Nor was it on the ocean alone that the South was at a disadvantage. The Mississippi, the main artery of her commerce, which brought the harvests of the plantations to New Orleans, and which divided her territory into two distinct portions, was navigable throughout; while other great rivers and many estuaries, leading into the heart of her dominions, formed the easiest of highways for the advance of an invading army. Very early had her fatal weakness been detected. Immediately Fort Sumter fell, Lincoln had taken measures to isolate the seceding States, to close every channel by which they could receive either succour or supplies, and if need be to starve them into submission. The maritime resources of the Union were so large that the navy was rapidly expanded. Numbers of trained seamen, recruited from the merchant service and the fisheries, were at once available.
The Northern shipbuilders had long been famous; and both men and vessels, if the necessity should arise, might be procured in Europe. Judicious indeed was the policy which, at the very outset of the war, brought the tremendous pressure of the sea-power to bear against the South; and, had her statesmen possessed the knowledge of what that pressure meant, they must have realised that Abraham Lincoln was no ordinary foe. In forcing the Confederates to become the aggressors, and to fire on the national ensign, he had created a united North; in establishing a blockade of their coasts he brought into play a force, which, like the mills of God, “grinds slowly, but grinds exceeding small.”
But for the present the Federal navy was far too small to watch three thousand miles of littoral indented by spacious harbours and secluded bays, protected in many cases by natural breakwaters, and communicating by numerous channels with the open sea. Moreover, it was still an even chance whether cotton became a source of weakness to the Confederacy or a source of strength. If the markets of Europe were closed to her by the hostile battle-ships, the credit of the young Republic would undoubtedly be seriously impaired; but the majority of the Southern politicians believed that the great powers beyond the Atlantic would never allow the North to enforce her restrictive policy. England and France, a large portion of whose population depended for their livelihood on the harvests of the South, were especially interested; and England and France, both great maritime States, were not likely to brook interference with their trade. Nor had the Southern people a high opinion of Northern patriotism. They could hardly conceive that the maintenance of the Union, which they themselves considered so light a bond, had been exalted elsewhere to the height of a sacred principle. Least of all did they believe that the great Democratic party, which embraced so large a proportion of the Northern people, and which, for so many years, had been in close sympathy with themselves, would support the President in his coercive measures.
History, moreover, not always an infallible guide, supplied many plausible arguments to those who sought to forecast the immediate future. In the War of Independence, not only had the impracticable nature of the country, especially of the South, baffled the armies of Great Britain, but the European powers, actuated by old grudges and commercial jealousy, had come to the aid of the insurgents. On a theatre of war where trained and well-organised forces had failed, it was hardly to be expected that raw levies would succeed; and if England, opposed in 1782 by the fleets of France, Spain, and Holland, had been compelled to let the colonies go, it was hardly likely that the North, confronted by the naval strength of England and France, would long maintain the struggle with the South. Trusting then to foreign intervention, to the dissensions of their opponents, and to their own hardihood and unanimity, the Southerners faced the future with few misgivings.
At Richmond, finding himself without occupation, Major Jackson volunteered to assist in the drilling of the new levies. The duty to which he was first assigned was distasteful. He was an indifferent draughtsman, and a post in the topographical department was one for which he was hardly fitted. The appointment, fortunately, was not confirmed. Some of his friends in the Confederate Congress proposed that he should be sent to command at Harper’s Ferry, an important outpost on the northern frontier of Virginia. There was some opposition, not personal to Jackson and of little moment, but it called forth a remark that shows the estimation in which he was held by men who knew him.
“Who is this Major Jackson?” it was asked.
“He is one,” was the reply, “who, if you order him to hold a post, will never leave it alive to be occupied by the enemy.”
Harper’s Ferry, the spot where the first collision might confidently be expected, was a charge after Jackson’s own heart.
April 26 “Last Saturday,” he writes to his wife, “the Governor handed me my commission as Colonel of Virginia Volunteers, the post I prefer above all others, and has given me an independent command. Little one, you must not expect to hear from me very often, as I expect to have more work than I ever had in the same length of time before; but don’t be concerned about your husband, for our kind Heavenly Father will give every needful aid.”
The garrison at Harper’s Ferry consisted of a large number of independent companies of infantry, a few light companies, as they were called, of cavalry, and fifteen smooth-bore cannon of small calibre. This force numbered 4,500 officers and men, of whom all but 400 were Virginians. Jackson’s appearance was not hailed with acclamation. The officers of the State militia had hitherto exercised the functions of command over the ill-knit concourse of enthusiastic patriots. The militia, however, was hardly more than a force on paper, and the camps swarmed with generals and field-officers who were merely civilians in gaudy uniform. By order of the State Legislature these gentlemen were now deprived of their fine feathers. Every militia officer above the rank of captain was deposed; and the Governor of Virginia was authorised to fill the vacancies. This measure was by no means popular. Both by officers and men it was denounced as an outrage on freemen and volunteers; and the companies met in convention for the purpose of passing denunciatory resolutions.