"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. 66 In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the "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 narrow straggling territory, overhung along its whole Chap. IV. northern boundary by free Pennsylvania, was estimated to contain not less than 50,000,000 dollars' worth of slaves. The distant State of Missouri had, like Maryland, a military importance derived from its situation; for the possession of it might be said to command, more or less, Kansas and the great territories of the SouthWest. She never actually seceded, but her Governor and Legislature were secessionist, and the State soon became, and long continued, the scene of desultory hostilities, sustained at first by troops raised within the State and fighting in its name, and later by detached wings of the great Confederate army. These events have been mentioned, for the sake of convenience, a little out of their chronological order. Nor were the acts by which the four seceding States purported to sever themselves from the Union formally completed until some time afterwards. But these acts had in all 1 Virginia April 17th. Ordinance of Secession passed by Convention (88 to 55). May 23rd. Ordinance ratified by popular vote (128,884 to 32,134). [A considerable portion of Virginia broke off and remained faithful to the Union, and was subsequently erected, with some adjoining counties, into a separate State, under the title of Western Virginia. It contained nearly a fourth of the whole white population, and embraced the Valley of the Kanawha and the greater part of the tract west of the Alleghanies sloping down to the Ohio, together with the long narrow strip which runs up between the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania, nearly to the latitude of New York, and to which its shape and position have given the nickname of the "Pan-handle."] North Carolina April 26th. Legislature summoned. May 1st. Legislature met, and called Convention. May 21st. Secession Ordinance passed unanimously. Tennessee May 7th. Ordinance of Secession passed by the Legislature. June 8th. Ordinance ratified by popular vote (104,913 to 47,238). [East Tennessee was strongly Unionist.] Arkansas May 6th. Ordinance passed by Convention (69 to 1). Chap. IV. of them been forestalled, not only by popular movements, but by their Governments and Legislatures. On the 25th April the Virginian Convention, in the name of the Commonwealth, had entered into a formal Treaty with the Confederate States, under which, until the Union should be perfected, "the whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive, of the said Commonwealth in the impending conflict with the United States," were placed under the direction and control of the President of the Confederacy "on the same principles, basis, and footing as if the said Commonwealth were now and during the interval a member of the Confederacy." The Governor of Tennessee was empowered by his Legislature, on the 1st May, to conclude a like Treaty; and the Treaty itself was ratified by the Senate on the 7th. Still earlier the forts on the coast of North Carolina had been seized and armed, and these, with the arsenals of Fayetteville in that State and of Little Rock in Arkansas, were handed over to the Confederate Government. The United States had within the State of Virginia two valuable possessions, which its revolt threatened with sudden peril, the navy-yard and magazines of Norfolk, and the great arsenal and armoury of Harper's Ferry, situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, whose united waters here break through the most easterly of the long Alleghany ranges and descend towards the sea. On the night of the 18th April the subaltern in charge of the arsenal was apprised that it was about to be attacked by a strong Virginian force, and hastily withdrew the handful of troops under his command, having first set fire to the buildings, destroyed about 15,000 stand of arms, and attempted, but in vain, to blow up the workshops and machinery. Commodore Macauley, who commanded at Norfolk, had recourse to the same desperate expedient. But here the destruction was greater. The noble harbour of Norfolk, opening into Hampton Roads, where the James River, Chap. IV. on which Richmond stands, discharges itself into the sea, was a naval station of the first importance. Its great navy-yard, on the opposite side of Elizabeth River, gave employment to the populous town of Portsmouth with its suburb, Gosport; and the harbour and yard contained at that time, beside 2,000 pieces or more of heavy ordnance and large quantities of small-arms, ammunition, and naval stores, eight or ten ships of war, of different classes. Of these, however, some were dismantled; one had been thirty-eight years on the stocks, and others were under repair. A subsequent report of the Secretary of the Navy confines the list of those which were or could have been made serviceable to one steamfrigate, three sloops (including the Cumberland, which escaped), and a 4-gun brig. Norfolk was occupied on the 20th by a Virginian Brigadier, with a small force hastily collected in the neighbourhood; and, on the same night, the United States' Commandant, who had about 800 men at his disposal, made his escape from Portsmouth, after burning and scuttling the ships, firing the huge ship-houses, and destroying everything else that he could destroy. One sloop of war, the Cumberland, was safely towed out by the Pawnee, which had arrived just in time. The Merrimac, a fine 40-gun steam-frigate, though injured, was rescued by the Confederates, and afterwards did good service as the iron-clad Virginia; the cannon and powder also came into their possession, with much valuable machinery and large quantities of shot and shell. Portsmouth was immediately afterwards occupied, as Harper's Ferry had been, by Confederate troops. But Fortress Monroe, a place of great strength and commanding position, remained in the hands of the Federal Government. Seated on the extreme point of the land which divides the James River from Chesapeake Bay, directly opposite to the great outlet between the Capes |