Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[130] and, hiding his treason under a shameful capitulation, on the 16th of February, he surrendered to the latter the troops he had brought together for that express purpose. By a fatal coincidence, his successor, Colonel Waite, who had hurried from the depths of the wilderness to save this precious nucleus of an army, only arrived in time to share the captivity of those he was coming to command. The leaders of the secession movement, being still obliged to conceal their design to a certain extent, in order not to jeopardize their success, at first treated these troops like those of a foreign power with which they were not at war: the agreement by which they had been delivered up was called a treaty of evacuation, and Waite was conveyed, with about twelve hundred of his men, to Indianola, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, where, although promised permission to ship for any of the Northern ports, he was detained under various pretexts. The capitulation of San Antonio was not long in bringing forth its fruit; by intimidating the Unionists of Texas it enabled their adversaries to secure the popular vote in favor of the separation of that State.

The 4th of March, which was to witness the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, was approaching, and that prospective event stimulated the audacity of the seceders. While Virginia was protesting against the presence in Washington of a few companies of regular troops, which through the foresight of General Scott had been ordered there, certain conspirators were planning to prevent the installation of the new President by means of a contemplated outrage upon his person, on his passage through Baltimore, which, as they hoped, might end in assassination. He frustrated this murderous scheme by assuming a disguise, and arrived in Washington on the 23d of February, where Mr. Buchanan, faithful to his trust, notwithstanding his inexcusable weaknesses, hastened to put himself in relation with him. The withdrawal from the Cabinet of those who favored slavery had left an open field to men attached to the Union, and one among them, Mr. Dix, Secretary of the Treasury, had even the courage, on being informed of the seizure of the mint in New Orleans, to reply by an order to shoot down on the spot the first man who should touch the American flag. Unfortunately, there was nobody left in that great city who would