to move a vessel or fire a shot except in defence, gave the Union commander time to do what he could to destroy the property in his charge; and on April 20 he scuttled every ship in the harbor, sinking them just before the arrival of Capt. Hiram Paulding in the Pawnee with orders to relieve McCauley, and to save or destroy the property. Seeing that it would be possible for the enemy to raise the sunken vessels, and that after the ships had been rendered useless he could not hold the place with his small force, Paulding decided to complete the work of destruction as far as possible, and told off his men in detachments for this duty. Ships, ship-houses, barracks, wharves, were at the signal (a rocket) set ablaze, and the display was magnificent as pyrotechnics, and discouraging to the enemy, which had expected to secure a ready-made navy for the taking of it. When to the roar of the flames was added the boom of the loaded guns as the fire reached them, the effect was tremendous. Under cover of all this, the Pawnee drew out of the harbor, accompanied by the steam-tug Yankee towing the Cumberland, which alone of the fleet had not been scuttled, and bearing the loyal garrison and crews. In the haste with which the work of destruction had been undertaken, the result was incomplete. The mine under the dry-dock did not explode; and that most useful appliance, together with many shops, cannon, and provisions, was secured by the Confederates, who also succeeded in raising and using three of the sunken and partially burned vessels—the Merrimac, Raritan, and Plymouth, under the guns of the first of which, from behind its armored sides, the Cumberland afterward came to grief in Hampton Roads.
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| BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. |
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF BLOODSHED.
LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS—THE STRUGGLE FOR VIRGINIA—OPPOSING VIEWS EXPRESSED BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS—THE SLAVE-TRADE OF VIRGINIA—VIRGINIA DRAGOONED—THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS—LINCOLN'S FAITH IN THE PEOPLE—ORIGIN OF THE WORD "COPPERHEAD."
Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address was one of the ablest state papers recorded in American history. It argued the question of secession in all its aspects—the constitutional right, the reality of the grievance, the sufficiency of the remedy—and so far as law and logic went, it left the secessionists little or nothing to stand on. But neither law nor logic could change in a single day the pre-determined purpose of a powerful combination, or allay the passions that had been roused by years of resentful debate. Some of its sentences read like maxims for statesmen: "The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy." "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws?" "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?" With all its conciliatory messages it expressed a firm and unalterable purpose to maintain the Union at every hazard. "I consider," he said, "that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary." And in closing he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it. … We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
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| Oliver O. Howard. John A. Logan. William B. Hazen. William T. Sherman. Jeff. C. Davis. Henry W. Slocum. J. A. Mower. SHERMAN AND HIS GENERALS. |
No such address had ever come from the lips of a President before. Pierce and Buchanan had scolded the abolitionists like partisans; Lincoln talked to the secessionists like a brother. The loyal people throughout the country received the address with satisfaction. The secessionists bitterly denounced it. Overlooking all its pacific declarations, and keeping out of sight the fact that a majority of the Congress just chosen was politically opposed to the President, they appealed to the Southern people to say whether they would "submit to abolition rule," and whether they were going to look on and "see gallant little South Carolina crushed under the heel of despotism."
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| GENERAL GRANT'S BODYGUARD. |
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| GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, WITH GENERALS RAWLINS AND BOWERS. |
In spite of all such appeals, there was still a strong Union sentiment at the South. This sentiment was admirably expressed by Hon. Alexander H. Stephens in a speech delivered on November 14, 1860, in the following words: "This step of secession, once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow will rest on the convention for all time. … What reasons can you give the nations of the earth to justify it? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? And what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the Government of Washington, of which the South has the right to complain? I challenge the answer. … I declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest Government—the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men—that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a Government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century, in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote." In a speech by Mr. Stephens delivered in Savannah, March 22, 1861, he expressed entirely different views; in expounding the new constitution, he said: "The prevailing idea entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution was, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. … Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea. Its foundation was laid, and its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man, that slavery, in