CHAPTER I

Spring 1861-Autumn 1861

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States, thereby beginning a succession of events which would directly lead to hostilities between the Northern and Southern states. A month and a half after the election, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union. The "Palmetto State" was successively followed by six other Southern states: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In early February, 1861, representatives from these states met in Montgomery, Alabama and formed a new political entity, the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, notwithstanding U.S. President James Buchanan's rejection of the principle of secession, Mr. Buchanan felt that the Federal government could not force the seceded states to remain in the Union. Hence, during the final weeks of his Administration, the President attempted to maintain symbolic Federal authority over U.S. government property in the South, while, simultaneously, attempting to avoid a military clash with the secessionists. In addition, he recommended that Congress take steps to hold the Union together by compromise. Efforts at achieving a compromise, however, proved unsuccessful as the leaders of the recently established Confederacy stood firm in the commitment to independence. As Allen Nevins observed,

The successful conspiracy had been a drive, ... to give the people of the Deep South full power to settle their own problems in their own way. Retreat would mean a sacrifice of their constitutional principles, a humiliating blow to their pride, and a definite subordination to the North and Northwest. The heads of the Confederacy were not bluffing, but in deadly earnest. They were determined to maintain their new nation at all hazards and whatever cost.1

Conversely, however,

Because of the tremendous sentimental and moral values attached to the Union, because of the impossibility of dividing its assets and dis