Chap. IV. had sent Commissioners to Washington with instructions to endeavour to arrange terms for a peaceable separation. They had applied, on the 12th March, for leave to present their credentials, and it was not until three weeks later that they received a formal answer, which was, as might be expected, a civil but peremptory refusal. This delay has never been fully explained : by some it has been ascribed to the officious interference of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, who was a friend of the South-by others to vacillation—by others, again, to a deliberate design to gain time for preparation, whilst amusing the Confederates with a vain hope of being permitted to negotiate. Be this as it may, nothing appears to have been done before the 1st April. On that and the following day orders were sent to Brooklyn and Governor's Island to fit out several vessels with the utmost despatch; and between the 6th and the 10th, the ships following one another as they were got ready, an expedition put to sea and sailed southwards. It consisted of a large merchant-ship chartered by the Government and laden with provisions for Fort Sumter, and a small armed steam-cutter, the Harriet Lane, with two transports, full of men and military stores, attended by the steam-frigate Powhatan. These last appear to have been destined for Fort Pickens, in Alabama, the reinforcement of which was afterwards accomplished without difficulty. The gun-boats Pocahontas and Pawnee were at the same time dispatched from Norfolk.

Fort Sumter, three miles and a-half from Charleston, and commanding the entrance to the harbour, had been a constant object of jealousy and uncasiness to the Confederates, and of perplexity to the Federal Government; and many informal communications bearing reference to it had passed to and fro, both before and after the accession of Mr. Lincoln. President Buchanan had steadily refused to abandon the fort, and asserted his resolution to

defend it against attack, both as a military post and as "public property" of the United States; and this had led to dissensions in his Cabinet, and furnished a pretext at least for the resignation of some of its disaffected members. The Confederates, on the other hand, had declared themselves resolved to regard any attempt to reinforce the garrison as a menace to their independence and an act of war. Early in January an unarmed steam-ship, the Star of the West, had been actually sent thither from New York with troops and stores, but was driven back by the batteries on Morris Island and Fort Moultrie, after having been ten minutes under fire; and the attempt was not renewed. The fort itself, a structure of solid masonry, some sixty feet high, rising sheer out of the water and capable of mounting 140 guns, was well adapted for its intended purpose,-defence against attacks from the sea. But it was now exposed to the fire of the powerful batteries, which, under the superintendence of Brigadier-General Beauregard, an engineer officer of Southern extraction formerly in the United States' service, had been completed with much labour and skill on both shores of the inlet; and it was further threatened on the side of the town by a floating battery, heavily armed. The garrison was small, their stock of ammunition low, and their provisions almost exhausted; and the number of guns available did not exceed forty-eight, many of which, being en barbette, were practically useless under a well-aimed vertical fire.

On the 8th April, before the whole of the relieving expedition had left New York, notice that provisions were about to be sent to the garrison, "peaceably, or otherwise by force," was delivered by an officer of the United States' army to the civil and military authorities at Charleston, by whom it was transmitted to the Confederate Secretary at War. The fort was summoned on the 11th, and by the afternoon of the 13th it was

reduced, after a heavy but bloodless bombardment of

Chap. IV.

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Chap. IV. many hours. Major Anderson capitulated on honourable terms, and was conveyed with his handful of soldiers to New York in the same vessel which had brought their intended supplies. The ships composing the expedition had appeared off the bar before the attack began, a gale blowing at the time; but they remained spectators of the combat, and did not venture, as indeed they could not usefully have done, within the range of the Confederate batteries.

With these events vanished instantly all hopes of a peaceable separation or a peaceable reunion, and no future historian will hesitate to date from them the commencement of the civil war. The sword was drawn, and all over the country it was thoroughly understood that the question whether the revolted States were to be regained by the Republic or lost to her for ever must now be decided by force.

On the day following that on which Fort Sumter had been evacuated, the following Proclamation, under the President's signature, was issued by the Government at Washington

"PROCLAMATION.

"Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are 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, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law :

"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

"The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favour, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honour, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.

"I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces Chap. IV. called forth will probably be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.

"And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date.

"Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, convene both Houses of Congress.

"Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective Chambers, at 12 o'clock, noon, on Thursday, the 4th day of July next, then and there to consider and determine such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety and interest may seem to demand.

"In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the City of Washington, this 15th day of April, in the year of our Lord 1861, and of the Independence of the United States the 85th.

An accompanying circular, signed by the Secretary of War, informed the Governors of the several States that the men would be required to serve for three months unless sooner discharged.

Throughout the Free States of the Union this call was answered with the greatest alacrity. Three Massachusetts regiments were on their road in little more than forty-eight hours after it reached Boston; a regiment from Indiana, and one from New York, marched on the 18th, and troops were soon pouring into Washington from every part of the North and West. On the Middle or Border Slave States the summons to action produced a very different effect, and the revolt, which speedily followed, of four of these States to the Southern Confederacy, forms another important era in the history of the

war.

Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland had hitherto refrained from casting in their lot with the South. Their sym

Chap. IV. pathies, as Slave States, were more or less strongly Southern; but they were extremely unwilling to desert the Union. In all, except South Carolina, there was a division of interests; party spirit in most of them ran high, and in some-especially Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee-there was an element of violence and lawlessness which had a tendency to make dissensions fierce and dangerous. In the contests for the Presidency, these States, as we have seen, had given the bulk of their votes to the neutral candidate, and during January and February they had made anxious efforts to promote a compromise. In all, except Kentucky and Maryland, Conventions had been summoned, but in none of them had the secessionists been able to secure the passing of an Ordinance. In North Carolina and Tennessee the holding of a Convention had been negatived by the popular vote. Such, throughout this large zone of the Union, was the situation of affairs, until the attempt to provision Fort Sumter forced upon the people the hard necessity of taking arms, either against the Union to which they earnestly wished to adhere, or against that portion of their countrymen with whom they had been long accustomed to feel and act in common. Thus pressed, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee chose the former alternative. Kentucky struggled hard for some time to preserve a neutrality which had become impossible, and finally threw in her lot with the Union. The little State of Delaware, a mere slip of sea-coast with scarcely 1,800 slaves, made the same choice, but without hesitation. She had no militia, but answered the President's call by sending volunteers. Maryland, secessionist at heart and at first turbulent and unmanageable, was soon held firmly in the gripe of the Federal army. Within her limits was the district of Columbia, the seat of the Government of the United States; through them also ran the high road to the region which was destined to become the principal theatre of war; whilst her