by Bruce Catton
forth an interview he had had with Stanton in 1869, in the Hora-
tio Woodman Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; Rhodes,
Vol. Ill, 231; Crawford, 151.
17. O.R., Vol. I, 114.
4. Footsteps in a Dark Corridor
Mrs. Chesnut, 4-5.
Basler, Vol. IV, 149-51.
3. Letter of John A. Gilmer dated Dec. 10, 1860, in the Robert
Todd Lincoln Papers; Basler, Vol. IV, 151-52.
4. Basler, Vol. IV, 154, 156. . ■
Ibid, 157, 159.
Ibid, 162.
Ibid, 164-65.
For a brief discussion of Floyd's odd course, see D.A.B., Vol. VI, 482-83; also Nevins, Vol. II, 372.
Telegram, Trescot to Miles, marked showing receipt at Charleston Dec. 31, 1860, in the William Porcher Miles Papers.
10. Gov. Pickens to Lieut. Col. De Saussure, dated Dec. 31,
1860, in the Wilmot Gibbs De Saussure Order Book, Southern
Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
O.R., Vol. I, 120.
Ibid, 120-25; Curtis, 446.
13. Letters of H. Pollock dated Dec. 30; of Charles A. Hamil-
ton, dated Dec. 28, and of Edward Hinks, dated Dec. 26, from
the Robert Anderson Papers, Library of Congress.
14. Rhodes, Vol. in, 239-241; Meneely, The War Department,
1861, 43-45; note from Buchanan to Floyd dated "Christmas Eve-
ning," enclosing a telegram from citizens of Pittsburgh, in the
James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
5. The Strategy of Delay
Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, 115; Nichols, Disruption of American Democracy, 438, quoting a letter from the wife of Senator W. M. Gwin of California.
Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone, describing a New Year's Eve conversation with Gen. Scott, in B. & L., Vol. I, 9; O.R., Vol. I, 119.
Buchanan's account of the sequence of orders relative to the dispatch of the Brooklyn is contained in his letter of Jan. 9, 1861, to Jacob Thompson, copy in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The change of plans which led to use of the Star of the West is set forth in Buchanan's The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 189-91. A somewhat different version is in Winfield Scott's Memoirs, Vol. II, 620-21.
4. O.R., Vol. I, 132, 133.
5. Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the
War of the Rebellion (cited hereafter as N.O.R.) Vol. I, 220.
6. O.R., Vol. I, 130-31, 252; Crawford, 133, 139.
O.R., Vol. I, 9-10, containing the report of Lieut. Charles R. Wood, 9th U. S. Infantry.
Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie, 102.
9. Crawford, 184-85; B. & L., Vol. I, 61; Miss A. Fletcher,
Within Fort Sumter, or, A View of Major Anderson's Garrison Family for One Hundred and Ten Days, 14.
Crawford, 187; copy of Major Anderson's letter to W. A. Gordon, dated January 11, 1861, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The letters exchanged by Major Anderson and Governor Pickens are in O.R., Vol. I, 134-36.
12. Crawford, 189.
13. O.R., Vol. I, 137-38, 143-44; Crawford, 191-94, 209; Dou-
bleday, op cit, 117.
14. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. Ill, 118-21.
Letter of Jefferson Davis to Governor Pickens, dated Jan. 20, 1861, in the Miscellaneous Papers, Huntington Library.
Letter of Governor Pickens to Jefferson Davis, dated Jan. 23, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection.
Curtis, Vol. II, 451; Buchanan, 194-96; O.R., Vol. I, 166-68.
Crawford, 231-33.
O.R., Vol. I, 326-27.
Ibid, 474-76, 484-85.
Dumond, The Secession Movement, 204; Dunbar Rowland, History of Mississippi, the Heart of the South, Vol. I, 781.
Appleton's American Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 10-11; O. R., Series Four, Vol. I, 46-47; Rowland, History of Mississippi, Vol. I, 783-84, 790.
On Jan. 19, 1861, the Springfield (Mass.) Republican remarked that the Buchanan cabinet had become about as sectional as that of Abraham Lincoln could ever be, and predicted that "the policy of the outgoing administration by the 1st of March will have become precisely that of the incoming one"—a very fair appraisal. Two weeks earlier the politically observant Edward Mcpherson, clerk of the House of Representatives, wrote that "the Prest is under better influences ... he more clearly sees his duty. The mutterings of the mighty North have reached him." (Letter of McPherson to Francis Lieber, dated Jan. 2 and 3, 1861, in the Francis Lieber Collection at the Huntington Library.)
24. Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 428-29.
6. Everything, Even Life Itself
1. Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis: A Memoir, by His Wife, Vol. I, 696-98; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part I, 487.
Varina Howell Davis, Vol. I, 699; copy of a letter from Jefferson Davis to Anna Ella Carroll, dated March 1, 1861, in the Anna Ella Carroll Papers, Maryland Historical Society; letter of Davis to Clement C. Clay, dated Jan. 19, 1861, in the Clement C. Clay Papers, Duke University Library; Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 37-38.
Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. L Diary, 9, Documents, 17-18.
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 395, 538, 677; Du-mond, The Secession Movement, 220-22, 223.
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 477; Pulaski County Historical Review, Vol. V, Number One; Arkansas Gazette, Feb. 16, 1861; the J. M. Keller Papers, in the files of the Arkansas History Commission; Jack B. Scroggs, "Arkansas in the Secession Crisis," in the Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. XII, Number Three.
Nevins, Vol. JJ, 425-27. In a lengthy letter to J. M. Calhoun, Commissioner from Alabama, Houston acidly remarked that "we have to recollect that our conservative Northern friends cast over a quarter of a million more votes against the Black Republicans than we of the entire South." (O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 77.)
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 728-29; O.R., Series Four, Vol. I, 77.
Letter of Douglas to A. Belmont, dated Dec. 25, 1860, in the Douglas Papers, Chicago Historical Society. See also a very similar letter of his in the Lanphier Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.
Gilbert G. Glover, Immediate Pre-Civil War Compromise Efforts, 112-13; Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion, 57; David C. Mearns, The Lincoln Papers, Vol. II, 406.
Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part One, 237-38, 267.
Ibid, 341-44; New York Herald, Jan. 8 and Jan. 12, 1861; Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Diary, 15; Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips: the Agitator, 306.
New York Herald, Jan. 28, 1861; Henry Villard, Lincoln on the Eve of 1861, 58-59; letter of Charles Sumner, dated Jan. 21, 1861, from the Papers of John A. Andrew, Massachusetts Historical Society.
Villard, op cit; also Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 145; W. H. L. Wallace, letter to "Dear Ann" dated Jan. 11, 1861, in the Wallace-Dickey Papers, Illinois State Historical Library; letter of C. H. Ray, dated Jan. 17, 1861, in the John A. Andrew Papers.
McMaster, Vol. VIII, 510-11.
O.R., Vol. XVIII, 772-73.
16. Letter of Lee to Mrs. Lee, dated Jan. 23, 1861, and Lee's
letter to "My Precious Agnes," dated Jan. 29, 1861, in the Robert
E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.
Chapter Four: TWO PRESIDENTS 1. The Man and the Hour
T. C. De Leon, Four Years in the Rebel Capitals: an Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy, from Birth to Death, 23-24; New Orleans Delta, Feb. 22, 1861.
De Leon, op cit, 24, 33; Burton J. Hendrick, Statesmen of the Lost Cause, 89-90.
"Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, 1860-1862," in Publications of the Southern History Association, Vol. XI, 160-63; Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between th
e States, Vol. II, 325.
J. L. M. Curry, Civil History of the Government of the Confederate States, with Some Personal Reminiscences, 42-44, 50; E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 20-21; Hendrick, op cit, 85.
For a detailed comparison of the United States and Confederate Constitutions, see Jefferson Davis, Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. I, 648-73. Howell Cobb believed at the time that the Confederate Constitution was "the ablest instrument ever prepared for the government of a free people." Taking the United States Constitution as the basis for action, he said, "we have written down in the language of truth and simplicity the principles which an honest construction of that instrument has long pronounced its true meaning." (Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 153.)
6. Southern Literary Messenger for February 1861, 152.
7. R. Barnwell Rhett, The Confederate Government at Mont-
gomery, in B. & L., Vol. I, 99 ff; Alexander Stephens, Vol. II,
328-333.
"Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens and Howell Cobb": annual report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Vol. U, 536-37.
Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 385-86.
"Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb," 171-78.
Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 230, 236-37; Johnston and Browne, 387.
Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis, Vol. II, 18; postwar letter of Jefferson Davis, dated June 4, 1878, in the Franklin Stringfellow Papers, Virginia State Historical Society.
Montgomery Post, Feb. 20, 1861; New York Herald, Feb. 23, 1861.
Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 127; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, Feb. 16, 1861; New York Herald, Feb. 23.
2. The Long Road to Washington
1. Paul Angle, Here Have 1 Lived, 260; Basler, Vol. IV, 190;
New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1861; James G. Randall, Lincoln the
President, Vol. I, 274-75.
2. New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1861; Basler, Vol. TV, 193-96.
3. Basler, Vol. IV, 197, 204, 208, 210-11. Southern newspapers
made hay with some of these remarks. The Montgomery Post
Feb. 20, 1861 asked sharply: "What means this civil commotion,
these war-like preparations, this tearing down and building up of
government? is it all imaginary—all a mere phantom fleeing be-
fore our distorted visions? The results of the future will develop
how much of reality there is contained in this 'artificial crisis.'"
The Natchez Courier Feb. 13, 1861, was moved to lament: "Alas!
for our country's welfare! We have no Washington; no Clay; no
Webster! The eagles have fled; the serpents crawl to eminence
where eagles hardly dare to fly."
4. Basler, Vol. IV, 226, 230-33, 238, 240-41.
Villard, Memoirs, Vol. I, 151; New York Herald, Feb. 20, 1861; Montgomery Post, Feb. 22, 1861.
Letter of David Davis to Mrs. Davis, dated Feb. 17, 1861, from the David Davis Papers, Illinois State Historical Library.
The fantastic story of the assassination plot is excellently summarized in Randall, Vol. I, 286-89, and in Benjamin Thomas, 242-44.
L. E. Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 37-39.
9. The furore raised by the soft hat and the cloak, transformed
by rumor into plaid wrapper and tam o'shanter, could have been
even worse if an idea which Secretary John G. Nicolay apparent-
ly toyed with had come to anything. In the Nicolay Papers at the
Library of Congress there is a letter to Nicolay from one A. H.
Flanders of New York, dated Jan. 27, 1861, reading as follows:
"I wrote you a line yesterday from Philada. stating that I had
ascertained that I could certainly get the coat of mail made in
that city. ... I shall be very happy to get this done for Mr.
Lincoln if he will accept of it, and really hope he will not go to
Washington without it. I am confident I can get it done without
anyone knowing it is for him." A picture of Lincoln in a coat of
mail would be worthy to stand beside the one which shows the
mountain man, Jim Bridger, in a suit of armor.
10. Letter of C. F. Adams to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 18, 1861,
in the Dana Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
3. Colonel Lee Leaves Texas
B. & L., Vol. I, 36, n; Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee, Vol. I, 421.
O.R., Vol. I, 579-82, 584. There is a sketch of Twiggs in D.A.B., Vol. XIX, 83.
Twiggs's report, dated Feb. 19, 1861, is in O.R., Vol. I, 503-4. For the orders he issued, see the same volume, 515-16.
A very graphic if somewhat biased description of the doings at San Antonio and of Lee's arrival there is Mrs. Caroline Baldwin Darrow's Recollections of the Twiggs Surrender, B. & L., Vol. I, 33 ff.
Col. Waite's report, O.R., Vol. I, 521-22.
Report of Capt. S. D. Carpenter, O.R., Vol. I, 541-43.
O.R., Vol. I, 589, 595; B. & L., Vol. I, 39.
O.R., Vol. I, 598-99.
9. O. M. Roberts, Texas (Vol. XI of Clement A. Evans' Con-
federate Military History), 26; "Correspondence of Thomas Reade
Rootes Cobb," 253; Dumond, The Secession Movement, 209.
A thoughtful analysis of the different votes on secession is in David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 208-15.
O.R., Vol. I, 597; Twiggs to Buchanan, dated March 30, 1861, in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers.
4. Talking Across a Gulf
Henry T. Shanks, The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847-1861, 153-54.
New York Herald, Feb. 5, 1861; New York Tribune, Feb. 6; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part Two, 1247.
L. E. Chittenden, "A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention," 16; Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy, 484; also Crafts J. Wright, "Official Journal of the Conference Convention Held at Washington City, February 1861."
Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 72-76.
Letter of Charles Sumner to Governor Andrew, dated Feb. 20, 1861; letter of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Andrew, dated Feb. 22, 1861; both in the John A. Andrew Papers.
Letter of Charles Francis Adams to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 9, 1861, in the Dana Papers.
Unsigned mss. paper of John A. Campbell, marked "memorandum relative to the Secession movement in 1860-61," in the Memorial Literary Society, Richmond.
The best concise summary of Lincoln's cabinet selections seems to this writer to be in Thomas' Abraham Lincoln, 232-35.
Letter of C. F. Adams, Jr., to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 28, 1861, in the Dana Papers; letter of Sherrard Clemens to an unnamed recipient, dated March 1, 1861, in the William P. Palmer Civil War Collection, Western Reserve Historical Society.
5. Pressure at Fort Sumter
1. Crawford, 290; O.R., Vol. I, 183-84; B. & L., Vol. I, 53-54.
Telegrams from Governor Pickens dated Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, 1861; from the William Porcher Miles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 9, 1861, American Art Association Catalog, Manuscript Room, New York Public Library.
Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Vol. I, 46-47, 55-58; printing the text of the resolutions and of Gov. Pickens' lengthy letter.
O.R., I., 258-59.
Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 20, 1861,
498 NOTES
in the Goodyear Collection; letter of Yancey to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 27, 1861, in the Yancey Papers, Library of Congress.
7. Alfred Roman, The Military Operations of General Beaure-
gard (a book which is virtu
ally Beauregard's autobiography), VoL
I, 25, 30; T. Harry Williams, P. G. T. Beauregard, Napoleon in
Gray, 49, 54; Edward A. Pollard, The First Year of the War, 50;
O.R., Vol. I, 25-27; John S. Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command, 161.
8. Roman, Military Operations, Vol. I, 29.
9. "Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb," 182;
New York Herald, Feb. 23, 1861; Harper's Weekly, March 9,
1861; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, Feb. 20, 1861.
Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 232-36, giving the text of his inaugural. His appealing note to his wife is from Varina Howell Davis, Jefferson Davis, a Memoir, Vol. II, 32-33.
The complaint of the Mercury—a journal singularly hard to please—is from Moore's Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 30. For the reference to Douglas, see Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 540-41.
Davis describes the making of his cabinet in his Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 241 et seq. Clifford Dowdey argues that Davis's cabinet choices were the sort an ordinary politician would make in time of peace but were not fitted for the stormy times that lay ahead: "However just they all considered their cause, it was revolution. Revolutions must succeed by force, or fail. They have no status quo in which to exist and not be won." (Experiment in Rebellion, 13.) It should be pointed out, of course, that Davis knew from the start that he was going to have to fight; it was just that he never saw himself as a revolutionist. As Roy Nichols remarks, the clubby Senatorial managers from the old government were comfortably in control. (The Disruption of American Democracy, 469-71.)
Davis, Rise and Fall, Vol. I, 246, 305-7; Journal of the Confederate Congress, Vol. I, 10 1-2; Pamphlet, "Confederate Flags," Confederate Museum, Richmond.
6. First Inaugural
Harper's Weekly, March 16, 1861, 165-66; Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 154.
Charles P. Stone, Washington on the Eve of the War, in B. & L., Vol. I, 20, 24-25; Curtis, Life of James Buchanan, Vol.
II, 494.
3. Winfield Scott, Memoirs, Vol. H, 625-27.
Buchanan, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 211; Curtis, Vol. II, 497.
Curtis, Vol. II, 509, 667; letter of Buchanan to James Gordon Bennett, dated March 11, 1861, copy in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.