[12] For a description of the Lincoln-Douglas debate of 1858, read Rhodes'sHistory of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 314-338.
[13] Many persons regarded Brown as a martyr. Read Whittier'sBrown of Ossawatomie, or Stedman'sHow Old Brown took Harper's Ferry. Read, also, Rhodes'sHistory of the U. S., Vol. II, pp. 383-398.
[14] The platform of the Republicans adopted in 1860 (at Chicago) sets forth: (1) that the party repudiates the principles of the Dred Scott decision, (2) that Kansas must be admitted as a free state, (3) that the territories must be free soil, and (4) that slavery in existing states should not be interfered with.
[15] The electoral vote was, for Lincoln, 180; for Douglas, 12; for Breckinridge, 72; for Bell, 39. The popular vote was, for Lincoln, 1,866,452; for Douglas, 1,376,957; for Breckinridge, 849,781; for Bell, 588,879. Lincoln received no votes at all in ten Southern states. The popular votes were so distributed that if those for Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell had all been cast for one of the candidates, Lincoln would still have been elected President (by 173 electoral votes to 130).
POPULATION.—In the twenty years which had elapsed since 1840 the population of our country had risen to over 31,000,000. In New York alone there were, in 1860, about as many people as lived in the whole United States in 1789.
Not a little of this increase of population was due to the stream of immigrants which had been pouring into the country. From a few thousand in 1820, the number who came each year rose gradually to about 100,000 in the year 1842, and then went down again. But famine in Ireland and hard times in Germany started another great wave of immigration, which rose higher and higher till (1854) more than 400,000 people arrived in one year. Then once more the wave subsided, and in 1861 less than 90,000 came.
[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1860.]
NEW STATES AND TERRITORIES.—Though population was still moving westward, few of our countrymen, before the gold craze of 1849, had crossed the Missouri. Those who did, went generally to Oregon, which was organized as a territory in 1848 and admitted into the Union as a state in 1859. By that time California (1850) and Minnesota (1858) had also been admitted, so that the Union in 1860 consisted of thirty-three states and five territories. Eighteen states were free, and fifteen slave-holding. The five territories were New Mexico, Utah, Washington (1853), Kansas, and Nebraska (small map, p. 394).
CITY LIFE.—About one sixth of the population in 1860 lived in cities, of which there were about 140 of 8000 or more people each. Most of them were ugly, dirty, badly built, and poorly governed. The older ones, however, were much improved. The street pump had given way to water works; gas and plumbing were in general use; many cities had uniformed police; [1] but the work of fighting fires was done by volunteer fire departments. Street cars (drawn by horses) now ran in all the chief cities, omnibuses were in general use, and in New York city the great Central Park, the first of its kind in the country, had been laid out. Illustrated magazines, and weekly papers, Sunday newspapers, and trade journals had been established, and in some cities graded schools had been introduced. [2]
SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES.—In the country the district school for boys and girls was gradually being improved. The larger cities of the North now had high schools as well as common schools, and in a few instances separate high schools for girls. Between 1840 and 1860 eighty-two sectarian and twenty non-sectarian colleges were founded, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis was opened. Not even the largest college in 1860 had 800 students, and in but one (University of Iowa, 1856) were women admitted to all departments.
LITERATURE.—Public libraries were now to be found not only in the great cities, but in most of the large towns, and in such libraries were collections of poetry, essays, novels, and histories written by American authors. Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Poe, Bryant, and Whittier among poets; Hawthorne, Irving, Cooper, Simms, and Poe among writers of fiction; Emerson and Lowell among essayists, were read and admired abroad as well as at home. Prescott, who had lately (1859) died, had left behind him histories of Spain in the Old World and in the New; Parkman was just beginning his story of the French in America; Motley had published hisRise of the Dutch Republic, and part of hisHistory of the United Netherlands; Hildreth had completed oneHistory of the United States, and Bancroft was still at work on another.
Near these men of the first rank stood many writers popular in their day. The novels of Kennedy, and the poetry of Drake, Halleck, and Willis are not yet forgotten.
OCCUPATIONS.—In the Eastern states the people were engaged chiefly in fishing, commerce, and manufacturing; in the Middle states in farming, commerce, manufacturing, and mining. To the great coal and iron mines of Pennsylvania were (1859) added the oil fields. That petroleum existed in that state had long been known; but it was not till Drake drilled a well near Titusville (in northwestern Pennsylvania) and struck oil that enough was obtained to make it marketable. Down the Ohio there was a great trade in bituminous coal, and the union of the coal, iron, and oil trades was already making Pittsburg a great city. In the South little change had taken place. Cotton, tobacco, sugar, and the products of the pine forests were still the chief sources of wealth; mills and factories hardly existed. The West had not only its immense farms, but also the iron mines of upper Michigan, the lead mines of the upper Mississippi and in Missouri, the copper mines of the Lake Superior country, and the lumber industry of Michigan and Wisconsin. Through the lakes passed a great commerce. California was the great gold-mining state; but gold and silver had just been discovered near Pikes Peak, and in what is now Nevada.
THE MORMONS.—Utah territory in 1860 contained forty thousand white people, nearly all Mormons. These people, as we have seen, when driven from Missouri, built the city called Nauvoo in Illinois. Their leaders now introduced the practice of polygamy, and in various ways opposed the state authorities. In 1844 they came to blows with the state; the leaders were arrested, and while in jail Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob. Brigham Young then became head of the church, and in the winter of 1846 the Mormons, driven from Nauvoo, crossed the Mississippi and began a long march westward over the plains to Great Salt Lake, then in Mexico. There they settled down, and when the war with Mexico ended, they were again in the United States. When Utah was made a territory in 1850, Brigham Young was appointed its first governor. [3]
[Illustration: FORT UNION, BUILT IN 1829 BY THE AMERICAN FUR COMPANY.]
THE FAR WEST.—Before 1850 each new state added to the Union had bordered an some older state; but now California and Oregon were separated from the other states by wide stretches of wilderness. The Rocky Mountain highland and the Great Plains, however, were not entirely uninhabited. Over them wandered bands of Indians mounted on fleet ponies; white hunters and trappers, some trapping for themselves, some for the great fur companies; and immense herds of buffalo, [4] and in the south herds of wild horses. The streams still abounded with beaver. Game was everywhere, deer, elk, antelope, bears, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, and on the streams wild ducks and geese. Here and there were villages of savage and merciless Indians, and the forts or trading posts of the trappers. Every year bands of emigrants crossed the plains and the mountains, bound to Utah, California, or Oregon.
PROPOSED RAILROAD TO THE PACIFIC.—In 1842 John C. Fremont, with Kit Carson as guide, began a series of explorations which finally extended from the Columbia to the Colorado, and from the Missouri to California and Oregon (map, p. 314). [5] Men then began to urge seriously the plan of a railroad across the continent to some point on the Pacific. In 1845 Asa Whitney [6] applied to Congress for a grant of a strip of land from some point on Lake Michigan to Puget Sound, and came again with like appeals in 1846 and 1848. By that time the Mexican cession had been acquired, and this with the discovery of gold in California gave the idea such importance that (in 1853) money was finally voted by Congress for the survey of several routes. Jefferson Davis, as Secretary of War, ordered five routes to be surveyed and (in 1855) recommended the most southerly; and the Senate passed a bill to charter three roads. [7] Jealousy among the states prevented the passage of the bill by the House. In 1860 the platforms of the Democratic and Republican parties declared for such a railroad.
MECHANICAL IMPROVEMENT.—During the period 1840-60 mechanical improvement was more remarkable than in earlier periods. The first iron-front building was erected, the first steam fire engine used, wire rope manufactured, a grain drill invented, Hoe's printing press with revolving type cylinders introduced, and six inventions or discoveries of universal benefit to mankind were given to the world. They were the electric telegraph, the sewing machine, the improved harvester, vulcanized rubber, the photograph, and anaesthesia.
[Illustration: MORSE AND HIS FIRST TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT.]
THE TELEGRAPH.—Seven years of struggle enabled Samuel F. B. Morse, helped by Alfred Vail, to make the electric telegraph a success, [8] and in 1844, with the aid of a small appropriation by Congress, Morse built a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. [9] Further aid was asked from Congress and refused. [10] The Magnetic Telegraph Company was then started. New York and Baltimore were connected in 1846, and in ten years some forty companies were in operation in the most populous states.
[Illustration: HOWE'S FIRST SEWING MACHINE.]
THE SEWING MACHINE; THE HARVESTER.—A man named Hunt invented the lockstitch sewing machine in 1834; but it was not successful, and some time elapsed before his idea was taken up by Elias Howe, who after several years of experiment (1846) made a practical machine. People were slow to use it, but by 1850 he had so aroused the interest of inventors that seven rivals were in the field, and to their joint labors we owe one of the most useful inventions of the century. From the household the sewing machine passed into use in factories (1862), and to-day gives employment to hundreds of thousands of people.
[Illustration: EARLY HARVESTER. From an old print.]
What the sewing machine is to the home and the factory, that is the reaper to the farm. After many years of experiment Cyrus McCormick invented a practical reaper and (1840) sought to put it on the market, but several more years passed before success was assured. To-day, greatly improved and perfected, it is in use the world over, and has made possible the great grain fields, not only of our own middle West and Northwest, but of Argentina, Australia, and Russia.
VULCANIZED RUBBER; PHOTOGRAPHY; ANAESTHESIA.—The early attempts to use India rubber for shoes, coats, caps, and wagon covers failed because in warm weather the rubber softened and emitted an offensive smell. To overcome this Goodyear labored year after year to discover a method of hardening or, as it is called, vulcanizing rubber. Even when the discovery was made and patented, several years passed before he was sure of the process. In 1844 he succeeded and gave to the world a most useful invention.
[Illustration: A DAGUERREOTYPE, IN METAL CASE, 1843.]
In 1839 a Frenchman named Daguerre patented a method of taking pictures by exposing to sunlight a copper plate treated with certain chemicals. The exposure for each picture was some twenty minutes. An American, Dr. John W. Draper, so improved the method that pictures were taken of persons in a much shorter time, and photography was fairly started.
Greater yet was the discovery that by breathing sulphuric ether a person can become insensible to pain and then recover consciousness. The glory of the discovery has been claimed for Dr. Morton and Dr. Jackson, who used it in 1846. Laughing gas (nitrous oxide) was used as an ansesthetic before this time by Dr. Wells of Hartford.
TRANSPORTATION IMPROVED.—In the country east of the Mississippi some thirty thousand miles of railroad had been built, and direct communication opened from the North and East to Chicago (1853) and New Orleans (1859). For the growth of railroads between 1850 and 1861 study the maps on pp. 331, 353. [11] At first the lines between distant cities were composed of many connecting but independent roads. Thus between Albany and Buffalo there were ten such little roads; but in 1853 they were consolidated and became the New York Central, and the era of the great trunk lines was fairly opened.
On the ocean, steamship service between the Old World and the New was so improved that steamships passed from Liverpool to New York in less than twelve days.
Better means of transportation were of benefit, not merely to the traveler and the merchant, but to the people generally. Letters could be carried faster and more cheaply, so the rate of postage on a single letter was reduced (1851) from five or ten cents to three cents, [12] and before 1860 express service covered every important line of transportation.
THE ATLANTIC CABLE.—The success of the telegraph on land suggested a bold attempt to lay wires across the bed of the ocean, and in 1854 Cyrus W. Field of New York was asked to aid in the laying of a cable from St. Johns to Cape Ray, Newfoundland. But Field went further and formed a company to join Newfoundland and Ireland by cable, and after two failures succeeded (1858). During three weeks all went well and some four hundred messages were sent; then the cable ceased to work, and eight years passed before another was laid. Since then many telegraph cables have been laid across the Atlantic; but it was not till 1903 that the first was laid across the Pacific.
FOREIGN RELATIONS.—We have seen how during this period our country was expanded by the annexation of Texas (1845) and by two cessions of territory from Mexico (1848 and 1853). But this was not enough to satisfy the South, and attempts were made to buy Cuba. Polk (1848) offered Spain $100,000,000 for it. Filibusters tried to capture it (in 1851), and Pierce (1853) urged its annexation. With this end in view our ministers to Great Britain, France, and Spain met at Ostend in Belgium in 1854 and issued what was called the Ostend Manifesto. This set forth that Cuba must be annexed to protect slavery, and if Spain would not sell for a fair price, "then by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power." Buchanan also (1858) urged the purchase of Cuba; but in vain.
CHINA AND JAPAN.—More pleasing to recall are our relations with China and Japan. Our flag was first seen in China in 1784, when the trading vesselEmpress of Chinareached Canton. Washington (1790) appointed a consul to reside in that city, the only one in China, then open to foreign trade; but no minister from the United States was sent to China till Caleb Gushing went in 1844. By him our first treaty was negotiated with China, under which five ports were opened to American trade and two very important concessions secured: (1) American citizens charged with any criminal act were to be tried and punished only by the American consul. (2) All privileges which China might give to any other nation were likewise to be given to the United States.
At that time Japan was a "hermit nation." In 1853, however, Commodore M. C. Perry went to that country with a fleet, and sent to the emperor a message expressing the wish of the United States to enter into trade relations with Japan. Then he sailed away; but returned in 1854 and made a treaty (the first entered into by Japan) which resulted in opening that country to the United States. Other nations followed, and Japan was thus opened to trade with the civilized world.
1. Between 1840 and 1860 the population increased from 17,000,000 to 31,000,000.
2. During this period millions of immigrants had come.
3. As population continued to move westward new states and territories were formed.
4. In one of these new territories, Utah, were the Mormons who had been driven from Illinois.
5. The rise of a new state on the Pacific coast revived the old demand for a railroad across the plains, and surveys were ordered.
6. East of the Mississippi thousands of miles of railroads were built, and the East, the West, and the far South were connected.
7. This period is marked by many great inventions and discoveries, including the telegraph, the sewing machine, and the reaper.
8. It was in this period that trade relations were begun with China and Japan.
[Illustration: MODERN HARVESTER.]
[1] All the large cities were so poorly governed, however, that they were often the scenes of serious riots, political, labor, race, and even religious.
[2] An unfriendly picture of the United States in 1842 is Dickens'sAmerican Notes, a book well worth reading.
[3] Several non-Mormon officials were sent to Utah, but they were not allowed to exercise any authority, and were driven out. The Mormons formed the state of Deseret and applied for admission into the Union. Congress paid no attention to the appeal, and (1857) Buchanan appointed a new governor and sent troops to Utah to uphold the Federal authority. Young forbade them to enter the territory, and dispatched an armed force that captured some of their supplies. In the spring of 1858 the President offered pardon "to all who will submit themselves to the just authority of the Federal Government," and Young and his followers did so.
[4] An interesting account of the buffalo is given in A. C. Laut's The Story of the Trapper_, pp. 65-80. Herds of a hundred thousand were common. As many as a million buffalo robes were sent east each year in the thirties and forties.
[5] John C. Fremont was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1813, and in 1842 was Lieutenant of Engineers, United States Army. In 1842 he went up the Platte River and through the South Pass. The next year he passed southward to Great Salt Lake, then northwestward to the Columbia, then southward through Oregon to California, and back by Great Salt Lake to South Pass in 1844. In 1845 he crossed what is now Nebraska and Utah, and reached the vicinity of Monterey in California. The Mexican authorities ordered him away; but he remained in California and helped to win the country during the war with Mexico. Later, he was senator from California, Republican candidate for President in 1856, and an army general during the Civil War.
[6] Whitney asked for a strip sixty miles wide. So much of the land as was not needed for railroad purposes was to be sold and the money used to build the road. During 1847-49 his plan was approved by the legislatures of seventeen states, and by mass meetings of citizens or Boards of Trade in seventeen cities.
[7] One from the west border of Texas to California; another from the west border of Missouri to California; and a third from the west border of Wisconsin to the Pacific in Oregon or Washington.
[8] In 1842 Morse laid the first submarine telegraph in the world, from Governors Island in New York harbor to New York city. It consisted of a wire wound with string and coated with tar, pitch, and india rubber, to prevent the electric current running off into the water. It was laid on October 18, and the next morning, while messages were being received, the anchor of a vessel caught and destroyed the wire.
[9] The wire was at first put in a lead tube and laid in a furrow plowed in the earth. This failed; so the wire was strung on poles. One end was in the Pratt St. Depot, Baltimore, and the other in the Supreme Court Chamber at Washington. The first words sent, after the completion of the line, were "What hath God wrought." Two days later the Democratic convention (which nominated Polk for President) met at Baltimore, and its proceedings were reported hourly to Washington by telegraph.
[10] Morse offered to sell his patent to the government, but the Postmaster General reported that the telegraph was merely an interesting experiment and could never have a practical value, so the offer was not accepted.
[11] The use of vast sums of money in building so many railroads, together with overtrading and reckless speculation, brought on a business panic in 1857. Factories were closed, banks failed, thousands of men and women were thrown out of employment, and for two years the country suffered from hard times.
[12] It was not till 1883 that the rate was reduced to two cents. Before the introduction of the postage stamp, letters were sent to the post offices, and when the postage had been paid, they were marked "Paid" by the officials. When the mails increased in volume in the large cities, this way of doing business consumed so much time that the postmasters at St. Louis and New York sold stamps to be affixed to letters as evidence that the postage had been paid. The convenience was so great that public opinion forced Congress to authorize the post office department to furnish stamps and require the people to use them (1847).
[Illustration: MAP OF EASTERN UNITED STATES IN 1861.]
[Illustration: NEWSPAPER BULLETIN POSTED IN THE STREETS OF CHARLESTON.]
THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.—After Lincoln's election, the cotton states, one by one, passed ordinances declaring that they left the Union. First to go was South Carolina (December 20, 1860), and by February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. On February 4 delegates from six of these seven states met at Montgomery, Alabama, framed, a constitution, [1] established the "Confederate States of America," and elected Jefferson Davis [2] and Alexander H. Stephens provisional President and Vice President. Later they were elected by the people.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Photograph of 1856.]
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS.]
LINCOLN'S POLICY.—President Buchanan did nothing to prevent all this, and such was the political situation when Lincoln was inaugurated (March 4, 1861). His views and his policy were clearly stated in his inaugural address: "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists…. No state on its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union…. 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…. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority…. The power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government."
FORT SUMTER CAPTURED.—Almost all the "property and places" belonging to the United States government in the seven seceding states had been seized by the Confederates. [3] But Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor was still in Union hands, and to this, Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina, supplies would be sent. Thereupon the Confederate army already gathered in Charleston bombarded the fort till Major Anderson surrendered it (April 14, 1861). [4]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE BATTERIES THAT BOMBARDED FORT SUMTER.]
THE WAR OPENS.—With the capture of Fort Sumter the war for the Union opened in earnest. On April 15 Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand militia to serve for three months. [5] Thereupon Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas seceded and joined the Confederacy. The capital of the Confederacy was soon moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia.
In the slave-holding states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missourithe Union men outnumbered the secessionists and held these states in theUnion. When Virginia seceded, the western counties refused to leave theUnion, and in 1863 were admitted into the Union as the state of WestVirginia.
THE DIVIDING LINE.—The first call for troops was soon followed by a second. The responses to both were so prompt that by July 1, 1861, more than one hundred and eighty thousand Union soldiers were under arms. They were stationed at various points along a line that stretched from Norfolk in Virginia up the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River to Harpers Ferry, and then across western Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri. South of this dividing line were the Confederate armies. [6]
Geographically this line was cut into three sections: that in Virginia, that in Kentucky, and that in Missouri,
[Illustration: STONE BRIDGE OVER BULL RUN. Crossed by many fleeing Union men.]
BULL RUN.—General Winfield Scott was in command of the Union army. Under him and in command of the troops about Washington was General McDowell, who in July, 1861, was sent to drive back the Confederate line in Virginia. Marching a few miles southwest, McDowell met General Beauregard near Manassas, and on the field of Bull Run was beaten and his army put to flight. [7] The battle taught the North that the war would not end in three months; that an army of raw troops was no better than a mob; that discipline was as necessary as patriotism. Thereafter men were enlisted for three years or for the war.
General George B. McClellan [8] was now put in command of the Union Army of the Potomac, and spent the rest of 1861, and the early months of 1862, in drilling his raw volunteers.
[Illustration: DRIVING BACK THE CONFEDERATE LINE IN THE WEST.]
CONFEDERATE LINE IN KENTUCKY DRIVEN BACK, 1862.—In Kentucky the Confederate line stretched across the southern part of the state as shown on the map. Against this General Thomas was sent in January, 1862. He defeated the Confederates at Mill Springs near the eastern end. In February General U. S. Grant and Flag-Officer Foote were sent to attack, by land and water, Forts Donelson and Henry near the western end of the line. Foote arrived first at Fort Henry on the Tennessee and captured it. Thereupon Grant marched across country to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, and after three days' sharp fighting forced General Buckner to surrender. [9]
[Illustration: ULYSSES S. GRANT.]
SHILOH OR PITTSBURG LANDING.—The Confederate line was now broken, and abandoning Nashville and Columbus, the Confederates fell back toward Corinth in Mississippi. The Union army followed in three parts.
1. One under General Curtis moved to southwestern Missouri and won a battle at Pea Ridge (Arkansas).
2. Another under General Pope on the banks of the Mississippi aided Flag- Officer Foote in the capture of Island No. 10. [10] The fleet then passed down the river and took Fort Pillow.
3. The third part under Grant took position very near Pittsburg Landing, at Shiloh, [11] where it was attacked and driven back. But the next day, being strongly reënforced, General Grant beat the Confederates, who retreated to Corinth. General Halleck now took command, and having united the second and third parts of the army, took Corinth and cut off Memphis, which then surrendered to the fleet in the river.
BRAGG'S RAID.—And now the Confederates turned furiously. Their army under General Bragg, starting from Chattanooga, rushed across Tennessee and Kentucky toward Louisville, but after a hot fight with General Buell's army at Perryville was forced to turn back, and went into winter quarters at Murfreesboro. [12]
[Illustration: NORTHERN CAVALRYMAN. A war-time drawing published in 1869.]
There Bragg was attacked by the Union forces, now under General Rosecrans, was beaten in one of the most bloody battles of the war (December 31, 1862, and January 2, 1863), and was forced to retreat further south.
NEW ORLEANS, 1862.—Both banks of the Mississippi as far south as the Arkansas were by this time in Union hands. [13] South of that river on the east bank of the Mississippi the Confederates still held Vicksburg and Port Hudson (maps, pp. 353, 368). But New Orleans had been captured in April, 1862, by a naval expedition under Farragut; [14] and the city was occupied by a Union army under General Butler. [15]
[Illustration: WAR IN THE EAST, 1862.]
THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN, 1862.—In the East the year opened with great preparation for the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capital.
1. Armies under Fremont and Banks in the Shenandoah valley were to prevent an attack on Washington from the west.
2. An army under McDowell was to be ready to march from Fredericksburg to Richmond, when the proper time came.
3. McClellan was to take the largest army by water from Washington to Fort Monroe, and then march up the peninsula formed by the York and James rivers to the neighborhood of Richmond, where McDowell was to join him.
Landing at the lower end of the peninsula early in April, McClellan moved northward to Yorktown, and captured it after a long siege. McClellan then hurried up the peninsula after the retreating enemy, and on the way fought and won a battle at Williamsburg. [16]
THE SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN, 1862.—It was now expected that McDowell, who had been guarding Washington, would join McClellan, but General T. J. Jackson [17] (Stonewall Jackson), who commanded the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah, rushed down the valley and drove Banks across the Potomac into Maryland. This success alarmed the authorities at Washington, and McDowell was held in northern Virginia to protect the capital. Part of his troops, with those of Banks and Fremont, were dispatched against Jackson; but Jackson won several battles and made good his escape.
[Illustration: THOMAS J. JACKSON.]
END OF PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN.—Though deprived of the aid of McDowell, General McClellan moved westward to within eight or ten miles of Richmond; but the Confederate General J. E. Johnston now attacked him at Fair Oaks. A few weeks later General R. E. Lee, [18] who had succeeded Johnston in command, was joined by Jackson; the Confederates then attacked McClellan at Mechanicsville and Gaines Mill and forced him to retreat, fighting as he went (June 26 to July 1), to Harrisons Landing on the James River. There the Union army remained till August, when it went back by water to the Potomac.
[Illustration: ROBERT E. LEE.]
LEE'S RAID; BATTLE OF ANTIETAM, 1862.—The departure of the Union army from Harrisons Landing left General Lee free to do as he chose, and seizing the opportunity he turned against the Union forces under General Pope, whose army was drawn up between Cedar Mountain and Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. Stonewall Jackson first attacked General Banks at the western end of the line at Cedar Mountain, and beat him. Jackson and Lee then fell upon General Pope on the old field of Bull Run, beat him, and forced him to fall back to Washington, where his army was united with that of McClellan. [19] This done, Lee crossed the Potomac and entered Maryland. McClellan attacked him at Antietam Creek (September, 1862), where a bloody battle was fought (sometimes called the battle of Sharpsburg). Lee was beaten; but McClellan did not prevent his recrossing the Potomac into Virginia. [20]
FREDERICKSBURG, 1862.—McClellan was now removed, and General A. E. Burnside put in command. The Confederates meantime had taken position on Marye's Heights on the south side of the Rappahannock, behind Fredericksburg. The position was impregnable; but in December Burnside attacked it and was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. The two armies then went into winter quarters with the Rappahannock between them.
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.—Ever since the opening of the year 1862, the question of slavery in the loyal states and in the territories had been constantly before Congress. In April Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and set free the slaves there with compensation to the owners. In June it abolished slavery in the territories and freed the slaves there without compensation to the owners, and in July authorized the seizure of slaves of persons then in rebellion.
In March Lincoln had asked Congress to help pay for the slaves in the loyal slave states, if these states would abolish slavery; but neither Congress nor the states adopted the plan. [21] Lincoln now determined, as an act of war, to free the slaves in the Confederate states, and when the armies of Lee and McClellan stood face to face at Antietam, he decided, if Lee was beaten, to issue an emancipation proclamation. Lee was beaten, and on September 22, 1862, the proclamation came forth declaring that on January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves" in any state or part of a state then "in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforth, and forever free." The Confederate states did not return to their allegiance, and on January 1, 1863, a second proclamation was issued, declaring the slaves within the Confederate lines to be free men.
[Illustration: PART OF THE AUTOGRAPH COPY OF LINCOLN'S PROCLAMATION OFJANUARY 1, 1863.]
1. Lincolndid not abolish slavery anywhere. He emancipated certain slaves.
2. His proclamation did not apply to the loyal slave states—Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri.
3. It did not apply to such Confederate territory as the Union armies had conquered; namely, Tennessee, seven counties in Virginia, and thirteen parishes in Louisiana.
4. Lincoln freed the slaves by virtue of his authority as commander in chief of the Union armies, "and as a fit and necessary war measure."
1. In 1860 and 1861 seven cotton states seceded, formed the Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson Davis President.
2. The capture of Fort Sumter (April, 1861) and Lincoln's call for troops were followed by the secession of four more Southern states.
3. In 1861 an attempt was made to drive back the Confederate line in Virginia; but this ended in disaster at the battle of Bull Run.
4. In 1862 the Peninsular Campaign failed, Pope was defeated at Bull Run, Lee's invasion of Maryland was ended by the battle of Antietam, and Burnside met defeat at Fredericksburg.
5. In the West in 1862 the Confederate line was forced back to northern Mississippi, and New Orleans was captured. Great battles were fought at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Perryville, and Murfreesboro.
6. On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln declared free the slaves in the states and parts of states held by the Confederates.
[1] The constitution of the Confederacy was the Constitution of the United States altered to suit conditions. The President was to serve six years and was not to be eligible for reëlection; the right to own slaves was affirmed, but no slaves were to be imported from any foreign country except the slave-holding states of the old Union. The Congress was forbidden to establish a tariff for protection of any branch of industry. A Supreme Court was provided for, but was never organized.
[2] Jefferson Davis was born in 1808, graduated from the Military Academy at West Point in 1828, served in the Black Hawk War, resigned from the army in 1835, and became a cotton planter in Mississippi. In 1845 he was elected to Congress, but resigned to take part in the Mexican War, and was wounded at Buena Vista. In 1847 lie was elected a senator, and from 1853 to 1857 was Secretary of War. He then returned to the Senate, where he was when Mississippi seceded. He died in New Orleans in 1889.
[3] Property of the United States seized by the states was turned over to the Confederate government. Thus Louisiana gave up $536,000 in specie taken from the United States customhouse and mint at New Orleans.
[4] Read "Inside Sumter in '61" inBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 65-73.
[5] Read "War Preparations in the North" inBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 85-98; on pp. 149-159, also, read "Going to the Front."
[6] An interesting account of "Scenes in Virginia in '61" may be found inBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 160-166.
[7] "The Confederate army was more disorganized by victory than that of the United States by defeat," says General Johnston; and no pursuit of the Union forces was made. "The larger part of the men," McDowell telegraphed to Washington, "are a confused mob, entirely disorganized." None stopped short of the fortifications along the Potomac, and numbers entered Washington. ReadBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 229-239. "I have no idea that the North will give it up," wrote Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy. "Their defeat will increase their energy." He was right.
[8] George Brinton McClellan was born in Philadelphia in 1826, graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, and resigned from the army in 1857, to become a civil engineer, but rejoined it at the opening of the war. In July, 1861, he conducted a successful campaign against the Confederates in West Virginia, and his victories there were the cause of his promotion to command the Army of the Potomac. After the battle of Antietam (p. 363) he took no further part in the war, and finally resigned in 1864. From 1878 to 1881 he was governor of New Jersey. He died in 1885.
[9] Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, and at seventeen entered West Point, where his name was registered Ulysses S. Grant, and as such he was ever after known. He served in the Mexican War, and afterward engaged in business of various sorts till the opening of the Civil War, when he was made colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment, and then commander of the district of southeast Missouri. When General Buckner, who commanded at Fort Donelson, wrote to Grant to know what terms he would offer, Grant replied: "No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." This won for Grant the popular name "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
Andrew H. Foote was born in Connecticut in 1806, entered the navy at sixteen, and when the war opened, was made flag officer of the Western navy. His gunboats were like huge rafts carrying a house with flat roof and sloping sides that came down to the water's edge. The sloping sides and ends were covered with iron plates and pierced for guns; three in the bow, two in the stern, and four on each side. The huge wheel in the stern which drove the boat was under cover; but the smoke stacks were unprotected. Foote died in 1863, a rear admiral.
[10] The islands in the Mississippi are numbered from the mouth of the Ohio River to New Orleans.
[11] ReadBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. I, pp. 465-486.
[12] Farther west the Confederates attacked the Union army at Corinth (October 4), but were defeated by General Rosecrans.
[13] In January, 1862, the Confederate line west of the Mississippi stretched from Belmont across southern Missouri to Indian Territory; but Grant drove the Confederates out of Belmont; General Curtis, as we have seen, beat them at Pea Ridge (in March), and when the year ended, the Union army was in possession of northern Arkansas.
[14] David G. Farragut was born in 1801, and when eleven years old served on theEssexin the War of 1812. When his fleet started up the Mississippi River, in 1862, he found his way to New Orleans blocked by two forts, St. Philip and Jackson, by chains across the river on hulks below Fort Jackson, and by a fleet of ironclad boats above. After bombarding the forts for six days, he cut the chains, ran by the forts, defeated the fleet, and went up to New Orleans, and later took Baton Rouge and Natchez. For the capture of New Orleans he received the thanks of Congress, and was made a rear admiral; for his victory in Mobile Bay (p. 379) the rank of vice admiral was created for him, and in 1866 a still higher rank, that of admiral, was made for him. He died in 1870.
[15] When it was known in New Orleans that Farragut's fleet was coming, the cotton in the yards and in the cotton presses was hauled on drays to the levee and burned to prevent its falling into Union hands. The capture of the city had a great effect on Great Britain and France, both of whom the Confederates hoped would intervene to stop the war. Slidell, who was in France seeking recognition for the Confederacy as an independent nation, wrote that he had been led to believe "that if New Orleans had not been taken and we suffered no very serious reverses in Virginia and Tennessee, our recognition would very soon have been declared." ReadBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 14-21,91-94.
[16] The story of the march is interestingly told in "Recollections of a Private," inBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 189-199.
[17] Thomas J. Jackson was born in West Virginia in 1824, graduated from West Point, served in the Mexican War, resigned from the army, and till 1861 taught in the Virginia State Military Institute at Lexington. He then joined the Confederate army, and for the firm stand of his brigade at Bull Run gained the name of "Stonewall."
[18] Robert E. Lee was born in Virginia in 1807, a son of "Light Horse" Harry Lee of the Revolutionary army. He was a graduate of West Point, and served in the Mexican War. After Virginia seceded he left the Union army and was appointed a major general of Virginia troops, and in 1862 became commander in chief. At the end of the war he accepted the presidency of Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), and died in Lexington, Virginia, in 1870.
[19] Part of McClellan's army had joined Pope before the second battle of Bull Run.
[20] Read "A Woman's Recollections of Antietam," inBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. II, pp. 686-695; also O. W. Holmes'sMy Hunt after "The Captain."
[21] West Virginia and Missouri later (1863) provided for gradual emancipation, and Maryland (1864) adopted a constitution that abolished slavery.
THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN, 1863.—After the defeat at Fredericksburg, Burnside was removed, and General Hooker put in command of the Army of the Potomac. "Fighting Joe," as Hooker was called, led his army of 130,000 men against Lee and Jackson, and after a stubborn fight at Chancellorsville (May 1-4, 1863) was beaten and fell back. [1] In June Lee once more took the offensive, rushed down the Shenandoah valley to the Potomac River, crossed Maryland, and entered Pennsylvania with the Army of the Potomac in hot pursuit. On reaching Maryland General Hooker was removed and General Meade put in command.
[Illustration: WAR IN THE EAST, 1863-65.]
On the hills at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the two armies met, and there (July 1-3) Lee attacked Meade. The struggle was desperate. About one fourth of the men engaged were killed or wounded. But the splendid valor of the Union army prevailed, and Lee was beaten and forced to return to Virginia, where he remained unmolested till the spring of 1864. [2] The battle of Gettysburg ended Lee's plan for carrying the war into the North, and from the losses on that field his army never fully recovered. [3]
[Illustration: BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG. Contemporary drawing.]
[Illustration: THE VICKSBURG CAMPAIGN.]
[Illustration: GRANT'S HEADQUARTERS NEAR VICKSBURG. From a recent photograph.]
VICKSBURG, 1863.—In January, 1863, the Confederates held the Mississippi River only from Vicksburg to Port Hudson. The capture of these two towns would complete the opening of the river. Grant, therefore, determined to capture Vicksburg. The town stands on the top of a bluff which rises straight and steep from the river, and had been so strongly fortified on the land side that to take it seemed impossible. Grant, having failed in a direct advance through Mississippi, cut a canal across a bend in the river, on the west bank, hoping to divert the waters and get a passage by the town. This, too, failed; and he then decided to cross below Vicksburg and attack by land. To aid him, Admiral Porter ran his gunboats past the town on a night in April and carried the army across the river. Landing on the east bank, Grant won a victory at Port Gibson, and hearing that J. E. Johnston was coming to help Pemberton, pushed in between them, beat Johnston, and turning against Pemberton drove him into Vicksburg. After a siege of seven weeks, in which Vicksburg suffered severely from bombardment and famine, Pemberton surrendered the town and army July 4, 1863.
In less than a week (July 9) Port Hudson surrendered, the Mississippi was opened from source to mouth, and the Confederacy was cut in two.
[Illustration: WAR IN THE WEST, 1863-65, AND ON THE COAST.]
CHICKAMAUGA, 1863.—While Grant was besieging Vicksburg, Rosecrans forced a Confederate army under Bragg to quit its position south of Murfreesboro, and then to leave Chattanooga and retire into northern Georgia. There Bragg was reënforced, and he then attacked Rosecrans in the Chickamauga valley (September 19 and 20, 1863), where was fought one of the most desperate battles of the war. The Union right wing was driven from the field, but the left wing under General Thomas held the enemy in check and saved the army from rout. By his firmness Thomas won the name of "the Rock of Chickamauga."
CHATTANOOGA.—Rosecrans now went back to Chattanooga. Bragg followed, and, taking position on the hills and mountains which surround the town on the east and south, shut in the Union army and besieged it. Hooker was sent from Virginia with more troops, Sherman [4] brought an army from Vicksburg, Rosecrans was replaced by Thomas, and Grant was put in command of all. Then matters changed. The troops under Thomas (November 23) seized some low hills at the foot of Missionary Ridge, east of Chattanooga. Hooker (November 24) carried the Confederate works on Lookout Mountain, southwest of the town, in a fight often called "the Battle above the Clouds." Sherman (November 24 and 25) attacked the northern end of Missionary Ridge. Thomas (November 25) thereupon carried the heights of Missionary Ridge, and drove off the enemy. Bragg retreated to Dalton in northwestern Georgia, where the command of his army was given to General J. E. Johnston.
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. SHERMAN.]
[Illustration: CHARGING UP MISSIONARY RIDGE.]
THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN, 1864.—The Confederates had now but two great armies left. One under Lee was lying quietly behind the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, protecting Richmond; the other under J. E. Johnston [5] was at Dalton, Georgia. The two generals chosen to lead the Union armies against these forces were Grant and Sherman. Grant (now lieutenant general arid in command of all the armies) with the Army of the Potomac was to drive Lee back and take Richmond. Sherman with the forces under Thomas, McPherson, and Schofield was to attack Johnston and enter Georgia. The Union soldiers outnumbered the Confederates.
[Illustration: JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON.]
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA.—On May 4, 1864, accordingly, Sherman moved forward against Johnston, flanked him out of Dalton, and drove him, step by step, through the mountains to Atlanta. Johnston's retreat forced Sherman to weaken his army by leaving guards in the rear to protect the railroads on which he depended for supplies; Johnston intended to attack when he could fight on equal terms. But his retreat displeased Davis, and at Atlanta he was replaced by General Hood, who was expected to fight at once.
In July Hood made three furious attacks, was repulsed, and in September left Atlanta and started northward. His purpose was to draw Sherman out of Georgia, but Sherman sent Thomas with part of the army into Tennessee, and after following Hood for a while, [6] turned back to Atlanta.
After partly burning the town, Sherman started for the seacoast in November, tearing up the railroads, burning bridges, and living on the country as he went. [7] In December Fort McAllister was taken and Savannah occupied.
[Illustration: RAIL TWISTED AROUND POLE BY SHERMAN'S MEN. In the possession of the Long Island Historical Society.]
GRANT AND LEE IN VIRGINIA, 1864.—On the same day in May, 1864, on which Sherman set out to attack Johnston in Georgia, the Army of the Potomac began the campaign in Virginia. General Meade was in command; but Grant, as commander in chief of all the Union armies, directed the campaign in person. Crossing the Rapidan, the army entered the Wilderness, a stretch of country covered with dense woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. Lee attacked, and for several days the fighting was almost incessant. But Grant pushed on to Spottsylvania Court House and to Cold Harbor, where bloody battles were fought; and then went south of Richmond and besieged Petersburg. [8]
EARLY'S RAID, 1864.—Lee now sought to divert Grant by an attack on Washington, and sent General Early down the Shenandoah valley. Early crossed the Potomac, entered Maryland, won a battle at the Monocacy River, and actually threatened the defenses of Washington, but was forced to retreat. [9]
[Illustration: PHILLIP H. SHERIDAN.]
To stop these attacks Grant sent Sheridan [10] into the valley, where hedefeated Early at Winchester and at Fishers Hill and again at Cedar Creek.It was during this last battle that Sheridan made his famous ride fromWinchester. [11]
THE SITUATION EARLY IN 1865.—By 1865, Union fleets and armies had seized many Confederate strongholds on the coast. In the West, Thomas had destroyed Hood's army in the great battle of Nashville (December, 1864). In the East, Grant was steadily pressing the siege of Petersburg and Richmond, and Sherman was making ready to advance northward from Savannah. The cause of the Confederacy was so desperate that in February, 1865, Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, was sent to meet Lincoln and Secretary Seward and discuss terms of peace. Lincoln demanded three things: the disbanding of the Confederate armies, the submission of the seceded states to the rule of Congress, and the abolition of slavery. The terms were not accepted, and the war went on.
SHERMAN MARCHES NORTHWARD, 1865.—After resting for a month at Savannah, Sherman started northward through South Carolina, (February 17) entered Columbia, the capital of the state, and forced the Confederates to evacuate Charleston. To oppose him, a new army was organized and put under the command of Johnston. But Sherman pressed on, entered North Carolina, and reached Goldsboro in safety.
THE SURRENDER OF LEE, 1865.—Early in April, Lee found himself unable to hold Richmond and Petersburg any longer. He retreated westward. Grant followed, and on April 9, 1865, Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, seventy-five miles west of Richmond. [12]
FALL OF THE CONFEDERACY.—The Confederacy then went rapidly to pieces. Johnston surrendered to Sherman near Raleigh on April 26; Jefferson Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, and the war on land was over. [13]
REFLECTION OF LINCOLN.—While the war was raging, the time again came to elect a President and Vice President. The Republicans nominated Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The Democrats selected General McClellan and George H. Pendleton. Lincoln and Johnson were elected and on March 4, 1865, were inaugurated.
DEATH OF LINCOLN.—On the night of April 14, the fourth anniversary of the day on which Anderson marched out of Fort Sumter, while Lincoln was seated with his wife and some friends in a box at Ford's Theater in Washington, he was shot by an actor who had stolen up behind him. [14] The next morning he died, and Andrew Johnson became President.
1. In 1863, Lee repulsed an advance by Hooker's army, and invaded Pennsylvania, but was defeated by Meade at Gettysburg.
2. In the West, Grant took Vicksburg, and the Mississippi was opened to the sea. The Confederates defeated Rosecrans at Chickamauga, but were defeated by Grant and other generals at Chattanooga.
3. In 1864, Grant moved across Virginia, after much hard fighting, and besieged Petersburg and Richmond, and Sherman marched across Georgia to Savannah.
4. In 1865, Sherman marched northward into North Carolina, and Grant forced Lee to leave Richmond and surrender.
5. In 1864, Lincoln was reëlected.
6. In April, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated and Johnson became President.
[Illustration: SHARPSHOOTER'S RIFLE USED IN THE CIVIL WAR. With telescope sight. Weight, 32 lb.]
[1] Jackson was mortally wounded by a volley from his own men, who mistook him and his escort for Union cavalry, in the dusk of evening of the second day at Chancellorsville. His last words were: "Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
[2] Read "The Third Day at Gettysburg" in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III, pp. 369-385. The field of Gettysburg is now a national park dotted with monuments erected in memory of the dead, and marking the positions of the regiments and spots where desperate fighting occurred. Near by is a national cemetery in which are interred several thousand Union soldiers. Read President Lincoln's beautiful Gettysburg Address.
[3] With the exception of a small body of regulars, the Union armies were composed of volunteers. When it became apparent that the war would not end in a few months, Congress passed a Draft Act: whenever a congressional district failed to furnish the required number of volunteers, the names of able-bodied men not already in the army were to be put into a box, and enough names to complete the number were to be drawn out by a blindfolded man. In July, 1863, when this was done in New York city, a riot broke out and for several days the city was mob-ruled. Negroes were killed, property was destroyed, and the rioters were not put down till troops were sent by the government.
[4] William Tecumseh Sherman was born in Ohio in 1820, graduated from West Point, and served in the Seminole and Mexican wars. He became a banker in San Francisco, then a lawyer in Kansas, in 1860 superintendent of a military school in Louisiana, and then president of a street car company in St. Louis. In 1861 he was appointed colonel in the regular army. He fought at Bull Run, was made brigadier general of volunteers, and was transferred to the West, where he rose rapidly. After the war, Grant was made general of the army, and Sherman lieutenant general; and when Grant became President, Sherman was promoted to the rank of general. He was retired in 1884 and died in 1891 at New York.
[5] Joseph Eggleston Johnston was born in Virginia in 1807, graduated from West Point, and served in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican wars. When the Civil War opened, he joined the Confederacy, was made a major general, and with Beauregard commanded at the first battle of Bull Run. Johnston was next put in charge of the operations against McClellan (1862); but was wounded at Fair Oaks and succeeded by Lee. In 1863 he was sent to relieve Vicksburg, but failed. In 1864 he was put in command of Bragg's army after its defeat, and so became opposed to Sherman.
[6] Early in October Hood had reached Dallas on his way to Tennessee. From Dallas he sent a division to capture a garrison and depots at Allatoona, commanded by General Corse. Sherman, who was following Hood, communicated with Corse from the top of Kenesaw Mountain by signals; and Corse, though greatly outnumbered, held the fort and drove off the enemy. On this incident was founded the popular hymnHold the Fort, for I am Coming.
[7] To destroy the railroads so they could not be quickly rebuilt, the rails, heated red-hot in fires made of burning ties, were twisted around trees or telegraph poles. Stations, machine shops, cotton bales, cotton gins and presses were burned. Along the line of march, a strip of country sixty miles wide was made desolate.
[8] While the siege of Petersburg was under way, a tunnel was dug and a mine exploded under a Confederate work called Elliott's Salient (July 30, 1864). As soon as the mass of flying earth, men, guns, and carriages had settled, a body of Union troops moved forward through the break thus made in the enemy's line. But the assault was badly managed. The Confederates rallied, and the Union forces were driven back into the crater made by the explosion, where many were killed and 1400 captured.
[9] On October 19, 1864, St. Albans, a town in Vermont near the Canadian border, was raided by Confederates from Canada. They seized all the horses they could find, robbed the banks, and escaped. A little later the people of Detroit were excited by a rumor that their city was to be raided on October 30. Great preparations for defense were made; but no enemy came.
[10] Philip H. Sheridan was born at Albany, New York, in 1831, graduated from West Point, and was in Missouri when the war opened. In 1862 he was given a command in the cavalry, fought in the West, and before the year closed was made a brigadier and then major general for gallantry in action. At Chattanooga he led the charge up Missionary Ridge. After the war he became lieutenant general and then general of the army, and died in 1888.
[11] Sheridan had spent the night at Winchester, and as he rode toward his camp at Cedar Creek, he met such a crowd of wagons, fugitives, and wounded men that he was forced to take to the fields. At Newtown, the streets were so crowded he could not pass through them. Riding around the village, he met Captain McKinley (afterward President), who, says Sheridan, "spread the news of my return through the motley throng there." Between Newtown and Middletown he met "the only troops in the presence of and resisting the enemy…. Jumping my horse over the line of rails, I rode to the crest of the elevation and … the men rose up from behind their barricade with cheers of recognition." When he rode to another part of the field, "a line of regimental flags rose up out of the ground, as it seemed, to welcome me." With these flags was Colonel Hayes (afterward President). Hurrying to another place, he came upon some divisions marching to the front. When the men "saw me, they began cheering and took up the double-quick to the front." Crossing the pike, he rode, hat in hand, "along the entire line of infantry," shouting, "We are all right…. Never mind, boys, we'll whip them yet. We shall sleep in our quarters to-night." And they did. ReadSheridan's Rideby T. Buchanan Read.
[12] ReadBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 729-746.
[13] On the flight of Davis from Richmond, readBattles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV, pp. 762-767; or theCentury Magazine, November, 1883.
[14] After firing the shot, the assassin waved his pistol and shouted "Sic semper tyrannis"—"Thus be it ever to tyrants" (the motto of the state of Virginia) and jumped from the box to the stage. But his spur caught in an American flag which draped the box, and he fell and broke his leg. Limping off the stage, he fled from the theater, mounted a horse in waiting, and escaped to Virginia. There he was found hidden in a barn and shot. The body of the Martyr President was borne from Washington to Springfield, by the route he took when coming to his first inauguration in 1861. Read Walt Whitman's poemMy Captain.
THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.—The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the coast blockaded from Virginia to Texas.
[Illustration: SINKING THE PETREL. Contemporary drawing.]
The object of the blockade was to cut off the foreign trade of the Southern states, and to prevent their getting supplies of all sorts. But as Great Britain was one of the chief consumers of Southern cotton, and was, indeed, dependent on the South for her supply, it was certain that unless the blockade was made effective by many Union ships, cotton would be carried out of the Southern ports, and supplies run into them, in spite of Lincoln's proclamation.
[Illustration: CARTOON PUBLISHED IN 1861.]
RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.—This is just what was done. Goods of all sorts were brought from Great Britain to the city of Nassau in the Bahama Islands (map, p. 353). There the goods were placed on board blockade runners and started for Wilmington in North Carolina, or for Charleston. So nicely would the voyage be timed that the vessel would be off the port some night when the moon did not shine. Then, with all lights out, the runner would dash through the line of blockading ships, and, if successful, would by daylight be safe in port. The cargo landed, cotton would be taken on board; and the first dark night, or during a storm, the runner, again breaking the blockade, would steam back to Nassau.
THE TRENT AFFAIR.—Great Britain and France promptly acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents. This gave them the same rights in the ports of Great Britain and France as our vessels of war. Hoping to secure a recognition of independence from these countries, the Confederate government sent Mason and Slidell to Europe. These two commissioners ran the blockade, went to Havana, and boarded the British mail steamshipTrent. Captain Wilkes of the United States man-of-warSan Jacinto, hearing of this, stopped theTrentand took off Mason and Slidell. Intense excitement followed in our country and in Great Britain, [2] which at once demanded their release and prepared for war. They were released, and the act of Wilkes was disavowed as an exercise of "the right of search" which we had always resisted when exercised by Great Britain, and which had been one of the causes of the War of 1812.
THE CRUISERS.—While the commerce of the Confederacy was almost destroyed by the blockade, a fleet of Confederate cruisers attacked the commerce of the Union.
The most famous of these, theFlorida,Alabama,Georgia, andShenandoah[3] were built or purchased in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and were suffered to put to sea in spite of the protests of the United States minister. Once on the ocean they cruised from sea to sea, destroying every merchant vessel under our flag that came in their way.
[Illustration: SHELL LODGED IN THE STERN POST OF THE KEARSARGE. Now in theOrdnance Museum, Washington Navy Yard.]
One of them, theAlabama, sailed the ocean unharmed for two years. She cruised in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Brazil, went around the Cape of Good Hope, entered the China Sea, came again around the Cape of Good Hope, and by way of Brazil and the Azores to Cherbourg in France. During the cruise she destroyed over sixty merchantmen. At Cherbourg theAlabamawas found by the United States cruiserKearsarge, and one Sunday morning in June, 1864, the two met in battle off the coast of France, and the Alabama was sunk. [4]
OPERATIONS ALONG THE COAST.—Besides blockading the coast, the Union navy captured or aided in capturing forts, cities, and water ways. The forts at the entrance to Pamlico Sound and Port Royal were captured in 1861. Control of the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle [5] sounds was secured in 1862 by the capture of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, Newbern, and Fort Macon (map, p. 369). In 1863 Fort Sumter was battered down in a naval attack on Charleston. In 1864 Farragut led his fleet into Mobile Bay (in southern Alabama), destroyed the Confederate fleet, captured the forts at the entrance to the bay, and thus cut the city of Mobile off from the sea. In 1865 Fort Fisher, which guarded the entrance to Cape Fear River, on which was Wilmington, fell before a combined attack by land and naval forces.
ON THE INLAND WATERS.—On the great water ways of the West the notable deeds of the navy were the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee by Foote's flotilla (p. 358), the capture of New Orleans by Farragut (p. 361), and the run of Porter's fleet past the batteries at Vicksburg (p. 368).
[Illustration: ONE OF PORTER'S GUNBOATS PASSING VICKSBURG.]
THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC .—But the most famous of all the naval engagements was that of theMonitorand theMerrimacin 1862. When the war opened, there were at the navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia, a quantity of guns, stores, supplies, and eleven vessels. The officer in command, fearing that they would fall into Confederate hands, set fire to the houses, shops, and vessels, and abandoned the place. One of the vessels which was burned to the water's edge and sunk was the steam frigateMerrimac. Finding her hull below the water line unhurt, the Confederates raised theMerrimac, turned her into an ironclad ram, renamed herVirginia, and sent her forth to destroy a squadron of United States vessels at anchor in Hampton Roads (at the mouth of the James River).
[Illustration: MERRIMAC AND MONITOR.]
Steaming across the roads one day in March, 1862, theMerrimacrammed and sank theCumberland, [6] forced theCongressto surrender, and set her on fire. This done, theMerrimacwithdrew, intending to resume the work of destruction on the morrow; for her iron armor had proved to be ample protection against the guns of the Union ships. But the next morning, as she came near theMinnesota, the strangest-looking craft afloat came forth to meet her. Its deck was almost level with the water, and was plated with sheets of iron. In the center of the deck was an iron- plated cylinder which could be revolved by machinery, and in this were two large guns. This was theMonitor[7] which had arrived in the Roads the night before, and now came out from behind theMinnesotato fight theMerrimac. During four hours the battle raged with apparently no result; then theMerrimacwithdrew and theMonitortook her place beside theMinnesota. [8] This battle marks the doom of wooden naval vessels; all the nations of the world were forced to build their navies anew.
FINANCES OF THE WAR.—Four years of war on land and sea cost the people of the North an immense sum of money. To obtain the money Congress began (1861) by raising the tariff on imported articles; by taxing all incomes of more than $800 a year; and by levying a direct tax, which was apportioned among the states according to their population. [9] But the money from these sources was not sufficient, and (1862) an internal revenue tax was resorted to, and collected by stamp duties. [10] Even this tax did not yield enough money, and the government was forced to borrow on the credit of the United States. Bonds were issued, [11] and then United States notes, called "greenbacks," were put in circulation and made legal tender; that is, everybody had to take them in payment of debts. [12]
MONEY IN WAR TIME.—After the government began to issue paper money, the banks suspended specie payment, and all gold and silver coins, including the 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces, disappeared from circulation. The people were then without small change, and for a time postage stamps and "token" pieces of brass and copper were used instead. In March, 1863, however, Congress authorized the Issue of $50,000,000 in paper fractional currency. [13] Both the greenbacks and the fractional currency were merely promises to pay money. As the government did not pay on demand, coin commanded a premium; that is, $100 in gold or silver could be exchanged in the market (down till 1879) for more than $100 in paper money.
NATIONAL BANKS.—Besides the paper money issued by the government there were in circulation several thousand different kinds of state bank notes. Some had no value, some a little value, and others were good for the sums (in greenbacks) expressed on their faces. In order to replace these notes by a sound currency having the same value everywhere, Congress (1863) established the national banking system. Legally organized banking associations were to purchase United States bonds and deposit them with the government. Each bank so doing was then entitled to issue national bank notes to the value of ninety per cent [14] of the bonds it had deposited. Many banks accepted these terms; but it was not till (1865) after Congress taxed the notes of state banks that those notes were driven out of circulation.
COST OF THE WAR.—Just what the war cost can never be fully determined. Hundreds of thousands of men left occupations of all sorts and joined the armies. What they might have made had they stayed at home was what they lost by going to the front. Every loyal state, city, and county, and almost every town and village, incurred a war debt. The national government during the war spent for war purposes $3,660,000,000. To this must be added the value of our merchant ships destroyed by Confederate cruisers; the losses in the South; and many hundred millions paid in pensions to soldiers and their widows.