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Chapter 1:
- Failure of the peace Congress -- treatment of the commissioners -- their withdrawal -- notice of an armed expedition -- action of the Confederate Government -- bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter -- its reduction required by the exigency of the case -- disguise thrown off -- President Lincoln's call for seventy-five thousand men -- his fiction of “combinations” -- palpable violation of the Constitution -- action of Virginia -- of citizens of Baltimore -- the charge of precipitation against South Carolina -- action of the Confederate Government -- the universal feeling.
The Congress, initiated by Virginia for the laudable purpose of endeavoring, by constitutional means, to adjust all the issues which threatened the peace of the country, failed to achieve anything that would cause or justify a reconsideration by the seceded states of their action to reclaim the grants they had made to the general government, and to maintain for themselves a separate and independent existence. The commissioners sent by the Confederate government, after having been shamefully deceived, as has been heretofore fully set forth, left the United States capital to report the result of their mission to the Confederate government. The notice received, that an armed expedition had sailed for operations against the state of South Carolina in the harbor of Charleston, induced the Confederate government to meet, as best it might, this assault, in the discharge of its obligation to defend each state of the Confederacy. To this end the bombardment of the formidable work, Fort Sumter, was commenced, in anticipation of the reenforcement which was then moving to unite with its garrison for hostilities against South Carolina. The bloodless bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter occurred on April 13, 1861. The garrison was generously permitted to retire with the honors of war. The evacuation of that fort, commanding the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, which, if in hostile hands, was destructive of its commerce, had been claimed as the right of South Carolina. The voluntary withdrawal of the garrison by the United States government had been considered, and those best qualified to judge believed it had been promised. Yet, when instead of the fulfillment of just expectations, instead of the withdrawal of the garrison, a hostile expedition was organized and sent forward, the urgency of the case required its reduction [258] before it should be reenforced. Had there been delay, the more serious conflict between larger forces, land and naval, would scarcely have been bloodless, as the bombardment fortunately was. The event, however, was seized upon to inflame the mind of the Northern people, and the disguise which had been worn in the communications with the Confederate commissioners was now thrown off, and it was cunningly attempted to show that the South, which had been pleading for peace and still stood on the defensive, had by this bombardment inaugurated a war against the United States. But it should be stated that the threats implied in the declarations that the Union could not exist part slave and part free, and that the Union should be preserved, and the denial of the right of a state peaceably to withdraw, were virtually a declaration of war, and the sending of an army and navy to attack was the result to have been anticipated as the consequence of such delaration of war. On the fifteenth day of the same month, President Lincoln, introducing his farce “of combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,” called forth the military of the several states to the number of seventy-five thousand, and commanded “the persons composing the combinations” to disperse, etc. It can but surprise anyone in the least degree conversant with the history of the Union, to find states referred to as “persons composing combinations,” and that the sovereign creators of the federal government, the states of the Union, should be commanded by their agent to disperse. The levy of so large an army could only mean war; the power to declare war did not, however, reside in the President—it was delegated to the Congress only. If, however, it had been a riotous combination or an insurrection, it must have been, according to the Constitution, against the state; the power of the President to call forth the militia to suppress it was dependent upon an application from the state for that purpose; it could not precede such application, and still less could it be rightfully exercised against the will of a state. The authorities on this subject have been heretofore cited, and need not be referred to again. Suffice it to say that by section 4, Article IV, of the Constitution, the United States are bound to protect each state against invasion and against domestic violence, whenever application shall have been made by the legislature, or by the executive when the legislature cannot be convened; that to fail to give protection against any invasion whatsoever would be a dereliction of duty. To add that there could be no justification for the invasion of a state by an army of the United States, is but [259] to repeat what has been said, on the absence of any authority in the general government to coerce a state. In any possible view of the case, therefore, the conclusion must be that the calling on some of the states for seventy-five thousand militia to invade other states which were asserted to be still in the Union, was a palpable violation of the Constitution, and the usurpation of undelegated power, or, in other words, of power reserved to the states or to the people. It might, therefore, have been anticipated that Virginia—one of whose sons wrote the Declaration of Independence, another of whose sons led the armies of the United States in the Revolution which achieved their independence, and another of whose sons mainly contributed to the adoption of the Constitution of the Union—would not have been slow, in the face of such events, to reclaim the grants she had made to the general government, and to withdraw from the Union, to the establishment of which she had so largely contributed. Two days had elapsed between the surrender of Fort Sumter and the proclamation of President Lincoln calling for seventy-five thousand militia as before stated. Two other days elapsed, and Virginia passed her ordinance of secession, and two days thereafter the citizens of Baltimore resisted the passage of troops through that city on their way to make war upon the Southern states. Thus rapidly did the current of events bear us onward from peace to the desolating war which was soon to ensue. The manly effort of the unorganized, unarmed citizens of Baltimore to resist the progress of armies for the invasion of her Southern sisters, was worthy of the fair fame of Maryland, becoming the descendants of the men who so gallantly fought for the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of the states. The bold stand, then and thereafter taken, extorted a promise from the executive authorities that no more troops should be sent through the city of Baltimore; this promise, however, was observed only until, by artifice, power had been gained to disregard it. Virginia, as has been heretofore stated, passed her ordinance of secession on April 17th. It was, however, subject to ratification by the people at an election to be held on the fourth Thursday of May. She was in the meantime, like her Southern sisters, the object of Northern hostilities, and having a common cause with them, properly anticipated the election of May by forming an alliance with the Confederate States, which was ratified by the convention on April 25th. The convention for that alliance set forth that Virginia, looking to a [260] speedy union with the Confederate States, and for the purpose of meeting pressing exigencies, agreed that “the whole military force and military operations, offensive and defensive, of said Commonwealth, in the impending conflict with the United States, shall be under the chief control and direction of the President of the said Confederate States.” The whole was made subject to approval and ratification of the proper authorities of both governments respectively. To those who criticise South Carolina as having acted precipitately in withdrawing from the Union, it may be answered that intervening occurrences show that her delay could not have changed the result; further, her prompt action had enabled her better to prepare for the contingency which it was found impossible to avert. Thus she was prepared in the first necessities of Virginia to send to her troops organized and equipped. Before the convention for cooperation with the Confederate States had been adopted by Virginia, that knightly soldier, General Bonham of South Carolina, went with his brigade to Richmond; throughout the Southern states there was a prevailing desire to rush to Virginia, where it was foreseen that the first great battles of the war were to be fought; so that, as early as April 22d, I telegraphed to Governor Letcher that, in addition to the forces heretofore ordered, requisitions had been made for thirteen regiments, eight to rendezvous at Lynchburg, four at Richmond, and one at Harpers Ferry. Referring to an application that had been made to him from Baltimore, I wrote: “Sustain Baltimore if practicable. We will reenforce you.” The universal feeling was that of a common cause and common destiny. There was no selfish desire to linger around home, no narrow purpose to separate local interests from the common welfare. The object was to sustain a principle—the broad principle of constitutional liberty, the right of self-government. The early demonstrations of the enemy showed that Virginia was liable to invasion from the north, from the east, and from the west. Though the larger preparation indicated that the most serious danger to be apprehended was from the line of the Potomac, the first conflicts occurred in the east. The narrow peninsula between the James and York rivers had topographical features well adapted to defense. It was held by General John B. Magruder, who skillfully improved its natural strength by artificial means; there, on the ground memorable as the field of the last battle of the Revolution, in which General Washington compelled Lord Cornwallis to surrender, Magruder, with a small force, held for a long time the superior forces of the enemy in check.
