was
taken before his inauguration and it never wavered. If there
were a shade of difference between his attachment to the two
words — Union and Constitution — and their ideals, the Constitu-
tion was the dearer, but he saw them indissolubly linked. He
sought constantly to keep this aim single — an ideal, and not a
program. When he failed, he kept it as free as he could from the
entanglements with which others sought to surround it. His
method was to emphasize the existence of a national emergency
during which there should be a truce to the ordinary contentions
of a peaceful people. When he failed, he still sought to preserve
such unity as circumstances rendered possible. These simple
ideas, patiently and relentlessly pursued, give coherence to four
years, the varied acts of which would take on the insouciance of a
revue were it not for Lincoln and for the mass of the people whom
he embodied. Lincoln, however, was not merely simple, and he
sought his aim and adopted his methods with the practical art of
a master whose technique has become instinctive and who is free
of his craft. Like all great artists he might boggle for months
over the tricky line while whole figures grew with seeming care-
lessness from his ready brush. He was working in fresco and no
strokes could be recalled but, like Michael Angelo, he painted his
own cracks. The people, the architects, changed his task while
he painted, but he preserved the Union and was re-elected by a
Union party.

His first political act was to call Congress to meet in special
session on July 4. This excited little comment amid the rush of
events, but it is extraordinary. It left this believer in popular
government, this constitutionalist, in full charge of the conduct
of the war for three months, at a time when it was expected that
the war would last no longer. It was a gigantic exaltation of the
executive power ; it was an amazing assumption of responsibility.
Two reasons may be advanced for it from positive evidence and
from their consonance with subsequent policy. Seward and

304 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Henry Adams thought it due to the fact that Congress was too
unwieldy, a body with many minds. Certainly Lincoln's whole
administration seems from this initial step to have been based on
the conception that in a democracy it is the business of the ex-
ecutive to handle an emergency. At all points where there was
doubt as to the allocation of authority to Congress or the presi-
dent, he resolved it in favor of the latter. He would not suspend
the Constitution, but he certainly showed by his practice that he
leaned to the theory of dictatorship when the Republic was in
danger. As no one now supposes that he hoped to carry over
such power into time of peace, so at the time he was not worried
by fear of dangerous precedents, for he was a confident democrat,
sure that the people would resume their sway when the storm had
passed. Yet one suspects that even in peace he would have exer-
cised his power within the full limits of his office.

A second reason was that Congress was not yet fully elected ;
six states had yet to choose their representatives. On this point
he need have had no scruple in law, for obviously they were at
fault if their members were not ready. Nor need he have feared
his majority, for all but one of these states were of the border —
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and
Carlif ornia — with hardly a chance for a Republican among the
forty-seven. Perhaps this situation may have been of itself a
motive, and probably Lincoln was fearful of dealing too exclu-
sively with his own party. More important, certainly, was his
wish to avoid the shadow of an offence against those states, some
of them still trembling in the balance. All summer the problem
of their adherence was his major consideration, a problem of poli-
tics on the grand scale which overshadowed those of parties and
factions. The assembling of a congress without their participa-
tion might well have been the last straw to break the camel's back,
already straining under action taken by the preceding Congress
after the withdrawal of the seceders, the presence of the Morrill
tariff, and the admission of Kansas as a new free state.

The delay was appreciated, for Kentucky and Maryland
moved back their August election dates to allow their members to
be present. In the new House, when it met, were 176 members

EMANCIPATION 305

in place of a normal 237, in the Senate were 47 in place of a
normal 68. Tennessee had one senator, Andrew Johnson, and
one representative, Horace Maynard. Virginia sent five repre-
sentatives. Immediately the question of quorum arose. The
house voted that it consist of a majority of those representatives
actually chosen. The Senate was more punctilious and was in a
more difficult position. Two thirds of its numbers were hold-
overs, and those from seceded states must be counted as members
unless one acknowledged that secession had removed them. To
make such acknowledgment would be to accept the constitution-
ality of secession. On the matter of a quorum it was decided to
play absolutely safe by making it a majority of the total number
of legal seats, 68, in spite of the inconveniences this entailed.
Senators who had affiliated themselves with the Confederacy,
however, were expelled, and their seats thereafter were regarded
as vacant, though still counting in quorum. Two senators chosen
by the loyal fragment of the Virginia legislature to take the place
of those expelled were admitted.

Congress, thus organized, contained a complete majority of
Republicans in both houses, but party lines were not tightly
drawn. There was an oratorical display between John G Breck-
inridge, just elected to Crittenden's place from Kentucky and
soon to leave to become a major-general in the Confederate army,
and Edward D. Baker, the friend of Lincoln, speaking in his new
uniform as major-general of Union volunteers and soon to lose
his life at Ball's Bluff. In general, the proper supply bills were
passed ; there were but four irreconcilables, including Breckin-
ridge and Clement L. Vallandigham from that district in Ohio
which had been settled by holders of Virginia military land war-
rants. Aside from supply the most important measures were the
appointment of a Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War,
headed by Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, which was to become the
mouthpiece of radical Northern opinion ; and an act confiscating
all property used in aid of insurrection, including slaves employed
in any kind of military labor. What would be the status of the
slaves when so confiscated was left to the imagination. The most
important political gesture, however, was a resolution introduced

306 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

by J. J. Crittenden who, having lost his seat in the Senates had
been elected by his Blue Grass district to the House. This stated
that the war was being fought uto defend and maintain the su-
premacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union with all
the dignity, equality and rights of the several States unimpaired ;
and that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought
to cease." It was paraphrased as declaring that the war was to
preserve the Union as it was. It passed the House with but four
dissenting vores and with but five dissenting votes in the Senate.
On the whole, there seemed to be an acceptance of Lincoln's
attitude of one supreme emergency calling for the submergence
of ordinary issues.

Lincoln continued to pursue this policy. In remanning the
civil senice he had followed custom and expectation by giving
the spoils to the Republicans and had practised with the skill of a
master the mystery of division. No item was too minute for his
consideration in balancing the claims of localities and of factions,
of former Whigs and Democrats, of reformers, congressmen, and
senators. The care which had been obvious in the formation of
the cabinet extended to the smallest post within his gift, and while
his selections did not escape criticism they preserved the unity of
the party. When, however, it came to be a matter of fighting
a wrar his program changed. Strength must be united and honors
shared. Four presidents had been chosen on their war records,
and Lincoln recognized that both parties must be given a fair field.
He gave full opportunity to Democrats such as Butler, Logan
from "Egypt" in Illinois, and McClernand. In fact, circum-
stances aided that party when McClellan commanded the East
and Halleck the West. When Fremont, the Republican, was re-
moved and Stanton was made secretary of war, Republican poli-
ticians feared a repetition of the Mexican War situation when a
Democratic president saw the military honors divided between
the two Whigs, Scott and Taylor.

In politics Lincoln favored the coalition of Republicans and
Democrats into a Union party committed to the support of the
war and to nothing else. This plan was partly carried out. In
New York Daniel S. Dickinson, a Breckinridge Democrat, was

EMANCIPATION 3 OJ

elected governor on a Union ticket, and in Ohio David Tod, a
supporter of Douglas, was elected governor. In the meantime,
Lincoln's handling of the administration gave evidence of good
faith in preserving the Union as it was. He disallowed the eman-
cipation proclamations of Fremont in Missouri in 1 86 1, and Hun-
ter's in South Carolina in 1862, and he ordered the enforcement
of the fugitive slave law which, under McClellan's eye, was vig-
orously carried out in Maryland.

The first effective assault upon this concept of the war came
when Congress met for its regular session in December 1861.
During that session uniformity broke up into a diverse and com-
plicated pattern of factions. In the quick movement of war they
and their membership shifted month by month, and all were swept
onward by rapid currents into new positions and changed rela-
tionships ; yet there was more stability to the problem than was
apparent to contemporaries. First was the Republican party,
which kept its entity much better than most ne\v parties suddenly
victorious ; it developed its machinery and became an army or-
ganized and dominant. From 1861 to 1866, however, it was as a
disguise called the Union party. This unionism was actual to the
extent that numbers of Democrats accepted the call of Lincoln to
co-operation, though the elections showed that co-operation was
practised more by leaders than by voters. They were not asked
to surrender their basic views on ordinary public questions, but
some, such as Stanton, become identified with their new allies.
Others, as Andrew Johnson, found it an emergency relationship.
Such men were sometimes referred to as "War Democrats," al-
though that term was more generally, and properly, applied to
those who supported the war but remained in their own party.
Numbers of the Constitutional Unionists of 1860 became simple
Unionists and then scattered in various ways after the war was
over.

The Republican party was divided into factions. Such divi-
sion is, of course, true of all parties and was not new among the
Republicans, but from December 1861 to the end of the Recon-
struction period the usual multiplicity of factions resolved itself
into two absorbing groups whose conflicts really gave the major

308 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

interest to politics. These \vere known for many years as Radi-
cal and Conservative. Under Grant their composition and no-
menclature changed to Half -Breed and Stalwart. The history of
their relationships presents superficial difficulties, although it actu-
ally conforms with understandable human qualities. One might
expect the Union-Republican party, with its additions of Demo-
crats and Constitutional Unionists, would be more conservative
than the Republican party of 1860. The reverse was actually
the case. It has already been pointed out that in 1860 probably
sixty per cent, of the Republicans were radical, but their success
in the campaign had depended upon the moderates, with the con-
sequence that the party lowered its voice and insisted mainly upon
the necessity of defence against the rising power of slavery.
Once in the saddle, however, the radicals were unleashed and were
disposed to use their powers to the uttermost limits of safety.
The predictions of Toombs and Brown were thus justified, based
as they had been on experience ; for while in campaigns the ora-
tor}- is generally that of the minority nearest the doubtful voters,
the policy in victory will be determined by the median of the
party if its leaders have the courage and skill. Nor did all the
new recruits stand in the moderate wing. Men such as Butler
and Stanton were soon among the Radicals. Their sacrifices to
keep the South peaceably in the Union had failed, and with the
release of the tension they sprang far away from their positions
of 1860.

The Radicals were men of many minds, but the war gave them
a general cohesion. They were spurred to action by an unat-
tached body beyond even the left wing, voiced, if not led, by
Wendell Phillips who continued the stinging tactics of the Abo-
litionists. The true left wing of the party was led by Charles
Sumner, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign affairs and
invaluable because of his knowledge of international law and his
connections with liberals everywhere. Returned to active life
after his wounding by Brooks, heavy with the burden of an insane
wife, he gave himself to humanity, with eyes that ceased to see
individuals. His interest was in causes, and they were simple
because he saw no limitations. All his life he had seen slavery as

EMANCIPATION 309

the greatest flaw in the civilization of his day, now he saw it the
most immediate call for action ; and beyond slavery there was to
be equality for the negro. The war was his opportunity ; com-
promise, which he had always opposed, now became criminal.
His last congressional eff ort, made long after the war was over,
was against such discriminations as the exclusion of negro dead
from semi-public cemeteries. Sumner's weapon was oratory, for
which he was famed by nature, and which he practised with punc-
tilious art, rehearsing his speeches before a mirror. Endowed
with a quick mind and the strong attractions of a cultivated per-
sonality, he chose to live and act chiefly withdrawn from the
crowd. He had the ear of the people of the North, and many
Southerners gave him credit for that same sincere singleness of
purpose which they admitted in John Brown.

In Congress such champions of one idea were few. Occasion-
ally they were brought into isolation, as when in 1866 the admis-
sion of Colorado, which was sure to give two needed Republican
senators but which excluded negroes from the suffrage, was in
debate. Here principle and party stood opposed, and it required
great courage to remit obvious expediency. In such tests the ex-
tremists never reached more than six senators. This was, how-
ever, no genuine test of their real strength, for large numbers
shared their purpose, though willing to listen to the call of ex-
pediency in particular instances, and then no one knew the power
of the public behind them. Undoubtedly they commanded the
respect and sympathy of the majority of the party, though the
number who would go the full length they demanded was very
much less and certainly never constituted a majority of the North-
ern people.

The largest group of congressional Radicals was undoubtedly
the political. One cannot doubt that they were practically to a
man against slavery and the majority of them were in favor of the
political and legal equality of the negro. Their leading preoccu-
pation, however, was sectional and partizan. They had rescued
the nation from the control of the slavocracy, and never again
should it be re-established. The war emergency should be used
so as to prevent the old combination of Southern leaders whose

310 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

diabolic cleverness they feared with all that lack of understanding
which is so common a factor in the psychology of rival nations,
and the Democrats of the North, whom they regarded as mis-
guided masses led by willful deceivers seeking offices — not that
they themselves were contemptuous of the spoils of political war-
fare. They cherished the negro not only for himself, but as an
implement to check the Southern aristocrats at home. They were
concerned with the Southern loyalists who might vote Republi-
can. In most cases they could co-operate with the Conscience
Radicals, and they dare not anger them too far, but at times they
separated in their votes on issues. For years they were the most
powerful group in Congress and were adepts at controlling the
party organization.

Typical of them, though hardly leader, was Ben Wade of Ohio.
Entering the war with the reputation of having checked the
Southern bullies by his willingness to duel with rifles at thirty
paces, his new position as chairman of the Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War gave opportunity which he used to stimulate
the war spirit by exciting animosity. He was quick to scent a
scandal and often sought the spot of its occurrence. His investi-
gations were continuous and resulted in reports voluminous, but
not always revealing a critical evaluation of evidence. He found
the Radical Fremont blameless, the Democrat McClellan incom-
petent if not worse, and his account of Forrest's "Massacre" at
Fort Pillow resembles strongly the reports .endorsed by Lord
Bryce of German atrocities in Belgium. There is no doubt that
Forrest sought to terrorize Northern negro troops by granting no
quarter, but there was no butchery of women and children for
the good reason that they had been removed, while the cases of
inhuman treatment, which Wade circulated, certainly rested
upon inadequate testimony. He also sought constantly to rally
the poor of the North against the rich planters and, while doubt-
less sincere in his main purposes, his methods were distinctly those
of the demagogue.

In growing favor among the Radicals was the club-footed old
Thaddeus Stevens who began his public life in the 'thirties by
loving the oppressed and who had now turned to hating their op-

EMANCIPATION 3 1 1

pressors. His career gives evidence that he shared Sumner's mo-
tives. Less in the clouds, his sympathy for the negro was more
personal. He lived with a negro mistress, and that he did not
marry her was probably due rather to the twist given his mind by
his physical deformity than to a color bar ; had his fancy so turned
he would have taken a white mistress rather than a wife. He was
heart and soul with Wade, a party man fortifying his organization
to the limits of his powers. He was moved, in addition, by an-
other motive which had considerable prevalence but which no
one else expressed with his bluntness. He hated the Southern
planters and wished to punish them. There was no limit to the
depth of his animosity or to the action which he would take. He
would abolish their states, he would confiscate their property, he
would exterminate the rebel population and replace it with one
worthy to survive. Such sentiments animated his oratory early
and late and gave direction to his blows. It is futile to seek a sin-
gle basis for so profound a sentiment. Some of his property was
destroyed during Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania, but that did not
cause his hate. In part, it was a complex against injustice as he
saw it and in part a desire for power, for he possessed a genuine
prophetic power in foreseeing the rising, sweeping tide of Radi-
calism which daily brought adherents to his banner. It is not im-
possible that long brooding had given an insane intensity to his
fundamental purposes. His handwriting during this period of
his leadership, twisting this way and that without apparent habit
or control, is exactly that which one would predicate for a maniac.
Stevens' position was as a great "Commoner." Neither political
organizations nor formal oratory interested him. His power was
over men, exercised by a quick mind and a magnetic personality,
As chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the House, he
was able to focus the opinions of men. He drove rather than at-
tracted them. Few have had a keener wit, but satire was not its
character. His jokes were funny rather than germane, as when
emerging in the early morning from a Washington gambling-
house, where he had been successful, he met a negro preacher
seeking contributions for a new church and rolled a note off his
wad remarking : "God moves in a mysterious way his wonders

312 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

to perform." His force was more in his prophetic seriousness
which, as month succeeded month, with fulfillment assumed the
weight of an insight, perhaps diabolic, but seemingly super-
natural

The Radicals, however, would scarcely have grown in power,
as they did for a decade, had it not been for two more common-
place appeals. Sober, sensible men, opposed to producing a
crisis, realized more and more vividly that now the crisis was upon
them it was the part of common sense to wring from it all its im-
plications. The Union "as it was" had been disrupted by strife.
If it were to be restored with the seeds of strife still inherent, the
war would have been fought in vain. It is better business to push
through a disagreeable task to the limit while one is prepared for
it* Patching in 1787, 1820, 1850, 1854, and 1857 had failed;
now let us have action. To them were added as time went on
those who became involved in the economic legislation of the
war. Manufacturers, profiting by the protective tariff , and buy-
ers of government bonds felt more secure with those in power
who had created the new system than with those who had op-
posed it. In 1860 the Democratic and Constitutional Union
parties had represented the wealth of the nation. The majority
of those whose fortunes were founded in the melee of war prof-
its became Republicans, generally Radical, as that was the ele-
ment most committed to Republicanism. Thus the Radicals were
swayed by the oratory of idealism and confirmed by the dictates
of interest.

Conservative Republicans were rather the break in radicalism
than the possessors of a program of their own. In successive
years they often stood where the Radicals had stood the year be-
fore. Their characteristic was largely temperamental, a tendency
toward moderation ; their membership varied with circumstances.
Among the leaders was Fessenden of Maine, chairman of the Sen-
ate Committee on Finance, a lawyer, a financier, and a sincere,
precise, well-informed man. With him frequently was Lyman
Tnimbull of Illinois, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Commit-
tee, a Connecticut aristocrat somewhat uneasy among the lowly
whose cause he advocated all his life. To him party was nothing,

EMANCIPATION 3 I 3

and for fifty years he shifted from one new movement to another,
finally writing a platform for the Populists and advising William
Jennings Bryan. Such men, outweighed in the party, had power
as representatives of that middle element of the electorate which
must be won, and they were most needed as election approached.

Both factions wrere represented in the cabinet. Salmon P.
Chase was the self-conscious representative of sane radicalism.
A large and potent figure, he swelled with responsibility and sus-
piciously kept his watch in the administration. Diligent that the
public service be manned with sound men, his weapon was the
threat of resignation if his recommendations were not accepted
or his views approved. He believed that his loss would disrupt
the government, and yet he offered it four times. Hardly had
the administration taken form when Seward, the Radical candi-
date of 1860, came to be universally regarded as the head and
front of conservatism. This indicated no treason to his earlier
purposes but was an unconscious reaction to circumstances. It
was a symptom of his blatant optimism. So sure was he of the
triumph of the right that he believed violence unnecessary.
Probably when he proposed a foreign war to cement the Union
he planned, as had Polk in 1 846, not to fight it. He loved power
and peace and men ; and he had confidence, with some justifica-
tion, in his genius for accommodation. His high-flown oratory
astonished him as much as it did others and left him, if not re-
pentant, at least ingratiating. Subservient to Lincoln, he was sup-
posed to control Lincoln's mind ; and he tried to believe that he
did, though he knew he did not. Not from Olympus but from
the bleachers he watched the little boys at play, devised wise
rules for their games, and gossipped agreeably with those about
him. In his maturity he never lost interest in the game, but it
gave him calm in its uncertainties.

The association in the public mind between the Conservatives
and Lincoln was not chiefly a matter of the agreement of their
views, but rather the result of a system of organization which
brought the executive and legislature into inevitable conflict, re-
gardless of what they sought. Lincoln had started off his ad-
ministration with a wide exercise of executive power and author-

314 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ity. In American politics this has always aroused the esprit de
corps of the legislature. In December 1861, this had been en-
hanced by Lincoln's appointment of Democrats to high command,
his reversal of Fremont's emancipation proclamation, and the en-
forcement of the fugitive slave law. Everything that Lincoln
did to conciliate the border states seemed to be at the expense of
the wishes of the majority of the party that had elected him. Was
the Northern majority to continue that yielding to a threatening
Southern minority which the vote of 1860 was supposed to end ?
Under ordinary circumstances an administration has the advan-
tage of organization which renders a party majority ineffective.
Beginning with the December session, the Radicals in Congress
undertook a system which, not unique, enabled them to hold their
own and often win their way. This was the constant and effec-
tive use of the congressional caucus. Here all those who held
themselves to be members of the party and were so acknowledged,
whether of Senate or House, met for the formulation of policies.
From such meetings the members went into Congress prepared
in argument, with a party policy, and often with a cast-iron
agreement that on certain issues they would vote together. Over
the dissenter was the fear of an ostracism that was barbed with the
sting of disloyalty but still more the hypnotizing spell of Stevens.
Here he was at his strongest, radiating power. Boutwell of
Massachusetts once boasted that he sat next to Stevens and yet
dared vote against him. It was an experience that few shared
and none with nonchalance. Regardless of views a president had
to be either submissive to such a caucus or at odds with it ; to
achieve co-operation was a test of skill which few men could have
faced successfully.

With little difficulty the Democrats healed the breach of 1860,
but they were not without their problems. There was the per-
petual division between the financial Democrats of New York
City and the rural Democrats, who varied from near-subserviency
in New England to occasional rebellion in Ohio and the West.
Few of either faction were keen on slavery, but on the war in-
dividuals differed strongly, the great majority favoring war to
preserve the Union "as it was." There was, however, a vigorous

EMANCIPATION 3 I y

minority who were not passivists, but in this instance favored
peace at any price. Apart from this difference of opinion as to
aim was that of policy toward the party in control — a problem
always peculiarly difficult for the opposition in war time and
which in American history has been met in various ways. In the
War of 1 8 1 2 the Federalists resorted not only to opposition but to
obstruction. They laid themselves open to the charge of treason,
and their party died. In the Mexican War the Whigs attacked
the justice of the war and its conduct by the administration.
They co-operated, however, in the national emergency, voted
supplies, and won the next election. In the World War the Re-
publicans voted President Wilson all power, thus sloughed off all
responsibility, gave enthusiastic support to all war activities, and
not only won the next election, but determined the peace. In the
same struggle the English Conservatives accepted coalition, such
as Lincoln offered the Democrats with his emergency Union
party, and they, too, won post-war power.

The Democrats of 1861 lacked these last two examples, and
they also lacked leadership. The death of Douglas in his prime
was undoubtedly a national misfortune and a party calamity.
One certainly cannot say what his action would have been ; but
it is reasonable to surmise, that had he lived, there would not have
been twenty-four years of one-party rule. For a year the Demo-
crats were at sea. The leaders were querulous ; most individuals
participated in the war, though some denounced it. In March
1862, they pulled together into some cohesion. There were too
few in Congress to allow a powerful counter caucus, and pol-
icy was determined informally by conferences of party leaders.
August Belmont, as chairman of the National Committee, was a
power but not a director. Most skilful was Samuel J. Tilden, an
astute New York lawyer a little too dry for public presentation.
His figurehead was Horatio Seymour, a man of good public quali-
ties, but weak. In necessary consultation was the fiery Vallandig-
ham, the Stevens of his party, prophet of evil and leader to ex-
tremes. Together they rejected Lincoln's offer of co-operation ;
they proposed a convention of all the states to revise the Constitu-
tion, but to preserve it meanwhile as the guardian of an unchanged

316 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Union. The revision that they envisaged was, of course, one in
the direction of limiting national powers and in general protective
to the South.

They planned a constant attack upon the Republicans, for mis-
management of the war, for the president's excessive use of the
executive power, and for every attempt to change in any way
the character of the Union that they were assisting in preserving.
Without any official backing, and in some respects without com-
plete support, their program of March 1862 may yet be con-
sidered as a guide to their future action.

In wrar-time parlance the Democrats were generally known by
the term Copperheads, probably applied by their opponents and
signifying the venomous snake of that species. Many Demo-
crats, however, took it up and wore the Indian head filed out of a
copper cent as a party emblem. It would be convenient to apply
the term only to the extreme Vallandigham wing, but there seems
to be no justification for any limitation, and in fact it was used
somewhat as Red at a subsequent time and applied even to laggard
Republicans such as Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin.

One further group existed which is often referred to as Con-
servatives. To avoid confusion with that faction of the Repub-
licans it is easy to think of them by their habitat as border-state
men. Often driven into co-operation with the Democrats, they
constituted even when with them a separate element, for many
had been successively Whigs, Americans, and Constitutional
Unionists. Their views and interests were dictated by circum-
stance. A severed segment of the South, but mostly Union-
loving, they sought to preserve their own institutions and a haven
to which the South might yet return — the Constitution as it was.
Chief among them was Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, one of the
strongest men in the Senate and most generally respected regard-
less of party. With an artistic temperament suppressed by the
exigencies of American life, he was both sensitive and strong.
While he led but a handful of supporters, no measure was certain
of its final form until he had spoken.

The conflict of factions began with the opening of the second
session of Congress in December 1861, and the refusal of the ma-

EMANCIPATION 3 1 7

jority to reaffirm the Crittenden resolution. Plainly a majority
wished the Union other than as it had been. These wishes cen-
tred in slavery, but that institution could not be considered with-
out the negro. From that time he became a protagonist but still
more the chief pawn about which the contest centred. Scarcely
a measure came up in which he was not concerned, and those that
related to him directly were the ones about which passion raged.
The first act \vas passed in March 1862, prohibiting slavery in
every territory of the United States then held or thereafter to be
acquired. This was a simple execution of the Republican plat-
form, was in harmony with Lincoln's argument in his debates
with Douglas that the Dred Scott decision did not constitute law,
and was approved by him. On April 16, 1862, one old dream of
the Abolitionists was realized by the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia. There could be no sound constitutional
objection to this, although it was sophistically argued that the
states which had ceded the territory to the national government,
Virginia and Maryland, must consent. It was a dramatic gesture
emphasizing the change of control. Previously the government
had its seat in slave territory, now it was in free. This act con-
tained also a provision that Lincoln hoped embodied a principle
— the owners of slaves were to be compensated for their property
loss. According to the very poor constitutional law set forth in
the Republican platform of 1860, slavery had never existed in the
territories and so no obligation to compensate was there recog-
nized, but they admitted the principle of compensation where
slaves were held with full legal right.

Already on March 6 Lincoln had asked Congress to adopt a
joint resolution extending the application of this principle. All
slaves now held were in states. His suggestion was that Congress
should offer "to co-operate with any State which may adopt
gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to each state pecuniary aid,
to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the in-
conveniences, public and private, produced by such a change of
system." This offer was to be made to all the states, but Lincoln
pointed out that in practice it applied to those border states still
affiliated with the Union. He urged it as a war measure, for its

Jl8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

application would create a schism between the seceded states and
the still-loyal slave states, which would end hope in the first and
vacillation in the latter. At four hundred dollars a slave, he esti-
mated the total cost for the border states at $175,048,000, which
was less than the cost of eighty-seven days of war. To him it
was more than a war measure, for he frankly stated that he con-
sidered gradual emancipation better than immediate emancipa-
tion. Writers of the modern economic school have considered it
as actuated by a capitalistic reverence for property, forgetting
that the Republican party was only becoming capitalistic. How
any student of economics can fail to see in it an element of equity
is difficult to conceive, for it purposed such a reorganization of the
entire system of labor and credit as can but mean heavy loss to the
community involved ; and the change was to be made by unde-
sirous communities at the wish of their associates. Constitution-
ally the proposal was probably sound, but it was the first instance
of that plan of national subsidies to accepting states which has so
greatly extended national functions in the twentieth century, as
in the cases of highway expansion and the care of health. It was
certainly ominous to a strict constitutionalist, and it was none too
popular at the other extreme with the Republican Radicals, many
of whom thought of it as compounding a felony. Yet Congress
accepted it on April 2, 1862, and Lincoln's leadership remained
intact.

Lincoln immediately began to exert all his persuasive powers on
the border-state men in Congress to take advantage of this legis-
lation. By conference and by letter he pointed out that here was
an orderly and reasonable way of accomplishing that which, with-
out their co-operation, was bound to come in disorder and disas-
ter ; that every day increased the probability that the crisis would
sweep away this moderate offer, and should they refuse they
might lose both the recognition of their right to act and their
property. His arguments, however, were rejected ; state slavery
remained intact. The first plans of change which Lincoln con-
ceived envisaged the social aspects of the situation not only in the
thought of a gradual process and national shouldering of the cost
of transition, but also the problem of irreconcilable races. Dur-

EMANCIPATION 319

ing the summer he played with the idea of the colonization of the
negroes, and Seward negotiated treaties for their reception else-
where. Conspicuous among these treaties was one which should
have given joy and confidence to the Radicals. This was with
the negro republic of Haiti, for no previous administration would
recognize negroes nationally organized, and that policy had been
one of the rocks upon which the Panama Congress had split in
1825. Seward also overcame the old American repugnance to
the right of search in time of peace and arranged with Great Brit-
ain a treaty for the suppression of the slave trade which made such
rights mutual.

All this, however, failed to satisfy the Radicals of Congress or
to convince them that Lincoln was not under Conservative influ-
ences. After five months of acrimonious debate, on July 17,
1862, their response came in the passage of a second Confiscation
Act, which was to give shape to much future action. It provided
"That every person who shall hereafter commit the crime of
treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty
thereof, shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be de-
clared and made free," with discretion in the court as to prison
and fine in lieu of death ; "That if any person shall hereafter in-
cite, set on foot, assist, or engage in any rebellion ... or give aid
and comfort thereto . . . and be convicted thereof he" shall be
punished and his slaves freed ; that all such persons be disqualified
for ever from holding office under the United States ; that, in addi-
tion to these general provisions, all the estate of Confederate mili-
tary or naval officers, high civil officials, high officials of seceded
states, of all officers in the Confederate states who had previously
held office under the United States or had accepted their new
offices after the "date of the pretended ordinance of secession,"
or of any person owning property in loyal territory but giving
aid and comfort to the Confederacy, be seized by the president,
and the proceeds applied to the support of the army. It also pro-
vided that all slaves of those in rebellion or aiding it should be free
upon entering the Union lines, and that in all cases involving fugi-
tive slaves the owner should be compelled to prove loyalty, and
that no such slaves be returned to their owners by military au-

320 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

thority. It finally enacted : "That the President of the United
States is authorized to employ as many persons of African descent
as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of the
rebellion, and for this purpose he may organize and use them in
such manner as he may judge best for the public welfare."

It may be well to point out by way of limitation that the slaves
of no one in the Confederacy were to be freed until after the trial
and conviction of their owner ; that a minor official of a seceded
state would not be liable to the confiscation of his estate if he held
over in his office from the days of loyalty, as many did ; that any
Southerner could secure his property right to a fugitive slave if
he could prove that he had not given aid and comfort to the rebel-
lion. Such owners from the border states would still find the
commissioners under the Act of 1850 operating, but they would
not find their numbers increased to meet the rush of business.
Whether the law would mean much or little must depend upon
its administration.

This law covered many points. In the first place, it cleared up
an awkward situation by declaring free all negroes falling into
the hands of the Union armies, unless the loyalty of the owner
could be proved. Between May 1861, when Butler had declared
such slaves to be contraband, and the passage of this act, the
United States government had become in all probability the great-
est slave-holder the world had ever known. The whole was, of
course, entirely unsatisfactory on the one side to those who de-
sired to do away with slavery as a legal institution, and on the
other it was almost fatal to Lincoln's policy of conciliating the
border states, for it reversed the burden of proof, in case of fugi-
tive slaves, against owners in Kentucky and Maryland, as well as
in Tennessee and Mississippi. Its authors took especial pleasure
in the stab they gave to Democratic generals, such as McClellan,
who used their powers in the field to return fugitive slaves with-
out action by the courts. The ticklish question of employing ne-
gro troops was left to the president.

Here was a difficult situation for Lincoln, with his policy of
combined national effort to preserve the Union. Nor was it so
much the law as the push of sentiment which had given increasing

EMANCIPATION 321

power to the Radicals who passed it. The call for action grew
in pitch and volume day by day. At no time was the feeling
against slavery and for the negro so general and so generous. To
most Northern soldiers negroes had been strange animals about
whom orators contested. Now when they met them with their
sunny characters and pleasing ways, most, whether Democrats or
Republicans, liked them. Having been long told to regard them
as men and brothers, they began to do so. Many humanitarians
began to flock South, particularly to Beaufort, South Carolina, to
guide them to freedom and were delighted with their ambition to
acquire the highest of the white man's culture. When Butler and
Banks in Louisiana came to control hundreds of thousands of acres
and thousands of negroes, business men of the North saw visions
of wealth. They lamented the slack ways of the former slaves,
but thought that with freedom and Northern direction they
would acquire an incidental capacity that would multiply the
products of the slave regime. Grant put John Eaton in charge
of those crouching under his wing along the Tennessee, and vast
reformations loomed in minds which confronted social problems
without the worry of heredity, evolution, or racial characteris-
tics. The North was fed with tales, some true, some romantic,
of the disposition and the possibilities of this interesting race.
Valiant champions of abstract justice saw more than opportunity
and fretted at every legal obstacle to a millennium so near at hand,
Henry Ward Beecher, whose great fountains of warm humani-
tarian emotions overflowed the dikes of theology and gave his
Brooklyn hearers and even some readers of his Independent a
sense of oneness with a divine heart, called for action. Horace
Greeley, whose editorial genius gained so much from his great
personal qualities, was never more absorbing than on this subject.
Always an interesting personality, he held those he attracted be-
cause of his basic integrity. Hating persons, he never hated
classes. He could be nasty to Seward, whom he considered a
stumbling-block to progress, kindly to the South, and lavish in
his praise of the negro. A true democrat, he supposed the masses
to be always with him and addressed to Lincoln the "Prayer of
the Twenty Million," urging immediate emancipation. Wendell

322 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Phillips, the sensitive, even more impatient than Sumner with the
glass through which we see the truth darkly, could never tolerate
a spot on the sun. For him policy and filth were synonomous ;
truth had no shadings, and he lashed Lincoln as the "Hell Hound
of Illinois."

It was no theoretical situation with which they were dealing,
but a blazing, whirling crisis that demanded action. Millions felt
with them that righteousness and sin were battling in a supreme
contest that would determine the future. Whatever criticism
may be made of their violence, when it meant the disturbance of
an established order of which they knew nothing except its
philosophic implication, is pertinent at this moment when chaos
actually reigned. Justice and expediency had here met. War
psychology rushes nations to positions which in peace times they
but slowly approach, treading delicately. Those who dread ac-
tion are often the most eager to take it and have done, when avoid-
ance is no longer possible. The moderate cast aside their delib-
eration and are often the first to disregard the conventions. No
false modesty acts as a restraint, nor does suspicion wait on evi-
dence. As yet Lincoln had no halo, his exact regard for the rights
of slave-holders was in contrast with the elasticity he found in
the Constitution for executive powers. Would he rise to the
emergency ? Was he actually in sympathy with the vibrant ideal-
ism of the people ? When Congress adjourned he was, by mu-
tual concession, still leader of his party, still national leader in the
war for the Union, on terms with border-state men and with
Democrats, but was his position real or nominal ? Was he driv-
ing or being carried ? How long could he keep his rearing team
to the course ?

The term "Great Emancipator" is distinctly not that by which
he should be remembered. He would doubtless have chosen "Sa-
vior of the Union," and more fundamental would be "Democratic
Leader." He did not create emancipation but determined the
time of its introduction. Some writers, and among them Bev-
eridge, one of his chief biographers, have rushed to the opposite
extreme. There were about twenty years of Lincoln's life when
he had little to say about slavery, and some have taken this as evi-

EMANCIPATION 323

dence that he did not care. Two criteria must be followed in
interpreting him. One is the fact that in spite of his loquacity
he had a quality of reticence ; he seldom talked seriously except
when he saw the possibility of action. The second is the meticu-
lous exactitude with which he expressed himself when ready.
No intelligent student of his mind can fail to grasp his inherent
and temperamental opposition to slavery. It was, indeed, heredi-
tary, his parents having been among the seceding anti-slavery
members of a little schismatic church in Kentucky. There is no
danger of exaggerating his repugnance for the whole idea. He
was not, however, an abolitionist, disliking their violence as he
did that of the hell-fire and brimstone preachers from whom he
revolted in his youth. As a citizen of Illinois he saw no way of
attacking the institution in the Southern states, but he sprang
readily to battle when its limits seemed expanding. His mind
was evolutionary, and there is every reason to suppose that till
1 854 he had thought of slavery as dying. He fought its renewed
vigor and gave his mind to its problems.

Nor is there reason to suppose that his hope, quickened by the
war, did not rise to more general results. He was distinctly con-
scious of social forces. Once during the war when reviewing
troops he remarked : "What do you suppose will become of all
these men when the war is over ?" Could so intelligent an ob-
server doubt what would become of slavery ? By 1 863 Jefferson
Davis was listening to the logic of events. Slavery might have
been saved by peaceful secession, it might have survived a short
war of the frontiers. Once the struggle of peoples was joined,
the anachronism which brought it about was foredoomed, which-
ever side was victorious. Lincoln's foresight is plain enough in
his conversations with the border-state men on compensated
emancipation. There was no czar in the United States ; neither
Lincoln nor any other man could determine the fate of slavery
which was being determined by the economic and social forces of
a democracy. As president he had to guide those forces as best
he could so that no harm, or the least harm, and the most good
might result to the commonwealth.

About his compass there can be no honest difference of opin-

324 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ion. He wrote to Greeley that he would save the Union "with
slavery or without slavery, or part slave and part free." His
sense of policy was as direct as his power of concentration was
intense. The Union was his object ; everything else was inci-
dental thereto. Never deviating, here was one point on which
his soul could be at peace ; he had not become a leader of men
without learning the tremendous significance of time and method,
and this was the supreme test of his skill. His mental suffering
was never so great as when he was deciding between peace and
war ; but the call for the exercise of wisdom in the balancing of
motive, shock, and value was more distracting, and throughout
the summer it was the ghost that stalked his nights. He probed
the situation with all his usual methods and ingenuity and turned
to resources he had not been accustomed to seek. In his new re-
sponsibilities as president he sought help in religion, which was
natural to him, but from which he had been driven by the ranters
of the countryside. With his accustomed simplicity he began
his search with the most direct methods. Distinctly psychic, he
gave attention to spiritualistic seances in the White House, but
found them barren. When a delegation of ministers told him
they brought a command from God to free the slaves, he replied,
with the plain sense that so often appears humorous, that he sup-
posed that should God have a message it would be given directly
to him, the responsible party. Seriously he offered God the
chance, committing himself to freedom should Lee's invasion of
IVlaryland be driven back. It was not that he was delegating
authority, but in the balance of arguments he was seeking a sign.
He grew beyond this, but in 1862 his theology had not passed the
primitive conception, natural to a frontier mind, that if there were
a God He should be immediately useful.

The scales were indeed weighted with many considerations.
To declare for freedom might well be to lose the states of the
border with their population still hesitant. This was the sum-
mer when Lee was giving Maryland a chance to decide, and Bragg
was off ering a similar one to Kentucky. To make such a declara-,
tion would be to surrender co-operation with the Democrats, .and
che war could not be fought with the opposition of a hostile

EMANCIPATION 325

minority which the chances of the field might turn to a majority.
Lincoln had called the people to fight upon one issue ; would the
adoption of a second be consonant with honor ?

On the other hand, he was aware that such a pronouncement
would ease the foreign situation ; in fact, it was his trump card,
could he avoid the appearance of playing it as a last move of des-
peration to incite a servile rebellion. Unquestionably, however,
he was chiefly moved by the domestic situation, by the restiveness
of the Radicals in the last session, by the certainty that, confident
in the rising popular voice, they would push further and harder
in the next. Already barely respecting the administration, they
would coerce or disregard it. Unlike a prime minister, he could
not make an issue and either have his own way or leave office.
Could the war be fought with president and Congress at logger-
heads ? Could he look to the Democrats for necessary support ?
Within himself he was accustomed to read the wish of the people,
and there he found the drive for action, could he so time and
temper it to hold the Democrats and the border to the main strug-
gle. By outdoing the Radicals might he not curb and control
them ?

On July 22, five days after the passage of the Confiscation Act,
Lincoln, without previous consultation, read to the cabinet the
draft of a proclamation of emancipation. Its issuance was de-
ferred until a Union victory should occur. Antietam, on Sep-
tember 17, was taken as such, and on the twenty-second the
proclamation was made public. It was a characteristic Lincoln
document, and it may safely be said that no one else could have
deyised it. In the first place, it was not of itself effective but an-
nounced what would be done in a hundred days, or on January
i, 1 863, in those states that had not returned to the Union. Lin-
coln doubtless had some faint hope that some would return, and
at least he was giving them a chance. In the second place, it was
not to apply to loyal slave states or to those portions of the others
in which rebellion had been overcome ; this clause was aimed at
conciliating the border. In the third place, the criterion of free-
dom was not the status of the owner, but his residence, which
made administration easy. "I do order and declare that all per-

326 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

sons held as slaves within said designated states and parts of states
are, and henceforward shall be free." Finally it stated that such
persons would be received into the armed forces of the United
States for garrison and similar service.

"And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice,
warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke
the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of
Almighty God." Legality depended, in international and con-
stitutional law, upon military necessity as determined by the
president in his capacity of commander-in-chief of the armed
forces of the United States. The degree of this necessity is open
to some question. Negroes were promptly enrolled, and their
service was not confined to any one branch of the service, as they
took their fair share of the actual fighting in the field. The to-
tal number enrolled as troops was 178,975. It was plainly not
beyond the white manpower of the North to supply this number.
Legality, however, did not depend upon the fact of necessity but
upon the comrnander-in-chief's estimate of that necessity. Un-
doubtedly they were useful as a military adjunct, but one can little
doubt that the prime aspect of necessity was the fear of the col-
lapse of the political structure that stood behind the military.
Legality of the proclamation was endorsed by the House of Rep-
resentatives on December 15, 1862, and in general by subsequent
opinion. Its legal scope, however, has been frequently exag-
gerated. As a military emergency measure it applied to persons
and not to law. The legal institution of slavery remained in all
states as it was before Lincoln had spoken, and as he frequently
acknowledged.

The practical effects of the proclamation were nevertheless
very great. One may say that, as there was no apparatus for dis-
tinguishing slaves of loyal and disloyal owners, aU negro refugees
would have been freed under the Confiscation Act. They ac-
counted for about one tenth of the slave population. As no one
was convicted of treason, no slaves remaining in situ would have
been freed by that act. All these were actually freed under the
proclamation except those in designated states or parts of states.
The slaves in the border states were ultimately freed by state

EMANCIPATION 327

action, except in Kentucky and Delaware, which awaited and
threatened amendment to the Constitution, which gave also the
final blow in those parts of states excepted by Lincoln. Thus
many more than half the slaves were personally emancipated by
Lincoln's act, though it was not effective until the armies had
made it good. Its significance, moreover, was very much greater.
From the moment the first anticipatory announcement was made,
the end was in sight ; universal application to individuals and legal
abolishment of the system became inevitable.

By this act Lincoln boldly changed policies in the midst of war.
He made it a war for a dual purpose, and by so doing, he was
forced to rest his power upon the Republican party and to face
the organized opposition of Democrats and border-state men.
He did not dally with those consequences but prepared to reap
the full advantages of his new position. Two days after the
Emancipation Proclamation he issued another, drastically extend-
ing the application of martial law and the suspension of habeas
corpus. Discouragement of enlistment was declared a punish-
able offence ; and, under Seward's direction, the censorship of the
press was extended spasmodically to all parts of the country, as
was exemplified by the suspension of the Chicago Tribune. Soon
Lincoln removed McClellan, and the challenge was thrown to
Democratic politics while war was still raging on the frontier.

The election of 1862 became, therefore, not a mere referendum
on the war but an appeal between two policies. The Democrats
awoke from their lethargy and assaulted all along the line. Some
hammered at the war itself, but they would join with those who
feared the tyranny of a president who seemed to find in the Con-
stitution no limits to his power. They could quote from Ben-
jamin Robbins Curtis who, having resigned from the Supreme
Court, attacked Lincoln's actions as violations of the Constitu-
tion, as subversive of the sacred balance of power, and as marking
the end of the republican government of the fathers. Supreme
among these usurpations was the freeing of the slaves by a man
and a party pledged not to interfere with the domestic institutions
of any state. Could such a regime be trusted by those who, still
loyal to the Union, had yet millions of property and their whole

328 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

scheme of life involved in slave ownership ? Of still wider ap-
peal was the vociferous denunciation of the conduct of the war.
Graft, greed, and mismanagement had each enough of fact to
yield, by the aid of distortion, gas for a hundred balloons of ora-
tory. The attack on the fact of war could be met by arguments
still popular, but the counter charge by the Republicans on Demo-
cratic disloyalty could be evaded by the profession of most of the
Democrats that they, too, supported war for the Union. The
charges of executive usurpation were harder to counter, for the
acts referred to irked many Republicans as well. Argued this
way and that, with the legal hair-splitting so dear to Americans
of that generation, this furnished the solid substance of speeches,
with honors even. The attacks on efficiency were, as always,
hardest to counter. Historians still differ as to whether Demo-
cratic McClellan should have taken Richmond or whether his
hand was stayed by lack of support from Republican Washing-
ton, though few would charge malicious intention to either side,
as was done freely in 1864.

The result was a blow, staggering but not calamitous, to the
dominant party. When the new Congress met, which was not
until December 1863, ^e test vote for speaker gave the Repub-
lican-Unionist, Schuyler Coif ax, 101 votes to 81 for his scattered
opponents. The leaders of the Thirty-sixth Congress controlled
the Thirty-seventh, but their margin was narrow enough to cause
them seriously to think of their prospects in a restored Union with
the seceded states once more at home. Everywhere except on the
Pacific coast the Republicans lost votes. The Democrats elected
their governors in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, and, most important,
in New York — Horatio Seymour. They would have won also
Indiana and Illinois had the office been that year open to election.
In only one state, New Jersey, were the Democrats in full con-
trol. In New York the House was tied, and the Senate was Re-
publican ; in Pennsylvania the Republicans retained the Senate ;
in Ohio they controlled both houses. In Illinois and Indiana both
houses of the legislature were Democratic, but the governors
held over. There was then the possibility that a number of im-
portant states would not co-operate in war measures, but this co-

EMANCIPATION 329

operation was not so important in 1863 as it had been in 1861,
when the national government was not girded for action. New
Jersey was the only state in a position actually to oppose the war.

There were certain indications that the result was not so seri-
ous as it appeared. Only a few states allowed soldiers to vote
in the field. Their votes as recorded stood 39,171 Republican
to 9604 Democratic. Obviously, Republicans were more likely
to enlist than Democrats, or the latter after enlistment changed
their views. Probably both causes operated, and a plain issue was
raised ; Republicans would seek some form of compulsion to en-
listment and Democrats would oppose soldier-voting. Mean-
while one could argue that with the army at home the Republi-
cans would fare better at the polls. This was confirmed by the
fact that the total vote fell off — in some states as much as twenty-
five per cent. ; perhaps some marginal Republicans of 1 860 needed
more time to digest the new course things were taking. That
solid men somewhat discounted the Democratic success is indi-
cated by the experience of Governor Oliver P. Morton of In-
diana. Confronted by a legislature that would not vote appro-
priations for war expenses, he went to New York and raised what
he needed on his personal assurance that such loans would be re-
paid, and they were.

The vote of Illinois clearly showed the importance of the in-
jection of the negro question. Democratic state officers were
elected, which may be taken as a rebuke to the Republican ad-
ministration. On the other hand, an apportionment act and a
constitution, plainly of partisan Democratic origin, were voted
down. A law excluding negroes from the state, incited by fear
that the thousands of refugees with Grant, just down the Tennes-
see, would come to the state, was passed in a popular referendum
by a close vote. A referendum on negro suffrage was over-
whelming in its denial. Plainly Lincoln was disturbed by no
bogy of his imagination when he hesitated about pushing emanci-
pation upon the back of the Union ; the danger was a real one.
Apparently, he was prescient in estimating that it might be done,
for on that question this first election was the most precarious,
and the tide of conversion might be safely counted on to carry it

330 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

in the future. Other dangers might come, but that danger was
laid.

The genuineness of his counter-fear of a break with the Radi-
cals was brought home to him soon after Congress reassembled.
Promptly a delegation headed by Wade presented to him a de-
mand that the cabinet be reorganized in a manner better to con-
form with the wishes of the dominant faction of the party, par-
ticularly by the exclusion of Seward. To yield would be to
become a puppet, to fail would have been to lose the living soul of
the party, had he not won with its rank and file the reputation of
a Liberal and given proofs of his faith. As emancipator, how-
ever, he could stand firm, and he did not yield. Being Lincoln
he shrewdly turned the blow. Seward presented his resignation.
Lincoln contrived that Chase, the figure behind the protestors, re-
sign also. Having both letters in his hands and plainly intimating
that the Radicals were in danger of losing their champion as well
as their bete ?wir, he suggested that both remain, and they did.
Except for the Proclamation, Lincoln would, of course, have re-
mained president but would have been powerless in his dealing
with Congress. He had confronted a real dilemma and had
chosen in time firmly to grasp the horn of his preference and of
promise.

By January 1 863, one result at least had been attained. It had
not been voted on in 1860 ; at that time it had, however, been
wistfully desired by a majority in the North, though most North-
erners cherished nearer desires. Slavery was fatally wounded
and would die. The universal enthusiasm of April 1 86 1 had been
dissipated in a struggle that had lasted too long. Anger and
schism had begun to divide the North. Now came passion, di-
vided but enduring, a cause to fight for that touched the soul and
conscience where Union had appealed to reason and to interest.
As support was partial, so it burned the brighter, as oxygen feeds
the flame. To the defence of the flag was added a sense of the
direction in which the flag was leading. As a war later arising
from a complex of diverse interests became a struggle to make the
world safe for democracy, so, in 1862, emancipation gave a driv-

EMANCIPATION 3 3 I

ing slogan which roused drooping spirits. Julia Ward Howe
gave voice to the new spirit which now animated the war in her
grim Battle Hymn of the Republic, which she wrote to the swing-
ing rhythm by which the soldiers were marching to the front :

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ;

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are

stored ;

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword ;
His truth is marching on.

I have seen him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps ;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps ;
I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps ;
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel :
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with ye my grace shall deal ;
"Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel,"
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth a trumpet that shall never call retreat ;
He is sifting out the hearts or men before his judgment seat.
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him ; be jubilant my feet :
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me ;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

CHAPTER XII

VICTORY

THE new phase of politics which characterized the years 1863
and 1 864 brought a threefold conflict. First, there was the strug-
gle for control between the Democrats and the Republican-
Unionists. Secondly, there was the battle within the Democratic
party between those who would carry on the war to restore the
Union "as it was" and those who would stop the fighting at any
cost. Thirdly, there was the continuing strife among the Re-
publicans between the Radicals and the Conservatives. The
Emancipation Proclamation had brought harmony on that one
subject, but two issues remained and grew in gripping intensity.
One was the question of war aims, and the second was that of
legislature against executive.

In action Lincoln had the advantage of position ; he could act,
and his party associates criticized at the risk of splitting ranks in
face of the Democrats. His policy remained as before — the
speediest possible restoration of the Union, not by arms alone, but
also by a reconciliation which would make the restored Union
tolerable. He maintained his national emergency theory, often
showing that he thought the temporary exercise of executive pow-
ers was less damaging to the Constitution than permanent legal
changes by Congress. The temporary character of what was
thus done gave opportunity for experiment and test so that he
acted on particular cases as they arose, developing from them,
with the habitual aptitude of the American's legal mind, general
theories and policies.

The most important of these cases were those involving the
reconstruction of the political framework of the Union. Lin-
coln argued that as the states had no right to secede, they re-
mained within the Union. As the Union had no right to de-
stroy a state, they retained in full their rights and privileges.
Those people, however, who refused to obey the laws of the Un-
ion could be forced to do so, and to deal with them was his task

332

VICTORY 333

as executive. As executive also he found the state governments
unwilling to perform their duties under the Constitution. With
such recalcitrant governments the federal system could not op-
erate ; and it was, therefore, his duty to assist the loyally disposed
among the population to create such new governments as would
perform their duties.

One such case was synchronous with the war — that of Vir-
ginia. When the convention of that state voted secession its
western members, with neighbor members of the legislature, re-
turned home across the mountains where they- and their com-
munities voted "no" in a popular referendum. Left free by the
victories of McClellan and Rosecrans, they assembled in a con-
vention whose members were chosen by mass meetings. They
decided that "to the loyal people of a state belongs the govern-
ment of that state" — an interesting doctrine to come from the
descendants of the heroes of the Revolution — and that General
Letcher and other officials had forfeited their offices, and chose for
their places Edward Pierpont and a staff of loyal associates.
Meanwhile western members, selected in the regular May elec-
tions to the Virginia legislature, assembled at Wheeling, accepted
Pierpont as governor, and chose the two Virginia senators, who
took their seats at Washington in July 1861. A Unionist Vir-
ginia was thus in operation and was recognized by the national
government.

This coherent Unionist section, however, did not relish becom-
ing a minority once more when the errant three quarters of their
state should be brought back. It was decided to form a new state,
West Virginia, and the preliminaries of a convention and a new
constitution were speedily rushed through. The Constitution of
the United States provided that no state should be divided except
by its own consent, so that Governor Pierpont and his legislature
voted for the severance and fathered the request for admission at
Washington. In considering it, Congress was faced with the
whole problem of state and national relationships, and many views
were expressed, some of them prophetic of future conflict. Ex-
pediency won the day, and on December 31, 1862, the new state
was voted in on condition that it amend its constitution to pro-

334 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

vide for gradual emancipation of slaves. The cabinet was di-
vided as to whether the president should sign the bill, though
Chase and Seward stood together in its favor. Lincoln signed,
arguing :

The consent of the legislature of Virginia is constitutionally nec-
essary to the bill. . . A body claiming to be such a legislature has
given its consent. We cannot well deuy that it is such, unless we
do so upon the outside knowledge that the body was chosen at
elections in which a majority of the qualified voters of Virginia did
not participate. But it is a universal practice in popular elections
in all these states to give no legal consideration whatever to those
who do not choose to vote, as against the effect of the votes of
those who do choose to vote.

On April 20, 1863, the new state was proclaimed, and senators
and representatives were free to take their places.

This action immediately created its own new problem. The
new state of West Virginia constituted practically the only loyal
section of Virginia. Governor Pierpont was now a stranger in
the only region that had acknowledged him ; and yet if his gov-
ernment failed to perpetuate itself, the sanction for the new state
fell. He moved himself with a few legislators to Alexandria, as-
sumed his functions on the fuming, helpless eastern shore and
around Norfolk, and called a plantation convention to abolish
slavery. In July 1 864, General Butler described his government
as "A useless, expensive, and inefficient thing, unrecognized by
lawyers, unknown to the Constitution of the United States, and
of such a character that there is no command in the Decalogue
against worshipping it, being the likeness of nothing in the heav-
ens above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth."
Two senators, separate from those of West Virginia, continued
to sit until February 1865, when one died and his successor was
not admitted. Representatives appeared asking admission to the
House in December 1863, but that body, suspicious of border-
state men and of the influence the administration might exert in
elections held under the cannon's mouth, refused them seats.
Did Virginia have a government in the Union ? The president
recognized it, the Senate had recognized it, the House denied it.

VICTORY 335

Early in 1862, as a result of Grant's first victory, a new case
arose. Gunboats on the Cumberland, the Tennessee, and the
Mississippi commanded a large proportion of the population and
a larger proportion of the wealth of Tennessee. The Confed-
erate organization was demoralized, as was the state government.
A large body of people were living in conquered territory, being
born, marrying and dying, buying and selling, committing torts,
needing the protection of government, and desiring the comfort
of customary law. For the moment the only authority was that
of the military commander, and then began an involuntary ex-
pansion of the functions of the provost-marshal that, as time went
on, served for a while the purposes of law over nearly the whole
South. Lincoln, ever anxious to approximate the normal, was not
content with this situation ; and on February 23, 1862, he nom-
inated a military governor. This anomalous position conferred
no exactly defined status or function. Its holder was still to serve
under the military authority of the president but was to exercise
his powers as nearly as possible in a civil way. Curiously Lin-
coln and his appointee, Andrew Johnson, knew as much about
the position as anyone, for they had served together in Congress
in 1 848, when the first United States military governors were ap-
pointed to take over conquered portions of Mexico. Independ-
ent in his nature, but in close touch with Lincoln, Johnson pro-
ceeded to meet situations as they arose. Governing from hostile
Nashville, he in some instances gave appointments to men who
had held office before and during the Confederate regime, ap-
pointed in other cases new men, and sometimes authorized local
elections — in general, giving some semblance of civil order to a
war-stricken community*

It was the purpose of Lincoln and of Johnson speedily to com-
plete their civic structure by a new loyal state organization which
could take over the reins of government. A primary difficulty
stood for a while in the way. As in Virginia, there was a loyal
section, but in Tennessee this region was held by the Confederate
forces until the end of 1863 ; the region that Johnson controlled
was that where secession sentiment predominated. The subject
was constantly in Lincoln's mind ; and when, in September 1863,

336 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

East Tennessee was temporarily occupied, he wrote to Johnson :

All Tennessee is now clear of armed insurrectionists. You need
not to be reminded that it is the nick of time for reincorporating a
loyal State government,

and he proceeded to give suggestions, but only of a most general
character.

Meanwhile Farragut's victory of April 1862 had brought New
Orleans and large fertile areas of potamic Louisiana under the
guns of the federal fleet. In August 1862, General George F.
Shepley was appointed military governor. With a great and
turbulent city ; a military headquarters ; a centre of trade, legal
and illicit, that drew speculators of every type from many na-
tions, but particularly from the North ; with a resident popula-
tion unwilling to abandon their great property interests and many
willing to temporize and play for favor, he had a problem more
complex than that of Johnson. One of Shepley's earliest acts
was the establishment of state courts to take over the functions
which Butler's provost-courts were exercising. A conspicuous
appointment was that of Judge Rufus K. Howell, who had held
his court before secession, and after secession under the military
rule of Butler, and who now continued to hold it under Shepley's
civic-military administration. By executive order of October
20, 1862, there was established also a federal court under Charles
A. Peabody, a friend of Seward. In addition, Lincoln com-
mended to the federal officers in New Orleans John E. Bouligny,
former representative in Congress from Louisiana, who was en-
couraged to assist in securing "peace again upon the old terms,"
the election of members of Congress, and a full complement of
state officers under the existing constitution. An election was
held ; and two members of Congress, Benjamin F. Flanders and
Michael Hahn, were chosen and were admitted, with hesitation,
by the national House, February 17, 1863.

From this point, however, two plans of procedure diverged.
Conservative resident planters professed their willingness to ac-
cept the Union and urged state elections under the old constitu-
tion. Another group, however, led by federal office-holders and

VICTORY 337

particularly by Chase appointees to treasury positions, favored the
calling of a state convention, the framing of a new anti-slavery
constitution and, in general, reorganization along radical lines.
On August 5, 1863, Lincoln wrote to Banks, who was in military
command of the district, favoring the convention :

And while she is at it, I think it would not be objectionable for
her to adopt some practical system by which the two races could
gradually line themselves out of old relationships to each other, and
both come out better prepared for the new. Education for young
blacks should be included in the plan. After all, the power or ele-
ment of "contract" may be sufficient for this probationary period ;
and by its simplicity and flexibility, may be the better.

On November 5, 1863, he urged them "to lose no more time."
On February 9, 1864, the national House refused to seat repre-
sentatives chosen in November 1863 to replace Flanders and
Hahn.

On this basis Lincoln constructed his general war-time recon-
struction plan, which he announced in a proclamation of Decem-
ber 8, 1863. This was ingeniously grounded upon the Confisca-
tion Act of 1862, which gave certain definitions of the crime of
treason, with penalties attached ; and upon his pardoning power
as president. Thus the power of amnesty became the key to
presidential reconstruction. In the first place, he extended par-
don, except in the case of civil officers of the Confederacy, to
Confederate military and naval officers above the rank of colonel
in the one service or lieutenant in the other, and to all who had
served the Confederacy after holding positions under the United
States government or had mistreated negroes in United States
service, on condition of taking an oath henceforth to support the
Constitution of the United States, the laws of Congress, and the
proclamations of the president, including that abolishing slavery.
The pardon did not, of course, involve the restoration of slave
property but included all else. He then stated that when in any
insurrectionary state a number of voters, qualified under state
laws equal to not less than one tenth of the votes cast in the presi-
dential election of 1860, had taken this oath, such voters were
free to establish a state government, and should such government

338 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

prove to be "republican in form and in nowise contravening said
oath," it would be recognized as the tme government of the
state.

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that any
provision which may be adopted by such state government in rela-
tion to the freed people of said State which shall recognize and de-
clare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and
which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their
present condition as a laboring, landless and homeless class, will not
be objected to by the National Executive.

Finally, he pointed out that the two houses of Congress, and not
he, controlled the acceptance of representatives and senators from
such states, and that his suggestion as to method should not be
taken as indicating an unwillingness to recognize states otherwise
re-established.

From this time to his death Lincoln, with increasing earnest-
ness, used every avenue of his influence to promote restoration
along the lines of this plan, fostering the movements already
started in Tennessee and Louisiana and adding Arkansas. He
took a keen interest in those newly-forming states and was free
with suggestions, though carefully refraining from making them
mandatory. On March 13, 1864, he wrote the just-elected gov-
ernor of Louisiana, Michael Hahn :

I congratulate you on having fixed your name in history as the
first free state governor of Louisiana. Now you are to have a con-
vention which, among other things, will probably define the elective
franchise. I barely suggest for your private consideration whether
some of the colored people may not be let in — as, for instance, the
very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in
our ranks.

By March 1864 he recognized loyal governments in Tennessee,
Louisiana, and Arkansas, as well as in Virginia ; but Congress had
ceased to admit new representatives from these areas, though they
retained those already seated and sometimes voted the disap-
pointed representatives their railroad mileage. The elections of
1862 had given him too many Democrats in Congress, and too
many who were jealous of the executive to allow him a free hand

VICTORY 339

in reconstructing the seceded states. The chief reason for Lin-
coln's speed, which in some instances amounted to haste, \vas un-
doubtedly the ever-present war necessity which he so fully real-
ized involved a time element ; he must undermine the morale of
the Confederacy before the war undermined the morals of the
North. Other purposes urged him in the same direction. These
new states, with their limited loyal electorates, would be sure to
vote Unionist in the next national election and might offset a pos-
sible Democratic wave in the North. More important was the
fact that they might be necessary to secure the three fourths of
all the states required to legalize a constitutional amendment abol-
ishing slavery altogether. This was indeed a major considera-
tion and is illustrated by his support of the admission of the new
western state of Nevada, in spite of its very questionable stability
as a permanent, coequal member of the Union. So serious was
he in this matter that he arranged a bargain whereby he promised
offices to two New York Democratic House members in return
for their votes — a bargain which was carried out by both sides.
Still a further reason haunted his mind. On September 1 1, 1862,
he wrote to Andrew Johnson :

It is something on the question of time to remember that it cannot
be known who is next to occupy the position I now hold, nor what
he will do.

He feared that he might be replaced by a Democrat who would
reinstate the Union with slavery or by a Radical Republican who
would handle the South as an enemy or as a heretic to be racked
into conformity. Confident of his own purposes, almost alone
among his contemporaries in visualizing the social consequences
of emancipation, he did not hesitate to take advantage of his pres-
ent status to achieve his program.

With the meeting of Congress in December 1863, the tone of
conflict became more strident. By this time views had been de-
fined at least so far as they answered the mode of action. A large
majority, a majority not confined by any means to Radicals, felt
sincerely and with some reason that so fundamental a matter as
reconstruction, which would not be limited in its consequences to

340 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the war emergency, belonged rather to the legislature than to the
executive. All professed the intention of preserving the Con-
stitution intact, and one may easily credit the honesty of their in-
tentions, since that document had been glorified into an ideal
which was more universally held than any other among the
American people. The very reverence for the Constitution, how-
ever, was evidence in many hearts that so good an instrument
could not stand in the way of desirable action. The occasion
called for powers not specifically mentioned in the document,
but Hamilton and Marshall had trained Americans, and particu-
larly those of the North, to read into its clauses possibilities which
they believed must have inhered in the sound minds of those who
drafted it.

The three key interpretations are well known. Thaddeus
Stevens, as early as the first debate on West Virginia, had pre-
sented his own view that the seceded states were no longer states
in the Union but constituted a mere property of the United States
government which was being conquered. Denying the legality
of secession, he maintained that it had occurred, as murder is for-
bidden but does take place, and as the murderers, so were the
secessionists at the discretion of the law to do with them what it
willed. There were no limitations upon the power of the na-
tional government to punish or to control. Sumner's views were
best expressed in the resolutions he offered the Senate February
1 4, 1 862. In these he set forth that the refusal of any state to per-
form its obligations to the national government affected an abro-
gation of its rights "so that from that time forward the territory
falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other terri-
tory." This was less drastic than the theory of Stevens, for it
recognized the seceded area as territory of the United States, and
as such it was so protected by the constitutional restrictions
placed upon Congress by the Constitution in relation to such ter-
ritory. Some such obligations Sumner deduced as that slavery,
being the creation of positive law only, had rested upon the au-
thority of the several state governments only and had fallen with
them, so that now it was the duty of Congress to protect and de-
fend every inhabitant "without distinction of color or class."

VICTORY 341

More generally it may be observed that the Supreme Court had
swung from Marshall's interpretation, giving Congress a wide
sweep of powers in the territories to Taney's in the Dred Scott
case which strictly limited them, but that the Republicans were
prepared to shift again to the earlier idea, as was finally done in a
number of later cases involving the Philippines. Sumner cer-
tainly intended Congress to work with a hand tied only by the
duty of "just, merciful and paternal Government."

These extreme views of the authority of Congress were never
accepted by the majority as a basis for action, but they were far
from a mere academic interest. They not only represented the
ideas of powerful individuals and groups ; but the possibility that
they might be sound, heartened those who, holding that the states
must be treated as still existing and as still in the Union, wished
to stretch the exercise of constitutional authority on that basis to
the uttermost. That upon which they chiefly relied continu-
ously, as their program developed, was Article IV, section 4 :

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them
against Invasion ; and on application of the Legislature, or of the
Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against do-
mestic Violence.

One can easily see the picture in the minds of those who wrote
this article.

In 1 860 men were as confused in their ideas of what constituted
a republic as they are today. Republics were easy to define in
1 7 89 — a king or not a king. Athens had been a republic with its
slaves, Rome with its differentiated classes of citizens, and Venice
with its oligarchy and its Bridge of Sighs. Not so with the Kant-
ians of the i86o's and those who made a weapon of their pure
thought. A republican form of government must conform to
the pure essence of republican reality ; liberty and equality must
be universal, though just where fraternity was to come in is diffi-
cult to say. The ideal to which the governments of the Southern
states must be made to conform was not founded on Northern
practice, for negroes, outside of New England, could vote only

342 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

in New York ; while in some states, as in Illinois, they were held
strictly to a color code. In she minds of some it rested, as had so
much American legislation, on what they conceived ought to be ;
in the minds of others it rested on what would make permanent
the temporary dominance of their party. They would recog-
nize the government of no seceded state that did not reach the
mark they set. Such an interpretation of this constitutional clause
would be hard for a strict-constructionist Supreme Court to ac-
cept, but there was good hope that no action need come to judg-
ment before a new court was sitting.

These constitutional interpretations were but the means by
which an end was to be obtained — the terms of peace. On De-
cember 15, 1863, a House committee of nine was authorized to
consider the subject of reconstruction, though the word was care-
fully avoided. Its chairmanship was given to the brilliant Henry
Winter Davis of Maryland. On May 4, 1 864, the bill it reported,
after much debate and with many amendments, passed the House,
75 to 59. In the Senate it was referred to Senator Wade's com-
mittee on territories, where it underwent drastic revision. The
interest in the subject and the wide public attention given it
seemed to indicate that whatever bill passed would be taken ef-
fectively as the platform of the Republicans in the presidential
election which was now coming to obsess all minds. A qualm
induced the Senate to accept after one day's debate an emasculat-
ing amendment offered by Gratz Brown of Missouri, Radicals
combining with Conservatives, 26 to 3. The House was firm,
and on July 2, 1864, the bill in its original form was passed by
the Senate 1 8 to 14 — a Radical triumph and certainly an act of
faith in the electorate. On July 4 Congress adjourned.

This bill, called the Wade-Davis Bill from the names of the
House and Senate chairmen, was the principal work of Congress
for the seven months' session. It was far from representing the
wishes of the Radicals, who still needed moderate votes to pass
their measures and re-elect them ; but it contained elements
sharply contrasting with the proclamation of the president. Tem-
porary government in recaptured states was to be in the hands of
a provisional governor, appointed by the president and with the

VICTORY 343

advice and consent of the Senate. Reconstruction should begin
when military resistance should be suppressed and the people had
returned to their obedience. When that time arrived the gov-
ernor should order an enrollment of all white male citizens, and
deputies should proffer to each the oath to support the Constitu-
tion. Should a majority take the oath, an election of delegates
to a convention should then be ordered. In these elections only
those could vote who would take the so-called iron-clad oath,
formulated July 2, 1862 :

I, A;B., do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I have never volun-
tarily borne arms against the United States since I have been a citi-
zen thereof ; that I have voluntarily given no aid, countenance,
counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility
thereto ; that I have neither sought nor accepted nor attempted to
exercise the functions of any office whatever, under any authority
or pretended authority in hostility to the United States ; that I have
not yielded a voluntary support to any pretended government, au-
thority, person or constitution within the United States, hostile or
inimical thereto.

Such an oath might be taken, though in most cases with a bad con-
science, by conscripted soldiers, but it eliminated volunteers and
all civil officers. If administered by a scrupulous official it might
without much strain exclude taxpayers. While a majority prom-
ising to obey the Constitution could procure for the state the
privileges of a convention, those legally allowed to participate
would constitute but a small percentage of the population.

Delegates chosen by this tested electorate were to meet in con-
vention to adopt constitutional provisions for the permanent dis-
franchisement of high Confederate civil and military officers,
abolition of slavery, and repudiation of all debts created during
the period of secession. A new constitution embodying these
provisions should then be drawn up and submitted first to a refer-
endum vote and then to Congress. .Should this process fail of
accomplishment, the ordinary functions of government should be
carried on by the provisional governor under the sanction of Con-
gress and by direction of the president.

One essential difference between this plan and that of Lincoln

344 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

was that it was given the fixed rigidity of Hw in the place of the
flexibility of an emergency war measure. A second essential
difference was its seeming democracy in waiting for the enroll-
ment of half the voters instead of one tenth only, but this was far
more than off set in excluding from the electorate charged with
reconstruction all those who had been voluntarily disloyal. In
the third place this element of punishment was to be made perma-
nent by a state constituted exclusive of Southern leaders. Both
of these provisions looked to the transfer of power in the South
to the mountain whites, as those of East Tennessee. It was hoped
that these loyalists would build up a governing and controlling
element that would ally itself with the Republicans and so secure
that party. They were also rolled under the tongue as an appe-
tizer by those who wished punishment to follow treason. The
clause about debt repudiation was, of course, just and proper, in
entire accord with the principles of international practice as
adapted to the intricacies of a federal system, but it contained also
an element of punishment in that the debt was owed to those who
had had capital, the seceding planters. No line of the bill sug-
gested the existence of a social problem f ollowing emancipation
or the civil status which the negro would enjoy. It lacked Lin-
coln's insistence that the negro must be educated.

It is plain also that the mode of operation described in the bill
would have to await the ending of the war. Not without clever-
ness was it framed for a double purpose. One was to withhold
the hand of the president. The other recalls the Republican tac-
tics of 1860, when the Republicans had presented the Morrill
tariff bill as an earnest of their purpose more convincing than a
party platform ; so this was to be a statement of their war aims.
As in 1860, the Republicans had understated their purpose, so
now this bill refrained from expressing the full design of the
Radicals. Wade was actually not in favor of regarding the
Southern states as still states in the Union ; and the majority, as a
matter of right or of policy, were in favor of ultimate negro
suffrage. These were desires but temporarily suppressed, for a
complete check was preserved in retaining for Congress the final

VICTORY 345

determination as to whether the constitution to be presented did
or did not meet the rising standard of "a republican form of gov-
ernment."

Throughout the winter and spring the gossip at Washington
was that Lincoln was serving his only term. Criticism ran the
usual gamut of complaint. His methods of doing business were
irregular, and orderly men believed them demoralizing. When
generals driven to desperation — as generals always had been in
America by the rural and frontier habits of their troops, deserting,
overstaying furloughs, sleeping on guard duty, fraternizing with
the enemy — finally decided to make an example and when an or-
der of execution in proper form with full documentation went
through the required channels, execution was sometimes stopped
by a presidential signature, without a presidential conference.
Sometimes the smooth-working machinery of government was
thrown out of gear by an informal scrawl in Lincoln's handwrit-
ing on a scrap of paper. He seemed to many to have neither a
sense of order nor nerve — a good man, doubtless, but not one to
handle the tough practicalities of office.

While such men talked of his inefficiency, others suggested that
the fault was more fundamental. His aim was wrong. He was
an idealist in the sense in which the practical man uses that term ;
his hope of reconciling the South was futile, and in pursuing it he
was surrendering the weapons upon which control must rest ;
gazing at the stars, his feet stumbled over the obvious and en-
dangered the precious burden he was carrying. Equally was he
unsatisfactory to those who themselves were guided by a star.
With a weak, at times a mawkish, sentimentality where persons
were involved, he failed to grasp the God-given duty of his age.
His actions and his words proved him a laggard on the subject of
freedom and of equality. If one were to take Greeley's estimate,
he was the twenty million and first to be converted to emancipa-
tion. He had professed to prefer gradual emancipation to imme-
diate emancipation. He treasured an interpretation of the Con-
stitution which might let slavery remain as an institution. He
quieted rather than inflamed the burning spirit of right which by

346 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

God's grace might cleanse the nation of its sins. The crusade had
arisen without his leadership, but might he not instead of leading
it against Jerusalem make terms with a Saladin ?

In lobbies and offices, at state receptions and in gambling hells,
habitues fed each other with new tales and swelling rumors. Lin-
coln could not be re-elected, he should not be re-elected — the
nearer one penetrated to the inside the louder grew the refrain.
As Lincoln's figure swayed in the wind, that of Salmon P. Chase
took the air. He seemed to possess all the qualities which Lin-
coln lacked, and none among the Radicals was so unobjection-
able. He never swerved from the dominant ideal, but he was
practical enough to run the treasury while the North was rioting
in the glittering prosperity of war. His stately phrases rarely
committed him to definite acts. In February 1864, he seemed to
the Washington drawing-rooms the most likely to be the next
president. Nor was it the mere breath of opinion that raised his
pennon. An army of treasury employees sang his praises in re-
turn for the places for which he fought so hard in the cabinet.
The scattered orchestra of reformers raised its mysterious har-
mony in his favor. The politicians accepted him as the most
available substitute. The anti-Lincoln movement reached a peak
a little too early, and then came setback after setback.

On February 8, 1864, Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas,
chairman of the National Committee of the Republican party,
sent about a circular that reminds one of Hamilton's circular on
John Adams in the election of 1 800. He pointed out why the
president chosen by the party was unsatisfactory and suggested
Chase in his stead. Its reception was far, very far, from being
satisfactory. There was no resounding wave of popular enthu-
siasm such as might be taken as the voice of the people ; instead,
there was a flatness that many of Pomeroy's associates attributed
to untimeliness. Chase was left in a position palpably uncom-
fortable. He possessed too much dignity to scramble for posi-
tion, and so offered his resignation, at the same time disassociat-
ing himself from the movement. Lincoln invited him to stay in
the cabinet, and a withdrawal might well have seemed a desertion
at a critical moment. Chase remained, but to do so it was neces-

VICTORY 347

saiy to make plain that he was not a rival for the position \vhich
his chief occupied. The Pomeroy circular eliminated the first
choice of the discontented.

Unquestionably the Radicals at the time, though so well or-
ganized in Congress, had not extended any special system through
the states. Demoralized by the withdrawal of Chase, they lost
in the state conventions delegates to the national convention to
be held at Baltimore on June 7, 1 864. A small minority sought to
forestall the action of the convention. Calls were sent for a mass
convention to meet at Cleveland on May 31, and about three hun-
dred and fifty individuals responded. Their brief platform at-
tacked the administration for its failure to secure honesty and
economy and for its failure to overthrow the empire of Max-
imilian in Mexico. More pertinently it declared for a one-term
presidency, for reconstruction of Congress, and "That the con-
fiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their distribution among
the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of justice*' — many a
soldier marching through the South selected his portion. For
president they nominated General John G Fremont, whom Lin-
coln had treated so cavalierly in Missouri, and for vice-president,
General John Cochrane.

Undeterred, the regular convention met at Baltimore as
planned and carried out without a hitch the program of the presi-
dent. Its call had included all "who desire the unconditional
maintenance of the Union, and the complete suppression of the
existing rebellion, with the cause thereof, by vigorous war, and
all apt and efficient means." Its platform emphatically empha-
sized its Unionism rather than partizan purposes. There was no
word of Republican policies, except a strong assertion of war un-
til the Union should be restored and a purpose to end slavery by
constitutional amendment. Soldiers should be cared for after the
war, and their survivors and the national debt should be "kept in-
violate." To make plain the non-partizan character of their pur-
poses Hannibal Hamlin was not renorninated as vice-president,
and in his place was put Lincoln's choice, Andrew Johnson, who
had been, was, and was to be, a Democrat, but also an ardent sup-
porter of the war and pledged to emancipation.

348 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

This action gave its peculiar importance to the Wade-Davis
bill. Since the Union party was going into the election with no
program on reconstruction, except its professed confidence in
Lincoln, that bill would become an addition to the platform.
The Radicals, having lost the convention, seemed to have won
their point through their control of Congress.

With a Radical candidate and a Radical program before the
country Lincoln was once more in a dilemma. Should he sign
the bill and adopt the Radicals, as he had done in 1862 ? If he
vetoed the bill, would it not throw all the Radical support to
Fremont ? The situation was different from that of 1862, for
then Lincoln sympathized with the demand for emancipation,
whereas now he opposed the plan of Congress. Foremost in his
mind, however, was his fear of defeat at the hands of the Demo-
crats, with the consequent loss of the war. Would not his own
program of limited objectives have an electoral advantage over
the more drastic proposals of Wade and Davis ? His action was
characteristic — one of those shrewd and original moves that baf-
fled his antagonists, even though it angered them. The bill had
been passed at the very end of the session of Congress and so was
subject to a pocket veto, lapsing if the president failed to sign it.
Lincoln, however, did not let it go at that. On July 8, 1864, he
issued a new proclamation. In it he stated that Congress had ex-
pressed its mind on reconstruction in the bill just passed, but that
he as president was not prepared to commit himself to any one
plan and therefore had failed to sign it. Nor was he prepared to
"set aside" and hold "for naught" the work already done in
Arkansas and Louisiana. He was equally unprepared to "de-
clare a constitutional competency in Congress to abolish slavery
in States," while at the same time sincerely hoping and expecting
that a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery throughout
the nation might be adopted. Nevertheless, he was satisfied with
the system proposed in the bill "as one very proper plan for the
loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it," and was ready to
give them executive aid in carrying it out, appointing military
governors for the purpose — in place of the provisional govern-
ors subject to the confirmation of the Senate as provided for in

VICTORY 349

the bill, thus asserting his intention of continuing executive con-
trol.

It is not necessary to imagine the wrath of the authors of this
bill at the treatment which their work received. On August 5
Wade and Davis replied by a manifesto, published in the New
York Tribune and addressed to the "Supporters of the Govern-
ment." In terse sentences the manifesto attacked the usurpation
of the executive, charged Lincoln with the intention of securing
his election by the votes of the states he was reconstructing, and
wound up with an appeal to the supporters of the government to
see to it that the president "obey and execute, not make the laws."
"Let them consider the remedy for these usurpations, and, hav-
ing found it, fearlessly execute it." That way was clear. On
August 20 a letter was addressed to Fremont asking him if he
would withdraw if Lincoln would, and so "unite the thorough
and constant friends of a vigorous prosecution of the war in a
new convention." There was much talk about finding that rare
thing, a leader acceptable to both sides. In the minds of Wade
and his inner circle he had been found already. Incredible as it
must now seem, the savior was to be Benjamin F. Butler who was
already puffing with the potentialities of his prospective impor-
tance. A Breckinridge Democrat in 1 860, no one was now more
Radical than he, nor more hated by the hated enemy. His im-
pudent replies had been hurled at foreign consuls as well as at
Southern women ; his catch-words caught on ; he had been at
least concerned with the capture of Hatteras Inlet and of New
Orleans. If now he could but score in his present assault on
Richmond by way of the James, his laurels would shine fresher
than those of Grant's, now bloodied as the summer days ad-
vanced.

Butler did not score ; the people did not rise in anger against
Lincoln's usurpations. On September 2 1 Fremont withdrew and
Lincoln, the victor, threw a bone to the defeated wolves by sacri-
ficing the postmaster-general, Montgomery Blair. Blair had been
Lincoln's chief comfort in the cabinet, but his dismissal pleased
Davis, whose rival Blair had been in his home state of Maryland.
The sop was just enough, and it gave no earnest of surrender.

350 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Lincoln remained on friendliest terms with Blair, appointing
Blair's warmest friend to succeed him, and the cabinet was not
reconstructed along Radical lines. Lincoln unexpectedly ac-
cepted Chase's fourth resignation, and to his place at the treasury
appointed the moderate Fessenden. Soon Wade was campaign-
ing for the Union ticket, and the "supporters of the Govern-
ment" were regimented for the contest with the Democrats.

It was, of course, this contest, and not that with the Radicals,
that was the proper issue in 1864. The Democrats came into it
with all the impetus which four years of war, as yet unsuccessful
and with all its errors and rumors of errors inevitable in such a
contest, could give the opposition. By 1 864, however, their lack
of leadership had impaired their opportunity to take advantage
of them. Their electoral victories of 1862 had given them a re-
sponsibility in nearly every state but almost no power. The war
was now being carried on by national agencies, the states having
shot their bolt. Only in New Jersey did the Radicals control the
full state government ; elsewhere they could only block. It was
natural that a sense of futility aroused anger and gave power to
the more radical leaders, those opposed to the war. Under such
leadership they used their power which was limited to state con-
cerns. The chief objects upon which they could express them-
selves were the two which became the foci of debate — the ques-
tion of allowing soldiers to vote in the field and that of providing
for the dependents of soldiers: Here they were effective, but it
was a Pyrrhic victory, for if human ingenuity could conceive ac-
tions less likely to evoke popular support in war time it has not
yet done so.

One chance they had, that of incurring martyrdom, and this
fell to the extremist leader Vallandigham. In April 1 863, he was
campaigning in his district in Ohio, speaking with his customary
earnestness and violence. The blundering Burnside was at that
time in command of the district with headquarters at Cincinnati.
He sent some young officers to report Vallandigham's speech de-
livered at Mount Vernon on May i, 1863. On this evidence
gathered by the officers Vallandigham was tried before a mili-
tary tribunal under the president's proclamation of September 24,

VICTORY 351

1862, was found guilty, and condemned to imprisonment for the
duration of the war. The handling of such cases in war time is
always a dangerous business. However guilty, political opponents
of the government, if executed, become martyrs from whose
graves spring hosts of unexpected enemies. Yet leniency is con-
demned by an anxious public, fearful that they are endangering
the lives of loved ones at the front. Lincoln solved the difficulty
by one of his characteristic strokes. By banishing Vallandigham
to the Confederacy Lincoln turned an impending tragedy into a
healing laugh and left Vallandigham slightly ridiculous and estab-
lished in the public mind as an enemy of the Union.

The chagrined and unhappy Vallandigham soon made his way
through the blockade to the Canadian city of Niagara Falls,
which began to be a second anti-capital, teeming with dissatisfied
Northerners and Confederate agents. From there he conducted
in 1863 a campaign for the governorship of Ohio, which the year
before had given a Democratic majority. His defeat by a ma-
jority of a hundred thousand was evidence that the thought of
separation was still distasteful.

The increasing strain of another year and the rifts among the
Republicans gave new Democratic hopes ; and, if one may judge
from the estimates of so competent a reader of the public mind as
Lincoln, they had justification. The opportunity and the crisis
were sufficient to force their two wings into combination, if not
to harmony. Beginning a policy they were long to pursue, they
allowed one group to write the platform, the other to select the
candidate ; and it is interesting to note that in all cases the majority
chose the candidate, thus emphasizing the importance attributed
to the executive. The Democratic convention, meeting at Chi-
cago on August 29, declared:

As the sense of the American people, that after four years of
failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war . . . justice,
humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate
efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ul-
timate convention of the States, or other peaceable means, to the end
that, at the earliest practical moment, peace may be restored on the
basis of the federal Union of the States.

352 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

It stood for the Constitution as it was ; it denounced the usurpa-
tions of the executive and interference with the rights of states,
particularly those of the border ; and it promised good treatment
to the soldiers.

As candidates it selected General George B. McClellan and
"Gentleman George" Pendleton of Ohio. McClellan had either
given his best efforts to win the war or he was a traitor. As a
War Democrat he was committed to the possibility of a victory,
withheld, so the party leaders claimed, by the incompetence of
the administration. He accepted the nomination but repudiated
the platform. He declared for peace on the basis of union, for
he could not look his comrades in the face and tell them "that
their labours and the sacrifices of so many of our slain and
wounded brothers had been in vain ; that we had abandoned that
Union for which we have so often imperilled our lives." He
campaigned for a more efficient conduct of the war and for the
Union as the requisite, but sole, condition of peace. His sincere
Unionism could not be doubted, and yet the advocates of peace
could not but prefer him to Lincoln and Johnson.

The chief campaign material was the events of the war ; yet
intention pointed its significance. When Seymour had been
elected governor of New York in 1862 Lincoln had written him
offering to co-operate with him to win the war, but his offer was
ignored. Now he drew up a document which he asked his cab-
inet members to sign, sight unseen ; when they had signed, he
sealed it. After the election it was opened and found to com-
mit them, in case of McClellan's election, to co-operate with him
to win the war before his inauguration, as Lincoln believed it
could not be accomplished with a Democratic Congress. More
pertinently Lincoln sounded the intention of the Confederacy.
He authorized Horace Greeley to consult with Confederate
agents at Niagara. The two facts that emerged from these nego-
tiations were the ones that he intended to make plain : that Lin-
coln would not make peace without freedom, and that Davis
would not consider peace without independence. Subsequent to
the election the sincerity of Lincoln's intention in such discussions
was proved by his last annual message, by his allowing old Francis

VICTORY 353

Blair to visit Richmond on another peace mission, and by his own
conference with Alexander Stephens at Hampton Roads.

Equally clarifying was the action of extremists among the Dem-
ocrats who, thwarted by McClellan's stand, began to plan direct
action. Secret organizations, the chief being that of the Knights
of the Golden Circle, entered into negotiations with Confederate
agents, chief of whom was Jacob Thompson at Niagara, and ar-
ranged various outbreaks, as great fires in New York City and
Cincinnati and a riot in Chicago which should result in a prison
delivery of thousands of Confederate prisoners. The existence
of such plots and some of their designs were learned by the Pink-
erton agents, but secrecy shrouded and increased the numbers in-
volved ; and the menace in October loomed portentous over the
Southern portions of the Mid- West. Their plans were thwarted
and, through news of their terrorist intentions, were disseminated
from a great court of inquiry sitting at Indianapolis. Terrorism
is rarely good politics, having generally more recoil than dis-
charge, and such seems to have been its effect in 1865.

The most vital arguments were those from the battle-field.
These were convincing to the well-informed, but they left the
majority uncertain. Strategists knew that Sherman's capture of
Atlanta on September 2, 1864, marked the beginning of the end,
but to the majority it was only another victory, as was Farragut's
battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. Nearer at home Lee
still held Grant ; Hood was renewing the perpetual see-saw in
Tennessee ; and Sherman and sixty thousand men were lost to the
public in the Empire State of the South. On the stump the war
could still be presented as a failure but, on the whole, public opin-
ion seems to have been keen enough to sense success.

Political interest, in spite of the competition of the battle-field,
was as intense as in 1 860. With less display the whole people
threw themselves into the contest. In Pennsylvania, sects whose
principles had kept them from the polls decided that this was a
moral issue and came en masse to vote for Lincoln. An issue was
certainly felt to be at stake by the whole of the free and intelli-
gent American electorate.

Naturally the states in the Confederacy took no part; and

354 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Congress, after the election but before the counting of the votes
on February 8, 1865, rejected the returns from those states re-
constructed by the president, as well as the returns from Virginia.
On the other hand, three states were now recognized which had
not existed in 1864 — West Virginia, Kansas, and Nevada. Lin-
coln took justifiable pleasure in pointing out that in those areas
that had participated in both elections the vote had risen from
3,870,222 to 3,982,011. The total popular vote was 4,166,537,
of which Lincoln received 2,213,665 in place of 1,866,412 at the
previous election. Whereas he had then won but a minority of
the total, he now had a popular plurality of 494,567, with 212
electoral votes in place of 180, and embracing all those cast ex-
cept 3 from Delaware, 1 1 from Kentucky and 7 from New Jersey.

Perhaps the most remarkable fact was the stability of party
lines, if one may judge from the votes. This very stability lends
interest to slight variations. Gains were not uniform. The
Northwest showed a very slight shift toward Lincoln, his small
increases being accompanied by Democratic losses in Illinois, In-
diana, Ohio, and Iowa. In the northern tier he was relatively
less strong. In New England, except Massachusetts, the Demo-
crats gained more than the Republicans, and in New York, Penn-
sylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin,
there was a distinct, though slight, Democratic swing. On the
other hand, Lincoln won heavy increases in the border states,
barely losing Delaware, winning Maryland and Missouri, and se-
curing 27,786 votes even in war-harassed Kentucky in place of
the 1 364 which he had received in 1860. It seems plain that his
border-state policy bore political fruits and that confidence was
felt in his desire for reconciliation. A comparison of earlier and
later elections would seem to show that his battle with the Radi-
cals cost him something and that had he allowed it to become a
break the result might well have been serious.

The most important effect of the election was the crushing
and definitive blow it gave to the hopes of the South. The Con-
federacy had lost in diplomacy, its material resources could by no
chance maintain the struggle until the North had another oppor-
tunity to change its point of view ; four years of war left the

VICTORY 355

North determined to maintain the Union unimpaired if not
strengthened. The cause of the South was lost and with it, slav-
ery. The election marks the end of the Civil War as a struggle,
and it remained only to deliver the coup de grace. Sensible men
began to leave the Southern armies, not from lack of loyalty or
from despair alone, but from the pragmatic recognition that the
end was now inevitable. Others through loyalty, through honor,
through hatred, and through reckless carelessness of consequences
continued to fight as some men always fight when all is lost.

In time of war, more remarkable was the triumph of Lincoln,
who so boldly stood for moderation in victory, for reconciliation
with the conquered. To have kept the people of the North firm
for victory and still to hold out the hand of brotherhood and con-
ciliation is what gives him his place in history as remarkable as
that of Washington who, twice having the power in his hands,
twice returned it to the people. Whether or not democracy is
ideal, such acts represent the ideal democracy. To be sure, the
second triumph of Lincoln, so much more choice and rare than
the first, was not so complete. The Radicals, too, won their re-
elections and maintained their purposes. When Congress reas-
sembled, the struggle still went on. The radicals, as has been
seen, refused to recognize the state governments which Lincoln
had reconstructed ; they hit his executive prerogatives by a bill
limiting his control of the civil service. Yet the two factions
united in offering to the states an amendment to the Constitution
abolishing slavery, and in establishing a Freedman's Bureau to
assist the negro on the road to freedom. Lincoln was unswerv-
ing in his purposes, still possessing the confidence of the people ;
and the chance remained of setting before the world an example
of how a democracy could insist on the rule of the majority while
remaining considerate of the welfare and the rights of a defeated
minority.

Lincoln's policy was due to his inherent qualities of mind and
character ; its success, however, was due to the radiation of his
personality and to his political capacity. Why did the Radical
attempt to defeat his renomination fall flat when the delegates ar-
rived at Baltimore ? Why did the public fail to rise against him

356 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

when Wade and Davis asserted that he had flouted the dignity
and the powers of Congress ? Why did the majority vote for
him, though uncommitted to any definite plan of peace ? One
cannot answer such questions by the study of the intricate po-
litical wires running out from Washington to states and districts,
but rather by the wireless of human contacts which during four
years had been building up in the minds of millions an idea of
the man.

During the wax, Washington was the heart through which
pulsed the life-blood of the nation. Millions of men marched
through it, backward and forward — men drawn from the remot-
est hamlets and most far-flung homesteads. Hundreds of thou-
sands of women, wives and mothers, came on missions of love and
urgency. Politicians, newspaper men, humanitarians, lobbyists,
preachers, panderers, doctors, nurses, contractors, saints and sin-
ners, the curious and the purposeful, crowded its accommodations
and tramped its muddy streets as never before and, in proportion
to the population, as never since. Among them Lincoln lived
almost as freely as he had in his home town. He received all pos-
sible in his office, he turned up unexpectedly in other offices, he
walked the streets, he drove and rode through the city, he at-
tended the theatre, he shook hands in the customary American
manner with thousands who passed through the White House re-
ceptions. With the confidence of a man sure of himself he talked
freely in his old familiar manner with all and sundry, as man to
man, with a broad human sympathy that met the basic quality of
each, though sometimes failing of contact by his disregard for the
conventions in which some souls were encrusted.

Without eif ort he gave to those contacts some element of dis-
tinction. In a crowd he was always visible by his height, en-
hanced by his hat. His position as president could not but add to
the conspicuousness of his figure. Visible to all, he was never
without action, and individuality fixed the picture. A word, a
gesture, gave something that could not only be remembered but
described. With something of the infinity of truth each took
away some new facet. As he has attracted more biographers
than any other American, so there is no other to whose under-

VICTORY 357

standing each scrap of evidence, from him or about him, adds a
new understanding. For four years those returning from Wash-
ington carried home something that circulated through their com-
munities and gave a sense of personal relationship. People still
regarded his actions as awkward, and his face, which with the
progress of photography and reproduction became more familiar
than any up to his time in history, as homely ; but the word took
on some of the English sense of homey. No one could look upon
Lincoln's face without feeling sincerity and suffering and kind-
liness ; it withered charges of carelessness and callousness, and at
least rendered improbable the charge of a lack of determination.

When Lincoln reached over this cloud of witnesses to speak
directly to the country as a whole, he spoke with the humility of
a great artist who is never so confident as to forgo labor. Pre-
cision of thought and language was ever his aim, and he well knew
the dangers that lurk in iotas. He spoke or wrote for all, though
not often, and always briefly. His drafts had few interlineations
as his pen had become sure, but they were kept at hand and reread
and tested and sent forth in confidence ; they were so simple that
Americans did not realize until told by Englishmen that they
were literature.

From his arrival in Washington until his death, his life can be
told almost day by day, and often hour by hour. One fact that
emerges is that he stuck to his job. He did not work by hours ;
midnight, three o'clock in the morning, all night, occur fre-
quently in the record of his toil. Public announcements were
made on those days when he could receive no callers because he
was busy on a message to Congress. Twice he was ill, but he
seems to have been incapacitated one day only. He was almost
always in Washington, spending the hottest months at the Sol-
diers' Home, from which he frequently rode in at six o'clock in
the morning. Once he went to Philadelphia to make a speech
at a Sanitary Fair, once to Baltimore and, as all the world knows,
once to Gettysburg. Often he went South to visit the army ;
royalty was never more attentive to its troops. They were
greeted on arrival, sent home with word of exhortation, followed
to the front and cheered in hospitals. At first they were shy of

358 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the tall stranger but, by July 1861, he was met with continuous
cheers and soon became Father Abraham. He rode well on his
horse ; he was devoid of personal fear but was obedient when or-
dered away from a point of danger. Sometimes he spoke, some-
times he was only a friendly presence. Ira Seymour wrote on
April 5, 1863 :

None of us to our dying day can forget that countenance ! . . .
Concentrated in that one great, strong, yet tender face, the agony
of the life and death struggle of the hour was revealed as we had
never seen it before. With a new understanding, we knew why we
were soldiers.

The main business of his life was conference — minutes and
hours and broken weeks spent with cabinet, seekers of office and
clemency, profferersi^of advice. In most was some element of
antagonism, for the contented do not need to confer. Some
were important, some vital, some fruitless or trivial. His man-
ner varied with the topics but more with the men. In only one
record did he lose his temper. When a delegation with regard
to California appointments presented a paper impugning his early
and beloved friend, Senator Baker, he tore up the paper and threw
the pieces into the fire. Often he would end controversies by
assuming, sometimes without cause, the errors of others, as when
General Weitzel, the Union ruler of captured Richmond, failed
to see that prayers were said in the churches for the "Presi-
dent of the United States." As frequently he asserted his posi-
tion, and the conferees went away dissatisfied. New Englanders
tended to be condescending. John Lothrop Motley, who was
twice to make an egregious ass of himself in the diplomatic serv-
ice, regretted, in a letter of June 21, 1 86 1, to his wife, Lincoln's
ignorance of state matters, but : "I am now satisfied that he is a
man of very considerable native sagacity, and that he has an in-
genious, unsophisticated, frank and noble character" ; he was also
impressed by the "untaught grace and powers" of the impending
message which Lincoln read him, Richard Henry Dana wrote
on May 4, 1864:

VICTORY 359

He was sobered in his talk, told no extreme stories, said some good
things, and some helplessly natural and naive things. You can't
help feeling an interest in him, a sympathy and a kind of pity ; feel-
ing too, that he had some qualities of great value, yet feeling that
his weak points may wreck him or wreck something". His life *seems
a series of wise, sound conclusions, slowly reached, oddly worked
out, on great questions.

Nearly all who recorded their impressions after such conferences
echoed that of William Cullen Bryant, August 1863 : "I left him
with a perfect conviction of the excellence of his intentions and
the singleness of his purpose, though with sorrow for his inde-
cision." A very hostile delegation from Missouri thought him at
first a pettifogging lawyer, but "as he talked on and made search-
ing inquiries of members of the delegation and invited debate, it
became manifest that his manner at the beginning was really the
foil of a master to develope the weakness of the presentation."
Most exciting was that long conference with the cabinet and the
congressional committee which desired the reconstruction of the
cabinet by the removal of Seward. Earnestly, with bitterness
hardly concealed, the conference worked forward to the point
where Chase was goaded to tendering his resignation also. Lin-
coln stepped forward quickly, took it before it was offered, and
with a cheerful laugh remarked : "This cuts the Gordian knot,"
and ended the affair by declining both resignations with beaming
good nature.

The complex life of the presidency he lived with just that
touch of unconventionality which endears any ruler to any peo-
ple. The main and important conventions he observed. He re-
ceived as directed foreign diplomats and notables ; he punctili-
ously attended funerals and was present at the proper weddings.
The matter of pardons for military oif ences was and is widely
commented upon, with the general feeling that his kind heart was
destructive of discipline. The fact is that he examined with legal
care such cases as came to him and in a majority of those cases
refused to interfere. Yet he persisted in his policy of respon-
sibility and willingness to act. On October 9, 1 86 1 , he pardoned
a boy sentenced to death for sleeping at his post. On August 2 1,

360 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

1863, he asked Stanton to grant a furlough to a seventeen-year-
old boy who had met him and requested it of him. On March
31, 1865, he pardoned another who had been sentenced to three
years7 imprisonment for desertion because he had overstayed his
leave to be with a dying sister. He strongly and repeatedly
checked the special assessments on the property of Confederates
and the disbarring of disloyal clergy in Missouri. When on Jan-
uary 26, 1865, a committee, representing fourteen thousand
women of Philadelphia, told him of the unfair wages paid them
by government contractors, he sent at once for the acting-quar-
termaster-general and instructed him that wages for government
contract work be made remunerative.

In lesser things, he once attended a dinner at which he was not
the guest of honor, so breaking an established point of etiquette.
If he had had a bad night he attended meetings in his dressing-
gown and lay on a sofa. Following the practice of his day, Lin-
coln was shaved and, like Theodore Roosevelt, he used the shav-
ing hour for conference. George Bancroft reports a White House
reception where Lincoln saw and half-recognized him. He
"took me by one of his hands, and trying to recall my name, he
waved the other a foot and a half above his head, and cried out,
greatly to the amusement of the bystanders, 'Hold on, I know
you ; you are — History, History of the United States, Mr. —
Bancroft/ and seemed disposed to give me hearty welcome." He
did odd things, as one day he gave a negro with whom he had
conversed a check for five dollars, made out "To a colored man
with one leg." He admitted a newspaper reporter to a confer-
ence with certain Northern governors. He held important con-
sultations with Tad sitting on his knee. Yet apparently of his
own good sense he refused to parade at a meeting of the Christian
Commission and at no time accepted such a responsibility for any
organization, though in many cases attending and sometimes
speaking. Thoughtfully he informed Grant that he should de-
liver a little speech when he conferred upon Grant a lieutenant-
general's commission and that Grant might read a reply.

He wore no mask. His great gaunt frame was but a thin veil

VICTORY 361

for the spirit within. Men who saw him when grieved or wor-
ried describe him as not merely gloomy but ill ; when his mind
was serene, those who met him remarked upon his glowing health.
He was natural, not as a child, but as a mature man who has se-
lected and disciplined his qualities and can be both natural and
consistent. His native melancholy was under good control. Gen-
eral Lew Wallace, meeting him in 1864, after two years, noted
him thinner and worn, but "The certain indefinable cheeriness
in his clear voice was winsome even more than ever, and they
stayed with me." He talked of what he felt. At Fortress Mon-
roe he called in an aide from the next room and read the line :
" 'And, father Cardinal, I have heard you say, That we shall see
our friends in heaven.' If that is true, I shall see my boy again."
Jokes came as easily as spring rain, and they eased many a situa-
tion ; some ran through the country. A lady came from Balti-
more just to look at him ; a trained diplomat could not have es-
caped the awkwardness more neatly : "Well, in the matter of
looking at one another ... I have altogether the advantage."
When Jay Cooke remarked the contrast of Attorney-General
Bates's white beard and black hair, Lincoln commented : "Well,
it could hardly be otherwise, and the cause is that he uses his
jaws more than he does his brains." When Dana announced to
him, April 14, 1865, the capture of Jacob Thompson at Portland,
Maine, Lincoln said : "Let him go. . . When you have an ele-
phant on your hands, and he wants to run away, better let him
go." To a committee of the Union League informing him, on
June 9, 1864, of its decision to support him for re-election he
made the famous reply, that he supposed that they had decided it
was better not "to swap horses while crossing the river." As
quick as his jokes was his correction of a young interne, guiding
him in a hospital, who said : "You won't want to go in there ;
they are only rebels." Lincoln instantly replied : "You mean
Confederates." Slow in coming to a conclusion, his mind was
singularly quick, sometimes out-distancing the words, as when he
greeted Schuyler Coif ax and a friend coming to complain of Gen-
eral Weitzel : "Good morning, gentlemen, I just took care of that

362 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Weitzel matter." Tears were not as free to come as jokes, but
he shed them unashamed. He left McClellan's office with tears
streaming down his cheeks, stumbling as he passed into the street,
after hearing of Baker's death at Ball's Bluff.

In Washington he read the newspapers widely and irregularly ;
he read assiduously the war-time humorists, particularly Artemus
Ward and Petroleum V. Nasby. He undoubtedly enjoyed them,
and they were the busy man's drug for dreamy humors. Why he
persisted in reading them aloud to his cabinet, most of whom con-
sidered them frivolous and were hardly mannerly enough to con-
ceal it, is more difficult to understand. Perhaps a mild baiting
gave added relish, and who would not enjoy seeing Lincoln, with
the Emancipation Proclamation in his pocket, reading Artemus.
Ward to Salmon P. Chase ? Men and encounters with men were
his joy and recreation, and perhaps a boyish spirit of mischief pre-
pared him for the contest of wits yet to come, enabled him to en-
ter it with that happy cloak of tolerance which is so useful in
foiling armor rusted with irritation. Away from the crowds of
Washington and at sea, it was not the humorists that he read to
his companions, but the poets. On the trip to Acquia Creek,
May 22, 1862, with Stanton and Captain Dahlgren he read from
Halleck's poems. Generally it was Shakespeare. His letter to
James K. Hackett thanking him for his book on Falstaff brought
one of the first words of praise from abroad. The Liverpool
Post commented :

Its simplicity and candor are as fresh and delightful as new-mown
hay. Only fancy a statesman, a President, confessing frankly he had
never read Shakespeare through ! ! . . . Depend upon it there is
much good, truth, and honesty in any man, and especially in a pub-
lic man, who admires and respects Shakespeare, and yet voluntarily
says he has not read all his plays. But we are more pleased still with
Mr. Lincoln for having read several of the plays many times over.

His favorites were King Lear, Hamlet, Richard HI, and especially
Macbeth. He was familiar enough with the Bible to turn to it
when confronting a delegation and find a rather unusual quota-
tion with which to illustrate his point of view.

VICTORY 363

Lincoln was as careful of formal expression as he \vas free in
his familiar intercourse. His innumerable little speeches suid
little, generally combining a platitude with a joke. His purpose
of avoiding casual commitments was made completely plain.
Serenaded at Gettysburg in November 1 863, he said : "It is some-
what important in my position that one should not say any foolish
things if he can help it, and it very often happens that the only
way to help it is to say nothing at all." On April 7, 1 86 1 , he said
at a review in front of the White House that he had made a great
many poor speeches and now felt relieved that his dignity did not
permit him to be a public speaker. His power, both in infusing
a mood into such light occasions and in formal utterance, grew
as the years passed. His Gettysburg address was delivered, after
careful preparation, in November 1863. His letter to Mrs. Bixby
was sent a year later, November 21,1 864. His second inaugural
was delivered March 4, 1865. The happiest of the extemporane-
ous efforts was his last, April 10, 1865. With this power grew
his general popularity. His public reception at the White House,
February 6, 1865, was thronged with soldiers, mechanics, and
workmen ; a Washington resident said : "I have seen nothing like
this since the occasional jams of Andrew Jackson's day."

To Mrs. Bixby, and to all suffering mothers, he wrote :

Dear Madam : I have been shown in the files of the War Depart-
ment a statement that you are the mother of five sons who have
died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit-
less must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you
from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from
tendering to you the consolations that may be found in the thanks of
the Republic they died to save. I pray 'that our Heavenly Father
may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only
the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of
freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully.

On March 5, 1864 he read :

Fellow Countrymen : At this second appearing to take the oath
of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended ad-

364 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

dress than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in
detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now,
at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations
have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the
great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the en-
ergies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The
progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well
known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satis-
factory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no
prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts
were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it,
all sought to aVert it. While the inaugural address was being deliv-
ered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union with-
out war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it
without war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by
negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would
make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would
accept war rather than let it perish^ and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not dis-
tributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part
of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest.
All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To
strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for
which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the
Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the ter-
ritorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the
magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither
anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even
before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier
triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read
the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid
against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare
to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat
of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.
The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has
been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe
unto the world because of offenses ; for it must needs be that of-
fenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."
If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses
which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, hav-
ing continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove,
and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the

VICTORY 365

woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern
therein any departure from those divine attributes which the be-
lievers in a living God always ascribe to Him ? Fondly do we hope,
fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily
pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth
piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thou-
sand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord
are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish
the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan,
to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.

Of this he wrote to Thurlow Weed :

I expect it to wear as well or perhaps better than anything I have
produced, but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not
flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose
between the Almighty and them.

Soon after, he left on his longest trip, to be with the army
when the spring offensive began. Hearing from Grant that Lee
had evacuated Petersburg, he arrived there at three o'clock on
the morning of April 3, 1865. Returning to City Point he tele-
graphed the news to Stanton at 8.30 A.M. The next morning he
sailed up the James to Richmond. Reaching the city with four
companions and no escort he walked through the streets to the
headquarters of General Weitzel amid the cheers of the negroes.
During his stay he rode about to observe the conditions of the
city, conferring with many men and dropping in to call on Mrs.
Pickett, who had been a youthful favorite of his, and who was the
wife of the golden-haired hero of the great charge at Gettysburg.
Pickett was still in arms not many miles away, fleeing with Lee
before Grant. Lincoln returned to Washington, and on April 9
came Lee's surrender. The gathering crowd at the White House

366 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

on the morning of the tenth justly demanded a speech. Lincoln
appeared and requested that the band play "Dixie," at the same
time remarking, "I have always thought Dixie was one of the best
tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted
to appropriate it ; but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured
it. I presented the question to the Attorney General, and he
gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize."

CHAPTER XIII

THE RUTH OF WAR

ON MAY 10, 1865, the president issued a proclamation containing
the statement : "Whereas armed resistance to the authority of this
Government in the said insurrectionary states may be regarded as
virtually at an end, and the persons by whom that resistance, as
well as the operation of insurgent cruisers, was directed are fugi-
tives or captives." This was subsequently taken by the Supreme
Court as marking the end of the war. Already on April 1 1 a
proclamation had substituted a closing of certain ports, a domestic
measure, for the international blockade. On May 22 ports, ex-
cept those of Texas, were opened. On June 23 the blockade was
formally rescinded and all ports opened, subject to the temporary
use of the army and navy for the purpose of law enforcement.
On June 24 restrictions upon internal trade between the states
were removed, except for articles contraband in war. On Au-
gust 29, to go into effect on September i, all war-time restrictions
were abolished and trade was made free except for the laws and
"such restrictions as the Secretary of the Treasury may pre-
scribe."

The end of the war determined certain subsidiary results which
were almost universally accepted. The Constitution survived,
and this thought was balm to the conquered as well as a guerdon
to the victors. Was it, however, the Constitution as it had been ?
was it unscathed by the storm through which it had passed ?
would it be rerigged for peace or newly rigged for changed con-
ditions ?

The question of the future of the Constitution was obviously
a national one, but had a nation survived ? The external trap-
pings of unity and national organization rendered it then and ren-
der it today difficult to disentangle the debris. If Lincoln was
right, there was no geographical entity but a common people.
It might be argued that peace was in part an exemplification of
the fact that the elements of cohesion were actually stronger than

367

368 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

those of diversification. Yet the latter had pulled the segments
apart ; and for four of those long years, which were punctuated
by great events and lively emotions, they had fought ; the cut
muscles of a living organism had been seared by gunpowder and
hatred, and each severed fragment had developed its own and
separate power to live and act. They were held together, but
would they grow into one ? They were now in the spring of
1 865 actually together, but upon what terms would they continue
to exist ? Lincoln in 1861 had compared the situation to a di-
vorce ; now the decree had been refused, but what of the house-
hold ? Before one nation could securely operate, two nations
must be brought into an understandable relationship, as when any
two nations have fought and one has been defeated, terms of set-
tlement are a necessity. Elimination of slavery would not abol-
ish those differences of economic interest that rested on soil and
climate. Social systems remained not only unlike but opposed.
There were indeed no questions of boundary, but there were
those of reparations and minorities ; and while separation was out
of the question, the problem of conquest or of incorporation was,
in many minds, still open.

It is a question whether the clarity of the situation, when two
nations internationally sovereign have been in conflict, is not an
advantage as compared with the fog of perplexity in which the
men of 1 865 found themselves obliged to arrange a peace under
the pretext that nothing had been broken. Behind the veil of
constitutional hair-splitting, the need of decided and accepted
terms was not otherwise than after any war, but discussion had to
be clothed in the formula of routine community life. No nego-
tiations could take place with the Confederacy, for the Confed-
eracy was dead ; but the people who had comprised the Confed-
eracy were still alive and must consider or be considered. At the
close of the Revolution each of the victors dealt separately with
defeated England, and the United States came away with nearly
all the gains. After the Napoleonic wars the victors and the van-
quished sat together at the Congress of Vienna where they con-
quered France, in spite of the wiles of Talleyrand who divided
them and pulled many of the chestnuts out of the fire. Perhaps

THE RUTH OF WAR 369

the results of the Congress of Vienna caused those who won the
World War to arrange the negotiations and to provide the terms
for the Central Powers. It was this latter and later procedure
that was ultimately followed after the Civil War, but only after
the Vienna method had been argued, and still another, that of the
fixing of conditions by the president as arbiter to be submitted to
both parties, had been rejected. In the spring of 1 865 these three
methods were in mind, and no method was considered unimpor-
tant by a generation which was as meticulous in its choice of ways
as it was careful in its election of means. Peace existed, but the
peace treaty was not drawn and the formula for its negotiation
was in debate.

Peace which usually comes with the autumn arrived with the
freshening spring when those who laid down their rifles might yet
follow the plow. Peace always brings a brief period of care-free
exaltation. Casualty lists no longer filled the press, drawing and
repelling. Loved ones were no longer in daily peril of their lives,
and with the lifting of this heaviest pall all other evils seemed for
the moment light. Things tabooed by blockade or by economy
beckoned from the shops ; merchants, optimistic at the flow of
customers, were lavish of credit. A war has never ended without
a moment of gaiety in most eyes, without a boom in trade, a
quickening of production, or without a quick relapse into melan-
choly, cynicism, or antagonism made heavier by the fresh debts so
thoughtlessly incurred and granted.

During this brief spring of hope the touch of common life be-
gan to heal the great sore of war. Here and there families, sun-
dered for four years, hastened to reunite. Fathers and mothers
were generally quick to embrace and forget. It often happened,
however, in those days of parental generosity that a brother or
sister stiffly refused to see the prodigal, from whichever side he
returned ; while the new crop of grandsons and granddaughters
wrangled and fought the newcomers who refused to "Hurrah for
Jeff Davis" or "Hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree." Trains
and steamers going south carried great shipments of those goods
customarily in demand in the Southern markets, and sales were
brisk while credit was easy. Non-political organizations began

370 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

to be mentioned again. None was more successful than the Epis-
copal Church. During the war the Southern members of that
denomination, following its tradition of a national church, be-
came the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Confederate States
of America, prayed for the "President of the Confederate States,"
and consecrated one bishop, Leonidas Polk, to be a lieutenant-
general The members in the North, however, took no notice
of division ; continued to think and act as national ; and, when the
regular triennial General Convention was arranged in October
1865, at New York, the usual notification was sent to all dioceses
North and South — one Southern bishop and delegates from three
dioceses attended — and unity existed without discussion.

Quite rapidly the sterner aspects of military life evaporated.
Quickest to be released were the Confederates. When armies,
decimated by desertion, surrendered, soldiers were put on parole
and hastened away on foot, on horseback, or by train, singly and
in groups, for their farm or city homes. Prisoners held in the
North were speedily carried to some Southern point, as Nash-
ville, released, and left to find their way. They were accustomed
to the steady, mile-consuming march-step, to sleeping in the open,
to simple sustenance picked from fields they passed ; and, being
in their own country, they were often welcomed and fed. Gen-
erally they hastened to see their friends, to know the worst, to
start life while planting might still be done. Arrived, there was
the killing of some meagre calf or chicken, the warm reception
with its many reticences, and then consultation and work. The
majority dropped without effort onto the soil from which they
sprang.

They continued to be ex-soldiers. Many wore uniforms from
economy, some from bravado. Their titles lived on the tongues
of men. Their records were the substance of local gossip ; and,
coming from an army so largely composed of local units, the
criticism of their fellows kept most of those records straight,
though growing in the retelling. They became the heroes of
their communities. Fellow-citizens sought to honor them, and
politicians prospected among them for fresh material to sweeten
old tickets. While most found their places, those who had risen

THE RUTH OF WAR 37!

to power in the war, who had shown capacity to handle great
tasks, whose names were of international purport, were at a loose
end. Many were unwilling to sink back and sought new careers,
organizing companies — insurance companies, express companies,
railroad companies — to build a new South and their fortunes.

Regimented Northerners still remained in the South, not
marching through the countryside, but rather as small squads sta-
tioned in strategic towns. Rapidly their numbers were reduced
far below the limits usually associated with the holding of con-
quered territory but a strong reserve made them able to meet any
contingency. They were far from being idle garrisons, but rather
they were arbiters of destiny charged for the moment with all the
functions of government. In many places they were feeding the
hungry ; they were a protection against that dreaded primirivism
which the whites had always feared might break out among the
blacks. Their decisions were generally just and often sensible,
and though their presence was hateful, it was soon felt to be more
endurable than the evils that would have flourished in their ab-
sence.

The dispersal of the Union troops through the North was a
slower and more orderly process. Brought as military units to
some point convenient to the majority to be mustered out, they
were discharged with ceremony but, more important, with pay.
Accumulations of back pay, unpaid bounties, allowances, and
other dues provided them with substantial sums, seldom less than
three hundred dollars and often running to six or eight hundred.
With these sums in their pockets, cheered by crowds at stations,
with eager children peering down and waving flags and handker-
chiefs as their trains steamed under bridges or through villages,
fed by the ladies who still maintained their refreshment booths at
junction points, they hurried home. Touts beset them, and they
fell among thieves ; some sought brothels, some bought gold
bricks, some played poker, and some had their pockets picked ;
but most made a straight line for home and mother and a steady
job, and arrived with enough greenbacks to make themselves rea-
sonably independent. They were for the most part boys ; some
of those lately enlisted were only seventeen or eighteen years

372 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

of age ; some were veterans of twenty-two and proud of their
beards ; some were colonels of twenty-five ; while some of the
elders were generals still in mid-life. As in the South, it was the
latter who were most restless, for they had won distinction in war
that peace had not afforded them and were loath to return to the
obscurity of peace.

As a rule, war does not turn ex-soldiers to adventure. Usually
they have had their fill. These boys sought their old jobs. Some
who had enlisted as exuberantly as freshmen returned after four
years of war to fill out their four years in college. Often they re-
turned to the same girl. Savings were used to lift mortgages, to
make first payments on new farms, to buy McCormick reapers,
for fees to study law. Most were able to find jobs. Women,
generally willingly, gave up to them their war-time work ; only
in the printing business and in school-teaching did the war-time
dislocation of the division of labor between the sexes prove to be
continuous and permanent. So easy was the process of absorp-
tion that it has left almost no trace in literary sources for the his-
tory of the time and must be sought by comparison of statistics
and the compilation of individual experiences. A fair percentage
of these men everywhere, failing to find what they wanted and
moved not more by war fever than by the normal migrating hab-
its of Americans, turned westward to take the homesteads offered
free since 1863 by the United States government. Coming by
many roads to the next inviting frontier they constituted a large
proportion of the pioneer farmers of the upper Missouri valley,
taking a great number of the three hundred thousand new farms
opened in that region during the decade, but amounting in all to
but a small percentage of the whole number of returning soldiers.

As the majority of those who had fought tended to stability
and conservation, so, too, the war and the victory had been popu-
lar and no recoil of dissatisfaction and cynicism jarred the oncom-
ing generation into revolt. There was, of course, the inevitable
wave of crime and violence which comes when those poised be-
tween order and their predatory instincts are gathered together.
For four years they had been applauded for loosing their passions,
and a weakening of moral fibre naturally followed such a demon-

THE RUTH OF WAR 373

stration of the supremacy of crude force. Habits had been con-
tracted in the camps, such as an addiction to baseball and ready-
made clothes and of voting a straight regimental ticket. There
was, however, no revolution of manners and no important ques-
tioning of accepted morals. Nor was there any seeking of new
wars. On the whole, boys had become men in maintaining an
established order ; they were pleased with their success and were
determined that that Union for which they had fought should
live. Thus all wars have some features in common, but each war
has its peculiar characteristics. Generalizations are dangerous and
are totally unjustified unless based on all-embracing comparisons.
The veterans of the Civil War were being swept by a rapid evo-
lution into new ways of life, but those of the North sought no
revolution in the social order from which they had come and to
which they had now returned. Those of the South were equally
satisfied with the past and determined to reduce to a minimum the

The differences between the two sections were greater in 1865
than they had been in 1860. The great severing institution of
slavery, the focus of argument, had indeed been destroyed ; but
other differences had been accentuated, and a new gulf of eco-
nomic disparity had been created greater than that between any
conquering and defeated nations of modern times. The South in
1 860 was basking in the hey-day of her prosperity ; the North was
anxiously recovering from the panic of 1 857. For five years the
North had been steaming ahead with the accumulating energies
of a new era of economic prosperity and the impetus of wartime
activity. The South was burned out by an effort beyond its
strength and paralysed by the destruction of the system to which
its life had been adjusted. The unity of governmental existence
was but a thin disguise for inequalities of conditions far greater
than those usually existing between separate nations reaching
peace through war. Seldom do the issues of such international
wars bite so deeply into the vitals of the contending parties.

In proportion to resources and in actual figures the war had cost
the South over double what it had cost the North. It is difficult
to assess either figure in dollars and cents, for dollars and cents

374 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

had such a changing value ; it is dangerous to be too precise. The
cost here referred to is the amount of wealth drawn from the
community at large into the governmental exchequer and then
dispersed for the maintenance of war expenditures regardless of
whether it was in the form of taxes, loans, or levy. It represents
the total amount of property and service withdrawn from private
use and turned to community effort — in both North and South
to purposes economically unproductive, and in the South to effort
which was unsuccessful. The only assurance that one can give
as to this estimate is that it represents the minimum difference.
The probability is that it was much higher, rising perhaps to pro-
portions three times as great.

It is plain that so great a levy on an agricultural country drained
into the common treasury practically everything that was mov-
able. In the spring of 1865 the money which the Confederate
soldiers possessed had value only as paper. The railroads had fa-
vorable balance sheets and had for four years paid large dividends,
but those balances and their dividends now represented no value
whatsoever ; practically they had served four years gratuitously.
The books of the banks showed the usual sound management
characteristic of the South, but most of their assets were the bonds
of the Confederate government which was now dead with no
responsible heirs. The stockings and dispatch boxes of individ-
uals were bulging with promises to pay which could serve only
for kindling.

The exceptions to this picture of economic anemia were indi-
vidual and scant. One resource which seems to have been left
untapped was the planters' plate. The use of such bullion in
other wars, as when Oxford melted hers for King Charles, raises
the question of why it played so small a part at this time. It must
be remembered that the foreign purchases of the Confederacy
were limited in amount by the blockade and that those which
could be brought in were paid for in the so-much-desired cotton.
Internally the amount of precious metals was not sufficient to
buoy up the paper, and its only practical use would have been as
metal for the battlefield, where it would have been of small weight
in opposition to iron and steel. Southern novelists of the follow-

THE RUTH OF WAR 375

ing period, when it became absolutely necessary to find some
money for their characters, generally resorted to an aunt who had
before the war put her money in a Baltimore bank, or to the dis-
covery of coal or phosphates on the plantation. Among the more
lowly there were here and there in 1865 a few greenbacks secured
through trade and put away under hearthstones or in hollow
trees. Such secret hoards belonged rather to the category of ro-
mantic coincidence than to that of a sectional asset.

Naturally the Confederacy was not without property, the un-
expended residuum of its collections. It possessed war material,
vessels, some railroads it had built, and cotton which had become
its property in exchange for bonds but which still remained on
the plantation. It might have paid some such percentage on its
debts as Austria or Germany paid on their currency after the
World War, but the United States, while inheriting no responsi-
bility for its debts, became by the fortunes of war the sole legal
heir to all property of the Confederate government, and soon
military and treasury officials were active in collecting it. Such
recoveries, of course, stood in the national accounts as credits and
so were of proportional advantage to the South as part of the
nation ; but by proportion the South got but a small amount,
whereas it had given them all. This transfer of assets, however,
did not leave the slate clean. The South could not be held to
pay customs dues and excise taxes on transactions that had never
taken place, but its states were liable for their share of the twenty
million dollars of direct taxes levied in 1861 and for their pre-war
bonds, while individuals were still held for the debts due North-
ern merchants in 1861, a sum estimated at three hundred million.
These personal debts resemble those owed by Americans to Brit-
ish merchants at the outbreak of the Revolution which were rec-
ognized as payable under the treaty of 1783. Many of the latter
had been paid ultimately, under the Jay treaty, by the United
States government, but there was now no authority to take over
this deferred burden, although some had actually been paid to the
government of the Confederacy.

The wealth from which this drain had been made and was still
to be made had been shattered by the operations of the war.

3 7 6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Those operations had been conducted almost entirely in the
South and in the last year with a direct purpose of destruction.
Except in particular areas, the destruction of houses was not great.
Of cities, Columbia suffered the most. Richmond was badly
burned after capture. The Shenandoah Valley had been swept
fairly clean by Hunter ; and some areas, particularly in South
Carolina, had been laid waste by Sherman. The auditor of Geor-
gia estimated in 1865 that Sherman had destroyed fifty million
dollars' worth of public buildings in his state. Atlanta had been
burned out, but it was a new war town with little that was solid
to lose. Factories were gutted all through Mississippi and Ala-
bama, beginning with Grant's Vicksburg campaign and particu-
larly during Wilson's raid in 1865, which aimed at sources of
production. Personal property had been looted and ravaged.
New Orleans was intact, and seaboard Virginia had suffered less
than one might suppose, while North Carolina had been ravaged
less than the other states. Some of this loss was of luxuries ; one
might imagine Georgia subsisting without her court houses, those
emblems of county pride. Houses, however, were necessities,
and factories were essential factors in recovery. War destroyed
perhaps half as much wealth as was voluntarily expended in the
war.

Probably still greater was the loss by waste. Man made his im-
print upon the Southern landscape largely by his mastery of
woodworking, and wooden walls lose their value even without
the torch. Four years of neglect had left porches and walls sag-
ging, roofs leaking, and floors cracking. One of the greatest
single items resulting from such necessary neglect was that of
fences, not the wire fences later to become the bulwark of farm
scenery and of military defence, but rail and pole fences, snaked
loosely about the fields, separating crops and preventing cattle
from wandering. Wherever armies, hostile or friendly, had
passed, these fences had given heat and comfort, feeding the
campfires about which memories came to cluster. Thus over
wide areas the very heart of agriculture had been consumed be-
yond the possibility of prompt replacement, and some farms had
to return to the older stage of frontier beginnings, in which the

THE RUTH OF WAR 377

farmer had no legal recourse against those who let their animals
wander free. Agricultural implements were comparatively few ;
yet, such as they were, they, with all the paraphernalia of life, had
deteriorated ; and, still more vital, four years of merciless cultiva-
tion had in many places injured the soil ; and from the west began
the long and steady encroachment of the boll weevil.

The cattle that ranged their broken bounds were pitiably few
and poor. In 1 860 the Southern states compared not unfavorably
with those of the Northwest in cattle and hogs and horses. Their
numbers were large, and fine breeds had been developed on many
farms by gentlemen observant of the qualities of blend and train-
ing. Never since then have these states, except Texas, been able
to make a good showing. Cattle and hogs were slaughtered for
immediate use, regardless of replacement ; they fed both armies.
Horses were conscripted for cavalry and artillery, and the lack of
numbers and quality hampered both services before the war was
over. Unlike the West Indian planter, the Southern planter had
never become an absentee landlord. Without the constant su-
pervision of the master, breeding was neglected, and injudicious
mixing of strains resulted in deterioration of the general stock.

The established system of trade was disrupted by the destruc-
tion and deterioration of the railroads. Many of the Southern
lines had been very lightly constructed, and even the better ones
had in 1860 reached the point where new rails were required.
Throughout the war, armies and raiding detachments had leaped
at them as a bull dog at the throat of his victim. Destruction had
become an art by the time Sherman penetrated Georgia. This
destruction was, however, somewhat limited by the absence of
dynamite. Masonry was seldom demolished, and grading suf-
fered more from nature than from man. Rolling stock was often
caught, but more frequently it fled before the advancing foe and
sometimes earned good dividends, in Confederate currency, far
from the tracks to which it belonged ; for Southern roads were
more uniform in adhesion to their five-foot gauge than were those
of the North. Rails had been taken up from branch lines to build
ironclads and to patch the main lines. Hundreds of rails lay like
giant corkscrews, twisted in flaming fence rails by Sherman's

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

merry men. The Confederate government had erected at Chat-
tanooga a great plant for rail rejuvenation, but it had fallen into
the hands of the Union forces when that city was captured and
was now the property of the Union. Railroad presidents rode
where they could, identified errant rails that had once consti-
tuted their roads, and sought their recovery. So desperate and
futile an attempt illustrates the extent of the ruin that had fallen
upon the circulatory system of the South, a system which before
1850 had not been vital to existence but which in ten years had
been woven as an essential thread into the pattern of its life.

It followed as a consequence of these conditions that the more
important circulatory system of credit lay prostrate. Banks were
practically swept away, their assets of Confederate securities
evaporating like dew before the sun. In Georgia the only banks
to survive were the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company and
the Central Railroad and Banking Company, whose primary in-
terests were in railroads. Here and there in other states were sur-
vivors, but they were small, frightened, and unable to help ; while
any currency they might father was now subject to the ten per
cent, national tax. Much business had been done by private
bankers ; and some of them, less hampered by regulation, were
able to cash in on their good name, and continued subject to the
conditions of the market. Credit in the South, however, had never
been as dependent on local banks and bankers as in the North.
From the colonial days it had been habitually in debt for about a
year and a half for supplies brought in from outside the region.
In general these debts were carried by the merchants who sup-
plied the goods, with generous compensation added to the prices.
In many cases the transaction was direct between some well-
known planter and the foreign or New York house which sup-
plied the goods. Now in 1865 these debts were due outside the
section where they existed when the war began, and there was
needed the usual supply of credit for which the coming crop
must somehow pay, and such a crop could hardly be brought into
existence without credit for capital replacements of wastage and
destruction. It was, therefore, necessary to review the remain-
ing assets on which to borrow. If they proved good the loss of

THE RUTH OF WAR 379

the ordinary channels for the transfer would prove less severe
than in a region such as the North, where they had been, albeit
weak, more highly developed.

The credit of the South had always rested, and would continue
in the long run to rest, upon its ability to supply a certain propor-
tion of its own needs and to produce enough things desired else-
where to pay for the rest. It still had the advantage that its chief
crop, cotton, was greatly desired. The question was how much
it could continue to produce and whether the bulk of its produc-
tion would continue to be less than in other regions where it could
be grown. The land was still there with all it carried, including
the working of many years. It was slightly damaged by neglect
during the war, but it was related to modern conditions by mort-
gages. Much land, however, was of questionable title in 1865,
as it was as yet uncertain how drastic would be the enforcement
of the Confiscation Acts under which it lay for the moment for-
feit. Still more questionable was the factor of labor. This was
not primarily a question of loss of man power by war. Approxi-
mately two hundred thousand men would never work again ;
some must be supported in inactivity. The crucial problem, how-
ever, was that of the negro laboring population.

Already in 1 865 ten per cent, of the negroes had fled to the se-
cure North. What of the others ? Nine tenths, workers with
the skill of generations in their fingers, were in their accustomed
places. From an abstract and community point of view, free-
dom had created no difference ; land and labor and managerial
ability were still conjoined. Even if the proceeds should be di-
vided by a different ratio, the community income might in theory
remain constant. It is quite obvious that such generalized con-
siderations would mean little in practice. In changing the legal
relationship of worker and employer, a revolution, psychological
and financial, had been created which could not but produce im-
mediate dislocation of practices and laws. Even should the new
relationship prove economically advantageous in the long run, as
undoubtedly the majority of the advocates of freedom believed,
compensation to the community, whether to. the former owners
or in some other form, was demanded by economic justice from

380 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the section that had thus interfered with the internal order of its
neighbor.

From the point of view of the industrial leader the very fact
of a certain period of diminished returns was an argument against
the free extension of the needed credit. Loans were still further
scared away by the uncertainty of the eventual result, a result
which the almost unanimous and vociferous protests of the South-
ern borrowers asserted could not but be disastrous- When one
adds that the current security for loans in the South had been
slaves rather than acres, it is plain that the prospects of a free flow
of credit into this area, sucked dry by four years of war, were
meagre indeed. A community which had risen from the condi-
tion of primitive self-sufficiency was forced back to that con-
dition while bandaging its wounds and reordering its life by an
edict from without.

The North in the spring of 1865 was on the crest of an incom-
ing tide. The triumphant advance of the Industrial Revolution,
saved from the usual woes which it entailed by the safety valve of
western lands, had been but slightly checked by the panic of 1 857,
which was over by 1860. Industrialization was one of the main
purposes of the Republicans. As the South admired the free trade
ideas of England and hoped to escape its industrialism, the North
admired the results achieved by industrialization and sought to
emulate them by reversing the process and adopting a protective
tariff. The Morrill Act of 1861 was intended to encourage in-
dustrialization and, under the then existing circumstances, it was
adapted to that purpose. As the war proceeded the tariff rates
were increased, and when their effect might have been diminished
by the internal excise taxes on production they were revised to
met the discrepancy. Under such protection iron and textile
manufactures and a vast category of lesser manufacturing indus-
tries, old and new, grew and came to supply a greater and greater
proportion of such needs of the people. This development was
inherent in the situation and would have gone on in peace ; its de-
tails, but not its general character, were modified by the war.

Much of this development had been predicated on the Southern
market, on the market of past years, and on the expansion that

THE RUTH OF WAR 381

would come by the tariff-induced change from British to Ameri-
can goods. This slack, however, had been more than taken up
by the demand of the army in the field. A million boys from the
frugal American homes in country, town, and city, consumed far
more as an army than they would have under the conditions of
peace. Their needs were met however, but seldom have a people
possessed so high a degree of adaptability as did the Americans of
that generation. There was no such foresight as had fitted Ger-
man factories in 1914 to turn without a quiver from supplying the
wants of peace to those of war ; but native mechanical genius, ap-
plauded and rewarded, accomplished a result almost as astonish-
ing, and after 1861 few of the army needs had to be supplied by
foreign imports ; and Northern factories, widely distributed in
their search for water power, were humming as never before.

The details of the adaptation are infinite. The South had
counted on the ruin of New England when cotton ceased to feed
its mills. The pinch was felt, but it was not the pinch of starva-
tion. In a northern climate, people must be clothed ; and when
cotton became scarce and high in price, wool came again into its
own, and skill and capital were transferred from one mill to an-
other. Ingenuity took a hand, and for some of the uses which
wool could not supply, such as men's collars, paper was substi-
tuted. Yet the ingenuity of the industrial East was not more fa-
vorable than fate was kind to the Northwest. As we have seen,
that region was even more perturbed at the impending dissolution
of the Union than the manufacturing area. Its lesser fear was
for the loss of sales to the South of a portion of its agricultural
surplus. In practice most of this loss was made up by the appe-
tites of the army, but more sensational was the shortage of crops
in Europe, followed by a more docile acceptance by that conti-
nent that its teeming industrial life made dependence upon out-
side forces for food necessary. The result was a call which re-
sulted in a stimulation rather than a diminution of the cash income
of the Western farmer.

Fully as complete had been the adjustment to the loss of the
Mississippi waterway, a danger which Douglas had pointed out to
his constituents in 1861. Chief among the causes of the panic of

382 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

1857 had been the overbuilding of railroads, particularly of lines
connecting the valley with the Atlantic. In 1861 these roads ex-
isted, but traffic was slow to find them. Percentages showed that
railroads were beginning to take trade from the older, more pic-
turesque water transports, but the slow development of rail traffic
might well have dallied too long for the scant and doubtful finan-
cial resources of the railroads. But the solution to that problem
came in the war and its consequences. Not only was there the
transportation of the troops, but the numbers of civilians who
travelled increased beyond the imagination of those who had built
the railroads. In addition, there was the carrying of foodstuffs
for export to the coast, and at least as important was the shifting
of freight from southbound river boats to the rails, which had for
some years existed but had not fully converted shippers. Neces-
sity forced the use of the new method ; the transferred trade
raised the roads from incipient bankruptcy to prosperity. Proved
convenience had converted the doubtful, and the railroads and
New York were confident of maintaining in peace their wartime
victory over the rivers and New Orleans.

This mounting prosperity was little checked by localized de-
struction. Enough of the products were shot away on the field
of battle but, except for the border states, Northern territory es-
caped. To a considerable degree, even the weight of the war
was left to the future. There was a decided intention of paying
as it was fought. The very first session of Congress provided for
more taxes than Secretary Chase called for. The whole taxation
system aside from the tariff, however, had to be devised and set in
operation, and delay was inevitable before the results began to
flow into government 'coif ers. In 1 864 one fourth of the expense
was paid by taxation, but that was the highest proportion, and
over four frf ths of the total for the four-year war was still in 1 865
represented by various forms of government securities. The
greatest economic loss was that sustained by the oceanic merchant
marine. In this case, too, it was but to slight extent the wiping-
out of property. Owners suffered but little ; the highest estimate
for physical destruction of property was but $25,000,000. In
addition, there may have been some unemployment of vessels,

THE RUTH OF WAR 383

though the navy helped out by purchase and hire. Chiefly,
American ships were transferred to the British flag. Individuals
did not suff er, but a necessary national service was put into for-
eign hands ; whether temporarily or permanently was in question.
The action of Cornelius Vanderbilt in transferring his capital
from ships to railroads was a persuasive answer that the stimula-
tion and the enhanced profits of domestic development were
weaning Americans from the more strenuous business of com-
peting with foreigners on the high seas, to which the protective
system could be extended only by direct grant of subsidies.

Genuine as was the growth, it was magnified and distorted, as
if seen through the lenses of a new expanding currency. In 1 860
there was no national currency except gold and silver ; business
was transacted in the currency of banks chartered by the states.
The total for the United States was, on January i, 1861, $202,-
000,000. In 1865 all currency was national, except for that of a
few state banks that still maintained their own under a ten per
cent. tax. This national currency was of three main varieties.
Gold was required for the payment of customs duties and was
paid out in government interest. Within the country it was little
used as currency, except in California, being stored by the banks
as a commodity to pay for imports. Business was transacted in
greenbacks, issued under the act of February 25,1862, and having
no value except by use. They were legal tender for most pur-
poses, except the payment of customs duties, and were the medium
in which prices were customarily recorded. In addition were the
notes of the new national banks, established under the act of
February 25, 1 863, which were secured by government bonds de-
posited with the proper authority by the banks of issue. So great
was the demand for money caused by the ever-increasing number
of trade transactions that these means were not sufficient, and not
only was private scrip issued for local use by various businesses,
but other forms of government securities were passed from hand
to hand, such as the scrip in fractions of a dollar, known as shin-
plasters, based on short-term treasury notes for small values.

Undoubted as was the currency shortage of 1860 and the en-
hanced demand of the next four years, this enormous supply rep-

384 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

resented an inflation. The natural result had been a rapid change
in prices, which ascended throughout the period with great irreg-
ularity. As prices advanced, the usual economic process of ad-
justment went on. The first to profit were the manufacturers
who began to see bulging balance sheets even in the first year of
the war. Next came the farmers who got into their stride by the
second year of the war with prices for their products that offset
those of the goods they purchased. Last came labor which was
so unorganized that it was not able to take advantage of the short-
age in supply. During 1861 and 1862 there was much suffering,
but in the next two years labor began to catch up, though never
meeting in full the highest range of prices. In addition, the
enormous fluctuations, due to the events of the war and particu-
larly to the relations of the price-fixing greenbacks to gold, gave
opportunities seldom equalled to the shrewd and speculative who
made great fortunes over-night and sometimes lost them the week
after. Thus the increasing wealth of the North was coming to
be more unequally divided than ever before, and already in 1865
war profiteers and their wives were making it obvious, flaunting
their power to spend in the faces of the old aristocracy as well as
the new poor, and were ready to take the front of the stage in a
"Gilded Age."

Of still greater significance for the future was the quick exten-
sion course in credit which the American people had received.
Before the war Cyrus McCormick had begun to sell his reapers on
what amounted to an installment plan. Fanners, finding them-
selves shorthanded because of the war, took quick advantage of
this method of filling the gap without waiting until they had the
money to pay. The desire to have and not to wait was catered to
by those who were receiving more cash than they knew what to
do with, and mortgages became more frequent and more lightly
regarded than they had been. The opposite attack was organ-
ized by Jay Cooke, the Philadelphia banker, who became agent
for the sale of many of the government loans. The usual market
for such securities was now exhausted, and Cooke conceived the
idea of extending it to every hamlet. His young men canvassed
the countryside and patrolled the roads. Slips of paper secured

THE RUTH OF WAR 385

by the government of the United States could be had in exchange
for greenbacks, and would produce perpetual and abundant har-
vests. For fifty dollars one could be assured of a cent a day in
gold value for the life of the bond without toil or worry. In a
land of high prices, increasing offerings were consumed with
ever-increasing readiness. Already the habit of security buying
was becoming accepted in classes of the population which had
never before thought of putting savings elsewhere than into ster-
ling, or at most a mortgage or a note secured by property which
they could examine on their Sunday buggy ride. Should these
investments turn out well, whither might not their credulity lead
them in accepting paper purporting to represent values far be-
yond their watchful eyes ? A very late but direct consequence
was the purchase of German marks and other foreign currencies
after the World War. The North was not only richer in 1865
than it had been in 1860, but credit was flowing on an unprece-
dented basis unpredicated by real values.

At the moment of peace there was general and justifiable con-
fidence that development had not reached its limit. It was real-
ized that the needs of the army would call for readjustment, but
the men who composed it would return, marry, and increase the
demand. The South could again be supplied ; except to the
chronically pessimistic, the omens were all favorable, and hands
were still ready in their pockets to bring out the bills lying idle
there. One would suppose that, with one portion of the coun-
try rich and opulent in credit and the other ravished but ready to
blossom again if credit could be afforded, a basis for mutual co-
operation existed. One writing in 1932 must take the leap from
co-operation to reconciliation, but it is difficult to see why more
did not take that leap in 1865. After the World War there ex-
isted a widespread and dominating consciousness that the pros-
perity of one community was dependent on that of all. It was
the accepted dogma that situations admitted of determination by
scientific study. Innumerable commissions of experts were ap-
pointed to study each phase of world conditions. On matters of
finance, at least, their conclusions were generally accepted that
those who had credit should supply it for the benefit of those who

386 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

lacked, whether friend or foe. Private initiative took the cue
from public actions and over-stimulated the flow of credit. It is
too early yet to assess the results, but the contrast in action be-
tween the divergent nations of 1920 and the sections of 1865 is
sufficiently marked to refute those who claim that the world does
not move, and to make pertinent an inquiry as to the causes of the
difference and as to its actual extent.

Two major changes may be held chiefly responsible. In the
first place, during the Civil War period the dominating character-
istic of the ruling generation v/as an individualism that seemed
never before to have been so firmly entrenched. To the Jeffer-
sonian ideal of personal liberty, almost universal in the South and
powerful even in the North, and the frontier self-confidence that
still marked the West, had been added the philosophic individual-
ism which had been applied to economics. The laissez faire
theory of economic individualism, introduced by Adam Smith,
had grown until it had, by the pens of John Stuart Mill and Cob-
den and the voice of John Bright, converted England and had en-
tered the portals of New England which had been the citadel of
community responsibility. It had not captured the citadel, but
its spies had penetrated and it was working in many minds.
Charles Sumner felt the responsibility of Boston for the existence
of slavery in Charleston, but he stood for free trade. Puritan to-
tal abstainers were in violent conflict over moral prohibition and
economic high licence. The growth of constructive social thought
was checked, although the instinct to interfere remained vital.
It was no longer possible intellectually to contemn the philoso-
phies of the South and West where they fell in line with those of
the greatest of British liberals. Duty to a brother was done when
he was freed from temptation ; assistance in rebuilding his life,
which should flourish in the sunlight of freedom, was not in-
volved.

As there was no impulse to help, so there was no faith in the
power of scientific knowledge. Science as power, and not ob-
servation, was yet to arrive in America. Eliot was not yet presi-
dent of Harvard, nor was Johns Hopkins yet founded. Solutions
were to be sought in the study and not in the field. Princi-

THE RUTH OF WAR 387

pies, and not statistics, were the universal solvents. Contempla-
tion, and not consultation of experts, would tell one what to do.
The study of reconstruction after the Civil War and such im-
pressions as a scanning of what has happened since the World
War, may well suggest the hope that if the world suffers another
such catastrophe, the philosopher and the scientist may be joined
in a few statesmen.

It is reasonable to suppose that such a statesman was at hand
when the Civil War closed. The fact that Lincoln preferred
gradual to immediate emancipation and that when the idea of
gradual emancipation was given up, he announced that he would
accept a state as reconstructed even if it provided for a separate
and temporary classification of freed negroes, indicates that he
was fully cognizant of the social problem involved. His insist-
ence on education for the negroes, his suggestion for the reward
of the deserving among them by the grant of suffrage, and his
repeated references to a process by which the two races should
grow together, indicate a sense of discretion and, still more sig-
nificant, a policy of progress by evolution rather than by the im-
mediate application of idealistic principles. His arguments for
compensation, with which he was trying as late as 1865 to con-
vince his cabinet, were always expressed in terms of their relative
money cost to the cost of the continuance of war. It is impos-
sible to conceive that he was not also thinking of the lives that
would be saved. With Lincoln, silence is no sure proof that an
idea was not present in his mind. It is at least conceivable that in
preparing to pay the compensation money to the state rather than
to individuals he was less influenced by the sanctity of property
rights than by the apprehension of the South's need for credit to
finance her recovery, and it is plain that whatever the intention
such would have been the result. Such a program was the result
of the impact of an original mind upon the facts presented to it.
It was totally unaffected by and contrary to the prevailing intel-
lectual concepts of his generation in the United States, and one
must recognize that this lack of correlation raised a practical diffi-
culty, as men with the sympathy and the training to carry it out
might well have been lacking.

388 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

This difficulty is illustrated by the actual activity and the popu-
lar reputation of the one socially reconstructive agency that was
created. In February 1865, under the War Department, there
had been authorized by Congress the Bureau of Freedmen and
Abandoned Lands. Lincoln had appointed to its head General
Oliver Otis Howard, and its purpose was to ease the transition
from slavery to freedom. At the moment of peace it was busy
feeding the starving, whether white or black. Soon its agents
were engaged in the more dangerous task of fixing wages and ad-
justing with untried hands the broken thread of intricate social
problems. Its purpose was sound, much of its work was good,
but turning in an individualistic age to work as paternalistic as
could well be devised, it has left memories as black as those of the
secret police of the worst despotisms.

It is to the credit of John A. Andrew, that firebrand among the
anti-slavery political leaders, that when he laid down his general-
ship in 1865 he took up as a business man the organization of a
credit company designed to bring the Northern surplus to the
barren South. His death prevented, however, any important re-
sults, though a few Northern bankers, as the firm of Henry Clews,
afforded some assistance. The one solid piece of work, and one
that helped meet the most trying need, was that done by Stanton.
During the war a very large part of the railroad mileage of the
South had fallen into the hands of the Northern armies. Much
of it was immediately conditioned for their use under the efficient
direction of General McCallum. In July Stanton issued an or-
der stating the economic unity of the nation, the vital character
of the railroads as a means of transport, and the necessity of their
being rapidly put into full commission. To this end he made
two contributions. One was the employment of the army con-
struction gangs to set them in order. The second was the turn-
ing over of the roads as soon as circumstances permitted on the
acceptance of the costs incurred by the United States govern-
ment, which should be carried as debits. Thus the governmental
organization and credit were both used for rehabilitation, and
transportation was restored much more rapidly than it could have
been otherwise. These debts, amounting to about six million

THE RUTH OF WAR 389

dollars, were paid but irregularly, and a two-million-dollar resid-
uum finally disappeared from the books during the first Cleve-
land administration.

General Thomas in 1865 established by military order an agra-
rian system in South Carolina, giving negroes patches of land
with a three-year title, to be taken from those lands which had
been abandoned by the Confederate owners about Beaufort.
W. F. Allen, late professor at the University of Wisconsin, at-
tempted to apply to the situation the agrarian experience of Rome
under the Gracchi, hoping to find in land ownership the stabiliz-
ing influence that Lincoln hoped might come from the elements
of contract. But such tentative and partial thoughts but em-
phasize the general failure to think of economic and social prob-
lems in terms of government action. To the overwhelming ma-
jority, educated and uneducated, the dominating problem was
political. Security and economic order were at stake, but the
contest was in terms of law, sovereignty, liberty, equality, free-
dom, and security.

The political differences which had existed between the two
sections naturally had not been unaffected by the war. The
chief change was intensification of sectional particularism. There
is a curiously persistent influence which comes from independ-
ence, however transitory, which sometimes causes geographical
areas, submerged by centuries of unity with others, to rise and
once again assert themselves. Nationality in the United States
had received a set-back, and sentiments which, when interests
were most divergent, had clustered about the stars and stripes,
were now disjoined. The situation, however, was not hopeless
for the re-emergence of that common loyalty on which Seward
had counted and in which Lincoln had faith.

The number of the truly recalcitrant in the South was surpris-
ingly small. The Slidells remained with their daughters in France,
and some, not impoverished, went to Paris as refugees. Judah
P. Benjamin adapted his law to the English pattern and rose to be
head of that distinguished bar. A few Confederate officers scat-
tered to lands where military experience was valued. General
Magruder brought a thousand or so veterans to the service of

390 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Maximilian in Mexico. The total number of those who sought
voluntary exile was actually small, probably well under two thou-
sand individuals. There remained the question of loyalty among
those who stayed at home, and for eighteen months there was jus-
tifiable doubt as to what would be the reaction if the United
States and Napoleon III became involved over the affairs of his
protege, Maximilian. Many feared that Southern armies would
join the forces of the Mexican Empire and that the battle of the
last four years would be renewed on the plateaus of Mexico.
Such apprehensions gave pertinence to Franco-American diplo-
macy and to the movements of the United States army. The
question was one of those on which the Resolutions Committee
of 1866 chiefly quizzed the Southerners whom it brought before
it. The contingency did not arise, and so one cannot argue as to
the import it might have had ; but the evidence seems strong
enough to warrant the conclusion that the Southern enlistment
under the French flag would have been meagre.

The evidence is overwhelming that in the spring practically all
Southerners accepted the Union* Despairing, they seemed for a
moment to bow to fate. That mood, however, did not last long.
They saw things within the Union yet to contend for and evinced
genuine Unionism in their determination to participate and to
fight step by step for their remaining rights.

First was the dyed-in-the-wool Unionism of the mountains
which had withstood the shock of war and played its part in the
fight. This element had grown in the conflict, drawing to itself
allies in North Carolina, which in 1864 had cast forty thousand
votes for William W. Holden as the peace-at-any-price candidate
for governor, and many from the northern parts of Georgia and
Alabama. With peace its strength was augmented by the latent
elements of dissatisfaction — poor whites previously leaderless
who were called to the strife against slavery by Helper's Impend-
ing Crisis but who were powerless under ante-bellum conditions.
This element was now triumphant but was conscious of being a
minority and sought to rule by the exclusion of the disloyal. In-
different to the slave, they were particularly insistent upon the
inferiority of the negro. At one with the punitive Radicals of

THE RUTH OF WAR 391

the North, they might break their alliance should the equalitarian
Radicals gain the upper hand or should the Radicals of the po-
litical stripe decide to bet on negro voters.

The late governing class was divided within itself, but by deli-
cate lines that might be wiped out in time of danger. Those who
genuinely regretted independence in any tangible way proved
fewer than one who lived in the South between February 1861
and April 1 865 would have supposed. They resented defeat and
thwarted will, but it was a feeling that expressed itself in senti-
ment rather than in action. There was some divergence between
those who had urged secession and those who had opposed it and
could now say, "I told you so." In the first elections after the
war there was some tendency for the electorate to turn to the
latter as the wiser. Their victories, however, were interspersed,
as in the North, by those of war heroes, and Rhodes's theory that
the Republicanism of the North could have built on the old Whigs
of the South is fantastic. The secession contest had not been
fought between Whigs and Democrats ; Alexander Stephens and
Robert Toombs had both been Whigs. In the summer of 1865
there was evident no difference in the popular reaction to Ste-
phens and Jefferson Davis, who both lay languishing in Northern
prisons. If Democrats had miscalculated in voting secession they
had been shown to be right in their long contention that the
Democrats of the North were safer allies than the Cotton Whigs.
As for so many years before the war the ruling classes of the
South had agreed as to what was to be fought for and had di-
vided chiefly upon method, so now their differences were still as
to the wisdom of leadership and the politicians best suited to the
common end.

Nor should it be forgotten that, with the question of secession
settled, practically all Southern whites had one common enthu-
siasm. All were constitutionalists. Even in the flush of inde-
pendence public sentiment did not permit the theorist to substi-
tute the English parliamentary system for that of the fathers.
The Constitution, moreover, with secession out of the picture,
meant in Knoxville what it meant in Milledgeville, in Jackson, in
Richmond, and in Columbia. It was a precise and definite docu-

392 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ment, consecrated to the principle that the least government is
the best, a guardian of personal liberty and the rights of sovereign
states. Elasticity was in constitutional law what laxity was in
morals. With phraseology changing to suit the manners of the
community, its spirit might everywhere be expressed as giving
Americans the right to do what they pleased.

In admiration for the Constitution there was of course an ele-
ment of unity between North and South but not so in the inter-
pretation. While the South had grown toward unanimity in its
strict view, the North had grown toward looseness. The war
left Southern opinion where it had been ; it stretched the North-
ern conception, and the majority sustaining it, more drastically
than they had in any previous decade of the national develop-
ment. The difference remained that the North was still divided,
and most Democrats held to a strict view. Many of them, how-
ever, as in Pennsylvania, had never found a protective tariff to
violate the strict provisions ; and so, while the North was not a
unit as was the South, its majority was practically effective. One
gathers, too, that in 1 865 there was a stronger animosity in the
North than in the South. No one, of course, will admit war
guilt, but for Southerners such an admission was not necessary in
order to recognize that they had made a mistake. In the North
the majority of the Democrats agreed with the Republicans that
the war was brought on by the South, which was the attacking
party, and resentment transcended party lines.

The conflict could not end with the results enumerated at the
beginning of this chapter. Other consequences were inevitable.
The methods of making the necessary decisions were in the spring
of 1865 7et to be decided. It is evident that neither of the con-
tending parties had been eliminated by the war and they still con-
tinued to grow in diversity. If amalgamation and reconciliation
were the aims to be pursued, they must be sought with care.

CHAPTER XIV

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY

ON THE night of April 1 3 Lincoln had a dream which was habitual
to him and which had on various occasions presaged great events.
The next evening with Mrs. Lincoln he attended the theatre to
see the famous comedy, Our American Cousin. The guard who
automatically attended him on such occasions took a seat where
he could see both the play and the door of the presidential box.
Soon there came a man who passed unobserved and entered the
box. Immediately a shot rang out. The assailant leaped from
the box to the stage. Falling as he touched the stage, he re-
covered, turned to the audience, and declaimed, "Sic semper ty-
rcmnis" and limped away. The president collapsed in his chair.
He was removed to a house near by ; he never recovered con-
sciousness, and died at about seven o'clock the next morning.

The morning papers carried the news of a similar attack upon
Secretary Seward who, while in bed, had been wounded, though
not mortally. Lincoln's assailant was John Wilkes Booth, an
actor of repute. He escaped from the theatre and crossed the
Potomac, but was pursued, cornered on a Virginia farm, and
killed, though with sufficient disfigurement to render identifica-
tion not quite certain, and the tale of his survival is a romantic
legend that will not down. The combination of the attacks and
the plans of escape proved the existence of a plot, and soon evi-
dence pointed to the house of Mrs. Surratt in Washington. Minds,
even of those ordinarily sane, ran on and conceived, behind the
rather inconspicuous agents, principals of distinction. Jeif erson
Davis, who was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, on May 10,
while fleeing from the Union forces, was charged as chief in-
stigator. A special military court was constituted to conduct the
investigation, and the new president, Andrew Johnson, declared
that the discovery of the guilty and their punishment was his first

393

394 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

duty. Popular indignation was fed on fantastic forgeries from
which it is difficult today to winnow the substratum of facts.
A plot had existed for several months. Its original purpose had
been kidnapping. Because of his skill and a special emotional
bitterness, Booth had been included ; he was assigned the chief
place late in the proceedings. Like John Brown, he had changed
his plan at the last moment to assassination, and it is questionable
how many of his associates were aware of the change. This
doubt involves especially Mrs. Surratt who was executed, and it
cast a deep mental perturbation over Joseph Holt, the chief prose-
cutor, who was transformed from one of the social lights of Re-
publican Washington to a recluse. Lacking proof, the idea of the
participation of high Confederate authorities passed from men's
minds. Its gradual disappearance as the months passed may be
seen in the letters of Johnson. It soon lost value, even for cam-
paign oratory, and within twelve months was supplanted in all
but a few minds by a latent conviction of Davis's innocence.

This tragedy at the moment of victory and relaxation became a
major factor in American history. Three definite and persistent
streams of consequence flowed from it to affect the course of his-
tory. Lincoln, with his influence, with his skill in handling, oddly
but effectively, great crises, with many of his plans still locked in
his breast, was snatched away. Andrew Johnson, with the con-
fidence of the public yet to win, with a personality known to but
a narrow circle, with a job to do which he had never expected,
was now in Lincoln's place and invested with his authority.
Thirdly, too, the situation was changed. Joy had been turned to
sorrow. Such searching of hearts as had been stimulated by Lin-
coln's second inaugural was superseded by a renewed conviction
of the sinf ulness not only of slavery but of its supporters. There
was a sense of a sign from Heaven that the chosen people of the
North must not be led to trafficking with the worshippers of
idols. Much that was sweet was turned to gall ; a leavening spirit
of joint responsibility was replaced by the acid of indignation.
The people of the North had been swayed by Lincoln's words
as the mob, who had sought to stone the adulterous woman, had
been touched by the words of Jesus : "He that is without sin

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 395

among you, let him first cast a stone" ; but after the assassination
they took a firmer grip on their stones and looked once more to
the high priests and the law of "an eye for an eye."

No one can tell what chance there had been that a Christian
nation could be led to follow the teachings of common sense and
the Christian religion. In war there is unity to defeat the enemy,
and sacrifice is willingly made because it is temporary. With
peace each individual and faction believes that victory means the
accomplishment of his particular purpose, and sacrifices are no
longer oif ered because the settlements of peace seem, though de-
ceptively, permanent. So, even forgetting hatred and suspicion,
the politics during reconstruction are nearly always more bitter
and divisions more rife than when the guns blaze. Statesmen —
with rare exceptions such as Augustus, Washington, and Masaryk
— fall in the tumult ; and even military heroes, as Wellington and
Grant, are generally sent back from political leadership to bask
in their first glory! There is little to indicate that the popular
confidence in Lincoln extended to appreciation of his purposes in
the new stage to which affairs had advanced.

The generals showed up rather well. Grant succinctly said :
"Let us have peace." Lee advised his soldiers to become good
citizens of the Union. Sherman's active mind conceived bases
for reconstruction and he officiously set about realizing them by
his military proclamation establishing an agrarian system for ex-
slaves and by recognizing the existing state governments of the
South in his terms to Johnston on April 18, 1865. The poets
showed less well, but there has been no time in our history when
they have come so near being the spokesmen of the people. Long-
fellow, Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, Bryant, and Emerson were
linked together in the popular mind, and their portraits were
framed together in innumerable school-houses. The public were
proud of them and, if not always responsive, held their ideas to be
ideals, impracticable, perhaps, but representing the ultimate at-
tainment of the human spirit.

They and their lesser fellows spoke much before and during
the war. Longfellow avoided politics but lamented the sinking
of the Cumberland by the Merrimac :

396 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

"Strike your flag !" the rebel cries,

In his arrogant old plantation strain.
"Never!" our gallant Morris replies;
"It is better to sink than to yield !"
And the whole air pealed
With the cheers of our men.

Ho ! brave hearts that went down in the seas !

Ye are at peace in the troubled stream ;
Ho ! brave land ! with hearts like these,

Thy flag, that is rent in twain,

Shall be one again,
And without a seam !

Holmes ever spoke of union. In May 1861, he wrote :

The star-flowering banner must never be furled,
For its blossoms of light are the hope of the world.

Whittier and Emerson were both elated at emancipation on Jan-
uary i, 1863. Whittier in the most excellent outburst of the pe-
riod wrote :

It is done !

Clang of bell and roar of gun.
Send the tidings up and down.
How the belfries rock and reel !
How the great guns, peal on peal,
Fling the joy from town to town I

Ring and swing,

Bells of joy ! On morning's wing
Send the song of praise abroad !
With a sound of broken chains
Tell the nations that He reigns,
Who alone is Lord and God !

Emerson took the occasion to attack the idea of compensated
emancipation :

Pay ransoms to the owner

And fill the bag to the brim.

Who is the owner ? The slave is the owner,

And ever was. Pay him.

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 397

None of the poets responded to the second inaugural, and Lin-
coln's death failed to elicit a single evidence of his purpose in re-
construction or of the significance of his loss. Bryant wrote :

Thy task is done ; the bond are free ;
We bear thee to an honored grave,
Whose proudest monument shall be
The broken fetters of the slave.

Lowell's was by far the busiest pen throughout the war, and his
"Commemoration Ode," delivered at the Harvard Memorial serv-
ices of July 21,1 865, is sometimes taken as the first recognition of
Lincoln's greatness, though antedated by Stanton and by Sir John
Tenniel in Punch. Lowell claimed to have been the first of the
Boston Brahmin class to see a man in the rustic lawyer, but even
his vision but vaguely pierced the thick clouds of misunder-
standing. In February 1863 he had written: "More men!
More men ! It's these we fail. . . We wanted one that felt all
chief." The Lincoln passage, not in the ode as first published,
was introduced with apology and concluded with apprehension
that his name for the moment counted for little :

and

Forgive me if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn

Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour.

Apprehending his patience and his kindness, Lowell certainly mis-
interpreted him in saying that he "never loved to lead," while the
phrase "dreading praise, not blame" is, of course, nonsense. No
hint of that hesitation to proclaim the divine will, which might
have been so useful a lesson to its interpreter in New England, nor
of the level eye which saw friends and foes as equals.
; Whitman, who on his way to or from his hospital service, sel-
dom conversed with Lincoln, though he exchanged greetings xvith
him almost daily, was innately more sympathetic. In 1865 He
wrote :

398 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,

Be not dishearten'd- Affection shall solve the problems

of Freedom yet ;

Those who love each other shall become invincible —
They shall yet make Columbia victorious.

• • • •

No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers ;

If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.

One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade ;

From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese,

shall be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earthu

Yet he thought of Lincoln's task as done :

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells !
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Whitman, moreover, could not be compared in general fame and
influence, or as representative of the forces governing public
opinion, with the six great classicists,

Emerson, who had thought John Brown's gallows as glorious
as the Cross, was not moved to poetry on the night of Lincoln's
death, but wrote that possibly it had been an illustration of the
divine providence that Lincoln had been removed at a time when
a sterner virtue was required. The grave may have ended certain
possibilities to Lincoln and the American people, but it is not for
die historian to indulge in imaginative speculations. Certainly a
task remained, and certainly it fell to sterner hands.

Howsoever difficult reconciliation might have been for Lincoln
to achieve, it was more difficult for his successor. One can ap-
preciate the new cutting edge of bitterness by reading the edi-
torials of the Northern press, the correspondence of Northern
men and women, and the reports of those accused of the assassina-
tion* On May 2, 1865, the president issued a proclamation:

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 399

"Whereas it appears from evidence in the Bureau of Military Jus-
tice that the atrocious murder of the late president, Abraham Lin-
coln, and the attempted assassination of the Hon. William EL
Seward, Secretary of State, were incited, concerted, and procured
by and between Jefferson Davis, late of Richmond, Va., and Ja-
cob Thompson, Clement C. Clay, Beverly Tucker, George N.
Sanders, William C. Cleary, and other rebels and traitors against
the Government of the United States harbored in Canada." Re-
wards were offered for their apprehension. Nowhere, perhaps,
is the bitterness so evident as in the letters that greeted the new
president on his assumption of office and that continued to flow in
by every mail for months. One cannot escape a feeling of de-
pression when one realizes that so many of those asking for con-
dign and far-reaching punishment came from what was at least
the official conscience of the people, their clergy. Avoiding the
extreme, one may take a representative of the best philosophic
thought, the memorial sermon of Phillips Brooks. In this, in
addition to a reasonably appreciative eulogy on Lincoln, he sought
the cause of Lincoln's assassination. He found it in the fact that
the institution of slavery was essentially grounded on cruelty and
violence. A society thus based was certain to develop those
characteristics in its members. Seeking its ends, it inevitably re-
sorted to those qualities which were inherent in it. Assassina-
tion was, therefore, but a logical consequence, and the respon-
sibility for Lincoln's death fell upon the South as a whole. Here,
then, was an indictment of a whole section. Would the treaty,
as that of Versailles in 1919, allocate the war guilt ?

Andrew Johnson, to whom fell this task, was more vilified in
his own day than any of our presidents. To the few low voices
that came to his defence thirty years afterward have been lately
added those of strident champions, and he bids fair to rival Burr
as a bone of eternal controversy, and with much more marrow to
justify the effort. Superficially there was much in his career to
remind one of Lincoln : he was a poor white boy who by his own
efforts achieved education and leadership. Conditions and traits,
however, began an early differentiation. A poor boy amid a cul-

4OO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tured aristocracy became naturally more class-conscious than one
in Illinois where all sorts and conditions of men were mixed as
stones are mixed by the passing of a glacier. His trade of tailor
could not but increase the sum of difference in a generation where
children sang : "It takes nine tailors to make one man." John-
son's bearing as he rose through this society was fine. He not
only often referred to his trade but he took pains to be perhaps
our best-dressed president. The conditions, however, affected
him and seared his soul. In politics he may be considered the
first important self-conscious representative of the workingrnan,
and a deep bitterness tinged his soul. During the trial for his im-
peachment he sent to the Library of Congress for certain books,
took sheets of foolscap and lined them out, and listing on the left
hand the members of the Court which impeached Charles I he
recorded opposite each the bloody fate that overtook him. Can
one escape the sense of- his rolling under his tongue those grim
fatalities as his mind saw in the place of Cromwell's Puritans,
Sumner and Wade and Stevens ? Hate, wherever directed, would
play its part in the new regime.

His intellectual development was apparently slower than Lin-
coln's and more conventional. He early learned to read, but a
notation of his own on a letter endorses the rumor that he selected
his wife to teach him to write. His education, once begun, con-
tinued steadily and substantially. The books he drew from the
Library of Congress would do credit to any man. In this ac-
quired realm of thought and manners, however, he moved but
slowly. In the White House he was an exceptionally dignified
host, but he dared not let himself go. So, too, his set speeches
were of high quality in both content and form, but they de-
manded time for preparation. This careful exterior was not a
veneer. His blending of Jackson and Emerson in a definition of
democracy shows a profundity which knit the whole man. Yet
it remained true that the frontiersman was polished rather than
cultured. When caught without preparation, his tongue reverted
to the speech of his backwoods campaigns, and often the coat of
civilization irked him. There was in hun no Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde complex of personalities. One has no right to say that the

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 401

man that developed was more really Johnson than the man he
sought to be, but that there was a difference cannot be ignored
if one would understand the fate of his administration.

An illustration of the danger in which he stood occurred at his
inauguration as vice-president. He was palpably drunk. Now
this was not on that solemn occasion when he took the oath as
president on the morning of Lincoln's death ; had such been the
case immediate impeachment would have been proper. Yet by
the mouths of his enemies this was the story that was widely be-
lieved and is even to this day sometimes heard. But it has never
been considered in accordance with American good form for
even a vice-president to be under the influence of alcohol when
swearing to perform his duties. Nor would anyone have more
readily accepted this dictum than Johnson himself. His drunk-
enness was the accidental result of taking, on the advice of Secre-
tary Welles, or possibly Elihu Washburne, a little whiskey to
overcome a sickness. The point was that Johnson did drink, in
good round fashion, and few were ready to believe that a little
whiskey could upset him. The president wrote testimonials in
favor of temperance ; the White House was never more decorous
than during his occupancy, unless it was later under President
Hayes, but Andrew Johnson occasionally escaped the presidency,
as he occasionally was caught out of it when called upon for an
unexpected speech. A spark existed from which the opposition
raised a great smoke. Johnson was essentially masculine. He
habited himself in the frock coat of his generation, and when he
was caught without it the discrepancy was greater than had been
usual with men of like rank.

It is of significance that, though he did not join it, he persisted
all his life in a strong attachment to the Roman Catholic Church.
That he did not join was probably due to the fact that politics
were his religion ; what the Church held to attract him is sig-
nificant of his politics. That attraction was doubtless due to the
appeal it made to his strong emotional nature by its services and
devotions and to his mind by the clear-cut rigidity of its dogmas.
He liked things clear and found them so in that supreme product
of the human intelligence, the United States ^Constitution. He

4O2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

saw that Constitution as Jackson did, a plain instrument of Union
and a defence of liberty. Its clauses were not ambiguous but, as
John Knox said of the Bible, so clear that men of good will could
not fail to know in their hearts what they meant. It was the su-
preme rule of political conduct, it was the inspiration of the
young tailor, the rising politician, the president of the United
States.

It is my opinion that Johnson's policy must be interpreted on
the basis of this fundamental and passionate conviction, that it is
the key to the violence of his attitude toward traitors who sought
to break the Union, and his subsequent defence of the constitu-
tional right of those traitors against the assaults of those who
seemed to him to be destroying the Constitution by pulling it
apart. The fact that his policy was more lenient to the South
than that of his opponents was rather an accident than a design,
and with reference to the general trend of political action in the
United States it can scarcely be denied that his victory would
have limited the range of governmental action. This is well illus-
trated by the fact that, in spite of his consistent and sincere devo-
tion to the cause of the workingman, his only important sugges-
tion was the Homestead Act. This had been, under the leadership
of Frederick W. Evans, the workingman's slogan in the early
'fifties, but already in the 'sixties it had been supplanted in the
program of labor by ideas more direct, to the furtherance of
which Johnson could not constitutionally contribute legislative
assistance. In social impulse, however, his program was Jeffer-
sonian individualism. The struggle, on which he now entered,
involved not only the matter of terms with the South, but also
whether the North in 1860 had won its way in the interpretation
of the Constitution and the expansion of government functions,
or whether the rigid pattern of non-intervention should bind the
future.

Johnson's rigid constitutionalism was in harmony with his
mental inflexibility. He almost immediately conceived a plan of
reconstruction, and to it he adhered with both courage and ob-
stinacy. He was, however, no fanatic. His purposes were ada-
mantine, his methods adaptable. Perhaps the most neglected

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 403

feature of his personality is that of the politician. That he had
political ability in high measure is proved by his lifetime of suc-
cess in the factional strife in Tennessee. That he realized and
exaggerated this ability is obvious to any reader of his correspond-
ence. In public, even in his cabinet, he stood like a rock, the di-
viding point of forces. Privately he was receptive of advice and
chose his advisers well. Among the more important were the
veterans, long removed from the public eye, Thomas Ewing, the
Whig of Ohio, and F. P. Blair, the heir of Jackson.

Johnson's political efforts were now devoted to a major and
a minor purpose. First in importance was the triumph of his
"Plan," which alone would save the Constitution "as it was."
In his fostering of this main end he resorted to all the usual meth-
ods of the reputable politician, seeking such allies as time and
circumstance off ered him and making one complete change of
affiliation. His second object was one natural to any man who
attains the presidency by succession and one which was fired by
the jokes of those who opposed him and dubbed him "The Acci-
dent/' Johnson considered himself, and justly, as presidential
timber, and he longed for the vindication of not only his policy
but of himself by re-election. From the first he realized that his
most concrete obstacle was the glory of Grant. As Henry Clay
feared Jackson, as civilian leaders generally recoil from the popu-
lar acclaim of military heroes, so Johnson feared and probably
hated Grant, to whom at the moment the American people would
offer any gift within their power. In the minor manceuvering of
his administration the elimination of Grant was an ever-present
motive.

The plan which Johnson adopted was probably his own. He
conscientiously believed that it had been Lincoln's, to which in-
deed it had many resemblances. The first similarity was in
strategy. Lincoln had decided not to call a special session of
Congress, which meant that for seven months reconstruction
would be in the hands of the president. When one recalls Lin-
coln's desire for speedy action it is plain that he intended to pre-
sent Congress in December with an accomplished fact upon which
to act. This idea Johnson prepared to cany out. The general

404 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

outlines of action were also the same, with differences in detail,
some due to circumstances and some to basic diff erences of con-
ception. One main difference, however, must be first con-
sidered. Lincoln in handling the Wade-Davis bill had stated his
unwillingness to be tied to a particular course of procedure. With
peace and action he would have been forced to definiteness, but
scarcely to inflexibility. He had during the war adopted the
double purpose of union and emancipation when he had first de-
clared for union alone. He had adopted immediate emancipa-
tion after he had stated his belief that gradual emancipation was
better. He had sanctioned substantial differences of method in
different states. It is unjustifiable to label any specific plan of
post-war reconstruction as Lincoln's, and it is reasonable to sup-
pose that however plain was his sense of direction his methods
would have continued to show flexibility. Johnson, once com-
mitted, was too strong and too weak to change, and he was more
correct when referring to "My Plan" than when preparing, how-
ever honestly, to be the executor of Lincoln's plan.

In general, Johnson supported the thirteenth amendment to the
Constitution, which had been submitted to the people by Con-
gress. Naturally with this fell any project of compensated emanci-
pation, nor could one expect so robust an individualist, sur-
rounded by a generation of individualists, to suggest any other
method of transferring to the South the capital so sorely needed.
Whether Lincoln would have managed to find some other man-
ner of binding the sections by mutual assistance is of course futile
conjecture, but at least with his death the idea with which he had
been toying was dead.

Johnson's plan was set forth in a general amnesty proclama-
tion issued on May 29, 1865, and in a series of proclamations ap-
plying to particular states of which the first concerned North
Carolina. The first was an offer of pardon "with restoration of
all rights of property." It was conditioned, as had been Lin-
coln's, upon taking the oath of allegiance, and fourteen classes
were exempted from its application. The only important differ-
ence from Lincoln's list of exceptions was the thirteenth : "All
persons who have voluntarily participated in said rebellion ancj

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 405

the estimated value of whose taxable property is over $20,000."
The North Carolina proclamation appointed William W. Hoi-
den, who in 1864 had run for governor of that state on a "peace
at any price" ticket, provisional governor. The use of that term,
found in the Wade-Davis bill instead of Lincoln's "military gov-
ernor," was probably a mere result of the fact of peace. The
appointment would, of course, require the confirmation of the
Senate, but the commission would serve at any rate until the end
of the next session of that body. Holden's main function was to
provide for the election of a convention of the state "for the pur-
pose of altering or annulling the constitution thereof" and to assist
in the formation of a "republican form of State government."
In the meantime the secretaries of state, treasury, navy, and in-
terior, as well as the district judge and the department of justice,
were ordered to resume their functions in the state. The mili-
tary commander of the department was ordered to co-operate,
but the writ of habeas corpus was suspended only on October 12,
1 865, and then only in Kentucky, which was not one of the states
in question. The North Carolina plan was followed in the other
states — W. L. Sharkey being appointed provisional governor of
Mississippi, June 15 ; James Johnson of Georgia, June 17 ; An-
drew J. Hamilton of Texas, June 17 ; Lewis E. Parsons of Ala-
bama, June 21 ; Benjamin F. Perry of South Carolina, June 30 ;
William Marvin of Florida, July 13. With Virginia, Louisiana,
Tennessee, and Arkansas set apart by Lincoln, this completed the
list and meant that reorganization was everywhere moving.

The addition of the twenty-thousand-dollar clause is without
provable motive. It admits of two perfectly reasonable explana-
tions. Nothing could be more typical of the leader of the poor
whites of the South — the radical opponent of the planter aris-
tocracy. As such it-frould hardly call for comment, were it not
for the fact that Johnson was not long after this date working in
harmony, if not in sympathy, with the leaders of that very aris-
tocracy. To accept it, therefore, supposes a sudden and violent
change on his part and the abandonment of a life-long attitude.
Such a change might not be inconsistent with his emotional na-
ture, but it would be inconsistent with his mental processes ; in

406 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

general it was the intellectual rather than the emotional Johnson
who sat in the presidential chair.

The second explanation involves no sudden conversion. If
the clause was intended to give him the whip-hand in dealing in-
dividually with the Southern leaders, there was no inconsistency
in their exclusion in May and the part-plan of pardons in July.
Invitations to negotiations were held out in the proclamation it-
self, which stated : "That special application may be made to the
President for pardon of any person belonging to the excepted
classes, and such clemency will be liberally extended as may be
consistent with the facts of the case and the peace and dignity of
the United States," The power of control which this placed in
the hands of the president was considerable, for while no one ex-
pected those who were legally guilty to be presented for a life
penalty, there were many who urged that the writs for the con-
demnation of their property be pressed. It involved no change
of heart for members of the excluded classes to rush to Washing-
ton. They thronged its streets and flocked eagerly to the offices
of the pardon-mongers who claimed to possess means of access
to the White House and boasted of the wires that they could pull.
A brisk new trade grew up, child of the war lobbies and parent
of those that were to come. It is not probable that the fees paid
such attorneys were really of much value in securing the sought-
f or security to life and fortune, but it is possible that promises of
good conduct and gratitude were a price ; and it would be deny-
ing human nature a place in history to suggest the KnoxviUe
tailor did not enjoy the fawning of the elite of the South.

A more noteworthy difference between the Johnson plan and
that of Lincoln is that the former contained fewer suggestions as
to action to be taken. This was natural to the man and the type
of his democracy. The free field thus presented to the members
of the conventions renders more significant the one exception,
which either meant nothing or was a suggestion on one, if not
two, very vital points : "And said convention, when convened,
or the legislature that may be thereafter assembled, will provide
the qualifications of electors and the eligibility of persons to hold
office ... a power the people of the United States composing

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 407

the Federal Union have rightfully exercised from the origin of
the Government to the present time." This might be taken as
an incitement to his fellow mountaineer minorities to cement
their power, as they were doing in his own Tennessee by the
exclusion of former traitors. The plainest inference from this
unnecessary statement, however, is that the president would op-
pose the settlement by Congress of state suffrage including ne-
groes.

The question of negro suffrage was being driven in upon him
when the proclamation was being written ; the cabinet was di-
vided on the subject. Those whom Johnson saw most frequently
when he assumed office were the Northern Radicals who did not
refrain from telling him that it was by the hand of God that he
had been placed in authority, and who, with some misgiving, tried
hard to believe that he was one of them. It was particularly the
humanitarian wing that sought him, and the slightest words of en-
couragement that they received were passed about with exulta-
tion. Understanding men, like Sumner and Chase, talked too
much and listened too little ; and yet had they been Machiavellis
they could not have brought about a different result. They and
Johnson were listed under the same name of Radical, but they
were radical about different things. At this stage Johnson was
discreet, and perhaps mentally poised, on many subjects, but his
main objectives were plain. He asserted his interest in negro
suffrage, perhaps he might have ultimately declared in favor of
it ; but the negro and his fate were as nothing to him compared
with his fixed belief that suffrage was a state issue and his de-
termination that the national government should not interfere
with it.

This proclamation came as a disappointment to many of his re-
cent confreres with whom he had talked of punishment for the
wicked and of an open mind on humanitarian problems, with-
out mention of how such purposes should be brought about.
Some reverted at once to hostility ; some hoped, but not for
long. By the middle of summer the rift between the Northern
Radicals and the president was such as to appall the stoutest-
hearted mender of schisms. Nor must it be thought that the

408 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

rending force was all from one side. The president did not like
those busybodies who told him what to do ; he did not like to
have the Chief Justice, Salmon P. Chase, set about running the
government, and he was shocked in his innermost soul at the
calm way in which they quietly hurdled the barrier of the Con-
stitution. They spoke another language ; their inhibitions were
those of a different social order ; words are wasted in elaborating
on the fact that Andrew Johnson did not become a congenial co-
operator with Charles Sumner and his kind. The only question
was whether war could be prevented.

Inevitably, but slowly and with apparent reluctance, during
the summer of 1865, Johnson gave heed to the traitors of the
spring. In some ways the obstacles to such a rapprochement
might seem overwhelming. In all his career Johnson had at-
tacked the class they represented. The division had been en-
hanced by the war, and few enmities are so enduring as those of
majority and minority in the same war-torn region. Many of
Johnson's faithful home associates were putting their minds and
all their efforts to such regulation of the suffrage as would give
their minority the political control. One might think that he
would have built a political future on the leadership of the dis-
satisfied Southern whites and that he would have sought to use his
new authority to give them and himself the master hand. Here
was a radicalism which he understood, inextricably interwoven
with his past, to which in his speeches, during the winter of 1864
to 1 865, he had given the supreme expression.

The position of the Southern aristocracy of Johnson's genera-
tion was materially different from those founded upon title and
hereditary privilege. Based as it was on a single economic factor,
the plantation, the strong and able rose naturally into it as they
succeeded in life ; it absorbed most of those who in their youth
had been its opponents. Mountain families who remained on
their rocky farms continued to maintain their positions, eco-
nomic and political ; but from many of them had pushed out the
energetic and aspiring who were now luxuriating on estates not
easily distinguishable from those of neighbor younger sons from
Virginia or the Carolinas. When change of circumstance had

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 409

moderated differences of manners, there were no important di-
vergencies of principle and few of concrete measures to cause
qualms of conscience or justify charges of infidelity. All alike
believed that government should keep its hands off the individual
and keep the statute books as blank as social coexistence would
allow.

Johnson himself had not become, as had Jackson, a plantation
owner, but he had perforce risen in the social scale, and he had
not been oblivious of its demands. His wife and her family were
to the manor born, and the White House during his regime re-
flected, if a little stiffly, the atmosphere of Southern gentility.
Nor can it be forgotten that the greater charm of that atmosphere
as compared with the codes of Boston and Concord had been
credited, and probably correctly, as a magnet drawing to the
Southern side many a doubtful vote. As Lowell wrote in 1 846 :

A coat that sits well here in old Massachusetts
When it gets on to Washington somehow askew sits.

In the conferences of Johnson and the Southern leaders seeking
their pardons, there was a sense of congeniality utterly missing
when he met the champions of Northern altruism.

It is not necessary to assume in either Johnson or his petitioners
any undue susceptibility to social influences. It was merely that
the ease of the intercourse tended to dispel preconceived prej-
udices and opened wells of conversation that drew its inspiration
from the same source of pure constitutionalism. It needed only
tact enough to abstain from insistence on the right of secession,
which all now agreed was a question purely theoretical, to reveal
a unity of views that needed no waiver and that grew as it was
defined. Except for that one point, once essential and now cau-
terized by the war, the fundamental beliefs of Jacksonian and
Jeffersonian Democrats were alike and were not opposed to those
of the Southern Whigs. Clashes there had been, and clashes
there would be, on personality and class interests, but these could
pause in the imminence of perverted and careless Northern forces
that, having preserved the Union, would now sacrifice that Con-
stitution which was dearer to many than the Union itself. It is

4IO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

not surprising that ancient enmities disappeared before a lively
faith and a very present danger. Gradually during the summer
slouch hats and goatees became more frequent about the White
House than "stove-pipes" and "burnsides."

Meanwhile a busy crew of physicians were taking the pulse
of the defeated South. Newspapers sent correspondents, for-
eigners travelled, and Artemus Ward collected local color, while
government agents of all kinds sent reports to their chiefs and
their patrons. Officially the president ordered Grant to report
on the loyalty of the South. The assignment was most distaste-
ful, and Grant considered it an attempt to injure his position with
the public. In 1 865 he made a hasty and superficial three-weeks'
tour, the observed of all observers, the recipient of carefully con-
sidered sentiments. Returning, he wrote a brief report affirming
the acceptance of the results of the war and the absence of any
disloyal intent. Opinion rather forced on Johnson approval of
a more searching mission by Carl Schurz. With his usual care-
ful methods Schurz studied conditions from Virginia to New Or-
leans. At times, as in Mississippi, he pretended to be the repre-
sentative of the government rather than a mere reporter. His
report was elaborately based upon facts but reveals that total
failure to understand Southern psychology which one would ex-
pect from a German intellectual whose American associations
were almost entirely with liberal Northern opinion. His point
of interest, too, was almost purely in the status of the negro, and
he missed entirely the economic aspects of the situation. The
president had not wished to send him, had no confidence in his
judgment, and paid no attention to his report. It proved to be
a document of importance but did not appear to be such until
Congress gave it a sympathetic audience. Johnson attended rather
to the letters of his own informal agent, the young newspaper
man Henry Watterson who was certainly the best qualified of
the three for the task assigned him. No one of them, however,
reported other than one would have expected from his previous
associations and proclivities. Opinion rather than fact molded
all recommendations ; and was it otherwise with the more self-

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 411

conscious and expressive commissions that followed the World
War?

During the summer the telegraph wires were hot between
Washington and the state conventions of the South as they met.
From Washington they carried, if not the ideas of how constitu-
tions should be reconstructed, at least the president's conception
of how far the federal executive was justified in exercising influ-
ence. Certainly those messages supplement the emptiness of the
simple instructions carried in the official proclamations. In the
first place a condition-precedent was enforced that the process
should not begin until one half of the number of voters taking
part in the election of 1860 should be eligible by the taking of the
Oath of Allegiance or the receipt of special pardon. This differed
from Lincoln's requirement of only one tenth, but it may reason-
ably be considered as what Lincoln would have required with the
establishment of peace. It must not be considered as an accept-
ance of the Wade-Davis principle, for those registered could vote.
It will be remembered that under that plan the suffrage was con-
fined to those taking the additional "Iron Clad" oath of non-
participation in the "Rebellion." This again is what might have
been expected of Lincoln, but it came as somewhat of a surprise
from Johnson, and was for him perhaps the parting of the ways.
His ruling, combined with the non-inclusion of the negroes, gave
the potential control to the dominating whites where the Wade-
Davis provision would have given it to Johnson's own moun-
taineer loyalist whites. In the suffrage arrangements there came
the severest strain upon his relations with the Radicals of both
North and South. It came at a period when Johnson's mind
seems far from determined on alliance with the leaders of the Old
South, and one feels inclined to attribute it to his best quality, his
sincere devotion to the cause of genuine democracy and his con-
fidence in the people.

When the conventions met he emphatically laid down certain
conditions which he put forcefully f orward. In the end, though
not without debate, they were accepted. He was speaking pow-
erfully as an executive, but gradually his language and his attitude

4-12 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

showed a different point of view, which in 1867 became firmly
fixed. He came to speak as a friend and as a leader in the face
of the enemy. Throughout his administration leaders of the
South, and finally the rank and file of its voters, came to poise
much of their actions upon these three conceptions of Johnson.
He was the president, and as such he must be obeyed when he
spoke within the law. In the summer of 1865 there was much
doubt upon the second point. Was he a friend ? Certainly he
had not been. Could he be trusted ? They knew him better
than they had known Lincoln in 1860, but their knowledge was
not reassuring. He was, however, a Southerner, and who was
more likely to save them ? If they rejected him, would it be to
secure better, that is, lesser, terms, or worse ? In 1 865 his advice
was generally followed, and in the end his good intentions were
widely accepted. There still remained the question of the wis-
dom of his leadership. He had been in general an outsider, not
fully approved by either party in his section. He was regarded
as a powerful eccentric. Had position suddenly conferred wis-
dom ? A Moses was needed, but was Johnson the man ? Of the
fact that he aspired to be that man, few in his own day could have
been ignorant, and certainly his correspondence leads to such a
conclusion. How far he failed, came to him as a surprise in the
Democratic convention of 1868. Meanwhile his words gained
authority from the peace reports of Northern radical opinion and
carried the day. Were they the same or diif erent ? Were they
more or less potent than would have been the words of Lincoln ?
The three conditions upon which Johnson insisted were first a
repudiation of secession, second a repudiation of state war debts,
and third the adoption of the proposed Thirteenth Amendment.
All these were part of Lincoln's program. The first involved no
material controversy but did involve a violent clash of sentiment
and an inextricable tangle of words. All prominent Southerners
accepted the fact that secession as a program of action was as
dead for the future as for the past. They were willing, and at
the moment anxious, to repeal the enactments of the conventions
which adopted the ordinance. Johnson held that secession had
always been unconstitutional, that the ordinances had had no

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 413

legal effect, and that they should be repudiated. His demand
may be regarded, in a way, as a demand for a confession of war
guilt. Language probably was useful in such emergencies, par-
ticularly when both parties were desirous of agreement, and ac-
ceptable formulas were hammered out.

The question of war debts was really a simple one. It did
not include, of course, those of the Confederate government, for
they were repudiated with its failure. It did not include the pre-
vious debts of the states, which remained legal obligations largely
held in Great Britain and the North. It was confined to such
loans as the several states had negotiated for the purposes of the
war, a sum relatively trivial. As constituting practically the
sole recoverable item of Southern credit, however, they were im-
portant to those who held them. As issued by governments
legally constituted, they stood on a somewhat different basis from
the bonds of ordinary revolutionary movements which fall with
defeat ; and yet the international practice that the support of
revolution must be regarded as a speculation rather than an in-
vestment seems to have been properly applied to them. One
gathers from the discussion in the South that their repudiation
was a bitter pill and would not have taken place without execu-
tive pressure. Division there was, however, and one senses that
here would have been a conflict even if the South had been vic-
torious. Johnson in standing for this elimination was doing some-
thing for his own element in the South, the poorer element which
owned no bonds but would have had to help pay for them.

On the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment there was no
controversy in the seceded states, though much in the border
states ; it was the chief accepted stigma of the war.

The Southerners, who debated these questions and put their
signatures to the terms which were dictated to them, were in gen-
eral those who had been governing that generation. Some lead-
ers, as Davis and Stephens, were still unpardoned and on trial, but
enough remained to make the conventions representative. There
was some proportional gain of those who had opposed secession
in 1 860, but there was no ostracism of those who had favored it.
In the elections to the state governments under the amended con-

414 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

stitutions the same was true, with some tendency, as in the North,
to honor war heroes. Their legislatures settled down to the many
difficult tasks that confronted them. They sought earnestly to
balance budgets and maintain credit and to evaluate the shrink-
age in the basis of taxation. Generally a first act was a memorial
asking for clemency to Jefferson Davis. A second was provision
for the most obvious sufferers from the war, those maimed by
loss of limb ; and agents soon boasted that they made better con-
tracts for artificial replacements than did the United States gov-
ernment.

The most glaring need, however, was for the consideration of
the freed negro, the man behind the hoe, the foundation stone of
Southern agriculture and wealth. The situation was so imme-
diate that each legislature acted on its own best judgment, and
the laws of no two states show agreement. On the other hand,
provisions were by no means new, for they were created by the
emergency. All states had on their statute books elaborate regu-
lations, based on long-continued historic development, for free
negroes ; and these afforded to each a base for adjustment. In
one respect all these codes in all the states possessed one American
characteristic : they all provided a separate legal system for the
negro. In North Carolina a line of demarcation was defined :
those with no more than one thirty-second of negro blood were
regarded as whites. In most states the absence of such a rule
made a single drop of negro blood allocate the individual on the
black side. Such codes were not confined to slave states ; the
code of Illinois, for instance, was quite as complete in separation
as any other. This difference in legal status rested on an in-
grained and almost universal belief in the racial inferiority of the
negro. It was justified in debate on the actual and incontro-
vertible fact that they were a separate class economically and so-
cially ; and by consequence of their previous condition, unpre-
pared, even if not unfit, for the full responsibilities of equality.
On the whole the new order, as the old, was well-intentioned and,
in taking account of the difference between negro and Anglo-
Saxon psychology, it was better adapted to those to whom the
laws applied than the common law.

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 415

On December 8, 1863, Lincoln had proclaimed that "any pro-
vision may be adopted by such state governments in relation to
the freed people of such state which shall recognize and declare
their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which
may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with the pres-
ent conditions as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not
be objected to by the National Executive." It is plain that Lin-
coln would not have found the existence of negro codes of this
kind a bar to recognition. He gave plain intimation, however,
that they should be temporary, and that by providing for educa-
tion a road to emergence should be perfected.

Now all these codes were permanent in form ; and only in
Georgia's code was education hinted at, and there without pro-
visions. It seems highly improbable that Lincoln would have al-
lowed the states to pass into the inviolability of their normal sov-
ereignty without some pledge for the future. His fundamental
democracy would have joined with his political acumen to offer
to Congress a situation which held out a starting point for evolu-
tionary development. One imagines another set of telegrams and
series of conferences seeking concessions here and perhaps, as in
his letter to Hahn, suggesting a limited suffrage as an incentive to
effort. One can almost certainly predicate that he would have
made the effort, though its effect on the Southern legislatures or
his action in case of refusal must be mere surmise. Johnson, re-
garding the new governments as already sovereign, refrained from
suggestion and accepted their decisions.

Meanwhile, the converted, if not repentant, states were exer-
cising a third sovereign function, that of selecting their repre-
sentatives to the national legislature. Representatives and sen-
ators flocked to Washington as the date of its opening, December
4, 1 865, approached. All states except Florida and Texas, which
were still in the process of rehabilitation, were represented. Faces
familiar four years before restored some of its pre-war appear-
ance. Some were a little seedy, all somewhat worn, but they
were not despondent, and emotions were cloaked in the custom-
ary lazy ease of carriage. The Union seemed restored, but in the
South the habeas corpus remained suspended until April 2, 1866.

41 6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Chief Justice Chase refused to open court in Richmond while
such continued to be the case ; and the final confirmation, the ac-
ceptance of the Southern members, was yet to be given.

The constitutional position of President Johnson was clear.
He had acted and must make his report to the legislature. He
had carried out a program of reconstruction as far, barring the
habeas corpus, as he was entitled to do, and was free to regulate
his executive powers on that basis. It was not the function of
Congress to act on those phases of the situation that belonged to
the legislatures. His political position was far less clear. In the
practice of American politics the vice-presidential candidate is
usually elected to appease the minority defeated by the selection
of the president. His name is expected in the election to keep
his sympathizers true to the party, and frequently they constitute
that critical margin that gives victory. For what do the minority
sell their support ? Is it for the tinsel of recognition, or is it the
gamble of a four-year's life expectancy ? What is the moral
obligation of a vice-president succeeding to the chief magistracy ?
Is it to be true to the party, without whose support he would not
be in office, or to himself and the minority, without which the
party would not have won ? Should party loyalty recognize the
voice of the party majority as the voice of God ? When Tyler
succeeded Harrison, when Fillmore succeeded Taylor, when Ar-
thur succeeded Garfield, when Roosevelt succeeded McKinley
and, in certain important respects, when Coolidge succeeded
Harding, substantial changes of policy occurred. The party re-
pudiated Tyler, dropped Arthur, forgot Fillmore, and rewarded
Roosevelt and Coolidge. History could have shown Johnson his
moral duty and his politically wisest course, but he could not cor-
rectly interpret history.

Johnson's case, moreover, was unique. He had not been
chosen in 1864 by one of the great continuing political organiza-
tions, but by one which professed to be temporary and bipartisan.
Lincoln and Johnson were put forward as Union candidates,
supported by both parties for the saving of the Union, Lincoln
representing the Republicans, Johnson the Democrats. No con-
version had been asked for, and his value rested on his being a

THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY 417

Democrat. As Lincoln in the matter of compromise would have
been a traitor to democratic ideals if he had not spoken as he was
elected to speak, so Johnson in almost as great a degree would
have been a traitor to the Democrats who voted Unionist in 1864
had he swung into the Republican camp. It was clear that John-
son was under no moral obligations to be other than he was, but
there remained the question of expediency. In actual fact the
bulk of the Union voters of 1864 had been Republicans, pretty-
well disciplined into party cohesion. The Democrats who joined
them were not necessary to victory, were a mere fragment of the
actual party that had won the election, and were an equally in-
considerable portion of the Democratic party itself. Those whom
Johnson particularly represented were at the moment of little
consequence to the Republican majority in Congress and were re-
garded as political traitors by the earlier and more congenial Dem-
ocratic associates. There was little prestige for Johnson to add
to the authority inherent in his position.

His policy was consistent, and it was consistently pursued. It
was similar to that adopted after the World War by Lloyd
George. He maintained his allegiance to the Union party that
elected him and called on it for his support. He kept about him
the cabinet that Lincoln had chosen and refrained from reap-
proaching earlier fellowships. It was plain that the left-wing
Radicals who had been forced into support of Lincoln in 1864
were now, in the fall of 1865, no more favorable to Johnson than
they had formerly been. It was uncertain how the middle sec-
tion would stand, but a powerful weapon in Johnson's hand was
the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery,
could not be written into the Constitution until some of the se-
ceded states had assented to it. With some the desire for prompt
action on that great question might affect the wish for further
conditions which would impose delay. With it the extreme Radi-
cals might be forced into line once more by fear of losing their
conservative right wing to the Democrats. It was a weakness of
his position that Johnson's political program rested upon the argu-
ment that the state of the Union was still at a crisis demanding the
submergence of ordinary partisan issues, whereas the success of

41 8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

his plan would mean that the Union was restored and need be of
no further concern. His political leadership was grounded upon
the failure of his program- This ambiguity was for some time
disguised by the delay and final failure of his projects, but the
illogicality could not be concealed, and it ultimately caused a
change in his strategy.

On December 4, 1865, he met Congress with a confident mien
which was far from being deceptive. His confidence and such
vanity as he possessed did not run to a refusal to accept aid where
his position called for it, and he showed discretion in his seeking.
More than most presidents he turned to his elders. He listened to
the advice of Ewing and Blair ; and when a commanding political
document was required he called on the dean of American prose
writers, the eulogist of American democracy, George Bancroft,
resident of Washington and quietly powerful. The preparation
of the message reflects equal credit on both men. The ideas were
those of Johnson, and Bancroft expressed them as an historian.
He did not distort or change the flavor. Rather he studied the
speeches of Johnson and culled from them that best worth pre-
serving, in many cases quoting whole paragraphs verbatim. The
whole he clothed in a style a little better than that of his own
works. The message was so good that opinion gave Seward
credit for it, though the most cursory critic should have recog-
nized that it was not in Seward's style. Bancroft kept the secret
until his death, and it was only by subsequent examination of the
manuscripts that its authorship was discovered.

The message opened with a statement of the constitutional
theory upon which the war had been fought and of the conse-
quent legal survival of both states and Union. It also included a
statement on the practicality of strict construction : "The sub-
jects that came unquestionably within its jurisdiction are so nu-
merous that it must ever naturally refuse to be embarrassed by
questions that lie beyond it." There followed a statement and a
defence of Johnson's actions in connection with which he asked
the co-operation of Congress only for the reopening of circuit
courts in the Southern states. There followed suggestions for
the action of Congress on various internal problems, and the re-

THE PRESIDENT S TREATY 419

quest that Congress prevent monopolies and see that interstate
commerce be kept free. Then came summaries of the reports of
the departments, some calling for action, as appropriations for
pensions, the improvement of navy yards, the payment of the
debt, the reduction of currency, provisions that taxation fall upon
the rich rather than the poor. The usual resume of foreign rela-
tions included the failure of negotiations with Great Britain
on the subject of the commerce-destroyers which she had har-
bored, but it recommended that no legislative action be as yet
taken on it. The negotiations with France would be laid before
Congress. The conclusion was a brief summary of the experi-
ences of the United States, with attention to the increase in the
size of its territory and population. In conclusion :

Who will not join with me in the prayer that the Invisible Hand
which has led us through the clouds that gloomed around our path
will so guide us onward to a perfect restoration of fraternal affec-
tion that we of this day may be able to transmit our great inherit-
ance of State governments in all their rights, of the General Gov-
ernment in its whole constitutional vigor, to our posterity, and they
to theirs through countless generations ?

CHAPTER XV

CIVIL WAR FINANCE*

WE SHALL never know exactly how much the Civil War cost the
people of the United States. In 1864 the conflict cost the Lin-
coln government one million dollars a day, and in 1865 it ran to
two million dollars a day. Possibly the total cost equalled or ex-
ceeded fifteen billion dollars. Properly to estimate the costs one
must take into consideration the loss to various owners of four
million slaves, the destruction of property, misplaced or lost in-
dividual and collective earnings, loss of values in the economic
crisis which resulted from so many changes and disruptions, loans
and taxation, to say nothing of the desolated South of reconstruc-
tion days, the corruption in war and post-war governments, and
the ill feeling which prevailed between the North and South for
years after the war was ended.

Professor Channing was convinced that there was little differ-
ence between the management of the finances of the North and
of the South. The Northern economic historians have, however,
usually attributed the collapse of the Confederacy to its over-
issues in bonds, paper money, and impressments. An examina-
tion of the records of the two governments reveals quite a similar-
ity in methods of raising money for the conduct of the war.

Secretary Chase found the Federal treasury in a distressing con-
dition when he assumed his duties on March 4, 1861. Howell
Cobb had resigned as secretary of the treasury on December 10,
1860, leaving the revenues inadequate for a peace-time govern-
ment, let alone for war. The total receipts of revenues for the
fiscal year ending June 20, 1860, amounted to about $81,000,000,
leaving a treasury deficit of $56,000,000. In the early months of
1861 —the latter days of the Buchanan administration — General
John A. Dix had his hands tied and was humiliated with the sad

*The editor and publishers believe that there is a need for the following
supplementary chapters. It has been necessary to restate a few facts to make
them clear.

420

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 42 I

experience of raising ten million dollars to meet outstanding treas-
ury notes by offering more treasury notes on the basis of com-
petitive bids. The public was awarded $70,200 at 6 per cent.,
$5000 at 7 per cent., $24,500 at 8 per cent., $355,000 at rates be-
tween 8 and 10 per cent., $3,283,500 at 10 per cent, to n per
cent., $1,432,700 at ii per cent., and $4,840,000 at 12 per cent.
At these high rates only $7,020,000 of the $10,000,000 offering
were taken. This low state of the nation's credit was almost in-
credible. But so it was when the war began.

Secretary Chase had neither training nor great ability for the
task of financing a war government torn by internal strife, but by
1864 his work was of such a character as to guarantee him a tra-
ditional reputation. He adopted the policy of meeting only the
ordinary daily expenses of his government with money raised by
taxation ; necessary war expenses were met by five classes of
funds : direct taxes, internal revenues, bonds, tariff, treasury notes,
and paper currency. Funds obtained through the confiscation of
Southern exports, captured or abandoned property, and property
of rebel military or civil officers are not of sufficient importance
to require serious recognition. On April 2, ten days before the
firing upon Fort Sumter, Chase opened secret bids on his proposed
loan of $8,000,000 and found that only $3,099,000 were bid at six
per cent, or under. Other bids were justly declined, and the
secretary thereafter resorted to the sale of treasury notes. He
failed to grasp the leadership which could have been his in the
formulation of a tax program when the people were willing to
pay heavily for the preservation of the Union. Twelve times
major loans were made at interest rates ranging from 5 to 7.3 per
cent. By 1 865 the national debt of the North had been increased
by $2,600,000,000, including non-interest-bearing notes and a few
temporary loans.

Secretary Chase made a valuable contribution to government
finance when he floated bonds with a fixed redemption period,
such as the 5-20*8 or 1 0-40*8. The perplexing variations in terms
and conditions of loans, however, not only embarrassed the finan-
ciers and government then ; but the bond issues, treasury notes,
certificates of deposit, and other forms of indebtedness which

422 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

rapidly followed each other greatly perplex the student who now
attempts to reach an understanding of Civil War finance in real
values. For the sake of convenience, let us say that there were
some four general classes of indebtedness used by the Union gov-
ernment : long-term bonds, short-term loans, non-interest-bear-
ing notes, and temporary indebtedness. The first classification in-
cluded zo-year 6's * of July, August 1861 ;t 5-20 6's of June 1862 ;
17 6's of 1863 ; 10-40 5?s of 1864 ; 5-20 6's of June 1864 ; and
the indefinite pension fund bearing 3 per cent. The second form
of indebtedness included treasury 6's of 1 86 1, 60 days to 2 years ;
7_3o 7.3*5 of 1861 for 3 years ; one-year 5'$ of 1863 ; two-year
5 's of 1863 ; compound interest note 6's of three years ; and 7-30
7.3 's of 1 864 and 1 865 for three years. The non-interest-bearing
notes were indefinite in length of loan and were old demand notes,
fractional currency, and legal-tender notes. Temporary indebt-
ednesses were temporary loans at 4, 5, and 6 per cent, interest,
and certificates at 6 per cent, running one year. The sum of
$2,62 1,916,786 was borrowed during the course of the war. The
secretary's loan policy may be summarized generally by point-
ing out his objectives, which were : a moderate interest, as wide
distribution as possible, future controllability, and incidental util-
ity. In the first objective he blundered in substituting j's for
6's at an inopportune rime ; in the second he used Jay Cooke as a
government broker with success ; and in the third he was a suc-
cessful pioneer.

It is easier for us to criticize the secretary now than it was for
him to solve the problem of raising war money from 1 861 to 1 865.
In the early summer of 1860 the national debt was $64,000,000
and increasing monthly. By December 1861, receipts were far
behind expenditures, and the government suffered a deficit of
$143,000,000. A lucrative income from the sale of national lands
was decreased when the young men enlisted in the army and emi-

* 5-20 6's, translated into plain English, mean that bonds bearing 6 per cent,
interest may be called for redemption between five and twenty years afte*r the
date of issue*

t Chase asked Congress for $240,000,000, April to July 1861, and was granted
$250,000,000, with the privilege of issuing $50,000,000 of that sum in interest-
bearing treasury notes.

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 423

grant labor was sought to man over-taxed industries. Eleven
Southern states cut off sources of public revenue coming from
the South. Hundreds of business men and bankers lacked con-
fidence in the Lincoln administration, and an unsettled public
mind was not conducive to the sale of bonds at reasonable rates
of interest. As the autumn ended in 1861 a barrage of criticism
was leveled at Cameron ; Fremont was lately removed, and the
banks had suspended specie payment, declaring that Chase was re-
sponsible for their predicament. On January i, 1862, the banks
had $87,000,000 in specie and owed $459,000,000. They could
not stand the continuous drain of their cash, which drain resulted
from the presentation of treasury notes for specie by depositors.
Chase denied responsibility for the run on the banks, saying that
it was caused by a loss of faith in a Union victory. In Europe,
where opinion favored the Confederacy, the Rothschilds headed
the bankers who refused to lend money to the North. There
was an insufficient supply of specie in the North to do business,
while large remittances to Europe had to be made at the time that
hoarding was in progress. Until 1863 government bonds could
be bought with greenbacks which steadily declined in value.
Since Secretary Chase refused to sell new bonds under par, specu-
lators refused to buy them in large quantities. After January
1863, the Lincoln government provided legislation legalizing the
sale of bonds at the market.

When Chase should have been devoting his attention entirely
to problems of finance, he was angling for the presidential nom-
ination for 1864, or engaging the Seward faction in a political tug
of war to test Seward's strength, or was supporting the radicals
who hoped to scalp the Blairs. After the cabinet crisis in Decem-
ber 1862, he did some of his best work as treasurer. At that time
the debt of the government was $276,900,000, and of the 5-20 6's
only $23,750,000 of a $500,000,000 loan had been sold, largely be-
cause the banks would not take them at the required par price.
Chase was not successful in the sale of "governments" until he
employed private agents to sell bonds. Jay Cooke of Philadel-
phia, banker and broker, won the confidence of the treasurer and
the unofficial title of "The Financier of the Civil War" by his

424 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

honesty and his ability to exploit hitherto untapped reservoirs of
funds for investment. He developed a great broker-organization
which marketed $400,000,000 of government bonds in 1862-
1863, "the turning-point in war finance," and hundreds of mil-
lions during the war. He advertised bonds in weekly local news-
papers, religious magazines, and daily papers, arguing that it was
the duty of loyal citizens to invest their savings where they were
safe, would draw interest, would help save the Union, and would
preserve the value of Federal moneys. Sales devices and pa-
triotism were blended. Old maids, widows, conservative Ameri-
cans who had reason to fear banks, and speculators heard Cooke's
plea. Cooke was in Chase's confidence from 1861 and floated
government bonds here and among the German-speaking peo-
ples.

Under such general conditions as have been described, Chase
and Congress could be expected to practise opportunism. More
than a year passed after the war opened before "the overwhelm-
ing material power of the North could be brought to bear upon
the concentrated forces of the South." First, the administration
passed the protective, peace-time Morrill Tariff, almost doubling
duties of the preceding tariff and becoming effective April n,
1 86 1, Revenues from customs on imports increased despite the
falling off of importations in consequence of war risks and dis-
ruptions in commerce. So successful was this experiment that
the law was repeatedly amended to add other goods to the list of
dutiables, finally including sugar, tea, and coffee. Hardly a ses-
sion of Congress after the summer of 1 86 1 failed to increase duties
on imports. The act of 1864 became the foundation of our ex-
isting protective tariff system today, raising the tariff level from
a pre-war level of 19 per cent, to 47 per cent. The object of
raising revenues was strongly supplemented with the desire of the
protectionist authors, Morrill and Stevens, to "put domestic pro-
ducers in the same situation, so far as foreign competition was
concerned, as if the internal taxes had not been raised." Reve-
nues realized from this source were $39,600,000 in 1861, $49,100,-
ooo in 1862, $69,100,000 in 1863, and $102,300,000 in 1864. The
sudden rise after 1863 resulted from the rapid disappearance of

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 425

privateers and improvement in regular trade channels. In 1865
revenues dropped back to $84,900,000 because of the drop in im-
ports as a result of the sudden rise in tariff duties, but jumped to
$179,000,000 in 1866.

The upshot of the Civil War tariffs was to saddle upon the
country a high protective system before the disposition to inquire
critically into its possible results could assert itself. Legislators
too often lost sight of the "line between public duty and private
interests," anyway.

Other men than Stevens and Morrill supported higher tariffs
to stimulate industries to the utmost, so that internal revenues
might be levied freely to support the war. Money realized from
tariffs alone was far from sufficient to pay and feed soldiers and
sailors and buy supplies for marching armies. The policy of
levying excise taxes was virtually completed before the event of
the battle of Antietam. President Lincoln's first Congress had
passed an act, August 5, 1861, providing for an income tax of 3
per cent, on incomes of $800 or more, and fixed a direct per
capita tax averaging about 22$. Failing to take advantage of the
popular clamor for an adequate taxation to support the Union,
Congress and the executive branch of the administration applied
neither of these taxes before late in 1862, and the income tax pro-
duced minor results before 1864. Exempted incomes were
lowered and the rates were raised and graduated as the war pro-
gressed. A total of $55,085,000 was collected up to and includ-
ing the income tax of 1865.

According to a constitutional provision the "direct tax" law
must be assessed on the states in quotas governed in size by popu-
lation. When it was passed no distinction was made between
states "in rebellion" and loyal states. Federal machinery was
provided for levying and collecting taxes on real estate in states
which neglected or refused to raise their quotas. The total reve-
nue collected in this manner was about $17,000,000 ; and of this
sum, approximately $2,300,000 was paid to the treasury by the
states "in rebellion." In 1891 congressional legislation provided
for the reimbursement of the Southern states for taxes collected
under the direct tax law, and not since the Civil War has such a

426 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tax been used. The loyal states spent over $50,000,000 raising and
equipping troops ; the national government later felt itself obli-
gated to reimburse the states for this amount by congressional ap-
propriations, about four fifths of the total amount spent in that
manner being returned to the states by 1880.

By the act of July i, 1862, internal revenue duties were re-
vived. The series of taxes included a direct tax of $20,000,000
on real estate ; specific taxes on iron, coal, leather, oil, paper, etc. ;
an ad valorem tax on other manufactured goods ; and a gross-
receipts tax on steamboat, railway, and express companies. Reve-
nue stamps had to be attached to deeds, notes, cheques, mort-
gages, and other legal documents. About everything appeared
to be included in this act, which required a space of thirty pages,
or more than twenty thousand words in the statutes. The gov-
ernment applied the principle of spreading the duties over many
objects instead of taxing a few extremely high. Manufacturers
were assessed both on the finished products and at different stages
in the process of manufacture. They merely added these taxes
to the selling price of their wares and charged the whole to the
consumers who in many instances paid the taxes ignorantly and
without a groan. Taxes from this source amounted in 1 862-1 863
to little over $100,000,000, but by 1865 one fifth of the govern-
ment's revenue was raised by taxation. Advocates of this means
of supporting the war had cause for rejoicing. One authority
has declared : "It was the cap sheaf of Chase's administration of
the Treasury." The total of internal taxes from 1861 to 1865
equalled $1,200,000,000; customs duties reached $910,000,000
for the period.

The strain on the treasury was so great that the Lincoln gov-
ernment resorted to the dangerous practice of printing money.
Taxation such as the government was willing to risk could not
meet the terrific demands on the treasury, which the |ollowing
figures illustrate. In the four-year period, 1858-1861, ending
June 30, the cost per capita of the War Department was 71$ ; in
the succeeding four years ending June 30, 1 865, the War Depart-
ment cost $19.99 per capita. The cost for the year endkig June
30, 1861, was $23,001,531 ; June 30, 1862, in unweighted figures,

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 427

0, 1863, $603,314,412 ; June 30, 1864, $690,-
391,049, and June 30, 1865, $1,030,690,400. The increase in the
Navy Department was from 42^ per capita to $2.3 1 over the same
comparative periods. Interest on the national debt increased from
9^ per capita to $1.25. The total of certain important specified
expenditures of the national government at the North increased
from $2.46 per capita to $25.01 ; and the national deficit, com-
puted on a similar basis, increased over 3 100 per cent.

A fourth source of revenue was obtained through the passage
of the Legal Tender Act. The bill was bitterly attacked in the
newspapers, and at first opposed by Chase who later under pres-
sure yielded to necessity and gave it his lukewarm support. In
1870 he, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, declared the act
unconstitutional. For the sake of the embarrassed treasury, E. G.
Spaulding, of Buffalo, New York (banker-member of the com-
mittee of the House) claimed support for his bill, which was in-
troduced into Congress on December 30, 1861, the same year in
which specie payments were suspended by the banks and the
government. The first issue of $150,000,000 treasury notes*
("greenbacks") was subsequently increased until $431,000,000
of the $450,000,000 authorized reached circulation. They were
accepted in payment of public and private debts, but not for du-
ties on imports or interest on debts owed the government. The
advocates of the bill suspected that the notes would soon fall be-
low par, and their expectations were surprisingly justified, for
gold at a premium ranged from ^l/^ per cent, in 1862 to 20% in
July 1863, and 60 in January 1864. The value of greenbacks
compared with gold served as an indicator of the state of the Un-
ion for almost twenty years. General Grant's repulse at Cold
Harbour and Early's raid at Silver Spring, Maryland, in the sum-
mer of 1864, mark the darkest weeks in the Civil War. At that
time one, dollar in gold bought 2.9 dollars in greenbacks. It is
estimated that paper money increased the cost of the war by
$600,000,000.
.Social and economic effects resulting from the use of green-

* An emission of $60,000,000 treasury notes, July, August 1861, were retired
by the treasury.

428 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

back currency were good and bad. It supplied the country with
a uniform currency to substitute for beer checks, street-car
tokens, stamps, and "store-money." Much against the wish of
Postmaster-General Blair, but with the approval of Secretary
Chase, Congress authorized the use of postage stamps on July 14,
1862. These sticky, flimsy, color-fading things proved to be a
nuisance and were replaced with $50,000,000 of notes better
known as "shinplasters," ranging in face value from three to fifty
cents (March 3, 1863). The increased volume of currency in
circulation encouraged the spirit of speculation. Both govern-
ment and people learned to spend lavishly and were hardened to
high prices. Business and agriculture were overstimulated and
the whole country suffered a collapse after the war. Depre-
ciated currency resulted in excessive discounts on loans and pur-
chases made through British financial institutions, thus raising the
total cost of the war. After the withdrawal of some of the cur-
rency from circulation by Johnson's secretary of the treasury, a
long period of falling prices, financial failures, a panic and a
depression, the United States returned to specie payment on Jan-
uary i, 1879. Moreover, during the war speculators took ad-
vantage of the Legal Tender Act. A "Gold Market" was estab-
lished in New York in 1862 for the purpose of exchanging paper
currency for gold. A mania for speculation seemed to have
seized the public. Stimulated by the war psychology, cheap
money, rising prices, an overdose of Western bank notes without
security, and the speculators, women pawned their jewelry to
gamble ; and school-teachers and clergymen staked their small in-
comes on the market. The manipulations of speculators became
scandalous in New York in 1864 before Chase exploded dreams
of fictitious riches by selling the government's gold surplus.

The fifth means of raising money for the conduct of the war
was had in the establishment of national banks legalized by the
National Bank Act of 1863. Chase, as the former champion of
state bankers, surprised them as early as December 1861 with his
proposal to nationalize banks. He wanted the central govern-
ment to control the currency in order to correct the evil of over-

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 429

issued state-bank notes, counterfeiting, and geographical values
of bank notes. He immediately aroused the whole Democratic
party, which opposed it almost to a man, not yet having forgot-
ten the National Bank fight in the time of Andrew Jackson. Many
of the old Jacksonians were Republicans in 1861 and now feared
that Chase was endangering their revived Jeff ersonian-Jacksonian
principles. Probably no one else in Chase's own party had given
the idea of sound currency more study, nor had anyone else so
carefully studied the state banking systems. If his estimate in
his report of 1861 is approximately correct, the state banks had
afloat $150,000,000 of their own paper money, for which they
were not paying the people interest. They thus enjoyed a lu-
crative privilege which, if justly taxed, could help win the war.
Chase intended to let them pay for the right of issuing notes by
buying bonds for a reserve fund to guarantee the value of the
notes.

The scheme of a national banking system was deliberately
formulated. The proposal of the secretary of the treasury was
studied by banker-congressmen on the House Ways and Means
Committee and a proposed bill was considered by the financial in-
stitutions of the country before it was finally enacted into law on
February 25, 1863. To force the state banks into the national
system a two per cent, tax on the circulation of state bank notes
was added to the existing three per cent. tax. Many state bank-
ers raised vociferous opposition ; but the conservative business
men, who wanted a sound banking system, supported the gov-
ernment's act, and soon the results were gratifying. In Decem-
ber 1863, already 134 banks with a capital of $16,081,000 had
joined the new system ; one year later there were 584, and by
November 1865, 1647 with an aggregate capitalization of $418,-
000,000. National bank notes rose in volume to $276,000,000
by 1866 and with greenbacks and shinplasters constituted almost
all of the circulating money in the North. The two per cent,
tax on state bank notes increased to ten per cent, in 1 866, and the
refusal of Chicago and Eastern merchants to accept without dis-
counting or sending them home for redemption caused them prac-

43 O THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

tically to disappear. The system was the work of Chase and the
most enduring of all the salutary financial legislation passed dur-
'ing the Civil War.

A necessary market for government bonds was provided
through the national banks. A uniform currency system was es-
tablished, and rates of interest were somewhat controlled until
the bonds of the government could be paid. Greenbacks were
saved a humiliating deflation because of a provision that made
them acceptable in payment for government bonds. "In 1864
an investor could do the equivalent of changing $400 in gold for
$1000 in greenbacks, then exchange the latter for a $1000 bond
which would pay him $<5o interest a year in gold, or 15 per cent,
on his investment. Since the notes were re-issuable, all of them
but the last third, which were not convertible, formed an endless
chain for the purchase of bonds." While the new system was
much superior to the old state systems, still it did not prevent
concentration of capital in a few places, thus producing boom
cities and controlled money markets ; nor did it provide for flexi-
bility and mobility of credit which the post-war industrialized
America needed. Actually it inverted elasticity, but it did rid
the country of its multiplicity of state bank notes and did help the
North to preserve, in outward appearance, the Union as it was.

Chase could swell his chest with pride after he successfully got
the banks under way. He rated highly his services to his coun-
try, pursued a course of quiet underhanded criticism of his chief,
announced that in principle no president should seek a second
term, and allowed his friends to speak openly of him as a candi-
date for the presidency in 1 864. His boom exploded with a puff
when the notorious Pomeroy letter was published and Chase was
reassured by Lincoln in a magnanimous letter that the president
would consider first the value of Chase's services to the country
as a secretary of the treasury. He hung on until June 29, 1864,
when his last resignation was accepted. Just then the financial
outlook of the administration was discouraging ; the passage of
the Gold Bill (June 17, 1864) may have embarrassed him ; he was
irritated over appointments in New York ; and the unfortunate
attack by Major-General Frank Blair in Congress on Chase's

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 43!

character and conduct in office, without being severely rebuked
by the president, angered Chase beyond measure.

Senator William Pitt Fessenden, of Adaine, successor to Chase,
was confronted with an embarrassing financial situation. Re-
ceipts for July i, 1862, to July i, 1863, from ordinary sources and
loans were $7 14,709,000, but at the end of the fiscal year the debt
was $1,098,793,000, of which more than half had accumulated
since January i, 1863. Chase had relied upon ordinary receipts
and further loans to meet the estimated total expenditures of
$755,000,000 for the fiscal year, 1863-1864, but the purchase of
bonds by the public practically ceased before the year closed,
leaving $126,663,000 of a $200,000,000 authorized loan of 10-40
5's unsold. A successful flotation of short loans saved the treas-
ury a humiliating experience in the election year of 1864 and,
until late summer, a disappointing year from a military point of
view. These short-term, legal-tender notes in denominations as
low as ten dollars, bearing six per cent, interest and tax-exempt,
popular with investors and bankers, who preferred these notes to
greenbacks, forced their non-interest-bearing greenbacks into
circulation. Fessenden found an inflated currency still expand-
ing, soaring prices, a cash balance in the treasury, July i, 1864,
of $18,842,000, and the estimated customs duties ($70,271,000 for
1864-1865) insufficient to pay interest on the public debt for
very long. Unpaid requisitions amounting to $71,814,000, un-
paid soldiers, and a recently-ordered increase in the army which
would add $750,000 to the $2,250,000 daily cost of war were
problems to dismay almost any financier, especially the conserva-
tive ex-chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate.

The new secretary attacked his problem courageously. Re-
fusing to repeat Chase's unhappy experience with his five per
cents., he called for a great national loan of $200,000,000 * of
1-3 7.3*8, convertible in 5-20 6's if desired by the buyers, and em-
ployed Jay Cooke to float them. Even the "gallant soldiers" in
the army bought $20,000,000. Before the year 1864 ended,
Fessenden had sold $110,800,000 of 7-30*5, and $718,000,000
were sold in 1865. Easier sales resulted from Grant's and Sher-

* June 30, 1864.

432. THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

man's military victories, Lincoln's re-election, and the confidence
in the ultimate success of the Union. The North could easily
see that the Confederacy was cracking.

The financial problems which confronted Charles G Mem-
minger, Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States of
America, and his advisers were far more difficult of solution than
those which perplexed Chase ; and Memminger, an able Charles-
ton business man, was not a whit abler than his foe. Certainly
the Confederate did a worse job of it. Fundamentally, the Con-
federacy had to change from a one-crop system to a diversified
system of fanning in order that the necessities of life might be
produced at home instead of being imported. Cotton exports de-
clined with the effectiveness of the Northern blockade. In 1860
the total sale of cotton exports reached $202,741,000 ; in 1862
only $4,000,000. Money for the purchase or manufacture of
arms and war supplies belonging to the Federal government could
be seized to equip the first Southern armies entering the field of
war. How great a sum of money was saved the Davis govern-
ment by privates' purchasing their own arms and clothing, riding
their own horses, and private gifts to states and central govern-
ments can never be known. The amount was evidently large.
Heavy expenses for labor met by cash payments in the North
were generally eliminated in the South by loyal slave labor. Ob-
sessed with the theory of state rights, without sufficient currency,
with no navy to speak of, few iron-works for manufacturing mu-
nitions, a mere nucleus of an industrial system with its ready flow
of money and wealth-creating power, a doubtful credit, a rela-
tively small white population, the South, unable to break the
blockade of its ports, needed a wizard to establish a sound money
system which might both gain and retain the confidence of the
public. A devotion to its class and section, unheard of elsewhere
in America, did not keep many of its citizens and officials from the
practice of profiteering and bribery.

The treasurer was assisted by assistant treasurers, auditors, and
a registrar — the entire Department of the Treasury being or-
ganized similar to that of the Federal treasury and copied after the
system which Alexander Hamilton had devised. At one time as

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 433

many as three hundred assistant treasurers were stationed at se-
lected points for the purpose of collecting taxes, making disburse-
ments, and selling bonds. In the beginning United States cus-
toms collectors who joined the Confederacy were stationed in
ports at salaries and with powers the same as those enjoyed under
the Federal government. The Department had a working force
and offices which were taken from the Federal customs system in
the South ; and it was empowered by the Confederate Constitu-
tion, if authorized by law, to coin money and regulate the value
thereof, to borrow money on the public credit, and issue paper
money as legal tender.

"In its extraordinary straits for money, the government of the
Confederacy had resort to every expedient known to finance,
even the most desperate." First, it seized at New Orleans on
March 14, 1861, the bullion fund of $389,267 in the Federal mint,
and $147,519 in customs duties in the same city, and confiscated
about $460,000 in other funds, a total of $996,786 — a mere drop
in the bucket toward paying for the war. Second, the Congress
legalized a tax of eight cents on each hundred pounds of exported
cotton, which in four years netted the insignificant sum of $6000
in gold values. Third, the "fifteen million loan" was the first of
several domestic and foreign loans. Fifteen million of 5-10 8's
were authorized February 28, 1861, guaranteed by a sinking-fund
provision, the interest payable semi-annually. The values of these
bonds were only 6 to 7 per cent, below par in the early winter of
1865. Other loans brought in little specie, for the country was
drained of it early by the purchase of military supplies abroad in
competition with the better credit of the North. In May the
treasurer estimated government expenditures for the year ending
January i, 1862, to be $72,000,000 ; he already had a deficit of
$38,000,000, and to his worry and perplexity the expenditures
mounted to $165,000,000 at the end of the year. Letters of
credit and bills of exchange, used to make European purchases,
were drying up, partly because of the cotton embargo, partly be-
cause of the blockade. In August 1861 was instituted the "hun-
dred million loan," the first of a series of "produce loans." The
secretary of the treasury was authorized to issue 2o-year 8's to be

434 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

sold for specie or exchanged for produce or the finished products
of the factory. The purpose of the loan was clearly the conduct
of the war. The produce loan was paralleled with an attempt to
coerce England into recognizing the Confederacy by refusing the
export of cotton except from controlled seaports of the Confed-
eracy. The South rather welcomed the blockade of her ports,
hoping that England would be forced to intervene to save her
own textile industry from a crisis. As late as 1863 newspapers
advised planters purposely to restrict the production of cotton
to force the hand of England. A total of $150,000,000 of pro-
duce loans offered to a hopeful people in 1861 brought to the aid
of their distressed government 400,000 bales of cotton, quantities
of sugar, rice, tobacco, wheat, and other produce, and $1,000,000
in bank and treasury notes. A provision in the law permitted the
substitution of treasury notes for some of the bonds which were
given in exchange for the produce. By this means planters ob-
tained notes which they used for currency. The government was
unable to dispose of its cotton, though England suffered a cotton
shortage and experienced the shut-down of the cotton mills. The
British working people too strongly favored the North for the
pro-Confederate English aristocracy to risk a recognition of the
Confederacy and a lifting of the Northern blockade, the cordon
of which was tightening as Secretary Welles improved the navy.
As time went on, fewer of the crops "loaned" could be sold ; the
government had to make direct, forced purchases with its eight-
per-cent. bonds, and at the same time compete with the states
which supported their own quotas of troops with their paper
money. Public credit was exhausted by the fall of 1862.*

Fourth, it is seen that the Confederate treasurer, having no
more courage than Chase to force the issue upon taxation, relied

* A list of Confederate loans floated or merely authorized includes the fol-
lowing :

February 1861 $15,000,000 i -10 8's, bonds

March 1861 $1,000,000 i 3.65*5, treasury notes

May 1 86 1 $50,000,000 i -20 8's, bonds, revoked later

($20,000,000 of these might be 2 8's, treasury notes)
August 1 86 1 $100,000,000 i -20 8's, bonds

April 1862 $165,000,000 10-30 8's, bonds

and $50,000,000 treasury notes. Bonds never issued.

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 435

chiefly upon loans, a large part of which were treasury notes.
He deserves less blame than Chase for less reliance on taxation,
for the Southerners had traditionally opposed taxation except on
land ; even the establishment of a bank or some unusual project
had been financed through the sale of bonds in the North or in
Europe. The Confederate constitution limited taxation on the
few imports which it had to tax.* By the end of 1 86 1 over $ i oo,-
000,000 of treasury notes had been issued. The first issue of
notes, authorized March 4, 1 861, did not exceed $i ,000,000 in one-
year non-legal-tenders, bearing an interest rate of 3.65. A few
months later this issue was doubled. Under the act of May 1 8 6 1 ,
$20,000,000 more, two-year non-interest-bearing notes, were is-
sued soon to be followed in August by $100,000,000 redeemable
after the ratification of peace. Memminger's experiences were
like those of other political financiers who must produce a circu-
lating medium with little credit. He had begun with fundables
and all too rapidly had run into fiat paper money. Many of the
notes were in small denominations, but the need for small cur-
rency, after the country had been drained of its specie, caused a
flood of institutional issues. States alone emitted over $20,000,-
ooo in shinplasters before the war was half ended. Fractional
currency and money in any form was so much needed that
Northern greenbacks sold at a premium. Counterfeiters found
the Confederate paper money easy to imitate and reaped a har-
vest. Great quantities were counterfeited in the North and dis-
tributed by soldiers, notes coming even from wartime prisons at
Richmond. Government paper-money mills were operated at
such speed as to require the employment of extra men to sign the
bills. Bonds and treasury notes soon depreciated. In Septem-
ber 1863, Congress placed no limit on the amount of treasury
notes to be issued. Prices rose with the flow and the expectation
of more and more loans, until the mad circle ended in inflation
which did much to help defeat the Confederacy.

An attempt by the government to check inflation was too late
in March 1863, but a second one was tried in February 1864,
The first eff ort was a refunding act providing for the compulsory

* A tariff of i2l/2 per cent, was proposed in May 1861.

43 6 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

conversion of non-interest-bearing notes issued before Decem-
ber i, 1862, passed in the forlorn hope that the dangerous quan-
tity of notes might be reduced with a bond issue up to $200,000,-
ooo, but the government was doomed to defeat by permitting the
hard-pressed Memminger to issue monthly up to $50,000,000 in
treasury notes. The second attempt to restore order in the Con-
federate monetary system proposed a progressive tax on notes
which were classified according to denominations and degree of
demoralization. The treasury force was extended by one hun-
dred new depositories scattered at the central points throughout
the Confederacy, quartermasters acting as depositaries in the
army. These fruitless efforts to refund, and to destroy the re-
covered notes, brought a storm of protest from the people. Mer-
chants demanded of their customers the notes plus taxes, thus
bringing home to every buyer the meaning of repudiation. "The
act has shaken the confidence in the justice and competence of
Congress," cried Governor Brown of Georgia. The discredited
Memminger was replaced by the less able G. A. Trenholm, of
Charleston, full of proposals, among which was his multiple stand-
ard of value based on cotton, corn, and wheat instead of "variable
gold." He could not bring stability out of the financial wreck-
age. The pledge of 1 864 not to issue more notes was broken in
March 1865 with another act, passed over President Davis's veto,
authorizing $80,000,000 to pay the soldiers. Over $ i ,000,000,000
of worthless paper notes were outstanding when Johnston sur-
rendered. Only Texas was able to return to a specie basis before
the war closed ; the rest of the Confederacy found its money sys-
tem so confused that many areas resorted to barter.

Fifth, other forms of taxation than those levied indirectly
through loans were used, A .5 per cent, direct tax was laid on
nearly all property after August 19, 1861. Through it about
$18,000,000 was collected in paper currency in less than three
years. The Loan Act provided for the taxation of the following
properties : "real estate of all kinds ; slaves ; merchandise ; bank
stock ; railroad and other corporation stock ; money at interest,
or invested by individuals in the purchase of bills, notes, and other

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 437

securities for money, except bonds of the Confederate States ;
cattle, horses and mules ; gold watches ; gold and silver plate, pi-
anos and pleasure carriages ; provided that taxable property enu-
merated of any head of a family is of a value not less than $500."
A fatal weakness in the act was a provision that allowed a state
to receive a i o per cent, discount on payment of the total tax on
its citizens at any time before April i, 1862, thus encouraging the
several states to enter the loan market in competition with the
Confederate treasury. A more drastic tax law was enacted in
April 1863 upon the advice and insistence of Memminger and the
press. It provided for an 8 per cent, property tax on liquors,
wines, tobacco, salt, cotton, wool, molasses, sugar, money and
currency on deposit or in hand, and on all naval stores ; a licence
tax on bankers, peddlers, photographers, jewelers, confectioners,
retail dealers, auctioneers, and others, plus a gross receipts tax on
many businesses ; a tax on salaries, earnings, and other sources of
income ; a tax of 10 per cent, on profits derived from the sale of
cotton cloth, iron, shoes, and food products ; and, finally, the
tithing tax, or tax in kind, of one tenth on farm products for 1863,
which was increased to one fourth in April 1 865. Slaves escaped
direct taxation. The total collections from all of these sources
of labeled taxes, according to the records available, amounted,
approximately, to $122,494,539.

The eff ects of the tax in kind are hard to appraise. It at once
aroused the hostility of the Richmond Whig and later the Ex-
aminer and the Mercury. The first stoutly maintained that prices
of farm products were lowered as a result of it. Corn did drop
from $12 and $10 a bushel to $4.20 and flour from $45 a barrel
to $25.

More bitter opposition in 1864 greeted the re-enactment of the
law of 1863 with additional levies, an additional 10 per cent, tax
on profits derived from any business, and excess profits tax of
25 per cent, on profits of over 25 per cent. All rates in this act
were raised by one fifth in June 1864 by the specific "soldiers'
fund" tax. While the Mercury and stubborn fanners deeply re-
sented the tax in kind and declared it responsible for the fall in

43 8 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

prices, the student of Civil War finance should remember that
the lower prices also followed the passage of funding acts pur-
posed to contract the currency (March 1863, 1864).

Southern farmers contended that they were ruined by prices
fixed by the impressment commissioners. Confused with bitter
opposition to the government was the suspension of the privilege
of the writ of habeas corpus. The Mercury and other presses
were joined by men of the stamp of Robert Toombs who, in his
defence of the farmers, said : "I have heard it said that we should
not sacrifice liberty to independence. . . The two are insepara-
ble. . . If we lose our liberty we shall lose our independence. . .
I would rather see the whole country the cemetery of freedom
than the habitation of slaves." Worthy men railed at the Davis
government's "usurpation." Protests poured into Richmond.
Farmers wailed, with some reason, that the tax in kind made the
struggle "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight." Be it remem-
bered, however, that the tax-gatherer was a new person to the
poor folk in the South when he came as the malevolent war crea-
ture demanding the tenth sheaf. So serious was the opposi-
tion to the farmer tax, the denounced "unconstitutional, anti-
republican," "monarchical" tax, that, under the leadership of men
like W. W. Holden, the voters swept into office anti-Davis men
in North Carolina and Georgia in the crucial congressional elec-
tions of 1 863. Riots, indignation meetings, a terrorized country-
side in North Carolina, and a belated understanding of the sig-
nificance of the losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg did not make
easier the task of raising money to finance a costly war against a
comparatively prosperous North. Many Confederates became
increasingly interested in peace conferences. Finding itself in a
desperate situation in March 1865, Congress passed its last and
most extreme tax measure. The tax in kind and taxes on salaries
and incomes were retained, a five per cent, tax was levied on all
credits except Confederate and state bonds, all property was
taxed at eight per cent, based on the 1860 valuation, and several
other high rates were levied.

The sixth important plan to raise revenue by using cotton as
security for foreign loans brought no greater returns than some

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 439

of the other plans. In 1863 Mason's hopes for a British loan
faded. Among other deterrents many British investors still held
repudiated bonds of Southern states. Robert J. Walker arrived
in London in 1863, the representative of Secretary Chase, to con-
vince the English people that Southern bonds were a precarious
investment and that Northern bonds were safe. He wrote let-
ters to the London Times and, as a pamphleteer, did an undeter-
mined amount of damage to the Confederate cause. He no doubt
convinced hundreds of English investors that President Davis, as
an advocate of repudiation in the Mississippi Union Bank state
bonds in 1841 to 1843 and of the Arkansas Smithsonian Institute
bonds, would, if the South won, repeat his performance after the
Civil War. He circularized England and Europe with a pam-
phlet on the abundant resources of the North and its financial sta-
bility, sold $250,000,000 of Northern bonds to England, and
drove the American minister at London to distraction with his
egotism and interference with affairs in general. But Gettys-
burg, Vicksburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the galaxy
of Northern private ministers had their influence against the flo-
tation of Southern bonds. Slidell had better success in Paris
where he won over the great banker Emile Erlanger, who had the
ear of Napoleon III. Napoleon needed glory, wanted to inter-
fere in American affairs, and sympathized with the Confederacy.
Erlanger proposed to lend the Confederacy $15,000,000, secured
by cotton at six cents a pound (then selling in England for nearly
two shillings), the cotton to be delivered after peace or by run-
ning the blockade. The Confederacy issued $ 1 5 ,000,000 in bonds
at 7 per cent. Erlanger et Cie were to pay 77 per cent, of
the face value of the bonds, keep all profits plus a 5 per cent, com-
mission, and turn over to the Confederacy its share in credit as
the bonds were sold. Investors rushed to buy them in the mar-
kets of Europe, making a first payment, but as bond values fell,
they proposed to forfeit their first installments. Mason attempted
to bull the market by buying back large amounts of "Erlanger
bonds," spending some $6,000,000 with little effect upon the
market. More bonds were bought during the years 1863 and
1864, but this foreign loan was far from the desired success. In

440 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the end European investors lost approximately $9,750,000, the
Confederacy received about $6,550,000 credit and contracted to
spend $5,000,000 for cruisers and rams which were never deliv-
ered. Memminger declined a second proposal of Erlanger et Cie,
probably because the first had yielded only 50 per cent, on its
dollar value. Meagre funds were secured abroad during the re-
maining months of the war by running the blockade with swift
ships loaded with cotton, but King Cotton as a producer of rev-
enue sufficient to win the war was a distinct failure.

A seventh means attempted in raising funds was tried in the be-
ginning when the Confederacy sequestered debts owed to the
North and ordered their payment to the treasury. In retaliation
the Federal government ordered on August 6 the confiscation of
Southern property in the North which might be used to the ad-
vantage of the Confederacy. The Southern Congress retaliated
on August 30 by ordering the seizure of alien enemy property in
the South, excepting properties in the border states. Smaller re-
turns than were hoped for trickled into government coffers as a
result of confiscations. Southern planters preferred debts to
Northern creditors to payments of any kind at home. Some
Southern citizens who were honest or otherwise motivated
bought bonds and sent them North in payment of debts. Several
Southern states passed stay laws which suspended judgment in
suits for debts until the war closed. Bankers of the South kept
$26,000,000 in gold coin of the old Union, protecting it by sus-
pending specie payments. Merchants of New Orleans met their
honest obligations to Northern merchants. How much indirect
financial aid there was through illegal trade between citizens of
opposing sides cannot be guessed.*

On the side of the North sutlers profiteered from the cravings
of soldiers. Extravagance marked the activities of government

* The total receipts of the government from various sources during the Civil
War, according to Professor E, Q. Hawk's figures in his Economic History of
the South, p. 414, were severally as follows : taxes, $122,494,539 ; sequestration,
$6,401,990 ; customs, $3,401,091 ; bonds, $546,171,732 ; notes, $1,359,973,543 *» Dank
loans, $12,353,344; call certificates, $144,346,556; patent funds, $51,671 ; repay-
ments, $9i»395»875 ; tax on notes, $14440,567 ; and miscellaneous, $10,278,868,
reaching a grand total of $2,311,309,776.

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 441

and people. "No army before had been so lavishly supplied with
food, clothing, and equipment as were the Union soldiers after
1 86 1." On long marches or before approaching battles many
soldiers discarded their unnecessary impedimenta, which were
gladly picked up by Southern soldiers. Some manufacturers of
woolen garments connived at profits with Federal officials and
won the title of "shoddy aristocrats." In the South the govern-
ment contracted with mill owners for equipment on a cost-plus
basis, with the understanding that profits were not to exceed 75
per cent. Even on that basis mill owners sought to escape the
sale of goods to the government. Many farmers hid their stocks
of produce by whatever means possible. From necessity of war,
conscription acts were used as a club over refractory manufac-
turers. Poor control was had over railway transportation as
compared with the marked success of McCallum and Haupt in
the North. In the South worn-out rolling stock could not be
replaced, rails from unimportant lines had to be used for repairing
tracks on main roads, in 1 864 cars broke down after five-hundred-
mile runs, and co-ordination and through traffic was not had be-
cause of a hesitant government, whose ideal was non-interference
in private industry. What meagre financing was obtainable could
have been made much more effective if the theory of state rights
had received lukewarm adherence from the beginning. With a
depreciated currency and soaring prices and credit gone, abun-
dant crops in 1864 could not be moved over dilapidated railroads
to the almost-starving, ragged armies. A prevailing hopelessness
in 1864 could not be dispelled by a bankrupt government, whose
currency system was broken down, and her common people
forced to substitute hedge thorns for pins, rye for coffee, corn
pone for wheat bread, sassafras roots or raspberry leaves for tea,
wooden for leather shoe soles, and persimmon beer for wine, and
at the same time pay five hundred dollars for a ten-dollar dress,
and possibly three hundred dollars for a homespun cloth suit. A
barrel of flour cost one thousand dollars in January 1865. It
is little wonder that states like Sherman-ridden Georgia and
independent-spirited North Carolina resented the drastic tax laws
of 1 864 and 1865.

442 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

The official national Confederate debt, according to the last
report of the treasury on October i, 1864, was $1,687,310,298.
If to this amount is added an equal increase of that of the six
months before October i, the final total is $2,345,297,823.* Prob-
ably not less than $1,250,000,000 of this represented notes- of dif-
ferent kinds. The figures on the Northern debit pages stood at
$3,289,000,000. Add pensions and interest and the still-increasing
amount must have been near $ 1 0,000,000,000 in 1 9 1 7, loss of lives
and destruction of property (1861-1865) not included.

Statistical costs are usually recorded figures based on depre-
ciating currencies or they fail to consider rising prices. The Con-
federate dollar, fallen to five cents in gold value in December
1863, indicates the necessity of weighted computations for an ac-
curate picture of war finances. Absolute historical accuracy
would require a daily conversion of the expenditures of the treas-
uries of both sides, entailing a burdensome task even if the mate-
rials were available.

Dr. James L. SeDers used a plan of conversion of the Confeder-
ate debt by taking each semi-annual report of the treasurer and
reducing it to its gold equivalent, and using the sum of these re-
ductions as the gold value of the Confederate expenditure. He
used the average value of currency for each six-months' period in
making his computations. For instance, by this method the
average monthly valuations of gold in Confederate currency
were : April 1863, $4.15 ; May, $5.50 ; June, $7 ; July, $9 ; Au-
gust, $12 ; September, $12. Through addition and division by
six of the sum of these figures he obtained an average value of
$8.30 Confederate currency for the period. Treasury figures
were divided by 8.3 to find their gold equivalent. It is not main-
tained that this method produced complete accuracy, but it is a
decided improvement over the old method of computation.

If from the total expenditures to October 1864, are taken some-
thing over $500,000,000, representing payments on the public
debt, the real expenditure for the Confederacy is found to tie

* Professor Hawk, op. cit., lists the war expenditures of the Confederate gov-
ernment as follows : War Department, $1,35(5,784,244 ; navy, $93,045,954 ; civil,
$46,387,287 ; and debt service, $603,591,222 ; a total of $2,099,808,707.

CIVIL WAR FINANCE 443

$1,532,728,607 in currency. The gold equivalent of that amount
reduces to $509,532,700. Add to this figure, first, the estimated
cost, in gold equivalent, for the last six months of the war (for
which there is no record left by the treasurer) after deducting
payments on the public debt ; then add the values of tax in kind,
unpaid requisitions, state expenditures of $40,000,000 in gold
equivalents, and the grand total will amount to $572,232,700. Of
all the expenditures 90 per cent, was accredited to the War De-
partment and 6 per cent, to the Navy Department. The major
items of expense, according to the reports of the Department of
War, were for the payment of soldiers, supplies and ordnance,
and transportation. The war expenditures in positive war effort
thus figured were 16.5 per cent, of the true wealth carefully esti-
mated at $3,450,796,607 in 1860, excluding slaves ; or 55 per cent,
of Confederate wealth in 1865, and 25 per cent, of Southern
wealth given at $2,735,000,000 in 1870, when greenbacks were
exchangeable in gold at 85 to 90 cents. Personal property suf-
fered most, being reduced in 1865 to one fourth its value in 1860
(slaves considered as labor).

For the North there was a true value of $10,957,000,000 as-
sessed at $7,680,000,000 in 1860, or three times that of the South,
excluding slaves. The war cost the Federal government, as noted
above, $3,289,000,000 * in loans, legal-tender notes, and taxes,
not to compute the loss of 284 vessels worth $25,000,000 cap-
tured by Confederate privateers, necessary extra insurance, state
expenditures, and confiscated materials in the South, destroyed
property, and general confusion in business. The gold -equivalent
of the three billion dollars plus was $2,000,000,000, or 18.4 per
cent, of Northern wealth in 1 860. But Northern wealth in 1 870
was $26,280,000,000 or seven times the cost at $3,289,000,000.
It is little wonder that President Lincoln thought in 1865 that the
North could carry on the war indefinitely.

At the close of the titanic struggle the relation between prop-

*The four years of war (1861-1865) cost the North, according to D. R.
Dewey, $2,713,568,000 spent by the Department of War; $314,223,000 by the
Navy Department; $151,573,000 for miscellaneous; and $169,009,000 in interest
on the public debt. The total receipts in taxes, sale of public lands, and miscel-
laneous, left over two thirds of the cost to be paid in post-war years.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

erty and war expenditures in the North and South represented
a proportion of effort to wealth as one to four., War costs left
the South prostrated and post-war reconstruction governments
crushed her for a generation. The cotton industry of the world
was so upset by the war that financial and currency arrangements
were disturbed for some time. A new farming system and new
financing were necessary. Free labor took the place of slave
labor and industrialization was given an impetus that ultimately
gave to small farming and agriculture second place. A series of
banking systems were fixed for more than three quarters of a
century, and the United States treasury at last had become an im-
portant institution*

[Signed] W. E. S.

CHAPTER XVI

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

IN JULY 1 86 1 , the Congress at Washington declared solemnly and
under great agitation, "That this war is not prosecuted on our
part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest
or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfer-
ing with the rights or established institutions of those states, but
to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all
laws made in pursuance thereof and to preserve the Union * with
all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unim-
paired ; that as soon as these subjects are accomplished, the war
ought to cease."

In his first inaugural address President Lincoln developed the
argument that "the Union is much older than the Constitution" ;
in fact, he said that the Union created states from provinces.
"Unquestionably the states have the powers and rights reserved
to them in and by the National Constitution ; but among these
surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mis-
chievous or destructive, but, at most, such only as were known in
the world at the time as governmental powers ; and certainly a
power to destroy the government itself had never been known as
a governmental" power. The principle of secession was one of
disintegration, and upon disintegration which no government
could endure.

Daniel Webster, whose constitutional expositions Lincoln had
admired, once said : "Secession as a revolutionary right" was in-
telligible, but as a practical right existing under the Constitution
it was an absurdity, for it supposed resistance to government
"under the authority of Government itself ; it supposed dismem-
berment without violating the principles of Union."

John Lothrop Motley, motivated by a desire to prevent the
recognition of the Confederacy by England, writing for his Eng-
lish audience, considered the Constitution a document promul-

* Italics mine.

445

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

gated in the name of the people of the land, ratified by the people,
not by the states through their governments ; he also considered
that no provision had been made by the people by which a state
might repeal the Union or secede from it. The Supreme Court
expressed the orthodox view after the Civil War (Texas vs.
White) , when it stated that the Union had existed before the Con-
stitution had been written, and that "the Constitution . . . looks
to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States."

Motley's arguments harmonized with John Marshall's ; but the
claims of Webster, Lincoln, Motley, and Marshall, that the
framers of the Constitution and the people who adopted it re-
jected state sovereignty for national sovereignty when they ac-
cepted "We the people of the United States," appeared to be
more logical than they were. The national view was accepted
by Hamilton and Washington and others, but they were, among
many opponents who feared to give up sovereign rights of their
several communities, merely a group favoring nationalism.

Historically, the South never lost continuity with the state-
rights group of the Constitutional "Fathers." The logic of events,
however, was against them, and was with Webster and Lincoln.
The South adhered to the theory that sovereignty resided in the
people of the states, not in the state governments, and was never,
even by implication, given up, since sovereignty could not be sur-
rendered by implication. The Constitution, therefore, was the
product of a sovereign people in states which retained paramount
authority, though they did set up a supreme law. To the su-
preme law they admitted that they owed their obedience, but to
paramount authority they believed they owed their allegiance.
Not having signed away their sovereignty and their allegiance,
they assumed the right to withdraw from the Union when they
were sufficiently displeased with it. About the reserved right to
secede, Professor Randall, after long study, arrived at the conclu-
sion that "none of the commonwealths formally and explicitly re-
served in its resolution of ratification the right of a state to with-
drawal." After nearly three quarters of a century of reflection
historians may be justified in the assertion that the constitutional-
ity of secession is not the key to the problem. The South fought

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 447

for a new union in which it hoped to find a harmony of ideals and
interests, not for the right of secession in itself. The South re-
volted on the basis of what it thought was its fundamental right ;
the North with its blood and treasure defended the Union which
was believed to be a high example of democracy for the world.*
The North emphasized the unconstitutionality of secession in its
daily press and speeches, but supported Lincoln's administration
because it believed the whole Union was necessary for the gen-
eral welfare of all

Both the North and South revered the Constitution — and lived
by constitutions. Each accepted the idea of a living constitu-
tion, but each had its interpretations based on its own social and
economic experiences and aims for the future. "The Constitu-
tion is perpetual" was probably the prevailing view in the North ;
while the South would preserve the good features of the Consti-
tution of 1787, ridding itself of what it believed to be Northern
misinterpretations. During the war it was held together by pub-
lic sentiment rather than by political organization.

How to conduct constitutionally a major insurrection, a civil
war, was no easy task for the governments at Washington and
Richmond. Each repeatedly found that it must act as if neces-
sity knew no law. On the Federal side the Constitution granted
to Congress the right to declare war, to raise and support armies,
to provide and maintain a navy, to make rules for calling out the
militia to execute the laws of the Union, to suppress insurrections,
and to make laws for carrying into execution these powers. The
president was bound by a solemn oath to "preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United States," and to act as com-
mander-in-chief of the army and navy.

In the exercise of his war powers President Lincoln was limited
by the Constitution, by disputes and rivalries over the interpreta-
tions of law, and by practical applications. A considerable part
of the Northern public was jealous of its right to freedom of
speech and press and the right of assembly ; of its guarantees
against unreasonable searches or unwarranted arrests ; of the im-
munity of persons and the guarantee against the loss of property

* For an extended discussion of the subject of secession see chapter IL

448 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

without due process of law, impartially conducted trials, and the
right of an accused to counsel, witnesses, and the presence of his
accusers. A study of the historical sources of the period reveals
that the habeas corpus clause and the First, Fourth, Fifth, and
Sixth Amendments were most in the minds of those who thought
much of war powers. Many men in the North wanted the presi-
dent to stick closely to the Constitution ; others liberally believed
that he was bound by it during a crisis, though they readily ad-
mitted that it sanctioned extraordinary powers to him in war
time ; still others, who followed Stevens and Sumner, thought
that the Constitution could not operate during the Civil War.
As the strong arm of the government reached out with a grand
sweep into the rights of citizens, the judges of the Supreme Court
pretty generally agreed that extraordinary war powers were
necessary for the defence of the nation and were consistent with
its constitution.

Two branches of the government enjoy war powers granted
or implied. The president commands the army and navy ; and
Congress, through its control of the purse, may check his use of
them. The president has power to repel sudden invasions, to
wage a defensive war ; he has extensive powers over civilian life,
especially in relation to martial law and military commissions.
He may hold aliens under surveillance, order dangerous citizens
arrested, or impose censorships where he believes public safety
demands. Concerning the war powers of Congress, the courts
have held that the powers of sovereignty rest in the national legis-
lature. Congress may declare war and provide for its conduct.
Against the enemy Congress has the right to limit itself only by
the definition of "belligerent powers," constitutional guarantees
provided in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments not extending to the
enemy.*

* In the Constitution are found the following clauses : "Congress shall have
power ... [i] to ... provide for the common defense ... [2] to declare
war ... [3] to raise and support armies . , . [4] to make Rules for the Gov-
ernment and Regulation of land and naval Forces . . . [5] the Privilege of the
Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Re-
bellion or Invasion the public safety may require it ... [6] the President shall
be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States ... [7]
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them,

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 449

According to the Supreme Court's decision, however, consti-
tutional limitations do apply to peaceful, loyal citizens under the
aegis of the Federal government. This decision was one of the
famous five-fours in which the minority thought Congress could
suspend the writ of habeas corpus in districts distant from the seat
of war if it believed the exigencies of the situation demanded mili-
tary rule. If we were to accept as powers of Congress those
which it exercised through the Civil War, it could confiscate
property, raise armed forces by conscription, include aliens among
conscripts if they have declared intentions, set up unusual con-
fiscatory taxes, issue paper money as legal tender, create new
states from parts of the old ones, approve the president's suspen-
sion of the privilege of habeas corpus, authorize the president to
take over railroads and telegraph lines, and establish committees
to supervise the conduct of the war. Many of these caused much
debating in and out of Congress, but from necessity they were as-
sumed as war powers when the crisis came. Stevens "would not
stultify" himself by asking, "Is it constitutional ? " nor could Sum-
ner compromise with strict constitutionalism when the life of the
Union was at stake.

The framers of the Constitution in 1787 were thinking more
about problems in time of peace than in time of war. They con-
sequently failed clearly to define the rights of citizens and the
powers of the government in time of war. Several American
statesmen had formed the opinion before 1787 that the United
States must keep free of entanglements in Europe purposely to
keep America in a state of peace. Naturally, two kinds of con-
stitutional problems quickly developed as subjects of political
controversy in the North. Whether the president or Congress,
or both in conjunction, should have the use of extraordinary pow-
ers, provoked heated debates in Congress, on the stump, and in the
newspapers. Likewise the government's assumption of unusual
power over personal freedom — in a jealous democracy — pro-
voked party disruptions, factional hatreds, and intemperate abuse
of Lincoln, especially in cases of military arrests and trials.

or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort ... [8] the
Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason. . ."

45 O THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Another bitter controversy developed between Lincoln and his
supporters and the Jacobin congressmen who insisted upon
setting up Congress as the war dictator.

In his harangue before Congress (January 22, 1862) Stevens
declared that Congress could make itself a dictator, and that un-
der some circumstances he would make it the irresponsible judge
of its own conduct. Sumner, a little less radical, claimed for Con-
gress all the rights that belong to any war government. So set
in their determination to control the Republican party and Con-
gress and to conduct the war machine were the Radicals that they
consistently quarreled with Lincoln, set up a Committee on the
Conduct of the War to embarrass him and run the war, and
joined with certain Democrats to frustrate the president's plan
of reconstruction.*

The Federal government vastly increased its power before the
war closed. It exercised powers of national authority, beginning
early in the struggle ; and it has not yet ended its expansion.
Statesmen of the blue-blooded state-rights party could never have
voted for bills to endow agricultural colleges, build the Union
Pacific Railroad, and to establish a national banking system as the
war-Congress did.

President Lincoln respected personal liberty and used his war
powers in a most lenient and circumspect manner as compared to
those exercised by certain governments during the World War.
"Copperheads" were balanced somewhat by a few over-zealous
Union subordinates.! On the whole, however, democracy ran
free north of the Ohio river. In the South, after 1862, the Davis
administration brought down upon its head unrestrained criticism
for its use of conscription, price-fixing, tax in kind, and particu-
larly for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. Rhett's
Mercury raised the cry of despotism and accused Davis of a wan-
ton attack on true Southern liberties. Senator Foote of Tennes-
see bemoaned the national attack on state sovereignty and per-
sonal liberty. State and personal prejudices for or against one

* The constitutional phases of reconstruction are discussed in chapters XI
and XII and elsewhere,
t See chapter XII for activities of Vallandigham and the "Copperheads."

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 451

liberty or another were finally concentrated in an anti-Davis Con-
gress at Richmond that helped to disintegrate the Confederacy.
The Confederacy was born in an "era of good feeling" among
Southerners, the act of a political clique supported by over-
whelming public opinion which failed to understand that the
Confederate government from the beginning and for the duration
of the war must from necessity be a veiled military despotism.
Philosophically speaking, Davis was the founder of "a new Con-
federacy" ; he possessed less tact than Lincoln, less human in-
sight or understanding of the masses, but he had a much harder
problem to solve where state sovereignties and personal liberties
were involved in the game of war. In his task of preserving per-
sonal liberty, he was just as earnest as his ablest foe.

Vice-President Stephens, speaking of the Confederate Con-
stitution on March 21, 1861, assured the Southern people that "it
amply secures all our ancient rights, franchises, and liberties. All
the great principles of Magna Charta are retained in it. No citi-
zen is deprived of life, liberty or property, but by the judgment
of his peers under the laws of the land. . . The question of build-
ing up class interests . . . which gave us so much trouble under
the old Constitution, is put at rest forever under the new [!].
We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving ad-
vantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over
those of another . . . the subject of internal improvements, un-
der the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest
under our system. . . The new constitution has put at rest, for-
ever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution,
African slavery as it exists among us, the proper status of the ne-
gro in our form of civilization."

Thus spoke the ablest man in the civil government of the Con-
federacy in the first days of peaceful triumph of the Confederacy.
The Confederate Congress had, however, already passed a pro-
tective tariff act, and two months after Stephens spoke so re-
assuringly the Congress passed another act to provide revenue
from imported commodities* Soon the Confederate officials
ceased talking so much about the great principles of liberty guar-
anteed by the Constitution and did more fighting. To produce

45^ THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

a greater fighting machine than existed after the year 1861, the
government resorted to the use of bounties to induce men to vol-
unteer, but soon that was a recognized failure. Three important
conscription acts were passed. The first act (April 16, 1862)
provided for the drafting of those between the ages of eighteen
and thirty-five years of age ; the second act (September 1862)
extended the age limit from eighteen to thirty-five to eighteen to
forty-five ; the third act (February 1865) extended the age limit
downward to seventeen years and upward to fifty years. The
third act provoked many so grievously that they exclaimed,
"They are robbing the cradle and the grave." Although the Con-
federacy was justified in its methods of raising troops, it aroused
bitter opposition in the two strong states of Georgia and North
Carolina where state rights were jealously guarded. Howell Cobb
advised repeal of the first conscription act as early as August 5,
1862, and all sorts of means of evasion were concocted and used
by the populace in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and North
Carolina.

President Lincoln interpreted his war powers broadly to as-
sume the powers of a dictator. He included within them a right
to call forth the militia to suppress rebellion, the existence of
which he must determine ; the right to suspend the privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus, although Congress was the only Fed-
eral institution clothed with proper constitutional authority to do
so ; the right to call for volunteers for the army beyond the au-,
thorized total ; the right to proclaim martial law ; the right to
seize personal property if it were necessary for a successful con-
duct of the war ; the right, on rare occasions, to spend, without
congressional appropriation, money from the United' States treas-
ury in support of military defence of the government ; the right
to suppress newspapers which incited the public mind against the
draft ; the right to place under arrest without warrant persons
who obstructed the course of warfare ; and the right to proclaim
the freedom of slaves belonging to rebels, or to meet other un-
usual necessities.

Lincoln's claim that he was directly responsible only to the peo-
ple, who could express their will at the polls, produced an .in-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 453

evitable conflict with the Jacobins. He thought his responsibil-
ity to Congress ended with the defined relations expressed in the
Constitution. In all other respects he felt himself independent of
the legislative branch of the government, a sort of people's trib-
une to which they could look for protection against the oppres-
sion of tyrannical minorities ; he also felt that he was justified in
the assumption of dictatorial powers in time of war, if it were
necessary to preserve the people's Union and their peace-time
liberties. In his clash with those who claimed the omnipotence
of Congress he countered with the declaration that he, as presi-
dent, possessed extra-constitutional powers. On this ground he
proposed to reconstruct the Southern states and pocket-vetoed the
Wade-Davis Bill, thereby bringing upon his head the bitter Ja-
cobinical denunciations expressed in the Wade-Davis Manifesto.
Lincoln believed that he could reconstruct Louisiana, or other
states in "rebellion/' on military grounds, and thus accomplish
what Congress possessed no constitutional power to do.

Lincoln did not stop with the powers enumerated above. He
issued executive orders and regulations for the enforcement of
legislative acts that often appeared to Congress and the public as
usurped powers of presidential legislation. An example of this
exercise of executive authority is found in the enforcement of the
"halting and poorly devised" Militia Act of 1 862. Never before
in the United States had conscription been used, though it was
considered by Congress, but abandoned because of opposition
from New England in the War of 1 8 1 2. Under authority of the
militia law of 1795 President Lincoln had called for 75,000 mili-
tia, April 15, 1861, to supplement the regular army of 13,000
which was recruited by voluntary enlistments. In passing, it
may be repeated that the normal procedure of increasing the Fed-
eral army in case of war was by calling for volunteers for a lim-
ited period of service. The militia was a state institution whose
discipline, organization, and arms were regulated by Congress
and partook of the nature of a national system of defence much
more important than the national army. Nowhere was the sys-
tem effective, since it was primarily a paper system. Without
the authority of law, Lincoln, on May 3, 1861, again called for

454 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

troops for a three-year term. John Sherman, in a letter to the
Cincinnati Gazette, August 12, 1861, declared that he had never
heard anyone claim for the president the power to increase the
regular army by proclamation. Writers on the Civil War have
rarely realized how difficult it was for the Lincoln administration
to secure armies in the Union, so divergent were the opinions of
the people on the conduct of war. At the best, the North should
have had five soldiers to each Southern soldier, whereas it had
two or three ; hardly anything else could be expected, however,
in view of the fact that the war aims of the North changed in
point of time from that of coercion to conquest, to the destruc-
tion of the social system of the South. Congress, in 1862, took
the line of least resistance when it used the state militia system of
creating a national army of proportions and force and, fearing the
public mind too much to pass a conscription act, relied upon state
laws to be co-ordinated and supplemented by executive orders
which were, at best, of questionable constitutionality. The act
worked badly, but it was a transitional step toward the drastic act
of March 3, 1863, "the crowning example of so-called arbitrary
power," providing for universal liability of able-bodied male citi-
zens—eighteen to forty-five years old, with certain specified
exemptions such as teachers, clergymen, and post-office and rail-
way officials — to service in the Federal army. So long as Con-
gress and the president could cling to the use of "community
spirit" in raising troops to be led by local men whose soldiers
knew them and had voted for them, they did so, the better to
avoid arousing violent opposition to the conduct of the war.

The act of 1862 made no provision for a draft, yet it was used
by states to draft men for military service and by the order of
President Lincoln. The unusual point of it is seen in the exten-
sion of the executive power. In Wisconsin the executive orders
for conscription in co-operation with the state were challenged
in court as an unconstitutional delegation of power by the na-
tional legislature, but the state court upheld the execution of the
act on the ground that when once the militia is called there is no
"vital importance" in how it "should be detached and drafted."
We may conclude in summary, then, that an American democ-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 455

racy in 1862 allowed its president to conduct its first draft for
raising Federal troops ; more than this, in other court cases, he
was upheld in the delegation of such powers to governors of
states, and it was decided that he was the judge of the existence
of insurrections as well as possessing the discretionary authority
for calling forth the militia.

The Constitution empowers Congress with the function of
making "rules for the government and regulation of the land and
naval forces." At different times Congress had published its mili-
tary code in its "Articles of War." Lincoln assumed on his own
responsibility the issuance of a general order, or code of laws,
which embodied rules of war for the armies in the field. The
acquiescence of Congress resulted, no doubt, because of the neces-
sities of war and the assumption that the president was acting for
Congress.

The most mooted war power of the president from 1861 to
1865 was the privilege of suspending the writ of habeas corpus.
The situation looked dark for the Union when, in April 1861,
the president proclaimed the suspension of the privilege between
Washington and Philadelphia. Other proclamations limiting the
areas soon followed. Hundreds of citizens were seized and held
prisoners. The Constitution denies the right to suspend the privi-
lege of the writ of habeas corpus "unless when in cases of rebel-
lion or invasion the public safety may require it." But again the
question arose as to who is to be the judge of the existence of
rebellion or invasion, and who is to determine 'when the con-
tinuance of the privilege would menace public safety ? Does
constitutional silence mean that the power to decide rests in Con-
gress, in the president, or is it concurrent ? Could Congress, if
it did possess the power, delegate such a power, and if the power
is concurrent, which implies the right of the president to act in
the absence of congressional legislation, does the president have
the right to delegate it to his subordinates ? Other equally in-
teresting questions arose when this important subject came up,
all too frequently, for discussion.

Of all his assumed war powers President Lincoln most reluc-
tantly suspended the privilege of habeas corpus. Not until after

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

much mental agitation and deep conviction of the necessity for
public safety did he resort to so grave a procedure in maintaining
law and order. He first used it (1861) during the absence of
Congress and hastened to present the matter to Congress when it
convened in the summer. He warned his military officials to use
suspension with care. The president's legislative powers justify
the use of orders, setting up regulations and codes which must be
enforced through the executive or the judicial function, or by
both. Presidential justice includes the right to pardon, the ini-
tiation and conduction of prosecutions, and dismissals ; he may
vigorously enforce military codes, laws, proclamations, and or-
ders, or he may allow the public to violate them at will. He is
the fountainhead of justice, and so he may review the decisions
of military courts and commissions. He may create special mili-
tary courts in time of war, and in creating these courts Lincoln
went too far. His subordinates established them in conquered and
occupied territories and sometimes endowed them with almost
unlimited jurisdiction, as in the case of New Orleans. To win
the war, Congress abetted the president by conferring upon his
officials judicial or quasi-judicial functions.

Lincoln's method of reasoning, which he used to justify his ac-
tion, was based on his own logic applied to the situation in which
he found the nation. Insurrection existed, the Union was en-
dangered, Congress was in recess, the Constitution permitted the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in an emergency, he had
sworn before God to protect and defend the Constitution : there-
fore it was his duty to act. The best objections to presidential
suspension are set forth by Chief Justice Taney in the Ex parte
Merryman case, in a division of the circuit court. The chief
justice argued that the power to suspend was legislative, not for
the executive, and that any suspected treason in areas where the
courts were uninterrupted was subject to judicial process, and to
override such process outside districts in rebellion was military
usurpation. Taney's appeal to the president for respect for the
civil process and his oath to protect, defend, and execute the laws
of the country made an ideal weapon in the hands of "Copper-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 457

heads/' strict constitutionalists, anti-administration factions, and
draft dodgers.

The aged chief justice was nearing the end of an eventful
career in which he had loomed large in the Jacksonian bank fight
and in the Dred Scott case. He was a real democrat, a mild in-
dividualist who believed, without exception, in the sovereignty of
the people and in the supremacy of law, never stopping to inquire
whether the statutory law conformed to the law of nature. He
was a constitutionalist in peace-time and war. He was as ob-
livious to official criticism as the modern Justice McReynolds.
That the war spirit was running high meant little to him ; the in-
dividual must be protected in his right to live under a rule of law
that was constitutional. To him the claim of the president to
the right of suspending the writ of habeas corpus and of dele-
gating that power to subordinates, as it was used in the arrest of
Merryman, was indefensible and wholly subversive of the rights
of the individual. He quoted Blackstone to prove that only
Parliament possessed the power to suspend the writ in England,
and Chief Justice Marshall and Justice Story to prove that Con-
gress alone possessed such a power in the United States. He
cited Article Two and the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution
as proof that the president did not have the power of suspension
and that no individual should be deprived of life, liberty, or prop-
erty without due process of law.

Attorney-General Bates and Horace Binney, the pamphleteer,
defended Lincoln's course. Bates argued that the legislative,
executive, and judicial are co-ordinate branches of the govern-
ment, the president being independent of the judiciary and sub-
ject for his acts only to a high court of impeachment. The presi-
dent, as the preserver and defender of the Constitution, was in
duty bound to suppress a rebellion, to decide when the exigency
existed, and to determine in what manner he could best discharge
that duty. Binney distinguished between English practice and
the origin of the constitutional clause and the use of it in America,
concluding that the function belonged, for the sake of public
safety, to the executive department. Professor George Clark Sel-

458 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

lery found in his study of "Lincoln's Suspension of [the] privi-
lege of the writ of Habeas Corpus as viewed by Congress" that
though many of Lincoln's supporters claimed it the exclusive
power of Congress, yet Congress dallied with the subject long
before it adopted legislation of a non-committal phraseology. It
wanted to save the president's face without recognizing the princi-
ple on which he had acted. In the Thirty-seventh Congress
(1861-1862) the House of Representatives passed a bill empow-
ering the executive to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, but
failed to establish his constitutional right in the matter. After
nearly two years of debate and indecision a bill was passed by
means of sharp practice through the Senate, declaring that "dur-
ing the present rebellion" the president was authorized to suspend
the right of habeas corpus.* Still the Congress was not sure of
itself, used ambiguous phrases, and left the subject undecided.
The act of March 3, 1863 was, however, practically an indemni-
fication of the president's proclamation of September 24, 1862,
which authorized military arrest and trial by military commissions
of "rebels" and insurgents, their abettors, and those who dis-
couraged enlistments or resisted the draft. Some authorities hold
that this act may be claimed virtually to set the precedent for the
president to suspend the constitutional safeguards of personal lib-
erty anywhere in the United States in time of civil war ; to take
upon himself the responsibility to present the problem to Con-
gress ; and if authorized by Congress to do like things in the f u-

* A summary of the provisions of the Habeas Corpus Act of March 3, 1863,
includes the following : The president was authorized to suspend the privilege
of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the United States, during the existence
of the rebellion, whenever he believed the public safety required it ; a presi-
dential order was sufficient defence in the courts against prosecution for acts
committed or omitted by virtue of the order ; the secretaries of state and war
were to compile a list of persons seized under such orders to be given to judges
of the United States District and Circuit Courts and of the District of Columbia
who should discharge those persons, before the termination of their sessions of
court in their respective jurisdictions, against whom there were no indictments
or presentments or other proceedings if the arrested persons took the oath of
allegiance to the United States and gave bond to keep the peace and be of good
behavior ; officers acting under presidential orders haled into state courts could
be removed to the Federal courts. By omission it did not prevent arrest and
trial before military commissions nor a revision of decisions made by such com-
missions.

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 459

ture, it legitimatizes his assumptions before the action of Con-
gress. In this particular case the president continued to act as
he had done before March 3 . The Lincoln administration, never-
theless, avoided a decision of the Supreme Court, fearful lest a
decision lodging the sole power in Congress would paralyse the
executive. What the Supreme Court might have decided in
1865 is an open question, but it was believed by Bates in January
1863 that the Court's decision would be adverse to the executive.
In 1871 Congress authorized President Grant to suspend the writ
in parts of South Carolina when in his judgment he believed it
wise, but nothing was said about its sole right to authorize the
executive. A majority of American opinion favored the Con-
gress to exercise exclusively this war power, but it was and is con-
ceded that to execute the legislation the president must repeatedly
act on his own discretion.

In the early months of the war Secretary Seward's department
took into custody persons arrested under military orders and in
conjunction with the presidential suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus. His newly organized secret service, with its agents
planted at the border ports, was to apprehend Confederate spies
and agents rather than doubtful disloyalists, and it was surpris-
ingly successful in crowding the prisons. The local police and
military authorities usually co-operated in this process of ap-
parently wholesale military detention. Every effort on the part
of the authorities in Washington to treat the prisoners with due
respect failed to prevent a loud outburst of indignation from
several groups and factions. Not until after both sections real-
ized that the war was to be a long sanguinary struggle did Lincoln
make his proclamations suspending the privilege of the habeas
corpus writ general in character. In the fall of 1 862 he declared
that for the duration of the insurrection all insurgents, draft re-
sisters, all persons who discouraged enlistments, and all citizens
guilty of disloyal activities were liable to arrest and trial before
military courts or commissions.

President Lincoln's prime motive in ignoring Taney's plea
seems to have been to scare disloyal citizens into silence or inac-
tivity. No French revolutionary tribunal was ever contem-

460 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

plated ; all civil law was never set aside by the president's procla-
mations, and those arrested were held only until public safety
justified trials or releases. Supported by Congress, he imprisoned
the most vindictive critics of the administration, those who trea-
sonably aided the Confederacy, and Confederate spies. The Val-
landigham case in Ohio was the most notorious political arrest.
Caution and moderation were usually the watchwords of -those
high officials in Washington, who consistently warned their sub-
ordinates not to arrest for trivial causes. The suspension of the
privilege of the habeas corpus writ allowed sudden civil arrest
and confinement without an indictment. It did not institute mar-
tial law.

In the South the president declared martial law in February,
suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus at important
military stations and in disaffected districts. Although President
Davis acted under the law of Congress, a deluge of "turgid ora-
tory" and "denunciatory editorials from the leading newspapers"
caused many persons to test the legality of conscription. Again
and again the state supreme courts upheld the Confederate right
of conscription ; however, a few lower courts declared it uncon-
stitutional. The Texas court expressed the opinion of most of
the state courts when it said that the "power to raise and support
armies is an express constitutional grant to the Congress of the
Confederate States, and there is no limitation as to the mode or
manner of exercising it. The conscript law does not violate any
of the abstract or guaranteed rights of citizens, nor assume any
control over them not delegated by the constitution. The grant
of power to make war carries with it, unless expressly withheld,
the right to demand compulsory military service from the citi-

zen."

The question also rose as to who had precedence in conscript-
ing citizens, the state or the Confederacy. The supreme court in
Texas decided in favor of the paramountcy of the national gov-
ernment ; in Alabama the court said "the claim and call of the
Confederate States must prevail over the claim and call of the
state government," when the two governments asked for mili-
tary service of the same person, on the ground that the Con-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 461

federate constitution, and "laws made in pursuance thereof, are
the supreme laws of the land." The Mississippi court held the
war power of Congress an "exclusive" matter. Under the laws
thus declared legal the War Department enjoyed much discre-
tionary authority by which it issued general instructions to offi-
cers enrolling men, and formulated policies of a general nature.
The judges, trained in the Federal courts, were more like Mar-
shall and Story than some state officials, such as Governor Brown,
wished them to be. They continued to cite decisions of Federal
judges to support their arguments. According to their decisions
the Confederate government was very similar to the old govern-
ment of John Marshall Many elected state officials differed with
the judges, Georgia passed a state law (1864), placing a fine of
twenty-five hundred dollars upon any judge who refused to grant
a habeas corpus proceeding. In North Carolina courts freely
issued the writ to men imprisoned by the Confederate authori-
ties.

Tie difference between the suspension of the writ of habeas
corpus and martial law in the North was marked, although the
use of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in time of war
was feared by the Northern public almost as much as martial
law. When the writ of habeas corpus was suspended, sudden
arrests, confinement without normal hearings in court, and in-
dictments without process of civil law were possible. Under
martial law, offences unknown to the civil law could be subject
to military trials and peculiar execution of sentences. Martial
law was used in various ways by Lincoln's field generals, and
often it worked serious hardships on individuals ; its use was ex-
cusable only because of the great emergency. Most of the ar-
rests, with their subsequent confinement in well-known military
prisons, were justifiable and were in accordance with the con-
stitutional provisions for the public safety. That there was an
excessive zeal in arresting political offenders cannot be doubted.

At times Lincoln himself ordered arrests and discharges. His
secretary of state — later it was the secretary of war, acting
through the power of the president — could order citizens to
prison. Congress attempted to quiet the contest between the JTJL-

462 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

diciary and the armies by the passage of the Habeas Corpus Act
of 1863. Had the act been strictly adhered to, the president's
powers must have been considerably limited, and the civil au-
thority much strengthened. But submission to a powerful execu-
tive, desperately trying to preserve the Union, appeared to be
desired by the majority ; certainly the majority acquiesced. Pro-
fessor Randall did not find in his wide researches * that the Act
of 1863 made any "noticeable difference in the matter of arrest,
confinement, and release of political prisoners." His conclusion
is borne out by the record of arrests and releases and the method
used by the War Department after March 1863, and by the re-
searches of Professor William R. Dunning who wrote : "Some
perfunctory attention was given to the act immediately after its
passage, but the War Department soon settled back into its old
procedure." The act relieved the tension by limiting to twenty
weeks the detainment of suspects without an indictment by a
grand jury, and the president further relieved the situation by
paroling many political prisoners. It may be concluded that the
president's military and suspension powers, so widely criticized
before 1863, continued with implied support of the Habeas Cor-
pus Act.

An important angle of the executive war powers is seen in the
rise of military commissions. These were useful in the punish-
ment of offences falling mainly under the military code when
committed by civilians in areas hostile to the Union. Maryland,
Missouri, Kentucky, and parts of other states, after recapture,
came in that category. Local attorneys dependent on votes for
their jobs indicted few malcontents for such crimes as conspiracy
and treason and prosecuted fewer of them. The inactivity and
helplessness of the civil courts in disaffected areas practically
forced the military government to resort to political arrests. Such
cases as robbing Unionist civilians, bushwhacking, destruction of
Federal or private property, carrying information to the enemy,
and scores of similar offences were subject to trial before military
commissions. If found guilty, the prisoner was condemned to
severe penalties ; but an appeal to the president was always pos-

* See J, G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, N. Y., 1926, ch. 7.

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 463

sible if life were at stake. Union field generals usually promul-
gated military law with an apology to civilians and an assurance
that the courts should sit unhampered in their jurisdiction except
in cases in which military interference seemed to the commanding
general indispensable to the success of the Union army. Civil
law and martial law thus co-existed in some of the border states.
Judge-Advocate-General Holt reported to the secretary of war
in 1866 that military commissions, freed from technicalities, had
been indispensable in regions where local criminal courts could
not act quickly.

The loudest outcry against military courts came from regions
farthest from the seat of war, not under martial law and agitated
by anti-administration critics. Many earnest supporters of the
Union war program believed that military trials conducted in dis-
tricts outside of areas under martial law were unconstitutional.
Their case was not a bad one, for under a military order of 1862
marshals and local magistrates could imprison a disloyalist and re-
port the arrest immediately to the Judge- Advocate-General who
was supposed to order a trial by a military commission. Offences
under such conditions were beyond the war code. Were they
legal ? In February 1864, the Supreme Court refused to review
the exceptional Vallandigham case because it claimed that a mili-
tary commission was not a court within the meaning of the Ju-
diciary Act of 1789, that the case was beyond its appellate juris-
diction and, therefore, the Court could not "originate a writ of
certiorari to review . . . the proceedings of a military commis-
sion." The conclusion for the layman and the military was ob-
vious. The Milligan case (October 5, 1864-1866), though differ-
ent from the Vallandigham case in technicalities but similar to it
in the public mind, was accepted by the Supreme Court for re-
view after the war had closed. After the danger had passed, the
Court declared, in a wavering decision, the illegality of such com-
missions.

Was Lincoln justified in his expansive use of the executive war
powers ? The answer must be in the affirmative for some areas,
but many arbitrary arrests were unfortunate in distressing times
when provocations were legion and dangerous to the safety of

464 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

the Union. Here a clearer distinction should have been made
between civil and military control, but Lincoln believed that all
the nice distinctions could not be foreseen by Congress and the
"Fathers of the Constitution," nor could the war administration
wait for legislation by Congress and slow judicial processes to keep
the peace and stamp out rebellion. Self-preservation is the first
kw of national existence. Professor Arthur C. Cole concluded
in his study, "Abraham Lincoln and the Tradition of American
Civil Liberty" (1926), that Lincoln's sympathy for conscientious
objectors, his generosity in releasing political prisoners, and his
adherence to the American principle of democracy and liberty,
whenever he believed it possible to follow the principle, denote
him the "Great Conciliator" more than the "Great Emancipator."
Unrestrained military power was as foreign to Lincoln's mind
as it was repugnant to the people who believed with their Su-
preme Court in 1866 that the Constitution should not be sus-
pended in war time. Yet Lincoln, the great democrat, was driven
to exercise more arbitrary power than any other chief executive
of the United States before 1914. He enlarged the navy beyond
the legal limits, spent public money before it was appropriated
by Congress, exercised judicial and legislative functions already
mentioned, freed slaves by proclamation (effective when sanc-
tioned by Congress), and set up a scheme for the reconstruction
of rebellious states, believing the while that the executive, not
Congress, was empowered to do so. He seems to have believed
that he as president possessed extraordinary legal powers, a sort
of reservoir from which he might draw as necessity demanded.
From his point of view this reservoir was closed to Congress by a
list of constitutionally granted rights ; he forgot that the Supreme
Court held that Congress might exercise its belligerent powers
over the enemy without restraint. Benign as it was, much of his
rule was personal, not of the law-
Congress was less certain of its constitutional rights than the
executive, and wanting in legal precision. It was boastful and
irregular and loose in its work ; in truth, it was the awkward,
careless frontier America come too soon to sit in the seat of the
lawmakers in time of civil conflict. Bewildered by fast-moving

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 465

events, it taxed Southern states as if they were members of the
Union, and at the same time treated them as belligerents, and was
soon to "reconstruct" them back into the Union. Southern prop-
erty, out of which taxes were supposedly to come for war pur-
poses, was declared by law subject to confiscation. Congress
passed tax laws (especially the one of July i, 1862) practically
nullifying important constitutional limitations on its taxing pow-
ers, thus advancing toward absolutism and nationalism in respect
to the control of private property of loyal citizens. Friendships
were broken over arguments as to whether the masses in the South
were rebels gone out of the Union or were misguided and misled
citizens of the Union. Congressmen complained weekly, in and
out of sessions, against the president's extension of the executive
power ; but neither the Congress nor the Supreme Court placed
any serious restraint upon him. Time and again the legislature
sanctioned what he had done and then haltingly passed an am-
biguous law on his use of the right to suspend the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus. The Act of 1863 was an attempt to
change the system of handling political prisoners, and it was little
regarded after it became a kw. In the high courts some judges
who opposed the administration raised a voice against the arbi-
trariness of the executive's military powers, but few congressmen
agreed with Taney and his small company that protests should be
made effective. Perhaps Lincoln's humane sympathy, his cau-
tion, his well-known dislike for arbitrary rule, his intense love and
respect for the Union and democracy kept Congress from assert-
ing itself more.

Lincoln was allowed the use of his arbitrary powers, probably
because thinking men knew that he did not want to establish a
truly arbitrary government. A small number of newspapers
were suppressed, but there was little censorship of the press, and
congressmen knew that the president wanted little interference
with anti-war newspapers, though some were harmfully antag-
onistic and abusive. The president and the Judiciary Committee
of Congress did sustain Postmaster-General Blair, however, in his
contention "that a power and duty to prevent hostile printed
matter from reaching the enemy, and to prevent such matter

466 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

from instigating others to co-operate with the enemy, by the aid
of the United States mails, exist in time of war, and in the pres-
ence of treasonable armed enemies of the United States, which
do not exist in time of peace, and in the absence of criminal or-
ganizations/' This power placed the press at the mercy of the
government, despite the constitutional guarantee that "Congress
shall pass no law abridging the freedom of the press." * On the
whole, the Northern war correspondents were well-intentioned,
patriotic gentlemen who, though some of them embarrassed the
Union generals with their meddlesomeness and were probably the
indirect cause of the loss of thousands of lives by giving Lee and
his generals too much information, admirably kept their own peo-
ple informed. The war correspondent as such was introduced
in the Crimean War, and was so new in the Civil War that even
the noted ones, including Horace Greeley, Henry J. Raymond,
Charles A. Dana, Whitelaw Reid, Henry Villard, and Murat
Halstead, floundered between duty to newspaper and flag. In
the South the newspaper men were so restricted in their news-
getting that the Confederacy enjoyed almost a censorship. At
no time were there espionage or sedition acts in the North. Presi-
dent Lincoln frequently was called a dictator, yet congressmen
knew dictators did not fear and plan to take defeat at the polls as
did Lincoln in 1864. It is little wonder that some men trusted,
admired, and loved him ; others feared, hated, or despised him ;
some blustered, boasted, and loudly damned him daily through-
out the countryside, in the camps, in the presses, and in the halls
of Congress ; but they let him go on.

In the Confederacy, the Congress, very soon after the firing
upon Fort Sumter, concluded to try any measure necessary to a
speedily successful conclusion of the war. This was decided de-
spite the recent reasons given for secession, despite the fact that
congressmen were at first merely provisional delegates, despite
incompatibility of their course with their espoused creed. The
enthusiasm of the masses, the esprit de corps of the body politic,

* This Civil War precedent indicates that the president may suspend the con-
stitutional guarantee for a free press when the executive decides the public safety
demands it.

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 467

should have led the South into a united opposition to "Lincoln's
abolitionists" after he called for 75,000 troops and into the accept-
ance of centralization of government while they listened to the
echo of their cry against it. Volunteering was enthusiastically
embraced by thousands. The Confederacy should have put six
hundred thousand troops into the field in 1861 but for the in-
sistent state war boards and governors who withheld state-owned
arms and other military supplies, declaring, meantime, that they
were exercising their states' rights. Professor Owsley once well
wrote that "if a monument is ever erected as a symbolical grave-
stone over the 'lost cause' it should have engraved upon it these
words : 'Died of State Rights.' " Between the state and Con-
federate officials jealousy was rife, and quarrels soon spread
among the people, thus preventing, as the war grew older, the
unity of feeling which existed in the spring of 1861.

Until conscription was enforced the state officials, relying upon
their states' dignity and sovereignty, insisted upon the right to
tender troops to the Confederacy through the governors. When
conscription was adopted, the local officials insisted upon state
troops for state defence, in many cases seizing Confederate arms,
and generally refusing to pool their forces. Volunteers who
went directly to the Confederate armies were ordered by Gov-
ernor Brown to leave their arms behind for local use. Thou-
sands of the loud-tongued gentry sought the local rolls to escape
service as conscripts under Confederate law. Commanded by
state-appointed officers, insufficient bodies of state troops were
formed into skeleton regiments and the Confederate government
was then requested to fill out these regiments* Moreover, against
the wishes of President Davis and his secretary of war the states
undertook to supply their troops in the Confederate service.
The competitive bidding of a swarm of state agents led to disas-
trous results for the Confederate government.

Similar to the disputes over raising and equipping troops was
the bitterness between the state and Confederate administrations
over the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. The first grant
of such a privilege to the president (February 27, 1862) was en-
acted into law when it appeared that the cause was almost lost

468 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

through the disintegration of the Confederate forces. President
Davis was courageous, but he cautiously — too hesitatingly, in
fact — made limited use of the right to suspend the writ and put
only a few cities, towns, and districts, which were threatened by
the Northern armies, under martial law. Although salutary re-
sults were soon evident, Congress became alarmed at local op-
position and amended the act in April 1862, cutting down the
duration of the original act and further limiting the powers of the
president. A few military commanders put teeth into the law
in Texas, Arkansas, East Louisiana, Mississippi, and Atlanta,
Georgia. So many bitter protests were sent to Richmond that
a scared and confused Congress passed a second law (October 1 3,
1862, to last until February 13, 1863) limiting the suspension of
the writ to fewer places ; and the somewhat intimidated war de-
partment warned the generals that the suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus did not grant them power to try civilians in mili-
tary courts but only to retain them. President Davis then severely
rebuked some of his generals for overstepping their powers under
the older law. Only after a very strong message from the presi-
dent could Congress be pushed into passing a third law (Feb-
ruary 15, 1864, expiring August i, 1864) to suspend the writ of
habeas corpus. Nothing was left to the discretion of the presi-
dent- Congress defined the causes for which arrests could be
made throughout the Confederacy and provided for the appoint-
ment of a commission in each state to investigate the cases of ar-
rested and detained persons. Again very bitter quarrels helped
to lead to a disastrous breakdown of morale.

The idealistic theory of state rights prevented the Confederate
government from arming an additional two hundred thousand
volunteers in 1861, held one hundred thousand men in state serv-
ice and kept them out of the Confederate armies in the spring of
1862, and made the conscription acts a joke ; it caused states to
compete with the Confederacy in the appointment of regimental
officers, to hold the control of sixty out of one hundred and
twenty-two factories engaged in manufacturing war supplies, to
engage in an independent blockade business, to contest the right
of suspending the writ of habeas corpus^ thus encouraging draft-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 469

dodgers, spies, deserters, and disloyal peace groups in numerous
districts where military law was sorely needed, and led to an
almost universal protest from local authorities against conscrip-
tion, and to the final breakdown of impressment of supplies by the
government which had little money to buy necessary war sup-
plies. The patience of Job would have been tried had he been
in the shoes of President Davis.

The Civil War is a period in American history when legal
functional lines between the three national branches of govern-
ment were blurred. As the "rule of law" had often broken down
in minor situations on the frontier, so it broke under the terrible
strain of civil war. Men were confused in their constitutional
thinking. An example of confused logic is found in the burst
of oratory on a proposed confiscation act in the Thirty-seventh
Congress. Northern congressmen wanted financially to cripple
the Confederacy, punish the "rebels," and augment much needed
Federal revenues. But what was the status of the "rebels" ?
How far did the power of Congress extend ? What was the
legal character of the Civil War ? Who knew ? In the begin-
ning Congress thought only property devoted to hostile use
should be condemned by law (1861). By July 1862, Congress
was aroused enough to pass a sweeping punitive measure provid-
ing for the confiscation of property belonging to those persons
who supported the rebellion ; yet it softened the blow in a clause
providing that persons supporting the rebellion must have sixty
days' warning before their property might be confiscated. Prop-
erties of Confederate officials were made subject to seizure with-
out qualifications* In all cases revenues derived therefrom were
to be paid into the United States treasury. The president was
authorized to pardon "rebels," but a huffy, "radical" Congress
repealed this clause in January 1867, apparently disregarding the
constitutional right of the president to pardon. President Lin-
coln prepared his message to accompany the veto of the Confisca-
tion Bill because his legal insight found that its provisions on
treason implied a forfeiture and punishment beyond the lives of
the criminals, and so worked a bill of attainder, which was uncon-
stitutional. A joint resolution assuring the president that the

470 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

bill was not to apply to acts committed before it became a law, nor
to work forfeitures of the real estate beyond the lives of the
offenders, paved the way for the executive signature. Curi-
ously the two acts were used simultaneously to the confusion of
the owners of forfeited properties. Owing to few confiscations,
heavy expenses, the loose administration of the law, dishonest of-
ficials, and an administration working under great pressure, only
about three hundred thousand dollars accrued to the treasury as
a result of the act.

In the heat of the war, when the courts needed a unity of public
opinion on the right and justice of the confiscation acts, there
was such a diversity of opinion in the North that a final settlement
of the constitutionality of the law could not be had until after
the war. In the Miller case the Supreme Court in 1 8 7 1 proceeded
on the basis of previous decisions (Prize cases) to analyse the con-
fiscation acts and declare them valid.

One of the queerest of the congressional war-confiscation acts
was the direct tax levy (1862). Under it a few millions of dol-
lars' worth of property was taken and sold by Chase's treasury
officials who entered conquered territory as soon as possible.
Among the provisions of the direct tax were these : special tax
commissioners appointed by the president were to assess and col-
lect a direct tax on lands and lots of ground in districts where
quotas under the old war tax could not be peaceably collected ;
a penalty of 50 per cent, of the old tax based on 1861 real estate
values was added and, in case of default, the land must be for-
feited and sold at auction ; a tax-sale certificate conveyed title
free from encumbrances. By 1866 collections of taxes and for-
feiture from the states in "rebellion" under this unfortunate act
amounted to approximately $4,700,000 of the $5,000,000 appor-
tionment. The conditions under which sales were made clearly
indicate that the South over-paid its quota for the conduct of the
war against itself.

No act of the government at Washington was more detested
by the South than the direct Federal tax on land. The method
used to collect the tax seemed unbearable, levied and collected as
it was on and from a helpless people at the point of the sword. A

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 47!

trifling amount of tax incurred the penalty of sale of valuable
property which sold for a song. Speculators and hangers-on took
advantage of the situation and good Southern property fell into
the hands of the despised "Damn- Yankees." The whole effect
was pure confiscation ; for example, General Robert E. Lee's
Arlington estate was sold in 1863 to obtain a tax amounting to
the small sum of $92.07. The Federal government's tax commis-
sioners bid in a part of it which was then valued at $26,800 and
set aside for a national cemetery for Union soldiers. Later Mrs.
Lee and her son sued the government for a more proper value of
the estate on the ground of confiscation, claiming that the com-
missioners had refused to accept the tax from the Lee agent. It
was argued that the unusual method of enforcing the law was un-
constitutional The lower courts declared the Lee tide valid ;
it was carried to the Supreme Court, although the United States
cannot be sued without its consent, where the judges decided that
the tax-sale certificate was not a title, and the case was finally
settled when Congress appropriated $150,000 for compensation to
the Lees in return for their quit-claim deed.

The constitutionality of the direct-sale tax was challenged at
once by Southerners in "rebellion." They were able to show in
some cases that commissioners stipulated that the tax must be paid
in person, which was known by the commissioners to be impos-
sible for the reason that the owners were away at war. The own-
ers were privileged to redeem their property by taking an oath
of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and to desist
in their treasonable activities. The unfairness of the tax, even
to "rebels," was recognized by many Unionists. The Supreme
Court in McK.ee vs. U. S. mentioned the small amount received
for each parcel sold. General David Hunter wrote Secretary
Stanton of the "glaring impolicy" of the tax, and the Blairs — one
a general, one an adviser to the president, and another the Post-
master-General — believed the procedure of collection outrageous
and unconstitutional. As to its constitutionality must we ask :
Was the confederacy a belligerent and out of the Union ? The
Stevens and Sumner factions said "Yes, for all practical pur-
poses." Then we must conclude that the Federal Congress had

472 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

no right to lay a direct, regular war tax on Southern property.
It must follow the code relating to enemy property. Again, if
the states could not secede — as Lincoln, the Blairs, Seward, and
Welles maintained — then it was unconstitutional to levy an un-
equal direct tax. Lastly, the question was properly raised : Was
this extraordinary form of procedure within the range of "due
process of law" ? An answer in part came in 1891, when the
Federal government reimbursed the states for the amounts col-
lected under the direct tax act of 1 861 .

Closely related to the direct tax was another confiscatory act
entitled the Captured Property Act which provided that treasury
agents, following in the wake of advancing Federal troops, might
take over captured or "abandoned" property. Cotton was the
main article of value, amounting to 95 per cent, of the total prop-
erty taken, but plantations and some other properties belonging
to voluntary absentees engaged in or encouraging the "rebellion"
were seized. In 1868 the proceeds from such seizures had netted
the treasury approximately five sixths of the gross sales of $30,-
000,000. Rampant corruption in the administration of this act
disgusted honest Union officials. The law was enforced under
discouraging and peculiarly difficult conditions in enemy terri-
tory where the Confederacy was in pursuit of the same cotton.
The administration of "abandoned" plantations by Northern men
ignorant of the economic and agricultural principles of cotton
culture resulted in heavy losses to society then and after the war.
In the execution of the Captured Property Act the government
based its policy on "disloyalty." Its seizures did not end in final
condemnation, for the act provided relief to "loyal" claimants ap-
pearing and proving their rights before the Court of Claims
within two years after the war closed. The president's pardons
and general amnesty proclamations helped to restore properties
to the rightful owners. Still, post-war prosecutions, designed to
penalize "rebels," caused much distress and a little loss of prop-
erty, and intensified the prevailing ill feeling engendered in the
South by the Radical reconstruction program. These war meas-
ures carried beyond the war — not legally ended, it is true, by the
surrender of Lee and Johnston, but generally understood and ac-

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 473

cepted as the end — came to naught, so far as pecuniary returns
were concerned, when the cases involved were dismissed in 1866
and 1867. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned
Lands, established March 3, 1865, for the protection and support
of emancipated slaves, was intended to administer abandoned
estates, mostly realty in character, for the benefit of the freed-
men. A few negroes actually received lots of land but the bureau
leased most of the lands until they were returned by the presi-
dent's order to pardoned owners in August 1865.

The war power to emancipate slaves either by the executive or
the legislature was contrary to the American doctrine on the
right of a belligerent to emancipate the slaves of the enemy.*
The theory was correctly stated by Secretary John Quincy
Adams in 1 820 in relation to the activities of England in the War
of 1812. For expediency's sake the American theory was re-
versed after the outbreak of the "rebellion." There were those
who urged emancipation because they believed Congress had the
power to outlaw slavery in insurrectionary states. It was also
claimed that the law of nations recognized the right of the North
to emancipate by military force the slaves of its enemy. Not
bound by legal and scientific thought, the War Department's so-
licitor cited the "common defence" and "public welfare" phrases
in the preamble of the Constitution as sufficient constitutional
justification for emancipation. He furthermore argued that con-
gressional legislation, enacted in good faith against "rebels,"
could not be lawfully voided by any governmental department,
because Congress possessed and implied the right to legislate on
the abolition of slavery through an omission of any specific pro-
hibition denying itself that right in the Constitution. The Blairs
thought the Union could abolish slavery through state and Fed-
eral co-operation and payments made to the owners. Their clos-
est "radical" friend, Sumner, held to the state-suicide theory for
practical purposes of freeing slaves and restoring the Union.
Stevens did not care whether emancipation was constitutional or
not. A minority in Congress objected to emancipation by Fed-
eral action because they believed it was a question for the states
* See chapter XI for a more detailed discussion of emancipation,

474 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

to decide. President Lincoln consistently adhered to his old
theory that no constitutional power existed which could possi-
bly excuse congressional emancipation in the states. This theory
was unequivocally expressed in his objections to the notorious
Wade-Davis Bill of 1864. He thought Congress did have the
right to prohibit slavery in the territories and in the District of
Columbia.

The Washington government pursued a non-interference pol-
icy in regard to emancipation until the natural developments of
war forced its hand. Indication of the president's abandonment
of non-interference is strong enough in his Emancipation Procla-
mation, which came eighteen months after the war began, al-
though he accompanied and softened it with a three-months' pe-
riod of warning and a standing Federal pledge of pecuniary aid
to the states which would adopt emancipation. All questions of
the constitutionality of the acts of the president and Congress on
the subject were brushed aside by the adoption and the ultimate
validity of the Thirteenth Amendment. Whatever Congress
and the president did about the abolition of slavery from 1861 to
1 865, their acts were war acts prior to the legal ratification of that
amendment. Its adoption was finally effected by the aid of eight
seceded states, considered for this purpose "States of the Union"
(December 18, 1865), but for other purposes of reconstruction
the Congress of the United States acted as if the eight states were
out of the Union.

Space limits the consideration of the number of constitutional
problems arising out of the Civil War. The dividing line be-
tween state and national functions was often obscure and debat-
able. For instance, when the president called for 75,000 troops
in 1861, the border-state governors refused to bring their militias
into Federal service for the protection of the Constitution and
the Union. Professor John W. Burgess, in his treatise entitled
The Civil War and the Constitution, declared that those recalci-
trant governors made themselves liable to court-martial and
should "have been arrested, tried, and condemned by a military
tribunal." If his assertion is accepted as true, governors must
then be the subordinates of the president. Professor Randall, on

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 475

the other hand, believes that the president issues his order for the
militia "through the governors" and "upon the citizens/' The
president does not order the governors. From this follows the
theory that the obstreperous governors, even the insulting, defiant
Governor Jackson of Missouri, were not constitutionally liable
to court-martial by the Federal forces. Nor can the governors
be considered subordinates of the president, because each is a
commander-in-chief of militia, state and national, respectively ;
for at any given time the militia serves either the state or the na-
tion, not both at once. The governor is commander-in-chief of
his own state militia, he is serving by virtue of returns from state
elections and of state constitutional provisions. The president,
according to the Supreme Court, possesses no delegated power to
compel a governor to do anything (Kentucky vs. Dennison,
1860). Resort must be had to some kind of co-operation be-
tween the executives in each case where national and state func-
tions overlap.

Confusion of military powers reigned supreme in the early
years of the war while the states were so actively engaged in rais-
ing and equipping troops. Hardly anything else could have been
expected with an army composed mostly of militia serving the
state and nation. The states very largely raised, equipped, paid,
and transported the Northern armies for the first two years. The
states vied with the national government in the purchase of mili-
tary equipment. Militiamen were drilled, officered, and gov-
erned as long as they were in state service, but Congress deter-
mined rules for their drill. When the president called the militia
into Federal service it and its officers passed under Federal dis-
cipline and became subject to the president as Commander-in-
Chief of the Army of the United States. The governors usually
supervised the recruiting of volunteers of the national army, and
Lincoln leaned heavily on the governors in carrying out the draft.
Some 80,000 three-months' militiamen and 188,000 volunteers
were raised by the states before the extra session of Congress met
in July 1 86 1 . No wonder energetic governors were soon disput-
ing the powers of Federal officials who were sent into their states.
The Andrew-Butler recruiting quarrel in Massachusetts embar-

476 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

rassed Lincoln, but it helped to get rid of helpless Secretary
Cameron. A change to national control over the armed forces
had to come as certainly as the war went on. For the sake of
harmony and efficiency governors were gradually demoted from
"war ministers" to official representatives of the War Depart-
ment*

Confusion of constitutional powers in the state and Federal
judiciaries arose over repeated attempts to hold Federal officers
subject to state courts. This condition was particularly annoy-
ing in areas where feeling against the draft or the war was in-
tense. Federal officials who were hampered in the performance
of their duties by prosecutions in state courts were finally pro-
tected by the passage of the "Indemnity Bill," March 3, 1863,
which authorized the president to order such cases into Federal
courts. State courts permitted the use of the writ of habeas cor-
pus in cases wherein the Federal conscription law was being en-
forced. Sometimes state courts released men liable for military
service on the ground that the conscription law was believed by
the local judges to be unconstitutional. On the whole, however,
the Federal courts and the Federal will prevailed. The confusion
of jurisdictions delayed the perfection of a fighting machine, at
times embarrassed and annoyed the national administration almost
beyond endurance, and now serves as a record to show that cen-
tralization of government under Federal control was far from
being as far advanced as some historians would have us believe.

The war ended secession as a constitutional issue. But that
does not mean that the Lincoln administration was consciously
working for the centralization of power to the destruction of the
states. Lincoln and most of his advisers were staunch in their
belief in the dual system as exemplified in state and Federal gov-
ernment. Lincoln was not only democratic in his general out-
look, but he was a state-rights man. His government took over
the conduct of affairs almost invariably as necessity demanded,
and not purposely to assume state functions. His great problem
was to organize a winning war-machine, to save the Union by
overcoming too much decentralization. Forces that ultimately
led to greater and greater centralization of government were set

CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR 477

in motion by the war. A new Federalism rose as a result of the
extension of national functions, but it developed normally after
the war and reconstruction. Slavery was dead by virtue of the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Con-
stitution. Later uses to which the Fourteenth Amendment has
been put are foreign to the intentions of the people who adopted
it, and are a post-war development.

Lincoln's most conspicuous acts were not authorized by Con-
gress, and one of his important contributions to American history
lies in his expansion of the power of the executive. The experi-
ences of the public and officialdom in living under extended fed-
eral functions led to new federal control under Wilson and the
Roosevelts,* although an excessive centralization can hardly be
charged to the Lincoln war administration. The widespread use
of federal authority spelled doom for the old idea of state sov-
ereignty. Moreover, we may conclude that in the Civil AVar the
practices of the administration took the precedents of the Con-
stitution rather than the opinion of the courts.

[Signed] W. E. S.

* Wilson's most conspicuous war acts were within the law. He and Theo-
dore Roosevelt made few attempts to "stretch the Constitution to the limit."

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE automobile and hard-surfaced highways have put America on
wheels. Largely because of mercenary motives historic sights have
been developed for the tourists, but political entities have done much
in recent years to mark interesting spots at which some historic event
occurred. There remains much to be done. It is to be hoped that
the Federal government may work in conjunction with the states
on some effective continuous program for the preservation and suit-
able marking of worthy places of historic interest and the develop-
ment of museums before many more valuable objects are lost or
destroyed.

To the student of the Civil War such places and things are of
interest as the major battlefields at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chat-
tanooga, and Chickamauga, Fredericksburg, Knoxville, Pea Ridge,
Cumberland Gap, Harper's Ferry, the National Museum, the Smith-
sonian Institute, Ford's Theatre (Oldroyd Lincoln Collection), and
the Library of Congress where photographs, displays of war para-
phernalia, and records may be found. The National Archives build-
ing will be a mecca for the student and the historian. Written
records and personal apparel, furniture and tools, guns, and too
many other objects to mention, may be seen in such places as
Springfield, Illinois (Lincoln Museum and Monument) ; Richmond,
Virginia (Confederate Museum and statues of war heroes) ; Charles-
ton, South Carolina ; Springfield, Massachusetts (Armory) ; Na-
tional Battlefield Museum at Fredericksburg, Virginia; the Jenny
Wade Museum at Gettysburg; the Crater Battlefield Museum at
Petersburg; and the Storer College Museum at Harper's Ferry.

Many old Civil War homes and buildings are preserved. Among
them are the Confederate "White House" at Montgomery, Ala-
bama ; the Robert E. Lee mansion at Arlington, Virginia ; the Con-
federate 'White House" in Richmond, Virginia, now housing the
Confederate Museum ; and General Morgan's house in Lexington,
Kentucky.

Interesting places connected with the Civil War are John
Brown's homes ; the Eliza house at Ripley, Ohio ; the old Slave
Market at St. Augustine, Florida; the various Lincoln houses in
Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois ; and many others. Among hun-
dreds of places yet to be marked properly are the Vallandigham
house in Lisbon, Ohio ; the Lottie Moon house in Oxford, Ohio ; the
General Burnsides home in Liberty, Indiana ; as well as sites of skir-
mishes, and battles, and strategic military points. Hundreds of

479

480 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

private homes have materials which should go to museums before
they are destroyed, but many are carefully preserved and are, in
many cases, open on application to students of the history of the
period. Photographs exist in great numbers in private collections,
but Brady's Photographic History of the Civil War (10 vols., N. Y.
1912), Harper's, and Leslie's sketches are available to most stu-
dents ; and in most good libraries is R. H. Gabriel, ed., The Pageant
of America (15 vols., New Haven, 1926-1929).

BIBLIOGRAPHIES : The most usable bibliography of the Civil War
is found in Channing, Hart and Turner, A Guide to the Study of
American History (N. Y. 1912). Larned's Literature of American
History (Boston 1902) contains a valuable bibliography, but add to
it the excellent critical bibliography in J. K. Hosmer's The Amer-
ican Civil War (2 vols., N. Y. 1913) which is a part of the American
Nation series, or the bibliographies in A. C Cole, The Irrepressible
Conflict 1850-1865, the seventh volume in A History of American
Life series ; in Nathaniel W. Stephenson's Abraham Lincoln and the
Union and The Day of the Confederacy ; also William Wood, Cap-
tains of the Civil War, and Walter L. Fleming's The Sequel of Ap-
pomattox in the Yale Chronicle series. T. C. Smith has a valuable
bibliography on the beginnings of the Civil War period in his vol-
ume in The American Nation series, Parties and Slavery (N. Y.
1906). Professor Channing has an excellent bibliography in the
footnotes of his sixth volume in A History of the United States (6
vols.). The best recently published list of references on this sub-
ject is included among many others in the annual publication of the
American Historical Association : Grace Gardner Griffin, Writings
on American History, Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for 1909-191 1,1918 — . A brief description of writings
on American history is found in the preface of the Supplement for
1919 by J. Franklin Jameson. It may be profitably included here :

The annual bibliography which follows is the fourteenth number of a con-
tinuous series opening with 1906. A volume entitled Writings on American
History^ 1902, prepared by Professor Ernest C. Morse, was published at Prince-
ton in 1904. A volume upon a plan by Professor Andrew C. McLaughlin, Mr.
William A. Slade, and Mr. Ernest D. Lewis, under the auspices of the Carnegie
Institution of Washington, was published by that institution at Washington in

1905. After an interval followed the series, Writings on American History,

1906, 1907, and 1908, prepared by Miss Grace Gardner Griffin, and originally
published by the Macmillan Company (New York, 1908, 1909, 1910).

Independent publication ceased for a time with the volume for 1908. Be-
ginning with the volume for 1909, though the preparation of the material con-
tinued to be provided for by subscription, the printing and publication of the
annual bibliography was assumed by the American Historical Association. In
its Annual Reports for 1909, 1910, 1911, bibliographies of the material published

BIBLIOGRAPHY 481

in those years were included. The Yale University Press, with much public
spirit, took up at this point the publication of the series, and issued as inde-
pendent volumes the bibliographies for 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, and 1917.
Publication by that concern having ended, the plan of incorporating this annual
survey in the Annual Reports was resumed, and tne bibliography for 1918 was
incorporated, as a supplementary volume, in the Annual Report for that year.
A similar procedure is followed with this bibliography for 1919.

Douglas S. Freeman, A Calendar of Confederate Papers with a
Bibliography of Some Confederate Publications (Confederate Mu-
seum 1908) is evidently useful. A convenient list of references on
a variety of subjects may be found in J. N. Larned, History for
Ready Reference, V (1901), 3529-3675. Many footnote references
may be found in Rhodes, History, Chadwick, Causes, and Hosmer,
Civil War. J. R. Bartlett, Literature of the Rebellion (Boston
1866), is old, lacking in notations, but not to be ignored. Much
Civil War information is inseparable f om the life of President Lin-
coln. See Andrew Boyd, Memorial Lincoln Library, [etc.] (Al-
bany 1870). For literature on the participants in the Civil War
the bibliographies Appended to biographies in the Dictionary of
American Biography and other dictionaries of biography are indis-
pensable.

DOCUMENTS AND OTHER SOURCES : Unquestionably the most valu-
able source of information on the Civil War is The War of the Re-
bellion, A Compilation of the Records of the Union and Confed-
erate Armies (128 vols., 1880-1901), a work of great proportions
compiled with thoroughness and skill under the direction of
Adjutant-General E. D. Townsend. Several editors worked many
years to complete the four series, the atlas, and the index. A de-
scriptive summary of each series was published some years ago by
the Secretary of War. It ran as follows :

Series I. — Embraces the formal reports, both Union and Confederate, of the
first seizures of United States property in the southern states, and of all military
operations in the field, with the correspondence, orders, and returns relating
specifically thereto, accompanied by an adas. It consists of vols. I to UII, com-
prising one hundred and eleven books, many of the volumes being in parts, each
part a book. (Serial Nos. i to in.)

Series II. — Contains the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns, Union
and Confederate, relating to prisoners of war and (so far as the military au-
thorities were concerned) to state and political prisoners. It consists of eight
books, designated as vols. I to VIII (or Serial Nos. 114 to 121).

Series HI. — Contains the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns of the
Union authorities (embracing their correspondence with the Confederate offi-
cials) not relating especially to the subjects of the first and second series. It
sets forth the annual and special reports of the secretary of war, of the general-
in-chief, and of the chiefs of the several staff-corps and departments, the call for
troops, and the correspondence between the national and several state authori-

482 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ties. This series consists of five books, numbered as vols. I to V (or Serial Nos.
122 to 126).

Series IV. — Exhibits the correspondence, orders, reports, and returns of the
Confederate authorities with regard to the same subjects as those embraced in
the third series. It consists of three books, designated as vols. I to III (or Serial
Nos. 127 to 129).

The Atlas. — Contains 178 plates, consisting of several hundred maps of battle-
fields of the war, routes of march of the armies, plans of forts, etc., and a number
of photographic views of prominent scenes, places, and objects.

In the preparation of the War Records the convenience of the reader has
been carefully consulted : each volume is separately indexed, prefaced by a
synopsis of events, and by a table giving not only its own contents, but those
of all preceding volumes in the series.

A general index to the entire work, together with an appendix containing ad-
ditions and corrections of errors discovered in the several volumes after pub-
lication, consists of one book, bearing only the serial number 130.

No critical reader will fail to check reminiscences, memoirs,
diaries, and letters with these terse, vivid, hurried dispatches, and stud-
ied documents, a large part of which were written under the rattle of
musketry and the sound of tramping feet. Each group has its
strength and weakness which must be weighed carefully. Seven-
teen years after the creation of the War Records Office (1877) came
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War
of the Rebellion under the authority of the Secretary of the Navy and
the supervision of Robert H. Woods. The same general plan of ar-
rangement was used as that in the compilation of the War Records.
Recently the sons of Lincoln's Postmaster-General, Montgomery
Blair, granted the Naval History Society the privilege of publishing
the papers of Assistant-Secretary of the Navy, G. V. Fox, which its
editors (R. M. Thompson and Richard Wainwright) did in three
volumes entitled, Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa
Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1861-1865 (1918). In 1870
Surgeon-General J. K. Barnes began in the capacity of supervisor
The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, com-
pleting it in 1888. The set of six volumes is profusely illustrated,
three of them are surgical and three medical, all being' faithfully
executed from a technical viewpoint.

For the student the following are of inestimable value : The Con-
gressional Globe of the 3yth and 38th Congresses, published by the
expert hand of John C. Rives, a Union Democrat and left-over of
Andrew Jackson's Washington Globe. The Congressional Globe
contains daily debates of the House and Senate, reports of cabinet
officials, and set speeches of members of Congress. The reader
should remember that each member of Congress was privileged to
turn over his speeches to the editor and to change his speech after
he saw the proof sheets ; he still enjoys that privilege. A published

BIBLIOGRAPHY 483

speech, consequently, frequently differed from that made on the
floor of Congress. A change in reporters of the debates varied the
quality of the records in the Congressional Globe. This is not true,
however, of the Statutes at Large which contain resolutions and
statutes, nor of the Executive Documents, which include the written
reports of the civil departments of the national government. The
decrees of the circuit and district courts may be found in Federal
Cases and the use of the records of the Supreme Court is possible to
researchers. For an account of the published decisions of the Fed-
eral courts, the Supreme, circuit, and district, turn to A. B. Hart's
Foundations of American Foreign Policy. James D. Richardson's
Messages and Papers of the Presidents (12 vols., Washington 1899)
is convenient for presidential messages. James D. Richardson has a
set of two volumes (Nashville 1905) entitled Messages and Papers
of the Confederacy which should be read along with his greater
work. There is meagre publication, however, of the documents
of the Confederacy. How many Confederate documents were de-
stroyed, no one knows, but the large collection which escaped de-
struction, thanks to Generals Samuel Cooper and M. J. Wright,
C.S.A., and now in the offices of the War Department should be
published by painstaking historians and the Federal government.
For a bibliography use H. A. Morrison, List of Confederate Docu-
ments and of Books published in the Confederacy. For some time
the Southern Historical Society has been publishing in its Papers the
Proceedings of the Confederate States. See also, Journals of the
Confederate Congress. W. T. Tenney's Appletorfs Annual Cy-
clopedia (begun in 1861) is a creditable account of contemporary
events. From 1881 to 1890 Scribner's published in thirteen volumes
monographs by generals who were participants in the Civil War.
This valuable work on military history is entitled Campaigns of the
Civil War, but for lighter and interesting reading use Rebellion
Records (13 vols., began 1861), a compilation of songs, ballads, se-
lections from pamphlets, newspapers, etc. Volume IV of A. B.
Hart, American History told by Contemporaries (5 vols., N. Y.
1897-1929) is brief, but contains useful, sound material ; it is not just
another "source book." Not without value is The Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War (4 vols., 1888), a compilation of papers of
ex-soldiers and ex-military officers, North and South. Next to the
Official Records in importance is the ten-volume work of John G.
Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham, Lincoln, A History (N. Y. 1890),
almost a history of the Civil War written by President Lincoln's
private secretaries. The judgments of these two authors are colored
by their admiration for their president, but the many documents
and materials used are invaluable to the student of the Civil War.

484 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

To these volumes, add John G. Nicolay and John Hay (eds,)
Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln (12 vols., N. Y. 1905). A
valuable source on what Lincoln's cabinet thought and did is Diary
of Gideon Welles (3 vols., N. Y. 1911), but it should be used after
having read Howard K. Beale's article, "Is the Printed Diary of
Gideon Welles Reliable?" in the American Historical Review,
XXX, 547-552. No careful student can afford to overlook Dun-
bar Roland's (ed.), Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist; His Letters,
Papers and Speeches (10 vols., Jackson, Miss. 1923), about which
there has been some dispute between critics possibly more the result
of confusing method of compilation with editorial meticulousness.
An interesting collection of letters written by an influential and in-
teresting family is found in Worthington C. Ford, A Cycle of
Adams Letters, 1861-1865 (2 vols., Boston 1920). Charles Eliot Nor-
ton (ed.), Orations and Addresses of George William Curtis (3 vols.,
N. Y. 1894) contains various addresses on politics and slavery by a
prominent Northern orator ; D. S. Freeman, Lee's Dispatches ; Un-
published Letters of Robert E. Lee [etc.] (N. Y. 1915), is brief
and not as valuable as one would hope. Jessie A. Marshall (ed.),
Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler
During the Period of the Civil War (5 vols., 1917). In Sketches of
War History 1861-1865 (3 vols., Cincinnati 1888), comprising pa-
pers read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of
the Loyal Legion of the United States are some sketches of value,
while others are worthless for general use. Up to the present an
adequate study of the influence of Territories on the approaching
Civil War could not be made for want of publication of the ter-
ritorial papers of the United States. Now Clarence E. Carter is
editing these valuable papers lodged in Washington and it is hoped
that a more thorough rewriting of pre-Civil-War history and the
influence of the West may be done.

There are so many privately published Civil War diaries and
letters, and in state, regional, and national journals that it would be
an almost unending task to mention them. Some of them are ex-
cellent, others are merely a record of the whereabouts of the author.
Those like the Colonel A. W. Gilbert Diary (Cincinnati, Historical
and Philosophical Society of Ohio, 1934) and the attractive Colo-
nel's Diary by O. L. Jackson of the 63rd Ohio Infantry record the
private opinions of the officers of the volunteer forces in the Union
army. Similar are the General J. B. Gordon's Reminiscences of the
Civil War, a vivid story of an old man's recollections ; General
Hagood's Memoirs of the War of Secession ; and C F. Morse, Let-
ters Written during the Civil War, a Northern point of view. Such
diaries, letters, reminiscences, and journals are of real value. Of a

BIBLIOGRAPHY 485

different nature is the incomparable Mrs. Mary B. Chesnut's Diary
from Dixie (1905), John B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at
the Confederate States Capital (2 vols., N. Y. 1866) ; and Sarah M.
Dawson, Confederate Girl's Diary.

Valuable collections of Civil War letters are scattered throughout
the United States. It is to be hoped that a thorough, general cata-
logue of Civil War sources may be forthcoming before too many
years have passed. Washington, D. G, Boston and Cambridge, New
York City, Madison (Wis.), Chicago, St. Louis, Columbia (Mo.),
Columbus (Ohio), Cincinnati, Richmond (Va.), Lexington (Ky.),
are not all of the centres wherein Civil War collections are to be
found. Some are catalogued as in the Library of Congress.

The author of this interpretative study of the Civil War used the
unpublished manuscript collections of Johnson, Chase, Holt, Mc-
Clellan, John Sherman, W. T. Sherman, Fessenden, Comstock,
Pickett, Stanton, Stevens, Trumbull, H. Wilson, King, Crittenden,
Mrs. H. C Ingersoll, P. G. T. Beauregard, the Bates Diary, and, of
course, those which have been published in part or all, as Chase,
Schurz, Lee, Buchanan, Crittenden, Adams, Jefferson Davis, Koerner,
Stephens, Sumner, Seward, Fox, Welles, Andrew, Forbes, Hay, et.
al. Other manuscript collections are numerous, such as the Greeley-
Colfax letters in New York Public Library, A. G. Thurrnan Papers
in the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society, Columbus ; Levi
P. Morton Papers, Henry County, Indiana, Historical Society ; the
Rutherford B. Hayes Papers at Fremont, Ohio ; the James R. Doo-
little manuscripts in the Wisconsin Historical Society ; the Blair Pa-
pers in the Library of Congress ; Manuscripts and Diaries owned by
the Daughters of the Confederacy ; the James S. Rollins Papers,
owned by C. B. Rollins, Columbia, Missouri ; the William K. Bixby,
the Treat, the Broadhead, Eads, Gundlach, Snyder Papers in the
Missouri Historical Society; the James Buchanan Papers in Penn-
sylvania Historical Society ; the Alexander Stephens Manuscripts in
Library of Congress, and so on, but space here does not permit ad-
ditional listing. See further the Check List of Collections erf Per-
sonal Papers in Historical Societies, University and Public Libraries,
and other Learned Institutions of the United States (Library of
Congress, Washington 1918) ; David N. Matteson, A List of Manu-
scripts Concerning American History preserved in European Li-
braries (Carnegie Institution, Washington 1925).

GENERAL HISTORIES OF THE CIVIL WAR : So far the best general
history is James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the
Compromise of 1850 (7 vols., N. Y. 1893-1906). It is a beautiful
narrative without hero-worship and independent of many conven-
tional views of Northerners, although a better understanding of the

486 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

South would have been desirable. Many recently discovered manu-
scripts and research studies have made the Rhodes history an old
one, though the author wrote discriminatingly. John Bach Mc-
Master, History of the People of the United States (8 vols., N. Y.
1883-1913) somewhat wants a sense of narrative, but it is reliable,
very good for public opinion, readable, and has a more modern point
of view. The ninth volume in this series, During Lincoln's Ad-
ministration (N. Y. 1927) is particularly valuable for the Civil War.
Walter G. Shotwell, The Civil War in America (2 vols., N. Y.
1923), is an excellent narrative for general readers. It has no bib-
liography or footnotes, but it is indexed. For some portions of the
war period see the critical Some Phases of the Civil War (privately
printed 1906) by C F. Adams. Very useful for some purposes is
the three volume work, John C. Ropes, Story of the Civil War, A
Concise Account of the War in the United States of America Be-
tween 1861-1865 (N. Y. 1933). Edward A. Channing, History of
the United States (6 vols., N. Y. 1905-1927), VI, The War for
Southern Independence; is a scholarly interpretative narrative not so
well done as the volume on the Jeffersonian period but reliable, and
presents in an interesting manner a fairer point of view than most
Northern writers have been able to do. H. E. von Hoist, Consti-
tutional History of the United States (8 vols., Chicago 1885-1892)
has a strong Northern bias, shows an ignorance of Southern social
life, and is unsympathetic with American social and political habits.
It is based on the documents, is interpretative, and is necessary in
reading on the period from a critical point of view. A Virginia
scholar's point of view may be had by reading the summary treat-
ment of the Civil War by Woodrow Wilson in volume IV of A
History of the American People (5 vols., N. Y. 1902). Better,
however, are the five volumes in The American Nation A History
(27 vols., N. Y. 1904-1908) entitled T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery
(N. Y. 1906) ; Admiral F. E. Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War
(N. Y. 1906) ; J. K. Hosmer, The Appeal to Arms and the Outcome
of the Civil War (N. Y. 1907) ; and Wm. A. Dunning, Reconstruc-
tion^ Political and Economic (N. Y. 1907), all of which are fair,
reliable, good, and carefully footnoted. More readable and fasci-
nating-, but without footnotes, are the volumes in The Chronicles of
America (50 vols., New Haven 1921), edited by Allen Johnson ; the
volumes treating the Civil War period are : Jesse Macy, The Anti-
Slavery Crusade (1919) ; Nathaniel W. Stephenson, Abraham Lin-
coln and the Union (1918) ; same, The Day of the Confederacy
(1919) ; William Wood, Captains of the Civil War (1921) ; and
Walter L. Fleming, The Sequel of Appomattox (1919). A heavier
treatment, but an able one, particularly on constitutional and gov-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 487

ernmental aspects of the war, is Francis N. Thorpe, The Civil War
The National View, the fifteenth volume of The History of North
America (20 vols., Phila. 1903-1907). An admirable work is J. A. C
Chandler, The South in the Building of the Nation (12 vols., Rich-
mond 1909-1910), a co-operative work which deals with economic,
political, and cultural contributions of the South in our history.
Very useful to student researchers are such works as John W.
Draper, History of the Civil War (3 vols., N. Y. 1867-1870) and
E. A. Duyckinck, National History of the War for the Union (4
vols., 1868), which is founded on official and other authentic docu-
ments, but each written too near the war to be accurate or to have
the proper perspective. Draper is philosophical and stimulating.
One of the best political treatises of the period is John W. Burgess,
The Civil War and the Constitution 1859-1865 (2 vols., N. Y. 1901).
A Virginian loyal to the Union was John M. Botts who is fully en-
titled to consideration in his Great Rebellion : Its Secret History,
Rise, Progress and Disastrous Failing (N. Y. 1866). Entertainingly
written is John Fiske's Mississippi Valley in the Civil War (Boston
1900), but, as its title indicates, this book touches primarily one
section involved in the struggle. Rossiter Johnson's Story of a
Great Conflict (N. Y. 1894) an(* J- M. Callahan's Diplomatic His-
tory of the Southern Confederacy (1901) are quite useful. S. S.
Cox, Three Decades of Federal Legislation, 1855-85 (Providence
1885), by a War Democrat, is defective as most books are that are
written by politicians and officers who went through the period.
It is controversial in spirit and inadequate in the latter part of the
period treated. Louis Phillipe Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris,
History of the Civil War in America, (transl, 1875-1888). An abo-
litionist's point of view is found in Joshua R, Giddings, History of
the Rebellion Its Authors and Causes (N. Y. 1864), and in Horace
Greeley, The American Conflict (2 vols., Hartford 1864-1866), a
narrative of the drift of American opinion on the subject of slavery
from 1776 to 1865, illustrated, and attempts to show the moral and
political aspects of the conflict between slavery and free labor.
J. T. Headley wrote a partisan account entitled, The Great Rebel-
lion: A History of the Civil War in the United States (2 vols.,
Hartford 1866). Edward McPherson, The Political History of the
United States of America^ During the Great Rebellion (Washington
1864). This author was for a number of years clerk of the United
States House of Representatives and wrote as a pro-Union man, but
his presentation 01 facts appear unbiased. His entire book is a
summary of secession plus valuable messages, proceedings of Con-
gress, addresses, etc. The Pulitzer prize work of F. A. Shannon,
The Organization and Administration of the Union Army (2 vols.,

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Cleveland 1928) was long needed, and deals with problems of rais-
ing, equipping, and maintaining the armed forces, with a sympathy
expressed for the privates in the army. Add to this scholarly work
F. L. Huidekoper, The Military Unpreparedness of the United
States (N. Y. 1915), Ella Lonn, Desertion during the Civil War
(N. Y. 1928), and W. B. Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons (Columbus,
Ohio, 1930). Wm. A. Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Re-
construction and Related Topics (N. Y. 1898) has seven essays
written by a scholar on the constitutional aspects of the War and
Reconstruction. J. D. Cox, Military Reminiscences of the Civil
War (2 vols., N. Y. 1900) is memory vigorously checked with of-
ficial records. The War Democrats played so important a part in
the conflict that it is wise to consult John A. Logan, The Great
Conspiracy (N. Y. 1886) who bitterly and partisanly sets forth this
point of view. Being a Congressman, the author used Congressional
speeches and reports, but cited few references. His first eight chap-
ters are a sketchy review of the growth of the slavery conflict.
Careful summaries are in J. G. Nicolay, "The Civil War" and "The
North During the War, 1861-1865," in the Cambridge Modern
History (1903), vol. VII, 443-548 and 568-602. In the same work
and volume see the noted economist, J. C. Schwab, "The South
During the War," 603-621. Other works are O. J. Victor, History
of the Southern Rebellion (4 vols., N. Y. 1868) to 1862, a collection
of undigested materials put together without bias ; E. A. Pollard,
The Lost Cause, an embittered attack on Jefferson Davis, by a Rich-
mond editor of most uncompromising secessionist principles, who
wrote in a stilted, oratorical style. We have no general history of
the Civil War and it is to be hoped that Professor J. G. Randall's
volume to be published in February 1937 may meet our needs.
Asa Mahan, Critical History of the Late War (N. Y. 1877), of value
principally for contemporaneous criticism, but not always true in
judgment; C. A. Evans (ed.), Confederate History (12 vols., At-
lanta 1899) a collection of accounts or memoirs of Southern writ-
ers. W. R. Garrett and R. A. Halley, "Civil War from a Southern
Standpoint" in History of North America, XIV, is a fair antidote
for partisanship such as is found in Pollard or R. B. Rhett, Confed-
erate Government at Montgomery. H. A. Wise, Seven Decades of
the Union (Phila. 1872), by a prominent, forceful, sometimes er-
ratic, Virginian who includes interesting anecdotes and philosophizes
on state rights. He is less extreme than Pollard. John T. Scharf,
History of the Confederate States Navy (N. Y. 1887) is compiled
and written by an officer of the navy of the Confederacy. Filled
with letters and documents, it is a valuable one-volume source of
information. For one phase of Confederate naval history see W.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 489

M. Robinson, Jr., The Confederate Privateers (New Haven 1928),
footnoted and indexed, judiciously written, and an interesting story.
William Swinton, Campaigns of the Army o-f the Potomac (N. Y.
1882), J. Fitch, Annals of the Army of the Cumberland (Phila. 1864)
and T. B. Van Home, History of the Cumberland (2 vols., Cincin-
nati 1875) may be used for military history of particular phases of
the war. See also J. C. Reed, The Brothers' War (N. Y, 1905), an
ingenious journalist who should be read with a critical eye. Those
volumes of the American Statesmen series (40 vols., Boston 1882-
1917) dealing with this period are recommended as readable, quite
generally reliable, but are without footnotes or bibliographies.
Those on Lincoln, Seward, Chase, C. F. Adams, Sumner, Stevens,
Grant, and Sherman are useful. Few of them are final, or are crit-
ical enough. Short essays on fifteen phases of the Civil War period
are found in Studies in Southern History and Politics (N. Y. 1914)
inscribed to Wm. A. Dunning by his former pupils.

BRIEF GENERAL ACCOUNTS may be listed as follows : James Trus-
low Adams, America's Tragedy (N. Y. 1934) ; William E. Dodd,
Expansion and Conflict (Cambridge 1915) in Riverside series ; Fred-
erick L. Paxson, The Civil War (N. Y. 1911) in the Home Univer-
sity Library ; John Buchan, Two Ordeals of Democracy (Boston
1925), an Englishman's point of view, as is David Knowles, The
American Civil War (Oxford 1926) ; Luecke, Der Burgerkrieg der
Vereinigten Staaten (1892). W. B. Wood and J. E. Edmonds, His-
tory of the Civil War in the United States, 1861-186$ (N. Y. 1905).
A. C Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict, in A History of American
Life, edited by A. M. Schlesinger and Dixon Ryan Fox (12 vols.,
unfinished, N. Y.), VII, a work emphasizing social and economic
life written in an easy style. A. C. Cole, The Era of the Civil War
(Springfield, 111. 1919). W. G. Brown, Lower South in American
History (N. Y. 1902).

GEOGRAPHICAL INFLUENCES are treated in Ellen C. Semple, Amer-
ican History and Its Geographic Conditions (Boston 1903), chs, 13,
14, 17 ; Thorpe, The Civil War The National View, in North Amer-
ica series, XV, ch. i ; Wm. H. Matthews, Jr., "Geography and
Southern Sectionalism in the Civil War," in Phila. Geog. Soc. Bul-
letin) XXVI, 255-278 ; A. P. Brigham, Geographic Influences in
American History (Boston 1903), ch. 7, written by a specialist.
Geographic conditions and influences in American history in detail
is a subject still needing a master hand. One of the most searching
studies of the geographic influences of water on naval affairs is A.
T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters (N. Y. 1883). E. M. Coul-
ter, The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky, has ch. i on the
land and the people of Kentucky. Hardly a more useful brief work

490 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

could be found than A. B. Hulbert, Soil, Its Influence on the History
o-f the United States (New Haven 1930).

ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL HISTORIES include H. J. Carman, Social
and Economic History o-f the United States (3 vols., with two pub-
lished to date, Boston 1930, 1934), II, chs. 6-9, a readable treatise,
organized, usable, quite accurate. Fred A. Shannon, Econoimc His-
tory of the People of the United States (N. Y. 1934) , chs. 14-18,
interpretative, fair, interesting, good perspective. E. F. Humphrey,
An Economic History of the United States (N. Y. 1931), chs. 26-28,
strongly economic in point of view, reliable. See other good ones
by Dewey, Jennings, Faulkner, Kirkland, Bogart, Coman. James
D. Hill, "Some Economic Aspects of Slavery, 1850-60," in So. At-
lantic Quar.y April 1927, 161-177.

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH : A knowledge of the
social life of both the North and the South at the beginning of and
during the Civil War is necessary to a proper understanding of the
conflict between these two great sections. For information on the
subject turn to Carman, II, chs. 4-7 ; Cole, Irrepressible Conflict, chs.
2- 1 1 ; Shannon, Economic History of the United States, chs. 13, 14,
1 6 ; Shotwell, Civil War, I, chs. i, 6 ; Thorpe, The Civil War, ch.
i ; Rhodes, History of the United States, III, ch. 12 ; Stephenson,
Day oj the Confederacy, ch. 6, very well done in so brief an account
of life in the Confederate South during the War ; Chadwick, Causes,
chs. 2, 3, 4 (slaveholding South period, 1850 to 1860) ; Adams,
Tragedy, ch. 3 ; McMaster, History, VIII, ch. 87 ; Hart, Contem-
poraries, IV, chs. 13, 14; J. D. B. De Bow, Industrial Resources of
the Southern and Western States (3 vols., N. Y. 1853) ; A. E. de
Gasparin, Uprising of a Great People (transl. 1862) ; Cutting,
Davis, ch. 4, life of a Mississippi scholar-planter ; T. S. G. Dabney,
Memorials of a Southern Planter (Baltimore 1887), a valuable in-
sight to life in the Confederacy in war time ; Kerr, Kentucky , I,
chs. 54-58 ; M. Page Andrews, The Women of the South in War
Times (Baltimore 1920) ; Catherine C. Hopley, Life in the South
(2 vols., London 1863).

CONTEMPORARY PERIODICALS AND NEWSPAPERS : No clear picture
of the true spirit of a people can be had without extensive use of
newspapers and journals. There are many valuable newspapers
which a researcher would choose to read. Some of the best are :
The New York Tribune, the organ of the war party after the fall of
Fort Sumter ; the New York Herald for the opposing view ; the
New York Evening Post, representative of the Democratic intelli-
gentsia ; the youthful Times ; the St. Louis Democratic Republican
of mild Unionist flavor ; the pro-Northern Missouri Democrat, pro-
Fr6mont and Radical after 1861 ; the Democratic Chicago Times

BIBLIOGRAPHY 49 1

and the Republican Tribune ; the New Orleans Picayune ; Cincin-
nati Gazette ; Boston Advertiser ; the Richmond Enquirer ; the Ohio
State Journal ; the Indiana State Journal ; the Baltimore American ;
and Charleston Mercury. Among the Northern periodicals which
the author carefully read were Harper's New Monthly Magazine,
North American Review, futncmfs Magazine, and the Atlantic
Monthly. From the South the Southern Literary Messenger, edited
by W. G, Simms, is best for Southern thought. On economic and
political phases of Southern life see De Bow's Commercial Review
of New Orleans. For Northern economic life see Hunts Mer-
chants' Magazine of Philadelphia and the Bankers' Magazine of New
York.

DICTIONARIES OF BIOGRAPHY AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS : Of first impor-
tance is the Dictionary of American Biography, of some twenty vol-
umes, edited by Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, including biog-
raphies of Americans who have contributed something of value to
American life and history. Each biography is followed by a bib-
liography, if possible, a very great aid to researchers. Certainly
next in importance is James T. White, The National Encyclopedia,
of American Biography (indexed), the much older Appleton's
Cyclopedia of American Biography (1887), and Lamb's Biographical
Dictionary of the United States ( 1900). Brief articles may be found
in Larned's and Hart's ready reference sets, and very useful are The
New International Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The Dictionary of the Social Sciences will take its place, no doubt,
with the Dictionary of American Biography, although too much of
it has been written by inexperienced writers. The American An-
nual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events (N. Y. 1862-
1900) may be used from 1861 chronologically or topically, and is
valuable for its contemporaneous observations.

PICTURES, ILLUSTRATIONS : Reference should be made to The Pho-
tographic History of the Civil War (10 vols., N. Y. 1911), replete
with war scenes ; B. J. Lossing, Pictorial History of the Civil War
(3 vols., Phila. 1866-1869) ; R. H. Gabriel, (ed.), The Pageant of
America (15 vols., New Haven 1925-1929), VII, the most recent
and the choicest selection of pictorial histories ; Harper's Pictorial
History of the Rebellion (2 vols., N. Y. 1868) ; Leslie's Weekly.

CIVIL WAR SONG AND STORY could be made a valuable study. A
medley of songs and stories have been published in Frank Moore,
The Civil War in Song and Story 2860-186$ (N. Y. 1899), without
criticism or explanation ; the same author has another, the Lyrics of
Loyalty (1864), all on the Northern side, and so are : L. Bell, com-
piler, Pen Pictures of the Civil War [etc.] (1866) ; G. H. Baker,
roems of the War (1864), possibly a collection of the best war

4Q2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

poems of the period; EL H. Brownell, an ex-service man, War
Lyrics and Other Poe?w ; J. H. Hayward, (ed.), Poetical Pen Pic-
tures of the War, Selected from our Union Poets (1864) ; George
C. Eggleston (ed.), American War Ballads (2 vols., N. Y. 1889) ^ ex-
cellent ; and there is a collection of Soldiers* and Sailors' Patriotic
Songs and Hymns (1864). These are representative of the list.

On the Southern side are Copperhead Minstrel, A Choice Collec-
tion of Democratic Poems and Songs (1867) ; F. D. Allan, compiler,
A Collection of Southern Patriotic Songs, Made during Confederate
Times (1874) ; W. L. Fagan, Southern War Songs (N. Y. 1890) ;
Emily W. Mason, compiler, The Southern Poems of the War
(1869); Frank Moore, compiler, Rebel Rhymes and Rhapsodies
(1864) ; same, Songs and Ballads of Southern People (N. Y. 1886).

CIVIL WAR POETRY : G. C. Eggleston, (ed.), American War Bal-
lads (2 vols., N. Y. 1889) ; R. G. White (ed.), Poetry, Literary,
Narrative, and Satirical of the Civil War (1866), and H. L. Williams
(ed.), War Songs of the Blue and Gray, as Sung by the Brave Sol-
diers of the Union and Confederate Armies (1905).

SOUTHERN CIVIL WAR Music is obtainable in W. R. Whittlesey,
List of Music of the South, 2860-1864 (Library of Congress, Wash-
ington).

MAPS FOR THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD are in-
cluded in the volumes of the American Nation and Yale Chronicles
series. In Harper's Atlas of American History are collected the
most important maps of the American Nation series. Each reader
should be equipped with Harper's Atlas or have access to other
workable maps such as those in Channing, History, VI, and Rhodes,
History, IV, V. With these use C. O. Paulin, Atlas of the Histor-
ical Geography of the United States (Carnegie Institution Publica-
tions, No. 401, Washington, D. C, 1932).

SURGERY, MEDICINE, AND HEALTH: On this subject a definitive
work is yet to be written. Good as far as they go, or dealing with
special subjects are : C. J. Stille's History of the United States Sani-
tary Commission (Phila. 1866) ; F. R. Packard, The History of
Medicine in the United States . . . to the Year 2800 (Phila. 1901),
with an appended detailed discussion of anaesthetics to a later date ;
Katherine P. Wormeley, The Other Side of the War, describes the
humane care, sympathy, and good-will side of the war ; Walt Whit-
man, The Wound Dresser, a Series of Letters Written from the Hos-
pitals in Washington (Boston 1898), is along the same line, as is ex-
pected of Whitman's articles, "Army Hospitals and Cases," The
Century, XIV, 825- , and "Walt Whitman in War-Time," The
Century, ^XXV, 840- ; The Documents of the U. S. Sanitary
Commission contain reports from officials of the organization, the

BIBLIOGRAPHY 493

third volume being entitled, Military, Medical) and Surgical Essays ;
Frederic L. Olmsted, General Secretary of the Sanitary Commission,
his Report to the Secretary of War, Dec. 9, 1861, laid the foundation
for the remaining reports of the very valuable work of the Com-
mission. In November 1863, and after, a bulletin was issued twke
a month until the end of the war. Local manuscripts of this Com-
mission still are untouched in Cincinnati, Ohio ; Julia C. Stimson and
Ethel C. S. Thompson, ''Women Nurses with the Union Forces dur-
ing the Civil War," in Military Surgeon, LXII, 1-17, 208-230 ; Mar-
tha D. Perry, Letters -from a Surgeon-General of the Civil War
(Boston 1906) is a description of the treatment of Northern pris-
oners. The outstanding work thus far on this subject appears to
be The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
Further reading may be found in B. A. Gould, Investigations in the
Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers (N. Y.
1869) ; The Official Records are a storehouse for information on this
subject. On the work of Southern surgeons and doctors there is
J. M. Craig, "The Diary of Surgeon Craig, Fourth Louisiana Regi-
ment, C. S. A., 1864-65," in La. Hist. Quar., VIII, 53-70 ; H. Baxley,
"Dr. Edward Warren of North Carolina," in Confed. Vet., XXXIV,
172-173 ; H. H, McGuire, "Surgeons of the Confederacy/* in Confed.
Vet., XXXIV, 140-143 ; E. R. Wiese, "Life and Times of Preston
Moore, Surgeon-General of the Confederate States of America,"
So. Med. Jour., XXIII, 916-921 ; May G. Black, "Confederate Sur-
geons and Hospitals," Confed. Vet., XXXVI, 183-185.

The drug trade is described by Joseph Jacobs, "Some of the drug
Conditions during the War between the States, 1861-1865," in Ga.
Hist, Quar., X, 200-222.

CHAPTER I: THE ELECTION or 1860
i, KANSAS-NEBRASKA STRUGGLE :

L. W. Spring, Kansas (Boston 1885), chs. 3-12; J. F. Rhodes, History of
the United States, II, 78-87, 98-107, 121-134, 150-168, 189-220, 215-220,
237-240, 271-301 ; McMaster, History, VIII, chs. 90-93 ; Charming, History,
VI, ch. 6; Jesse Macy, Political Parties (New Haven 1919), chs. 14, 16, 17;
T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery, chs. 9, n, 15, 16; H. von Hoist, History,
V, chs, 3, 5, 6, 8, VI, chs. 2, 4, 5 ; J. N. Holloway, Kansas ; O. G. Villard,
John Brown (Boston 1918), chs. 3-6; Horace Greeley, American Conflict,
I, 124-251; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, ch. 8; Allen Johnson, Douglas: A
Study in American Politics (N. Y, 1908), an interesting, but not a definitive,
biography with critical insight and sympathy, chs. r i, 14, 15 ; George F.
Milton, The Eve of Conflict: Stephen A. Douglas and the Needless War
(Boston 1934) is a very desirable biographical work for the entire pre-war
period. Milton has had access to heretofore unused Douglas manuscripts. '

494 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Win. E. Smith, The Francis Preston Blair Family, I, ch. 23 ; John Sherman,
Recollections (z vok, Chicago 1895), I, ch. 5 ; F. B. Sanborn, Recollections
of Seventy Years (2 vols., Boston 1909), I, 48-133 ; C. B. Going, David Wil-
?not, Free Soiler (N. Y. 1924), ch. 26; Geo. T. Curtis, James Buchanan (2
vols., N. Y. 1883) ; John B. Moore, The Works of James Bucha?2an, Compris-
ing His Speeches, State Papers, and Private Correspondence (12 vols., Phila.
1908-1911). Others may be used: The Works of Charles Sumner (15 vols.,
Boston 1870-1883) ; G. E. Baker (ed.), The Works of William H. Seiuard
(5 vols., Boston 1853-1884) ; R. C. Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches (4 vols.,
1852-1886) ; Lothrop, Seivard, ch. 9 ; Storey, Sumner, chs, 8, 9 ; E. L. Pierce,
Me?noir of Charles Simmer (4 vols., Boston 1877-1893) ; John W. Chadwick,
Theodore Parker Preacher and Reformer (Boston 1900), ch. 12, gives an anti-
slavery preacher's views ; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, I, ch, 19 ; F. H. Hodder,
"English Bill," in Am. Hist. Asso. Report, 1906, I, 201 ; same, "Douglas and
the Kansas-Nebraska Act" in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings^ 1912 ; E. S. Corwin,
"The Dred Scott Decision," in Am. Hist. Rev., XVII ; W. W. Sweet, "Some
Religious Aspects of the Kansas Struggle," in Journal of Religion, VII, 578-
595 ; Kan. Hist. Soc. Coll, I, i93-233> nl» ^05-337, IV, 385~745i v» ^3~^33 5
F. H. Hodder, "Railroad Background of the Kansas-Nebraska Act," in Miss.
Valley Hist. Rev., XII, 3-22 ; Richardson, Messages and Papers, V, 340-350,
352-360, 398-407, 431-433* 45°-454. 47I-48l» 497-503-

2. RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY :

Francis Curtis, The Republican Party (2 vols., N. Y. 1904), I, chs. 6-9, a
friendly outline of the history of the party ; Frank A. Flower, History of the
Republican Party (Springfield, 111. 1884), chs. 14-19, a biased, but interesting,
account by one who knew personally about the rise of the party ; Horace
Greeley, Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of
1856, 1860 and 1864 (Minneapolis 1893), documentary and accurate; Frank
R. Kent, The Democratic Party: A History (N. Y. 1928), a brief, very
readable outline of party history ; A. W. Crandall, The Early History of the
Republican Party (Boston 1930), entire, critical, and a good thesis ; Rhodes,
History, I, 206-208, 243-278, II, chs. 7, 8 ; McMaster, History, VIII, chs. 90,
91; same, With the Fathers (N. Y. 1896), 87-106; Channing, History, VI,
ch. 5 ; von Hoist, History, IV, chs. 3, 4, V, chs. i, z, 4, 7, 9 ; James Schouler,
History of the United States Under -the Constitution (6 vols., N, Y. 1894-
1899), V, ch. 21 ; Cole, Irrepressible Conflict, 273-282 ; Edward Stanwood,
History of the Presidency From 1788 to itiyi (Boston 1898), chs. 19, 20;
B. F. Hall, The Republican Party and Its Presidential Candidates (N. Y.
1856), entire, a campaign document; Wm. S. Meyers, The Republican Party :
A History (N. Y. 1928), better than average party histories; John Tweedy,
A History of the Republican National Conventions from 1856 to 1908 (Dan-
bury, Conn. 1910), convenient for essential facts ; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln,
II, ch. 2 ; T. C. Smith, Parties and Slavery, chs. 2-4, 8, 10, 12 ; same, Liberty
and Free-Soil Parties (Boston 1897), chs. 14-19 ; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union,
ch. 2 ; Henry Wilson, Rise and Fall of the Slave Power (3 vols., Boston 1872-
1877), H, chs. 31, 32, 35, 38. The author's prejudices are evident, but he strove
for impartiality. Being a participant, his summaries of congressional debates
and incidents in the abolition movement are of real value. Buchanan, Works,
VIII, 426-500, X, 8-100, XI, 494-510 ; E. A. Pollard, Lost Cause, ch, 4 ; Nicolay
and Hay, Lincoln, I, chs. 18-21 ; M. Storey, Sumner, chs. 6, 8 ; R. C. Winthrop,
Jr., R. C. Winthrop, 142-194 ; G. W. Julian, Giddings, ch. n ; A. G. Riddle,
Benjamin F. Wade (Cleveland 1886), composed of papers originally published

BIBLIOGRAPHY 495

in the Magazine of Western History, inadequate, few sources used, chs. 7, 8 ;
Going-, Wibuot, chs. 27, 28 ; Wrn. E. Smith, Blair fmmly^ I, ch. 21, an account
of the work of a Jacksonian Democrat ; Horace Greeley, American Conflict, I,
chs. 17-21; Lothrop, Seivard, ch, 8; John Sherman, Recollections of Forty
Years, I, ch. 6, an account by an able and conservative participant ; Horace
Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (N. Y. 1868), dedicated to American
youth, is worth reading both for information and pleasure, ch. 42 ; Allan
Kevins, Fre?nont, the West's Greatest Adventurer (2 vols., N. Y. 1928), well
written, based on Fremont journal ; Chas. N. Holmes, "The First Republican-
Democratic Presidential Campaign," in Journal of A?n. Hist., XIV, 41-48 ;
Walter R. Sharp, "Henry S. Lane, and the Formation of the Republican Party
in Indiana," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., VII, 93-112 ; Johnson, Douglas, ch. 12.

3. THE POLITICAL CONVENTIONS OF 1860 :

The best, most searching treatise on this subject is Emerson D. Fite, The
Presidential Campaign of 2860. Stanwood, The Presidency, I, ch. 21. See
Curtis, Greeley, Flower, Kent, referred to in section 2, but for different chap-
ters. Rhodes, II, chs. 10, u ; Hart, Conte?nporaries, IV, 151-159 ; McMaster,
History, VIII, 446-472 ; Schouler, United States, 450-455 ; Charming, History,
ch. 9 ; Murat Halstead, A History of the National Political Conventions of the
Current Presidential Campaign (Columbus, Ohio, 1860), written by a progres-
sive, a severe critic, but partisan ; P. O. Ray, The Convention that Nominated
Lincoln (Chicago 1916) ; Murat Halstead, Caucuses of 1860 (Columbus, Ohio,
1860) ; A. G. Proctor, Lincoln and the Convention of 1860 (Chicago 1918) ;
Greeley, Proceedings [etc.] ; Wilson, Rise and Fall, II ; Going, Wilmot, ch. 51 ;
T. K. Lothrop, William Henry Seward (Boston 1896), ch. n.

Almost any biography of Lincoln has a chapter on the convention, or at least
several pages. Of first rank is Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, then see Lord Charn-
wood's Abraham Lincoln (N, Y. 1916), a charming, admirative biography more
detached than most biographies of Lincoln, 155-160. Ida Al. Tarbell, The Life
of Abraham Lincoln & vols., N. Y. 1900), first published with profuse illus-
trations in McClure's Magazine, beginning November 1895, is probably the most
graphic history on the subject ; see vol. II, ch. 19.- Possibly the next most in-
teresting treatment of Lincoln's life is N. W. Stephenson's Lincoln in which
the author ingeniously, and with much reason, describes Lincoln's life as a series
of crises. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln (N. Y. 1926), is good literature
worth reading, but should not be taken as serious history. A widely read book
is W. H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik, The History and Personal Recollections
of Abraham Lincoln (3 vols., N. Y. 1911), a much discussed, ugly, sordid story
of the early life of Lincoln. The work has truth and untruth mixed and should
be read with a critical eye. See others like W. H. Lamon, Recollections of
Lincoln, 1847-1865 (Washington 1911) j D. W. Bartlett, The Life and Public
Services of Abraham Lincoln (N. Y. 1860), ch. 4; and J. G. Holland, Life of
Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Mass., 1866), ch. 15 ; Nicolay and Hay, II, chs.
13-15. Not until the Lincoln papers in the Library of Congress, placed there
by Robert Todd Lincoln to be opened in the 19405, are available to historians
can anything like a definitive work on his life and work be written. As yet
there has appeared rio really scientific biography of Lincoln. Read J. G. Ran-
dall, "Has the Lincoln Theme been Exhausted," in Am. Hist. Rev., XLI, 270-
294. Do not overlook James L. Murphy, "Alabama and the Charleston Con-
vention of 1860" in Alabama Polytechnic Institute Hist. Papers, Second Series
(Montgomery 1905), 139-166.

496 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

4. CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1860 :

Rhodes, II, 477-502 ; McMaster, VIII, 458-466 ; Charming, VI, ch. 9 ; Stan-
wood, I, ch. 21 ; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union, ch. 3 ; James S. Pike, Fir ft
Blows of the Civil War (N. Y. 1879), an interesting account by a contemporary
journalist; Smith, Blair Family, I, ch. 26. The Tribune Almanac for 1861
contains much political information, as well as the American Almanac which
has collections of federal and state statistics. Thos. V. Cooper and H. T. Fen-
ton, American Politics (Phila. 1882) reprints the party platforms and election
statistics. Fite, Presidential Campaign of 1860, entire, best. See also Flower,
Curtis, Kent, Greeley, Meyers, Tweedy, Hall. Some essays on phases of the
election and campaign are : W. E. Dodd, "The Fight for the Northwest, 1860,"
in Am. Hist. Rev^ XVI, 774-789 ; C. R. Fish, "The Decision of the Ohio Val-
ley," in Annual Report of the Am. Hist. Asso., 1910, 155-164 ; Mary Scrugham,
"The Peaceable Americans of 1860-1861," in Studies in History, Economics, and
Public Law, edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University,
XCVT, No. 3 (N. Y. 1921) ; James L. Murphy, "Alabama and the Charleston
Convention of 1860" in Ala. Poly. Inst. Hist. Papers, 130-166 ; Chas. B. Johnson,
"The Presidential Election of 1860," in 111. State Hist. Soc. Proceedings for 1927,
115-121. Donal V. Smith, "Salmon P. Chase and the Election of 1860," in Ohio
ArchaeoL and Hist. Quar., XXXIX, 515-607 ; Denman, Secession Movement in
Alabama, 76-86. On the result of the election see Hart, Contemporaries, IV,
162-164 ; Greeley, American Conflict, Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, II, ch. 16 ;
C. S. Boucher, "South Carolina and the South on the eve of Secession, 1852-
1860," in Washington University Studies, VI, No. 2, 79-144-

5. BIOGRAPHICAL:

Frederic Bancroft and W. A. Dunning, Reminiscences of Carl Scburz (3 vols.,
Garden City 1908), one of the best American memoirs, and certainly of first
rank information on German influence. Frederic Bancroft (ed.), Speeches,
Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (6 vols., N. Y. 1913). B. C.
Steiner, Life of Henry Winter Davis (Baltimore 1916), ch. 7, a worthwhile
biography of a powerful, individualistic politician. Allen Johnson, Douglas,
ch. 18, and Milton, Douglas. Cutting, Jefferson Davis Political Soldier, ch. 10.
Storey, Suwmer (Boston 1900), ch. 10, friendly to Sumner, but good. Sherman's
Recollections, I, ch. 9. Greeley, Recollections, ch. 48. J. W. Schuckers, Life
and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (N, Y. 1874). S. P. Chase,
"Diary of, and Selected Letters of," in Annual Report, Am. Hist. Asso., 1902,
II, 284-296. D. P. Houghland, "Voting for Lincoln in Missouri in 1860," in
Kansas Hist. Soc. Trans., 1905-1906, IX. A. K. McClure, Recollections of Half
a Century (Salem 1902), a Northern view. G. W. Julian, Political Recollections
1840-1872 (Chicago 1884). Lothrop, Seward, ch. n. D. T. Lynch, "Boss"
Tweed (N. Y. 1927), ch. 16, a graphic description of New York politics in the
election of 1860. Harriet A. Weed (ed.), Autobiography of Thurlow Weed
(Boston 1884), the life of the sage of Northern Whigdom and Seward's most
influential friend, editor of Albany Evening Journal. Thurlow Weed Barnes,
Memoir of Thurlow Weed (Boston 1884), to De used wkh the Autobiography.

Any fairly complete outline of Lincoln's life story contains a description of
the campaign of 1860. See especially Nicolay and Hay, Tarbell, Herndon and
Weik, Lamon, Stephenson, and A. J. Beveridge, Abraham Lincoln i8o$-i8?8
(2 vols., Boston 1928), for character sketches, but does not corne down to 1860.
Many biographies of other men of 1860 have illuminating chapters on the elec-
tion of 1860.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 497

CHAPTER II : SECESSION

1. EVENTS IN GENERAL :

Dumond, The Secession Movement 1860-1861, entire ; has an extensive bit>
liography on the subject. Professor Diamond's critical bibliography makes un-
necessary the inclusion of another lengthy one here. Stephenson, Lincoln and,
Union, ch. 5 ; same, Day of the Confederacy, chs. i, 2 ; Shotwell, Civil War, I,
ch. 8 ; Chadwick, Causes of Civil War, chs. 8, 9, 10, 12 ; Thorpe, Civil War, ch.
3 ; Charming, History, VI, ch. 10 ; Rhodes, History, III, ch. 13 ; Adams, Tragedy,
ch. 5 ; P. G. Auchampaugh, James Buchanan and His Cabinet on the Eve of Se-
cession (Lancaster, Pa., 1926), a timely and careful study, which shows a dif-
ferent view of Buchanan than a time-serving official ; G. T. Curtis, Life of
James Buchanan (2 vols., N. Y. 1883) ; Mary Scrugham, The Peaceable Ameri-
cans 1860-1861 (N. Y. 1921).

2. POLITICAL THEORIES OF THE SOUTHERNERS :

Hart, Contemporaries, IV, chs. 9, 10 ; Speeches of Southern senators in Con-
gress in Congressional Globe; Dumond, The Secession Movement 1860-1861
(N. Y. 1931), the best, latest, fairest treatment of the subject. Entire. Interest-
ing also is Diamond's Southern Editorials on Secession (Beveridge Memorial
Fund, Am. Hist. Asso., 1931). Channing, History, VI, 256-270; McMaster,
History, VIII, chs. 06, 97 ; Denman, Alabama, chs. 4, 5 ; Cole, Irrepressible Con-
flict, 287-290 ; A. H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War between
the States (2 vols., Phila. 1870), an apologia "presented in a series of colloquies
at Liberty Hall."

A brief resume of Southern life, social and economic, may be found in Car-
man, Social and Economic History, chs. 6, 7. For profitable reading on
Southern political thought turn to V. L. Parrington, The Romantic Revolu-
tion in America 1800-1860 (N. Y. 1927), the second volume of his very valu-
able series entitled Main Currents in American Thought. As an introduc-
tion to secession in 1861, J. T. Carpenter, The South as a Conscious Minority,
1789-1861 (N. Y. 1930) is a much needed discussion and narrative. A narrow,
violent view is (Parson) W. G. Brownlow, Rise, Progress and Decline of Se-
cession (Phila, 1862), a story of East Tennessee, bitter in tone ; a reprint of
editorials, speeches, correspondence. Ropes, Civil War, Part I, iii-iv, 3-5 ;
E. M. Coulter, Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky, ch. 2 ; Echoes -from
the South, ed. by E. B. Treat & Co. (N: Y. 1866), sources including addresses,
ordinances, proclamations of Confederates in 1860-1861 ; Nicolay and Hay,
Lincoln, II, chs. 17-27, III, chs. i, 12, 13 ; C. W. Ramsdell, "The Frontier and
Secession," in Studies in Southern History and Politics, No. 3. See also, W. L.
Fleming, "The Literary Movement for Secession" and David Y. Thomas,
"Southern Political Theories" in the same volumes ; J. A. C. Chandler, The
South in the Building of the Nation ; A. H. Abel, American Indian as Slave-
holder and Secessionist (Cleveland 1915).

A very valuable study is John G. Van Densen, Economic Bases for Disunion
in South Carolina (N. Y. 1928), in which the author emphasizes the suffering
from economic decline, the cause of which the Carolinians attributed to un-
equal distribution of Federal benefits. C. F. Adams, Studies, Military and Dip-
lomatic 177 $-1787 (N. Y. 1911), 299-302, good; C. E. Merriam, American
Political Theories (N. Y. 1903), ch. 6, standard; Mrs. Varina H. Davis, Jef-
ferson Davis, ex-President of Confederate States, A Memoir (2 vols., N. Y.
1890) ; Rowland, Jefferson Davids Place in History as Revealed in his Letters

498 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

and Speeches (Pamphlet, 1923) ; R. W. Winston, High Stakes and Hair Trig-
ger; The Life of Jefferson Davis (N. Y. 1920), too hurriedly written, but de-
lightful reading ; Wise, Seven Decades, and B. H. Wise, Life of Henry A.
Wise of Virginia, 1806-1816 (N. Y. 1899), fair, accurate; Henry Cleveland,
Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private with Letters and Speeches Be-
fore, During, and Since the War (Phila. 1866), 7-124, i49-r7°> 656-713, excel-
lent by a Georgian Unionist-Secessionist; P. A. Stovall, Robert Too?nbs,
Statesman, Speaker, Soldier (N. Y. 1892), an eulogistic memorial of some
worth ; J. W. DeBose, The Life and Times of William Loumdes Yancey (Bir-
mingham 1892), an account of state politics to 1854, thereafter national to 1863,
clever manner in presenting state rights doctrines.

Mrs. Chapman Coleman, The Life of John J. Crittenden (2 vols., Phila.
1873) ; A. H. Stephens, A Constitutional View, ablest exposition of the South-
ern viewpoint ; J. F. H. Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quit-
man ; Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of Confederate Government (2 vbls., N. Y.
1881), closes in early part of Reconstruction period, controversial, scholarly
in presentation of state rights, no personal reminiscences, and very little inside
history of the Confederacy.

A temperate treatment of the Southern view by one fully entitled to ex-
press himself is J. L. M. Curry, The Southern States, Considered in their Re-
lations to the Constitution of the United States and to the Resulting Union
(N. Y. 1894). See also T. L. Clingham, Writings and Speeches (Raleigh 1877),
a Whig turned Democrat, one who followed his state into the Confederacy ;
R. E. Lee, Jr., Recollections and Letters of R. E. Lee (Garden City 1904) ;
Gamaliel Bradford, Lee the American (Boston 1929), ch. 2, a readable char-
acter analysis, that has a bibliography of the most generally used works on
Lee ; Cutting, Davis, ch. 10 ; Col. G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and
the American Civil War (2 vols., N. Y. 1898), I, ch. 4; Laura A. White,
Robert Barnwell Rhett (N. Y. 1931), is a story of one of the trio whose names
were often in the minds of pre-War Republicans — Rhett, Yancey, Toombs.

Many magazine articles and studies now throw new light on the subject :
Geo. H. Putnam, "Jefferson Davis and the Fight for the Republic," in The
Independent, CX, 124-126; Salem Dutcher, "The South and the Constitution,"
in Cotfed. Vet., XXVII, 249-252 ; Lyon G. Tyler, "The South and Self-
Determination" in William and Mary Quarterly, XXVII, 217-225 ; T. V.
Smith, "Slavery and the American Doctrine of Equality,'* in Southwest Politi-
cal Science Quarterly, VII, 333-352 ; W. C. Ford, "Sumner's Letters to Gov-
ernor Andrew, 1861," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LX, 222-233, a series of let-
ters dated Jan. 8 to Feb. 20, 1861, and dealing with public affairs ; Chas. B.
Howry, "Responsibility for the War," in Confed. Vet^ XXXI, 90-93 ; Beatrice
Van Court Mugan, "Causes of Secession," in Confed. Vet,, XXXI, 58-59 ; Geo.
W. Duncan, "John Archibald Campbell," in Ala. Poly. Inst. Hist. Papers,
Second Series (Montgomery 1905), 7-53.

An expose of the assumption of a slaveholder's conspiracy is C. S. Boucher,
"to Re that Aggressive Slavocracy," Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., VIII, 13-79; A.
C. Cole, "Lincoln's Election an Immediate Menace to Slavery in the States?"
Am. Hist. Rev., XXXVI, 740-767, differs with the view of J. G. de R. Hamil-
ton in "Lincoln's Election an Immediate Menace to Slavery in the States?"
in Am. Hist. Rev., XXXVII, 700—711. A closely organized and convincing
article is R. R. Russel, "Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism," (U. of
El., Studies in Soc. Sciences, XI, Nos. i, 2, Urbana).

F. J. Turner, The Significance of Sections in American History (N. Y.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 499

1932) is a story of the influence of soil, climate, and resources, by a master
historian.

CHAPTER III : COMPROMISE
PROPOSALS OF AND ATTEMPTS AT COMPROMISE :

Rhodes, History, chs. 13, 14; Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, chs. n,
1 6-1 8 ; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union, ch. 5 ; von Hoist, VII, ch. n ; Nicolay
and Hay, Lincoln, ch. 28, IV, ch. 14 ; Adams, Tragedy, 166-176 ; Dumond,
Secession, chs. 8, 9, u, 12 ; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, ch. 11 ; Edward Dicey,
an English traveller in America observes conditions near the outbreak in Six
Months in the Federal States (1863) ; the sympathetic foreign Count Agenor
Etienne Gasparin describes America during the "Compromise" period and the
beginning in Uprising of a Great People (Transl. by Mary Booth, 1862) ; L.
E. Chittenden, "Report of the Debates and Proceedings in Secret Session of the
Confederate Convention, Washington, lUi ; Going, Wilmot, ch. 33 ; K. Cole-
man, Crittenden; Buchanan, Works; Mary Scrugham, The Peaceable Amer-
icans of 1860-1861 ; A Study in Public Opinion, usable and valuable ; F. Ban-
croft, "Final Efforts at Compromise," in Pol $c. Queer. (Sept. 1891) ; same,
"Seward's attitude toward Compromise and Secession," The Atlantic Monthly,
LXXIV, 597-608.

CHAPTER IV : PEACE AND WAR

1. LINCOLN, THE INAUGURATION, HIS CABINET :

See previous works cited on Lincoln in I, 3 ; also H. J. Raymond, Life of
Abraham Lincoln (N. Y. 1865) ; A. Rothschild, Lincoln, Master of Men (Bos-
ton 1906), chs. 1-4, if not entire; Shotwell, Civil War, I, ch. 9 ; M. D, Con-
way, Autobiography (2 vols., Boston 1904), I, 350-351 ; Nicolay and Hay,
Lincoln, IV, chs. 16-22 ; Carl Schurz, Abraham Lincoln (Boston 1891), 67-73 '»
Richardson, Messages and Papers, V, 3206-3232 ; Going, Wilmot, ch. 32 ;
Clarence E. McCartney, Lincoln and His Cabinet (N. Y. 1931), with footnotes
and bibliography, the author tells the story of each cabinet member in read-
able essays ; Nicolay, "The Outbreak of Rebellion," in The Army in the
Civil War (13 vols., N. Y. 1881), I, ch. 4. This entire set is replete with
excellent maps, has many illustrations, and is a detailed narrative of military
affairs. Greeley, Recollections, ch. 51 ; Smith, Chase and Ohio Politics; and
various biographies of Chase, Blair, Seward, and Stanton, and Welles Diary
cited in ch. 10 ; also, Joseph B. Foraker, "Salmon P. Chase," in Ohio Arch,
and Hist. Soc. Publications, XV; Charles Gibson, "Edward Bates" in Mo.
Hist. Rev., II; A. Howard Meneeley (ed.), 'Three Manuscripts of Gideon
Welles," in Am. Hist. Rev., XXI, 484-494, on the formation of Lincoln's cabi-
net.

2. FORT SUMTER ;

S. W. Crawford, Gen£sis of the Civil War : The Story of Sumter (N. Y.
1887), by one of Anderson's men who allows his characters to speak for
themselves ; S. L. Woodward, Story of Fort Sumter ; Hart, Contemporaries,
IV, ch. 12, is very good ; Rhodes, History, III, ch. 14 ; Channing, History, VI,
ch. ii ; F. E. Chadwick, Causes, chs. 12, 13, 14, 19; Stephenson^ Lincoln and
Union, 86-1 19 ; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, IV, chs. 3-5 ; McMaster, History,

50O THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ch. 97 ; ShotweU, Civil War, I, 68, 81-84; Abner Doubleday, Reminis-
cences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie (N. Y. 1882), chs. 8-11, has injured
his story by a vein of personal animosity and a lack of historical sense ; Alfred
Roman, General Beauregartfs Military Operations in War between the States,
; 86 1-2 86s (* vols., N. Y. 1884), I, chs. 2-4, is a narrow work which dispar-
ages the efforts of fellow officials, but should be read.

W. J. Teimey, Military and Naval History of the Rebellion (N. Y. 1866),
chs. 3-6 ; Nicoky, Outbreak of Rebellion, ch. 5 ; Frederic Bancroft, Life of
William H. Seward (2 vols., N. Y. 1900), II, chs. 28, 29; F. W. Seward,
Re?wmscences of a War-Time Statesman and Diplomat, 1830-191$ (N. Y.
1916) ; F. W. Seward, Seward at Washington as Seviator and Secretary of
State (2 vols., N. Y. 1891) ; Lothrop, Seward, ch. 13 ; Nicolay and Hay, Lin-
coln, III, chs. 4, 7-1 1, IV, chs. 2-3 ; Smith, Blair Family in Politics, II, 4-18 ;
Fox, Correspondence, I ; Diary of Gideon Welles, I, ch. i ; Gideon Welles,
Lincoln and Seivard (N. Y. 1874), written at the suggestion of Montgomery
Blair in a dispute with Charles F. Adams as to who was the greater man,
Lincoln or Seward. Based on Welles's manuscript Diary, letters, and personal
conversations, particularly with Blair. Shotwell, Civil War, I, ch. 10 ; Chis-
holm, "Notes on the Surrender of Fort Sumter," in Battles and Leaders of
the Civil War, I ; Geo. W. Duncan, "John A. Campbell," in Ala. Poly. Inst.
Papers, 7-53 ; Montgomery Blair, "Confederate Documents Relating to Fort
Sumter," in United Service, March 1881.

3. ON THE LEGAL JUSTIFICATION OF THE ACTION OF THE SOUTH :

Read J. L. M. Curry's contribution in C. A. Evans, Confederate Military His-
tory (12 vols., Atlanta 1899). It may be profitable to read in this same con-
nection, A. de Gasparin, The Uprising of a Great People (transl. N. Y. 1862).
Views of Southerners may be had from U. B. Phillips, Robert Toombs, not
definitive ; Dodd, Jefferson Davis, and R. M. Johnston and W. M. Browne,
Life of Alexander H. Stephens (Phila. 1878).

CHAPTER V : DIVISION
i. BORDER STATES :

McMaster, Lincoln Administration, chs. 2, 3, second best on subject ; Shot-
well, Civil War, I, chs. 11, 12 ; Rhodes, III, 383-394 ; E. C. Smith, The Border-
land in Civil War (N. Y. 1927), entire ; Charming, VI, ch. 13 ; Chadwick,
Causes, ch. 16 ; Hosmer, Appeal, 45-53 ; Nicolay, Outbreak of Rebellion, ch. 7
(Baltimore), 10 (Missouri), n (Kentucky), 12 (W. Va.) ; Schouier, United
States, VII, ch. 4, on Mississippi Valley ; Fiske, Mississippi Valley in Civil War,
ch. i ; D. W. Brogan, "The Origins of the Ainerican Civil War," in History,
XV, 47-51, suggests some of the perplexities of the political and social situation
that led to the war.

A. VIRGINIA: Jas. C. McGregor, The Disruption of Virginia (N. Y. 1922),
by an author who looks upon the division of the states as unconstitutional and
of no advantage to the Union War administration ; Mary Newton Stanard,
Richmond Its People and Its Story (Phila. 1923), 153-173, an interesting story
for the public; John E. Cooke, Virginia (Boston 1903), a volume in the Amer-
ican Commonwealths series, ch. 22, brief, though reliable ; Philip A. Bruce, The
Virginia Plutarch (2 vols., Chapel Hill 1929), II, ch. 13 ("General Robert E.
Lee"), a discussion of why Lee decided as he did ; Charles H. Ambler, Section-
alism in Virginia From 1776 to iB6i (Chicago 1910), ch. 10, factual, reviews
the general internal political situation in an unbiased manner ; Avery Craveo,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 50 1

Edmund Ruffin Southerner (N. Y. 1932), chs. 8, 9, life of a fire-eater ; Nicolay
and Hay, Lincoln, IV, ch. 25 ; Henry T. Shanks, The Secession Movement in
Virginia 1847-1861 (Richmond 1934), an objective, model study on secession;
Jas. E. Walmsley, "The Change of Secession Sentiment in Virginia in 1861,"
in Am. Hist. Rev^ XXXI, 82-101.

B. MISSOURI : Eugene M. Violette, A History of Missouri (Boston 1918),
chs. 15-18, a text for high schools, but the clearest and as impartial a treatment
as is published; Lucien Carr, Missouri (Boston 1888), ch. 13, a volume in the
American Commonwealths series ; John McElroy, The Struggle For Missouri
(Washington, D. C., 1909), entire, full of facts, partisan, dedicated to Union
men of Missouri ; Galusha Anderson, A Border City During the Civil War
(Boston 1908), chs. i-io, a story of merit written for the public and dedicated
to those who helped save Missouri for the Union ; Wm. E. Smith, Blair Family
in Politics, II, ch. 29 ; Walter B. Stevens, Lincoln and Missouri (Columbia,
Mo., 1916), a 56-page reprint containing sources and interesting narrative of
Lincoln's struggle to hold Missouri in the Union ; W. H. Ryle, Missouri :
Union or Secession (Nashville 1931), a doctoral dissertation of merit and
crammed with data, very well footnoted ; Thos. L. Snead, The Fight -for Mis-
souri (N. Y. 1886), a Confederate officer's view stated with considerable im-
partiality. According to a letter from the author at the time of writing, he
hoped to write the truth. His opinions are influenced by post-war information
in spite of his determination to remember thought and action.

James Peckham, General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861 (N. Y. 1866),
a defence and eulogy of Lyon, replete with quoted letters and description of
the struggle to hold Missouri in the Union. The letters are indicative of
thought and feeling in border states ; the originals were later destroyed.

S. B. Harding, Life of George R. Smith (Sedalia 1904), written with respect
for historical truth and contains letters and recollections ; Nicolay and Hay,
Lincoln, V, ch. 5 ; Gustave Koerner, Memoirs of Gustave Koerner 2809-1896
(2 vols., Cedar Rapids 1909), an unprejudiced account by an Illinois German ;
H. A. Trexler, "Slavery in Missouri, 1804-1865,*' in /. H. U. Studies, 32nd
Series, 1914, II ; R. J. Rombauer, The Union Cause in St. Louts in 1861 (St.
Louis 1909), the recollections of a participant and a friend of Frank P, Blair,
Jr. ; Thos. J. Scharf, History of St. Louis and County from Earliest Records
to the Present Day [etc.] (2 vols., Phila. 1883) ; Floyd C. Shoemaker, A His*
tory of Missouri (5 vols., Columbia 1922) ; Walter B. Stevens, Missouri, the
Center State (4 vols., St. Louis 1914) J Wm. E. and Ophia D. Smith (eds.),
Colonel A. W. Gilbert, Citizen-Soldier of Cincinnati (Cincinnati 1934), 50-
101, a diary of an outspoken officer of 39th O. V. I. in Fremont's army in. Mis-
souri ; C. M. Harvey, "Missouri from 1849 to 1861," in Mo. Hist. Rev., 1907,
II ; S. B. Laughlin, "Missouri Politics During the Civil War," in Mo. Hist.
Rev., 1929, XXIII ; R. A. Marshall, "When Missouri Went into the War," in
Co?ifed. Vet., XXVIII, 18-19 ; D. Y. Thomas, "Missouri in the Confederacy,"
in Mo. Hist. Rev^ April 1924, 382-391 ; William Bell, "Camp Jackson Prison-
ers," in Confed. Vet., XXXI, 260-261.

C. MARYLAND : Matthew Page Andrews, History of Maryland (Garden
City 1929), ch. 11, is undoubtedly the ablest general treatment thus far pro-
duced ; Steiner, Life of Henry Winter Davis, chs. 7, 8 ; G. L. Radcliff e, "Gov.
Hicks of Maryland and the Civil War," in /. H. U. Studies, in i9th Series,
5*5-^35-

D. KENTUCKY : A brief account of Kentucky's position, inadequate though
it be, is N. S. Shaler, Kentucky A Pioneer Commonwealth in H. E* Scudder's
American Commonwealths series, ch. 15 ; Lewis Collins, History of Kentucky

5O2 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

(2 vols., revised by R. H. Collins, Covington 1874), I, 333-349; McElroy,
Kentucky in the Nation's History (N. Y. 1909) ; E. M. Coulter, The Civil War
and Readjustment in Kentucky (Chapel Hill 1926), chs. 1-7, the most com-
prehensive, the keenest analysis, and soundest judgment on most points of
Kentucky Civil War literature ; Judge Charles Kerr (ed.), History of Kentucky
(5 vols., Chicago 1922), I, chs. 60, 61, written for popular consumption, but
quite reliable in narration ; A. B. Hulbert, Soil Its Influence on the History of
the United States (New Haven 1930), ch. 20, is delightfully written and very
useful on basic conditions ; W. P. Shortridge, "Kentucky Neutrality in 1861,"
in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev^ IX, 283-310.

E. TENNESSEE : Oliver P. Temple, East Tennessee and the Civil War (Cin-
cinnati 1899), entire, a detailed narrative; Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, V, chs.
3-4 ; Mrs. A. R. Dodson, "Tennessee in the Confederate Congress," in Confed.
Vet., XXXV, 424-425.

CHAPTER VI : THE CONTTESTANTS

1. TRANSPORTATION :

C W. Ramsdell, "The Confederate Government and the Railroads," in Am.
Hist. Rev., XXII, 794-810; Rhodes, Hist, of the Civil War (N. Y. 1917), 370-
374 ; Channing, History, 379-381, 392-394, on railroads ; G. A. Barringer, The
Influence of Railroad Transportation on the Civil War (Bloomington, Ind.,
1926) ; Jno. W. Starr, Lincoln and the Railroads (N. Y. 1927) ; S. Cameron,
Railroad Management during the Civil War; Eva Swantner, "Military Rail-
roads During the Civil War," in Military Engineer, XXII ; R. E. Riegel, "Fed-
eral Operation of Southern Railroads during the Civil War," in Miss. Valley
Hist. Rev., IX, 126-138 ; Francis B. C. Bradlee, Blockade Running During the
Civil War and the Effect of Land and Water Transportation on the Confed-
eracy (Salem, Mass., 1925), includes a good chapter on Confederate railroads,
one on telegraphs, and one on the Southern Express Company.

2. THE CONFEDERATE HOSTS :

Broadus Mitchell, "The Rise of the Cotton Mills in the South," in /. H. U.
Studies, 39th Series, II; A. B. Moore, Conscription and Conflict m the Con-
federacy (N. Y. 1924) ; Robinson, Confederate Privateers.

For those who would dig out the information the Official War Records are
a mine of information of this nature ; Arthur H. Jennings, "Confederate Forces
in the Civil War," in Current History, XX, 113-115 ; Freeman H. Hart, "Nu-
merical Strength in the Confederate Army," in Current History, XXV, 91-
96 ; R. D. Steuart, "How Johnny got his Gun," in Confed. Vet., XXXII, i6<5-
169, and XXXV, 250-253 ; Thos. R. Hay, "The South and the Arming of the
Slaves," Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., VI, 34-73 ; F. A. Shannon, The Organization
and Administration of the Union Army (2 vols., Cleveland 1928), a Pulitzer
prize work of the highest value to a study of the contestants ; McMaster,
History, VIII, chs. 8, 14, 17, 19, 23 ; Carman, Social and Economic History,
II, 520-576 ; Shannon, EC. History, ch. 17 ; Shotwell, Civil War, II, ch. 37 ;
Hosmer, Appeal to Arms, chs. 3, 5 ; The Outcome, chs. i, 4, 15, 16 ; Rhodes,
History, III, 543-578 ; Adams, Tragedy, 237-241, ch. 8 ; Cole, Irrepressible
Conflict, chs. 12, 13, footnotes particularly valuable for references, see them
for detailed points ; Stephenson, Day of Confederacy, ch. 2 ; Lincoln and
Union, chs. 7, 10, 11 ; J. H. Russell, My Diary North and South (Boston 1863),
observations of an English traveler in America at the opening of the war,
much quoted by American historians, possibly too much; Frank 3L. Owsley,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 503

"The Confederacy and King Cotton : A Study in Economic Coercion," N.
C. Hist. Rev., VI, 371-397 ; C. B. Kite, "Size of the Confederate Army," in
Current History, XVIII, 251-253 ; A. B. Casselman, "Numerical Strength of
the Confederate Army," Century, XLIII ; "How Large Was the Confederate
Army," Current History, XVII, 653-657 ; Kathleen Bruce, "Economic Fac-
tors in the Manufacture of Confederate Ordnance," in Army Ordnance, VI,
168-170; Pierce Butler, Judah P. Benjamin (Phila. 1906), treasurer in the
Davis cabinet ; R. J. Walker, American Slavery and Finances (London 1864) ;
J. H. Browne, Four Years in Secessia (Hartford 1865) ; R. H. McKim, The
Numerical Strength of the Confederate Army (N. Y. 1912) ; the tide is
sufficient explanation as to the nature of E, D. Fite, Social and Industrial Con-
ditions in the North during the Civil War (N. Y. 1910) ; T. L. Livermore,
Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, 1861-1865 (Boston 1901) ;
Dicey, Six Months in the Federal States. See a biography of Chase, Fessen-
den, Stevens, or Trumbull, as well as Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, and Works.
J. B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary (2 vols., Phila. 1866), a day by day
diary of a Confederate clerk in Richmond who recorded what may be found
in the newspapers. He was not on the "inside" ; Kathleen Bruce, Virginia
Iron Manufacture in the Slave Era (N. Y. 1931).

The working of the Confederate Congress may be understood better by
reading the proceedings of the Congress of the Confederate States as pub-
lished in Southern Historical Papers (Richmond), VIII, IX, covering the
sessions Sept. i, 1862, to Jan. 28, 1863.

Difficulties which beset the Southern Confederacy over state rights are
explained in F. L. Owsley, State Eights and the Downfall of the Confederacy.

3. JEFFERSON DAVIS :

Of the many works on Jefferson Davis, possibly William E. Dodd, Jeffer-
son Davis (Phila. 1907), is the most satisfactory, but it is sometimes too sym-
pathetic. The same author has a fine summary of Davis (171-239) in States-
men of the Old South (N. Y. 1911). Other works are Mrs. Varina Davis,
Jefferson Davis, ex-President of the Confederate States: A Memoir (z vols.,
N. Y. 1890) ; Oliver Dyer, Personal Recollections of Jefferson Davis (N. Y,
1889) ; E. A. Pollard, Life of Jefferson Davis (Phila. 1869) ; F. A. Alfriend,
Life of Jefferson Davis (Cincinnati 1868), written too close to the scene of
war to be accurate in judgment ; Elizabeth Cutting, Jefferson Davis Political
Soldier (N. Y. 1930).

CHAPTER VII : DIPLOMACY
i. RELATIONS BETWEEN NORTH AND SOUTH AND EUROPE :

E. D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War (2 vols., 1931),
scholarly, and the best on this particular subject ; Hosmer, The American
Civil War (1913) L, ch. 20, treats the subject from 1861 to 1863 ; Hosmer,
Outcome of Civil War, ch. 10, brings it to a close ; Stephenson, Lincoln and
the Union) chs. 8, 12 ; McMaster, Lincoln Ad7ninistration, chs. 5, 6, 7, 208-211,
chs. 12, 13, 15, 22 ; Rhodes, History, III, 502-543 ; IV, ch. 22 j Jordan and
Pratt, Europe and the American Civil War; West, Contemporary French
Opinion on the American Civil War (Baltimore 1924) ; Thomas, Russo-
American Relations, 1815-1867 (N. Y. 1930) ; Bonham, The British Consuls
in the Confederacy (N. Y. 1911) ; Schouler, History, VII, ch, i, sec. 6, 13 ;
ch. 2, sec. 6; Channing, History ', VI, ch. 12 ; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union,

504 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

ch, 9 ; same, Lay of the Confederacy, chs; 3, 8 ; P. F. Martta, Maximilian in
Mexico (N. Y. 1913) ; J. D. Bulloch, Secret Service of the Confederate States.

Very usable brief accounts of diplomacy are: C. R. Fish, American Di-
plomacy (N. Y. 1923, revised), chs, 22-24; Jonn **. Latane, A History of
American Foreign Policy (N. Y. 1927), chs. 15-18; J. W. Foster, A Century
of Diplomacy (Boston 1902), ch. 10 ; J. R. Soley, Blockade and the Cruisers
(N. Y. 1898) ; S. F. Bemis (ed.), The American Secretaries of State and
Their Diplomacy (10 vok, N. Y. 1927-1929) ; B. Villiers and W. H. Chesson,
Anglo-American Relations 1861-1865 (London 1919), John R. Russell, ist
Earl, The Correspondence of Lord John Russell, 1840-1878 & vols., London
1925) ; T. L. Harris, America and England, 1861 (Baldwin City, Kansas, The-
sis, 1928).

Civil War diplomacy and foreign relations may be found in tedious chrono-
logical order intermixed with other events in Thorpe, The Civil War and
the National View; Cole, The Irrepressible Conflict 1850-1865 hardly recog-
nizes foreign relations ; nor does Shotwell, in his American Civil War ; scat-
tering pages may be found in Adams, America's Tragedy.

J. M. Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy should be
read entire. See also S. S. Cox, Three Decades, chs. 13, 14, and his South in
the Building of the Nation, IV, 525-543 ; The Cambridge Modern History,
XII, ch. 2. Of special value is Owsley, King Cotton and Diplomacy (Chicago
1931). Add to these such biographical works containing one or more chap-
ters on diplomacy or foreign relations as C. F. Adams, Charles Francis Adams
(N. Y. 1900), chs. 10-13, 17, one of our first-rate diplomats; John Bigelow,
Retrospections of an Active Life (5 vols., N. Y. 1908), our ambassador to
France; T. W. Barnes, Memoir of Tburlow Weed (Boston 1884), 348-417,
for Weed's reflections on his trip abroad ; F. W. Seward, Seward at Wash-
ington as Senator and Secretary of State ; the franker work by Frederic Ban-
croft, Life of William H, Seward; the brief T. K. Lothrop, William H.
Seward, in American Statesmen series; Seward, The Diplomatic History of
the War for the Union (vol. V of the Works of William H. Seward, edited
by G. E« Baker). A biography as a result of thorough study and use of all
the Seward papers remains undone. L. M. Sears, John Slidell (Durham 1925),
an impartial biography; Virginia Mason, James M. Mason (1903), chs. 7-20;
Gideon Welles, Lincoln and Senior d, and his Diary ; John M. Forbes, Letters
and Recollections (Boston 1899), II, chs. 14, 15 ; Carl Schurz, Reminiscences,
II, 276-326 ; Storey, Simmer, ch. 15.

T. L. Harris, The Trent Affair (Indianapolis 1896), is a careful summary
of that event.

A standard and indispensable compilation is William M. Mallory, Treaties,
Conventions, International Acts, "Protocols and Agreements between the United
States and other Powers (2 vols., Washington 1910) ; John Bassett Moore,
Digest of International Law as embodied . . . especially m Documents . . ,
of the United States (Washington 1887) ? F- M. Wharton, Digest of Interna-
tional Law of United States (Washington 1906) ; Papers Relating to Foreign
Affairs for the years 1861-1864 ; Senate Executive Documents, and House
Executive Documents; Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States for
the years 1861-1870 ; Richardson's Messages and Papers, VI, and for the Con-
federacy, II ; British and Foreign State Papers, LV ; American Annual Cy-
clopedia, 1861-1865 ; and Staatsarchh I-V ; Theo. Woolsey, International Law
(N. Y. 1891) ; Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law ; Montague
Bernard, Historical Account of the Neutrality of Great Britain (N. Y. 1870) ;

BIBLIOGRAPHY 505

John Bigelow, France and the Confederate Navy (N. 'S 1888) ; Travers
Twiss, Law of Nations in Time of War, chs. 6, 10-12.

From the British point of view see John Bright, Speeches on the American
Question (N* Y. 1879). The intellectual Goldwin Smith maintains in At-
lantic Monthly, vol. 89, March 1902, that England was justified in her attitude
toward the U. S. in 1861 ; James P. Baxter, "Some British Opinion as to
Neutral Rights 1861-1865," in Am. Jour. bit. Law, XVIII, 517-537 ; A. C.
Wilgus, "Some Typical London Times Views of the Southern Confederacy,"
Tyler's Quar. Hist, and Gen. Mag., VII, 169-175 ; Leo F. Stock, "Catholic
Participation in the Diplomacy of the Southern Confederacy," in Cath. Hist.
Rev., XVI, 1-18, an account of how Father Bannon of St. Louis and Bishop
Lynch of Charleston tried to win the sympathy of Ireland for the South ;
Lord Newton, Lord Lyons (2 vols., N. Y. 1913) ; John Morley, Life of Wil-
liam Evert Gladstone (3 vols., N. Y. 1912) ; Walpole, Life of Lord John
Russell (2 vols., London 1889) ; Maxwell, Life and Letters of the Earl of
Clarendon (N. Y. 1913).

On Russian-Ajnerican relations, see E. A. Adamov, "Russia and the United
States at the time of the Civil War," in Jour. Mod. Hist., II, 586-602 ; same,
"Documents Relating to Russian Policy during the American Civil War" ;
same, 603-611. Another view is presented by J. E. Pratt, "Spanish Opinion
of the North American Civil War," in Hisp. Am. Hist. Rev., X, 14-25, based
on six leading Spanish newspapers. John H. Kiger has published an article
on "Federal Government Propaganda in Great Britain during the Civil War,"
in Hist. Outlook, XIX, 204-209.

CHAPTER VIII : THE ANACONDA AND THE UNICORN

Hosmer, The Outcome, ch. 10; Charming, History, VI, ch. 16; Rhodes,
History, III, 609-614, IV, parts of ch. 17, and scattered pages in other chap-
ters. On blockade running, Rhodes, IV, 396-403. Shotwell, Civil War, II,
chs. 38, 54 ; Wood, Captains of the Civil War, chs. 3, 4, 9, readable, accurate ;
E. D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War is by far the best
on this subject, scholarly, unbiased, accurate, readable.

On the Confederate navy turn to John Bigelow, France and the Confederate
Navy (N. Y. 1888) ; E. S. Maclay, History of the United States Navy from
1715-1902 (2 vols., N. Y. 1902) ; A. T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters
and F. M. Bennet, The Monitor and the Navy under Steam (Boston 1900)
are useful little books. The Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa
Fox should certainly be used by student and researcher. On monitors is a
i2o-page report in Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War
for 1865, vol. III. In a compendious volume of double-columned pages Ad-
miral D, Porter published about as reliable as any work on the navy, Incidents
and Anecdotes of the Civil War (N. Y. 1886). For excellent colored pic-
tures see C. B. Boynton, History of the Navy during the Rebellion (2 vols.,
N. Y. 1868). In his usual meticulous detail, J. T. Scharf sets forth the ex-
ploits of the Confederate navy in his History of the Confederate States Navy
(N. Y. 1894), The official reports of the Secretary of the Navy and reports
to committees in Congress supply valuable information on types of vessels,
costs, and reasons for the loss of engagements. For this same general type
of information see the volumes of the Official Records of the Union and Con-
federate Navies; F. B. C. Bradlee, Blockade Running during the Civil War
and the Effect of "Land and Water Transportation on the Confederacy (Salem,

506 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Mass., 1925). The Northern navy was perforce involved in the cotton trade
blockade. Sellew Roberts, "The Federal Government and Confederate Cot-
ton," in Am. Hist. Rev., XXXII, 262-275, points out the double policy of the
federal government; Wm. M. Robinson, The Confederate Privateers (New
Haven 1928) ; Sellew Roberts, "High Prices and the Blockade in the Con-
federacy," in South Atlantic Quarterly, XXIV, 154-163 ; R- E>- Steuart, "The
Long Arm of the Confederacy," in Conned. Vet., XXXV, 250-253, on how the
Confederacy got its cannon.

For special accounts the following may prove useful : Roberts [Hobart-
Hampden] Never Caught (N. Y. 1908) ; James D. Bulloch, Secret Service of
the Confederate States in Europe (2 vols., Boston 1883) ; Raphael Semmes,
Service Afloat (Baltimore 1869), a story of the destruction of American com-
merce by the captain of the Alabama; John Wilkinson, Narrative of a Block-
ade Runner (1887) ; H. W. Wilson, Iron-dads in Action (2 vols., Boston
1896), and C. E. Hunt, The Shenandoah (N. Y. 1910).

BIOGRAPHICAL :

A. T. Mahan has given his Farragut (N. Y. 1892), one of the best in the
Commander series, and there is Loyall Farragut, David G. Farragut (N. Y.
1879) 5 J- M- Hoppin, Life of Admiral Foote (N. Y. 1874), *s we^ worth read-
ing, although the religious, frank, opinionated, satellite of Chase was not equal
to Farragut in war prowess; Gideon Welles, Diary, needs no further com-
ment on its value.

CHAPTER IX : THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS

One of the most usable, accurate, and unbiased is Hosmer, Appeal to Arms,
chs. 2, 3, 5 ; Shannon, Organization of the Union Army, I ; Rhodes, History,
III, ch. 15 ; Charming, History, VI, 287-294, 398-436 ; Shotwell, Civil War, I,
chs. n, 30; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union, ch. 9; Carman, Soc. and EC.
Hist. II, 537-549 ; Wood, Captains of the Civil War, ch. 2, entitled "The
Combatants,'* is one of the best for the general reader ; C. C Anderson,
Fighting by Southern Federals (N. Y. 1912), describes the assistance given
the North by Southern Unionist soldiers ; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, ch. 18 ;
M. A. De Wolfe Howe (ed.), Marching^ With Sherman (Letters of Henry
Hitchcock, New Haven 1930) ; F. L. Huidekoper, The Military Unprepared-
ness of the United States (N. Y. 1930) ; and the special study of military
problems of the Confederacy are discussed in A. H. Mencely, The War De-
partment: 1 86 1 (N. Y. 1928), a Columbia University Study, No. 300; J. D.
Hicks, "Organization of the Volunteer Army in 1861 with Special Reference
to Minnesota," in Minn. Hist. Bui., Feb. 1918, 324-368 ; W. S. Moore, "The
Rush to Arms in 1861," in Annals of Iowa, I ; A. B. Casselman, "The Numeri-
cal Strength of the Confederate Army," the Cenmry Magazine, Mar. 1892,
Cr. Hist., Jan. 1923, and the reply, Cr. Hist., April 1924 ; F. H. Hart, "Numeri-
cal Strength of the Confederate Army," in Cr. Hist., XXV, Oct. 1926, and
A. H. Jennings, "Confederate Forces in the Civil War," Cr. Hist., XX, 113-
115 ; G. P. Thurston's article on "Numbers and Rosters of the Two Armies,"
was published in the Olympian Mag., Nashville, Tenn., Nov. 1903. These
articles should be read in conjunction with R. H. McKim's The Numerical
Strength of the Confederate Army (N. Y. 1912); F. A. Shannon, "The Mer-
cenary Factor in the Creation of the Union Army," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev.,
523-549» OI* bounties and substitutes ; R. D. Steuart, "How Johnny Got

BIBLIOGRAPHY 507

his Gun," in Confed. Vet^ XXXII, 166-169 ; Thos. R. Hay, "The South and
the Arming of the Slaves," Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., VI, 34-73 ; A. B. Moore,
Conscription and Conflict in the Confederacy (N. Y. 1924) and J. C Schwab,
The Confederate States of America: A Financial and Industrial History
(N. Y. 1901).

BIOGRAPHICAL :

On General P. G. T. Beauregard read Alfred Roman, General Beauregard
1861-1865 (2 vols., N. Y. 1883), an exhaustive study. The best work on Gen-
eral Ulysses Grant is his Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, "one of the most
remarkable works of its kind," wrote Professor Channing ; others by Coolidge,
Dana, Wilson, Church, Brooks, Garland, Minnegerode, Bedeau, W. B. Hessel-
tine (N. Y. 1935). The best of the Grant biographies are Hesseltine and
Coolidge, but Minnegerode's is delightfully interesting. A useful article is
Anna M. Green, "Civil War Public Opinion of General Grant," in III. State
Soc. Journ., XXII, April, 1-6 ; J. F. C. Fuller has a comparatively new book,
entitled The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant (London 1929) ; Lytle Brown,
"U. S. Grant — An Example of Leadership," in Military Engineer, XX, 502-511.

General Joseph E. Johnston tells his own story in his Narrative of Military
Operations, and reveals some of himself — one of the ablest generals of the
war. For another view of Johnston, read R. M. Hughes, General Johnston
(N. Y. 1893) and B. T. Johnson, Johnston (1891). A. P. James has an article
and a thesis abstract that should be included in a bibliography on the Civil
War : the first, "General Joseph E. Johnston Storm Center of the Confederate
Army," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev^ XIV, 342-359, and the second, "Jefferson
Davis and His Generals : A Study in the Breakdown of Unity of Command
in the Confederacy," in Chicago U. Humanistic series, III, 191-198.

General Lee left no autobiography or memoir, unfortunately, but there is
Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by his Son, Captain
Robert E. Lee (N. Y. 1904), largely of letters to his family that throw light
on his thought and character; also, there is Lee's Dispatches by W. J. de
Renne of Wormsloe, Georgia, (1915) ; the adequate and most outstanding
biography of Lee is Douglas S. Freeman, R. E. Lee (4 vols., N. Y. 1935).
Two other readable volumes were written by J. E. Cooke and T. N. Page.
That of A. L. Long, Memoirs of Robert E. Lee (Boston 1899), J. W. Jones,
Personal Reminiscences of Gen. Robert E. Lee (N. Y. 1875), and Fitzhugh
Lee, General Lee (Great Commander series, N. Y. 1894) J Robert E. Lee, the
Soldier (Boston 1925), may be added to the list. Wm. E. Dodd, Lincoln or
Lee, Comparison and Contrast of the two Greatest Leaders in the War Be-
tween the States (N. Y. 1928), is an interesting litde book by a Southerner
for many years a resident in a Northern university.

General W. T. Sherman has left us his Personal Memoirs (2 vols., 2nd ed.,
N. Y. 1886) which he wrote with the aid of documents, letters, and news-
papers. Some of it aroused bitter controversial discussion upon its appear-
ance. Professor Hosmer described it as "brusque, straightforward , . . con-
cealing nothing." In the Great Commander series is M. E. Force, General
Sherman (N. Y. 1899), an^ only recently came the lighter-veined Lewis
Lloyd, Sherman, Fighting Prophet (N, Y. 1932) ; B. H. Hart in his Sherman,
Soldier Realist^ American (N. Y. 1929) claims Sherman to have been the
most original genius of the war. Gamaliel Bradford, Confederate Portraits
(Boston 1914) are unexcelled brief character sketches by one who was
thoroughly familiar with the Official Records, probably more than any other
author.

508 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER X : THE CRASH OF BATTLE

For extensive reading, profitable to student and layman, Hosmer, Appeal to
Arms, chs. 4, 6-7, 9-13, 15-19; The Outcome, chs. 2-3, 5-7, 11-12, 14, 17;
chs. 1 8 and 19 in Appeal to Arms are on Gettysburg and Vicksburg, respec-
tively. Hart, Contemporaries, IV, chs. 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, pp. 221-224; Chan-
ging, History, VI, chs. 14, 15, 18 ; T. A. Dodge, A Bird's Eye View of the
Civil War (Boston 1807) ; Rhodes, History, III, ch. i<5 ; all of vol. IV (1913)
and V, chs, 24, 25 ; Shotwell, Civil War, I, chs. 13-24, 26-29, II, 32-36, 39-41,
43-45, 47-50, 52-53, 55 ; Wood, Captains of the Civil War, chs. 6, 7, 8, 10, 11,
12, ch. 7 being on Vicksburg, ch. 8 on Gettysburg; Adams, America's Trag-
edy, chs, 6-9 ; J. B. Young, The Battle of Getty sburg (N. Y. 1913), also F. A.
Haskell, Battle of Gettysburg (Madison 1908).

The diaries and letters of Bates, Chase, and Welles are available in pub-
lished form. De Alva Stanwood Alexander, A Political History of the State
of New York (2 vols., N. Y. 1906) is of- more than state interest. Histories
of the various states have valuable chapters on the Civil War, giving particular
attention to the. part played by the states. Among many see Esary's Indiana,
Shoemaker's Missouri, Scharf s Maryland, McElroy, Kentucky, Phelan, Ten-
nessee, E. H. Roseboom and F. P. Weisenburger, History of Ohio (N..Y.
1934) a clear summary, and Randall and Ryan's Ohio.

Noah Brooks, Washington m Lincoln's Time (N. Y, 1895) is delightful
reading. E. A. Pollard, The Lost Cause ; W, B. Hesseltine, Civil War Prisons
— A Study in War Psychology (Columbus, Ohio, 1930), clear, searching, an
honest work ; J. S. Pike, First Blows of the Civil War (N. Y. 1879) ; Sarah
A. Putnam, Richmond during the War (N. Y. 1867). One of the best books
on the war is Colonel T. L. Livermore, Days and Events', 1860-1866, prac-
tically original material. In the same class is Col. Theo. Lyman's letters to
his wife (1863-1864), Geo. R. Agassiz (ed.), entitled Meade's Headqitarters
Letters from the Wilderness to Appomattox (Boston 1922).

On the part played by the negro, see T. W. Higginson, Army Life in a
Black Regiment (Boston 1862) ; M. G. McDougal, Fugitive Slaves (161 9-1865)
(Boston 1891) ; G. W. Williams, History of Negro Troops in the War of the
Rebellion (N. Y. 1888) ; Henry Wilson, Rise and Fall, of the Slave Power in
America.

No history of the Civil War is complete without considerable attention
paid to the work of the women behind the lines. On this subject there are
among others the worthy Brockett and Vaughan, Woman's Work m the
Civil War (Boston 1867) and Underwood, The Women of the Confederacy
(N. Y. 1906) ; Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (Boston 1890),
336-341. Women played an important role in the work of the U. S. Sanitary
Commission, raising funds and supplies for the soldiers ; for a narrative of
the work of this important commission see Stille, History of the United States
Sanitary Commission (Phfla. 1866).

Behind-the-lines social relief is described in C. R. Fish's article, "Social re-
lief in the Northwest during the Civil War," Am. Hist. Rev^ XXII, 309-324 ;
Evelyn Lundegren, "Social Relief Work in New England During the Civil
War" (Worcester, Clark U, Abstract, 1930) ; John M. Palmer, "President
Lincoln's War Problem," in ///. State Hist. Soc. Journ., 1927, 41-53, is con-
cerned with Lincoln's military policy ; in this same connection in the same
publication is J. T. Dorris, "President Lincoln's Clemency," 1928, 547-568;
see, also, C. R. Ballard, The Military Genius of Abraham Lincoln ; cm Essay

BIBLIOGRAPHY 509

(London 1926) and J. T. Dorris, Pardon and Amnesty During the CM War
and Reconstruction (Urbana, thesis abstract, 23ppn 1926).

For some special subjects see N. W. Stephenson, "Lincoln and the Progress
of Nationality in the North," in Am. Hist. Rev^ I (1919), 351-363 ; L J.
Phillipson, "General McClellan's Intentions on 25 June, 1862," in Coast Ar-
tillery Journal, LXV, 311-323 ; H. G. Pearson, "Lincoln's Method of Ending
the Civil War," in Mass. Hist. Soc, Proc., LIX, 238-250 ; A. P. James, "The
Strategy of Concentration of the Confederate Forces in the Mississippi Val-
ley in the Spring of 1862," in Am. Hist. Asso. Report for 1919, I, 365-374 ;
Charles Kassell, "Opening the Mississippi — A Civil War Drama," in Open
Court, XV, (Mass.) 1926, 145-154 ; Sir Frederick Maurice, Governments and
War; A Study of the Conduct of War (London 1926), for Davis and J. E.
Johnston, Davis and Lee, Lincoln and McClellan, and Lincoln and Grant ;
A. B. Warfield, "The Quartermaster's Department, 1861-1864," in Quarter-
master Review, VIII, 43-46, a story of the commissary; Thos. G. Frothing-
ham, "The Crisis of the Civil War - Antietam," in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., LVI,
173-208.

BIOGRAPHICAL :

Some of the very best are works by or on Lincoln, Grant, Lee, Sherman,
Johnston, and Geo. B. McClellan. McClelland Own Story (N. Y. 1887) ;
G. S. Hillard, Life and Campaign of G. B. McClellan (Phila. 1865), not criti-
cal; F. A. Walker, General Hancock (N. Y. 1894), a story of an able officer
by an able writer; R. M. Bache, Life of General George Gordon Meade
(Phila. 1897), a biography of a faithful soldier who deserves more recognition,
and L R. Pennycracker, General Meade (N. Y. 1901), in the Commander se-
ries ; a different opinion from that expressed on many questions of war by
many first-rate officers is had in the teacher-general, John M. Schofield,
Forty-six Years in the Army (N. Y. 1897) ; better still, is Philip R. Sheridan,
' Personal Memoirs (2 vols., 1902), a direct, candid story simply told ; of lesser
value, H. E. Davies, General Sheridan (N. Y. 1895), in Commander series;
in addition to these should be mentioned M. J. Wright, General Scott (N. Y.
1894) of the same series ; for an enjoyable story by a literary man and soldier,
read the interesting Lew Wallace, An Autobiography (2 vols., N. Y. 1906) ;
•on the blundering but sincere General Burnside, there is B. P. Poore, Ambrose
E. Burnside (Providence 1882), and for materials on the notorious General
Benj- Butler, turn to Butler's Book (Boston 1892) which is a racy story of
his own ego ; J. D. Cox, Military Reminiscences (2 vols., N. Y., 1900) is re-
liable where not colored by political opinion; Donn Piatt and T. B. Van
Home, General George H, Thomas: A Critical Biography (Cincinnati 1893)
was written while the merits of favorite generals were subjects for debate.
The last chapters of this volume were written by H. V. Boynton. For further
reference on Thomas as a soldier turn to Henry Coppee, General Thomas
(N. Y. 1893), in Commander series ; others are G. F. Dawson, Life and
Services of Gen. John A. Logan (Chicago 1907) ; R. L. Dabney, Life and
Campaigns of General T. J. Jackson (2 vols., New Orleans 1866) ; G. F. R.
Henderson, Stonewall Jackson mid the American Civil War (2 vols., N. Y.
1898) ; M. M, Quaife (ed.), Absalom Grimes, Confederate Mail Runner, edited
from Captain Grimes' Oivn Story (New Haven 1926) should be listed here.

Too much attention was once focused on the military side of the history of
wars. The civilians have for many years been receiving an increasing amount
of attention. la this particular case read appropriate chapters in such works

510 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

as A. B. Hart, Salmon Portland Chase (N. Y. 1899), J. W. Schuckers, Life
and Public Services of Sabnon P. Chase (Cincinnati 1874) ; D. V. Smith,
Chase and Civil War Politics, best for this subject ; R. B. Warden, Account
of the Private Life and Public Services of Salmon Portland Chase (Cincinnati
1874) ; Zachariah Chandler, An Outline Sketch of His Life and Public Serv-
ices (Detroit 1880) ; Moorfield Storey, Charles Simmer (N. Y. 1900) ; A. H.
Grimke, Life of Charles Swnner the Scholar in Politics (N. Y. 1872) ; G. H.
Haynes, Charles Sumner (Phila. 1909) ; E. L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of
Charles Sumner (4 vols., Boston 1877-1893) ; W. E. Smith, The Blair Family
in Politics, II ; biographies of Seward cited elsewhere ; H. G. Pearson, Life
of John A. Andrew (2 vols., Boston 1904) ; W. C. Beecher and S. Scoville,
Biography of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher (N. Y. 1888) ; Paxton Hibben.
Henry Ward Beecher An American Portrait (N. Y. 1927) ; D. S. Muzzey,
Elaine (N. Y. 1934), a Pulitzer prize biography ; E. Stanwood, James Gillespie
Blaine (Boston 1905) ; A. V. G. Allen, Life and Letters of Phillips Brooks (2
vols., N. Y. 1900) ; same, Phillips Brooks, 1835-1893 : Memories of his Life,
with Extracts from his Letters and Note Books (N. Y. 1907) ; Parke Godwin,
A Biography of William Cullen Bryant (N. Y. 1883) ; L. D. Ingersoll, The
Life of Horace Greeleyy Founder of the New York Tribune (Chicago 1873) ;
O. J. Hollister, Life of Schuyler Coif ax (N. Y. 1886) ; E. P. Oberholtzer, Jay
Cooke ; A. M. Coleman, Life of John J. Crittenden ; Edward Gary, George
William Curtis (Boston 1894) ; Claude M. Fuess, The Life of Caleb Gushing
(2 vols., N. Y. 1923), II; biographies of Jefferson Davis by Alfriend, Dodd,
Cutting, Dyer, Varina Davis, Rowland, Pollard ; Francis Tiffany, Life of Dor-
othea Lynde Dix (Boston 1890) ; M. Dix, Memoirs of John A. Dix (2 vols.,
N. Y. 1883) ; J. E. Cabot, Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson (2 vols., Boston
1887) ; Francis Fessenden, Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden
(2 vols., Boston 1907) ; Henry M. Field, Life of David Dudley Field (N. Y.
1898) ; F. J. and W. P. Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison : The Story of his
Life told by his Children (4 vols., N. Y. 1885-1889), and others on Garrison
by Grimke, Johnson; W. O. Stoddard, Life of James A. Garfield (N. Y.
1889) ; Grace Julian Clarke, George W. Julian (Indianapolis 1923) ; G. W.
Julian, Recollections, 1840-1812 (Chicago 1884) 5 W. A. Linn, Horace Greeley
(N. Y. 1903) ; Edward Mayes, Life, Times, and Speeches of Lucius Q. Lamar
(Nashville 1896) ; Thos. S. Perry (ed.), Life and Letters of Francis Lieber
(Boston 1882).

On Lincoln are biographies or reminiscences which most good libraries
have on their shelves, such as those of Nicolay and Hay, Charnwood, Morse,
Chittenden, Raymond, Tarbell, Herndon and Weiks, Lamon, Schurz, Rice,
Rothschild, Hapgood, Arnold, Holden, and Brown.

E. E. Hale, Jr., James Russell Lo'well (Boston 1899), the reader should bear
in mind that biographies of most poets of the Civil War period are meagre in
information on the war ; W. S. Kennedy, John Greenleaf Wbittier the Poet
of Freedom (N. Y. 1892) ; Henry D. Capers, Life and Times of C. G. Mem-
minger (Richmond 1893) ; A. K. McClure, Colonel Alexander McClure's
Recollections of Half a Century (Salem, Mass., 1902) ; F. Bancroft, Speeches,
Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (6 vols., N. Y. 1913) ; F.
Bancroft and A. Dunning, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (3 vols., Garden
City 1908) ; W. D. Foulke, Life of Oliver P. Morton (2 vols., Boston 1879),
very important in Indiana politics ; O. W. Holmes, John Lothrop Motley : A
Memoir (Boston 1879) ; John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years [etc.]
(2 vols., Chicago 1895), especially for financial problems of the North ; George
C. Gorham, Life and Public Services of Edwin M. Stanton (2 vols., Boston

BIBLIOGRAPHY 5 1 1

1899) ; H. Wilson and J. S. Black, A Contribution to History : Edwin M.
Stanton (Easton, Pa., 1871) ; F. A. Flower, Edwin Me Masters Stanton, the
Autocrat [etc.] (Akron, Ohio, 1905) ; Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Ste-
phens in Public and Private (Phila. 1866) ; Louis Pendleton, Alexander H.
Stephens (Phila. 1907) ; J. A. Woodburn, Life of Thaddeus Stevens (In-
dianapolis 1913) ; E. B. Callender, Thaddeus Stevens, Commoner (Boston
1882). S. W. McCall, Thaddeus Stevens (Boston 1900) ; John Bigelow, Life
of Samuel J. Tilden (2 vols., N. Y. 1895) ; P. A. Stovall, Robert Toombs, [etc.}
(N. Y. 1892 ; J. L. Vallandigham, Life of Clement J. Vallandigham (Baltimore
.1872) ; A. G. Riddle, Life of Benjamin F. Wade (Cleveland 1886), of the
Wade-Davis Bill ; John W. DuBose, Life and Times of William Lowndes
Yancey (Birmingham 1892) ; Joseph Hodgson, The Cradle of the Confeder-
acy : or the Times of Troup, Quitnian, and Yancey (Mobile 1876) ; P. S. Flip-
pin, Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia (Richmond 1931) ; John W. Forney,
Anecdotes 0f Public Men (2 vols., N, Y. 1873), interesting sidelights; J. M.
Forbes, Reminiscences of John Murray Forbes (3 vols., Boston 1902), and
Letters of John Murray Forbes (3 vols., Boston 1905) ; S. F. Hughes, Letters
and Recollections of John Murray Forbes (Boston 1899) ; T. C. Smith, Life
and Letters of James Abram Garfield (2 vols., New Haven 1925) ; C. E. Mc-
Cartney, Lincoln and His Generals (Phila. 1925), is biographical and includes
sketches of Lincoln, Scott, Fremont, Butler, McClellan, Sherman, Burnside,
Hooker, Meade, Halleck, and Grant.

CHAPTER XI : EMANCIPATION

1. ON THE POWER OP THE EXECUTIVE AND CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTY:

Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln, excels others on this sub-
ject ; Rhodes, History, III, on the position of slaves and Fremont, 464-476, IV,
60-69, and on the Emancipation Proclamation, 71-76, 157, 163, 212-219, 343-345 ;
on arbitrary acts of the president and action of Congress, 229-241 ; Stephenson,
Lincoln and Union, ch. 7 ; Wood, Captains of Civil War, ch. 5, may be used
for points, i, 5, 6 ; Hosmer, Appeal to Arms, ch. 14 ; on the question of the
power of the executive and military government, read Horace Binney, Privi-
lege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus (1862) ; R. C. Hurd, Treatise on Habeas
Corpus (Ridgway, Pa., 2nd ed. 1876) and John A. Marshall, American Bastile
(Phila. 1869) are useful, but were too close to the scene of conflict; biog-
raphies of Lincoln, Stanton, and Seward are enlightening.

2. ON RADICALS :

Rhodes, History, IV, on Chase, 208-211, 457-459, 479-481 ; Radicals oppose
Lincoln, for Fremont, 461-467 ; Radicals in Congress and factions, 483-487,
518-521, 528-536 ; Channing, History, VI, 379-383, 392-394. A very good idea
of what Radicals in Congress were thinking may be found in The Report of
the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War (1863, 1865) ; a critical essay,
"The Committee on the Conduct of the Civil War" by W. W. Pierson is in
the Am. Hist. Rev., XXIII, 550-577 ; the reactions of military men to the re-
ports of the C. C. W. are found in G. Meade, Life and Letters of Meade, and
A Reply of Maj.-Gen. William E. Franklin to the Report of the Joint Com-
mittee of Congress on the Conduct of the War (N. Y. 1863), and in the Con-
gressional speeches of General Frank Blair (Cong. Globe, 1863-1864) ; HoDis-
ter, Coif ax ; Smith, Blair Family in Politics, II, 195-227, and chs, 35, 36, 39, 40,

512 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

a story of the struggle of conservatives and radicals for political power ; a se-
vere arraignment of the Radicals is in Montgomery Blair's pamphlet, Speech
of the Hon. Montgomery Blair (Postmaster-General} on the Revolutionary
Schemes of the Ultra Abolitionists and Defense of the Policy of the President,
[etc.] 1863; same, Proscription in Maryland (1866) ; same, Address at Clarks-
ville, Md. (1865) ; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, 303-306 ; George C. Sellery,
Lincoln's Suspension of Habeas Corpus as Viewed by Congress (Madison,
Wisconsin, 1907. Bulletin of U. of Wisconsin, No. 149) ; James G. Randall,
"Lincoln in the Role of a Dictator," in South Atlantic Quarterly, XXVIII,
236-252 ; Wm. Salter, Life of James W. Grimes (N. Y. 1876) ; A. C. Cole,
"Lincoln and the American Tradition of Civil Liberty," in 111. State Hist. Soc.
Journal, XIX, 102-114. On the press in the War, see H. Babcock, "The Press
and the Civil War," in Journalism Quarterly, VT, 1-5 ; Thos. F. Carroll, "Free-
dom of Speech and the Press During the Civil War," in Virginia La<w Review,

3. COPPERHEADS AND NEED OF DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP :

Without Douglas the Democrats were nearly leaderless in politics as well as
in literary ability. A Douglas Democrat expressed himself in "The Diary of
a Public Man," The North Am. Rev., CXXIX, 125-140, 259-273, 375~388, 484-
496; August Belmont, Letters, Speeches, and Addresses of August Belmont
(1890), contains Democratic documents of the National Democratic Commit-
tee. One phase of George B. McClellan's political activities are briefly de-
scribed by B. C. Birdsall, "McClellan and the Peace Party," in The Century
Magazine, XVII, 638-639, and in biographies of McClellan by J. H. Campbell
and McClellan. J. L. Vallandigham's biography of his brother is a brotherly
treatise and we may welcome heartily Professor C. H. Coleman's forthcoming
biography of C. L. Vallandigham ; The Record of C. L. Vallandigham (Co-
lumbus, Ohio, 1863) is better than the biography, but it ends with 1863 ; an
interesting article by A. J. Wall, "The Administration of Gov. Horatio Sey-
mour during the War of the Rebellion and the Draft Riots in New York City,
July 13-17, 1863, With the Events Leading up to Them," is in N. 7. Hist. Sot.
Bui., XII, 79-115; Albert Matthews, "Origin of Butternut and Copper head,"
in Col. Soc. of Mass. Publications, XX, 205-237 ; Paul E. Smith, "First Use of
Term Copperhead," in Am. Hist.' Rev., XXXII, 799-800 ; John P. Pritchett,
"Michigan Democracy in the Civil War," Mich. Hist. Mag., XI, 92-109.

Rhodes, History, IV, 224-227, 245-253, 322-332, 412-415; Channing, History,
VI, 592-594 ; Shotwell, Civil War, I, ch. 25, on Vallandigham, ch. 30 ; Benton,
The Movement for Peace Without Victory during the Civil War (Cleveland
1918), supplemented by Kirkland, Peacemakers, are most comprehensive.

4. POSITION OF BORDER STATESMEN :

Channing, History, VI, ch. 13, border state problems ; Rhodes, History, III,
389-394 ; Shotwell, II, ch. 42 ; E. C. Smith, The Borderland in the Civil War
(N. Y. 1927), and turn to biographical works in chapter 10.

5. ANTI-SLAVERY LEGISLATION, NORTHERN AID OF THE NEGRO AND EXPLOITATION
OF FREEDMEN.

Channing, History, VI, 524-540 ; W. L. Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox,
ch. 3 ; Hosmer, Appeal to Arms, ch. 14 ; same, The Outcome, ch. 8 ; Elizabeth
H. Botume, First Days Amongst the Contrabands (Boston 1893) ; James G.
Randall has a careful study of the Confiscation Acts, "The Confiscation of

BIBLIOGRAPHY 5 1 3

Property during the Civil War" (Indianapolis 1913) ; as to the enforcement
of these acts the report of the Secretary of the Treasury on finances (1864),
printed in House Documents, 38th Cong., 2nd Sess., Ex. Doc., VII, No. 3.

6. EMANCIPATION AND SHIFT OF LINCOLN'S POSITION :

Rhodes, History, IV, 71-73, 157; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, ch. 21 ; Rich-
ardson, Messages and Papers, V ; Charming, History, VI, 524-545 ; Shotwell,
Civil War, II, ch. 42. Any good biography of Lincoln will have an appropri-
ate chapter on this subject. Hosmer, Appeal to Arms, ch. 14 ; same, Outcome,
chs. 8, 13 ; Storey, Summer, ch. 12 ; Allan Nevins, Fremont, the West's Greatest
Adventurer (2 vols., N. Y. 1928) , II, presents an interesting story of Fremont's
part in the emancipation movement; W. E. Smith, "Blairs and Fremont,*
Mo. Hist. Rev^ XXIII ; Smith, Blair Family in Politics, II, ch. 30.

7. ELECTIONS OF 1862 :

Rhodes, History, IV, 163-173 ; Smith, Blair Family in Politics, II, 207-226 ;
W. A. Harbison, The Opposition to President Lincoln Within the Republi-
can Party (Urbana 1930), a study of political conflict during the War.

CHAPTER XII : VICTORY

1. LINCOLN AND THE STATES ; DAVIS AND THE STATES :

Read chapters on this subject in good biographies of Lincoln and Davis.
Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln ; Rhodes, IV, 229-241 ; Ste-
phenson, Lincoln and the Union, ch. 7 ; Hosmer, Outcome, chs. 13, 14. There
are Columbia University studies of state politics during the Civil War which
are helpful in studying this subject; they are published by the Faculty of
Political Science, and are entitled as a whole, Studies in History, Economics,
and Public Law. Among others are : S. D. Brummer, Political History of
New York State during the Period of the Civil War (N. Y. 1911) ; M. Dilla,
The Politics of Michigan, 1865-1878 (N. Y. 1912) ; E. E. Ware, Political Opin-
ion in Massachusetts during Civil War and Reconstruction (N, Y. 1916) ;
G. H. Porter, Ohio Politics during the Civil War Period (N. Y. 1911). Also
see Stevens, Lincoln and Missouri; Cole, The Era of the Civil War in Cen-
tennial History of Illinois, III ; Alexander, New York ; Randall and Ryan,
Ohio; Smith, Chase and Ohio Politics. A Republican point of view is set
forth in H. C. McDougal, "A Decade of Missouri Politics,*' in Mo. Hist. Rev.,
Ill, 126-153 ; S. B. Laughlin, "Missouri Politics during the Civil War," in Mo.
Hist. Rev., XXIII-XXXIV; J. F. Philips, "Hamilton Brown Gamble and
the Provisional Government of Missouri," in Mo. Hist. Rev,, V ; S. B. Hard-
ing, "Missouri Party Struggles in the Civil War Period," in Annual Report
of Am. Hist. Asso., I.

2. CONSTITUTIONAL DISCUSSIONS OF THE PERIOD :

For the Confederacy see Curry, Civil History of the Confederate Govern-
ment; Owsley, "Local Defense and the Overthrow of the Confederacy," in
Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., XI, 490-525 ; Dabney, Defence of Virginia ; Davis,
Rise and Fall; P. C. Gentz (pseudonym for B. J. Sage), Republic of Repub-
lics; W. A. Dunning summarizes the question in an article entitled "Disloy-
alty in Two Ways," in Am. Hist. Rev^ XXIV, 625-630 ; F. A. Shannon, "State
Rights and the Union Army," in Miss. Valley Hist. Rev., XII, 51-71 ; L O.

514 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Foster, The Relation of the State of Illinois to the Federal Government Dur-
ing the Civil War (Urbana, 111., abstract of thesis, 1926). The Northern side
is presented in Boutwell, Constitution of the United States at the End of the
First Century (Boston 1895) ; Joel Parker, Constitutional Law with Reference
to the Present Condition of the United States (1862) ; W. Whiting, War
Powers of the Government under the Constitution of United States (Boston
1864). For further reading see bibliography for chapter XVI.

3. MILITARY GOVERNORS AND LINCOLN'S PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION :

Any good biography of Lincoln such as Nicolay and Hay, Charnwood,
Lamon's Recollections of Lincoln, Tarbell, Morse, and Stephenson. W. L.
Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox, ch. 6; Hosmer, Outcome, 133-135 ; H. Wil-
son, Military Measures of the United States Congress 1861-65 (N. Y. 1866) ;
Horace Binney, Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus, and Marshall, Amer-
ican Bastile.

4. ELECTIONS OF 1864 :

Rhodes, History, VI, ch. 19; Channing, History, VI, 581-611; Shotwell,
Civil War, II, ch. 51 ; Stephenson, Lincoln and Union, ch. 13, a very readable
chapter ; Hosmer, Outcome, ch. 9 ; Kirkland, Peacemakers, ch. i ; Smith, Blair
Family in Politics, II, ch. 36 ; Harbison, Opposition to Lincoln ; T. Aaron
Levy, Lincoln the Politician.

5. LINCOLN'S LIFE AT THE WHITE HOUSE AND His CHARACTER :

See biographies mentioned elsewhere, and read Noah Brooks, Washington
in Lincoln's Time; F. F. Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln
(N. Y. 1886) ; F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House 'with Abraham
Lincoln (N. Y. 1867) ; L. E. Chittenden, Personal Reminiscences, 1840-1880
(N. Y. 1893) 5 Col. W. H. Crook, "The Home Life of Lincoln," in Sat. Eve.
Post, June 4, 1910; Elizabeth Kecldey, Behind the Scenes (N, Y. 1868), for-
merly a slave, but later a modiste and friend to Mrs. Lincoln ; A. T. Rice,
Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of his Time (N. Y.
1888), and other biographies listed in chapter IV.

6. PEACE MISSIONS AND NEGOTIATIONS :

Kirkland, Peacemakers, chs. 2-5 ; Smith, Blair Family in Politics, II, ch. 37,
see the bibliography for letters, pamphlets, on the Blairs ; Nicolay and Hay,
Lincoln, A History, and W. R. Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay
(2 vols., Boston 1914) may be used on the Niagara Conference, but Thayer's
Hay, based mostly on Hay's diary, is biased against Greeley ; an essay "The
Peace Conference at Niagara Falls in 1864," by F. H. Severance was published
in the Buffalo Hist. Soc. Pub., XVIII, 79-94. For the Jaquess-Gilmore mission
to Richmond read "Our Visit to Richmond," "Our Last Day in Dixie," and
"A Suppressed Chapter of History," by J. R. Gilmore, Atlantic Monthly ,
XIV, 372-383, 715-726, LIX, 425-448. The New York and Richmond daily
papers carry accounts, many of which are guesses at the truth.

On the Hampton Roads Conference read Smith, Kirkland, Nicolay and Hay,
Stephens, Official Records, and Hunter's account in Southern Historical Pa-
pers, HI, 168-176 ; Jno. A. Campbell, "The Hampton Roads Conference," in
Transactions of the Southern Historical Society, I ; same, Reminiscences and
Documents Relating to the Civil War during the Year 186$ (Baltimore 1887) ;
each of these accounts was based on Campbell's memorandum written soon

BIBLIOGRAPHY 515

after the Conference and so the two are quite similar; Benton, The Move-
ment for Peace [etc.] ; for brief account see Rhodes, History, IV, 68-72.

7. ON THE FREMONT-LINCOLN AFFAIR, 1864 :

Nevins, Fremont, The West's Greatest Adventurer, II ; R. J. Bartlett, John
C. Fremont and the Republican Party (Columbus 1930) ; Detroit Post and
Tribune, Zachariah Chandler ; Wm. E. Smith, "The Blairs and Fremont," in
Missouri Hist. Rev^ XXIII, 214-260 ; same, Blair Family in Politics, II.

CHAPTER XIII : THE RUTH OF WAR

1. THE CONSTITUTION AT THE END OF THE WAR :

Use Boutwell ; Judson ; John C. Hurd, The Union-State (1890), a very
scholarly treatise ; J. N. Pomeroy, Introduction to the Constitutional Law of
the United States (Indianapolis 1886) ; Joseph Story, Commentaries on the
Constitution of the United States (4th ed. 1880), and Charles Warren, The
Supreme Court in United States History (2 vols., rev. ed., Boston 1932) ;
James G. Randall, Constitutional Problems Under Lincohi (N. Y. 1926) ex-
amines the measures of the administration which involved significant changes ;
H. S. Burrage, "What led up to the Civil War and what was settled by Lin-
coln in that War," Mass. Hist. Proc., LVII, 365-396. An extended list of
references on the constitutional phases of the war is given in the bibliography
for chapter XVI.

2. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC READJUSTMENT NORTH AND SOUTH :

Stephenson, Lincoln and Union, ch. n, treats briefly and lucidly Northern
life during the war ; same, Day of the Confederacy, chs. 6, 10 ; Emerson Fite,
Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War (N. Y.
1910) is of real value, as is D. R. Dewey's Financial History of the United
States (3d ed. 1907) ; a most readable and useful work on the same subject
but from a biographical viewpoint is E. P. Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke (2 vols.,
Phila. 1907) ; W. H. Russell, My Diary North and South is sincere and
pointed. Add to these references such valuable newspapers of national scope
as the New York Herald and Tribune, and the New Orleans Picxyune and
Richmond Examiner. The Congressional Globe reporting Congressional de-
bates is a mine of information on this subject; W. L. Fleming, Sequel of
Appomattox, chs. i, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12; Hosmer, Outcome, chs. 4, 15, 16.

3. CHURCHES :

The conflict of opinion on slavery and secession had unhappy effects upon
the churches. This subject is briefly discussed by W. L. Fleming, Sequel of
Appomattox, ch. 9. It received lengthy consideration in L. G. VanderVelder,
The Presbyterian Churches and the Federal Union, 1861-1869 (Cambridge
1932) ; C. W. Heathcote, The Lutheran Church and the Civil War (N. Y,
1909) 5 W. W. Sweet, The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Civil War
(Cincinnati 1912),

4. RETURNED SOLDIERS :

W. L. Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox, ch. i ; Bowers, Tragic Era, ch. 3.

516 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

5. COST OF WAR:

See bibliography for chapter XV.

6. FREEDMAN'S BUREAU, ETC.

W. L. Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox, ch. 5 ; P. S. Pierce, The Freedman's
Bureau (Iowa City 1904), in University of Iowa Sttidies, III, No. i, is the
most careful treatment of this subject.

CHAPTER XIV : THE PRESIDENT'S TREATY

1. ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN :

Bowers, Tragic Era, ch. i. Biographies of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay ; Tar-
bell, I ; Barton, II ; Charnwood, Lamon, and many others have descriptions
of this untimely event. John W. Starr, Jr., Lincoln's Last Day (N. Y. 1922)
is detailed, and appended is a very workable bibliography of books on Lincoln.
Harper's Monthly, Sept. 1907 ; Century Magazine, April 1896 ; same, April
1909 ; New York American and Journal, Feb. 7, 1909 ; Success Magazine, April
1003 ; Clara E. Laughlin's The Death of Lincoln (N. Y. 1909) is about as
complete as any, but see O. H. Oldroyd, The Assassination of Abraham Lin-
coln [etc.} (Washington 1901). Rhodes, History, V, 139-147.

2. REACTIONS IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH :

Hosmer, Outcome, ch. 17 ; Nevins, Emergence of Modern America ; Milton,
Age of Hate; Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox ; Dunning, Reconstruction;
Rhodes, History, V, 147-161 ; Bowers, Tragic Era, ch. i.

3. JOHNSON'S AND LINCOLN'S PLANS OF RECONSTRUCTION :

W. L. Fleming, Sequel of Appomattox, chs. 3, 4, recommended for its clear-
ness, readability, and Southern point of view ; William A. Dunning, Recon-
struction, Political and Economic (N. Y. 1907), ch. 3 ; Hosmer, Outcome, chs.
8, 13 ; McCarthy, Lmcolris flan of Reconstruction (1901) is a new angle on
this subject ; Storey, Swnmer, chs. 14, 16 ; Wm. S. Meyers, "The Self-
Reconstruction of Maryland," J. H. U. Studies, XXVII ; H. E. Flack, The
Adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment (Baltimore 1908) ; G. Welles, "Lin-
coln and Johnson" in The Galaxy, April 1872.

4. JOHNSON THE MAN ;

See biographies by Stryker, Winston ; Beale, Critical Year ; Milton, Age
of Hate ; Bowers, Tragic Era ; Storey, Sumner, ch. 19.

5. RADICAL REPUBLICAN RULE :

On the political reconstruction policy of the Republicans in or out of
Congress should first be mentioned, among secondary works, Dunning, Re-
construction Political and Economic, one of the best volumes in the American
Nation series. Practically the entire volume is pertinent to this subject, as is
Fleming's Sequel of Appomattox. Rhodes, History, V, ch. 30, VI, VII;
Woodrow Wilson, History of the American People (5 vols., N. Y. 1902), V,
a brief sketch but an important interpretation by a Virginian. The legal and
political aspects are hardly treated better by anyone than by Burgess, Re-
construction and the Constitution (N. Y. 1902); W. A. Dunning, Essays on

BIBLIOGRAPHY 517

the Civil War and Reconstruction (rev. ed. 1904) is an analysis of some of
the political and administrative developments in the South ; B. B. Kendrick
has published in the Columbia University Studies (N. Y. 1914), LXII, his
study of The Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction ;
Hart, Am. History By Contemporaries, IV, part 7 ; J. A. C. Chandler, South
in Building of the Nation, VI ; P. J. Hamilton, The Reconstruction Period
(Phila. 1906) in History of North America series ; Oberholtzer, Hist, of U. S.
Since the Civil War, vols., I-III ; Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Modern
America (N. Y. 1930) stresses social and economic life in a wealth of facts
organized and well presented ; H. Thompson, The New South (New Haven
1919) ; Philip Alexander Bruce, The Rise of the New South (Phila. 1905) ;
A. B. Faust, The German Element in the United States (2 vols., Boston 1909)
should be used with works by or on Schurz and Koerner, better to under-
stand the great influence of the radical German vote ; Charles Sumner, "Our
Domestic Relation, or How to Treat the Rebel States," Atlantic Monthly,
XII ; Storey, Sumner, chs. 18, 19, 21 ; Lothrop, Seivard, 21 ; other biographies
of Chase, Grant, Sumner, Blairs, Seward, Colfax, Morton, Wade, Stevens ;
James G. Blaine, Twenty Years in Congress [1861-1881] (2 vols., Norwich,
Conn., 1884-86), useful on Congressional politics, though, as would be ex-
pected, it is a partisan account ; Hugh McCulloch, Men and Measures of Half
a Century, Sketches and Comments (N. Y. 1888), uninterestingly told, but
valuable for facts by a participant who was fair-minded ; Davis, Civil War
and Reconstruction in Florida in Col. U. Studies, No. 131 (N. Y. 1913) ; J. G.
de R. Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, in Col. U. Studies,
No. 141 (N. Y. 1914) ; Kendrick, Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen
on Reconstruction, $$th Congress in Col. U. Studies, No. 150 ; Clara M.
Thompson, "Reconstruction in Georgia," Col. U. Studies, No. 154 ; Edith E.
Ware, "Political Opinion in Massachusetts During the Civil War and Re-
construction," in Col. U. Studies, No. 175 (N. Y. 1916) ; Staples, "Recon-
struction in Arkansas," Col. U. Studies, No. 245 ; T. S. Barclay, The Liberal
Republican Movement in Missouri, 1865-1871 (Columbia, Mo., 1926). Among
the best brief secondary works on reconstruction used for text books since
the Civil War are P. L. Haworth, The United States in Our Own Times (N. Y.
1925) ; Louis M. Hacker and B. B. Kendrick, The United States Since 1865
(N. Y. 1932) ; C. R. Lingley and A. R. Foley, Since the Civil War (N. Y.,
3rd ed. 1935) ; N. P. Mead, Development of the United States Since 1865
(N. Y. 1930) ; D. S. Muzzey, The United States of America (2 vols., N. Y.
rev., 1933) ; F. L. Paxson, Recent History of the United States (Boston, rev.
1928) ; L. B. Shippee, Recent American History (N. Y., rev. 1931).

On Andrew Johnson there are some excellent newer interpretations : How-
ard K. Beale, The Critical Year (N. Y. 1930), a searching analysis; Robert
W. Winston, Andrew Johnson, Plebeian and Patriot (N. Y. 1928), delightful
reading, possibly a little careless at times, and given to rehabilitating Johnson's
character and ability as does L. P. Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in
Courage (N. Y, 1929).

On Johnson and the press, one good article exists : Marguerite Hall Alb j erg,
"The New York Press and Andrew Johnson," in So. At. Quar., XXVI, 404-
416, an investigation of the role of the New York press played in the bitter
legislative-executive battle. The racy, partisan story by Claude G. Bowers,
The Tragic Era (Boston 1929) may be mentioned for light reading. Geo.
Fort Milton, The Age of Hate (N. Y. 1930) is so thoroughly documented that
it is recommended both for its content and bibliography on this period ; the
contest between President Johnson and the Radicals in Congress is developed

518 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

with an abundance of illustration and fact by Dewitt, The Impeachment and
Trial of Andrew Johnson (N. Y. 1915) ; Woodward, Meet General Grant,
sheds light on Grant's part in Reconstruction ; H. J. Eckenrode, Rutherford
B. Hayes, Statesman of Reunion (N. Y. 1930) and C. R. Williams, The Life
of Rutherford Eirchard Hayes (2 vols., Boston 1914) bring political recon-
struction as seen through biography to 1876-1880.

The negro side of the story is told by. A. A. Taylor, The Negro in South
Carolina during Reconstruction (Washington 1924), and The Negro in the
Reconstruction of Virginia (Washington 1926) ; W. E. B. Du Bois, Black
Reconstruction (N. Y. 1935) ; S. G. Woodson, The Negro in Our History
(Washington 1922).

On the Southern states during Reconstruction there have been published
such worthy studies as E. M. Coulter, Civil War Readjustment in Kentucky
(Chapel Hill 1926) ; W. W. Davis, Civil War and Reconstruction in Florida
(N. Y. 1913) ; H. J. Eckenrode, History of Reconstruction in Virginia (J. H.
U. Studies, 1904) ; J. W. Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee
(Chicago 1898) ; W. L. Fleming, Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama
(Cleveland 1905) ; J. R. Ficklen, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana (Bal-
timore 1910) ; Ella Lonn, Desertion During the War (N. Y. 1928) ; J. W.
Garner, Reconstruction in Mississippi (N. Y. 1901) ; J. G. de R. Hamilton,
Party Politics in North Carolina 1835-1860 (Chapel Hill 1914) ; C. W. Rams-
dell, Reconstruction in Texas (N. Y. 1910) ; J. S. Reynolds, Reconstruction
m South Carolina 1865-71 ("State Co.," 1905) ; F. B. Sinikins and R. H.
Woody, South Carolina during Reconstruction (Chapel Hill 1931) ; A, A,
Taylor, Negro in South Carolina during the Reconstruction ; D. Y. Thomas,
Arkansas in War and Reconstruction (Little Rock 1926) ; T. S. Staples, Re-
construction in Arkansas (N. Y. 1923) ; C. Mildred Thompson, Reconstruc-
tion in Georgia, Economic, Social, Political 1865-1872 (N. Y. 1915) ; E. C.
Wooley, Reconstruction of Georgia (N. Y. 1901) ; H. C. Warmoth, Politics,
and Reconstruction (N. Y. 1930). The student is referred to Professor Dun-
ning's critical bibliography in his Reconstruction, Political and Economic,
342-357 for further references.

CHAPTER XV : QVIL WAR FINANCES

For the Federal expenses D. R. Dewey, Financial History of the United
States (N. Y., 8th ed. 1922) is standard, although it should be supplemented by
the very searching article by James L. Sellers, "An Interpretation of Civil
War Finance," which clearly reveals the difference in the economic burden
of the war, in Am. Hist. Rev., XXX, 282-297. F°r supplementary statistics
use Culberson's Expenditures of the United States Government 1791-1907
(Washington 1908) ; J. C. Schwab's article, "The Finances of the Confederate
States," in Yale Rev., II, should be read ; a refreshing chapter on the subject
is in Shannon, Economic History of the United States, ch. 17. One of the
most valuable of all the Civil War studies is Owsley's King Cotton Diplomacy
(Chicago 1931). Outstanding is J. C. Schwab, The Confederate States of
America, a Financial and Industrial History of the South during the Civil
War (N. Y. 1901). Tariffs and taxes by the North are discussed in Taussig,
Tariff History of the U. S., 155-171- A delightful story is found in Shotwell,
The Civil War in America, II, ch. 37. See also Channing, History of the U. S.,
VI, and Rhodes, HI ; F. N. Thorpe, The Civil War, scattering citations ; R. A.
Bayley, History of the National Loans of the United States from July 4, 1796
to June 50, i Wo (Washington 1880, in VII, U. S. loth Census), 295-486, de-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 519

scribes each loan and conditions under which it was made ; C. F. Dunbar,
Laws of the United States relating to Currency, and Banking -from 1789 to
1891 (Boston 1891), a reliable and useful handbook of laws, classified and an-
notated ; same, Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking (N. Y. 1896),
ch. 9, on national banking system ; Oberholtzer, Jay Cooke, is valuable for an
understanding of bond flotations. Rather interesting figures are given on costs
behind the lines in C. P. Huse, The Financial History of Boston (Cambridge
1916), ch. 4, and E. L. Bogart, Financial History of Ohio (Urbana 1912),
232-237. Other similar studies might be used profitably. N. W. Stephenson,
Day of the Confederacy, scattering citations, but interesting reading; same,
Lincoln and the Union, ch. 10, good on problems of Secretary Chase ; E. F.
Humphrey, An Economic History of the United States, chs. 26, 27, a valu-
able brief summary ; Carman, Soc. and EC. Hist, of U. S., II, 537-549, 563-576 ;
H. U. Faulkner, Am. EC. Hist., and E. C. Kirkland, A Hist, of Am. EC. Life ;
the Jennings, Coman, Bogart, Lippincott, Humphrey economic histories and
Carman's Soc. and EC. Hist., all deserve special mention for brief accounts ;
a unique contribution is E. D. Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the
North During the Civil War (N. Y. 1910) ; E. Q. Hawk, Economic History
of the South (N. Y. 1934), chs. 14, 15, are clearly written, informative, and
well organized ; McMaster, Hist, of People of U. S. During Lincoln's Admn.,
use index; E. A. Smith, History of the Confederate Treasury (Richmond
1901) is a detailed account; A. S. Bolles, Financial Hist, of the U. S. (3 vols.,
id ed., N. Y. 1886), III, gives older views and figures, and leans toward bank-
ers' view on questions of currency ; A. B. Hepburn, History of Coinage and
Currency in the United States (1915, rev. ed.) ; Hugh McCulloch, Men and
Measures of Half a Century (N. Y. 1888), chs. 15-19; W. C. Mitchell, His-
tory of Greenbacks (Chicago 1903), an authoritative study on the subject
and the economic effects of the use of greenbacks as legal tender — a Chicago
University Decennial Publication ; H. D. Capers, The Life and Times of C. G.
Memmmger (Richmond 1894) is useful for a picture of financial circles in
the Confederacy; William E. Dodd, Robert J. Walker, Imperialist (Lynch-
burg 1915), interesting, but inaccurate in some of its conclusions ; S. P. Chase,
Diary and Correspondence) Warden, Chase, and Schuckers, Life and Services
of Chase; John Sherman, Recollections, 302-309, 329-332; Boutwell, Reminis-
cences; L. Blodget, The Commercial and Financial Strength of the United
States (Phila. 1864) is a strong contemporary argument on the wartime
strength of the Union. Other older works are Adams, Public Debts (N. Y.
1874), Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War (1889), and W. G.
Sumner, American Currency (N. Y. 1874). Articles of real value on special
subjects of the war are : E. M. Coulter, "Effects of Secession upon the Com-
merce of the Mississippi Valley," in M. V. H. R.} III, 275-300, and same,
"Commercial Intercourse with the Confederacy in the Mississippi Valley,"
in same magazine, V, 377-395. A timely, useful study is W. A. Williams,
Robert /. Walker, Financial Agent to Europe, 1863-2864 (Cleveland, Miss.,
1936), a keen analysis of Walker's influence in London in 1863-1864; J. G.
Randall, "Captured and Abandoned Property during the Civil War," in Am.
Hist. Rev., XIX, 65-79; J- W. Million, "Debate on the National Bank Act,".
in Jour. Pol. Econ., II, 1894 ; C. F. Dunbar, "The Direct Tax in 1861," in same,
III, 444-451 ; J. A. Hill, "The Civil War Income Tax," in same, VIII ; L. H.
Gipson has an excellent article in the M. V. H. R., IV, 437-438, entitled, "The
Collapse of the Confederacy" ; J. L. Laughlin wrote a stimulating article for
Atlantic Monthly, LXXXII, 47, on "War and Money, Some Lessons of 1862."
One of the greatest costs of war is in the form of pensions. See J. W.

520 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Oliver, History of the Civil War Military Pensions (Madison 1917), Univ. of
Wis. Bull., No. 844. See also G. F. R. Henderson, The Science of War (N. Y.
1905), especially chs. 8-12.

Source materials may be found in the government documents of the two
sections. The Congressional Globe is necessarily replete with debates and re-
ports on finances of the North. Reports of the Treasury Department, the
Statutes at Large of the U. S., and of the Provisional Government of the
Confederate States, the Official Records of the War of Rebellion, the presi-
dent's messages to Congress, published by Richardson for both sides, are all
indispensable to a thorough study of the financial aspects of the war. To
these should be added the journals of the several legislatures of the states, and
the papers of Chase and Fessenden. To all of these, reference is made else-
where in this bibliography. Much valuable information may be gleaned from
biographical works on prominent characters in the period of the Civil War.

CHAPTER XVI : CONSTITUTIONAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

1. Undoubtedly the most thorough and readable volume on this phase of
the Civil War is James G. Randall, Constitutional Proble?ns Under Lincoln,
which should be read entire ; Burgess, The Civil War and the Constitution,
II, ch. 28, is a brief summary of the "Interpretation of the Constitution Under
the Stress of the Military Events of 1862 and 1863" ; See also his chapters 16,
1 8, 20 on the Emancipation Proclamation ; Thorpe, The Civil War a National
View, has many very useful paragraphs scattered throughout the volume ;
Rhodes, see index; Channing, VI, see index; Dunning, Essays on the Civil
War and Reconstruction, a learned discussion of legal questions which have
affected the Constitution since the war ; same, Reconstruction, Political and
Economic; Warren, Supreme Court in United States History, III, valuable
to any student of the Civil War ; H. L. Carson, The History of the Supreme
Court of the United States (2 vols., Phila. 1902) ; Stephenson, Lincoln and
the Union; H. Taylor, The Origin and Growth of the American Constitu-
tion (N. Y. 1911), 294-296, ch. ii ; Hosmer, Appeal and Outcome; W. R.
Houghton, History of American Politics (Indianapolis 1883), chs. 18, 19, a
factual story of events ; A. C. Cole, The Era of the Civil War, 1848-1870 ;
C. A. de P. Chambrun, The Executive Power in the United States (Lancaster
1874), ch. 10, a discussion of Lincoln's executive power ; C. A. Berdahl, War
Towers of the Executive in the United States (Urbana 1921), in Univ. of 111.
Soc. Studies, DC, Nos. i and 2 ; £. G. Scott, Reconstruction during the Civil
War in the United States of America (N. Y. 1895), discusses mostly the con-
stitutional and legal relations of the states to the Union ; Emory Upton, The
Military Policy of the United States (Washington 1911), the author, a Brevet
Major General in the U. S. Army, devoted much space to a scholarly treatise
on the executive and legislative measures in the Civil War; Wm. Whiting,
War Powers under the Constitution of the United States, useful for facts, but
lacking in judgment; Joel Parker, Habeas Corpus and Martial Law (Cam-
bridge 1861), by a professor in the Harvard Law School who favored the use
of martial law in war time and answered Taney's argument in the Merryman
case. In 1869 he published a work entitled, Three Powers of Government
(N.Y.).

2. For source materials use among others the various Congressional Docu-
ments and Congressional Globe, Richardson's Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, reports of the Secretaries of War and Treasury, Statutes at Large
of the United States of America, War of Rebellion ; Official Records, J. B.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 521

Moore, Digest of International Law; H. V. Ames, State Documents on Fed-
eral Relations (1789-1861) (N. Y. 1907) ; Allen Johnson (ed.), Readings in
American Constitutional History, 1*116-1876 (Boston 1912) ; Edw. McPherson,
The Pol, Hist, of U. S. during the Great Rebellion, a mixed collection of
documents by the clerk of H. R. ; the decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States are , obtainable in the United States Reports; decisions of the
circuit and district courts are found in Federal Cases, a mine of interesting
information ; Diary and Correspondence of Salmon P. Chase ; Blair Papers,
Chase Papers, Stanton Papers, Trumbull Papers, Welles Papers, and Bates
Diary.

3. Biographical works contain a mass of information on many phases of
the constitutional problems arising as a result of the war. Only a few can
be listed here. Jas. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, 2 vols.; G. B. F.
Butler, Butler's Book ; O. O. Howard, Autobiography (2 vols., N. Y. 1907) ;
Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln ; same, Complete Works of Lincoln ; Tarbell, Lin-
coln; Charnwood, Lincoln; F. W. Seward, Reminiscences of a War-time
Statesman and 'Diplomat ; Baker, Works of Seward ; Welles, Diary ; J. A.
Woodburn, The Life of Thaddeus Stevens (Indianapolis 1913) ; Edward El-
liott, Biographical Story of the Constitution, a Study of the Growth of the
American Union (N. Y. 1910) is interesting and useful ; B. C. Steiner, Life
of Taney ; White, Trumbull ; Bancroft, Seward ; McCarthy, Lincoln's Plan
of Reconstruction ; C. W. Smith, Roger B. Taney : Jacksonian Jurist (Chapel
Hill 1936), probably the best on the subject, containing a lengthy bibliography.

4* Among the many articles published in journals are some valuable con-
tributions to the study of the constitutional phases of the war. Reference may
be had to the following : C. D. Douglas, "Conscription and the Writ of
Habeas Corpus during the Civil War," in Hist. Papers, pub. by the Trinity
CoUege Hist. Soc., Durham, N. C., XIV, 1923 ; S. G. Fisher, "Suspension of
Habeas Corpus during the War of the Rebellion," in Pol. Science Quar., Ill,
454-488 ; James Oakes, "Lessons from the Civil War Conscription Acts," in
///. Law Rev., XI, 266-284 ; J. G. Randall, "Some Legal Aspects of the Con-
fiscation Acts of the Civil War," in Am. Hist. Rev., XVIII, 70-96 ; F. A. Shan-
non, "The Mercenary Factor in the Creation of the Union Army," in M. V.
H. R., XII, 523-549. On the subject of martial law read : W. S. Holdsworth,
"Martial Law Historically Considered," in Law Quar. Rev., XVIII, 117-132 ;
Ballantine, "Unconstitutional Claims of Military Authority," in Yale Law
Journal, Jan. 1915 ; J. H. A., "Martial Law," in Am. Law Reg., IX, May 1861,
498-511 ; F. Pollock, "What is Martial Law ?" in Law Quar. Rev., XVIII, 152-
158 ; H. E. Richards, "Martial Law," in Law Quar. Rev., XVIII, 133-142. On
freedom of the press read : J. P. Hall, "Freedom of Speech in War Time,"
in Columbia Law Rev., XXI, 526-537 ; J. G. Randall, "The Newspaper Prob-
lem in Its Bearing upon Military Secrecy during the Civil War," in Am,
Hist. Rev., XXIII, 303-323.

5. Others of value are : Roy F. Nichols, "The United States vs. JefTerson
Davis," in Am. Hist. Rev., XXXI, 266-284 ; A. B. Hart, "Constitutional Ques-
tions of the Civil War," in McLaughlin and Hart, Cyclopedia of American
Government, I ; J. G. Randall, "Captured and Abandoned Property during the
Civil War," in Am. Hist. Rev., XIX, 65-79 5 same, "The Indemnity Act of
1863 : A Study in the Wartime Immunity of Governmental Officers," in
Michigan Law Rev., XX, 589-613 ; "Chief Justice Taney," in The Albany
Law Journal, VII, 1873, 2-5 ; an unsigned article on Taney was published in
Atlantic Monthly, XV, 1865, 151-161; C. Warren, "Lincoln's 'Despotism'
as Critics Saw it in 1861," N. Y. Times, May 12, 1918.

522 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

6. A long list of studies on particular phases of constitutional problems
during the Civil War are available. A few of them are : Margaret E. Hirst,
The Quakers in Peace and War : an Account of Their Peace Principles and
Practice (N. Y. 1923), scholarly, detailed story of Quaker opposition to war
in United States and England ; V. A. Lewis, How West Virginia Was Made
(Charleston, W. Va., 1909), is a source book; J. C. McGregor, The Disrup-
tion of Virginia (N. Y. 1922), a monograph needing revision, but is the result
of painstaking labor ; an unbiased monograph is W. W. Davis, The Civil
War and Reconstruction in Florida (N. Y. 1913), a Col. U, Study in His-
tory, LIII, No. 131 ; John R. Ficklin, History of Reconstruction in Louisi-
ana (Bal., 1910), Johns Hopkins Univ. Studies in Hist, and Pol. Science Se-
ries, XXVIII, No. i, completed by Pierce Butler after the death of Professor
Ficklin, scholarly; H. White, Executive Influence in Determining Military
Policy in the United States (Urbana 1924), Univ. of 111. Studies in Soc, Sci-
ences, XII, No. i ; G. C. Sellery, Lincoln's Suspension of Habeas Corpus as
Viewed by Congress, a useful treatise published as the Univ. of Wis. Bull, in
Hist. Series, I, No. 3 ; J. G. Randall, The Confiscation of Property during the
Civil War (Indianapolis 1913), a dissertation published in condensed form.

7. If political and legal authorities are desired see : Horace Binney war
pamphlets published under the title, The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas
Corpus under the Constitution (Phila. 1862-65), written in a masterly manner ;
J. H. Finley, The American Executive and Executive Methods (N. Y. 1908) ;
John J. Lalor, Cyclopedia of Political Science . . . and the Pol. Hist, of the
U. S. (3 vols., N. Y. 1904) ; Henry Wheaton, Elements of International Law,
8th ed., edited by R. H. Dana, Jr. and published in 1866, is very valuable on
Civil War administrative practices ; Geo. B. Davis, "A Treatise on the Mili-
tary Law of the United States," 3d ed., rev. (N. Y. 1913), is a recognized
authority.

8. On the Confederate constitutional problems, which have not held over
in our Federal system, of course, see A. B. Moore, Conscription and Con-
flict in the Confederacy (N. Y, 1924), the best on this special subject, and
carefully footnoted ; R. P. Brooks, Conscription in the Confederate States of
America 1862-186$ (Athens, Ga., 1917), Bull, of Univ. of Ga., XVII, No. 4 ;
J. L. M. Curry, Civil History of the Government of the Confederate States ;
N. W. Stephenson, Day of the Confederacy ; Davis, Rise and Fall of the Con-
federate Government; J. S. Matthews, Public and Private Laws of the Con-
federate States (Richmond 1862-1864) ; Richardson, Messages and Papers of
the Confederacy ; War of Rebellion : Official Records ; Statutes at Large of
the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, February
1861 to February 1862; Jessie Ames Marshall (ed.), Papers of John A. Camp-
bell, 1861-1865, in Southern Hist. Soc. Papers, IV, 3-81 ; D. Rowland, Jef-
ferson Davis, Constitutionalist [etc.] ; Stephens, Constitutional View of the
"War between the States"; F. L. Owsley, State Eights in the Confederacy,
best on the subject; Joseph Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy (Mobile
1871) is largely a political study ; Journals of the Confederate Congress; A. L.
Hull (ed,),B "Making of the Confederate Constitution," in Southern Histori-
cal Association Publications, IX, X ; Brummer, "Judicial Interpretations of the
Confederate Constitution," in Studies in Southern History and Politics.

INDEX

Abolitionists, iff., 88, in

Adams, Charles F., 71, 105, 116, i8if.,
193, i97f., 205

Alabama, in 1860, 47f., 460

Alabama, 194, 203, 205, 218

Anderson, Major Robert, 6yf., 149

Andrew, John A., 89, in, 123, 171, 212,
248, 368, 475

Antietam, battle of, 260, 280, 325, 425

Arizona, 143

Arkansas, i4jf.

Armies, see Military.

Atlanta, 39, 233, 259, 293, 2951". ; cap-
ture of, 297, 300

Bache, Alexander, 209

Baker, Edward D., 141, 272, 305, 358,
362

Ball's Bluff, battle of, 272

Bancroft, George, 418

Banks, 378, 388, 423 ; National Bank
Act of 1863, 428ff.

Banks, N. P., 89, 225, 231, 245, 291, 295,
321, 337, 440

Barnard, J. G., 209

Barnwell, R. W., 58, 6jf.

Bates, Edward, 9, 100, 457, 459

Battle-hymn of the Republic, 331

Battleships, Amy Warwick, 183 ; Ar-
kansas, 276, 291 ; Bermuda, zi8f. ;
Chicora, 220 ; Cumberland, 395f • ;
Florida (Oreto), 194, 205 ; Hartford,
213 ; Housatonic, 215 ; Ke or sage,
205 ; Louisiana, 213 ; Manassas, 213 ;
Peterhof, 224; Princeton, 216; San
Jancinto, 186 ; Springbok, 2i8f. For
others, see under proper headings.

Bayard, James A., 133

Beauregard, P. G. T., 122, 175, 214,
252 ; ability as general, 258, 270!.,
278, 288

Beecher, Henry Ward, 86, 196, 321

Bell, John, 2off., 55, 70, 128, 141, 146

Belmont, 149, 287, 290

Belmont, August, 15

Benjamin, Judah P., 59, 138, i73f., 246,
389

Bennett, James Gordon, 25, 123

Bigelow, John, 181

Binney, Horace, 457

Black, Jeremiah S., 68

Blair Family, 5, 272, 423, 47 iff.

Blair, Frank P., 5, 7, 135, 272^,

Blair, F. P., Sr., 100, 118, 353, 403, 418

Blair, Montgomery, 100, H7ff., 286,
349f., 428, 465

Blockade, i83ff. ; attitude of Great
Britain, 184^ ; Declaration of Paris,
i84f., 190, 193, 2075. ; board for con-
duct of, 209 ; effectiveness, 2196%
232ff., 432, 434 ; Matamoras, 223^,
233 ; domestic blockade declared,
228f . ; Northern cotton policy,
229ff. ; declared by Lincoln, 230

Booth, John Wilkes, 393

Border states, i33ff., i45f. ; as enemy

. fighting ground, 225]?., 2<$9ff. ; ac-
tivities of civil population, 225f. ;
strategic importance, 225^ 268

Botts, J. M., 129

Bouligny, John E., 336

Boutwell, George S., 314

Bragg, Braxton, 150, 175, 252, 258, 260,
268, 276, 280, 288ff., 293!, 324

Breckinridge, John C., ifff., 70, 87, 141,
146, 148, 305

Brooks, Phillips, 399

Brown, Gratz, 342

Brown, John, 7, 45, 54, 80

Brown, Joseph E., 39, 43, 45^ i7of.,
173, 436, 461, 467

Brownell, R. W., 36

Brownlow, W. G., 138

Bryant, Wm. Cullen, 25, 105, 359, 397

Buchanan, James, i, 15, 29 ; position in
1 86 1, 65f. ; character, 66 ; politics,
66 ; message to Congress in 1860, 67 ;
Ft. Sumter, 68 ; peace, 69, 73, 75, 124

Buckner, Simon B., 147, 150

Buell, D. C,, 260, 2870% 293

Bulloch, James, 194

Bull Run, battle of, 270^

Burnside, Ambrose EM 277, 281, 293f.,
350

Butler, B, F., 87, 123, 132, noff^ 231,
266, 285, 308, 320^ 334, 349, 475

523

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Cadwalader, George, 133

Cairo, 111., 227, 265, 287

Calhoun, John C., 3 if., 155

California, 141 f.

Cameron, Simon, 5, 100, 176, 246, 255^
423, 476

Campbell, Justice, iiSff.

Canby, E. R. S., 231, 299

Carlisle, John G., 150

Cass, Lewis, 68

Chancellorsville, battle of, 257, 263, 276,
282, 285

Charleston, S. C., 14, 3of. ; society of,
34 ; "1860 Association," 35, 116

Chase, Salmon P., ability, 8, 76, 84, 94,
313; appointed to cabinet, looff. ;
1 06 ; on peaceful separation, 117 ; on
raising troops, i72f. ; order to search
boats, 227 ; river trade, 23of. ; 256 ;
on West Virginia, 334, 337 ; and
the presidency, 346*1*. ; resignation,
350, 359, 362 ; on taxation, 382 ; as
a Radical, 407f . ; Davis trial, 416 ;
treasury problems, 420 ; ability as a
financier, 42 iff. ; notes and loans,

434f-» 439
Chattanooga, 39, 252, 259, 282, 289^,

293fT.

Chesnut, Mrs., 33, 54, 99
Cheves, Langdon, 33
Chicago, 6, 14 ; Zouaves, 269
Chickamauga, battle of, 293
Cincinnati, 145, 225, 227, 289
Cincinnati Platform of 1856, 15
Civil War, seizure of forts by South,
io2fT. ; Ft. Sumter, i22f., 129$. ; war
of sections, 15 if. ; resources, 153*?. ;
use of negroes, i6ifT., 205 ; military
spirit, 163?. ; militia, 164, 237^. ; di-
plomacy, see diplomacy; Northern
navy, ch. VIII ; Southern trade dur-
ing, 23off. ; soldiers fraternize, 232 ;
raising the armies, 1301!., 238*?.,
4531!. ; aiding soldiers' families, 240 ;
contributions of state governments,
239ff. ; soldier vote, 241 ; "political"
generals, 245 ; Peninsular Campaign,
25of. ; telegraph system, 255 ; char-
acter of hostilities, 269, 2746?. ; war,
in the East, 2691!., 277^. ; war in the
West, 272^:., 282ff., 286rr". ; politics,
3o8fL, passim., 3421!., passim. ; end of
war, 266f. ; cost of war, 420, 426
435f .

Clay, Cassius M., 146

Clemens, Jeremiah, 49

Clay, Clement C., 399

Cleveland Convention, 347

Clews, Henry, 388

Cobb, Howell, 3, 43, 58, 61, 420, 452

Cobb, T. R., 39

Cobden, Richard, 180

Cochrane, John, 347

CoJd Harbor, 285

Coif ax, Schuyler, 328, 361

Collamer, Jacob, 71

Columbus, Ky., 227, 286f., 290

Columbus, Miss., 149

Committee on Conduct of War, 211,

256, 305, 310

Compromise, Crittenden, 71, 78 ; Vir-
ginia Peace Convention, 75f . ; con-
gressional amendment, 76f. ; pro-
posed constitutional convention, 77 ;
Lincoln, 102

Confederate government, at Mont-
gomery, 60, 62fL, 130, i69f. ; export
policy, 228f. ; problems of taxation,
432fT. ; Confederate Congress, 45 if.,
466fT.

Congress, on compromises, ch. Ill,
passim. ; special session, 303!?. ; regu-
lar session in 1861, 307^ ; gradual abo-
lition, 318 ; Confiscation Act of 1862,
319 ; leadership in 37th, 328 ; recon-
struction, 337, ch. XIV, passim. ;
power of, 341, 4471!., 464^, 469^.;
income tax law, 425 ; Morrill tariff,
424f. ; attitude toward war in 1861,
445 ; "Articles of War," 455 ; habeas
corpus, 458 ; confiscation acts, 469*1*. ;
abolition of slavery, 473f.

Constitution, Northern interpretation
of, 74f., 103, io8f., ii3ff., 302f. ; pro-
posed amendment, 7ifT., 327 ; South-
ern interpretation of, i6f., 74, 108 ;
ch. XIII, passim.; changed by war,
3<5<5f. ; ch. XVI

Constitution of Confederacy, 57!,

Cooke, Jay, 361, 384, 422^ 431

"Copperheads," 316, 450

Corinth, 252, 287, 290

Corwin, Thomas, 71, 222

Cotton gin, 3 if.

Couch, D. M., 282

Crawford, J. A., 63

Crittenden, John J., 701!*, 146, 1491".,

Cumberland Gap, 137^ 268, 272, 293

Curtin, Andrew, 92

Curtis, Benjamin R., 327

Curtis, George T., 66

Curtis, George W., 5ff.

Gushing, Caleb, 87, 105

Dana, Charles A., 466

Dana, Richard H., 3581"., 361

Daniel, P. V., 221

Davis, Chas. H., 291

Davis, Henry Winter, 342, 349

Davis, Jefferson, successor to Calhoun,
5of. ; elected president, 58f. ; chooses
cabinet, 59, 71 ; vote on compro-
mise, 74; Ft. Sumter policy, 12 iff. ;
border state policy, 126 ; arrived at
Richmond, 130; Tennessee, 139;
the West, 142^, 146 ; Kentucky,
i48f. ; position and power in Con-
federate government, i69ff. ; use of
war powers, 17 iff., 45of., 460, 467. ;
character, i74f. ; presidential ability,
njf., 1 2 iff., 174^, 451 ; on foreign
relations, 182, 206 ; 185 ; seeking
foreign aid, i88f., 202f., 204, 220 ;
missions to Mexico, 222f., 227, 233 ;
raises army, 245:6? . ; ability to direct
army, 254, 256 ; removes Johnston,
259, 296, 299 ; emancipation, 323 ; on
peace, 352 ; in prison, 391, 393, 399 ;
clemency for, 41 3f. ; 439

Davis, Varina, 54

Dayton, W. L., 181, 203

Democrat Party, 3 ; campaign of 1860,
i off. ; convention of 1860, 131!. ;
split in 1860, i$f£.t 87, 123, 241 ;
divisions in party in 1861, 314^. ;
leadership, 3 i4ff . ; attack on Lincoln
in 1862, 327^ ; election in 1862, 328f. ;
jealousy of executive power, 338f. ;
election in 1864, 35of.

Dennison, William, 227

Dickinson, Daniel S., 306

Diplomacy, possible attitude of foreign
powers, i78ff. ; neutrality, 181 ;
British and French neutrality, 184-
207, passim., 2O2f. ; diplomats, iSirT.,
1 876*., i96£F. ; blockade, i$3ff. ; cot-
ton, 19 iff., 219^, 434; Lincoln's use
of emancipation, 196 ; H. R. did not
control, 203 j "Picked: Papers," 222 ;
Mexican, 2 2 iff. ; Southern bid for

INDEX 525

foreign support, 283 ; slave trade,
319; sale of bonds, 438ff.
Dix, Dorothea, 242
Dix, John A., 68f., 123, 42of.
Doolittle, J. R., 71, 316
Douglas, Stephen A., i, 9 ; Kansas-
Nebraska Act, i if . ; Dred Scott de-
cision, i2f. ; character and ability,
13, 43 ; position in Congress, 7of.,
95 ; declaration of loyalty to Union,
io6f., 115; campaign for Union,
123, 128, 141, 146, 315, 381
Dred Scott Case, 7, i2n\, 40, 317, 457
Dupont, Admiral, 209!"., 214

Eads, James B., 287

Early, Jubal A., 278, 285^, 427

Eaton, John, 321

Edwards, John W., 105

Election, of 1860, 1-29 ; of 1862, 241,

3271!. ; of 1864, 241, 345fT. ; issues,

35of. ; results, 354^
Elliott, J. H., 159
Emancipation, ch. XI ; Proclamation

of, 325f., 387^ 473f.
Emerson, Ralph W., 85, 105, 395fT., 400
England's liberals, Cob den, Bright,

Duke of Argyll, 180, i96f.
Ericcson, John, 216, 255
Erlanger & Co., 194, 43 9f.
Evans, Frederick W., 402
Everett, Edward, 20, 88, 105
Ewell, B. S., 251
Ewing, Thomas, 261, 403, 418

Farragut, David G., 21 iff., 29of., 336
Fessenden, Wm. P., io5f., 230, 312, 431
Finance, centers, 160, 173*:. ; foreign
loans, 194 ; Northern bonds, 199,
421-424, 431 ; Southern credit, 378f. ;
Northern credit, 384^. ; taxation,
382f. ; currency, 383^. ; ch. XV j
Northern treasury notes, 42 if., 427 ;
Union debts, ch. XV, passim. ; paper
money, 426rT. ; stamp money, 428 ;
Legal Tender Act, 427 ; "Gold Mar-
ket," 428 ; National Bank Act,
428ff. ; Gold Bill, 430 ; seizure of
bullion, 433 ; Southern taxation,
433ff. ; Southern debt, 4351!. ; South-
ern paper money, 43 sf. ; Confederate
sequestration or debts, 440
Fish, Hamilton, 105

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

Florida, 5 if., 405, 41.5

Floyd, John B., 6jL

Foote, A. H., 252, 287, 291

Foote, Henry S., 450

Forbes, J. Murray, 86

Forrest, N. B., 253, 310

Forster, W. E., 180, 184, 197

Forsyth, John, 63

Fort McHenry, 133

Fort Donelson, 265, 276, 287

Fort Fisher, 215, 2i7f.

Fort Henry, 265, 287

Fort Hudson, 2911.

Fort Moultrie, 67

Fort Pickens, 208

Fort Pillow, 252

Fortress Monroe, 208, 211, 216, 250,
361

Fort Royal, 210

Fort Sumter, 68 ; relief of, 69, 104,
ii6ff., 129, 208

Fort Warren, 133

Fox, Gustavus V., 119, 176, 208, 211

France, 178, 190, 1931., 419

Fredericks!) urg, battle of, 277, 281, 285

Freedmen's bureau, 388, 473

Fremont, John C, 88, 149, 245 ; char-
acter, 272f. ; in command of Depart-
ment of West, 272, 310, 347f. ; with-
drawal from presidential race, 349,

423
Fugitive Slave Law, 78ff.

Gales, Joseph, 26

Garrison, William L., 45, 48, 105, 123

Georgia, in 1860, 381. ; political phi-
losophy of leaders, 39n. ; secession,
46ff., 405, 415, 438, 452, 461

Germans, influence on political parties,
4, no, 136

Gettysburg, 251 ; battle of, 254, 258,
264, 274, 276, 2835.

Giddings, Joshua R., 7, 93, 106

Gist, Governor, 35

Gladstone, William E., 180, 196, 20?

G4nt, tflysses S., 230, 257, 260 ; ability
13 general, 264^., 268 ; military tac-
Ti-ics, 265f., 276fT. ; idea of war, 266,
274 ; from West to East, 282^., pas-
sim. ; 360, 395, 403 ; report on South,
410,427,459

Great Britain, 109, 178 ; attitude toward
North and South, 179^. ; Trent af-

fair, i86ff., 190, 193^.; cotton sup-
ply, 199^., 434 ; seizure of British
vessels, 218, 319, 419

Greeley, Horace, 8, 25, 86, 321, 324,
345 ; peace mission, 352, 466

Grimes, J. W., 71

Gwin, W. M., 107, 141

Habeas corpus, 133, 171, 415^, 4485.

Halm, Michael, 336ff., 415

Haiti, 319

Hale, John R, 88

Halleck, Henry W., 245, 257, 279,

286fF., passim.
Halstead, Murat, 466
Hamilton, Andrew J., 405
Hamlin, Hannibal, 9, 347
Hammond, M. B., Cotton Industry,

232

Hampton, Wade, 33, 50
Hardee, William J., 298
Harper's Ferry, 116, i3of., 250, 279^
Harris, I. G., 134, i37f., 228
Harvey, Louis P., 288
Hay, John, 30, 114
Hayes, Rutherford B., 106, 401
Helper, Hinton R., 44, 390
Hewitt, Abram S., 105
Hicks, Thomas H., 132, 2x2
Hill, A. P., 251
Hilliard, H. W., 21
Hillyer, James, 61
Holden, W. W., 173, 390, 405, 438
Holmes, Oliver W., 105, 395^
Holt, Joseph, 68, 148, 394, 463
Homestead Act, 402
Hood, J. B,, 175, 254, 260, 296fr*., 353
Hooker, Joseph, 264, 268, 277,

294

Hotze, Henry, 197, 283
Houston, Sam, 55
Howard, O. O., 388
Howe, Samuel G., 105
Howell, Rufus K., 336
Hughes, Archbishop, 197
Hunter, David, 273, 286, 376, 471
Hunter, R. M. T., 58, 71, 117, 173

Illinois, 95

Indiana, 94!.

Indians, i43f.

Indian Territory, i43f., 151

Island No. 10, 291

Jackson, Andrew, 5, 55, 65, 87, 263

Jackson, Claiborne, 135, 475

Jackson, Stonewall, 250 ; Shenandoah
army, ijof . ; ability as a general,
257/.; 276, 2791*.

Johnson, Andrew, loyalty to Union,
i37f., 305 ; War Democrat, 307 ;
military governor of Tennessee,
3351". ; on reconstruction, 335f., 347,
4O2fF. ; became president, 393f . ; proc-
lamation of May 2, 1865, 398f. ;
ability and character, 399^. ; on
Constitution, 402 ; military gover-
nors, 405 ; $20,000 clause, 4051. ; on
secession, 4i2f. ; as executive and ad-
ministrator, 41 iff., passim.; message
to Congress, 4i8f.

Johnson, Herschel V., 15, 39f., 43

Johnson, James, 405

Johnson, Reverdy, 316

Johnston, Albert S., 142, 252, 286, 288

Johnston, Joseph E., 175, 258^, 270,
278f., 289, 292, 295ff., 395

Kansas, 12

Kansas-Nebraska Act, i, nf.

Kentucky, 1451!., 227ff., 269, 405, 462

Key West, 2o8f.

Knights of the Golden Circle, 353

Know-nothings, 19

Knoxville, 293

Koerner, Gustave, in

Lamar, G. B., 61

Lamon, Ward H., 1 19

Lane, Harriet, 66

Lane, H, S., 95

Lane, Jim, 145

Lane, Joseph, 15, 107, 141

Lee, Robert E., 127, 129, 140, 214, 246,
250, 254 ; military tactics, 254 ; Rich-
mond to Antietam, 257^., 278:6%
passim. ; ability as a general, 262ff . ;
character and ability, 264, 270 ;
Gettysburg campaign, 2830*. ; 293,
299 ; surrender of, 299, 324 ; advice
to soldiers, 395 ; Arlington estate,

47 l

Letcher, John, 128, 130, 140

Lincoln, Abraham, Springfield speech
in 1856, i, 9 ; Lincoln-Douglas de-
bates, i2f. ; on secession, 44, 332^ ;
compromise, 72, 74, 102, 84f., 88, 95 ;
first inaugural, 98 ; character and abil-

INDEX 527

ity, 98fL, sdoff., 451 ; education, ppf. ;
cabinet, 100, 175^. ; duty to Union,
nzff., 302f. ; on the Constitution,
ii2ff., 302, 445 ; on war, 113^ 115 ;
on Ft. Sumter, npff. ; call for troops
and border states, i29fF., 139, 142,
i46f., 150 ; message, July 4, 1861,
164, i7of. ; as an executive and ad-
ministrator, I75f., 303, 358ff., 447^.,
477, 181 ; emancipation, 196, 283, 307,
32orT., 387, 473^ ; on foreign trade,
219, 220, 227 ; trade with South,
230 ; call for troops, 237, 247 ; and
his generals, 245 ; as chief of war
forces, 256, 268 ; public opinion,
302 ; on the executive power, 3oz£F.,
447fF., 452ff. ; on powers and duties
of Congress, 3O3f . ; and the border
states, 304^, 3i8f., 327 ; and the civil
service, 306 ; and party politics, 3o6f .,
3i5f., 327, 332, 345ff. ; thought of as
a Conservative Republican, 313^. ;
gradual abolition of slavery, 317^ ;
letter to Greeley, 324 ; on West Vir-
ginia, 334 ; on reconstruction, 335$:.,
344, 348f., 355, 404^; re-election,
345*?. ; peace mission, 352f. ; life in
Washington, 356!?. ; humor, 36 iff. ;
Bixby letter, 363 ; second inaugural,
363$. ; visits Mrs. Pickett in Rich-
mond, 365, 389 ; assassination, 393 ;
significance of, 394^, 398f . ; 415^,
432, 472

Lincoln, Mary Todd, 232, 393

Logan, John A., 306

Longfellow, Henry W., 395f.

Longstreet, James, 251, 264, 268, 284,
293^

Louisiana, 32 ; in 1860, 52f. ; secession,
54 ; reconstruction of, 336$,

Louisville, 227rT., 230, 289

Lowell, James R., 397

Lyon, Nathaniel, 272

Lyons, Lord, 132, 188, 193

McCallum, D. C., 255, 259, 296, 388

McClellan, George B., 140, 155, 210".,
245, 253, 257^. ; ability as a gener
259, 263, 269 ; in West Virgin ,
269): , ; 276, 278f . ; advised Lincoln,
279!?., 310, 320 ; candidate for presi-
dent, 3526:., 311

McClernand, John A., zpi, 306

McCulloch, Ben, 144, 272

528

McDowell, Irvin, 271, 277
McDufBe, George, 32f.
Magazines, see Press.
Magofrin, Beriah, 1465., i4pf.
Magruder, John B,, 250, 389
Mafiory, Stephen R., 59, 194, 215
Malvern Hill, 254, 260, 263, 279
Mann, A. Dudley, 182, 204
Marshall, John, 34
Marvin, William, 405
Maryland, 13 iff., 212, 241, 270 ; in-
vaded by Lee, 280, 462
Mason, James M., 182, 439
Mason and Slidell incident, i82f.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

, i86ff.,

190

Massachusetts, 86ff., 89, 159, 238

Maximilian, Archduke, 203f., 221, 390

Maynard, Horace, 305

Meade, George G., 283^., 2931*.

Meagfrer's Irish Brigade, 281

Meigs, R. M., 255

Memminger, C. G., 59, 61, 173, 4326?.,
440

Memphis, 252, 290

Merri7naCj The, 177, 216, 395^

Merryman, John, 133, 456

Military, department of Kentucky,
149 ; militia, 164, 2391". ; description
of armies, 165 rff. ; division of equip-
ment, i66f. ; leader psychology, 168 ;
problem of concentration of re-
sources, i7off. ; part played by state
governments, 171$., 2391!. ; naval
blockade, i83f. ; privateering, 184,
iSpf., 209 ; letters of marque and re-
prisal, 185, 193 ; Southern ironclads
and cruisers, 194^ ; purchase of mu-
nitions, 195 ; naval insurance, 202 ;
Irish soldiers, 204 ; Northern naval
strategy, ch. VIII ; Northern naval
squadrons, 209f . ; Confederate fleet,
210, 217 ; Lee's army, 217, 221, 246,
25of., 279ff., passim.; at Antietam,
28of. ; raising the Union army, 2381!.,
244ff. ; officering and equipping
Union army, 238$. ; civilian con-
tributions, 239; army comfort and
morale, 24ifT, ; raising the Confed-
erate army, 2451!. ; failure of volun-
teer system, 247^ ; draft, 454^ ; con-
scription, 246ff. ; bounty junipers,
248 ; total enlistments, 249f . ; Jack-
son's Shenandoah army, 25of., 257,
passim.; Confederate armies

1862, 25 if. ; Army of the Mississippi,
252 ; campaigns in the West, 2511?. ;
Army of the Potomac, 253, 259, 268,
2781!., passim., 283^ ; Army of the
Tennessee, 253 ; Army of the Cum-
berland, 253, 260 ; war departments,
254^, 46if., 473, 476; Army of
Northern Virginia, 253, 257, 263,
277 ; Southern strategy, 268f. ; army
strategy, 2741?. ; soldiers and prison-
ers released, 37of. ; Southern arms,
432

Minnesota, 95f.

Mississippi, in 1860, 50 ; secession, 51,
134, 405, 461

Mississippi River, 109; struggle for
control of, 29off.

Missouri, i34f. ; remained in the
Union, 272f. ; Radicals, 342, 462

Mobile, capture of, 295, 353

Monitor, The, 216

Monroe Doctrine, 203

Montgomery Convention, Feb. 4, 1861,

Moore, A. B., 54
Morgan, J. H., 253
Morgan, J. P., 197
Morrill, Justin S., 6, 424^
Morton, Oliver P., 4, 329
Motley, John L., 180, 358, 445
Mulligan, John A., 272
Murfreesboro, battle of, 290

Napoleon III, 178, 193^, 198, 203, 283,

390. 439

Nasby, Petroleum V., 362

Negroes, see Slavery.

Nelson, Justice, 118

New England, anti-slavery, 8 iff. ; nul-
lification, 8 if. ; economic life, 8 if. ;
renascence, 83 ; reformers, 83$. ; in-
tellectuals, 85ff., in

New Jersey, 91

New Orleans, social, 52 ; trade, 52f. ;
importance in 1860, 53, no; siege
of, 2iofL ; under Butler, 230^ 336

Newspapers, see Press.

New York, 91, 238

New York City, io9f.

New York Herald, 25, 104, 123

New York Tribune, 8, 25, 86, 104, 270,

349

Nicolay, John, 30
Nightingale, Florence, 241

North, The, social and economic
strength and reactions, 81-97, pas-
sim.; transportation, 1565. ; general
economic conditions before the
War, i54fT. ; military spirit, 163^-;
foreign credit, i99f. ; cotton policy,
229^. ; returning soldiers, 37 in. ; in-
dustrialization, 380 ; public opinion
on the powers of Executive and Con-
gress, 447ff. ; Militia Act of i86z, 453

North Carolina, 171, 209, 404^, 414;
condition during War, 438, 452, 461

North, James H., 194

Ohio, 93f.
Olmsted, F. L.,
Orr, J. L., 67

242

Packer, William F., 92

Palmerston, Lord, 180, 186, 193, 196,

206, 280

Parker, Theodore, 84
Patterson, Robert, 27of.
Peabody, George, 199
Pea Ridge, battle of, 145
Pemberton, John G, 292
Pendleton, George, 352
Pennsylvania, 921., no
Pensacola, 215
Perry, Benjamin F., 405
Perryville, battle of, 276, 289
Personal Liberty Laws, 86, 88, 90$ .
Petersburg, 251
Pettigru, 33f., 119
Phillips, Wendell, 45, 86, 88, 105, 308,

322

Pickens, F. W., 121, 170
Pickets, John T., 222, 276
Pierpont, F. H., 140, 3331".
Pierce, Franklin, i
Pike, Albert, 144
Pillow, Gideon J., 149, 287
Polk, Leonidas, 149, 287, 370
Pollard, A. E., 127, 170, 173
Pomeroy, Samuel C, 346 ; Pomeroy

circular, 346f., 430
Pope, John, 280, 291
Popular Sovereignty, 12, 20, 40
Porter, David D., 211, 213
Porter, Fitzhugh, 279
Press, The, influence of in campaign

of 1860, 246°., 851*. ; censorship of,

327 ; Albany Evening Journal) 86 ;

American Union, 197 ; Baltimore

INDEX 529

Sun, 132^ ; Boston Advertiser, 25 ;
Boston Transcript, 88 ; Charleston
Mercury, 25, 37, 70, 105, 437^, 450 ;
Chicago Tribune, 25, 327 ; Cincin-
nati Enquirer, 25 ; Cincinnati Ga-
zette, 454 ; DeBow's Commercial
Review, 74 ; Harper's, 25 ; Inde-
pendent, 86, 321 ; Index, The, 197 ;
Liberator, The, 45, 79, 105 ; Lippin-
cottfs, 25 ; Louisville Courier, 227 ;
Lynchburg Virginian, 128 ; National
Intelligencer, 26 ; New Orleans Bee,
25 ; Niks' Register, 26 ; N. Y. Jour-
nal of Commerce, 104 ; N. Y. Ob-
server, 104; N. Y. Times, 105, 112;
N. Y. World, 105 ; Philadelphia In-
quirer, 1 2 ; Philadelphia Ledger, 25 ;
Richmond Enquirer, i2jf., 173 ;
Richmond Examiner, 437 ; Rich-
mond Whig, 128, 437 ; Springfield
Republican, 25, 88 ; Westliche Post,

Price, Sterling, 272, 288

Radicals and Radical Republicans,
3o8ff., passim. ; 314 ; power in Con-
gress, 314, 318; on confiscation,
3i9f. ; strength in Congress in 1864,
339 ; objectives, 3396°., passim. ; on
reconstruction, 355, 407$:., 417:8:., 450

Railroads, 155^, 221, 227^, 233, 250,
255, 269^, 294*?., 377^, 38if.

Randolph, G. W., 254

Raymond, Henry J., 25, 466

Reagan, J. H., 59f.

Reconstruction, Tennessee, 3351". ;
Louisiana, 335^. ; congressional,
342flf. ; ch. XIII ; political, ch, XIV

Red Cross, 243

Redpath, James, 531*.

Red river expedition, 295

Reid, Whitelaw, 466

Republican Party, iff. ; object in 1860,
2 ; in Missouri, 5 ; Chicago Con-
vention, 6 ; platform in 1860, 6 ;
campaign of 1860, 9flf. ; organized
Congress in 1860, 7of. ; compromise,
72, 85, 105, in, 305; in Congress,
307$., passim. ; elections in 1862,
3286% 344 ; convention in 1864, 347 ;
platform 1860, 347

Rhett, R. B., 25, 36f., 450

Rhode Island, 89, 159

53°

Rhodes, James F.,

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

36, 69, 74, 78, 117,

Richmond, Va., 250, 257ff., 2631., 268,

277*?., 285 ; captured, 299, 376
Roebuck, John A., i98f., 283
Roman, A. B., 63

Rosecrans, W. S., 265, 282, 289? ., 293
Rost, P. A., 63, 182
Russell, Lord, 182, i87f., i95f., 218
Russell, William, 191

St. Louis, 116, 261, 273, 286

Savannah, captured, 298

Schurz, Carl, 4, 6, gf., 24, 46, 88, no ;

report on South, 410
Scott, Thomas, 256
Scott, Winfield, 191"., 116, 207, 256,

27of., 277

Seaton, Wm. W., 26
Secession, S. Carolina, 3 56°. ; Georgia,

46$ . ; Mississippi, 5 1 ; Louisiana,

52fT. ; Texas, 54ft., $6&.t 70, 108,

Seddons, James K., 76, 254

Seven Days' battle, 258

Seward, Wm. H., Seward-Weed ma-
chine, 4 ; political leader, jf.^ 71, 84 ;
St. Paul speech, 73^., 86 ; appointed
secretary of state, iooff. ; offered ad-
vice to Lincoln, n6ff. ; Ft. Sumter,
i ij£. '9 aided by Lincoln, 176; abil-
ity and character, 181 ; Convention
of Paris, 185 ; privateers, 190 ; Great
Britain, i96f. ; Mexico, 203 ; cotton
diplomacy, 231 ; self -appraisement,
313, 319, 321 ; press censorship, 327 ;
West Virginia, 334 ; opposed by
Radicals, 359 ; wounded by assassins,
393» 399 5 secret service, 459, 472

Seymour, Horatio, 315, 352

Sharkey, W. L., 405

Shenandoah Valley, 250

Shepley, George F., 336

Sheridan, Philip H., 141, 250, 286

Sherman, John, 454

Sherman, William T., 259 ; ability as a
general, 26off., 265, 29 if., 295^.,
passim. ; march to Atlanta, 295^ ;
through Georgia, 297^ 353, 395

Shiloh, 265

Sibley, H. H., 143

Slavery, i, 9f., 16, 32^., 45^,78^., 84f.,
in, 241, 273; abolished in District
of Columbia, 317 ; gradual abolition

proposed by Lincoln, 317^; confis-
cation of slaves, 3191., 325, 337, 469 ;
Southern freedmen after the War,
379f., 4i4f. ; negro suffrage, 407;
slave codes, 414^ ; theories of aboli-
tion of, 473» 477

Slidell, John, 182, i93f., 439

Smith, Caleb -B., 100

Smith, C. F., 276

Smith, G. A., 254

Smith, Gerritt, 106

Smith, Kirby, 225

Social and economic conditions, in
Southern states before the War, 30-
64, passmi.; in Northern states, 81-
97, passim.; interdependence, 109*?.,
passim.; border-states, i33fT. ; 154!?. ;
the West, i6if. ; cotton, 19 iff., 2oof.,
228 ; ch. IX, passim. ; in South,
234ff. ; after the War, 3691!., 4o8ff.

South, The, strength or weakness by
states, 30-64, passim. ; transportation,
154!?. ; agriculture, i57f. ; general
economic conditions before the
'War, 154^:., 4o8f . ; banking, 159^ ;
military spirit, 1631!. ; cotton, 19 iff. ;
2oof. ; cotton export prohibited by
Confederacy, 2286°. ; loses the War,
366$. ; condition after War, 36918?. ;
returning soldiers, 37of. ; political
reconstruction, ch. XIV ; financial
support of Confederacy, 432-442 ;
Southern reaction to Confederate
taxation, 440-442

South Carolina, 30$. ; secession, 35f. ;
commissioners for secession, 36f. ;
news of secession, 37^, 57, i2df.

Spaulding, E. G,, 427

Speed, Joseph, 149

Spencer, Charles, 105

Sprague, William, 90

Squatter Sovereignty, see Popular Sov*
ereignty.

Stanton, Edwin M., Attorney-General,
68 ; character and ability, 176^ 256 ;
War Democrat, 307^ 360, 365 ; ad-
ministration of railroads, 388, 471

Star cf the West, 69, iO2f.

Stephens, Alexander, favored Douglas,
22 ; on secession, 4if. ; as vice-presi-
dent, 59 ; on compromise, 61 ; speech
at Savannah, Men. 1861, ($3, 108 ; ad-
vice to Virginia Apr. 22, 186*1, 130 ;
on cabinet members in Congress,

loVpf., 183 ; cotton embargo, 193 ;
speech at Milledgeville, Mch. 16,
1864, 297, 353, 391, 413, 451

Stephens, Lin ton, 22

Stevens, Thaddeus, 310 ; character and
ability, 311, 314, 340, 400 424^, 450

Stoeckl, Baron, 118

Stone, Amasa, 256

Stuart, J. E. B., 251, 264, 276, 279, 283

Sumner, Charles, 70, 84, 86, 88, 99, 176,
i So, 3o8f., 340, 386, 400, 408

Sumner, Edwin V., 142

Supreme Court, 7, i2f., 91 ; Amy War-
wick, 183 ; on seized vessels and
goods, 2i8f., 224, 341 ; Texas vs.
White, 446, 449, 456, 459, 463, 47of.,

Surratt, Mrs., 3931".

Taney, Chief Justice, i, 133, 456f., 459
Tariff, of 1857, 3, 32, 71, 380^ 424^.
Tennessee, 134, 228 ; under military

governor, 335, 405
Texas, secession, 546:., 144 ; coast trade,

224 ; in Civil War, 224!:., 405, 415,

436, 460

Thaycr, James G., 105
Thirteenth Amendment, 404, 41 2f.,

417, 474, 477
Thomas, George H., 254 ; ability as

general, 260, 287, 293^, 298, 389
Thompson, Jacob, 68, 353, 361, 399
Ticknor, George, 124
Tilden, Samuel J., 315
Tod, David, 307
Toombs, Robert, 4 iff., 46, 7of., 74, 78,

i69f., 173, 391, 438
Tredegar Ironworks, 157, 216, 221
Trenholm, George A., 173, 436
Trent affair, The, i86ff.
Trescott, W. H., 67, 183
Trumbull, Lyman, in, 312
Tyler, John, 76, 128

Unionists (Constitutional) and Union

Party, 2of., 135, 147* 307, 347^ 4*7
United States Sanitary Commission,

242f.

INDEX 531

Vallandigham, Clement L., 93, 106, 173,
305, 315 ; arrest of, 35of., 463

Vance, Z. B., i69f., 173, 217

Van Dorn, Earl, z88f.

Vicksburg, battle of, 233, 252, 265^,
276, 282, 29if.

Victoria, Queen, 196

Villard, Henry, 466

Virginia, i26fT., 139, 270

Virginia Compromise Convention, 75f.

Wade, Benjamin F., 71, 211, 256, 305,
310,342,344, 349f., 400

Wade-Davis Bill, 34 2ff ., passi?n. ; Man-
ifesto, 349, 404, 453, 474

Walker, Amasa, 105

Walker, L. P., 59, 254

Walker, Robert J., 197, 439

"Wallace, Lew, 361

War Democrats, 307, 313^, 417

Ward, Artemus, 362

Washburne, Elihu, 401

Washington, D. C., defence of, 268,
270, 277, 286 ; in war time, 356

Watterson, Henry, 410

Webster, Daniel, 57, 108, 154

Weed, Thurlow, 4, 8, 74, iQdf., 365

Wcitzel, Godfrey, 358, 361, 365

Welles, Gklcoii, 100, ii7ff., 176, 183,
2o8fT., 253^., 401, 434, 472

West Virginia, formation of, 33f.,
i39f., 269^

Whitman, Walt, 397^

Whitney, Eli, 3 1

Whittier, John G., 105

Wickliffe, Robert, 53

Wigf all, L. T., 70

Wifkes, Charles, 186

Wilson's Creek, battle of, 272

Winans, Ross, 133, 157

Winthrop, Robert C., 84, 86, 88

Wise, Henry A., n, 127, 129, 139, 270

Women, 2 39^

Wood, Fernando, 105

Wright, A, R., 53

Yancey, William L., i6f., 48, 63, 182
Yates, Richard, 95, 227, 265
Young Men's Christian Association,
243

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