CHAPTER X

THE NATIONAL DEFENSE

THE

HE conspirators had good reason to sound the note of alarm and show symptoms of dismay at the beginning of the Cabinet régime on December 31, 1860. Henceforth the sway they had exercised over President Buchanan would be to a great extent lost to them. Hitherto, not alone in shaping a policy of non-coercion, and preventing reënforcements, but in numerous minor matters as well, the complicity of Cobb, Floyd, and Thompson had enabled them to turn the varied agencies of the Government against its own life; while active caucuses to inaugurate rebellion had been going on in at least three of the executive departments at Washington.

Floyd, especially, lost no opportunity to favor the conspirators. He sold the Virginia Board of Army Commissioners 5000 muskets; delivered 10,000 others from the Watervliet arsenal, New York, to an agent of South Carolina; and still 5000 others from the Baton Rouge arsenal to the Governor of Alabama. He ordered advanced quotas of arms to a number of Southern States. He sent a Government inspector to inspect a purchase of arms for the Governor of Mississippi. He

CHAP. X.

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allowed Virginia to have a model musket made at
the Springfield armory; to use and take copies of
Government patterns, drawings, machines, tools,
etc., at Springfield and Harper's Ferry; and ar-
ranged to have the Washington navy yard manu-
facture a battery of howitzers and a lot of fuses
for the same State. He furnished Senator Yulee
a list of army appointees from Florida. He sent
Colonel Hardee to drill and review a camp of in-
struction for Governor Letcher, of Virginia, and a
little later gave him leave of absence practically to
go
into the service of the rebellion under the State
of Georgia. He acquiesced in the acceptance of a
militia volunteer guard to surround and ostensibly
protect the Charleston arsenal, which guard, acting,
doubtless, upon the original design, soon seized
and held it for South Carolina. On the day of
the Charleston secession ordinance (December 20),
without the knowledge of the President, he or-
dered the transfer from the Pittsburgh arsenal to
the Southern coast, where they might be readily
seized, of 123 cannon-this on the pretense of
arming the fort at Ship Island, not yet completed,
and the fort at Galveston, not yet begun. In
this latter enterprise, however, he overshot his
mark. Columbiads and 32-pounders cannot be
secretly moved, and before the order was many
days old the President received emphatic tele-
graphic protests against it from prominent Pitts-
burgh citizens- a warning from his own State he
did not feel at liberty to disregard.

While Floyd, openly professing loyalty, was thus covertly playing into the hands of secession, his two colleagues were similarly busy. Thompson

deemed it consistent with his government duties to go personally to Raleigh as a commissioner of the State of Mississippi to induce the State of North Carolina to secede, and a few days later to publish an open letter in the same behalf. Cobb had likewise employed his official time in writing a six-column secession address, finished and dated two days before his resignation, and printed a few days after.

Under the new dispensation these practices instantly came to an end. For the moment Mr. Buchanan was in a patriotic mood, and, under the urgent solicitations of Black, Holt, and Stanton, yielded consent to a number of measures he had for two months obstinately resisted. For the first time since his arrival in Washington, General Scott was permitted to notify commanders of forts and garrisons to be on the alert against surprise; and though this admonition came too late to inspirit and reassure many a wavering officer, it had the direct effect of saving one of the most important military posts in the Gulf. Reënforcements were resolved upon. The policy of defending the national capital was, on Holt's proposal, discussed and adopted. At least one member of the Cabinet placed himself in confidential communication with the leading Republicans and Unionists in Congress, and counsel and warning in behalf of the Government were freely interchanged and faithfully observed. Secessionists began to leave the departments, and conspirators no longer exclusively patrolled the corridors and antechambers of the Executive Mansion. Loyal men might again grasp the President's hand, and by cheering words nerve his feeble courage and despairing faith.

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Dec. 6, 1860. "Washing

ton consti

tution."

Dec. 13,1860.