Nevertheless, Jefferson Davis, already overborne by pressure from South Carolina, ordered Beauregard to demand its evacuation, and, if refused, "to reduce it."[2] Answering Beauregard's aides, who submitted the demand on the afternoon of April 11, Anderson refused to withdraw, adding, "if you do not batter the fort to pieces about us, we shall be starved out in a few days."'[3] To this message the Confederate Secretary of War replied: "Do not desire needlessly to bombard Fort Sumter. If Major Anderson will state the time at which, as indicated by him, he will evacuate, and agree in the meantime he will not use his guns against us unless ours should be employed against Sumter, you are authorised thus to avoid the effusion of blood. If this or its equivalent be refused, reduce the fort as your judgment decides to be the most practicable."[4] Four aides submitted this proposition at a quarter before one o'clock on the morning of April 12, to which Anderson, after conferring two hours and a half with his officers, replied, "I will evacuate by noon on the 15th instant, and I will not in the meantime open fire upon your forces unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my Government, should I not receive, prior to that time, controlling instructions from my Government or additional supplies."[5]
The aides refused these terms, and without further consultation with Beauregard notified Anderson that in one hour their batteries would open fire on the fort. Prompt to the minute, at 4.30 o'clock in the morning, a shell from Fort Johnson, signalling the bombardment to begin, burst directly over Sumter. At seven o'clock Anderson's force, numbering one hundred and twenty-eight officers, men, and non-combatant labourers, who had breakfasted upon half rations of pork and damaged rice, began returning the fire, which continued briskly at first and afterwards intermittently until the evacuation on Sunday afternoon, the 14th inst.[6]
Within twenty-four hours the prophecy of Robert Toombs was practically fulfilled, for when, on Monday, April 15, President Lincoln called for 75,000 State militia to execute the laws, the people of the North rose almost as one man to support the government. "At the darkest moment in the history of the Republic," Emerson wrote, "when it looked as if the nation would be dismembered, pulverised into its original elements, the attack on Fort Sumter crystalised the North into a unit, and the hope of mankind was saved."[7]
Much speculation had been indulged respecting the attitude of New York City. It was the heart of the Union and the home of Southern sympathy. Men had argued coolly and philosophically about the right of secession, and journals of wide influence daily exhibited strong Southern leanings. Owing to business connections and social intercourse with the South, merchants had petitioned for concessions so offensive to Lincoln that Southern statesmen confidently relied upon their friendship as an important factor in dividing the North. On many platforms Daniel S. Dickinson, James T. Brady, John Cochrane, and others equally well known and influential, had held the North responsible for conditions that, it was claimed, were driving the South into secession. So recently as December 20, in a meeting of more than ordinary importance, held on Pine Street, at which Charles O'Conor presided, and John A. Dix, John J. Cisco, William B. Astor, and others of similar character were present, Dickinson declared that "our Southern brothers will reason with us when we will reason with them.... The South have not offended us.... But their slaves have been run off in numbers by an underground railroad, and insult and injury returned for a constitutional duty.... If we would remain a united people we must treat the Southern States as we treated them on the inauguration of the government—as political equals."[8]
In a speech at Richmond on March 14 Cochrane promised that New York would sustain Virginia in any policy it adopted,[9] and on April 4 a Confederate commissioner, writing from Manhattan, reported to Jefferson Davis that two hundred of the most influential and wealthy citizens were then arranging the details to declare New York a free city. Several army officers as well as leading ship-builders, said the letter, had been found responsive, through whose assistance recruits from the ranks of the conspirators were to seize the navy yard, forts, and vessels of war, and to hold the harbor and city.[10] While nothing was known to the friends of the Union of the existence of such a conspiracy, deep anxiety prevailed as to how far the spirit of rebellion which had manifested itself in high places, extended among the population of the great metropolis.
The guns aimed at Sumter, however, quickly removed the impression that the greed of commerce was stronger than the love of country. The Stock Exchange resounded with enthusiastic cheers for Major Anderson, and generous loans showed that the weight of the financial and trade centre of the country was on the side of the national government. But more convincing proof of a solid North found expression in the spirit of the great meeting held at Union Square on Saturday, April 20. Nothing like it had ever been seen in America. Men of all ranks, professions, and creeds united in the demonstration. Around six platforms, each occupied with a corps of patriotic orators, an illustrious audience, numbering some of the most famous Democrats of the State, who had quickly discarded political prejudices, stood for hours listening to loyal utterances that were nobly illustrated by the valour of Major Anderson, whose presence increased the enthusiasm into a deafening roar of repeated cheers. If any doubt heretofore existed as to the right of coercing a State, or upon whom rested the responsibility for beginning the war, or who were the real enemies of the Union, or where prominent members of the Democratic party would stand, it had now disappeared. The partisan was lost in the patriot.
Daniel S. Dickinson travelled two hundred miles to be present at this meeting, and his attitude, assumed without qualification or reservation, especially pleased the lovers of the Union. Of all men he had retained and proclaimed his predilections for the South with the zeal and stubbornness of an unconverted Saul. Throughout the long discussion of twenty years his sympathy remained with the South, his ambitions centred in the South, and his words, whether so intended or not, encouraged the South to believe in a divided North. But the guns at Sumter changed him as quickly as a voice converted St. Paul. "It were profitless," he said, his eyes resting upon the torn flag that had waved over Sumter—"it were profitless to inquire for original or remote causes; it is no time for indecision or inaction.... I would assert the power of the government over those who owe it allegiance and attempt its overthrow, as Brutus put his signet to the death-warrant of his son, that I might exclaim with him, 'Justice is satisfied, and Rome is free.' For myself, in our federal relations, I know but one section, one Union, one flag, one government. That section embraces every State; that Union is the Union sealed with the blood and consecrated by the tears of the revolutionary struggle; that flag is the flag known and honoured in every sea under heaven; that government is the government of Washington, and Adams, and Jefferson, and Jackson; a government which has shielded and protected not only us, but God's oppressed children, who have gathered under its wings from every portion of the globe."[11]
Fernando Wood, until recently planning to make New York an independent city, now declared the past buried, with its political associations and sympathies, and pledged the municipality, its money and its men, to the support of the Union. "I am with you in this contest. We know no party, now."[12] Of the fifty or more speeches delivered from the several platforms, perhaps the address of John Cochrane, whose ridiculous Richmond oration was scarcely a month old, proved the most impressive. Cochrane had a good presence, a clear, penetrating voice, and spoke in round, rhetorical periods. If he sometimes illustrated the passionate and often the extravagant declaimer, his style was finished, and his fervid appeals deeply stirred the emotions if they did not always guide the reason. It was evident that he now spoke with the sincere emotion of one whose mind and heart were filled with the cause for which he pleaded. In his peroration, pointing to the torn flag of Sumter, he raised the vast audience to such a pitch of excitement that when he dramatically proclaimed his motto to be, "Our country, our whole country—in any event, a united country," the continued cheering was with great difficulty sufficiently suppressed to allow the introduction of another speaker.[13]
Of the regiments called for New York's quota was seventeen. Governor Morgan immediately communicated it to the Legislature, which authorised in a few hours the enlistment of 30,000 volunteers for two years. Instantly every drill room and armory in the State became a scene of great activity, and by April 19, four days after the call, the Seventh New York, each man carrying forty-eight rounds of ball cartridge, received an enthusiastic ovation as it marched down Broadway on its way to Washington. Thereafter, each day presented, somewhere in the State, a similar pageant. Men offered their services so much faster than the Government could take them that bitterness followed the fierce competition.[14] By July 1 New York had despatched to the seat of war 46,700 men—an aggregate that was swelled by December 30 to 120,361. Loans to the government, offered with an equally lavish hand, approximated $33,000,000 in three months.