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slavery in the Federal Territories, proceeded without halting or delay in her movement of revolution. Gradually the senators and representatives from the seceding States withdrew from their seats in Congress. On February 4 the Secessionist delegates met at Montgomery, Alabama, and began by organising a provisional congress. On February 8 they formed a provisional government known as that of the Confederate States of America. Finally, on March 11, they adopted a permanent Constitution under the same title.

On the other hand, the North, determined to maintain the decision of the people in the late presidential election that slavery should not be extended into the Federal Territories, and to uphold the lawful authority of the President-elect, gradually fell into the rôle superficially of apathetic indifference, but really of studied inaction, until by the lapse of time President Buchanan's term should expire and President Lincoln enter upon the powers and duties of his office.

Starting from his home at Springfield, Illinois, on February 11, the President-elect made a public journey to Washington, where he arrived on the 23rd, during which he visited the capitals of the States of Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, upon a non-partisan invitation from their several legislatures. He was everywhere received by enormous crowds with very great enthusiasm. In the course of the twenty or thirty addresses that he delivered, while studiously refraining from any express declaration of policy, his words were hopeful of the future, and breathed only peace and kindness to all sections of the country. In the later stages of his journey he received information from two independent sources that his public transit through the city of Baltimore, Maryland, would involve personal danger to himself. As no official invitation had come to him from either the legislature of the State or the municipal authorities of the city, he yielded to the entreaties of personal friends and high officials to deviate. from his published programme, and made the journey unobserved and with a single companion by night. a measure of precaution, dictated not by personal fear but by a sense of the highest prudential duty to the people and the government over whose destiny he had been called to preside.

On March 4, 1861, his inauguration was celebrated with the usual impressive State ceremonial. Standing among government dignitaries on the platform before the east front of the Capitol, his personal appearance produced, as it had done during his whole journey, a most favourable impression upon the throngs assembled to hear him. Mr Lincoln was then 51 years of age, 6 feet 4 inches in height, weighed 12 stone 7 lbs., and for his unusual stature was remarkably well-proportioned. His hair was black, his eyes grey, his rather thin but mobile features were strongly marked, with very prominent eyebrows and high cheekbones. His bearing was erect and dignified, and his countenance, even in repose, not unattractive; when lighted up in public

C. M. H. VII.

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450

The South begins the War

[1861 speaking by a striking thought, or expressing a firm conviction, it became positively handsome. The policy announced in his inaugural address was eminently peaceful and conservative. He declared the Union to be perpetual and unbroken, and secession ordinances and resolutions legally void. He announced that to the extent of his ability he would execute the laws in all the States. He would hold the exterior boundaries of the nation, and collect duties and imposts. He would not force obnoxious officials upon disaffected interior communities, and would furnish the mails unless repelled. After an earnest and patriotic appeal to the South he added: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellowcountrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

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On the following day his Cabinet was nominated and confirmed. Its members were William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Salmon P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury, Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of the Interior, Edward Bates, Attorney-General, and Montgomery Blair, PostmasterGeneral. It was a composite council, comprising representatives from the principal parties out of which the new Republican party had been formed. Four of the members, Seward, Chase, Cameron, and Bates, had been candidates for the presidency.

(2) NORTH AND SOUTH

The very first question presented to the new Administration was both unexpected and serious. Instead of being, as the public believed, secure in Fort Sumter, Major Anderson reported that in a few weeks his provisions would be exhausted, and that the rebel siege-works had become so formidable that it would require an army 20,000 strong to relieve him. Since the government neither possessed such an army nor could create one in time, the alternative presented was one of starvation or withdrawal of the garrison. Commissioners also arrived at this time from the Confederate authorities to discuss terms of separation and independence for the South; but their application was rejected, and the envoys were not even recognised. After about a month of investigation and discussion, President Lincoln caused an expedition to be prepared, and gave notice to the governor of South Carolina that an attempt would be made to send provisions to the fort; and, if this were not resisted, no further effort to throw in either men, arms, or ammunition would be attempted until further notice or in case of attack. Upon this the Confederate government immediately sent an order to reduce the fort; and after two days' bombardment the garrison capitulated on April 14. It had not lost any men, but was forced to surrender by want of provisions and the burning of wooden buildings in the course of the bombardment.

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War having been thus begun by the unprovoked attack by the Confederate forces, President Lincoln on April 15 issued his proclamation calling to the service of the United States 75,000 three-months' militia. To this every governor of a Free State responded with enthusiastic loyalty, and tendered at least double the number of regiments called for. A proclamation from Jefferson Davis, on April 17, proposing to issue letters of marque and reprisal against Federal commerce, was met two days later by the counter-proclamation of President Lincoln, instituting a blockade of the Southern ports and threatening privateers with the laws against piracy. In both the North and the South the war-spirit and hostile demonstrations rose to a high pitch, and the usual peaceful energies of communities were quickly turned to enthusiastic and active military preparation.

The regular army of the United States numbered 17,113 officers and men. Scattered in small detachments to guard the vast western frontier against hostile Indians, it could not immediately be withdrawn. It was quickly seen that the 75,000 militia called into service by the President's proclamation would be insufficient to meet the rapid development of the insurrection; and the formation of a new army was immediately begun. By a proclamation of May 3, 42,034 three-years' volunteers, 22,714 enlisted men (adding ten regiments to the regular army), and 18,000 seamen were called into service, swelling the entire military establishment of the United States to an army of 156,861 and a navy of 25,600. There existed no legal authority for this increase; but the special session of Congress legalised the President's action, and by additional laws, approved July 22, 25, and 29, authorised him to accept the service of volunteers for three years, or during the war, to a number not exceeding one million. Such was the patriotic enthusiasm of the people of the loyal States that before July 1 seventy-two regiments and ten batteries had been enlisted and mustered in; and within a year from the call 637,000 volunteers were in service.

Immense as then seemed such a preparation for hostilities by a peaceful nation, it was but the serious beginning of the war. During the following three years of conflict ten additional calls were made by President Lincoln for troops to be furnished from the several States by volunteering and by draft. In response to these calls the enormous total of 2,690,401 recruits was obtained in periods of enlistment varying from three months to three years; and this supply kept up the total strength of the armies of the Union to 918,191 on January 1, 1863; 860,737 on January 1, 1864; 959,460 on January 1, 1865; 980,000 on March 31, 1865; and 1,516,000 on May 1, 1865. Concurrently with these changes, the navy of the United States was expanded from 42 vessels, carrying 555 guns, with 7600 men afloat, to 671 vessels, with 4717 guns and 51,500 seamen.

If it be asked why such prodigious numbers were needed for the

452

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Union forces, the reason is obvious. The eleven States eventually leagued in rebellion embraced a territorial area of 733,144 square miles, equal to the combined areas of Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland. These States had a sea-coast line of 3525 miles, and an interior border line of 7031 miles. The war on their part was mainly defensive, while on the part of the United States it was necessary, not only to enter and overrun the rebellious territory, but permanently to hold and subdue it. At every step this necessitated leaving behind garrisons and detachments to secure communications, as well as to control the disaffected districts after they had been gained by marches, sieges, or battles.

Equal popular enthusiasm and equal official energy were shown in the Confederate States in raising armies to support the rebellion, but not with equal results. In the personal qualities of warlike spirit, courage, and devotion to what each side considered a righteous cause, Americans of both the South and the North were equal. In mere territorial area the opposing sections were not greatly unequal, but in war strength there was a striking difference. By the census of 1860 the North had a population of nineteen millions, the South of only eight million whites and four million slaves. Here was at once an immense disparity, nineteen millions against eight millions more than two to one -in that first military requisite, men available for recruits; for at the beginning none but white men were enlisted on either side. A similar, if not greater, disparity in favour of the North existed in almost all other military needs and resources. Since the organisation of the Confederate government in February, four calls had been made for Southern volunteers, amounting to an aggregate of 82,000. In his message of April 29 to the Secessionist Congress, President Davis proposed to organise and hold in readiness an army of 100,000 men. Volunteer enlistments for a term of twelve months were provided for; but before the expiration of a year Southern volunteering had so far ceased that the Confederate Congress passed a Conscription Act, placing all white men within prescribed ages in the military service, to be enrolled and called out at the discretion of the Confederate president. Recruits were incorporated into the Confederate service whenever and in whatever numbers they could be obtained; and under such a system it is not surprising that no statistics could be preserved.

Practically the war lasted four years, from the fall of Sumter to the surrender of Lee at Appomattox and Johnston at Raleigh, though minor engagements and surrenders occurred later. There were fought

in all over 2000 battles and skirmishes, extending east and west from Virginia to Texas, and north and south from Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico, though the principal area of conflict lay between Chesapeake Bay and the Mississippi river. It has been estimated that there were 112 land battles, in which one side or the other lost over 500 in

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Bloodshed at Baltimore

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killed or wounded, and 1882 engagements in which at least one regiment participated. Probably half a million lives on each side were lost in campaign, battle, hospital or prison. Since it would be impossible to follow in detail this multitude of incidents, it is proposed here to take note only of the leading and decisive campaigns, battles and events that wrought out the grand results of the mighty conflict.

Prior to the fall of Sumter, only the seven Cotton and Gulf States, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, had united to form the Confederacy. In the other eight Slave States most of the executives and many of the leading politicians were from the beginning resolved on secession, though there was still such a division of sentiment among the people as to render their eventual course uncertain. The governors of each of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri sent insulting refusals to the President's call for troops, and immediately threw all their official authority in favour of secession. Four of them, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, lying in the interior, became practically from that time a part of the Confederate States. The States of Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, and Maryland, bordering on the Free States, though undergoing severe local struggles, were eventually saved to the Union, partly by the presence of decisive Federal forces, partly by the stubborn loyalty of a majority of their people.

Delaware, because of her small remaining number of slaves, but more especially because of her geographical position, inevitably went with the North; though local sentiment was so far divided that Governor Burton made no official reply to the President's call, especially as there existed no organised State militia. Nevertheless he issued a proclamation authorising the formation of volunteer companies, and giving them the option of offering their services to the general government. Under this authority Union regiments were organised by the loyal people and sent to Washington.

In Maryland Governor Hicks long maintained an apparently neutral attitude, until events rather than official leadership brought on the crisis and its solution. When the 6th Massachusetts, the first fully armed and equipped regiment to reach Washington under the President's call, passed through the city of Baltimore, the cars containing the last four companies were stopped, and as the men attempted to march through the streets to the Washington railroad station, they were set upon by a Secessionist mob, through which they had to fight their way, their assailants using paving-stones and firearms, and the soldiers replying with their rifles. The soldiers lost four men killed and thirty-six wounded, the citizens perhaps two or three times that number.

That afternoon a huge mass meeting was held, in which the whole current of speech-making, the governor's declarations included, was in