BOMBARDMENT OF SUMTER 189 conflict without being themselves the aggressors. But the rebellion was organized by ambitious men with desperate intentions. A member of the Alabama legislature, present at Montgomery, said to Jefferson Davis and three members of his cabinet: "Gentlemen, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days." And the sanguinary advice was adopted. In answer to his question, "What instructions?" Beauregard on April 10 was ordered to demand the evacuation of Fort Sumter, and, in case of refusal, to reduce it. The demand was presented to Anderson, who replied that he would evacuate the fort by noon of April 15, unless assailed, or unless he received supplies or controlling instructions from his government. This answer being unsatisfactory to Beauregard, he sent Anderson notice that he would open fire on Sumter at 4:20 on the morning of April 12. Promptly at the hour indicated the bombardment was begun. As has been related, the rebel siege-works were built on the points of the islands forming the harbor, at distances varying from thirteen hundred to twenty-five hundred yards, and numbered nineteen batteries, with an armament of forty-seven guns, supported by a land force of from four to six thousand volunteers. The disproportion between means of attack and defense was enormous. Sumter, though a work three hundred by three hundred and fifty feet in size, with well-constructed walls and casemates of brick, was in very meager preparation for such a conflict. Of its forty-eight available guns, only twentyone were in the casemates, twenty-seven being on the rampart en barbette. The garrison consisted of nine commissioned officers, sixty-eight non-commissioned officers and privates, eight musicians, and forty-three non-combatant workmen compelled by the besiegers to remain to hasten the consumption of provisions. Under the fire of the seventeen mortars in the rebel batteries, Anderson could reply only with a vertical fire from the guns of small caliber in his casemates, which was of no effect against the rebel bomb-proofs of sand and roofs of sloping railroad iron; but, refraining from exposing his men to serve his barbette guns, his garrison was also safe in its protecting casemates. It happened, therefore, that although the attack was spirited and the defense resolute, the combat went on for a day and a half without a single casualty. It came to an end on the second day only when the cartridges of the garrison were exhausted, and the red-hot shot from the rebel batteries had set the buildings used as officers' quarters on fire, creating heat and smoke that rendered further defense impossible. There was also the further discouragement that the expedition of relief which Anderson had been instructed to look for on the eleventh or twelfth, had failed to appear. Several unforeseen contingencies had prevented the assembling of the vessels at the appointed rendezvous outside Charleston harbor, though some of them reached it in time to hear the opening guns of the bombardment. But as accident had deranged and thwarted the plan agreed upon, they could do nothing except impatiently await the issue of the fight. A little after noon of April 13, when the flagstaff of the fort had been shot away and its guns remained silent, an invitation to capitulate with the honors of war came from General Beauregard, which Anderson accepted; and on the following day, Sunday, April 14, he hauled down his flag with impressive ceremonies, and leaving the fort with his faithful garrison, proceeded in a steamer to New York. President's Proclamation Calling for Seventy-five Regiments-Responses of the Governors-Maryland and Virginia-The Baltimore Riot-Washington Isolated -Lincoln Takes the Responsibility-Robert E. LeeArrival of the New York Seventh-Suspension of Habeas Corpus-The Annapolis Route-Butler in Baltimore-Taney on the Merryman Case-KentuckyMissouri-Lyon Captures Camp Jackson-Boonville Skirmish-The Missouri Convention-Gamble made Governor-The Border States THE HE bombardment of Fort Sumter changed the political situation as if by magic. There was no longer room for doubt, hesitation, concession, or compromise. Without awaiting the arrival of the ships that were bringing provisions to Anderson's starving garrison, the hostile Charleston batteries had opened their fire on the fort by the formal order of the Confederate government, and peaceable secession was, without provocation, changed to active war. The rebels gained possession of Charleston harbor; but their mode of obtaining it awakened the patriotism of the American people to a stern determination that the insult to the national authority and flag should be redressed, and the unrighteous experiment of a rival government founded on slavery as its corner-stone should never succeed. Under the conflict thus begun the long-tolerated barbarous institution itself was destined ignobly to perish. On his journey from Springfield to Washington Mr. Lincoln had said that, devoted as he was to peace, he might find it necessary "to put the foot down firmly." That time had now come. On the morning of April 15, 1861, the leading newspapers of the country printed the President's proclamation reciting that, whereas the laws of the United States were opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, was called forth to suppress said combinations and cause the laws to be duly executed. The orders of the War Department specified that the period of service under this call should be for three months; and to further conform to the provisions of the Act of 1795, under which the call was issued, the President's proclamation also convened the Congress in special session on the coming fourth of July. Public opinion in the free States, which had been sadly demoralized by the long discussions over slavery, and by the existence of four factions in the late presidential campaign, was instantly crystallized and consolidated by the Sumter bombardment and the President's proclamation into a sentiment of united support to the government for the suppression of the rebellion. The several free-State governors sent loyal and enthusiastic responses to the call for militia, and tendered. double the numbers asked for. The people of the slave States which had not yet joined the Montgomery Confederacy-namely, Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware-remained, however, more or less di BALTIMORE RIOT 193 vided on the issue as it now presented itself. The governors of the first six of these were already so much engaged in the secret intrigues of the secession movement that they sent the Secretary of War contumacious and insulting replies, and distinct refusals to the President's call for troops. The governor of Delaware answered that there was no organized militia in his State which he had legal authority to command, but that the officers of organized volunteer regiments might at their own option offer their services to the United States; while the governor of Maryland, in complying with the requisition, stipulated that the regiments from his State should not be required to serve outside its limits, except to defend the District of Columbia. A swift, almost bewildering rush of events, however, quickly compelled most of them to take sides. Secession feeling was rampant in Baltimore; and when the first armed and equipped Northern regiment, the Massachusetts Sixth, passed through that city on the morning of April 19, on its way to Washington, the last four of its companies were assailed by street mobs with missiles and firearms while marching from one depot to the other; and in the running fight which ensued, four of its soldiers were killed and about thirty wounded, while the mob probably lost two or three times as many. This tragedy instantly threw the whole city into a wild frenzy of insurrection. That same afternoon an immense secession meeting in Monument Square listened to a torrent of treasonable protest and denunciation, in which Governor Hicks himself was made momentarily to join. The militia was called out, preparations were made to arm the city, and that night the railroad bridges were burned between Baltimore and the Pennsylvania line to prevent the further transit of Union regiments. The revolutionary furor spread |