were confronted by two detachments of the | such vigor that the boats were compelled Warrenton rifles and a field-piece, under finally to withdraw from the assault. The command of Colonel Ewell and Governor bombardment was renewed on the following Smith. A skirmish followed, but the cavalry morning, by the Freeborn and Pawnee. It succeeded in cutting its way out, having se- continued with great obstinacy for five hours, cured five prisoners. The Federal loss was when the Union gunboats hauled off but one killed, three missing, four wounded, and slightly injured, having completely destroyed twelve horses lost. Of the three missing, one the railway depot and the pier, and badly afterwards made his way into camp. Two cut up the enemy's forces in the batteries. were held as prisoners. The rebels were so The batteries were not, however, silenced infuriated at this saucy assault that they but thereafter, for several months, worried threatened to hang the two prisoners. Hear- the navigation of the Potomac by their pow ing which, the advance New York Twenty- | erful and well-served rifled guns. eighth resolved upon a rescue. Company B of that regiment was immediately mounted and pushed out for Fairfax. The Court House was suddenly surrounded, the prisoners secured, and the company returned in triumph to camp. These exploits had in them that vigor which argued well for the spirit of the contest. The history of the war is filled with exploits of this daring nature, some of which betrayed extraordinary hardihood. Unionists and rebels alike were ready for such enterprises; but, the latter being at home" in the South, and being also very efficiently mounted, generally succeeded in committing the most havoc with the least injury to themselves. This partial success in repelling the gunboats, inspired the Confederate authorities with renewed zeal in their efforts for commanding the Potomac with batteries, from Gloucester Point on the Chesapeake Bay, up to High Point at the mouth of the Occoquan, just below the Mt. Vernon estate. It was several months, however, before they succeeded in rendering the "blockade" of the river a matter of serious detriment to the Commissariat department of the National army. The Mt. Vernon Over Mt. Vernon reigned the spirit of peace. Each party resolved not to invade the estate rendered sacred by the remains of the illustrious dead. Rescued from decay chiefly by the money contributed in the Northern States, the dilapidation of the Washington estate had but recently become other than a disgrace to Virginia and to the country; and, though its female warden was a rank secessionist, she was permitted to plant flowers in safety over the tomb of him whose "Farewell Address" must have made the halls of the old mansion gleam with a hand writing on the wall for its disunion inmates. CHAPTER XV. THE DISINGENUOUS POLICY OF THE CONFEDERATES. The Confederate the foulness of their tramp. Virginia alone could cause is now our cause, her battles our battles, and let the Government at large pour a continuous FROM documents already | into an army of invasion, and now occupies a city submitted,* it will be seen within the boundaries of our Republic. This Govthe revolutionists constru- ernment has no longer an election. Its duty is now ed their cause as that of the injured party. manifest to all. The nation must rise as a man and Declaring their right to revolt (secede) from drive the hireling miscreants from a soil polluted by the Federal Union, they assumed all steps speedily perform the work of expurgation, but her to suppress the revolt as efforts for their subjugation. Proclamations, messages, speeches, editorials fairly scintillated with the fires of passion enkindled against the "oppressors." The advance into Virginia was proclaimed as having opened the war! From that moment the Confederate Chiefs declared their course to be clearly defined! Thus, a correspondent (probably one of Davis' Cabinet officers) for the New Orleans Delta, writing from Montgomery, said: "The startling intelligence of the invasion of the soil of Virginia, and the actual occupation of Alexandria by United States forces, was received here last evening. The Cabinet, I am informed, immediately went into a procrastinated session. No event since the initiation of this revolution has ever created a sensation so profound, and so sorrowful. The mere taking of a deserted and exposed village, is in itself nothing; but when regarded as indicative of the future policy of the old Government, it at once becomes a question pregnant with great importance. Mr. Lincoln has declared in his proclamation, and at various other times reiterated the expression, that the only object his Government had in view, was the retaking and the reoccupation of what he asserted to be Government property; but now, in the face of this promise, which has gone before the world, he converts his Abolition horde * See Message of President Davis, page 122, et sequitur; the last communication of the Confederate Commissioners, pages 69-71; the several proclamations by Governors of Virginia, North Carolina and Missouri; the proceedings of the Confederate Congress; the speech of Davis, at Richmond, June 1st, (given on succeeding page,) &c., &c. stream of men into Virginia, and preserve from dishonor that patriotic mother of States.” The Confederate This was the key-note to which the clarions of the conspirators were set. A man strong and daring enough to have pointed at the long list of crimes which the revolutionists had perpetrated against a forbearing Government, against the laws, against order, against society, would have found a halter placed around his neck, no matter what his social position. No voice was heard, after the issue by the Federal Executive of the Proclamation for troops to cause the laws to be respected, which did not swell the wild chorus of treason. The very air seemed resonant with the baying of shadowy hounds, recalled from the jungles wherein the slave crouched for one moment of sweet liberty, to be turned Northward for the blood of loyal men. Plantations, villages, cities, camps rung with the cry: "On to the cities of the North!" while the harbors and bayous of the Confederacy echoed to the imprecations of the piratical host who proposed to “sweep Northern commerce from the seas." If any citizens of the Confederacy yet prayed and longed for the return of reason, they now beheld how futile were their hopes, and, before that popular clamor, were awed into silence or were swept into the revolution with a new-found enthusiasm, pledging themselves The Confederate heart, and hand, and purse, | never delegated to him; and it Davis' Exordium. to the cause of "Southern has been reserved to your own State, so lately one of the original thirteen, but now, The anIndependence." nals of revolution furnish no parallel to that thank God, fully separated from them, to become the theatre of a great central camp, from which will astonishing zeal in the reckless pursuit of power. Had the lamented Mr. Buckle lived pour forth thousands of brave hearts to roll back the tide of this despotism. to study the secret springs of the Southern heart, he would have found strong confirmation of his theories. The lack of a just comprehension of the intellectual claims of the age-the want of a just conception of the rights of man and the powers of government -rendered the Southern people easy victims to retrogressive ideas and the wiles of designing, unscrupulous men. President Davis arrived Wigfall. at Richmond, May 29th, accompanied by Wigfall, then a Colonel in the Confederate service. The Texan followed his måster, as such creatures ever have and ever will follow those whose talents they can but ape-to do his behests in exciting antagonisms in the minds of the Southern people against the North. For this he was commissioned; his malignant tongue and dishonest heart were worth more to the Southern cause than the service of many an able commander. Men of daring minds always find such shadows to do their will. He who seeks to write the secret history of the rebellion, will find Lewis T. Wigfall gliding across the page at unexpected times and in unexpected places. Davis' Exordium. Davis was serenaded by the Richmond people, on the evening of June 1st. He then enunciated the principles upon which he proposed to administer "the cause so dear to Southern hearts." We may quote: "The cause in which we are engaged is the cause of the advocacy of rights to which we were born, those for which our fathers of the Revolution beldthe richest inheritance that ever fell to man, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit to our children. “Upon us is devolved the high and holy responsibility of preserving the constitutional liberty of a free government. Those with whom we bave lately associated have shown themselves so incapable of appreciating the blessings of the glorious institutions they inherited, that they are to-day stripped of the liberty to which they were born. They have allowed an ignorant usurper to trample upon all the prerogatives of citizenship, and to exercise powers "Apart from that gratification we may well feel at being separated from such a connection, is the pride that upon you devolves the task of maintaining and defending our new Government. I believe that we shall be able to achieve this noble work, and that the institutions of our fathers will go to our children as safely as they have descended to us. "In these Confederate States we observe those relations which have been poetically ascribed to the United States, but which never there had the same reality-States so distinct that each existed as a Sovereign, yet so united that each was wound with the other to constitute a whole; or, as more beautifully expressed, 'Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea.' Upon every hill which now overlooks Richmond you have had, and will continue to have, camps containing soldiers from every State in the Confed eracy; and to its remotest limits every proud heart beats high with indignation at the thought that the foot of the invader has been set upon the soil of old Virginia. There is not one true son of the South who is not ready to shoulder his musket, to bleed, to die, or to conquer in the cause of liberty here. 'Beginning under many embarrassments, the re sult of seventy years of taxation being in the hands of our enemies, we must at first move cautiously It be that we shall have to encounter sacrifices may but, my friends, under the smiles of the God of the Just, and filled with the same spirit that animated our fathers, success shall perch on our banners. I am sure you do not expect me to go into any argument upon those questions which, for twenty-five years, have agitated the country. We have now reached the point where, arguments being exhausted, it only remains for us to stand by our weapons. "When the time and occasion serve, we shall smite the smiter with manly arms, as did our fathers before us, and as becomes their sons. To the enemy we leave the base acts of the assassin and incendiary, to them we leave it to insult helpless women; to us belongs vengeance upon man." What was most remark Confederate Want of able, in this speech, to a ง CONFEDERATE WANT OF CONSISTENCY. 183 Confederate Want of Consistency. Confederate Want of Consistency. unqualified untruths. We quote : "The acts of Lincoln exhibit the spirit of anarchy which is abroad in the North, and total disregard of all constitutional obligations and limits by the Abolition despot now in power. The North is fast drifting to anarchy and an established despotism." Coming from the lips of a man elevated to power by no vote of the people-embodying the sentiments of a Government inaugurated over the people without, in a single instance, allowing them to express their opinion and wishes in regard to that Government—we can well understand why the word "despotism" so frequently was upon the Vice-President's lips. The silly statement that anarchy was reigning in the North was a natural sequence of the general assumptions of the Vice-President: it was so wide of the truth that history will not fail to express surprise that even Mr. Stephens should have uttered such reckless language. He further added, as a corollary of his hopeless account of affairs in the North: the constitutional liberty | must have been indeed bad of a free government." when such men as SteAs Mr. Stephens, the Vice-phens had to descend to President, had already enunciated the results of the movement for disunion to be "a new constitution" and a new "form of Government,” [see page 63,] the statement of the President in reference to the mission of the Confederacy sounded a little inconsistent; but, one feature of the south-side view of things was that it neither required consistency nor truth for its propagation. Therefore the further declaration of the President: "beginning under many embarrassments, the result of seventy years taxation being in the hands of our enemies," ceased to excite even an exclamation of surprise. The fact was that the Slave States—the Cotton-growing States in particular—had received one hundred dollars benefit from the Union for every dollar imposed upon them by "tax" or otherwise; * but, Mr. Davis and his friends did not choose to view facts in the light of facts. They preferred to proceed upon the supposition that a Slave owner was better, was infinitely superior, as a man, to a non-Slave owner—that the South, notwithstanding its immense minority [see Vol. I, page 28; also Appendix, Vol. I, page 523,] in population and wealth, and its inferiority in all the resources which add to the permanent prosperity of a country was, nevertheless, the accredited arbiter of the Constitution, the exclusive monitor of the laws. That the revolutionists and their antagonists were as wide apart in their cardinal principles as the cardinal points of the compass, became apparent from the moment when Toombs and Wigfall first proclaimed their right to do as they pleased, despite the Gov-leaders of the revolution, and so apparently ernment and the laws. Mr. Stephens, at Atlanta, May 23d, did not wait for Federal "invasion" to declare his war-programme. He wanted no mere pretense to skulk behind, but came out, flatly, for the contest on the issues already created. His speech, like that of Davis, contained its due proportion of misstatement. Their cause * See statements of Mr. Everett, as given in Vol. I, page 206; also his remarks given in foot-note to page 14, Vol. I; also foot-note, Vol. I, page 168; also statements given on pages 206, 207, Vol. I. "On you, therefore, as citizens of the Confederate States, depend the success and perpetuation of Constitutional liberty; for the day is not far off when freedom will exist only south of Mason and Dixon's line, and your stout arms and brave hearts will be her only support on all this continent." This would excite a smile were its conse quences less fatal. That the South was fighting the cause of constitutional liberty was gainsayed by the very purpose of the revolution itself, which aimed at overthrowing the Constitution and its provisions for the rule of the majority. But, so stultified were the willing were the masses of the Southern peo ple to be deceived, that each inconsistency grew to be a virtuous exception, and each departure from truth became a fortiter in re argument to strengthen their cause. Said the Vice-President: "We prefer and desire peace if we can have it; but if we cannot, we must meet the issue forced upon us. We must meet Lincoln and his myrmidons on their own ground, and on their own terms —on Constitutional principles." We prefer peace! The record of blood, the story of the crusade which had then been Confederate Want of Consistency. But it was the only plea with which the Confederates baptized their cause. Its disingenuousness was a fair exemplar of the morale of the cause. Davis, in his reply to the three Maryland Commissioners, (May 25th,) said : “The Government of the Confederate States receives with respect the suggestion of the State of Maryland, that there should be a cessation of the hostilities now impending until the meeting of Congress in July next, in order that said body may, if possible, arrange for an adjustment of the existing troubles by means of negotiations rather than the sword. waged against the Gov-adverted to, as having characterized the Conernment for three months, federate policy. But, what a mockery was savored of peace, truly! it when, by every possible act, the new GovIt was the old highwayman's plea--if you ernment" had goaded the Federal Executive resist, your blood be on your own head. into a simple defense of its very existence ! Peace—a cessation of hostilities—while upon every hand the Southern hordes were gathering, to menace Washington; were plotting to force Maryland into an attitude of rebellion; were intriguing in Tennessee and Kentucky prior to their forced possession; were overrunning Western Virginia and exiling or imprisoning its Union men! Peace ? It would have allowed the conspirators just the time they required to repossess themselves of every Border State, and then to have won a foreign recognition by the very force of being fifteen States strong. The very claim was an insult to the intelligence of the loyal section of the country; and was put forth, by Davis, with the full consciousness that it was so regarded. He characterized Mr. Lincoln as "an ignorant usurper”—he stated that "those with whom we have lately associated have shown themselves incapable of appreciating the blessings of the glorious institutions they inherited :"--what object could the conspirator have had in asking for peace from those whom he thus reviled, but to encompass their final ruin? His impudence was only less sublime than his insolence. History, looking scrutinizingly into their words and acts, will not fail to award Jefferson Davis and his coadjutors the peculiar praise of having exceeded Machiavelli's Prince in the practice of the arts of hypocrites and rogues. Talleyrand would have retired abashed to his cloister before their superior excelHence conquests of other States are wholly in- lences in duplicity and ministerial subterfuge. "But it is at a loss how to reply without a repetition of the language it has used on every possible occasion that has presented itself since the establishment of its independence. “In deference to the State of Maryland, however, it again asserts, in the most emphatic terms, that its sincere and earnest desire is for peace, and 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. “If any further assurance of the desire of this Government for peace were necessary, it would be sufficient to observe that being formed of a confederation of sovereign States, each acting and deciding for itself, the right of every other sovereign State to assume self-action and self-government is necessarily acknowledged. consistent with the fundamental principles, and subversive of the very organization of this Government. Its policy cannot but be peace-peace with all nations and people." This but repeats the assumptions already | A gentler estimate of their character we may not make with the innumerable witnesses at hand to confirm the judgment we have uttered. |