Part 14 (1/2)
For this new loss, Fremont was subjected to a shower of fierce criticism, which this time he sought to disarm by ostentatious announcements of immediate activity. ”I am taking the field myself,” he telegraphed, ”and hope to destroy the enemy either before or after the junction of forces under McCulloch.” Four days after the surrender, the St. Louis newspapers printed his order organizing an army of five divisions. The doc.u.ment made a respectable show of force on paper, claiming an aggregate of nearly thirty-nine thousand. In reality, however, being scattered and totally unprepared for the field, it possessed no such effective strength. For a month longer extravagant newspaper reports stimulated the public with the hope of substantial results from Fremont's intended campaign. Before the end of that time, however, President Lincoln, under growing apprehension, sent Secretary of War Cameron and the adjutant-general of the army to Missouri to make a personal investigation. Reaching Fremont's camp on October 13, they found the movement to be a mere forced, spasmodic display, without substantial strength, transportation, or coherent and feasible plan; and that at least two of the division commanders were without means to execute the orders they had received, and utterly without confidence in their leader, or knowledge of his intentions.
To give Fremont yet another chance, the Secretary of War withheld the President's order to relieve the general from command, which he had brought with him, on Fremont's insistence that a victory was really within his reach. When this hope also proved delusive, and suspicion was aroused that the general might be intending not only to deceive, but to defy the administration, President Lincoln sent the following letter by a special friend to General Curtis, commanding at St. Louis:
”DEAR SIR: On receipt of this, with the accompanying inclosures, you will take safe, certain, and suitable measures to have the inclosure addressed to Major-General Fremont delivered to him with all reasonable dispatch, subject to these conditions only, that if, when General Fremont shall be reached by the messenger--yourself, or any one sent by you--he shall then have, in personal command, fought and won a battle, or shall then be actually in a battle, or shall then be in the immediate presence of the enemy in expectation of a battle, it is not to be delivered, but held for further orders. After, and not till after, the delivery to General Fremont, let the inclosure addressed to General Hunter be delivered to him.”
The order of removal was delivered to Fremont on November 2. By that date he had reached Springfield, but had won no victory, fought no battle, and was not in the presence of the enemy. Two of his divisions were not yet even with him. Still laboring under the delusion, perhaps imposed on him by his scouts, his orders stated that the enemy was only a day's march distant, and advancing to attack him. The inclosure mentioned in the President's letter to Curtis was an order to General David Hunter to relieve Fremont. When he arrived and a.s.sumed command the scouts he sent forward found no enemy within reach, and no such contingency of battle or hope of victory as had been rumored and a.s.sumed.
Fremont's personal conduct in these disagreeable circ.u.mstances was entirely commendable. He took leave of the army in a short farewell order, couched in terms of perfect obedience to authority and courtesy to his successor, asking for him the same cordial support he had himself received. Nor did he by word or act justify the suspicions of insubordination for which some of his indiscreet adherents had given cause. Under the instructions President Lincoln had outlined in his order to Hunter, that general gave up the idea of indefinitely pursuing Price, and divided the army into two corps of observation, which were drawn back and posted, for the time being, at the two railroad termini of Rolla and Sedalia, to be recruited and prepared for further service.
XVIII
Blockade--Hatteras Inlet--Port Royal Captured--The Trent Affair--Lincoln Suggests Arbitration--Seward's Despatch--McClellan at Was.h.i.+ngton--Army of the Potomac--McClellan's Quarrel with Scott--Retirement of Scott--Lincoln's Memorandum--”All Quiet on the Potomac”--Conditions in Kentucky--Cameron's Visit to Sherman--East Tennessee--Instructions to Buell--Buell's Neglect--Halleck in Missouri
Following the fall of Fort Sumter, the navy of the United States was in no condition to enforce the blockade from Chesapeake Bay to the Rio Grande declared by Lincoln's proclamation of April 19. Of the forty-two vessels then in commission nearly all were on foreign stations. Another serious cause of weakness was that within a few days after the Sumter attack one hundred and twenty-four officers of the navy resigned, or were dismissed for disloyalty, and the number of such was doubled before the fourth of July. Yet by the strenuous efforts of the department in fitting out s.h.i.+ps that had been laid up, in completing those under construction, and in extensive purchases and arming of all cla.s.ses of vessels that could be put to use, from screw and side-wheel merchant steamers to ferry-boats and tugs, a legally effective blockade was established within a period of six months. A considerable number of new war-s.h.i.+ps was also immediately placed under construction. The special session of Congress created a commission to study the subject of ironclads, and on its recommendation three experimental vessels of this cla.s.s were placed under contract. One of these, completed early in the following year, rendered a momentous service, hereafter to be mentioned, and completely revolutionized naval warfare.
Meanwhile, as rapidly as vessels could be gathered and prepared, the Navy Department organized effective expeditions to operate against points on the Atlantic coast. On August 29 a small fleet, under command of Flag Officer Stringham, took possession of Hatteras Inlet, after silencing the forts the insurgents had erected to guard the entrance, and captured twenty-five guns and seven hundred prisoners. This success, achieved without the loss of a man to the Union fleet, was of great importance, opening, as it did, the way for a succession of victories in the interior waters of North Carolina early in the following year.
A more formidable expedition, and still greater success soon followed.
Early in November, Captain Du-Pont a.s.sembled a fleet of fifty sail, including transports, before Port Royal Sound. Forming a column of nine war-s.h.i.+ps with a total of one hundred and twelve guns, the line steamed by the mid-channel between Fort Beauregard to the right, and Fort Walker to the left, the first of twenty and the second of twenty-three guns, each s.h.i.+p delivering its fire as it pa.s.sed the forts. Turning at the proper point, they again gave broadside after broadside while steaming out, and so repeated their circular movement. The battle was decided when, on the third round, the forts failed to respond to the fire of the s.h.i.+ps. When Commander Rodgers carried and planted the Stars and Stripes on the ramparts, he found them utterly deserted, everything having been abandoned by the flying garrisons. Further reconnaissance proved that the panic extended itself over the whole network of sea islands between Charleston and Savannah, permitting the immediate occupation of the entire region, and affording a military base for both the navy and the army of incalculable advantage in the further reduction of the coast.
Another naval exploit, however, almost at the same time, absorbed greater public attention, and for a while created an intense degree of excitement and suspense. Ex-Senators J.M. Mason and John Slidell, having been accredited by the Confederate government as envoys to European courts, had managed to elude the blockade and reach Havana. Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the _San Jacinto_, learning that they were to take pa.s.sage for England on the British mail steamer _Trent_, intercepted that vessel on November 8 near the coast of Cuba, took the rebel emissaries prisoner by the usual show of force, and brought them to the United States, but allowed the _Trent_ to proceed on her voyage.
The incident and alleged insult produced as great excitement in England as in the United States, and the British government began instant and significant preparations for war for what it hastily a.s.sumed to be a violation of international law and an outrage on the British flag.
Instructions were sent to Lord Lyons, the British minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, to demand the release of the prisoners and a suitable apology; and, if this demand were not complied with within a single week, to close his legation and return to England.
In the Northern States the capture was greeted with great jubilation.
Captain Wilkes was applauded by the press; his act was officially approved by the Secretary of the Navy, and the House of Representatives unanimously pa.s.sed a resolution thanking him for his ”brave, adroit, and patriotic conduct.” While the President and cabinet shared the first impulses of rejoicing, second thoughts impressed them with the grave nature of the international question involved, and the serious dilemma of disavowal or war precipitated by the imperative British demand. It was fortunate that Secretary Seward and Lord Lyons were close personal friends, and still more that though British public opinion had strongly favored the rebellion, the Queen of England entertained the kindliest feelings for the American government. Under her direction, Prince Albert instructed the British cabinet to formulate and present the demand in the most courteous diplomatic language, while, on their part, the American President and cabinet discussed the affair in a temper of judicious reserve.
President Lincoln's first desire was to refer the difficulty to friendly arbitration, and his mood is admirably expressed in the autograph experimental draft of a despatch suggesting this course.
”The President is unwilling to believe,” he wrote, ”that her Majesty's government will press for a categorical answer upon what appears to him to be only a partial record, in the making up of which he has been allowed no part. He is reluctant to volunteer his view of the case, with no a.s.surance that her Majesty's government will consent to hear him; yet this much he directs me to say, that this government has intended no affront to the British flag, or to the British nation; nor has it intended to force into discussion an embarra.s.sing question; all which is evident by the fact hereby a.s.serted, that the act complained of was done by the officer without orders from, or expectation of, the government.
But, being done, it was no longer left to us to consider whether we might not, to avoid a controversy, waive an unimportant though a strict right; because we, too, as well as Great Britain, have a people justly jealous of their rights, and in whose presence our government could undo the act complained of only upon a fair showing that it was wrong, or at least very questionable. The United States government and people are still willing to make reparation upon such showing.
”Accordingly, I am instructed by the President to inquire whether her Majesty's government will hear the United States upon the matter in question. The President desires, among other things, to bring into view, and have considered, the existing rebellion in the United States; the position Great Britain has a.s.sumed, including her Majesty's proclamation in relation thereto; the relation the persons whose seizure is the subject of complaint bore to the United States, and the object of their voyage at the time they were seized; the knowledge which the master of the _Trent_ had of their relation to the United States, and of the object of their voyage, at the time he received them on board for the voyage; the place of the seizure; and the precedents and respective positions a.s.sumed in a.n.a.logous cases between Great Britain and the United States.
”Upon a submission containing the foregoing facts, with those set forth in the before-mentioned despatch to your lords.h.i.+p, together with all other facts which either party may deem material, I am instructed to say the government of the United States will, if agreed to by her Majesty's government, go to such friendly arbitration as is usual among nations, and will abide the award.”
The most practised diplomatic pen in Europe could not have written a more dignified, courteous, or succinct presentation of the case; and yet, under the necessities of the moment, it was impossible to adopt this procedure. Upon full discussion, it was decided that war with Great Britain must be avoided, and Mr. Seward wrote a despatch defending the course of Captain Wilkes up to the point where he permitted the _Trent_ to proceed on her voyage. It was his further duty to have brought her before a prize court. Failing in this, he had left the capture incomplete under rules of international law, and the American government had thereby lost the right and the legal evidence to establish the contraband character of the vessel and the persons seized. Under the circ.u.mstances, the prisoners were therefore willingly released. Excited American feeling was grievously disappointed at the result; but American good sense readily accommodated itself both to the correctness of the law expounded by the Secretary of State, and to the public policy that averted a great international danger; particularly as this decision forced Great Britain to depart from her own and to adopt the American traditions respecting this cla.s.s of neutral rights.
It has already been told how Captain George B. McClellan was suddenly raised in rank, at the very outset of the war, first to a major-generals.h.i.+p in the three months' militia, then to the command of the military department of the Ohio; from that to a major-generals.h.i.+p in the regular army; and after his successful campaign in West Virginia was called to Was.h.i.+ngton and placed in command of the Division of the Potomac, which comprised all the troops in and around Was.h.i.+ngton, on both sides of the river. Called thus to the capital of the nation to guard it against the results of the disastrous battle of Bull Run, and to organize a new army for extended offensive operations, the surrounding conditions naturally suggested to him that in all likelihood he would play a conspicuous part in the great drama of the Civil War. His ambition rose eagerly to the prospect. On the day on which he a.s.sumed command, July 27, he wrote to his wife:
”I find myself in a new and strange position here; President, cabinet, General Scott, and all, deferring to me. By some strange operation of magic I seem to have become the power of the land.”
And three days later:
”They give me my way in everything, full swing and unbounded confidence.... Who would have thought, when we were married, that I should so soon be called upon to save my country?”