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Judith White McGuire, Diary of a southern refugee during the war, by a lady of Virginia, 1861. (search)
ay too soon surround us; and the boys, the dear, dear boys, to the camp, to be drilled and prepared to meet any emergency. Can it be that our country is to be carried on and on to the horrors of civil war? I pray, oh how fervently do I pray, that our Heavenly Father may yet avert it. I shut my eyes and hold my breath when the thought of what may come upon us obtrudes itself; and yet I cannot believe it. It will, I know the breach will be healed without the effusion of blood. The taking of Sumter without bloodshed has somewhat soothed my fears, though I am told by those who are wiser than I, that men must fall on both sides by the score, by the hundred, and even by the thousand. But it is not my habit to look on the dark side, so I try hard to employ myself, and hope for the best. To-day our house seems so deserted, that I feel more sad than usual, for on this morning we took leave of our whole household. Mr.--and myself are now the sole occupants of the house, which usually teem
John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 13. (search)
r to Sumter Star of the West Montgomery rebellion Davis and Stephens corner-stone theory Lincoln inaugurated his inaugural address Lincoln's cabinet the question of Sumter Seward's memorandum Lincoln's answer bombardment of Sumter Anderson's capitulation It is not the province of these chapters to relate in detail the course of the secession movement in the cotton States in the interim which elapsed between the election and inauguration of President Lincoln. Still let he would evacuate the fort by noon of April 15, unless assailed, or unless he received supplies or controlling instructions from his government. This answer being unsatisfactory to Beauregard, he sent Anderson notice that he would open fire on Sumter at 4:20 on the morning of April 12. Promptly at the hour indicated the bombardment was begun. As has been related, the rebel siege-works were built on the points of the islands forming the harbor, at distances varying from thirteen hundred t
John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 14. (search)
ormal military league making Virginia an immediate member of the Confederate States, and placing her armies under the command of Jefferson Davis. The sudden uprising in Maryland and the insurrectionary activity in Virginia had been largely stimulated by the dream of the leading conspirators that their new confederacy would combine all the slave States, and that by the adhesion of both Maryland and Virginia they would fall heir to a ready-made seat of government. While the bombardment of Sumter was in progress, the rebel Secretary of War, announcing the news in a jubilant speech at Montgomery, in the presence of Jefferson Davis and his colleagues, confidently predicted that the rebel flag would before the end of May float over the dome of the Capitol at Washington. The disloyal demonstrations in Maryland and Virginia rendered such a hope so plausible that Jefferson Davis telegraphed to Governor Letcher at Richmond that he was preparing to send him thirteen regiments, and added: Su
John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 15. (search)
rrections preliminary skirmishes forward to Richmond plan of McDowell's campaign From the slower political developments in the border slave States we must return and follow up the primary hostilities of the rebellion. The bombardment of Sumter, President Lincoln's call for troops, the Baltimore riot, the burning of Harper's Ferry armory and Norfolk navy-yard, and the interruption of railroad communication which, for nearly a week, isolated the capital and threatened it with siege and pision; while under the new call for three years volunteers, their authority was limited to the simple organization of regiments. In the South, war preparation also immediately became active. All the indications are that up to their attack on Sumter, the Southern leaders hoped to effect separation through concession and compromise by the North. That hope, of course, disappeared with South Carolina's opening guns, and the Confederate government made what haste it could to meet the ordeal it
John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 38. (search)
hen, after all, not to be President? Was patriotism dead? Was the Constitution waste paper? Was the Union gone? The indications were, indeed, ominous. Seven States were in rebellion. There was treason in Congress, treason in the Supreme Court, treason in the army and navy. Confusion and discord rent public opinion. To use Lincoln's own forcible simile, sinners were calling the righteous to repentance. Finally, the flag, insulted on the Star of the West, trailed in capitulation at Sumter; and then came the humiliation of the Baltimore riot, and the President practically for a few days a prisoner in the capital of the nation. But his apprenticeship had been served, and there was no more failure. With faith and justice and generosity he conducted for four long years a civil war whose frontiers stretched from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; whose soldiers numbered a million men on each side; in which, counting skirmishes and battles small and great, was fought an average of
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 2: Charleston Harbor. (search)
d to his sleep, he took his secret resolve to abandon Moultrie and take post in Sumter. The 26th of December was a busy day for the commandant. There were vesselthe transfer was an assured success; the officers sat down to eat the supper in Sumter which had been cooked for them in Moultrie. A small detail of men and an officmoval of needed supplies; they finished their work and joined their comrades in Sumter a little after sunrise next morning. This movement filled the Union sentime such circumstances he could not and would not withdraw the Federal troops from Sumter. This ended the rebel mission. They departed abruptly for home, leaving behinagainst reinforcements. It was the beginning of the long and eventful siege of Sumter. Moultrie was soon restored to its offensive powers; Castle Pinckney passed inhat, unless the act were disclaimed, he would close the harbor with the guns of Sumter. It would have been better to have left the threat unuttered. Governor Picken
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 4: Lincoln. (search)
and halfhearted allegiance, was a problem of direct bearing on the Sumter question. Mr. Seward, optimist by nature, believed and argued that the revolution throughout the South had spent its force and was on the wane; and that the evacuation of Sumter, and the manifestation of kindness and confidence to the Rebel and Border States, would undermine the conspiracy, strengthen the union sentiment and union majorities, and restore allegiance and healthy political action without resort to civil war have been his language, a patriot could not have misunderstood it. But Campbell had meanwhile become so far committed to the cause of the conspiracy, that he conveyed his information to the commissioners as a virtual pledge of the evacuation of Sumter, and they sent the news to Montgomery in high glee. As a matter of fact, President Lincoln had not at that date decided the Sumter question; he was following his own sagacious logic in arriving at a conclusion, which was at least partially re
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 5: Sumter. (search)
ions upon which they would permit Anderson and his garrison to depart when the order to evacuate Sumter should be sent him. The illusion began to fade away on the 1st of April, when Commissioner C commissioners in Washington; on the 10th, Beauregard was instructed to demand the evacuation of Sumter, and, in case of refusal, to reduce it. At two o'clock in the afternoon of the following day (Apme, and agree in the meanwhile not to use his guns against the rebels unless they should fire on Sumter. Anderson was shrewd enough to see that this would leave their guns free to beat back the flee as to drop down upon the parapet and inside the walls of the besieged fort. The garrison of Sumter, notwithstanding its tedious confinement, was in excellent spirit, and, since the long apprehend not other elements intervened to bring the combat to a close. On three of the five sides of Sumter, just inside the walls, stood long and substantial buildings used as barracks, officers' quarter
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 6: the call to arms. (search)
tial cause, into the horror and ruin of a hopeless civil war. The firing on Sumter cleared up the political atmosphere as if by magic. The roar of Beauregard's gce. The conspiracy had given way to revolution. The news of the assault on Sumter reached Washington on Saturday, April 13th; on Sunday morning, the 14th, the Prnced himself as opposed to a policy of coercion. But the wanton bombardment of Sumter exhausted his party patience, and stirred his patriotic blood to fresher and heckened to a new activity in her fatal enterprise. She felt that the assault on Sumter was her final cast of the die. Her people are proud and impetuous, stronger in seven thousand rebel troops assembled at Charleston to aid in the reduction of Sumter, and the four or five thousand sent to Pensacola to undertake the capture of Foly leagued with the secession conspirators. Upon them, too, the bombardment of Sumter fell like a sudden touchstone. The proclamation of President Lincoln, and the
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 7: Baltimore. (search)
those States. In all wars, foreign or domestic, the safety of the capital, its buildings, archives, and officers, is, of course, a constant and a paramount necessity. To guard the City of Washington against a rumored plot of seizure by the conspirators, President Buchanan had in January permitted Secretary Holt and General Scott to concentrate a small number of regular troops in it. Some of these had ever since remained there. As soon as President Lincoln decided to send provisions to Sumter, he had, in anticipation of coming dangers, ordered General Scott to take additional measures for the security of the capital, and to that end authorized him to muster into the service of the United States about fifteen companies of District militia. When Sumter fell and the proclamation was issued, as a still further precaution the first few regiments were ordered directly to Washington. To the Massachusetts Sixth belongs the unfading honor of being the first regiment, armed and equipp
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