sisting of eighty men, was organized in Savannah, and reached Charleston December 23d. Capt. N. L. Coste, of the U. S. revenue service, in command of the cutter William Aiken, in Charleston harbor, turned her over to the State authorities, and enlisted, with his crew, in the service of South Carolina. This day, the Palmetto, or South Carolina, flag was formally raised over the Custom-House and the Post-Office at Charleston; and it was announced next morning that Gov. Pickens had been tendered the services of volunteers from Georgia and Alabama, as well as from all parts of South Carolina. 5 Mr. Jacob Thompson, Secretary of the Interior, having left his post to visit North Carolina in the character of a Secession Commissioner from Mississippi, a heavy defalcation was discovered in his Department. A South Carolina clerk named Godard Bailey, who was custodian of a large amount of State bonds belonging to the Indian Trust Fund, had abstracted therefrom bonds and coupons amounting in the aggregate to $870,000, and had disappeared. 6 Mr. Thompson was notified by letter of the fraud, and, returning, called at once upon the President to announce it. An investigation was forthwith ordered; but neither the key of the safe nor the clerk who had charge of it could be found. Mr. Bailey was at length discovered, but could not or would not produce the key. The Department was then surrounded by a police force, which no clerk was allowed to pass, the safe broken open, and the extent of the robbery discovered. An examination of Mr. Bailey elicited the following facts: 5 December 24th. The con The firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell held a very large contract for the transportation of army supplies from Leavenworth and other points on the Missouri river to the army stationed at Camp Floyd, in Utah; under which they were to receive from the Treasury about one million dollars per annum. tractors being pressed for funds, Mr. Floyd had been induced to accept their drafts on his department, in anticipation of future service, to the amount of nearly or quite a million of dollars. These acceptances, being manifestly irregular, could with difficulty, and but to a moderate extent, be negotiated; so that the embarrassment of the contractors was thereby scarcely mitigated. Under these circumstances, it appears, Mr. Russell had been made acquainted with Mr. Bailey, and had, by some means, induced the latter to supply him with a large amount of bonds from the safe under his control, substituting therefor Mr. Floyd's acceptances aforesaid. The bonds he had hypothecated in Wall-street and raised money thereon. As our national sky darkened, the bonds depreciated, and the lenders called on Mr. Russell for additional security, which he furnished in the shape of more bonds, supplied by Bailey; who, finding himself inextricably involved, addressed, on the 18th, a letter to Secretary Thompson, disclosing the more material facts, and pleading that he had taken the bonds only to save the honor of Secretary Floyd, which, he was assured, had been compromised by his advances to Russell & Co. He did this on the faith of promises that all should be made right in due 6 December 25th. season: but, being called upon by | tion that the course on which the President had decided was a fatally mistaken one, and led directly to National subversion and ruin. Attorney-General Black-a lifelong and intimate personal friend of the President-took charge, by his direction, of the State Department. Messrs. R. W. Barnwell, James L. Orr, and ex-Gov. Adams, Commissioners from the State of South Carolina, reached Washington on the 26th, under instructions to negotiate with the Federal Executive a partition of all the properties and interests of the sovereign and independent State of South Carolina in the Union from which she had seceded. Every one of them knew perfectly that the President had no more constitutional power or right to enter upon such a negotiation than he had to cede the country bodily to Russia, France, or Great Britain. They were, of course, received civilly, and treated respectfully, but informed that the President could only regard and meet them as citizens of the United States. They left, on their return, nine days afterward; sending farewell letters to the President, which are scarcely average samples of diplomatic suavity. 8 The disintegration of the Cabinet had commenced so early as December 10th, when Mr. Howell Cobb, thoroughly in the counsels of the secessionists, resigned the control of the Treasury, whereof the bankrupt and hopeless condition supplied him with an excuse, though not the reason, for his retirement. Mr. Philip Francis Thomas, of Md., previously Commissioner of Patents, was appointed in his stead. Gen. Lewis Cass resigned the post of Secretary of State on the 14th, directly after a long and exciting Cabinet session. He did so because he could not consent to render himself responsible for, or be implicated in, the President's refusal to reënforce, provision, and sustain Maj. Anderson and his little force, holding the forts in Charleston harbor. did not rush into the newspapers; fortifications commanding the apyet he made no secret of his convic-proaches to Beaufort and Wilming He Georgia having given a large popular majority for Secession, her authorities immediately took military possession of the Federal arsenal at Augusta, as also of Forts Pulaski and Jackson, commanding the approaches by sea to Savannah. North Carolina had not voted to secede, yet Gov. Ellis simultaneously seized the U. S. Arsenal at Fayetteville, with Fort Macon, and other fortifications_commanding ton. Having done so, Gov. E. | likewise seized and garrisoned by coolly wrote to the War Department that he had taken the step to preserve the forts from seizure by mobs! In Alabama, the Federal arsenal at Mobile was seized on the 4th, by order of Gov. Moore. It contained large quantities of arms and munitions. Fort Morgan, commanding the approaches to Mobile, was likewise seized, and garrisoned by State troops. The steamer Star of the West left New York unannounced, during the night of January 5th, laden with reënforcements and supplies for Fort Sumter. A dispatch from that city reached the South Carolina authorities next day, advising them of her destination and objects. Secretary Thompson likewise sent a dispatch from Washington to the same effect, directly after leaving the Cabinet council in which he had ascertained the facts. He resigned his office on the 8th, asserting that the attempt to reënforce Fort Sumter was a violation of the promises of the Executive. The Star of the West, having 250 soldiers and ample provisions on board, appeared off the bar at Charleston on the 9th. Attempting to steam up the harbor to Fort Sumter, she was fired upon from Fort Moultrie and a battery on Morris Island, and, being struck by a shot, put about, and left for New York, without even communicating with Major Anderson. In Louisiana, the Federal arsenal at Baton Rouge was seized by order of Gov. Moore on the 11th. Forts Jackson and St. Philip, commanding the passage up the Mississippi to New Orleans, and Fort Pike, at the entrance of Lake Pontchartrain, were State troops. The Federal Mint and Custom-House at New Orleans were left untouched until February 1st, when they, too, were taken possession of by the State authorities. In St. Louis, the Custom-House, Sub-Treasury, and Post Office were garrisoned by a handful of Federal soldiers as a protection against a similar movement. Mr. Thomas, after a very few days' service, resigned control of the Treasury, and was succeeded by Gen. John A. Dix, of New York. In Florida, Fort Barrancas and the Navy Yard at Pensacola were seized by Florida and Alabama forces on the 13th; Commander Armstrong surrendering them without a struggle. He ordered Lieut. Slemmer, likewise, to surrender Forts Pickens and McRae; but the intrepid subordinate defied the order, and, withdrawing his small force from Fort McRae to the stronger and less accessible Fort Pickens, announced his determination to hold out to the last. He was soon after besieged therein by a formidable volunteer force; and a dispatch from Pensacola announced that "Fort McRae is being occupied and the guns manned by the allied forces of Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi." Col. Hayne, as agent of Gov. Pickens, reached Washington on the 12th; and on the 16th demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter, as essential to a good understanding between the two nations of South Carolina and the United States. The Legislature of the former had, on the 14th, formally resolved, that "any attempt by the Federal Government to reënforce Fort Sumter will be regarded REBEL SEIZURES OF SOUTHERN FORTS, ETC. 413 as an act of open hostility, and a de- | of dollars could hardly have replaced, claration of war." in that crisis, the property thus filched from the Republic. And, to add to the extent of the disaster, the ship Star of the West, which, after its return from its abortive mission to Fort Sumter, was dispatched, laden with munitions and supplies, for the army of the frontier, went into the harbor of Indianola utterly unsuspicious of the transformation which had been there effected, and became 10 an easy prey to the exultant Rebels. The revenue cutter Cass, stationed at Mobile, was turned over by Capt. J. J. Morrison to the authorities of Alabama at the end of January. The McClellan, Capt. Breshwood, stationed on the Mississippi below New Orleans, was, in like manner, handed over to those of Louisiana. Gen. Dix had sent down a special agent to secure them, but he was too late. The telegraph dispatch whereby Gen. Dix directed him, "If any person attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," sent an electric thrill through the loyal heart of the country. 9 Finally, tidings reached Washington, about the end of February, that Brig. Gen. Twiggs, commanding the Brig.-Gen. department of Texas, had disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned over his entire army, with all the posts and fortifications, arms, munitions, horses, equipments, etc., to Gen. Ben. M'Culloch, representing the authorities of Texas, now fully launched upon the rushing tide of treason. The Union lost by that single act at least half its military force, with the State of Texas, and the control of our Mexican frontier; while two millions The defensive fortifications located within the seceding States were some thirty in number, mounting over three thousand guns, and having cost at least Twenty Millions of dollars. Nearly all these had been seized and appropriated by the Confederates before Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, with the exception of Fortress Monroe (Virginia), Fort Sumter (South Carolina), Fort Pickens (Florida), and the fortresses on Key West and the Tortugas, off the Florida coast. To offset these, they had full possession of Fort Macon, North Carolina, though that State had utterly refused to unite in the conspiracy, with the extensive and costly Navy Yard at Pensacola, and the Southern Arsenals, which their Floyd had crammed" with arms State at least a million and a half of dollars.- 10 April 20, 1861. 11 Mr. Edward A. Pollard, in his "Southern [Rebel] History of the War," page 40, thus sums up the cheap initial conquests of the Confederacy: "On the incoming of the Administration of Abraham Lincoln, on the 4th of March, the rival government of the South had perfected its organization; the separation had been widened and envenomed by the ambidexterity and perfidy of President Buchanan; the Southern people, however, still hoped for a peaceful accomplishment of their independence, and deplored war between the two sections, as 'a policy detrimental to the civilized world.' The revolution, in the mean time, had rapidly gathered, not only in moral power, but in and munitions with direct reference to this contingency." Add to these the Army of the Frontier, with all its arms, munitions, trains, animals, and provisions, with the Southern revenue-cutters, Mints, Custom-Houses, Sub-Treasuries, etc. (over half a million of dollars in gold having been seized in that at New Orleans alone); and it may be safely estimated that the Rebellion had possessed itself of Thirty Millions' worth of Federal property before Mr. Buchanan left the White House; which was increased to Forty Millions by the seizure of Harper's Ferry Arsenal, and the Norfolk Navy Yard, with its ships of war, munitions, and two thousand cannon, before a single blow was struck on the side of the Union. The Convention of South Carolina called," on motion of Mr. R. Barnwell Rhett, a Convention of such slaveholding States as should, meantime, have seceded from the Union, to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, February 4th, which was acceded to. the means of war and muniments of defense. Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney had been captured by the South Carolina troops; Fort Pulaski, the defense of the Savannah, had been taken; the Arsenal at Mount Vernon, Alabama, with 20,000 stand of arms, had been seized by the Alabama troops; Fort Morgan, in Mobile Bay, had been taken; Forts Jackson, St. Philip, and Pike, near New Orleans, had been captured by the Louisiana troops; the New Orleans Mint and CustomHouse had been taken; the Little Rock Arsenal had been seized by the Arkansas troops [though Arkansas had refused to secede]; and, on the 16th of February, Gen. Twiggs had transferred the public property in Texas to the State authorities. All of these events had been accomplished without bloodshed. Abolitionism and Fanaticism had not yet lapped blood. But reflecting men saw that the peace was deceitful and temporizing; that the temper of the North was impatient and dark; and that, if all history was not a lie, the first incident of bloodshed would be the prelude to a war of monstrous proportions." 12 Mr. E. Pollard, aforesaid, writing his 'Southern' History of the struggle at Richmond, after having been in public employment at Washing The Convention took place accordingly, and a provisional framework of government was adopted for "the Confederate States of America" on the 9th; which was superseded by a permanent Constitution," substantially a copy of the Federal Constitution, except in these particulars: The President and Vice-President are chosen for six years; and the President may not be reëlected while in office. He may not remove from office any functionaries, but members of his Cabinet, without referring the same, with his reasons therefor, to the Senate. The heads of departments may each, by law, be accorded a seat on the floor of either House, with the privilege of discussing any measures pertaining to his department. This Constitution further provides that "No bounties shall be granted from the Treasury, nor shall any duties or taxes on importations be levied to promote or foster any branch of industry." "The citizens of each State **** shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any ton throughout Buchanan's Administration, himself one of the original traitors, and always in their counsels, says: "It had been supposed that the Southern people, poor in manufactures as they were, and in the haste for the mighty contest that was to ensue, would find themselves but illy provided with arms to contend with an enemy rich in the means and munitions of war. This disadvantage had been provided against by the timely act of one man. Mr. Floyd, of Virginia, when Secretary of War under Mr. Buchanan's Administration, had, by a single order, effected the transfer of 115,000 improved muskets and rifles from the Springfield Armory and Watervliet Arsenal to different Arsenals at the South. Adding to these the number of arms distributed by the Federal Government to the States in preceding years of our history, and those purchased by the States and citizens, it was safely estimated that the South entered upon the war with one hundred and fifty thousand small arms of the most approved modern pattern and the best in the world." 13 December 27th. 14 Adopted March 11th. |