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Respects for State Rights-Secession of Virginia-Union Advance across the Potomac-Death of Ellsworth-The Beginning in West Virginia -The Old Flag disappears from the South-White House Life-Wartime Illusions-Studies of future Battle-grounds—A Funeral in the East Room.

NOTHING Could well exceed the closeness with which Mr. Lincoln watched the course of events at the South, or the logical sequence of the steps which he took in pursuance of each and every movement made by his adversaries. Up to this last hour, he had neither done nor authorized any proceeding, as to Virginia, which the most fanatical expounder of "State rights" could reasonably call in question.

There was a small guard kept, to be sure, at the Long Bridge over the Potomac, to prevent its very possible destruction, but there was no vexatious interference with travel and traffic or even with the passage of Maryland stray volunteers for the rebel army. More than once, after nightfall, the squad of Union soldiers in charge at that point went hilariously over and hobnobbed with the Virginia State militia similarly posted at the old tavern on the other shore, and were hardly reprimanded by their officers for so doing. Even in the serious matters of the Gosport navy-yard and the Harper's Ferry arsenal, all pains were taken to avoid any open collision with the forces sent by the governor of Virginia for their seizure. Forbearance was carried to the utmost limit of endurance, but there it expired, strictly by limitation.

In accordance with the action of the Virginia State Conven

tion, the question of the secession of the State was submitted to a popular vote on the 23d of May. Except in what now constitutes the State of West Virginia, no such thing as a fair and free expression of the popular will was possible, for military movements had begun and military domination rendered the so-called "vote" a mere matter of form. There was little use in counting such a preordained collection as were those heaps of ballots.

Nevertheless, although General Lee assumed command of the State troops on the 23d of April, and all men knew the use he would surely make of them, they could not be and were not turned over to the Confederate army, so losing their character as "State" troops, until the 24th of May. The Confederate leaders were therefore yet in some degree hindered by the constitutional and legal technicalities whose spirit and letter had been so much more carefully regarded by Mr. Lincoln.

They were themselves seemingly prompt enough in their operations, so soon as their hands were untied, but they were not at all prepared for the electric suddenness and energy of his final action.

The Virginia Convention's Act of Secession was duly confirmed by the formal election-returns, not yet made up but perfectly well known, at the setting of the sun on May 23, 1861. Within one hour afterwards there were columns of United States troops in motion towards the Northern shore of the Potomac and the Washington end of the Long Bridge. Before midnight a light force of scouts and skirmishers crossed the bridge and began to feel their way down towards Alexandria. This advance consisted of but one company, barely sixty men all told, and all the armed opposition they met or saw was a mere squad of mounted Virginia militia who rode hurriedly away without firing a shot. By two o'clock A.M., the same night, three full regiments had crossed the Potomac at Georgetown, D. C.; four more by the Long Bridge; and one, Ellsworth's Zouaves, had gone directly to Alexandria by steamer,

with one war-vessel as a convoy. By daylight every position aimed at had been occupied without hindrance. The stupid murder of the brave and lamented Ellsworth by a tavernkeeper in Alexandria was merely an expression of individual ferocity, such as afterwards made severe measures necessary at times in dealing with certain elements of the population of the South.

Forty-eight hours later two regiments from General McClellan's command crossed into Western Virginia at Wheeling, to support the Union men who were rising throughout that region to defend themselves against Secession tyranny.

The soldiers of the Union had come to stay, for the first duty imposed upon those who had crossed the Potomac at Washington was the construction of strong earthworks upon the heights commanding the approaches to the city. Even the New York Seventh, the kid-gloved favorites of the great metropolis, were at work with pick and spade on the "sacred soil of Virginia," in the early morning of the day after the old commonwealth surrendered its immunities as such and became a part of the new organism which styled itself the "Confeder ate States of America."

A similar comparison of dates with acts and occurrences of varied nature and locality would present a similar teaching, but here is quite enough to illustrate clearly the sagacious prevision and careful preparation which were concealed under what was then considered by many "Mr. Lincoln's unaccountable dilatoriness."

He was forbidden the luxury of explaining his plans and purposes to the general public, including the public enemy. His immediate advisers were not talking men, then or afterwards. He was compelled to steer carefully between the continuous perils of over-haste and loss of time. In those all-important first days of the long struggle, while paying no undue regard to legal technicalities of any kind, the twin-perils referred to contained in themselves the necessity that no com

munity or population should be treated as in rebellion until it had formally become so by its own express act and word.

So far as State Conventions and Legislatures and their supplementary actions were concerned, the work of Secession was now complete. It is worthy of note that on the first day of June, 1861, the flag of the United States floated over only these few spots throughout all the vast territory ruled by President Jefferson Davis: the camps opposite Washington; Fortress Monroe, Virginia; Fort Pickens, Key West, and Garden Key, in the State of Florida. (West Virginia and East Tennessee can hardly be counted as having been at any time or by their own will part and parcel of the Confederacy, and are therefore excepted.) From every other place, fort, navy-yard, arsenal, public building, private house, it had disappeared, and the vast majority of the people of the civilized world believed that it had so disappeared forever. What is sometimes described by politicians as "a good working majority and no more" of the people of the free States were utterly determined that it should one day go back again.

Mr. Lincoln had now been in Washington three full months, and the routine movement of his daily life had become well established. He had not materially changed his personal habits. He was as careless as ever concerning his dress, and retained his free, familiar ways with his nearer friends. His distaste was as strong as ever for mere ceremonial, social formalities, etiquette of rank, outward insignia of place and power. He increased with iron endurance his steady, tireless industry, his patient investigation of all subjects which his duties, present or to come, might bring before him. It was needful that he should not be too easy of access; but if he had business at any bureau of any Department, he was not at all unlikely to attend to it in person. He more than once did so, somewhat to the discomfiture of inattentive subordinates.

He labored under one disadvantage, perhaps, as a ruler. If he met a governor, a general, a foreign diplomat, a visitor of

especial distinction, it was out of his power to look upon the great personage before him as other or more or less than a human being like himself or any other man so to be met and spoken to. Some of the dissatisfaction caused in this way has been duly recorded by the sufferers.

He retained in all its freshness his love for children. If a child was led past him at a public "reception," he was apt to take it up and kiss it and give it a kind word as simply and even a little more eagerly than if he had met the child of some old neighbor on the sidewalk of his own street in Springfield.

The business offices of the Executive Mansion were in the second story, and were but three in number, with ante-rooms for the accommodation of visitors in waiting. One very large room, fronting southward, had been "the President's room" ever since the house was built. Next to this, on the east, was a narrow room in which the Private Secretary performed his double duty of defending the President from needless intrusion and of acting almost as a second President in a host of minor matters. Across the hall was another room of like dimensions, occupied by the two assistant secretaries and such clerical help as was sometimes given them. To this latter room, indeed, Mr. Lincoln sometimes fled for refuge from the pressure he could not escape in his own. Adjoining this was a large sleeping-room, also sometimes temporarily applied to more strictly official uses.

Mr. Lincoln had shown his usual wisdom in selecting the confidential servants of his own office. They were all young men of sufficient capacity and education for their duties, but were without other associations or ambitions than such as bound them to himself. He could and did put utter confidence in them, and there was in the feeling with which they all regarded him something quite as strong as any tie of blood could possibly have been.

Mr. Lincoln's old friend Colonel Ward H. Lamon, and afterwards other officials, had at first somewhat of the external man

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