A History of the United States

by Charles Kendall Adams; William P. Trent

DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN COMPLICATIONS.

Confederate Flag.

462. First Bloodshed.—Among those in the North who had foreseen the conflict, one of the foremost was Governor John A. Andrew, of Massachusetts. Inaugurated early in January, 1861, he had set about preparing for hostilities by organizing the state militia and by purchasing arms in Europe. Only four days after the call for troops, therefore, the 6th Massachusetts Regiment was ready to move to Washington. While passing through Baltimore, the regiment was attacked by a mob and several men were killed. This was the first bloodshed of the war. The road through Baltimore was closed, and all trains with men and supplies were for several months obliged to pass around the city by way of Annapolis. But this was not the worst. The railroad from Annapolis to Washington was torn up and every telegraph line from Washington to the North was cut. Exit from the capital in any direction was, for a time, made impossible. With the news that Virginia had seceded, came the rumor that a large Southern force was on the march to take Washington. General Winfield Scott, then in command as general in chief of the United States armies, placed barricades about all the public buildings, and distributed the few guns he had at the various approaches to the city. There were only twenty-five hundred troops at his disposal. But officers and men in the departments were brought into service, and many citizens enlisted. The women and children were ordered out of town. During all this terrible excitement and anxiety, a committee from Baltimore appeared before the President and protested that the soil of Maryland should not be “polluted” by troops designed to invade the South. Lincoln replied, “We must have troops, and, as they can neither crawl under Maryland nor fly over it, they must come across it.” The alarming rumor proved to have no foundation. The South was not ready for an attack upon the capital.

463. The Border States.—The great fears naturally felt with regard to the secession of other border states besides Virginia were gradually relieved. This was caused partly by the wise management of Lincoln, partly by the unexpected enthusiasm throughout the North in responding to the call for troops, and partly by the firmness of the Union sympathizers in those states. Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri did not secede; but while these states thus remained in the Union, the people were divided in their sympathies, some going into one army, and some into the other. Though Tennessee seceded and joined the Confederacy, many of her people, especially in the Cumberland Mountains, were stanch supporters of the Union throughout the war. On the other hand, in southern Indiana and Illinois there were many sympathizers with the South, and nothing but the ability and the energy of the governors of those states and the intense loyalty of the Unionists kept up the full quota of their troops. In Virginia, while the people in the eastern part of the state were generally Secessionists, a majority of those west of the mountains were adherents of the Union. When, therefore, Virginia withdrew, the people of the western portion voted to break away from the rest of the state, and on December 31, 1862, Congress, with apparently more regard to necessity than to the Constitution, admitted the region to the Union as West Virginia.

464. Foreign Recognition.—On May 13, 1861, Great Britain issued a “Proclamation of Neutrality,” which, in effect, recognized the Confederates as belligerents, and this example was soon imitated by the other European states. Thus the Confederates obtained the right to have war vessels, and to take refuge for repairs and needed supplies in foreign harbors. The consular agents of the United States reported that Southern agents were buying arms wherever they could be obtained in Europe.

465. Equipment and Further Preparation.—In the beginning of the war, though enlistments were rapid, preparations for an advance were necessarily slow. The Southern ports were declared blockaded, but the North had not enough ships on hand with which to make the blockade effective. Coasting vessels of all kinds were rapidly brought into the service, supplies had to be collected, and troops had to be equipped and drilled. The Confederates were more rapidly organized, because their preparations for war had been much more advanced when the war began, although they, too, were short of arms and powder. Before the North was ready to move, the Confederacy had formed a strong line across Virginia from Harper’s Ferry to Norfolk. It had also placed strong fortifications along the Mississippi River, the Mexican border, and about the Atlantic ports. A little later the construction of Forts Henry and Donelson, on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, protected the northern frontiers. Thus the Confederacy was nearly surrounded with a line of defenses. Early in May, when the Northern troops reached the line of action, skirmishing began, but no important engagement occurred before July. On the 4th of July, Congress met in special session. Lincoln, in his message, after reviewing the situation, said: “This issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy—a government of the people by the same people—can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes.” Congress at once authorized the President, at his discretion, to call out five hundred thousand volunteers, and gave him all the powers necessary to carry on the war.

MILITARY MOVEMENTS OF 1861.

466. Movements in West Virginia.—Early in the summer of 1861, General George B. McClellan advanced from Ohio into western Virginia, and in less than a month succeeded in driving the Confederates out of that mountainous region. A little later, General Robert E. Lee, in command of an insufficient Confederate force, and in an inclement season, attempted to recover the ground lost, but he was successfully resisted by General Rosecrans, and the district remained in the hands of the Union.