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as an act of open hostility, and a declaration of war.”
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.
Finally, tidings reached Washington, about the end of February, that Brig.--Gen. Twiggs, commanding the department of Texas, had disgracefully betrayed his trust, and turned over his entire army, with all1 the posts and fortifications, arms, munitions, horses, equipments, etc., to Gen. Ben. McCulloch, 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 of dollars could hardly have replaced, 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 became2 an easy prey to the exultant Rebels.
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 crammed3 with arms
1 The following is a list of the property given up to the State of Texas by Gen. Twiggs:
| 1,800 mules, valued at $50 each | $90,000 |
| 500 wagons, valued at 140 each | 70,000 |
| 950 horses, valued at 150 each | 142,500 |
| 500 harness, valued at 50 each | 25,000 |
| Tools, wagon materials, iron, nails, horse and mule-shoes | 250,000 |
| Corn (at this port) | 7,000 |
| Clothing | 150,000 |
| Commissary stores | 75,000 |
| Ordnance stores | 400,000 |
| Total | $1,209,500 |
2 April 20, 1861.
3 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 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 Custom-House 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.
Hartford. Published by O. D. Chase and Company. 1866.
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