that I have already accepted and have in camp, or ready to march instantly to it, a larger force than the thirteen regiments named as the contingent of Ohio under the late requisition of the President. Indeed, without seriously repressing the ardor of the people, I can hardly stop short of twenty regiments."* The telegrams and letters here quoted from are fair samples of the language and spirit, the promptness and devotion, with which the people of the North answered the President's official summons. Especial mention deserves to be made of the untiring zeal and labors of the various executives of the free States in organizing and equipping troops, which earned for them the popular and honorable title of the 66 war governors."

If we would catch a glimpse of the dramatic forms in which popular fervor manifested itself in the President's own State, we need but read how the town of Quincy, Illinois, sent away her first company :

Yesterday, Sunday, Captain Prentiss left with his command for Springfield. At 12 M. all the pastors of the city, with their congregations, met the gallant captain and his loyal company in Washington Square, to give them a parting benediction. Six or seven thousand persons were present. A banner was presented, a hymn was sung, prayer was made, and the soldiers addressed by one of the clergymen and myself. We then marched with them to the depot, where the "Star-spangled Bar ner was sung, many thousands joining in the chorus. The scene altogether was the most solemn and impressive I have ever witnessed, and showed unmistakably how intensely the fires of patriotism are burning in the hearts of our people.t

In the Gulf States the revolutionary excitement rose to a similar height, but with contrary sentiment. All Union feeling and utterance instantly vanished; and, overawed by a terrorism which now found its culmination, no one dared breathe a thought or scarcely entertain a hope for the old flag. The so-called Government of the Confederate States, finally convinced that it must at length confront actual war, made such haste as it could to put an army in the field, manifesting meanwhile an outward gayety at the prospect which its members could hardly have felt at heart. Montgomery telegrams stated that the cabinet of the Confederate States read President Lincoln's proclamation "amid bursts of laughter." Mr. A. H. Stephens was reported as saying in an Atlanta speech that it would require 75 times 75,000 men to intimidate the South. In addition to the 21,000 volunteers conditionally asked for on April 8, the rebel

Secretary of War notified the governors of the seven cotton-States that 32,000 more must be immediately got ready to take the field, § and also asked that the forts and military posts in their limits be formally turned over to the control of the Montgomery authorities. || Arkansas and Tennessee not yet being members of the Confederacy, permission was asked of their executives to plant batteries to blockade the Mississippi. ¶ Spare guns from the captured Charleston forts were sent South, and extraordinary efforts were made to concentrate an army at Pensacola for the reduction of Fort Pickens.

It was at this time (April 17) that Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation, inviting applications for letters of marque and reprisal, under which privateers were offered the opportunity to roam the high seas and ravage the commerce of the United States "under the seal of these Confederate States." The final hope of the rebel leaders was in cotton and free trade; and they believed that privateering was the easy stepping-stone to European intervention. The reasoning was plausible, and the time not ill-chosen; but the proclamation found itself confronted by the prompt precautionary act of the United States Government. Two days later (April 19) President Lincoln issued a counter-proclamation, setting on foot a blockade of the rebel ports "in pursuance of the laws of the United States and of the laws of nations," and declaring that offenders under the pretended letters of marque would be held amenable to the laws against piracy.

Thus sixteen States in the North and seven States in the South stood opposed in the attitude and preparation of war. Between these two extremes of sentiment lay the debatable land of the border slave-States, the greater portion of their citizens tormented with anxiety, with doubt, with their affections evenly balanced between the Union on one hand and slavery on the other; with ties of consanguinity permeating alike the North and the South; with the horrible realization that in the impending conflict they were between the upper and the nether millstones. To a certain extent the governors of these States had hitherto professed to share the irresolution of their people. Openly they had still expostulated with the cotton-States against precipitate disunion, and urged instead that all the slave-States should join in a convention and demand constitutional guarantees from the North. All this, however, was largely a mere pretext, because

Walker to the governors, April 16, 1861. War Records.

Walker to Brown, April 17, 1861. War Records. ¶ Walker to Governor Rector, April 17, and Governor Harris, April 19, 1861. War Records.

they very well knew that the extreme demands which they formulated would not be granted. Secretly, most of them were in the revolutionary plot; and when, by the assault on Sumter and President Lincoln's call for troops, they were compelled to take sides, all save two immediately gave their voice and help more or less actively in aid of rebellion.

This course they began by refusing the regiments called for under the President's proclamation. "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States," answered Governor Magoffin. "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina." So ran the response from Governor Ellis. "The people of this commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation," was the reply from Governor Rector of Arkansas. "In such unholy crusade no gallant son of Tennessee will ever draw his sword," wrote Governor Harris. "Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with," said Governor Jackson of Missouri.

Chief among the plotting border-State executives was Governor Letcher of Virginia. A former chapter has set forth the drift of that State towards revolution under his leadership and inspiration. The apparent Union majority in the Virginia convention had somewhat restrained and baffled him and his coadjutors; but now they adroitly turned the fresh war excitement to their own advantage. The Virginia Unionists, like those of the other border States, had illogically aided secession by clamoring for the unconditional evacuation of Sumter and other forts. Now that the Government and the North resolved to repel force by force, the ground necessarily sank from under them. They were overwhelmed with arguments and reproaches. One or two vainly essayed to stem the tide. But when Anderson's flag went down even their measured and conditional patriotism withered in Richmond like Jonah's gourd. There was nothing more but brass-bands, meetings, war speeches, and torchlight processions. The Virginia commissioners reported Lincoln's answer to the convention without comment, and shrinking Unionists admitted that "if the President meant subjugation of the South, Virginia had

* Letcher to Cameron, April 16, 1861. War Records. It would seem from the following that Delaware was not altogether free from the taint of rebellion: "I sent to New Castle a regiment with which I deVOL. XXXV.- 123-124.

but one course to pursue." Governor Letcher did not need any stronger hint. With a dramatic affectation of incredulity and deliberation, to impress not only public opinion, but especially the wavering, dissolving majority, he waited a day before telegraphing his refusal to furnish troops repeating the staple phrase about" subjugation." Then, in the face of his own avowed project to capture Fort Monroe, and with the assaulting guns of Beauregard still ringing in his ears, he replied to Cameron, "You have chosen to inaugurate civil war."*

Meanwhile, the fever heat of the populace communicated itself to the convention. An outside "States Rights" assemblage of prominent Virginia politicians, which thronged into Richmond at this juncture, added its not inconsiderable tribute of pressure to the sweeping tide of treason. Under such impulses the convention went into secret session on Wednesday, April 17, and by a vote of 88 to 55 passed an ordinance of secession — or, as they softly phrased it, "An ordinance to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States." On the same day Governor Letcher signed a proclamation announcing the dissolution of the Union and the existence of the rebel Provisional Government, and calling on all the armed regiments and companies of volunteers in the State to hold themselves in readiness for orders. Nor did his zeal confine itself to paper edicts. Under his instructions, doubtless matured and prepared in advance, seizures of the custom-house and Government buildings in Richmond, of a private powder depot in Lynchburg, and of a number of steamers in the James River were hurriedly made, and military movements set on foot to capture the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry and the United States navy yard at Norfolk.

Of the two remaining border slave-States, Delaware lay in such an isolated geographical position, and had withal so few slaves within her limits, that she was practically a part of the North, though still dominated in her local politics by pro-slavery influence. † Allied to the South rather by tradition than by present interest, her executive took refuge in a course of inaction. He replied by saying that the laws of Delaware gave him no authority to comply with the requisition of the Secretary of War, and that the organized volunteer companies of the State might at their option tender their services to the United States; ‡ and to this effect he issued his official proclamasign seizing the arms of four companies of secessionists now drilling in that place and Wilmington."— Patterson to Townsend, May 27, 1861. War Records.

Burton to Cameron, Ápril 25, 1861. War Records.

tion. The people took him at his word, and by their own action bore a patriotic and hon orable part in the dangers and achievements of the Union army.

Of more immediate and vital importance, however, than that of any other border slaveState, was the course of Maryland in this crisis. Between that State and Virginia lay the District of Columbia, originally ten miles square of Federal territory, containing the capital, the Government, and the public archives. In her chief city, Baltimore, centered three of the great railroad routes by which troops must approach Washington. It was a piece of exceptional good fortune that the governor of Maryland was a friend of the Union, though hardly of that unflinching fearlessness needed in revolutionary emergencies. Whatever of hesitancy or vacillation he sometimes gave way to resulted from a constitutional timidity rather than from a want of patriotism; and, with brief exceptions, to be more fully narrated, he was active and energetic in behalf of the Government. The population of the State was divided by a sharp antagonism, the Unionists having the larger numbers, the secessionists the greater persistence and daring. The city of Baltimore was so far corrupted by treasonable influences that Wigfall had established a successful recruiting office there for the rebel armies. As yet, disunion was working secretly; but this for the present increased rather than diminished its effectiveness.

Like the other border-State executives, Governor Hicks had urged concession, compromise, peace, and joint border-State action to maintain the Union. In this, while his colleagues for the greater part merely used such talk to cover their meditated treachery, he was entirely sincere and patriotic. When Lincoln's call for troops reached him, he had no thought of refusing or resisting, but nevertheless hurried over to Washington to deprecate civil war, and to ask that Maryland soldiers should not be sent to subjugate the South. Since the President had never entertained any purpose of "subjugation," he readily promised that the Maryland regiments should be employed to defend Maryland itself and the Federal district and capital. The governor thereupon wrote to the Secretary of War: "The condition of affairs in this State at this time requires that arms shall be placed in the hands of true men and loyal to the United States Government alone," and requested arms" for arming four regiments of militia for the service of the United States and the Fed

* Burton, April 26, 1861. "Rebellion Record." + War Records.

Hicks to Lincoln, April 17, 1861. War Records.

eral Government."§ Other prominent Marylanders were already combining for demonstrative action to sustain the Government. A congressional election in the State was near at hand. On the day of the President's proclamation Henry Winter Davis announced himself, in a Baltimore evening paper, as a candidate for Congress "upon the basis of the unconditional maintenance of the Union." But the official announcements and the exciting rumors with which the newspapers were filled had also stirred the disunion elements of Maryland into unwonted activity, and the pressure of sentiment hostile to Federal authority was quickly brought to bear on Governor Hicks, and developed the timid and hesitating qualities of his character. He issued his proclamation April 18, containing, among many sage counsels in behalf of quiet and peace, two paragraphs doubtless meant by him for good, but which were well calculated to furnish the disunionists hope and encourage

ment:

Maryland, unless it may be for the defense of the I assure the people that no troops will be sent from national capital.

The people of the State will in a short time have the opportunity afforded them, in a special election for members of the Congress of the United States, to express their devotion to the Union, or their desire to see it broken up. I

With this outline view of the political condition of the country at large, and especially of the border States of Virginia and Maryland, let us follow events at the Federal capital as recorded in the daily reports of General Scott to the President. On April 15, the day on which Lincoln issued his first call for 75,0co troops, the general says, in his report No. 13:

I have but little of special interest to report to-day, except that Colonel Smith, the commander of the Department of Washington, like myself, thinks our means of defense, with vigilance, are sufficient to hold this city till reënforcements arrive. I have telegraphed whether he can station, to advantage, for the defense the commander at Harper's Ferry armory to say of that establishment, additional recruits from Carlisle. The ground about the armory is very contracted and rocky.¶

General Scott's daily report, No. 14, April 16, then proceeds:

For the President. He has no doubt been infor

mally made acquainted with the reply of the officer he wants no reenforcement. Nevertheless, as soon as commanding at Harper's Ferry, yesterday, viz.: that the capital, the railroad to the Delaware at Wilmington, and Fort Monroe are made secure, my next ob ject of attention will be the security of Harper's Ferry that the spare marines from the navy yards of Philaproposing, in the mean time, or rather suggesting delphia, Brooklyn, and Boston be promptly sent to

Hicks to Cameron, April 17, 1861. War Records. Hicks, April 18, 1861. "Rebellion Record.” ¶ Unpublished MS.