APPEALS TO THE NORTH CAROLINIANS. 177 disabling it. They found Confederates engaged in the same work, who fled on the approach of the Nationals. The latter sunk two schooners in the canal and departed. Finally, on the 19th, the combined fleet set out from indu Edenton on a reconnoissance, which extended up the Chowan River as far boo HAWKINS ZOUAVE, The power of the Government was so fully displayed in this region, while its justice and clemency were proclaimed by Burnside and Goldsborough conjointly, in an address to the people of North Carolina, issued on, the 18th, that the great bulk of the inhabitants, naturally inclined to loyalty, were anxious to render full submission. The proclamation assured them that the expedition was not there for the purpose of invading any of their rights. On the contrary, it came to protect them under the rightful authority of the National Government, and to close the desolating war which their wicked leaders had commenced. They were admonished of the truth, that those leaders were imposing upon their credulity, deceiving them by fictions about the intentions of the Government, such as destroying their property, injuring their women, and liberating their slaves. "We are Christians as well as yourselves," they said, "and we profess to know well and to feel profoundly the sacred obligations of the character. No apprehensions need be entertained that the demands of humanity or justice will be disregarded." “ "We invite you, in the name of the Constitution, and in that of virtuous loyalty and civilization, to separate yourselves at once from these malign influences, to return to your allegiance, George W. McWilliams, John Angling, William Dunn, Robert Summers, Joseph B. Hayden, Isaac N. Fry, Edward R. Bowman, William Shipman, William G. Taylor, George Prance, Thomas Jones, William Campbell, Charles Mills, Thomas Connor, David L. Bass, Franklin L. Wilcox, Thomas Harcourt, Gurdon II. Barter, John Pannahan, John Shivers, Henry Thompson, Henry S. Webster, A. J. Tomlin, Albert Burton, L. C. Shepard, Charles II. Foy, James Barnum, John Dempster, Edmund IIaffee, Nicholas Lear, Daniel S. Milliken, Richard Willis, Joseph White, Thomas English, Charles Robinson, John Martin, Thomas Jordan, Edward B. Young, Edward Martin, John G. Morrison, William B. Stacy, Henry Shutes, John Taylor, John Harris, Henry Baker, James Avery, John Donnelly, John Noble, John Brown, Richard Bates, Thomas Burke, Thomas Robinson, Nicholas Irwin, John Cooper, John Brown, John Irving, William Blagdeen, William Madden, James Machon, William H. Brown, James Mifflin, James E Sterling, Richard Dennis, Samuel W. Davis, Samuel Todd, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Charles Melville, William A. Stanley, William Pelham, John McFarland, James G. Garrison, Thomas Q. Connell. Wilson Brown. The following named persons, having had Medals of Honor awarded to them for distinguished service in battle, and having again performed acts which, if they had not received that distinction, would have entitled them to it, were authorized to wear a bar attached to the ribbon by which the medal is suspended: John Cooper, Patrick Mullen. The following persons, whose names appear on the above list, forfeited their medals by bad conduct: Joseph Brown, John Brazell, Frank Lucas, John Jackson, Clement Dees, Charles Robinson, John Martin, Richard Bates. VOL II-12 178 SPIRIT OF THE LOYAL AND DISLOYAL. and not compel us to resort further to the force under our control. The. Government asks only that its authority may be recognized; and, we repeat, in no manner or way does it desire to interfere with your laws, constitutionally established, your institutions of any kind whatever, your property of any sort, or your usages in any respect." • Feb. 22, 1862. This appeal alarmed the Confederate leaders in that State, and the Governor, Henry T. Clark, issued a counter-proclamation a few days afterward, in which he denounced the expedition as an attempt to deprive the inhabitants of liberty, property, and all they held "most dear as a self-governing and free people." He called upon them to supply the requisitions just made by Jefferson Davis for troops to repel the enemy. "We must resist him," he said, "at all hazards, and by every means in our power. He wages a war for our subjugation- -a war forced upon us in wrong, and prosecuted without right, and in a spirit of vengeful wickedness, without a parallel in the history of warfare among civilized nations." He assured them that the Government was increasing its efforts "and straining every nerve" not to regain its rightful authority, but to overrun the country and subjugate the people to its domination, its "avarice and ambition." "I call upon the brave and patriotic men of our State to volunteer," he said, "from the mountains to the sea." Such was the opposing spirit of the Government, and the conspirators against its life. The former was anxious for peace, the latter were zealous for war. The former, battling for right, justice, and the perpetuity of free institutions, and conscious of the righteousness of its cause, was firm but mild, patient, and persuasive; the latter, battling for wrong, injustice, and the perpetuation of slavery for the negro, and serfdom for the poor white man, with no warrant for their acts but selfishness, were bitter, vehement, and uncompromising; continually appealing to the passions of the people rather than to their reason and judgment, and by fraud and violence dragging them into the vortex of rebellion, in which their prosperity and happiness were sadly wrecked. Here we will leave the National forces for a while in the waters of North Carolina, preparing for another important victory, which they achieved a month later, and observe the progress of military events westward of the Alleghanies during the later days of autumn, and the winter of 1861–62. PROCLAMATION TION C.S.A. WESTERN MILITARY DIVISIONS. 179 CHAPTER VII. MILITARY OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI, NEW MEXICO, AND EASTERN KENTUCKY-CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY. OWARD the close of the autumn of 1861, the attitude of the contending parties, civil and military, in the great basin of the central Mississippi Valley, was exceedingly interesting. We left the National army in Southern Missouri, at the middle of November, dispirited by the removal of their favorite leader, slowly making their way toward St. Louis under their tempo-. rary commander, General Hunter, while the energetic Confederate leader, General Price, was advancing, and reoccupying the region which the Nationals abandoned.' We left Southern Kentucky, from the mountains to the Mississippi River, in possession of the Confederates. Polk was holding the western portion, with his head-quarters at Columbus; General Buckner, with a strongly "intrenched camp at Bowling Green, was holding the center; and Generals Zollicoffer and Marshall and others were keeping watch and ward on its mountain flanks. Back of these, and between them and the region where the rebellion had no serious opposition, was Tennessee, firmly held by the Confederates, excepting in its mountain region, where the most determined loyalty still prevailed. a Nov., 1861. On the 9th of November, 1861, General Henry Wager Halleck, who had been called from California by the President to take an active part in the war, was appointed to the command of the new Department of Missouri. He had arrived in Washington on the 5th," and on the 19th took the command, with Brigadier-General George W. Cullum, an eminent engineer officer, as his chief of staff, and Brigadier-General Schuyler Hamilton as assistant chief. Both officers had been on the staff of General Scott. The head-quarters were at St. Louis. General Hunter, whom Halleck superseded, was assigned to the command of the Department of Kansas. General Don Carlos Buell had superseded General Sherman, and was appointed commander of the Department of the Ohio; and the Department of Mexico, which included only the territory of New Mexico, was intrusted to Colonel E. R. S. Canby. Such was the arrangement of the military divisions of the territóry westward of the Alleghanies late in 1861. 1 See page $4. It included Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Arkansas, and that portion of Kentucky lying west of the Cumberland River. This included the State of Kansas, the Indian Territory, west of Arkansas, and the Territories of Nebraska, Colorado, and Dakota. This included the State of Ohio, and the portion of Kentucky lying eastward of the Cumberland River, which had formed a part of Sherman's Department of the Cumberland. 180 HALLECK'S TREATMENT OF SECESSIONISTS. General Halleck was then in the prime of life, and he entered upon his duties with zeal and vigor. He was possessed of large mental and physical HENRY WAGER HALLECK. energy, and much was expected of him. He carefully considered the plan arranged by Fremont for clearing the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas of armed insurgents, and securing the navigation of the Mississippi by sweeping its banks of obstructions, from Cairo to New Orleans.' Approving of it in general, he pushed on the great enterprise with strong hopes of success. Halleck's first care was to establish the most perfect discipline in his army, to overawe the secessionists, and to relieve the loyal people of Missouri of the effects of the dreadful tyranny in flicted by the latter, many of whom were engaged in armed bands in plundering the inhabitants, desolating the property of Union men, and destroying railways and bridges. Refugees were then crowding into the Union lines by thousands. Their miseries cannot be described. Men, women, and children were stripped, plundered, and made homeless. Naked and starving, they sought refuge and relief in St. Louis. Seeing this, the commander determined to apply an effectual remedy. In a general order, he directed the Provost-Marshal of St. Louis (Brigadier-General Curtis) to inquire into the condition of these refugees, and to take measures for quartering them "in the houses of avowed secessionists," and for feeding and clothing them at the expense of that class of citizens, or others known to have been guilty of giving "assistance and encouragement to the enemy." a Dec. 12, He also further ordered" wealthy secessionists to contribute for the support of these refugees, and that all who should not voluntarily do so should be subjected to a levy, either in money, food, clothing, or quarters, to the amount of ten thousand dollars each. This order was rigidly enforced, and many wealthy citizens were made to pay liberal sums. One prominent merchant, named Engel, who ventured to resist the order by appealing to the civil courts, was ordered out of the Department. This was the last appeal of that kind. 1861. b Nov. 20. Determined to put a stop to the continual outflowing of information to the Confederates from within his lines, Halleck issued some very stringent orders. The earliest of these was Order No. 3, which forbade fugitives entering or remaining within his lines, it having been represented to him that they conveyed contraband information out of them. This order was a subject of much comment, because of its seeming tender'ness for the rebellious slaveholder, and cruelty toward the bondman seeking 1 See page 79. 2 In order to remedy this evil," ran the order, "it is directed that no such person be hereafter permitted to enter the lines of any camp, or of any forces on the march, and that any now within such lines be immediately excluded therefrom." POPE IN MISSOURI.-PRICE'S APPEAL. 181 freedom. That it was a mistake, subsequent experience fully demonstrated; for throughout the war the negro, whether bond or free, was uniformly the friend and helper of the National cause. General Halleck had been misinformed, and upon that misinformation he acted with the best intentions, one of which was to prevent the betrayal of the secret of his camps, and another that he might keep clear of the questions relating to masters and slaves,' in which Fremont had been entangled, to his hurt. In the order of the 4th of December, concerning the treatment of avowed secessionists, Halleck further directed that all rebels found within his lines in the disguise of pretended loyalty, or other false pretenses, or found giving information to the insurgents, should be " arrested, tried, and, if condemned, shot as spies." This and all other orders, concerning the disloyalists by whom he was surrounded, were enforced; and he directed that any one attempting to resist the execution of them should be arrested and imprisoned, to be tried by a military commission. Many offenders being women, it was declared that "the laws of war make no distinction of sex." To enforce these laws, it was necessary to use military power, especially in the suppression of the bands of marauders who were then sweeping over the country. He accordingly sent General John Pope, who, as we have already observed, had been active in that Department, to disperse the encampments of these guerrillas in Western Missouri. Pope had been acting with vigor during the latter part of summer and the early autumn. The people of a district where outrages were committed had been held responsible for them. He had quartered his troops on such inhabitants, and required from them contributions of horses, mules, provisions, and other necessaries. He had organized Committees of Safety, on which were placed prominent secessionists, charged to preserve the peace; and in a short time comparative good order was restored. Now Pope was charged with similar duties. On the 7th of December, he was assigned to the command of all the National troops between the Missouri and Osage Rivers, which included a considerable portion of Fremont's army that fell back from Springfield. Price was advaneing. He had made a most stirring appeal by proclamation to the Missourians to come and help him, and so help themselves to freedom and independThe Governor (Jackson), he said, had called for fifty thousand men, but only five thousand had responded. "Where are those fifty thousand men ?" he asked. "Are Missourians no longer true to themselves? Are they a timid, time-serving race, fit only for subjugation to a despot? Awake! my countrymen," he cried, "to a sense of what constitutes the dignity of the true greatness of a people. Come to us, brave sons of the Missouri Valley! Rally to our standard! I must have the fifty thousand men. Do you stay at home for protection? More men have been murdered at home than I have lost in five successive battles. Do you stay at home to secure terms with the enemy? Then I warn you the day soon may come when you will be surrendered to the mercies of that enemy, and your substance given to the Hessians and the Jayhawkers." Leave ence. 1 Letter of General Halleck to General Asboth, December 20, 1861. * A name given to certain rangers or guerrilla bands of Kansas and especially those under Colonel Jenni'son, who was active against the insurgents. |