CHAPTER VII. .

THE NORTHWEST CONFRONTS THE CRISIS.

HER DELEGATES WITHDRAW.

The night following the passage of the ordinance of secession, Messrs. Hubbard, Clemens, Carlile, Tarr, Dent and Burdett, of the Northwestern members, seeing that further resistance in the Convention was impossible, that the sooner they got home and warned their people the better, and that their personal liberty was no longer secure in Richmond, quietly took a train for the North and were in Washington next morning. They had been watched for some time, it was said, and were aware of it, but managed to give the spies the slip. Had they remained another day they were liable to be detained by force as the most effective means of crippling the loyal resistance in the Northwest. Orders were telegraphed by Mr. Letcher to intercept them at Fredericksburg; but either the order was received too late or for some other reason was not executed. Anyhow, Richmond saw them no more; and the cat being out of the bag, it was probably deemed useless to detain those who remained behind; and they who wished were

allowed to leave, first obtaining permits from the Governor. Here is a copy of the one given to the member from Marshall:

"Pass James Burley,

"Marshall County, Va.,

"Via Orange & Alexandria R. R.,
"(Signed) John Letcher."

Mr. Burley had been a very resolute Unionist in the Convention and had offered some resolutions not exceeded in the firmness of their declarations by anything said or offered during the session. Mr. McGrew, in a later chapter of this volume, gives an entertaining account of his own escape, as far as Alexandria with others and thence to Washington by himself; and he relates that when he got over to the Baltimore & Ohio Station in Washington, the first person he saw was "old man Burley" (as he was generally called by his familiars), sitting on the platform contentedly smoking his pipe. The others who had accompanied Mr. McGrew to Alexandria, not being allowed to procced farther, went across northern Virginia via Winchester and found their way home. In a later chapter appears a statement from Mr. Burdett that Governor Letcher did not want the departing members brought back and took care that his orders for the arrest of the first party of fugitives should be so timed that they should be safely past Fredericksburg before the telegram reached there. At Washington this party scattered. Burdett was the only one who went west by the Baltimore & Ohio, and in the chapter contributed by him he relates some of his experiences on the way. Mr. Tarr was accompanied to his home by

Mr. Carlile; and the two gave an account of matters at Richmond to an assemblage in Wellsburg the evening after their arrival there.

A BUZ AT WHEELING.

Mr. Hubbard reached Wheeling the evening of April 19th; and that same evening information was lodged at the post-office that orders had been wired by Governor Letcher

to the State military organization there to seize and occupy the Federal building. The information was promptly put in possession of Mayor Andrew Sweeney and communicated to a few other reliable persons. It was not the intention that it should become public; but it did, and the news flew like wildfire through the city. In a short time hundreds of angry and excited men had collected in the streets about the building, armed with guns, pistols and other weapons of offence, to prevent the execution of such an order. Mayor Sweeney addressed the crowd and assured them that no attempt to seize the building would be permitted, and the people were requested to return to their homes. Some did so, but others lingered in the vicinity for some hours. Gibson L. Cranmer also spoke to the crowd, from the roof of Busby & Little's wagon-shed, adjoining the Custom House grounds on Market Street. There is no reason to doubt that any attempt to carry out Letcher's orders would have been resisted by the people to the bloody end; but a knowledge of the state of popular feeling was sufficient to deter the Governor's friends from making the mad attempt. If Letcher & Co. at Richmond had been well-informed, they never would have given the order. Andrew J. Pannell was collector of customs at the time, and his well-known secession proclivities gave color to the report. The (Secession) Wheeling Union the next day sneered at the precautions taken. The Intelligencer replied that the information received "was of such a kind that it would have been criminal in the person to whom it was communicated not to have acted upon it."

The Richmond Examiner not long afterward took occasion to make this fling at the Northwest:

Carlile, the friend of Botts, whom the "ladies of Richmond" were announced in newspapers to have presented with a gold watch for his labors in the Convention, together with Brown, the censor of Hunter and Mason, and Cavalier Clemens, are not hanged. They live and work their devil's work in Northwestern Virginia, and are the heads of a large party there. They are the candidates for the Congress of Lincoln and publicly advocate the separation of the Northwest from the rest of the State. They inspired that set of ruffians who resisted those orders of the State to take possession of the Custom House at Wheeling. These orders were obeyed and the colors hoisted over the building, only to be pulled down and replaced by the Abolitionist stripes which dishonor it still.

The orders were not obeyed, and the Confederate colors were not hoisted over the building. Mr. Letcher's officers may have sent back a report of this kind to make them appear more valorous than they were. But it is clear such orders were actually issued from Richmond. At that time those persons in Wheeling who adhered to Mr. Letcher and the Confederacy were keeping quiet; and not long after, such of the "Shriver Grays" as felt impelled to fight for their "rights" slipped away quietly and made their way beyond the Confederate lines.

ORGANIZING THE MILITARY.

The next evening after Mr. Hubbard's return, a public meeting was held at American Hall, in the Fifth Ward, where he had his home; and he was present and gave his neighbors some account of his Richmond experiences, but respecting the injunction of secrecy and not disclosing the fact that an ordinance of secession had been passed. He indicated to them what they had to expect and advised