網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

CH. I.]

DAVIS'S PRIVATEERING PROJECTS

21

an armed force, for the purpose of cap- passage-the last of all-as a memora turing its fortresses, and thereby sub- ble specimen of mingled assurance and verting its independence, and subjecting audacity: "We feel that our cause is the free people thereof to the dominion just and holy. We protest solemnly, of a foreign power," issued a proclama- in the face of mankind, that we desire tion, marking out the deadly plan he peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. had in view, and "inviting all those In independence we seek no conquest, who may desire, by service in private no aggrandizement, no cession of any armed vessels on the high seas, to aid kind from the states with which we this government in resisting so wanton have lately confederated. All we ask and wicked an oppression, to make ap- is to be let alone that those who never plications for commissions or letters of held power over us shall not marque and reprisal, to be issued under now attempt our subjugation by the seal of these Confederate States." arms. This we will, we must resist, to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned, the sword will drop from our grasp and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that cannot but be mu tually beneficial. So long as this pre. tension is maintained, with a firm reli ance on that Divine power which covers with its protection the just cause, we

1861.

This insolent proposition was met by another proclamation from President Lincoln, April 19th, declaring a blockade of the ports of the seceded states, and subjecting the privateers in the rebel service to the laws for the prevention and punishment of piracy. Some ten days afterwards, Davis addressed the Confederate Congress, and affected to doubt whether the proclamation will continue to struggle for our inherwere authentic or not. He stigmatized ent right to freedom, independence, and Mr. Lincoln's course in no measured self-government." terms, and could not bring himself to Up to this point, the government had believe that President Lincoln was pre- decided, in part at least, upon its course pared to "inaugurate a war of extermin- of action, and had begun to make some ation on both sides, by treating as pi- preparation for the inevitable issues at rates open enemies acting under commis- stake. How imperfect this preparation sions issued by an organized govern- was, how inadequate the appreciation ment." He also stated, that there were of what was before our country to do 19,000 men in the various places seized and to endure, how insufficient the sense upon by the rebels, and 16,000 more entertained of what the rebels meant, on their way to Virginia, and that in and were able to accomplish, the rapid view of the present exigencies 100,000 progress of events ere long demonstratmen were to be organized and held in ed. We may reverently thank God, readiness for instant action. It was in that, in this hour of bitter trial, neither this address that Davis's desire "to be government nor people were found let alone" occurs, and we quote the wanting.

CHAPTER II.

1861.

PROGRESS OF EVENTS: UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE.

Position of Virginia at this date- Efforts and success of secessionists - Virginia lost to the Union - Harper's Ferry - Attack on by rebels, and burning of arsenal by order of the government - The Navy Yard at Gosport Its value and importance-Great loss of property, etc., to the United States - Exultations of the rebels - Eagerness to attack Washington - Preparation on part of the government - Baltimore — Riot, and attack on the troops - The New York Seventh - Gen. Butler and Annapolis — His energetic course in Maryland - Conduct of Gov. Hicks-Gen. Cadwalader in Maryland — Habeas corpus suspension - Chiefjustice Taney's course - Gen. Banks in command - His action-Gen. Dix succeeds - Immense gathering in New York-Speeches by Prof. Mitchel and others - Patriotism of our countrywomen — Affairs during month of May - Proclamation of the President calling for more troops - Activity of secessionists - Movement of troops into Virginia - Ellsworth's death at Alexandria Rebels alarmed at attitude of the North - Davis and his schemes and efforts - His Address to Confederate Congress - Intended uses of it Action of Confederate Congress - Davis goes to Richmond - His speech - Beauregard in Virginia-His insolent and abusive words -Efforts to prepare for advance of Union troops - Skirmishes, etc., — Lieut Tompkins at Fairfax Court House — Rebels routed at Philippi and Romney - Harper's Ferry abandoned by rebels-Gen. Butler and Big Bethel - Failure of the expedition-Negroes contraband of war- - Gen. Schenck at Vienna in Virginia - Forces on the Potomac at close of the month of June-Spirit and expectations of the people at the time Closing scenes in the life of Senator Douglas.

[ocr errors]

THE position of Virginia, as one of | expressed their sentiments and wishes the largest and most important of the border states, rendered it especially desirable for the rebel conspirators to secure control over it, and to gain all the prestige arising out of connecting her

[blocks in formation]

freely and deliberately, they would have cast their lot with the supporters of the Constitution and laws. But Davis, and his fellow laborers in a had cause, were determined at all hazards to prevent any such result. By audacious falsehoods, by intimidation and blustering, by getting control over legislative action, they aimed at forcing the state into the ranks of secession; and unhappily they succeeded in accomplishing their ends.

The convention of Virginia had been elected by Union votes, and the legislature had taken care, in authorizing its consideration of this matter, to provide that no ordinance of secession should have any effect without being

CH. II.]

VIRGINIA FORCED INTO SECESSION.

ratified by the people. At the opening of the convention in Richmond, a majority of its members were decidedly opposed to the secession of their state; but the conspirators, stopping short at nothing, resorted to secret sessions, and to deriding the weaker members, bullying the timid, cajoling the wavering, and firing southern pride and passion in every possible way; so that, three days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter, they gained their purpose, and Virginia was lost.* Although the law required the vote of the people before secession could be ratified, there was no waiting, no scruple on the part of the rebels. "For mutual defence," as Mr. Mason, late Senator, wrote, May 16th, "immediately after the ordinance of secession passed, a treaty, or 'military league' was formed by the convention, in the name of the people of Virginia, with the Confederate States of the South, by which the latter were bound to march to the aid of our state, against the invasion of the Federal Government. And we have now in Virginia, at Harper's Ferry, and at Norfolk, in face of the common foe, several thousand of the gallant sons of South Carolina, of Alabama, of Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi, who hastened to fulfil the covenant they made, and are ready and eager to lay down their lives, side by side, with our sons in defence of the soil of Virginia."

Everything was assumed as being con.plete. Members of the Confederate

* The vote, at the last, was 88 to 55; a majority increased both by the means above spoken of, and by the provision noted on a previous page (see vol. iii. 560,) that Virginia, unless she joined the rebels, would be cut off entirely from a market for her slaves.

23

Congress were appointed; troops were sent into the state from further south; and when the 23d of May arrived, the voting was only to support a foregone conclusion; union men were not safe in casting their suffrages; of course, secession was carried, the actual vote being 128,884 for secession, to 32,134 against. Virginia, mad and foolish, joined the foes of law and order; and bitterly did she afterwards find occasion to repent of her action.*

As we have said above, there was no waiting, no delay in entering upon active measures of hostility. Within twenty-four hours after the convention had done its work, not only were the Custom House and Post Office at Richmond seized upon, but an attack on the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry was made. The possession of this latter was of prime importance to the rebels. Situated at the junction of the Shenandoah and Potomac, some sixty miles above Washington, it constitutes the outer gate to the great val ley of Virginia, and offers the readiest mode of approach from the east to Winchester and the inner region. In addition to the armory with its weapons of war, it contained a large number of

* "The second secessionary movement" as the rebels termed it, which was begun by Virginia, added three

other states to the confederacy. Tennessee seceded May 6th, 1861; Arkansas, May 18th; North Carolina, May

21st. Thus, eleven states were arrayed in hostile attitude against the Constitution and laws. (See note, vol. iii. p.

556.) In regard to Tennessee, however, it may here be stated, that she was never carried into the position of rebellion by the will of the majority of her people. On the contrary, it was only by the audacity and unscrupulousness of disunionists, that the secession act was forced upon the people. Andrew Johnson was appointed military governor, March 4th, 1862, and in September, 1863, the rebel government was quashed entirely,

shops for the manufacture of arms. The arsenal was, at the time, in the charge of about forty riflemen, 1861. under command of Lieutenant Jones, who was instructed, in case of attack, not to surrender, but to destroy the works. Receiving information that bands of state militia were prepared to seize upon the arsenal, Lieut. Jones caused all the arms, some 15,000 in number, to be heaped up ready to be burned. When, on the night of the 18th of April, the invaders approached, the trains were fired, and in three minutes the buildings were in flames, and nearly every thing was destroyed. Lieut. Jones escaped with his men by the bridge leading into Maryland, and reached Carlisle barracks in Pennsylvania the next afternoon. For this good service he was duly thanked and promoted.

Simultaneously with this attack on Harper's Ferry, the rebels took active measures to get possession of the Navy Yard at Norfolk. This large and very raluable depot, with its vast stores of provisions and materials for naval purposes, its shops and manufactures, was situated at Gosport, adjoining Portsmouth, on the Elizabeth River, opposite Norfolk. It covered an area of threequarters of a mile in length and a quarter in breadth, and it had a drydock of granite, with ship-houses, naval hospital, etc. There were twelve vessels in the yard, but most of them were dismantled and in ordinary. The Merrimac, a first class frigate of forty guns, was the most important of all. Her machinery needed repair, and steps had been taken to put her in order as speed

ily as possible. On the 17th, she was ready to be moved, and yet Commodore McCauley refused to allow her departure. His excuse was, paltry enough too, that he relied on the honor and veracity of his junior officers, who, by the way, when they had got through at Norfolk, coolly resigned and went over to secession. Commodore Paulding was sent with the Pawnee, and some Massachusetts troops, on the 20th of April, to save what he could and destroy the remainder. When he arrived, he found that the powder magazine had fallen into the hands of the insurgents, and that the ships were scuttled and sinking. Commodore Paulding had them set on fire, and destroying as much of the public property as was possible, he took the U. S. ship Cumberland in tow, and sailed down the river. By a strange fatuity of the government, in not making proper provision in order to save public property from the hands of thieves and robbers, the confederates gained 2,000 pieces of heavy ordnance, 300 of the guns being of the Dahlgren pattern, and in stores, furniture, etc., property to the amount of $10,000,000.†

* Mr. Pollard, of Richmond, with various flourishes of rhetoric, terms what was done by order of the gov

ernment, "acts of ruthless vandalism," and winds up his paragraph, giving an account of the matter, in these

words: "In the midst of the brilliance of the scene

(i. e., the conflagration of the ships, etc.) the Pawnee with the Cumberland in tow, stole like a guilty thing through the harbor, fleeing from the destruction they had been sent to accomplish."-" First Year of the

War," pp. 65, 66.

The Senate committee (April 18th, 1862) speaks of this whole matter with very great and deserved se

verity. The hope of good and true men at Norfolk, who greeted the arrival of the Pawnee with cheer on cheer," was cruelly disappointed by the hasty attempt

to destroy the yard; and the government afforded the loyal men at Norfolk-as indeed every where else at

CH. II.]

EAGERNESS TO ATTACK WASHINGTON.

25

1861.

It was a painful, mortifying event, ered that both he and we are wholly and rendered all the more so by its crip indebted for our means of resistance to pling the government, strengthening his loss and our acquisition of the Gos the secessionists, prolonging the contest, port Navy Yard.”* and giving the enemy so abundant For some time past, the hot-bloods of ground of rejoicing. It was bad enough the South had been crying out for an to meet with losses such as those just attack upon Washington. Its capture, named; but to have the guns stolen they thought, would be no difficult matfrom us turned against us, in Virginia, ter, and its importance to them, as giv North Carolina and the West, was par- ing them a sort of credit in the eyes ticularly aggravating. Mr. W. H. Pe- of the world, they valued very highly. ters, a person appointed by the gov. Various and alarming reports came up ernor of Virginia to make an inventory from all quarters of the seceded of the property acquired by seizing upon states, and the newspapers, as what belonged to the government, illus. well as the speechifying demagogues, trates clearly the position of affairs on urged an immediate advance upon the this subject. He writes in this strain :- capital. "The capture of Washington "I had proposed some remarks upon city," said a Richmond paper, April the vast importance to Virginia, and to 23d, " is perfectly within the power of the entire South, of the timely acqui- Virginia and Maryland, if Virginia will sition of this extensive naval depot, only make the effort by her constituted with its immense supplies of munitions authority; nor is there a single moment of war, and to notice briefly the dam- to lose. The entire population pant for aging effects of its loss to the govern- the onset. There was never half the ment at Washington; but I deem it un- unanimity among the people before, nor necessary, since the presence at almost a tithe of the zeal upon any subject that every exposed point on the whole south is now manifested to take Washington ern coast, and at numerous inland in and drive from it every Black Repubtrenched camps in the several states, lican who is a dweller there. From the of heavy pieces of ordnance, with their mountain tops and valleys to the shores equipments and fixed ammunition, all of the sea, there is one wild shout of supplied from this establishment, fully fierce resolve to capture Washington attests the one; while the unwillingness city at all and every human hazard. of the enemy to attempt demonstrations The filthy cage of unclean birds must at any point, from which he is obviously deterred by the knowledge of its wellfortified condition, abundantly proves the other-especially when it is consid

and will assuredly be purified by fire. The people are determined upon it, and are clamorous for a leader to conduct them to the onslaught. That leader will assuredly rise, aye, and that right

that time every possible reason for the conviction speedily."

that the rebellion was the winning side, and that devotion to the government could end only in defeat, loss, and death.”

Doubtless, from what is now known

* See Richmond Enquirer, February 4th, 1882.

« 上一頁繼續 »