from the beginning of the war, were so abundantly, methodically, and so quietly and unostentatiously offered for the public service by the ladies of the country. The Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, in his first report to Congress gratefully acknowledged the aid to the department rendered in the military hospitals by patriotic women, under the guidance and direction of Miss D. L. Dix, a philanthropic lady, who, without fee or reward, beyond that arising from the exercise of benevolence, " devoted her whole time to this important subject."* army of the Republic. Money and men many acts of personal devotion, which, were everywhere forthcoming. The subscriptions of individuals, corporations, banking institutions, towns, cities, and the legislatures of the Northern and Western States, freely offered for the purchase of arms, the raising and equipment of troops and the support of the Government, in a fortnight after the day of the attack upon Sumter, reached a sum estimated at over thirty millions of dollars. The appropriations of the States of Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio reached the sum of three millions each, and others were quite as liberal in proportion to their wealth, if they did not in some instances exceed them. The thrifty State of Connecticut contributed two millions, and Illinois the same; Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, a million each, and the Corporation of the City of New York an equal sum, which was speedily more than doubled by the subscriptions of the citizens. Cincinnati kept pace with New York, and the great West generally throughout its borders was as prodigal of its resources as the wealthy East.* The ladies also bore a prominent part in this patriotic work. Female societies were formed everywhere for providing for the wants of the soldiers, in the manufacture of articles of clothing, military equipments, and the collection and preparation of hospital stores, havelocks for protection from the sun in the summer heats, haversacks for the march, and vast supplies of lint for the wounded and delicacies for the sick; while many ladies of education and refinement offered their services and were accepted as nurses. It would be difficult to estimate the contributions of money, labor, skill, and the *Table of Northern Contributions for the War. Leslie's Pictorial History, p. 24. The pulpit also, no doubt, at this time exercised an important influence in the formation of opinions, and strengthening the sense of duty by the sanctions of religion. Except on particular occasions, such as a day of thanksgiving, or the national anniversary of independence, it had not been the habit of the preachers of the larger and more influential denominations to allude to the state of public affairs. Now, however, the pressing interests of the times seemed to demand the aid of all intelligent thinkers; and political matters, as before in periods of great anxiety in the country, began to be seriously discussed, with an earnestness proportioned to the importance of the occasion. In the war of the Revolution patriots had been taught their duty in the church, and the clergy stood not far behind the statesmen of those days in moulding the opinions of the people. The published sermons of Davis, Stiles, and others, are among the most valuable and interesting memorials of that age. At a later day also, in the time of the French Revolution, when questions of party warfare were thought to involve the interests * Report of the Secretary of War. July 1, 1861. VOICE OF THE PULPIT. of religion and morality, the pulpit was loud in its denunciations of the threatened evil. In the more quiet state of public affairs which succeeded, the eloquence which had overrun the secular topics of the hour again returned to its accustomed channel of religious instruction, to the too great neglect, perhaps, of those inculcations of duty to the State, on the part both of office-holders and the people, without the right understanding and performance of which neither government nor religion can exist in safety. 147 ally felt that a vigorous proclamation, such as General Jackson might have sent forth, calling the secessionists of the South to return to their allegiance, would have been quite as much in place at the crisis as the appointment of a national fast day in the midst of the festivities of the New Year. The ground being thus fairly broken the attack upon Sumter brought with it, as a matter of course, a free and open expression of opinion in the churches generally. The 21st of April, the first Sunday after that event, will long be re earnestness and anxiety. The President's call upon the militia of the several States probably reached every congregation, and parents and children, as they gathered for worship that Lord's day, felt their full responsibility in the novel and perilous situation of affairs. It was noticea as a striking coincidence that the prescribed lesson for the day from the Old Testament in the service of the Episcopal Church embraced the memorable proclamation in the book of the Prophet Joel :-"Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plough-shares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say I am strong. The first prominent occasion for the voice of the pulpit to be heard in the pre-membered as a day of extraordinary sent agitation arose with the recommendation of President Buchanan, in view of the distracted and dangerous condition of the country, that the people should assemble on the 4th of January and observe the day as one of humiliation, fasting and prayer throughout the Union. The day was generally kept in the Northern States with the solemnity befitting the injunction, though the opportunity in many instances was turned in rather a different direction, from that apparently intended by the author of the proclamation. He had advised a supplication to Heaven "to remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency, rather than yield a just submission to the unforeseen exigencies by tudes in the valley of decision: for the which we are now surrounded," a sug- day of the Lord is near in the valley of gestion of concession and compromise, decision." Few of the many thousands which might have been available, if both in whose hearing these words were that sides had been disposed to listen to it. day read could have listened to them The Northern divines, in reply, expressed without emotion. Of the occasion the kindliest feelings of cordiality and erally it is but little to say that the brotherhood, but urged in the most de- ministers of religion, conscious of the cided manner the paramount importance prospect before them, were true to the of the maintenance and preservation of great purposes of their vocation in inthe Government. Indeed it was gener-spiring the hearts of the people with that Multitudes, multi gen mingled humility and courage which go Republicans fighting the battles of the hand in hand in the Christian life. These were times that tried the temper and disposition of men; but generally there being little choice of action, any differences of judgment were lost in the preponderating local sentiment. Much had been expected on both sides from divisions of opinion. The South looked for aid, or at least acquiescence, in its schemes of revolt, from the divided political councils of the North, and the active sympathy of those hitherto pledged to its interests; and the North, on the other hand, for a long time relied on the coöperation of what was called "a large Union element" at the South, which at the first opportunity would throw off the authority of the rebel leaders and rise in support of the old nationality. Neither expectation proved well founded. The contest became at once too serious to permit indifference, and whether from interest or sympathy with the prevalent feeling around them, the expected friends of the rebellion and the expected supporters of the flag were silent or drawn into the popular current. In the Border States, however, there was more room for the display of individual preferences, and there for a time an active rivalry was maintained which realized some of the worst features of civil warfare. The public men of the South thus occasionally, in spite of their cherished convictions, as in the case of Stephens and Johnson of Georgia, who both, at the outset, voted against the ordinance of secession, yielding to the necessities of their unhappy position became a united body of rebels; while the old race of Northern politicians with Southern opinions speedily found themselves in the ranks side by side with the Union. In the middle ground there was something of a struggle and some notable defections occurred, among which were those of two of the late candidates for the Presidency, John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, and John Bell of Tennessee. The former, though he continued to maintain a responsible relation with the Government for some time, taking his seat as a member of the Senate in the New Congress, early opposed the policy of the Administration. On the 20th of April, in a speech at Louisville, he denounced President Lincoln's Proclamation as illegal, proposed that Kentucky should protest against the settlement of the present difficulties of the country by the sword, and, that influence failing, asserted that it was the duty and interest of Kentucky to unite her fortunes with the South. Mr. Bell in a speech at a public meeting at Nashville, Tennessee, unequivocally gave his adherence to the South. Casting aside the efforts he had recently made and the hopes he had cherished for the preservation of peace, he urged upon all the slaveholding States the policy of uniting together to make common cause against what he called a common foe. Pronouncing his own State of Tennessee already out of the Union, he counselled the most effective and energetic measures for her military organization.** The doubtful adherence and final open revolt of Breckenridge were more than compensated by the loyalty of the venerable Crittenden. There was, likewise, no one in Tennessee whose loss could offset the unhesitating allegiance to the Union of the energetic Andrew Johnson. * Speech of John Bell at Nashville, Tenn., April 23 1861. THE NATIONAL CAPITAL. 'The remaining unsuccessful candidate for the Presidency, Senator Douglas, was not the man to be silent or indifferent at such a period. Wisely appreciating his own position and the demands of the times, "the patriot achieved a great but easy conquest over the partisan as he heartily, warmly, and with a zeal befitting the momentous cause in which he was engaged, united with those who had heretofore not only opposed but denounced him, in a struggle to uphold the Union, sustain the Constitution and vin 149 dicate the claim of the national Government to the obedience of all its citizens."* The army and navy presented a debatable ground where the sectional iine was less defined. Numbers, misled by the unhappy doctrine of State allegiance abandoned their commissions in the national service, but there were many, especially in the navy, whom no local jealousies or delusions could alienate from their loyalty to the old flag. * Address of Mr. Browning of Illinois, in the Senate, July 9, 1861. CHAPTER X. SEIZURE OF HARPER'S FERRY AND THE NORFOLK NAVY YARD. THE first duty of the Government was to protect Washington. The capture of the Capital was evidently the object of the insurgents. Lying between two slave States and largely occupied by sympathizers with the rebellion, it was doubtless expected to fall an easy prey to the Southern leaders. Indeed, so important was its possession to the rebel Government that it is difficult to suppose, in so comprehensive a scheme of revolt, put in operation by such masters of stratagem, that its capture was not contemplated from the very outset. After, the attack upon Sumter, which was immediately followed by the secession of Virginia, that State having the honor of being the first, outside of the original seven, to gain admission to the Montgomery Confederacy, and when North Carolina, the intervening barrier, was waiting only the formal act of withdrawal, the path lay open to the Southern armies to accomplish by force what they had al ready paved the way for by intrigue. There could be no doubt then of the danger when troops were set in motion northward, and the seizure of the Capital was everywhere talked of through the Confederacy without disguise as its inevitable policy. There was some disposition shown afterwards to throw off the responsibility of an intention to attack Washington at the time of which we speak, but there would appear to be quite evidence enough to establish the fact. A collection of expressions on the subject by the Southern press, exhibits a variety of declarations arising in different quarters, and all tending to the same result. We have already noted the threat of the Confederate Secretary of War at Montgomery, to supplant the stars and stripes on the national Capital by the new flag of the rebellion before the 1st of May. The day after that avowal, on the 13th of * Ante p. 118. April, the Richmond Enquirer summon-minious expulsion of Lincoln and his ed to arms the citizens disposed to join body-guard of Kansas cut-throats from "the Southern army as it shall pass the White House. It makes good the through our borders," with the signifi- words of Secretary Walker at Montgomcant intimation that" nothing was more ery in regard to the Federal metropolis. probable than that President Davis will It transfers the lines of battle from the soon march an army through North Car- Potomac to the Pennsylvania border." olina and Virginia to Washington." The" Washington City," said the Raleigh New Orleans Picayune of the 18th de- Standard of the same date, "will soon clared that "the first fruits of a Virginia be too hot to hold Abraham Lincoln and secession will be the removal of Lin- his Government. North Carolina has coln and his Cabinet and whatever he said it, and she will do all she can to can carry away to the safer neighbor- make good her declaration." As we hood of Harrisburg or Cincinnati-per-approach the scene of the contemplated haps to Buffalo or Cleveland." In Ala- robbery the anxiety for the perpetrabama and Mississippi the report was cur- tion of the deed is apparently intensified. rent that Ben. McCullough, the noted "The capture of Washington City," says Texas chieftain, destined to a conspicu- the Richmond Examiner of April 23, ous career in the conduct of the war, had" is perfectly within the power of Virthus early organized a force of five thou-ginia and Maryland, if Virginia will only sand men for the seizure of the Capital. make the effort by her constituted auThe Hon. Roger A. Pryor on his arrival thority, nor is there a single moment to at Montgomery, after his escape from the The entire population pant for the perils of Sumter, publicly announced his onset. There never was half the unadesire to march immediately upon Wash- nimity among the people before, nor a ington. The Eufaula, Alabama, Express, tithe of the zeal upon any subject that is in a few words, described the situation as now manifested to take Washington and it presented itself to the minds of thou- drive from it every Black Republican sands :-" With independent Virginia on who is a dweller there. From the mounone side and the secessionists of Mary-tain tops and valleys to the shores of the land, who are doubtless in the majority, sea there is one wild shout of fierce reon the other, our policy at this time should be to seize the old Federal Capital and take old Lincoln and his Cabinet prisoners of war. Once get the Head of the Government in our power and we can demand any terms we see fit, and thus, perhaps, avoid a long and bloody contest." North Carolina journals were equally impressed with the value of the movement. "To have gained Maryland," said the Goldsboro' Tribune of the 24th, "is to have gained a host. It ensures Washington City and the igno lose. solve to capture Washington city at all and every human hazard. The filthy cage of unclean birds must and will assuredly be purified by fire. The people are determined upon it, and are clamorous for a leader to conduct them to the onslaught. That leader will assuredly rise, aye, and that right speedily."* Whatever, however, may have been the intentions of the leaders, or the wishes of the people, in this matter, the course of events in Virginia was well calculated * National Intelligencer, May 9, 1861. |