by Bruce Catton
2. O.R., Vol. I, 579–82, 584. There is a sketch of Twiggs in D.A.B., Vol. XIX, 83.
3. Twiggs’ report, dated Feb. 19, 1861, is in O.R., Vol. I, 503–4. For the orders he issued, see the same volume, 515–16.
4. 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.
5. Col. Wake’s report, O.R., Vol. I, 521–22.
6. Report of Capt. S. D. Carpenter, O.R., Vol. I, 541–43.
7. O.R., Vol. I, 589, 595; B. & L., Vol. I, 39.
8. O.R., Vol. I, 598–99.
9. O. M. Roberts, Texas, (Vol. XI of Clement A. Evans’ Confederate Military History), 26; Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb, 253; Dumond, The Secession Movement, 209.
10. A thoughtful analysis of the different votes on secession is in David M. Potter, Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis, 208–15.
11. O.R., Vol. I, 597; Twiggs to Buchanan, dated March 30, 1861, in the Edwin M. Stanton Papers.
4. Talking Across a Gulf
1. Henry T. Shanks, The Secession Movement in Virginia, 1847–1861, 153–54.
2. New York Herald, Feb. 5, 1861; New York Tribune, Feb. 6; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, Second Session, Part Two, 1247.
3. 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.”
4. Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 72–76.
5. 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.
6. Letter of Charles Francis Adams to R. H. Dana, dated Feb. 9, 1861, in the Dana Papers.
7. Unsigned mss. paper of John A. Campbell, marked “memorandum relative to the Secession movement in 1860–61,” in the Memorial Literary Society, Richmond.
8. The best concise summary of Lincoln’s cabinet selections seems to this writer to be in Thomas’ Abraham Lincoln, 232–35.
9. 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.
2. Telegrams from Governor Pickens dated Feb. 7 and Feb. 8, 1861; from the William Porcher Miles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
3. Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 9, 1861, American Art Association Catalog, Manuscript Room, New York Public Library.
4. 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.
5. O.R., I., 258–59.
6. Letter of Miles to Governor Pickens dated Feb. 20, 1861, 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 Beauregard (a book which is virtually 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.)
13. 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
1. Harper’s Weekly, March 16, 1861, 165–66; Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 154.
2. 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. II, 625–27.
4. Buchanan, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 211; Curtis, Vol. II, 497.
5. 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.
6. Curtis, Vol. II, 509; Mrs. Roger Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War, 47, 56; letter of Buchanan to Bennett, Dec. 20, 1860, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
7. Memoirs of Henry Villard, Vol. I, 156: Harper’s Weekly, March 16, 165; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. III, 371–72.
8. Harper’s Weekly, p 166; Cincinnati Commercial, March 11, 1861. For a discussion of the credibility of this anecdote, see Allan Nevins, “He Did Hold Lincoln’s Hat,” in American Heritage, Vol. X, No. 2, 98–99.
9. It is interesting to note that in the first draft of this address, written during January 1861, Lincoln made the more aggressive statement: “All the power at my disposal will be used to reclaim the public property and places which have fallen; to hold, occupy and possess,” etc, etc. (Basler, Vol. IV, 254.) In December he had written to Francis P. Blair, Sr., “According to my present view if the forts shall be given up before the inaugeration, the General must retake them afterward”; and to the former Whig Congressman Peter H. Silvester of Springfield he had written “If Mr. B. surrenders the forts, I think they must be retaken.” (Basler, Vol. IV, 157, 160.) At least partly on Seward’s urging he removed from the speech as finally delivered the pledge to “reclaim” what had already been lost. Shortly after the inauguration Charles Francis Adams, Jr., wrote that Seward had talked to him about the importance of his effort to get that one word taken out. (Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., entry for March 11, 1861, in the Massachusetts Historical Society.)
10. Justice John A. Campbell wrote that Lincoln’s address was “an incendiary message—one calculated to set the country in a blaze,” but added that he believed its recommendations “will be allowed to slide.” Campbell predicted that Major Anderson would soon be withdrawn from Fort Sumter and he hoped that in the end “a reunion may be affected or be permitted.” (Letter of Justice Campbell to his mother, dated March 6, 1861, in the Alabama Department of Archives and History, at Montgomery.)
11. Isabel Wallace, Life and Letters of General W. H. L. Wallace, 100–1; Diary of Charles Francis Adams, Jr., entry for March 4.
12. New York Herald, March 5 and 6, 1861; Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. III, 106; The Education of Henry Adams, 107; Martin J. Crawford to Robert Toombs, in the Robert Toombs Letter Book, South Caroliniana Library, from Allan
Nevins’ notes.
13. “Correspondence of Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb,” 253; O.R., I, 261; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, March 5, 1861; Charleston Mercury, March 5, 1861.
14. Appleton’s Annual Cyclopaedia, 1861, 470, 472, 556, 757.
15. New York Herald, March 5, 1861.
CHAPTER FIVE: Into the Unknown
1. Two Forts and Three Agents
1. O.R., Vol. I, 197, 198–205; memorandum dated March 4, 1861, in Buchanan’s handwriting, in the James Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
2. Jeremiah S. Black’s report to Lincoln, March 5, 1861, in the J. S. Black Papers, Vol. 35, Library of Congress.
3. N.O.R., Vol. IV, 74. The situation at Fort Pickens during the winter and early spring is sketched by J. H. Gilman, “With Slemmer in Pensacola Harbor,” B. & L., Vol. I, 26–32.
4. Braxton Bragg to Mrs. Bragg, letter dated March 11, 1861, in the Braxton Bragg Papers, Missouri Historical Society.
5. N.O.R., Vol. IV, 90; O.R., Vol. I, 196–205.
6. Springfield Republican, March 14, 1861, quoting the Washington correspondent of the Boston American; letter of E. M. Stanton to Buchanan, March 16, 1861, in the Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Crawford, 373; O.R., Vol. I, 196; Roman, Military Operations, Vol. I, 36.
7. Joseph Hawley to Gideon Welles, March 12, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection, Yale University Library.
8. O.R., Vol. I, 196–205; reports of Blair and Welles in the Goodyear Collection; letter of Chase to B. J. Lossing, dated Aug. 24, 1866, also in the Goodyear Collection.
9. Doubleday, Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie, 130. At the end of March, Doubleday was writing to his wife: “If government delays many days longer it will be very difficult to relieve us in time, for the men’s provisions are going fast.” (Letter of March 29, 1861, in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.)
10. Crawford, 371; N.O.R., Vol. IV, 247, giving Fox’s report; O.R., Vol. I, 211; letter of Gustavus Fox to General Crawford, dated May 10, 1882, in the Goodyear Collection.
11. Hurlbut’s report to Lincoln, March 27, 1861, in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
12. Ward Hill Lamon, Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, 1847–1865, 68–79; O.R., Vol. I, 237.
13. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 110; Gideon Welles, Diary, Vol. I, 29.
2. Memorandum from Mr. Seward
1. William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, 20–27.
2. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. III, 394–5; O.R., Vol. I, 200–1; Crawford, 365.
3. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. III, 429–33. The cabinet members’ replies are in the Robert Todd Lincoln Papers.
4. Dairy of Charles Francis Adams, entries for March 28 and March 31, 1861, in the Massachusetts Historical Society.
5. Montgomery Meigs, “The Relations of President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton to the Military Commanders in the Civil War,” American Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, 299–300.
6. Ibid, 300.
7. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. III, 445–48; Basler, Vol. IV, 316.
8. David Mearns, The Lincoln Papers, Vol. I, 447–50.
9. Basler, Vol. IV, 316–17.
3. “If You Have No Doubt …”
1. Robert Toombs Letterbook, letter of Crawford dated March 6, 1861, in the Trescot Papers, South Caroliniana Library, Nevins’ Notes.
2. Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Documents, 47.
3. Undated notes by John A. Campbell in the Southern Historical Society Papers, New Series, Vol. IV, 31–37.
4. O.R., Vol. I, 277.
5. Campbell’s notes, as cited in Note Three, above; Edward Younger, ed., Inside the Confederate Government: the Diary of Robert Garlick Hill Kean, Head of the Bureau of War, 112–13; Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 95–96. In the William H. Seward Collection of the Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester, there is a long letter which Justice Campbell wrote to Seward on April 13, 1861, setting forth his version of the long negotiations.
6. O.R., Vol. I, 284; N.O.R., Vol. IV, 256–57.
7. N.O.R., Vol. IV, 248–49; O.R., Vol. I, 235.
8. Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, Vol. I, 34–35.
9. Rhodes, Vol. III, 345, 356; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. IV, 7, 11–13.
10. Anyone curious enough to trace the sequence of events in this situation can find a wealth of material. See Tyler Dennett, ed., Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, 30; Rev. R. L. Dabney, “Memoir of a Narrative Received of Col. John R. Baldwin, of Staunton, Touching the Origin of the War,” in Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. I, No. 6, 443–55; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction at the First Session, 39th Congress, 102–5; New York Tribune, Nov. 6, 1862, quoting a speech by Charles S. Morehead, former governor of Kentucky, printed on Oct. 13 in the Liverpool Mercury; Allan B. Magruder, “A Piece of Secret History: President Lincoln and the Virginia Convention of 1861,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXXV, April, 1875.
11. Letter of Gideon Welles to I. N. Arnold, Nov. 27, 1872, photostat in the Lincoln Collection, Chicago Historical Society; letter of Capt. Samuel Mercer to Welles, April 8, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection, Yale; undated letter of Montgomery Blair to S. L. M. Barlow, in the Barlow Papers, Huntington Library; Gideon Welles, “Fort Sumter: Facts in Relation to the Expedition Ordered by the Administration of President Lincoln for the Relief of the Garrison in Fort Sumter,” The Galaxy, Vol. X, No. 5, 620–21, 630–35.
12. Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Vol. V, 95–96; letter of Campbell to Seward, April 7, 1861, in the William H. Seward Papers, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; Russell, My Diary North and South, 34.
13. Letter of Stanton to Buchanan, April 11, 1861, in the Buchanan Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
14. Basler, Vol. IV, 323–24.
15. O.R., Vol. I, 285.
16. Crawford, 421, quoting a letter from L. P. Walker, Confederate Secretary of War; Pleasant A. Stovall, Robert Toombs, 226.
17. O.R., Vol. I, 297. One week before this, President Davis wrote a revealing letter to Braxton Bragg, commanding Confederate forces at Pensacola, giving his views on the matter of the forts: “It is scarcely to be doubted that for political reasons the U.S. govt. will avoid making an attack so long as the hope of retaining the border states remains. There would be to us an advantage in so placing them that an attack by them would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations. The case of Pensacola then is reduced to the more palpable elements of a military problem, and your measures may without disturbing views be directed to the capture of Fort Pickins and the defense of the harbor.” (Letter of Davis to Bragg, April 3, 1861, marked “unofficial”; in the Palmer Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society.) This letter is especially interesting in view of the charge that Lincoln plotted darkly to “provoke” the Confederacy into starting a war which it otherwise would not have fought.
4. The Circle of Fire
1. Letter of Chesley D. Evans to Mrs. Evans, March 31, 1861, in the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.
2. B. & L., Vol. I, 56; O.R., Vol. I, 237–38, 273.
3. Benson J. Lossing, “Mem. of Visit of Mrs. Anderson to Fort Sumter,” in the Goodyear Collection at Yale.
4. Letter of Anderson to Beauregard, March 26, 1861, in the Goodyear Collection.
5. Unsigned article, “Charleston Under Arms,” in the Atlantic Monthly for January 1861, 488–96.
6. Fox to Gen. Crawford, May 10, 1882, in the Goodyear Collection.
7. O.R., Vol. I, 294.
8. Letter of Beauregard to Maj. J. G. Barnard, March 18, 1861, in Letterbook No. 3, the Beauregard Papers, Library of Congress.
9. Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion, 112; Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Diary, 21–22.
> 10. O.R., Vol. I, 13; Crawford, 422.
11. O.R., loc. cit.; Crawford, 423–24. In the Houghton Library at Harvard University, in the papers of the Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, there are three notebooks bearing the penciled record of hearings held in the fall of 1865 on Major Anderson’s illness and retirement. They contain Anderson’s testimony on the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and have been consulted extensively in the preparation of this chapter. Anderson testifies here that he made the remark about being starved out “jocosely.”
12. O.R., Vol. I, 299, 301.
13. The text of Major Anderson’s reply is in O.R., Vol. I, 14. There is a copy of the report of Col. A. R. Chisholm in the Palmer Collection of the Western Reserve Historical Society. In his testimony before the retirement board, Major Anderson said he suspected that Beauregard “wanted to tie my hands” by stipulating that the major should not open fire prior to the evacuation of the fort. It may be worth noting that Major Anderson’s reply, and the decision to open fire, were not referred to the Confederate government. On April 12, after the bombardment had been going on for hours, Secretary of War Walker wired Beauregard: “What was Major Anderson’s reply to the proposition in my dispatch of last night?” Beauregard wired back: “He would not consent. I write today.” (O.R., Vol. I, 305.)
14. Stephen D. Lee, The First Step in the War, B. & L., Vol. I, 76. A typed booklet containing portions of his diary bearing on the events of this night is in the Stephen Dill Lee Papers, Southern Historical Collection. At the retirement hearing Major Anderson said he carefully checked his watch with the watches of the Confederates and told them: “Well, Gentlemen, at half past four you will open your fire upon me. Good morning.”
15. B. & L., Vol. I, 76; Martin Abbott, The First Shot at Fort Sumter, Civil War History, Vol. III, No. I; Robert Lebby, The First Shot on Fort Sumter, The South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Review, Vol. XII, No. 3, 143–45; D. Augustus Dickert, History of Kershaw’s Brigade, 24; Mrs. Chesnut’s Diary, 35.