1969]

WHAT CAUSE WAS THERE FOR SUCH ACTS?

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zens from the outrages, because those who derived their authority from the Constitution used that authority to violate its guarantees. It has been stated that the rule upon which the United States Government was conducting affairs was entirely revolutionary. Its efforts to clothe the Government of the Union with absolute power involved the destruction of the rights of the States and the subversion of the Constitution. Hence on every occasion the provisions of the Constitution afforded no protection to the citizens: their rights were spurned; their persons were seized and imprisoned beyond the reach of friends; their houses sacked and burned. If they pleaded the Constitution, the Government of the Constitution was deaf to them, unsheathed its sword, and said the Union was at stake; and the Constitution, which was the compact of union, must stand aside. This was indeed a revolution. A constitutional government of limited powers derived from the people was transformed into a military despotism. The Northern people were docile as sheep under the change, reminding one of the words of the Psalmist: "All we, like sheep, have gone astray."

Posterity may ask with amazement, What cause could there have been for such acts by a government that was ordained "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"? Posterity may further ask, Where could a government of limited powers, constructed only for certain general purposes-and on the principle that all power proceeds from the people, and that "the powers not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people "-find a grant of power, or an authority to perpetrate such injuries upon the States and the people? As to the first question, it may be said: There was no external cause for such acts. All foreign nations were at peace with the United States. No hostile fleets were hovering on her coasts, nor immense foreign armies threatening to invade her territory. The cause, if any plausible one existed, was entirely internal. It lay between it and its citizens. If it had treated them with injustice and oppression, and threatened so

to continue, it had departed from the objects of its creation, and they had the resulting right to dissolve it.

Who was to be the umpire in such a case? Not the United States Government, for it was the creature of the States; it possessed no inherent, original sovereignty. The Constitution says, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."* The umpireship is, therefore, expressly on the side of the States, or the people. When the State of South Carolina, through a sovereign convention, withdrew from the Union, she exercised the umpireship which rightly belonged to her, and which no other could exercise for her. This involved the dissolution of the Union, and the extinction of the Government of the United States so far as she was concerned; but the officers of that Government, instead of justly acquiescing in that which was constitutionally and legally inevitable, drew the sword, and resolved to maintain by might that which had no longer existence by right. A usurpation thus commenced in wrong was the mother of all the usurpations and wrongs which followed. The unhallowed attempt to establish the absolute sovereignty of the Government of the United States, by the subjugation of States and their people, brought forth its natural fruit. Well might the victim of the guillotine exclaim, "O Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!"

As to the other question-Where could a government of limited powers find authority to perpetrate such injuries upon its own constituents?-an answer will be given in succeeding pages.

Up to the close of the year the war enlarged its proportions so as to include new fields, until it then extended from the shores of the Chesapeake to the confines of Missouri and Arizona. Sudden calls from the remotest points for military aid were met with promptness enough not only to avert disaster in the face of superior numbers, but also to roll back the tide of invasion on the border.

At the commencement of the war the enemy were possessed * Constitution of the United States, Article X.

1862]

STRONGER AT THE END OF THE YEAR.

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of certain strategic points and strong places within the Confederate States. They greatly exceeded us in numbers, in available resources, and in the supplies necessary for war. Military establishments had been long organized, and were complete; the navy and the army, once common to both, were in their possession. To meet all this we had to create not only an army in the face of war itself, but also military establishments necessary to equip and place it in the field. The spirit of the volunteers and the patriotism of the people enabled us, under Providence, to grapple successfully with these difficulties. A succession of glorious victories at Bethel, Manassas, Springfield, Lexington, Leesburg, and Belmont, checked the invasion of our soil. After seven months of war the enemy had not only failed to extend their occupancy of the soil, but new States and Territories had been added to our confederacy. Instead of their threatened march of unchecked conquest, the enemy were driven at more than one point to assume the defensive; and, upon a fair comparison between the two belligerents, as to men, military means, and financial condition, the Confederate States were relatively much stronger at the end of the year than when the struggle commenced.

The necessities of the times called into existence new branches of manufactures, and gave a fresh impulse to the activity of those previously in operation, and we were gradually becoming independent of the rest of the world for the supply of such military stores and munitions as were indispensable for

war.

At an election on November 6, 1861, the chief executive officers of the provisional Government were unanimously chosen to similar positions in the permanent Government, to be inaugurated on the ensuing 22d of February, 1862.

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CHAPTER XVI.

Military Arrangements of the Enemy.-Marshall and Garfield.-Fishing Creek.—Crittenden's Report.-Fort Henry; its Surrender.-Fort Donelson; its Position.Assaults. Surrender.-Losses.

IMPORTANT changes in the military arrangements of the enemy were made about this time. Major-General George B. McClellan was assigned to the chief command of his army, in place of Lieutenant-General Scott, retired. A Department of Ohio was constituted, embracing the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky east of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers; and Brigadier-General D. C. Buell was assigned to its command. At the same time, General Henry W. Halleck superseded General John C. Fremont in command of the United States Department of the West. General W. T. Sherman was removed from Kentucky and sent to report to General Halleck. General A. S. Johnston was now confronted by General Halleck in the West and by General Buell in Kentucky. The former, with armies at Cairo and Paducah, under Generals Grant and C. F. Smith, threatened equally Columbus, the key of the lower Mississippi River, and the water-lines of the Cumberland and the Tennessee, with their defenses at Forts Donelson and Henry. The right wing of General Buell also menaced Donelson and Henry, while his center was directed against Bowling Green, and his left was advancing against General Zollicoffer at Mill Spring, on the upper Cumberland. If the last-named position could be forced, the way seemed open to East Tennessee, by either the Jacksboro or the Jamestown routes, on the one hand, and to Nashville on the other. At the northeastern corner of Kentucky there was a force under Colonel Garfield, of Ohio, opposed to the Confederate force under General Humphrey Marshall.

The strength of Marshall's force in effective men was about sixteen hundred. Knowing that a body of the enemy under Colonel Garfield was advancing to meet him, and that a small force was moving to his rear, he fell back some fifteen miles,

1862]

MY LEFT WING NEVER FIRED A SHOT.

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and took position on Middle Creek, near Prestonburg. On January 10, 1862, Garfield attacked him. The firing was kept up, with some intervals, about four hours, and was occasionally very sharp and spirited. Marshall says in his report: "The enemy did not move me from any one position I assumed, and at nightfall withdrew from the field, leaving me just where I was in the morning. . . . He came to attack, yet came so cautiously that my left wing never fired a shot, and he never came up sufficiently to engage my center or left wing." Garfield was said to have fallen back fifteen miles to Paintsville, and Marshall seven miles, where he remained two days, then slowly pursued his retreat. He stated his loss at ten killed and fourteen wounded, and that of the enemy to have been

severe.

The battle of Fishing Creek has been the subject of harsh criticism, and I think it will be seen by the report herein inserted that great injustice has been done to General George B. Crittenden, who commanded on that occasion.

In July, 1880, I wrote to him requesting a statement of the affair at Fishing Creek, and a short time before his decease he complied with my request by writing as follows:

"In November, 1862, I assumed, by assignment, the command of a portion of East Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky, which embraced the troops stationed at Mill Springs, on the Cumberland River, and under the command of General Zollicoffer, who, as I understood the matter, had been stationed there by General Johnston to prevent the enemy under Schöpf, and confronting him on the opposite side of the river, from crossing and penetrating into Tennessee. Schöpf's camp was at Somerset, on Fishing Creek, a tributary of the Cumberland, emptying into it a mile above Mill Springs. He was several miles away from the bank of the Cumberland, so that both the river and creek intervened between him and General Zollicoffer. While I was detained in Knoxville, on business connected with my command, I received an official communication from General Zollicoffer, informing me that he had crossed the Cumberland by fording, and was fortifying a camp on the right bank, etc. By the messenger who bore me this communication I ordered him to recross the river and