202. SECESSION ROSETTE AND BADGE 209. PORTRAIT OF GIDEON J. PILLOW 204. WOOD-CUT FROM A MEMPHIS NEWSPAPER 205. STREET SCENE IN CINCINNATI, IN APRIL, 1861 206. THE BATTERY, NEW YORK, in May, 1861 342. SEAT OF WAR IN WESTERN VIRGINIA-MAP 536 385. THE FIELD OF OPERATIONS-MAP 843. TAIL-PIECE-CAP 586 537 386. THE STONE BRidge. 587 THE CIVIL ᎳᎪ Ꭱ . CHAPTER I. THE POLITICAL CONVENTIONS IN 1860. ON the spring of the year 1861, a civil war was kindled in the United States of America, which has neither a pat 1865. tern in character nor a precedent in causes recorded in the history of mankind. It appears in the annals of the race as a mighty phenomenon, but not an inexplicable one. Gazers upon it at this moment," when its awfully grand and mysterious proportions rather fill the mind with wonder than excite the reason, look for the half-hidden springs of its existence in different directions among the obscurities of theory. There is a general agreement, however, that the terrible war was clearly the fruit of a conspiracy against the nationality of the Republic, and an attempt, in defiance of the laws of Divine Equity, to establish an Empire upon a basis of injustice and a denial of the dearest rights of man. That conspiracy budded when the Constitution of the Republic became the supreme law of the land,' and, under the culture of disloyal and ambitious men, after gradual development and long ripening, assumed the form and substance of a rebellion of a few arrogant land and Immediately after the adoption of the National Constitution, and the beginning of the National career, in 1789, the family and State pride of Virginians could not feel contented in a sphere of equality in which that Constitution placed all the States. It still claimed for that Commonwealth a superiority, and a right to political and social domination in the Republic. Disunion was openly and widely talked of in Virginia, as a necessary con servator of State supremacy, during Washington's first term as President of the United States, and became more and more a concrete political dogma. It was because of the prevalence of this dangerous and unpatriotic sentiment in his native State, which was spreading in the Slave-labor States, that Washington gave to his countrymen that magnificent plea for Union-his Farewell Address. According to John Randolph of Roanoke, "the Grand Arsenal of Richmond, Virginia, was built with an eye to putting down the Administration of Mr. Adams (the immediate successor of Washington in the office of President) with the bayonet, if it could not be accomplished by other means."-Speech of Randolph in the House of Representatives, January, 1817. 2 18 DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION IN CHARLESTON. slave holders against popular government. It was the rebellion of an OLIGARCHY against the PEOPLE, with whom the sovereign power is rightfully lodged. We will not here discuss the subject of the remote and half-hidden springs of the rebellion, which so suddenly took on the hideous dignity of a great civil war. We will deal simply with palpable facts, and leave the disquisition of theories until we shall have those facts arranged in proper order and relations. Then we may, far better than now, comprehend the soul of the great historic phenomenon that so startled the nations, and commanded the profound attention of the civilized world. With the choice of Presidential Electors, in the autumn of 1860, the open career of the living conspirators against American Nationality commenced; and with the nominations of the candidates for the office of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, in the spring and early summer of that year, we will begin our HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR. The two chief political parties into which the voters of the country were divided in 1860, were called, respectively, Democratic and Republican. These titles really had no intrinsic significance, as indices of principles, when applied to either organization, but were used by the leaders as ensigns are used in war, namely, as rallying-points for the contending hosts-familiar in form if not intelligible in character. That year Presidential electors were to be chosen; and, in accordance with a long-established custom, representatives were appointed by the people, to meet in conventions and choose the candidates. The Democratic party moved first. Its representatives were summoned to assemble in Charleston, a pleasant city of forty thousand inhabitants, and a considerable commercial mart. It is spread over the point of a low sandy cape, at the confluence of the waters of the Ashley and Cooper ORGANIZATION OF THE CONVENTION. 19 Rivers, on the seacoast of South Carolina, and far away from the centers of population and the great forces of the Republic. 1860. The delegates, almost six hundred in number, and representing thirty-two States, assembled on the 23d of April in the great hall of the South Carolina Institute,' on Meeting Street, in which three thousand persons might be comfortably seated. The doors were opened at noon. The day was very warm. A refreshing eleven o'clock, and purified the air. The delegates rapid ly assembled. Favored spectators of both sexes soon filled the galleries. The buzz of conversation was silenced by the voice of Judge David A. Smalley, of Vermont, the Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, who called the Convention to order. Francis B. Flournoy, a citizen of the State of Arkansas, was chosen temporary chairman. shower had laid the dust at THE SOUTH CAROLINA INSTITUTE. He took his seat without making a speech, when the Rev. Charles Hanckel, of Charleston, read a prayer, and the Convention proceeded to business. The session of the first day was occupied in the work of organization. It was evident, from the first hour, that the spirit of the Slave system, which had become the very Nemesis of the nation, was there, full fraught with mischievous intent. It was a spirit potential as Ariel in the creation of elemental strife. For several months, premonitions of a storm, that threatened danger to the integrity of the organization there represented, had been abundant. Violently discordant elements were now in close contact. The clouds rapidly thickened, and before the sun went down on that first day of the session, all felt that a fierce tempest was impending, which might topple from its foundations, laid by Jefferson, the venerable political fabric known as the Democratic Party, which he and his friends had reared sixty years before. On the morning of the second day of the session, Caleb Cushing, of Massachusetts, was chosen permanent President of the Convention, and a vice-president and secretary for each State were appointed. The choice of President was very satisfactory. Mr. Cushing was a man of much experience in politics and legislation. He was possessed of wide intellectual culture, and was a sagacious observer of men. He was then sixty years of This building, in which the famous South Carolina Ordinance of Secession was signed (it was adopted in St. Andrew's Hall), late in December, 1860, was destroyed by fire in December, 1861. St. Andrew's Hall, in which the conspirators against the Republic who seceded from the Democratic Convention now under consideration assembled, and in which the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession was adopted by the unanimous voice of a Convention, was destroyed at the same time. Everything about the site of these buildings, made infamous in history because of the wicked acts performed in them, yet (1865) exhibits a ghastly picture of desolation. |