Volume I Part 28 (2/2)
At this session Congress pa.s.sed acts authorizing the President to use the whole land and naval force to meet the necessities of the war thus commenced; to issue to private armed vessels letters of marque; in addition to the volunteer force authorized to be raised, to accept the services of volunteers, to serve during the war; to receive into the service various companies of the different arms; to make a loan of fifty millions of dollars in bonds and notes; and to hold an election for officers of the permanent Government under the new Const.i.tution. An act was also pa.s.sed to provide revenue from imports; another, relative to prisoners of war; and such others as were necessary [pg 328] to complete the internal organization of the Government, and establish the administration of public affairs.
In every portion of the country there was exhibited the most patriotic devotion to the common cause. Transportation companies freely tendered the use of their lines for troops and supplies. Requisitions for troops were met with such alacrity that the number offering their services in every instance greatly exceeded the demand and the ability to arm them. Men of the highest official and social position served as volunteers in the ranks. The gravity of age and the zeal of youth rivaled each other in the desire to be foremost in the public defense.
The appearance of the proclamation of the President of the United States, calling out seventy-five thousand men, was followed by the immediate withdrawal of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, and their union with the Confederate States. The former State, thus placed on the frontier and exposed to invasion, began to prepare for a resolute defense. Volunteers were ordered to be enrolled and held in readiness in every part of the State. Colonel Robert E. Lee, having resigned his commission in the United States cavalry, was on April 22d nominated and confirmed by the State Convention of Virginia as ”Commander-in-Chief of the military and naval forces of the Commonwealth.”
Already the Northern officer in charge had evacuated Harper's Ferry, after having attempted to destroy the public buildings there. His report says: ”I gave the order to apply the torch. In three minutes or less, both of the a.r.s.enal buildings, containing nearly fifteen thousand stand of arms, together with the carpenter's shop, which was at the upper end of a long and connected series of workshops of the armory proper, were in a blaze. There is every reason for believing the destruction was complete.” Mr. Simon Cameron, the Secretary of War, on April 22d replied to this report in these words: ”I am directed by the President of the United States to communicate to you, and through you to the officers and men under your command at Harper's Ferry Armory, the approbation of the Government of your and their judicious conduct there, and to tender you and them the thanks of the Government for the same.” At [pg 329] the same time the s.h.i.+p-yard at Norfolk was abandoned after an attempt to destroy it. About midnight of April 20th, a fire was started in the yard, which continued to increase, and before daylight the work of destruction extended to two immense s.h.i.+p-houses, one of which contained the entire frame of a seventy-four-gun s.h.i.+p, and to the long ranges of stores and offices on each side of the entrance. The great s.h.i.+p Pennsylvania was burned, and the frigates Merrimac and Columbus, and the Delaware, Raritan, Plymouth, and Germantown were sunk. A vast amount of machinery, valuable engines, small-arms, and chronometers, was broken up and rendered entirely useless. The value of the property destroyed was estimated at several millions of dollars.
This property thus destroyed had been acc.u.mulated and constructed with laborious care and skillful ingenuity during a course of years to fulfill one of the objects of the Const.i.tution, which was expressed in these words, ”To provide for the common defense” (see Preamble of the Const.i.tution). It had belonged to all the States in common, and to each one equally with the others. If the Confederate States were still members of the Union, as the President of the United States a.s.serted, where can he find a justification of these acts?
In explanation of his policy to the Commissioners sent to him by the Virginia State Convention, he said, referring to his inaugural address, ”As I then and therein said, I now repeat, the power confided in me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess property and places belonging to the Government.” Yet he tendered the thanks of the Government to those who applied the torch to destroy this property belonging, as he regarded it, to the Government.
How unreasonable, how blind with rage must have been that administration of affairs which so quickly brought the Government to the necessity of destroying its own means of defense in order, as it publicly declared, ”to maintain its life”! It would seem as if the pa.s.sions that rule the savage had taken possession of the authorities at the United States capital! In the conflagrations of vast structures, the wanton destruction of public property, and still more in the issue of lettres de cachet [pg 330] by the Secretary of State, who boasted of the power of his little bell over the personal liberties of the citizen, the people saw, or might have seen, the rapid strides toward despotism made under the mask of preserving the Union. Yet these and similar measures were tolerated because the sectional hate dominated in the Northern States over the higher motives of const.i.tutional and moral obligation.
Footnote 169: (return) Const.i.tution of the United States, Article I, section 8.
Footnote 170: (return) Const.i.tution of the United States, Article IV, section 4.
Footnote 171: (return) Article I, section 8.
Footnote 172: (return) Ibid.
Footnote 173: (return) Const.i.tution of the United States, preamble.
Footnote 174: (return) Diplomatic correspondence, May 21, 1861.
CHAPTER V.
Maryland first approached by Northern Invasion.-Denies to United States Troops the Right of Way across her Domain.-Mission of Judge Handy.-Views of Governor Hicks.-His Proclamation.-Arrival of Ma.s.sachusetts Troops at Baltimore.-Pa.s.sage through the City disputed.-Activity of the Police.-Burning of Bridges.-Letter of President Lincoln to the Governor.-Visited by Citizens.-Action of the State Legislature.-Occupation of the Relay House.-The City Arms surrendered.-City in Possession of United States Troops.-Remonstrances of the City to the Pa.s.sage of Troops disregarded.-Citizens arrested; also, Members of the Legislature.-Acc.u.mulation of Northern Forces at Was.h.i.+ngton.-Invasion of West Virginia by a Force under McClellan.-Attack at Philippi; at Laurel Hill.-Death of General Garnett.
The border State of Maryland was the outpost of the South on the frontier first to be approached by Northern invasion. The first demonstration against State sovereignty was to be made there, and in her fate were the other slaveholding States of the border to have warning of what they were to expect. She had chosen to be, for the time at least, neutral in the impending war, and had denied to the United States troops the right of way across her domain in their march to invade the Southern States. The Governor (Hicks) avowed a desire, not only that the State should avoid war, but that she should be a means for pacifying those more disposed to engage in combat.
Judge Handy, a distinguished citizen of Mississippi, who was born in Maryland, had, in December, 1860, been sent as a commissioner from the State of his adoption to that of his birth, and presented his views and the object of his mission to Governor Hicks, who, in his response (December 19, 1860), declared [pg 331] his purpose to act in full concert with the other border States, adding, ”I do not doubt the people of Maryland are ready to go with the people of those States for weal or woe.”175 Subsequently, in answer to appeals for and against a proclamation a.s.sembling the Legislature, in order to have a call for a State convention, Governor Hicks issued an address, in which, arguing that there was no necessity to define the position of Maryland, he wrote: ”If the action of the Legislature would be simply to declare that Maryland was with the South in sympathy and feeling; that she demands from the North the repeal of offensive, unconst.i.tutional statutes, and appeals to it for new guarantees; that she will wait a reasonable time for the North to purge her statute-books, to do justice to her Southern brethren; and, if her appeals are vain, will make common cause with her sister border States in resistance to tyranny, if need be, it would only be saying what the whole country well knows,” etc.
On the 18th of April, 1861, Governor Hicks issued a proclamation invoking them to preserve the peace, and said, ”I a.s.sure the people that no troops will be sent from Maryland, unless it may be for the defense of the national capital.” On the same day Mayor Brown, of the city of Baltimore, issued a proclamation in which, referring to that of the Governor above cited, he said, ”I can not withhold my expression of satisfaction at his resolution that no troops shall be sent from Maryland to the soil of any other State.” It will be remembered that the capital was on a site which originally belonged to Maryland, and was ceded by her for a special use, so that troops to defend the capital might be considered as not having been sent out of Maryland. It will be remembered that these proclamations were three days after the requisition made by the Secretary of War on the States which had not seceded for their quota of troops to serve in the war about to be inaugurated against the South, and that rumors existed at the time in Baltimore that troops from the Northeast were about to be sent through that city toward the South. On the next day, viz., the 19th of April, 1861, a body of troops arrived at the railroad depot; the citizens a.s.sembled in large numbers, and, though without [pg 332] arms, disputed the pa.s.sage through the city. They attacked the troops with the loose stones found in the street, which was undergoing repair, and with such determination and violence, that some of the soldiers were wounded, and they fired upon the mult.i.tude, killing a few and wounding many.
The police of Baltimore were very active in their efforts to prevent conflict and preserve the peace; they rescued the baggage and munitions of the troops, which had been seized by the mult.i.tude; and the rear portion of the troops was, by direction of Governor Hicks, sent back to the borders of the State. The troops who had got through the city took the railroad at the Southern Depot and pa.s.sed on. The militia of the city was called out, and by evening quiet was restored. During the night, on a report that more Northern troops were approaching the city by the railroads, the bridges nearest to the city were destroyed, as it was understood, by orders from the authorities of Baltimore.
On the 20th of April President Lincoln wrote in reply to Governor Hicks and Mayor Brown, saying, ”For the future, troops must be brought here, but I make no point of bringing them through Baltimore.” On the next day, the 21st, Mayor Brown and other influential citizens, by request of the President, visited him. The interview took place in presence of the Cabinet and General Scott, and was reported to the public by the Mayor after his return to Baltimore. From that report I make the following extracts. Referring to the President, the Mayor uses the following language:
”The protection of Was.h.i.+ngton, he a.s.severated with great earnestness, was the sole object of concentrating troops there, and he protested that none of the troops brought through Maryland were intended for any purposes hostile to the State, or aggressive as against the Southern States.... He called on General Scott for his opinion, which the General gave at great length, to the effect that troops might be brought through Maryland without going through Baltimore, etc.... The interview terminated with the distinct a.s.surance, on the part of the President, that no more troops would be sent through Baltimore, unless obstructed in their transit in other directions, and with the understanding that [pg 333] the city authorities should do their best to restrain their own people.
”The Mayor and his companions availed themselves of the President's full discussion of the questions of the day to urge upon him respectfully, but in the most earnest manner, a course of policy which would give peace to the country, and especially the withdrawal of all orders contemplating the pa.s.sage of troops through any part of Maryland.”
The Legislature of the State of Maryland appointed commissioners to the Confederate Government to suggest to it the cessation of impending hostilities until the meeting of Congress at Was.h.i.+ngton in July. Commissioners with like instructions were also sent to Was.h.i.+ngton. In my reply to the Commissioners, dated 25th of May, 1861, I referred to the uniform expression of desire for peace on the part of the Confederate Government, and added:
”In deference to the State of Maryland, it again a.s.serts in the most emphatic terms that its sincere and earnest desire is for peace; but that, while the Government would readily entertain any proposition from the Government of the United States tending to a peaceful solution of the present difficulties, the recent attempts of this Government to enter into negotiations with that of the United States were attended with results which forbid any renewal of proposals from it to that Government.... Its policy can not but be peace-peace with all nations and people.”
On the 5th of May, the Relay House, at the junction of the Was.h.i.+ngton and Baltimore and Ohio Railroads, was occupied by United States troops under General Butler, and, on the 13th of the same month, he moved a portion of the troops to Baltimore, and took position on Federal Hill-thus was consummated the military occupation of Baltimore. On the next day, reenforcements were received; and, on the same day, the commanding General issued a proclamation to the citizens, in which he announced to them his purpose and authority to discriminate between citizens, those who agreed with him being denominated ”well disposed,” and the others described with many offensive epithets. The initiatory step of the policy subsequently developed [pg 334] was found in one sentence: ”Therefore, all manufacturers of arms and munitions of war are hereby requested to report to me forthwith, so that the lawfulness of their occupations may be known and understood, and all misconstruction of their doings avoided.”
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