LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

HOME OF MR. LINCOLN.

HON. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS.

HON. RICHARD YATES.

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL U. S. GRANT.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL W. H. L. WALLACE.

MAJOR-GENERAL JNO. A. McCLERNAND.

MAJOR-GENERAL JNO. A. LOGAN.

BRIGADIER-GENERAL T. E. G. RANSOM.

COLONEL JAS. A. MULLIGAN.

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JNO. A. BROSS.

PATRIOTISM OF ILLINOIS.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE STATE-EXTENT AND BOUNDARIES-DECADES-PRODUCTIONS-CIVIL WAR-FREE AND SLAVE LABOR-DEMANDS OF SLAVERY-LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS-SENATORIAL CONTEST-1860-PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST-THREats of Disunion-NO JUSTIFICATION FOR REVOLUTION—A. H. STEPHENS' SPEECH-MR. LINCOLN'S VIEWS-POWERLESS FOR EVIL-MR. BUCHANAN-CABINET-SCENES IN CONGRESS-SOUTH CAROLINA SECEDES -“COERCION”—LINCOLN'S POLICY FORESHADOWED-MAJOR ANDERSON-FORT MOULTRIE AND FORT SUMTER-COMMISSIONERS GENERAL SCOTt and ReinforCEMENTS—A TRUCE ILLINOIS CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION-SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT FACTSTERMINATION OF THE BUCHANAN ADMINISTRATION.

THE

HE STATE OF ILLINOIS stretches from 36° 56′ to 42° 30′ north latitude, and is between 87° 35′ and 91° 40' longitude. Its extent is truly imperial; its length from north to south being three hundred and eighty-eight, and its extreme breadth from east to west two hundred and twelve miles. Its head is as far north as Lowell, Massachusetts, and its foot farther south than Richmond, Virginia. Its area is 55,405 square miles, or 35,459,200 acres. Its northern boundary is Wisconsin; the north-eastern, Lake Michigan; eastern, Indiana, from which it is, in part, separated by the Wabash River; its southern, Kentucky and the Ohio River, while on its western line is the Mississippi River, across which are the States of Missouri and Iowa. It is divided into one hundred and one counties, which are dotted with villages, towns or cities. Its growth has been very rapid, as the statement of its decennial periods from 1810 to 1860 shows:

The development of material prosperity has been proportionate to the increase of population. Broad and beautiful streams open outlets for its products, and supply water-power for its machinery. The Mississippi River, the Illinois River and Canal, and the great Lakes furnish water transportation for its cereals and its beef and pork to southern or eastern tide-water; long lines of railway traverse it in every direction; its prairie soil is of almost exhaustless fertility; vast fields of coal and quarries of stone are hid beneath it; grains and fruits grow in profusion; churches, public schools, academies and colleges give morality and intelligence to its people, and down to the spring of 1861, though there had been disastrous financial revulsions, no serious check had been given to its prosperity.

From 1850 to 1860 the ratio of increase was, of whites, 101.45 per cent; free colored, 40.32 per cent. Judge Fuller, the able and patriotic Adjutant General, says in his report for 1861-2:

"From a population, in 1850, of 851,470, we had increased to 1,711,951-more than doubling our population in one decade. Our real and personal property, in 1850, valued at $156,265,006, had, in 1860, increased to $871,860,282-being an increase of $715,595,276, or 457.93 per cent. Our improved lands which, in 1850, were but 5,039,545 acres, with an estimated value of $96,138,290, had increased, in 1860, to $13,251,473 acres, with an estimated value of $432,531,072. The two principal staple products of our soil-wheat and corn-had increased in a similar ratiothe former from 9,414,575 bushels, in 1850, to 24,159,500 bushels, in 1860, and the latter from 57,646,984 bushels, in 1850, to 115,296,779 bushels, in 1860. Our magnificent railways, which in 1850 were only 110 miles, costing $1,440,507, had extended in 1860 to 2,867 miles, at a cost of $104,944,561. Nor had the progress of our people been confined to an increase of population and wealth. In every city and town had sprung up, as if by magic, the unmistakable evidences of progress in the arts and sciences. In fact, it could be truly said that, through the enlightened liberality of our citizens, the unfortunate, the poor and the helpless, were provided for and educated, without money and without price."

From its coal mines, which in 1860 had just begun to be fairly worked, were taken 14,158,120 bushels—an aggregate only below the great States of Pennsylvania and Ohio. These are items in a prosperity so great as to be a marvel. A single city had, in thirty years, grown from a small village around an old fort to be the first grain, lumber and beef and pork entrepot of the continent, if not of the world.

In this march to greatness Illinois was not alone, but worthy compeers were her near sisters, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa and Wisconsin.

BAKER AND BENJAMIN.

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Young Minnesota was whispering her golden promise, and Missouri was waiting until, free from slavery, she, too, could show how States are made.

In 1861, came civil war upon a scale of astounding magnitude, destined, if not to suspend, at least to vary, the direction of its prosperity, and the history of the State through this great war demands our attention.

There had been a struggle between the opposite systems of free and slave labor, which had grown into antagonism, extending into literature, religion, politics. Slavery was outgrown by freedom; its old supremacy was being destroyed by the rapid expansion of the Free States, and their growth in material prosperity. Indeed the rebellion was rather against the revelation of the census tables than against the government of any man or party. The friends of slavery demanded that it should be exempted from free discussion, and not only tolerated but fostered. They claimed for it the right to go, under the Constitution, into the Territories of the United States, setting aside the long established principle that it was the creature of local law and could only exist where covered by positive enactments. Said General Quitman, "Slavery requires for its kind devel opment a fostering government over it. It can scarcely exist without such development." It was to be accepted as good without question, for to question was to irritate. Said Senator Baker, of Oregon, to Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, "If we, a free people, really, in our hearts and consciences, believing that freedom is better for everything than slavery, do desire the advance of free sentiments, and do endeavor to assist that advance in a constitutional, legal way, is that ground of separation?" Senator Benjamin: "I say, yes."

As early as 1858, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Southern Confederacy, organized by rebellion, said, in a speech, in Jackson, Mississippi, "If an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies? Without pausing for an answer, I will state my own position to be, that such a result would be a species of revolution, by which the purposes of the government would be destroyed, and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect. In that event, in such a manner as should be most expe

dient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safety outside of the Union with those who have already shown the will, and would have acquired the power to deprive you of your birthright, and to reduce you to worse than the colonial dependence of your fathers." The simple fact of the constitutional election, by the people, of a President holding that slavery was wrong, should be deemed occasion of revolt. Mr. Davis subsequently said, in conversation with Colonel Jaques, "We seceded to escape the rule of majorities."

In the State of Illinois there was to be a contest which was to have most weighty influence in shaping the pending controversy.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln was put forward as candidate for the seat in the national Senate about to be vacated by the expiration of the term of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, who was a candidate for re-election. These distinguished gentlemen canvassed the State and met, for joint discussion, at seven prominent places. Never, in the history of American politics, did a discussion so arrest the public attention, and assume an importance so truly national. Thousands crowded to hear the debates; reporters of the leading newspapers of the Union were in attendance, and the speeches were widely copied. The discussion was termed by a public journal "the battle of the giants." Mr. Douglas secured the State Legislature and his Senatorial seat, and lost the Presidency. Mr. Lincoln, carrying the popular vote of the State, lost, nevertheless, the Legislature, and was defeated for the Senatorship, but the nation had its eye, upon him, and called him to the Presidential chair.

The principal topic of discussion was Slavery and the Territories, Mr. Lincoln insisting that Congress, for the American people, had the right to exclude it, and should do so; Mr. Douglas insisting that each Territory should be left to settle its own domestic institutions in its own way, subject only to the Constitution of the United States. Neither assumed the attitude of hostility to slavery, as existing in States already in the Union. Little did those men know that they were consolidating the forces of the Union and making prominent, and more than ever sacred, the doctrine of the majesty of majorities.

In 1860, four candidates for the Presidential chair were before the American people-Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois; Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois; John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky; and John

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