majority in Con

Southern leaders

South would remain in the Union or not depended entirely upon what concession the gress would make touching slavery. would accept of nothing less than a reversal, on the part of the party in power, of the principle so long laboured for, and at last victorious in the election of Abraham Lincoln-the principle of non-extension of slavery into the Territories-and to this extent Republican Congressmen would not-dare not-go.

Everything that a kind, noble heart could conceive, in the interests of peace and union, was done by the President-elect. Leading Southern Democrats were proffered portfolios in his Cabinet: but they declined. On his way to the seat of Government, Lincoln delivered a great number of speeches, all teeming with sentiments of friendliness and fairness to all. He assumed the reins of Government on the 4th of March, 1861, strong in the faith that when the people of the South should read the assurances of friendship, and the guarantees of all their rights under the Constitution, which his carefully-prepared Inaugural Address contained, they would still remain in the Federal Union. President Lincoln argued against secession. in that forcible, logical style peculiar to him. Speaking of slavery, he said: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution. of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so; and I have no inclination to do so." He then appealed to the hearts

of the South, to save the Union, in the following language:

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you.

"You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the Government; while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.

"I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

"The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

These overtures, warm from his generous heart, and clothed in simple beauty, met with no response. Indeed the men of the South were organising and drilling all over that land, for the openly-avowed object of severing the Union, while the North clung to a groundless hope that all would yet be amicably settled. But the picture was changed on the 13th of April, when the news flashed over the country that South Carolina had inaugurated war by firing upon

Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour. On Monday the 15th, President Lincoln's call for 75,000 men appeared. The excitement was no longer confined to the slave-holding States. Party differences disappeared from the State Parliaments of the North. Legislators, who had hitherto eloquently and earnestly advocated concession and conciliation, were now ready to vote the last man and the last dollar for the maintenance of the Federal Union. In all the large cities and towns business was suspended; the courts adjourned; exchange buildings became drill halls and recruiting offices for volunteers. Union mass meetings were held nightly at all the public halls; men from all grades of society enlisted as privates; processions of wagons, overcrowded with farmers, their sons, and labourers, all eager to enlist, came streaming into cities and towns; by night and day the air resounded with martial music-and the perpetuity of slavery was staked upon the issue of battle, for the era of compromise had passed.

66

CHAPTER IV.

THE WAY WE MADE OUR SOLDIERS.

"No more words;

Try it with your swords!

Try it with the arms of your bravest and your best;
You are proud of your manhood, now put it to test !

Not another word;

Try it by the sword!"

FRANKLIN LUSHINGTON.

H! well, I guess we will manage to keep house," said Lincoln to General Sherman, when informed by that officer that the South was preparing for war. Neither the President nor his Ministers were willing to believe that war was inevitable; therefore, when it came, we were not so well prepared for it as we might have been. The regular army numbered about 15,000 men in January, 1861. Half of that force had been sent to Texas by John B. Floyd, Secretary of War under Buchanan-afterwards a Confederate General-where

it was turned over to the State by General Twiggs, in command. The State armouries of the North were without arms and ammunition worth mentioning. The gallant Pennsylvanians, 500 in number, who started for Washington upon the day following that on which the President called for troops, passed through Baltimore unarmed. The authorities of Massachusetts were better prepared, and within thirty-six hours of the receipt of Lincoln's proclamation they had five regiments armed, equipped, and ready to march. In my own State, Wisconsin, there was not a sufficient number of effective muskets to supply a single. regiment of one thousand men when the call for volunteers came.

The quota of Wisconsin, under the first call, was one regiment; consequently, the opportunities for ardent patriots to test their valour were limited. The ranks of the First regiment were filled in about twenty-four hours. The Governor urged upon the Secretary of War to accept more men, but Mr. Cameron replied :— "One regiment for the present will suffice;" and those who were anxious to go to the war, but unwilling to play at soldiering, were sadly disappointed.

The excitement caused by the firing upon Sumter continued unabated. Wild rumours from the South followed each other in close succession. "Jeff. Davis was marching on Washington, at the head of 50,000 men!" This was a favourite report, and recurred almost daily for at least two weeks. At Milwaukee,