the Tecumseh. But no more torpe- | broadside of solid 11-inch shot, which seemed to have much the same effect on her that a musket-wad or pop-gun pellet might be expected to produce on a buffalo's skull. Not satisfied with this, Capt. Jenkins drew off and came at her again, with the net result of losing his own beak and cut-water.

:

GRANGER CAPTURES FORT MORGAN.

653

that they could not be opened, and one | the Rebel forts were intact. Farra-
of them battered to fragments, with the gut sent the wounded of both fleets
Chickasaw boring away at her stern, to Pensacola in the Metacomet, and
and four other great vessels coming prepared to resume operations. Dur-
at her full speed-saw that the fight ing the ensuing night, Fort Powell
was fairly out of her, with no chance was evacuated and blown up, so far
of escape, and, hauling down her as it could be; but the guns were
flag, ran up a white one, just in time left to fall into our hands. Fort
to have the Ossipee back its engine Gaines was next day shelled by the
ere it struck her; changing its heavy iron-clad Chickasaw, with such effect
crash into a harmless glancing blow. that Col. Anderson, commanding
On her surrender, Admiral Buchanan there, next morning sued for condi-
was found severely wounded, with 6 tions. He might probably have held
of his crew; 3 being killed. Of pri- out a little longer; but, being on an
soners, we took 190 with the Ten- island, with the fleet on one side and
nessee, and 90 with the Selma.
Granger's army on the other, there
was not a possibility of relief or pro-
tracted resistance. At 9 A. M., the
Stars and Stripes were raised over
the fort, and Anderson and his 600
men were prisoners of war.

Our total loss in this desperate struggle was 165 killed (including the 113 who went down in the Tecumseh) and 170 wounded: the Hartford having 25 killed, 28 wounded, and the Brooklyn 11 killed and 43 wounded. The Oneida had 8 killed and 30 wounded, including her commander, Mullany, who lost an arm: most of them being scalded by the explosion, at 7:50, of her starboard boiler by a 7-inch shell, while directly under the fire of Fort Morgan. Nearly all her firemen and coalheavers on duty were killed or disabled in a moment; but, though another shell at that instant exploded in her cabin, cutting her wheel-ropes, her guns were loaded and fired, even while the steam was escaping, as if they had been practicing at a target. The Tennessee passed and raked her directly afterward, disabling two of her guns. A shell, in exploding, having started a fire on the top of her magazine, it was quietly extinguished; the serving out of powder going on as before.

Gen. Page, commanding in Fort
Morgan, had much stronger defenses,
and was on the main land, where he
had a chance of relief; at the worst,
he might get away, while Anderson
could not. He telegraphed the latter
peremptorily, "Hold on to your
|
fort!" and his representations doubt-
less did much to excite the clamor
raised against that officer throughout
Dixie as a coward or a traitor. But
when his turn came-Granger's troops
having been promptly transferred to
the rear of Morgan, invested" it, and,
after due preparation, opened fire 1
in conjunction with the fleet-Page
held out one day, and then surren-
dered at discretion. He doubtless
was right in so doing; since—unless
relieved by an adequate land force-
his fall was but a question of time.
Yet his prompt submission tallied
badly with his censure of Anderson.

The Rebel fleet was no more; but Before surrendering, he had damaged

extent of his power.

his guns and other material to the | taken 104 guns and 1,464 men—not without cost certainly; but there were few minor successes of the year which were won more cheaply, or which contributed more directly and palpably to the downfall of the Rebellion.

Thus fell the last of the defenses of Mobile bay; sealing that port against blockade-runners thenceforth, and endangering the Rebel hold on the city. With those defenses, we had

XXX.

POLITICAL MUTATIONS AND RESULTS.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1864.

As, since McClellan's recoil from | day. The victory of Mission ridge, the defenses of Richmond, the judgment of the loyal States was divided concerning the probabilities of National success or defeat, so the fortunes of the contending parties reflected closely the changing aspects of the military situation. The Fall elections of 1862 had resulted in a general Opposition triumph; because the reflecting and unimpassioned had been led, by our recent reverses and our general disappointment, to doubt the ability of the Government to put down the Rebellion. Those of 1863, on the other hand, had strongly favored the Administration; because the National successes at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Helena, &c., the reopening of the Mississippi, and the recovery of East Tennessee, with a good part of Arkansas, had induced a very general belief, which our reverse at the Chickamauga did not shake, that the Union would surely triumph, and at no distant

followed by the appointment of Gen. Grant to the chief command of all the National forces, strengthened this belief into conviction; so that, though there were still those who did not desire the overthrow of the Rebellion, as there had been, even in the darkest hours, many whose faith in the National cause never faltered nor was shaded by a doubt-the strongly prevalent opinion of the loyal States, throughout the Spring of 1864, imported that Gen. Grant would make short work of what was left of the Confederacy. Hence, the Spring | Elections were scarcely contested by the Opposition: New Hampshire opening them with an overwhelming Republican triumph;' Connecticut following with one equally decided,' though her Democratic candidate for Governor was far less obnoxious to War Democrats than his predecessor had been; and, though Rhode Island showed a falling off in the Republi

2 Total vote: Republican. Democratic. Governor..Buckingham, 89,820 O. 8. Seymour, 34,162

KENTUCKY AND PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

655

can majority,' it was simply because, | prehend that they must choose bein the absence of any election for tween Emancipation and Disunion. Congress, and in view of the certainty that the Republican ascendency would be maintained, no serious effort was made to call out a full vote, and personal considerations exerted their natural influence in so small a State when no special or urgent reason is presented for a rigid respect to party lines.

The Presidential Election in immediate prospect soon fixed that share of public attention which could be diverted from the progress of hostilities wherein every one's hopes and fears were largely involved, and wherein almost every one was, either himself or in the persons of those dear to him, engaged. Among Republicans and those Democrats whom the War had constrained to act with them, there was a very considerable dissent from the policy of renominating Mr. Lincoln; but, as the canvass proceeded, the popular sentiment was found so unequivocally in his favor that no serious or concerted resistance to such rënomination was made: its advocates choosing delegates to the National Convention, with barely a show of resistance, from nearly every loyal State-Missouri, because of the intense Radicalism of her firetried Unionists, being the solitary exception.

Kentucky, however, had a creed of her own. Professedly Union, as she had been proved by every test and at each succeeding election, she still remained pro-Slavery; unlike the other Border-States,' which had already been brought distinctly to com

Democratic.
• Total vote: Republican.
Governor........J. Y. Smith, 8,840 G. H. Browne, 7,302
A. C. Barstow, 1,839

5

6

So when, pursuant to the act of Con-
gress providing for the enrollment,
as subject to military duty, of all able-
bodied male slaves between the ages·
of 20 and 45, Federal officers com-
menced such enrollment, a fresh, in-
tense excitement pervaded her slave-
holding districts, which impelled her
Governor, Thomas E. Bramlette-
(elected as a Unionist by an over-
whelming majority over Charles A.
Wickliffe, the Democratic candidate,
but not without great and apparently
well-grounded complaint of Military
interference at the polls, to the pre-
judice of the Opposition)-to ad-
dress' to the people of his State a
proclamation, counseling them not
to let their "indignation," provoked
by this enrollment, impel them to
"acts of violence, nor to unlawful
resistance." He continued:---

"In the Union, under the Constitution, and in accordance with law, assert and urge your rights. It is our duty to obey the law until it is declared, by judicial decision, to be unconstitutional. The citizen, whose property may be taken under it for public use, will be entitled, under the imperative mandate of the Constitution, to a just compensation for his private property so taken for public use. Although the present Congress may not do us justice, yet it is safe to rely upon the justice of the American people; and an appeal to them will not be unheeded or unanswered. Peace restored, and the unity of our Government preserved, will drive to ignominious disgrace those who, in the agony of our conflict, perverted their sacred trusts to the base uses of partisan ends and fanatical purposes."

One immediate result of this enrollment and the consequent “indignation" was a call by the Union State Committee of a State Convention, to meet at Louisville, May

25th, and there choose delegates to the Democratic National Convention which was to assemble at Chicago for the nomination of a Presidential ticket—a call which insured the vote of this State in November to the candidates of the Opposition.

Gov. Bramlette, accompanied by ex-Senator Dixon and Col. A. G. Hodges, soon visited Washington, expressly to protest against, and (if possible) to obviate, this enrollment of negroes, or at least to render its execution less offensive and annoying to their masters—finding the Presi-pation, I forbade it, because I did not then dent disposed to do whatever he could to reconcile the Kentuckians to the bitter prescription. Mr. Lincoln was induced to put the substance of his observations at their interview into the following letter:

}

“EXECUTIVE MANSION, “WASHINGTON, April 4, 1864. “A. G. HODGES, Esq., Frankfort, Ky. : "MY DEAR SIR: You ask me to put in writing the substance of what I verbally said the other day, in your presence, to Gov. Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It was about as follows:

Government-that nation, of which that Constitution was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt must be amputated to save a life; but a life that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indistion, through the preservation of the nation. pensable to the preservation of the ConstituRight or wrong, I assumed this ground, and now avow it. I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the Constitution, if, to save Slavery, or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck of Government, country, and Constitution, altogether. When, early in the war, Gen. Fremont attempted military emancithink it an indispensable necessity. When, a little later, Gen. Cameron, then Secretary of War, suggested the arming of the Blacks, indispensable necessity. When, still later, I objected, because I did not yet think it an Gen. Hunter attempted military emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet think the indispensable necessity had come. When, in March, and May, and July, 1862, I made earnest and successive appeals to the Border States to favor compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable necessity for military emancipation and arming the Blacks would come, unless averted by that measure. They declined the proposition; and I was, in my best judgment, driven to the alternative of either surrendering the Union, and, with it, the Constitution, or of laying a strong hand upon the colored element. I chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater gain than loss; but of this I was not entirely confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss by it in our foreign relations, none in our home popular sentiment, none in our White military force—no loss by it anyhow, or anywhere.

gain of quite 130,000 soldiers, seamen, and On the contrary, it shows a laborers. These are palpable facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling. We have the men; and we could not have had them without the measure.

"I am naturally anti-Slavery. If Slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think and feel; and yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power. I understood, too, that, in ordinary and civil administration, this oath "And now let any Union man, who comeven forbade me to practically indulge iny plains of this measure, test himself by writprimary, abstract judgment on the moraling down in one line, that he is for subduing question of Slavery. I had publicly declared the Rebellion by force of arms; and in the this many times, and in many ways. And next, that he is for taking 130,000 men from I aver that, to this day, I have done no offi- the Union side, and placing them where cial act in mere deference to my abstract they would be but for the measure he conjudgment and feeling on Slavery. I did demns. If he can not face his case so stated, understand, however, that my oath to pre- it is only because he can not face the truth. serve the Constitution to the best of my "I add a word which was not in the verability imposed upon me the duty of pre-bal conversation. In telling this tale, I atserving, by every indispensable means, that tempt no compliment to my own sagacity.

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