L. OUR CIVIL WAR, — ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE. OSTILITIES on the part of the Confederacy had been inaugurated weeks before Mr. Lincoln's accession to the Presidency. The Federal forts, arsenals, armories, subtreasuries, &c., &c., located in the seceding States, had, in good part, thus changed hands, often with the hearty assent and cooperation of their custodians, — always without serious resistance offered by them or commanded from Washington. Fort Sumter, Key West, and Fort Pickens (at Pensacola) were all that held out for the Union. General Twiggs's surrender* of the greater part of our little Army, then posted along the exposed frontiers of Texas, with all the forts, arms, munitions, stores, &c., occurred two weeks before the close of Mr. Buchanan's term. Still, the fact that war existed, or even that it was inevitable, was not generally realized in the Free States, till the telegraph flashed far and wide the startling news that fire had been opened† on Fort Sumter from the Rebel forts and batteries whereby it was half encircled,-following this, next day, with the tidings that the feebly manned and nearly foodless fort had surrendered. Hereupon, Virginia was promptly plunged by her Convention into the widening vortex of Secession; and was soon followed by Arkansas, ‡ North Carolina,§ and ultimately by Tennessee. Meantime, President Lincoln, directly on hearing of the fall of Sumter, had summoned the new Congress to meet in *February 18, 1861. ↑ April 12, 1861. ↑ May 6, 1861. June 8, 1861. extraordinary session on the 4th of July ensuing, and had called on the Governors of the presumptively loyal States for their respective quotas of a volunteer force of 75,000 men to defend the capital and public property of the Union. The Governors, not only of Virginia (which was then on the point, if not in the act, of seceding), but of North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, and even Delaware, responded only with "railing accusations," implying amazement that any President should ask or expect their help in the nefarious work of "coercion." From the Governors of the Free States (nearly or quite all Republicans) very different responses were received, swiftly followed by the required volunteers. One of the first regiments on foot was from Massachusetts, and was fiercely assailed on its passage through Baltimore by a vast pro-Slavery mob, whereby three of its men were slain and eight seriously wounded. The residue made their way through the city, and proceeded to Washington; but a Pennsylvania regiment, just behind it, was roughly handled by the mob, and constrained to take the back track to Philadelphia. Baltimore thereupon ranged herself on the side of Secession, stopping the trains and cutting the wires that connected Washington with the still loyal States; the Federal Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, being menaced, was fired and abandoned; the Navy Yard at Norfolk was culpably deserted, leaving two thousand cannon and large supplies of munitions to the exulting Confederates; a Confederate camp was established near St. Louis, under the auspices of Governor Jackson, and men openly enlisted and drilled there for the work in prospect; the South was closed to Northern travel and commerce, and everything portended a formidable, bloody, devastating war. - Yet President Lincoln persisted in what seems to me his second grave mistake, that of underestimating the spirit and power of the Rebellion. He had called for but 75,000 men when apprised that Fort Sumter had fallen; he called for no more when assured that Virginia and North Carolina had been swept into the vortex of Secession by that open * April 19, 1861. defiance of the National authority and assault on the National integrity; that Arkansas and Tennessee were on the point of following their bad example; and that even Maryland and Missouri were, at least for the moment, in the hands of those who fully shared the animus and sympathized with the aims of the Disunionists. It was now plain that the Slave Power was the Nation's assailant, and that its motto was, "War to the knife!" I think the President should have changed his tactics in view of the added gravity of the public danger. I think he should have invited the people to assemble on a designated early day in their several wards and townships, then and there to solemnly swear to uphold the Government and Union, and to enroll themselves as volunteers for the war, subject to be called out at his discretion. Each man's age, as well as name, should have been recorded; and then he should have called them out in classes as they should be wanted,say, first, those of 20 to 25 years old; secondly, those between 25 and 30; and so on. I judge that not less than One Million able-bodied men would have thus enrolled themselves; that the first two calls would have provided a force of not less than two hundred thousand men; and that subsequent calls, though less productive, would have supplied all the men from time to time required, without cost and without material delay. The Confederate Congress had met at Montgomery, Alabama, held a brief session, and adjourned to reconvene at Richmond on the 4th of July. I hold that it should not have been allowed so to meet, but that a Union army, One Hundred Thousand strong, should have occupied that city early in June, certainly before the close of that month. Richmond was not yet fortified; it was accessible by land and by water; we firmly held Fortress Monroe; the designated capital of the Confederacy should never have received its Congress, but should have witnessed such a celebration of the anniversary of American Independence as had never yet thrilled its heart. The war-cry, "Forward to Richmond!" did not originate with me; but it is just what should have been uttered, and the words should have been translated into deeds. Instead of energy, vigor, promptness, daring, decision, we had in our councils weakness, irresolution, hesitation, delay; and, when at last our hastily collected forces, after being demoralized by weeks of idleness and dissipation, were sent forward, they advanced on separate lines, under different commanders; thus enabling the enemy to concentrate all his forces in Virginia against a single corps of ours, defeating and stampeding it at Bull Run, while other Union volunteers, aggregating nearly twice its strength, lay idle and useless near Harper's Ferry, in and about Washington, and at Fortress Monroe. Thus what should have been a short, sharp struggle was expanded into a long, desultory one; while those whose blundering incapacity or lack of purpose was responsible for those ills united in throwing the blame on the faithful few who had counselled justly, but whose urgent remonstrances they had never heeded. "Forward to Richmond!" was execrated as the impulse to disaster, even by some who had lustily echoed it; and weary months of halting, timid, nerveless, yet costly warfare, naturally followed. Men talk reproachfully of the heavy losses incurred by Grant in taking Richmond, forgetting that his predecessors had lost yet more in not taking it. In war, energy-prompt and vigorous action is the true economizer of suffering, of devastation, and of life. Had Napoleon or Jackson been in Scott's place in 1861, the Rebellion would have been stamped out ere the close of that year; but Slavery would have remained to scourge us still. Thus disaster is overruled to subserve the ends of beneficence; thus the evil of the moment contains the germ of good that is enduring; and thus is freshly exemplified the great truth proclaimed by Pope : "In spite of pride, in erring Reason's spite, One truth is clear,- WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT." THE LI. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. HERE are those who say that Mr. Lincoln was fortunate in his death as in his life: I judge otherwise. I hold him most inapt for the leadership of a people involved in desperate, agonizing war; while I deem few men better fitted to guide a nation's destinies in time of peace. Especially do I deem him eminently fitted to soothe, to heal, and to reunite in bonds of true, fraternal affection a people just lapsing into peace after years of distracting, desolating internal strife. His true career was just opening when an assassin's bullet quenched his light of life. Mr. Lincoln entered Washington the victim of a grave delusion. A genial, quiet, essentially peaceful man, trained in the ways of the bar and the stump, he fully believed that there would be no civil war, no serious effort to consummate Disunion. His faith in Reason as a moral force was so implicit that he did not cherish a doubt that his Inaugural Address, whereon he had bestowed much thought and labor, would, when read throughout the South, dissolve the Confederacy as frost is dissipated by a vernal sun. I sat just behind him as he read it, on a bright, warm, still March day, expecting to hear its delivery arrested by the crack of a rifle aimed at his heart; but it pleased God to postpone the deed, though there was forty times the reason for shooting him in 1860 that there was in '65, and at least forty times as many intent on killing or having him killed. No shot was then fired, however; for his hour had not yet come. Almost every one has personal anecdotes of "Old Abe." |