And when, at last, the long lean frame was thrown upon the couch, and "tired Nature's sweet restorer" held him briefly in her arms, the smile of hopefulness on the wan cheek told that, despite all the terrible difficulties of the situation, the sleeper was sustained by a strong and cheerful belief in the Providence of God, the Patriotism of the People, and the efficacy of his Inaugural Peace-offering to the South. But alas, and alas, for the fallibility of human judgment and human hopes! Instead of a message of Peace, the South chose to regard it as a message of Menace;* and it was not received in a much better spirit by some of the Northern papers, which could see no good in it-"no Union spirit in it "--but declared that it breathed the spirit of Sectionalism and mischief, and "is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of hope.' Bitter indeed must have been President Lincoln's disappointment and sorrow at the reception of his Inaugural. With the heartiest forgiveness, in the noblest spirit of paternal kindness, he had generously held out his arms, as far as they could reach, to clasp to his heart to the great heart of the Union-the rash children of the South, if they would but let him. It was more with sorrow, than in anger, that he looked upon their contemptuous repulsion of his advances; and his soul still reproachfully yearned toward these his Southern brethren, as did that of a higher than he toward His misguided brethren, when He cried: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” On the day following his Inauguration, President Lincoln sent to the United States Senate the names of those whom he had chosen to constitute his Cabinet, as follows: William H. Seward, of New York, Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury; Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War; Gideon Welles, of Con * "Mr. Lincoln fondly regarded his Inaugural as a resistless proffering of the olive branch to the South; the Conspirators everywhere interpreted it as a challenge to War."-Greeley's Am. Conflict, vol. i., p. 428. necticut, Secretary of the Navy; Caleb B. Smith, of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior; Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney General; and Montgomery Blair, of Maryland, Postmaster General. On the other hand, the President of the rebellious Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, had partly constituted his Cabinet already, as follows: Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State; Charles G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury; Leroy Pope Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War; to whom he afterwards added: Stephen R. Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy; and John H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-General. CHAPTER X. THE WAR-DRUM-"ON TO WASHING TON!" 66 66 66 66 REBEL COMMISSIONERS AT WASHINGTON ON A MISSION -SEWARD SITS DOWN ON THEM-HE REFUSES TO RECOGNIZE CONFEDERATE STATES -THE REBEL COMMISSIONERS ACCEPT THE GAGE OF BATTLE THUS THROWN DOWN TO THEM -ATTEMPT TO PROVISION FORT SUMTER-THE REBELS NOTIFIED-THE FORT AND ITS SURROUNDINGS-THE FIRST GUN OF SLAVERY FIREDTERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT OF THE FORT—THE GARRISON, STARVED AND BURNED OUT, EVACUATES, WITH ALL THE HONORS OF WARTHE SOUTH CRAZY WITH EXULTATION-TE DEUMS SUNG, SALUTES FIRED, AND THE REBEL GOVERNMENT SERENADED-" ON TO WASHINGTON!" THE REBEL CRY-" GRAY JACKETS OVER THE BORDER"-PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S FIRST PROCLAMATION AND FOR TROOPS - - INSULTING RESPONSES OF GOVERNORS BURTON, HICKS, LETCHER, ELLIS, MAGOFFIN, HARRIS, JACKSON AND RECTOR-LOYAL RESPONSES FROM GOVERNORS OF THE FREE STATES-MAGICAL EFFECT OF THE CALL UPON THE LOYAL NORTH -FEELING IN THE BORDER-STATES-PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CLEAR SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION AND ITS PHILOSOPHY-HIS PLAIN DUTY-THE WAR POWER-THE NATIONAL CAPITAL CUT OFF-EVACUATION OF HARPER'S FERRY-LOYAL TROOPS TO THE RESCUE-FIGHTING THEIR WAY THROUGH BALTIMORE-REBEL CALL THREATS-"SCOTT THE ARCH-TRAITOR, AND LINCOLN THE 66 CONTRABAND OF WAR —A REBEL YARN... Pages 189 to 214. CARCELY one week had elapsed after the Administra SCAR tion 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 "the objects of the mission with which they are charged.' Secretary Seward, with the President's sanction, declined official intercourse with Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, in a "Memorandum" (March 15th) reciting their request, etc., in which, after referring to President Lincoln's Inaugural Address-forwarded to them with the "Memorandum ". he says: "A simple reference will be sufficient to satisfy those gentlemen that the Secretary of State, guided by the principles therein announced, is prevented altogether from admitting or assuming that the States referred to by them have, in law or in fact, withdrawn from the Federal Union, or that they could do so in the manner described by Messrs. Forsyth and Crawford, or in any other manner than with the consent and concert of the People of the United States, to be given through a National Convention, to be assembled in conformity with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States. Of course, the Secretary of State cannot act upon the assumption, or in any way admit, that the socalled Confederate States constitute a Foreign Power, with whom diplomatic relations ought to be established.” On the 9th of April, Messrs. Forsyth, Crawford and Roman--as "Commissioners of the Southern Confederacy -addressed to Secretary Seward a reply to the “Memorandum" aforesaid, in which the following passage occurs: "The undersigned, like the Secretary of State, have no purpose to 'invite or engage in discussion' of the subject on which their two Governments are so irreconcilably at variance. It is this variance that has broken up the old Union, the disintegration of which has only begun. "It is proper, however, to advise you that it were well to dismiss the hopes you seem to entertain that, by any of the modes indicated, the people of the Confederate States will ever be brought to submit to the authority of the Government of the United States. You are dealing with de lusions, too, when you seek to separate our people from our Government, and to characterize the deliberate, Sovereign act of that people as a 'perversion of a temporary and partisan excitement.' If you cherish these dreams, you will be awakened from them, and find them as unreal and unsubstantial as others in which you have recently indulged. "The undersigned would omit the performance of an obvious duty were they to fail to make known to the Government of the United States that the people of the Confederate States have declared their independence with a full knowledge of all the responsibilities of that act, and with as firm a determination to maintain it by all the means with which nature has endowed them as that which sustained their fathers when they threw off the authority of the British Crown. "The undersigned clearly understand that you have declined to appoint a day to enable them to lay the objects of the mission with which they are charged, before the President of the United States, because so to do would be to recognize the independence and separate nationality of the Confederate States. This is the vein of thought that pervades the memorandum before us. "The truth of history requires that it should distinctly appear upon the record, that the undersigned did not ask the Government of the United States to recognize the independence of the Confederate States. They only asked audience to adjust, in a spirit of amity and peace, the new relations springing from a manifest and accomplished revolution in the Government of the late Federal Union. "Your refusal to entertain these overtures for a peaceful solution, the active naval and military preparation of this Government, and a formal notice to the Commanding General of the Confederate forces in the harbor of Charleston that the President intends to provision Fort Sumter by forcible means, if necessary, are viewed by the undersigned, and can only be received by the World, as a Declaration of War against the Confederate States; for the President of the United States knows that Fort Sumter cannot be provisioned without the effusion of blood. |