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PREFACE.
PREFACE.
In the preparation of this work it has been the writer's aim to present in it, with historical accuracy, authentic facts; to be fair and impartial in grouping them; and to be true and just in the conclusions necessarily drawn from them. While thus striving to be accurate, fair, and just, he has not thought it his duty to mince words, nor to refrain from "calling things by their right names;" neither has he sought to curry favor, in any quarter, by fulsome adulation on the one side, nor undue den
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IMAGES
IMAGES
ISAAC W. HAYNE, WM. H. SEWARD, HENRY CLAY, JEFFERSON DAVIS, DANIEL WEBSTER, STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, THOMAS JEFFERSON, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, JOHN C. CALHOUN, SEAT OF WAR IN VIRGINIA. (Map) FIRST BULL RUN BATTLE-FIELD. (Map) FIRST BULL RUN BATTLE-FIELD, (Map) J. J. CRITTENDEN LOUIS T. WIGFALL DAVID HUNTER PATRICK HENRY EDWARD D. BAKER JOHN C. FREMONT SIMON CAMERON H. W. HALLECK BENJ. F. BUTLER LYMAN TRUMBULL BENJ. F. WADE GEO. B. MCCLELLAN THAD. STEVENS HENRY WINTER DAVIS J. C. BRECKINRIDGE...
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CHAPTER I. A PRELIMINARY RETROSPECT.
CHAPTER I. A PRELIMINARY RETROSPECT.
To properly understand the condition of things preceding the great war of the Rebellion, and the causes underlying that condition and the war itself, we must glance backward through the history of the Country to, and even beyond, that memorable 30th of November, 1782, when the Independence of the United States of America was at last conceded by Great Britain. At that time the population of the United States was about 2,500,000 free whites and some 500,000 black slaves. We had gained our Independ
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CHAPTER II. PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.
CHAPTER II. PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.
We have seen that the first Federal Congress met at New York in March, 1789. It organized April 6th. None knew better than its members that the war of the Americana Revolution chiefly grew out of the efforts of Great Britain to cripple and destroy our Colonial industries to the benefit of the British trader, and that the Independence conquered, was an Industrial as well as Political Independence; and none knew better than they, that the failure of the subsequent political Confederation of States
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CHAPTER III. GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
CHAPTER III. GROWTH OF THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
It will be remembered that during the period of the Missouri Struggle, 1818-1820, the Territory of Arkansas was formed by an Act of Congress out of that part of the Missouri Territory not included in the proposed State of Missouri, and that the Act so creating the Territory of Arkansas contained no provision restricting Slavery. Early in 1836, the people of Arkansas Territory met in Convention and formed a Constitution under which, "and by virtue of the treaty of cession by France to the United
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CHAPTER IV. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
CHAPTER IV. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY.
But now occurred the great Presidential struggle of 1860—which involved not alone the principles of Protection, but those of human Freedom, and the preservation of the Union itself—between Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, the candidate of the Republican party, as against Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, the National or Douglas—Democratic candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the Administration or Breckinridge—Democratic candidate, and John Bell of Tennessee, the candidate of the Bell-Union par
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CHAPTER V. THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1860— THE CRISIS APPROACHING.
CHAPTER V. THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST OF 1860— THE CRISIS APPROACHING.
The immediate outcome of the remarkable joint-debate between the two intellectual giants of Illinois was, that while the popular vote stood 124,698 for Lincoln, to 121,130 for Douglas—showing a victory for Lincoln among the People—yet, enough Douglas-Democrats were elected to the Legislature, when added to those of his friends in the Illinois Senate, who had been elected two years before, and "held over," to give him, in all, 54 members of both branches of the Legislature on joint ballot, agains
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CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY MATURING.
CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY MATURING.
The 6th of November, 1860, came and passed; on the 7th, the prevailing conviction that Lincoln would be elected had become a certainty, and before the close of that day, the fact had been heralded throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. The excitement of the People was unparalleled. The Republicans of the North rejoiced that at last the great wrong of Slavery was to be placed "where the People could rest in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction!" The Douglas Demo
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CHAPTER VII. SECESSION ARMING.
CHAPTER VII. SECESSION ARMING.
While Congress was encouraging devotion to the Union, and its Committees striving for some mode by which the impending perils might be averted without a wholesale surrender of all just principles, the South Carolina Convention met (December 17, 1860) at Columbia, and after listening to inflammatory addresses by commissioners from the States of Alabama and Mississippi, urging immediate and unconditional Secession, unanimously and with "tremendous cheering" adopted a resolution: "That it is the op
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CHAPTER VIII. THE REJECTED OLIVE BRANCH.
CHAPTER VIII. THE REJECTED OLIVE BRANCH.
While instructive, it will also not be devoid of interest, to pause here, and examine the nature of the Crittenden Resolutions, and also the Resolutions of the Peace Congress, which, we have seen, were spurned by the Secession leaders, through their chief mouthpiece in the United States Senate. The Crittenden Compromise Resolutions * were in these words: "A Joint Resolution proposing certain Amendments to the Constitution of the United States: "Whereas, serious and alarming dissensions have aris
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CHAPTER IX. SLAVERY'S SETTING, AND FREEDOM'S DAWN.
CHAPTER IX. SLAVERY'S SETTING, AND FREEDOM'S DAWN.
On that long last night of the 36th Congress—and of the Democratic Administration—to the proceedings of which reference was made in the preceding Chapter, several notable speeches were made, but there was substantially nothing done, in the line of Compromise. The only thing that had been accomplished was the passage, as we have seen, by two-thirds majority in both Houses, of the Joint Resolution proposing a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting Congress from meddling with Slavery in Slave States.
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CHAPTER X. THE WAR-DRUM "ON TO WASHINGTON".
CHAPTER X. THE WAR-DRUM "ON TO WASHINGTON".
Scarcely one week had elapsed after the Administration of Mr. Lincoln began, when (March 11th) certain "Commissioners of the Southern Confederacy" (John Forsyth, of Alabama, and Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia), appeared at Washington and served a written request upon the State Department to appoint an early day when they might present to the President of the United States their credentials "from the Government of the Confederate States of America" to the Government of the United States, and open
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CHAPTER XI. THE CAUSES OF SECESSION.
CHAPTER XI. THE CAUSES OF SECESSION.
In preceding Chapters of this work, it has been briefly shown, that from the very hour in which the Republic of the United States was born, there have not been wanting, among its own citizens, those who hated it, and when they could not rule, were always ready to do what they could, by Conspiracy, Sedition, Mutiny, Nullification, Secession, or otherwise, to weaken and destroy it. This fact, and the processes by which the Conspirators worked, is very well stated, in his documentary "History of th
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CHAPTER XII. COPPERHEADISM VS. UNION DEMOCRACY.
CHAPTER XII. COPPERHEADISM VS. UNION DEMOCRACY.
When we remember that it was on the night of the 5th of January, 1861, that the Rebel Conspirators in the United States Senate met and plotted their confederated Treason, as shown in the Yulee letter, given in the preceding Chapter of this work, and that on the very next day, January 6, 1861, Fernando Wood, then Mayor of the great city of New York, sent in to the Common Council of that metropolis, his recommendation that New York city should Secede from its own State, as well as the United State
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CHAPTER XIII. THE STORM OF BATTLE.
CHAPTER XIII. THE STORM OF BATTLE.
We have seen how Fort Sumter fell; how the patriotic North responded to President Lincoln's Call, for 75,000 three-months volunteers, with such enthusiasm that, had there been a sufficiency of arms and accoutrements, he might have had, within three months of that Call, an Army of 500,000 men in the field; how he had called for 42,000 three-years volunteers early in May, besides swelling what little there was of a regular Army by ten full regiments; and how a strict blockade of the entire Souther
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CHAPTER XIV. THE COLORED CONTRABAND.
CHAPTER XIV. THE COLORED CONTRABAND.
When the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, its sullen echoes sounded the funeral knell of Slavery. Years before, it had been foretold, and now it was to happen. Years before, it had been declared, by competent authority, that among the implications of the Constitution was that of the power of the General Government to Emancipate the Slaves, as a War measure. Hence, in thus commencing the War of the Rebellion, the South marched with open eyes upon this, as among other of the legitimate and logi
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CHAPTER XV. FREEDOM'S EARLY DAWN.
CHAPTER XV. FREEDOM'S EARLY DAWN.
On the day following Baker's great reply to Breckinridge, another notable speech was made, in the House of Representatives—notable, especially, in that it foreshadowed Emancipation, and, coming so soon after Bull Run, seemed to accentuate a new departure in political thought as an outgrowth of that Military reverse. It was upon the Confiscation Act, and it was Thaddeus Stevens who made it. Said he: "If we are justified in taking property from the Enemy in War, when you have rescued an oppressed
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CHAPTER XVI. "COMPENSATED GRADUAL EMANCIPATION.".
CHAPTER XVI. "COMPENSATED GRADUAL EMANCIPATION.".
Thus far the reader's eye has been able to review in their successive order some of the many difficulties and perplexities which beset the pathway of President Lincoln as he felt his way in the dark, as it were, toward Emancipation. It must seem pretty evident now, however, that his chief concern was for the preservation of the Union, even though all other things—Emancipation with them—had to be temporarily sacrificed. Something definite, however, had been already gained. Congress had asserted i
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CHAPTER XVII. BORDER-STATE OPPOSITION.
CHAPTER XVII. BORDER-STATE OPPOSITION.
On April 3, 1862, the United States Senate passed a Bill to liberate all Persons of African descent held to Service or Labor within the District of Columbia, and prohibiting Slavery or involuntary servitude in the District except as a punishment for crime—an appropriation being made to pay to loyal owners an appraised value of the liberated Slaves not to exceed $300 for each Slave. The vote on its passage in the Senate was 29 yeas to 14 nays—all the yeas being Republican, and all but two of the
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CHAPTER XVIII. FREEDOM PROCLAIMED TO ALL.
CHAPTER XVIII. FREEDOM PROCLAIMED TO ALL.
While mentally revolving the question of Emancipation—now, evidently "coming to a head,"—no inconsiderable portion of Mr. Lincoln's thoughts centered upon, and his perplexities grew out of, his assumption that the "physical difference" between the Black and White—the African and Caucasian races, precluded the idea of their living together in the one land as Free men and equals. In his speeches during the great Lincoln-Douglas debate we have seen this idea frequently advanced, and so, in his late
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CHAPTER XIX. HISTORICAL REVIEW.
CHAPTER XIX. HISTORICAL REVIEW.
Let us now refresh recollection by glancing backward over the history of our Country, and we shall see, as recorded in these pages, that, from the first, there existed in this Nation a class of individuals greedily ambitious of power and determined to secure and maintain control of this Government; that they left unturned no stone which would contribute to the fostering and to the extension of African Slavery; that, hand in hand with African Slavery—and as a natural corollary to it—they advocate
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CHAPTER XX. LINCOLN'S TROUBLES AND TEMPTATIONS.
CHAPTER XX. LINCOLN'S TROUBLES AND TEMPTATIONS.
The Rebels themselves, as has already been noted, by the employment of their Slaves in the construction of earthworks and other fortifications, and even in battle, at Bull Run and elsewhere, against the Union Forces, brought the Thirty-seventh Congress, as well as the Military Commanders, and the President, to an early consideration of the Slavery question. But it was none the less a question to be treated with the utmost delicacy. The Union men, as well as the Secession-sympathizers, of Kentuck
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CHAPTER XXI. THE ARMED NEGRO.
CHAPTER XXI. THE ARMED NEGRO.
Little over five months had passed, since the occurrence of the great event in the history of the American Nation mentioned in the preceding Chapter, before the Freed Negro, now bearing arms in defense of the Union and of his own Freedom, demonstrated at the first attack on Port Hudson the wisdom of emancipating and arming the Slave, as a War measure. He seemed thoroughly to appreciate and enter into the spirit of the words; "who would be Free, himself must strike the blow." At the attack (of Ma
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CHAPTER XXII. FREEDOM'S SUN STILL RISING.
CHAPTER XXII. FREEDOM'S SUN STILL RISING.
After President Lincoln had issued his Proclamation of Emancipation, the friends of Freedom clearly perceived—and none of them more clearly than himself that until the incorporation of that great Act into the Constitution of the United States itself, there could be no real assurance of safety to the liberties of the emancipated; that unless this were done there would be left, even after the suppression of the Rebellion, a living spark of dissension which might at any time again be fanned into th
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CHAPTER XXIII. "THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" IN THE SENATE.
CHAPTER XXIII. "THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" IN THE SENATE.
During the great debate, which now opened in the Senate, upon the Judiciary Committee's substitute resolution for the Amendment of the Constitution, so as forever to prohibit Slavery within the United States, and to empower Congress to pass such laws as would make that prohibition effective—participated in by Messrs. Trumbull, Wilson, Saulsbury, Davis, Harlan, Powell, Sherman, Clark, Hale, Hendricks, Henderson, Sumner, McDougall and others—the whole history of Slavery was enquired into and laid
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CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON IN THE NORTHERN CAMPS.
CHAPTER XXIV. TREASON IN THE NORTHERN CAMPS.
The immortal Charter of Freedom had, as we have seen, with comparative ease, after a ten days' debate, by the power of numbers, run the gauntlet of the Senate; but now it was to be subjected to the much more trying and doubtful ordeal of the House. What would be its fate there? This was a question which gave to Mr. Lincoln, and the other friends of Liberty and Union, great concern. It is true that various votes had recently been taken in that body, upon propositions which had an indirect bearing
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CHAPTER XXV. "THE FIRE IN THE REAR."
CHAPTER XXV. "THE FIRE IN THE REAR."
The treacherous purposes of professedly-loyal Copperheads being seen through, and promptly and emphatically denounced to the Country by Union statesmen, the Copperheads aforesaid concluded that the profuse circulation of their own Treason-breeding speeches—through the medium of the treasonable organizations before referred to, permeating the Northern States,—would more than counteract all that Union men could say or do. Besides, the fiat had gone forth, from their Rebel masters at Richmond, to A
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CHAPTER XXVI. "THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" DEFEATED IN THE HOUSE.
CHAPTER XXVI. "THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT" DEFEATED IN THE HOUSE.
The debate in the House of Representatives, upon the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution—interrupted by the treasonable episode referred to in the last Chapter—was subsequently resumed. Meanwhile, however, Fort Pillow had been stormed, and its garrison of Whites and Blacks, massacred. And now commenced the beginning of the end—so far as the Military aspect of the Rebellion was concerned. Early in May, Sherman's Atlanta Campaign commenced, and, simultaneously, General Grant began his movemen
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CHAPTER XXVII. SLAVERY DOOMED AT THE POLLS.
CHAPTER XXVII. SLAVERY DOOMED AT THE POLLS.
The record was indeed made up, and the issue thus made, between Slavery and Freedom, would be the chief one before the People. Already the Republican National Convention, which met at Baltimore, June 7, 1864, had not only with "enthusiastic unanimity," renominated Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency, but amid "tremendous applause," the delegates rising and waving their hats—had adopted a platform which declared, in behalf of that great Party: "That, as Slavery was the cause, and now constitutes the s
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CHAPTER XXVIII. FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED.
CHAPTER XXVIII. FREEDOM AT LAST ASSURED.
As to the Military situation, a few words are, at this time, necessary: Hood had now marched Northward, with some 50,000 men, toward Nashville, Tenn., while Sherman, leaving Thomas and some 35,000 men behind, to thwart him, had abandoned his base, and was marching Southward from Atlanta, through Georgia, toward the Sea. On the 30th of November, 1864, General Schofield, in command of the 4th and 23rd Corps of Thomas's Army, decided to make a stand against Hood's Army, at Franklin, in the angle of
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CHAPTER XXIX. LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURATION.
CHAPTER XXIX. LINCOLN'S SECOND INAUGURATION.
While the death of Slavery in America was decreed, as we have seen; yet, the sanguine anticipations of Mr. Lincoln, and other friends of Freedom, that such a decree, imperishably grafted into the Constitution, must at once end the Rebellion, and bring Peace with a restored Union, were not realized. The War went on. Grant was still holding Lee, at Petersburg, near Richmond, while Sherman's victorious Army was about entering upon a campaign from Savannah, up through the Carolinas. During the previ
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CHAPTER XXX. COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED CONSPIRACY.
CHAPTER XXX. COLLAPSE OF THE ARMED CONSPIRACY.
Meantime, Sherman's Armies were pressing along upward, toward Raleigh, from Columbia, marching through swamps and over quicksands and across swollen streams—cold, wet, hungry, tired—often up to their armpits in water, yet keeping their powder dry, and silencing opposing batteries or driving the Enemy, who doggedly retired before them, through the drenching rains which poured down unceasingly for days, and even weeks, at a time. On the 16th of March, 1865, a part of Sherman's Forces met the Enemy
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CHAPTER XXXI. ASSASSINATION!
CHAPTER XXXI. ASSASSINATION!
But while some of the great Military events alluded to in the preceding Chapter, had been transpiring at the theatre of War, something else had happened at the National Capital, so momentous, so atrocious, so execrable, that it was with difficulty the victorious soldiers of the Union, when they first heard the news, could be restrained from turning upon the then remaining armed Rebels, and annihilating them in their righteous fury. Let us go back, for a moment, to President Lincoln, whom we left
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CHAPTER XXXII. TURNING BACK THE HANDS!
CHAPTER XXXII. TURNING BACK THE HANDS!
And now, the War having ended in the defeat, conquest, and capture, of those who, inspired by the false teachings of Southern leaders, had arrayed themselves in arms beneath the standard of Rebellion, and fought for Sectional Independence against National Union, for Slavery against Freedom, and for Free Trade against a benignant Tariff protective alike to manufacturer, mechanic, and laborer, it might naturally be supposed that, with the collapse of this Rebellion, all the issues which made up "t
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CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT NEXT?
CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT NEXT?
And what next? Aye, what next? Do the patriotic, innocent-minded lovers of a Republican form of Government imagine, for an instant, that all danger to its continued existence and well-being has ceased to threaten?—that all the crises perilous to that beneficent popular governmental form have vanished?—that the climacteric came, and went, with the breaking out, and suppression, of the Rebellion?—and that there is nothing alarming in the outlook? Quite likely. The public mind has not yet been arou
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