Part 37 (2/2)

Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, hastened to a.s.sure the nations of Europe that a dissolution of the Union was an absurd impossibility. It had never entered the mind of any candid statesman in America and should be dismissed at once by statesmen in Europe. And yet at this time eleven Southern States, stretching from the James to the Rio Grande, with a population of eight millions, had by solemn act of their Legislatures withdrawn from the Union and their armies were camping within a few miles of the City of Was.h.i.+ngton.

In all the North not a single statesman or a single newspaper appeared to have any conception of the serious task before them. The fusillades of rant, pa.s.sion and bombast which filled the air would have been comic but for the grim tragedy which was stalking in their wake.

The ”Rebellion” was ridiculed and sneered at in terms that taxed the genius of the writers for words of contempt.

The New York _Tribune_, the greatest and most powerful organ of public opinion in the North, a paper which had boldly from the first proclaimed the right of the South to peaceable secession, was now swept away with the popular fury.

Its editor gravely declared:

”The Southern rebellion is nothing more or less than the natural recourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin, making of course a wide distinction between the will and the power, for the hanging of traitors is soon to begin before a month is over. The Nations of Europe may rest a.s.sured that Jeff Davis and Co. will be swinging from the battlements at Was.h.i.+ngton, at least by the fourth of July. We spit upon a later and longer deferred justice.”

The New York _Times_ gave its opinion with equal clearness:

”Let us make quick work. The Rebellion is an unborn tadpole. Let us not fall into the delusion of mistaking a local commotion for a revolution.

A strong active pull together will do our work in thirty days. We have only to send a column of twenty-five thousand men across the Potomac to Richmond to burn out the rats there; another column of twenty-five thousand to Cairo to seize the Cotton ports of the Mississippi and retain the remaining twenty-five thousand called for by the President at Was.h.i.+ngton--not because there is any need for them there but because we do not require their services elsewhere.”

The staid old Philadelphia _Press_ declared:

”No man of sense can for a moment doubt that all this much-ado-about-nothing will end in a month. The Northern people are invincible. The rebels are a band of ragam.u.f.fins who will fly like chaff before the wind on our approach.”

The West vied with the East in boastful clamor.

The Chicago _Tribune_ shouted from the top of its columns:

”We insist that the West be allowed the honor of settling this little trouble by herself since she is most interested in its suppression to insure the free navigation of the Mississippi River. Let the East stand aside. This is our war. We can end it successfully in two months.

Illinois can whip the whole South by herself. We insist on the affair being turned over to us.”

With prospects of a short war and cheaply earned glory the rage for volunteering was resistless. The war for three months was to be a holiday excursion and every man would return a hero crowned with garlands of flowers, the center of admiring thousands. The blacksmiths of Brooklyn were busy making handcuffs for one of her crack regiments.

Each volunteer had sworn to lead at least one captive rebel in chains through the crowded streets in the great parade on their return.

Socola on his arrival at Montgomery from Charleston read these fulminations from the North with amazement and rage. He sent his bitter and emphatic protest against such madness to Holt. The faithful Joseph had been rewarded with an office to his liking. He was now the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army. He turned Socola's letters over to Cameron, the new Secretary of War, who read them with rising wrath.

”The author of those letters,” he said with a scowl, ”is either a d.a.m.ned fool, or traitor.”

Holt's lower lip was thrust out and the lines of his big mouth drawn into a knot.

”I a.s.sure you, sir--he is neither. He is absolutely loyal. His patriotism is a religion. He has entered his dangerous and important mission with the zeal of a religious fanatic.”

”That accounts for it then--he's insane. I don't care to read any more such twaddle and I won't pay for the services of such a man out of the funds of the War Department.”

With the utmost difficulty Holt secured the consent of the Secretary of War to continue Socola's commission for two months longer.

The only consolation the young patriot found in the contemptuous reply his Government made to his solemn warnings was the almost equal fatuity with which the Southern people were now approaching their first test of battle.

Until the proclamation of President Lincoln, both Jefferson Davis and the South had believed in the possibility of a peaceful reconciliation.

Even when the proclamation had been made and the wild response of the North had been instantly given, the Southern people refused to believe that the millions of Northern voters who still clung to the old forms of Const.i.tutional Government under the leaders.h.i.+p of Stephen A. Douglas would surrender their principles, arm themselves and march to coerce a State at the command of a President against whom they had voted.

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