CONSPIRATORS IN COUNCIL. 351 a April 28, 1861. example.' At Decatur we were met by still more alarming rumors, underlying which there was evidently some truth, and we thought it prudent to turn our faces northward. Had we not been detained at Grand Junction, we should then have been in Virginia, possibly in Washington or Baltimore, subjected to the annoyances of that distressing week when the National Capital was cut off from all communication with the States north and east of it. We spent Sunday in Columbia, Tennessee; Monday, at Nashville; and at four o'clock on Tuesday morning," departed for Louisville. At Columbia we received the first glad tidings since we left New Orleans. There we met a bulletin from the Nashville Union and American, containing news of the great uprising in the Free-labor States-the rush of men to arms, and the munificent offers of money from city corporations, banking institutions, and private citizens, all over the country. Our faith in the patriotism of the people was amazingly strengthened; and when, on the following day, at Franklin and one or two other places, Pillow, who was our fellow-passenger, repeated his disreputable harangue at Grand Junction, and talked of the poverty, the perfidy, the acquisitiveness, and the cowardice of the "Northern hordes of Goths and Vandals," he seemed like a mere harle quin, with cap and bells, trying to amuse the people with cunning antics. And so the people seemed to think, for at Franklin, where there was quite a large gathering, there was not a single response to his foolish speech. Nobody seemed to be deceived by it. Pillow was again our fellow-passenger on Tuesday morning, when we left Nashville. We had been introduced to him the day before, and he was our traveling-companion, courteous and polite, all the way to Louisville. When we crossed the magnificent railway bridge that then spanned the Green River at Mumfordsville, in Kentucky, he leaned out of the car window and viewed it with great earnestness. I spoke of the beauty and strength of the structure, when he replied: "I am looking at it with a military eye, to see how we may destroy it; to prevent Northern troops from invading Tennessee." He seemed to be persuaded that a vast host were mustering on the Ohio border. He was evidently on his way to Louisville to confer, doubtless by appointment, with leading secessionists of Kentucky, on the subject of armed rebellion. The register of the "Galt House in that city showed that Pillow, Governor Magoffin, Simon B. Buckner, and other secessionists were at that house on that evening.2 b April 23. We did not stop at Louisville, but immediately crossed the Ohio River to Jeffersonville, and took passage in a car for Cincinnati. The change was wonderful. For nearly three weeks we had not seen a National flag, nor heard a National air, nor scarcely felt a thrill produced by a loyal sentiment audibly uttered; now the Stars and Stripes were seen everywhere, National melodies were heard on every hand, and the air was resonant with the shouts mate of Scott's character, said, after calling him "a driveling old fop," "With the red-hot pencil of infamy, he has written on his wrinkled brow the terrible, damning words, Traitor to his native State!”—Abingdon Democrat. 1 These dispatches produced the greatest exultation throughout the South and Southwest. Salvos of cannon and the ringing of bells attested the general joy. The editor of the Natchez Free Trader said, after describing the rejoicings there, "The pen fails to make the record a just one. We are hoarse with shouting and exalted with jubilancy." 2 Letter of General Leslie Coombs to the author. 352 EXCITEMENT IN CINCINNATI. of loyal men. Banners were streaming from windows, floating over housetops, and fluttering from rude poles by the waysides. Little children waved them with tiny huzzas, as our train passed by, crowded to its utmost capacity with young men hastening to enroll themselves for the great Union Army then forming. From Cincinnati was fairly iridescent with the Red, White, and Blue. the point of the spire of white cut stone of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, two hundred and twenty-five feet in the air, the loyal Archbishop Purcell had caused to be unfurled, with "imposing ceremonies," it was said, a magnificent National flag, ninety feet in length;' and on the day of our visit, it seemed as if the whole population were on the streets, checring the soldiers 3 as they passed through the city. There was no sign of doubt or lukewarmness. The Queen City gave ample tokens that the mighty Northwest, whose soil had been consecrated to freedom forever by a solemn act of the Congress of the old Confederation, was fully aroused to a sense of the perils that threatened the Republic, and was sternly determined to defend it at all hazards. How lavishly that great Northwest poured out its blood and treasure for the preservation of the Union will be observed hereafter. As we journeyed eastward through Ohio, by way of Columbus, Newark, and Steubenville, to Pittsburg, the magnitude and significance of the great ་ 1 "The ceremonies' attending the raising of the flag," wrote the Archbishop in a letter to the author, July 23, 1865, in reply to a question concerning it, consisted of the hurrahs, the tears of hope and joy, the prayer for success from the blessing of God on our cause and arms by our Catholic people and our fellow-citizens of various denominations, who saluted the flag with salvos of artillery. The flag was really ninety feet long, and broad in proportion. One of less dimensions would not have satisfied the enthusiasm of our people." 2 The scene depicted in the engraving was on Fourth Street, the fashionable and business thoroughfare of Cincinnati, in the vicinity of Pike's Opera House. The view is from a point near the Post-office. 3 See the famous Ordinance passed on the 13th of July, 1787, by the unanimous vote of the eight States then represented in Congress, namely, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Ir that ordinance, the most perfect freedom of person and property was decreed. See Journals of Congress, Folwell's edition, xii. 58. LOYALTY IN THE FREE-LABOR STATES. uprising became hourly more and more apparent. seemed to have responded to the call: "Lay down the ax, fling by the spade; Leave in its track the toiling plow: For arms like yours were fitter now; Quit the light task, and learn to wield The charger on the battle-field."1 353 The whole country In the evening we saw groups drilling in military maneuvers in the dim moonlight, with sticks and every kind of substitute for a musket. Men were crowding the railway cars and other vehicles, as they pressed toward designated places of rendezvous; and at every station, tearful women and children were showering kisses, and farewells, and blessings upon their loved ones, who cheered them with assurances of speedy return. Pittsburg, with its smoke and forges, was bright with banners, and more noisy with the drum than with the tilt-hammer. All the way over the great Alleghany range, and down through the beautiful valleys of the Juniata and Susquehanna, we observed the people moving to "the music of the Union." Philadelphia-staid and peaceful Philadelphia-the Quaker City-was gay and brilliant with the ensigns of war. Her streets were filled with resident new and passing soldiery, and her great warm heart was throbbing audibly with patriotic emotions, such as stirred her more than fourscore years before, when the Declaration of Independence went out from her venerated State House. Her Mayor (Henry) had just said:-"By the grace of Almighty God, treason shall never rear its head or have a foothold in Philadelphia. I call upon you as American citizens to stand by your flag, and protect it at all hazards." The people said Amen! and no city in the Union has a brighter record of patriotism and benevolence than Philadelphia. New Jersey was also aroused. Burlington, Trenton, Princeton, Brunswick, Rahway, Elizabethtown, Newark, and Jersey City, through which we passed, were alive with enthusiasm. And when we had crossed the Hudson River, and entered the great city of New York," with its almost a million of inhabitants, it seemed as if we were in a vast military camp. The streets were swarming with soldiers. Among the stately trees at the Battery, at its lower extremity, white tents were standing. Before its iron gates sentinels were passing. Rude barracks, filled with men, were covering portions of the City Hall Park; and heavy cannon were arranged in line near the fountain, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers, many of them in the gay costume of the Zouave. Already thousands of volunteers had gone out from among the citizens, or had passed through the town from other parts of the State, and from New England; and already the commercial metropolis of the Republic, whose disloyal Mayor, less than four months before, had argued officially in favor of its raising the standard of secession and Our Country's Call: by William Cullen Bryant. a May 1, 2 Speech of Mayor Henry to a crowd of citizens who were about to attack the printing-office of The Palmetto Flag, a disloyal sheet, on the corner of Fourth and Chestnut Streets. The Mayor exhorted the citizens to refrain from violence. The proprietor of the obnoxious sheet displayed the American flag. The Mayor hoisted it over the building, and the crowd dispersed. VOL. I.-23 354 ATTITUDE OF NEW YORK CITY. revolt,' had spoken out for the Union in a monster meeting of men of all political and religious creeds, gathered around the statue of Washington. at Union Square," where all party feeling was kept in abeyance, April 20, and only one sentiment-THE UNION SHALL BE PRESERVED—was the burden of all the oratory. 1861. ⚫ April 17. account of the many ties of commercial interest. Politically it was opposed to the Administration by thirty thousand majority. The voice of the metropo lis, at such a crisis, was therefore listened for with the most anxious solicitude. It could not keep silence. Already the insurgents had commenced their movements for the seizure of the seat of Government. Harper's Ferry and the Gosport Navy Yard were just passing into the hands of rebellious men. Already the blood of Union soldiers had been spilt in Baltimore, and the cry had come up from below the Roanoke: "Press on toward Washington!" Already the politicians of Virginia had passed an Ordinance of b Secession, and were inviting the troops from the Gulf States to their soil. The secessionists of Maryland were active, and the National Capitol, with its archives, was in imminent peril of seizure by the insurgents. It was under such a condition of public affairs that the meeting had assembled, on the 20th of April. Places of business were closed, that all might participate in the proceedings. It was estimated, that at least one hundred thousand persons were in attendance during the afternoon. Four stands were erected at points equidistant around Union Square; and the soiled and tattered flag that Anderson had brought away from Fort Sumter, was mounted on a fragment of its staff, and placed in the hands of the statue of Washington. The meeting was organized by the appointment of a President at each of the four stands, with a large number of assistants; and it was addressed by representative men of all political parties, who, 1 See page 205. 2 The four Presidents were John A. Dix, ex-Governor Hamilton Fish, ex-Mayor William F. Havemeyer. and Moses H. Grinnell. These were assisted by numerous vice-presidents and secretaries, who were chosen from among men holding opposing opinions. THE GREAT MEETING AT UNION SQUARE. 355 as we have observed, were in perfect agreement on this occasion, in a determination to support the Government in maintaining its authority.' John A. Dix, a life-long Democrat, and lately a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, presided at the principal stand, near the statue of Washington. The meeting was there opened by prayer by the venerable Gardiner Spring, D. D., when the President addressed a few sentences to the multitude, in which he spoke of the rebellion being without provocation on the part of the Government, and said: "I regard the pending contest with the secessionists as a death-struggle for constitutional liberty and law-a contest which, if successful on their part, could only end in the establishment of a despotic government, and blot out, whenever they were in the ascendant, every vestige of national freedom. ... We stand before the statue of the Father of his Country. The flag of the Union which floats over it, hung above him when he presided over the Convention by which the Constitution was framed. The great work of his life has been rejected, and the banner by which his labors were consecrated has been trampled in the dust. If the in animate bronze, in which the sculptor has shaped his image, could be changed for the living form which led the armies of the Revolution to victory, he would command us, in the name of the hosts of patriots and political martyrs who have gone before, to strike for the defense of the Union and the Constitution." Daniel S. Dickinson, a venerable leader of the Democratic party, said :"We are called upon to act. There is no time for hesitation or indecisionno time for haste or excitement. It is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their might, stretch forth their strong arm, and silence the angry waves of tumult. It is a question between Union and Anarchy between law and disorder." Senator Baker, of Oregon, a leading Democrat in Congress, who afterward gave his life for his country at Ball's Bluff, made an eloquent speech. "Young men of New York," he said "Young men of the United States 1 An account of the proceedings of this meeting, containing the names of the officers, and abstracts of the several speeches, may be found in the first volume of the Rebellion Record, edited by Frank Moore. |