CHAP. IV. A PURIFYING STORM. 1441 At the very moment when the flag was flung to the breeze over Sumter, Secretary Floyd, in cabinet meeting, was demanding of the President permission to withdraw Anderson from Charleston harbor. The President refused. A storm suddenly arose which produced a disruption in the cabinet, and Floyd was succeeded by Joseph Holt, a loyal Kentuckian, who wrote to Major Anderson that his movement in transferring the garrison from Moultrie to Sumter, "was in every way admirable, alike for its humanity and patriotism as for its soldiership." Words of cheer came for the Major from other quarters. The Legislature of Nebraska, sitting two thousand miles away from Fort Sumter, telegraphed to him "A Happy New Year;" and cannon were fired in several places in honor of the event. CHAPTER V. HEROISM OF MAJOR ANDERSON -- HIS WIFE AND PETER HART- ROBBERY IN THE INTERIOR DEPARTMENT-FLIGHT OF SECRETARY FLOYD-CABINET CHANGES-SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSIONERS IN WASHINGTON-ATTEMPT TO REINFORCE AND SUPPLY FORT SUMTER-INAUGURATION OF CIVIL WAR AT CHARLESTON-LANGUAGE OF THE POLITICIANS THE PEOPLE BEWILDERED-FATE OF LEADERS" SECESSION" IN OTHER STATES-SEIZURE OF PUBLIC PROPERTY-NORTHERN SYMPATHIZERS-PLAN OF THE SECESSIONISTS-DIX'S ORDER-ACTION IN THE BORDER STATES-CONCESSIONS-PEACE CONVENTION-ADAMS'S PROPOSITION-CONVENTION AT MONTGOMERY-ESTABLISHMENT OF A SOUTHERN CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT. AJOR ANDERSON and his little band of soldiers were in extreme peril from the hour when they entered Fort Sumter. His friends knew that he was exposed to treachery within and fierce assault from without, and were very anxious. His devoted wife, daughter of General Clinch of Georgia, was an invalid in New York. She resolved to go to her husband with a faithful servant whom he might trust, if she could find him. It was Peter Hart, who had been a sergeant with Anderson in Mexico, and was warmly attached to his person. After much search Mrs. Anderson found he was attached to the police force in New York, and she sent for him. He came, accompanied by his wife. "I have sent for you," said Mrs. Anderson, "to ask you to do me a favor." "Anything Mrs. Anderson wishes, I will do," was Hart's prompt reply. "But it may be more than you imagine," Mrs. Anderson said. Hart again replied, "Anything Mrs. Anderson wishes." "I want you to go with me to Fort Sumter," she said. Hart looked at his wife a moment, and then promptly responded, "I will go, madame." Then the earnest woman said, "But, Hart, I want you to stay with the major. You will leave your family, and give up a good situation." Again Hart glanced inquiringly toward his wife, and perceiving consent in her expression, he quickly replied, "I will go, madame." "But Margaret," said Mrs. Anderson, turning to Hart's wife, "what do you say?" "Indade, ma'am, and its Margaret's sorry she can't do as much for you as Pater can," was the reply of the warm-hearted woman. Twenty-four hours after this interview, Mrs. Anderson, contrary to the advice of her physician, started by railway for Charleston, accompanied by Peter Hart in the capacity of a servant. From Thursday night until Sunday CHAP. V. ROBBERY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR. 1443 morning, when she arrived at Fort Sumter, she neither ate, drank, nor slept. In the cars in southern Virginia and through the Carolinas, her ears were frequently assailed by curses of her husband and threats of violence against him, by men to whom the delicate, pale-faced woman, the wife of the man they hated, was a stranger. On Sunday morning, after some difficulty, she procured permission to visit Fort Sumter, with Peter Hart. As the little boat touched the wharf of the fortress near the sallyport, and the name of Mrs. Anderson was announced to the sentry, the major, informed of her presence, rushed out, and clasped her in his arms with the exclamation, in a vehement whisper intended for her ear only, "My glorious wife!" "I have brought you Peter Hart," she said. "The children are well; I return to-night." She then partook of refreshments, and after resting a few hours, she was on her way back to New York, where she was threatened with brain fever a long time. She had given her husband the most faithful friend and assistant, under all circumstances, in the fort, during the three months of severe trial that ensued. She had done what the Government would not or dared not do-not sent but took a most valuable reinforcement to Fort Sumter. While excitement was vehement in Washington because of events in Charleston harbor, it was intensified by a new development of bad faith or crime in the Department of the Interior, of which Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, was chief. The safe of the Department was rifled of bonds to the amount of $800,000, which composed the Indian Trust Fund. The wildest rumors prevailed as to the amount abstracted, making it millions. It was known that Cobb had impoverished the Treasury, and the public was inclined to believe that plunder was a part of the business of the cabinet, for Secretary Floyd was deeply implicated in the Bond robbery. The public held Floyd and Thompson responsible for the crime. The grand jury of Washington city indicted Floyd for "malfeasance in office, complicity in the abstraction of the Indian Trust Fund, and conspiracy against the Government; and a committee of the House of Representatives mildly reported that Floyd's conduct was irreconcilable with purity of motives, and faithfulness to public trusts." But before the action of the grand jury and the report of the committee were known, the offending Secretary of War had fled to Virginia, where he was received with open arms by the Secessionists, and made a military leader with the commission of brigadiergeneral. His place in the cabinet was filled, as we have observed, by Joseph Holt, a loyal Kentuckian. General Cass, the Secretary of State, had resigned, and Mr. Black, the Attorney-General, took his place, when the last-named office was filled by Edwin M. Stanton, afterward the efficient Secretary of War. John A. Dix, a staunch patriot of New York, was called to the head of the Treasury Department, and Secretary Thompson left the Department of the Interior and returned to Mississippi to help his fellow Secessionists make war on the Republic. These changes in the cabinet caused the loyal people of the country to breathe freer and indulge in hope. At the same time there was another cause for excitement in the National capital. R. W. Barnwell, James H. Adams and James L. Orr, appointed commissioners by the Convention of South Carolina to treat for the disposition of the property of the National Government within the borders of that State, arrived at Washington, took a house for the transaction of diplomatic business, and made Wm. H. Trescott their Secretary. With the formality of foreign ministers, they announced their presence to the President of the Republic, and set forth the objects of their mission in haughty language, and prepared for a long line of negotiations. The business was cut short by the refusal of the President to receive them in any other capacity than as private gentlemen. Their demands had been uttered in a manner so insulting, that the President was justly indignant, and wrote them a letter, courteous in tone but severe in its facts, which called from them a most insolent rejoinder. This communication was returned to them, indorsed with these words: "This paper, just presented to the President, is of such a character that he declines to receive it." Thus ended the "diplomatic correspondence" between the President of the Republic and the embassadors from a State which its politicians had placed in an attitude of rebellion against the National Government. These embassadors, after occupying their "ministerial residence" ten days, left it and returned home to engage in the work of the Secessionists with all their might, excepting Mr. Orr. With more loyal elements composing his cabinet, President Buchanan now seemed to act more decidedly in support of the National authority; and listening to the counsels of Generals Dix and Scott, and other patriotic men, he determined to send reinforcements and supplies to Fort Sumter. The Star of the West, a merchant steamship, was employed for the purpose; and, in order to mislead spies in New York, she was cleared from that port for Savannah and New Orleans. But the secret of her destination, revealed to Secretary Thompson while he was writing his resignation, was telegraphed by him to Charleston; and when, on the morning of the 9th of January, 1861, she entered that harbor with the National flag flying, she was fired upon from redoubts which the Secessionists, now become insurgents, had erected on the shores. Her commander displayed a large American ensign, CHAP. V. ATTACK ON THE "STAR OF THE WEST." 1445 but the assailants had no respect for the insignia of the Union; and after receiving seventeen shots, chiefly in her rigging, and being unarmed with artillery, the Star of the West turned about, put to sea, and returned to New York. This movement had been watched by the garrison at Fort Sumter, with eager curiosity at first, until it was evident that the steamship was in the Government employ bringing relief to the fort, when the guns of the fortress, all shotted, were brought to bear on the batteries of the insur gents. Anderson was not aware of the changed condition of affairs at Washington, and, restrained by positive orders not to act until attacked, he withheld fire. Had he known that his act would have been approved by his Government, he would have silenced the hostile batteries and received the soldiers and supplies on board the Star of the West, into Fort Sumter. This overt act of the insurgents was the beginning of the terrible Civil War that followed. The South Carolinians struck the first blow (which rebounded so fearfully), and gloried in it. The commander of the battery on Morris Island (Major Stevens) that caused the Star of the West to put to sea, loudly boasted of his feat in humbling the flag of his country. The Legislature of the State resolved that they had learned "with pride and pleasure of the successful resistance of the troops of the State, acting under orders of the governor, to an attempt to reinforce Fort Sumter. The Charleston Mercury exclaimed: "Yesterday, the 9th of January, will be remembered in history. Powder has been burnt over the decree of our State, timber has been crashed, perhaps blood spilled. The expulsion of the Star of the West from Charleston harbor yesterday morning was the opening of the ball of revolution. We are proud that our harbor has been so honored. We are more proud that the State of South Carolina, so long, so bitterly, so contemptuously reviled and scoffed at, above all others, should thus proudly have thrown back the scoff of her enemies. Intrenched upon her soil, she has spoken from the mouth of her cannon and not from the mouths of scurrilous demagogues, fanatics, and scribblers. Contemned, the sanctity of her waters violated with hostile purpose of reinforcing enemies in our harbor, she has not hesitated to strike the first blow full in the face of her insulters. Let the United States Government bear, or return it at its good will, the blow still tingling about its ears-the fruit of its own bandit temerity. We would not exchange or recall that blow for millions! It has wiped out half a century of scorn and outrage. Again South Carolina may be proud of her historic fame and ancestry, without a blush upon her cheek for her own. present honor. The haughty echo of her cannon has ere this reverberated from Maine to Texas, through every hamlet of the North, and down along |