Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading

by George Park Fisher

THE DRED-SCOTT CASE.—James Buchanan became president in 1857. At this time the Supreme Court decided that neither negro slaves nor their descendants, slave or free, could become citizens of the United States; and added incidentally the dictum that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and that Congress had no right to prohibit the carrying of slaves into any State or Territory. The effect of this opinion, if embodied in a legal decision, would have been to prevent the exclusion of slavery, even by a Territorial legislature, prior to the existence of the State government. This judicial act, following upon the attitude taken by the government at Washington with reference to the Kansas troubles, greatly strengthened the numbers and stimulated the determination of the Republican party in the Northern States.

THE JOHN BROWN RAID.—An occurrence not without a considerable effect in exciting the resentment, as well as the apprehensions, of the South, was the attempt of John Brown, a brave old man of the Puritan type, whose enmity to slavery had been deepened by conflict and suffering in the Kansas troubles, to stir up an insurrection of slaves in Virginia. With a handful of armed men, he seized the United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry in Virginia. Half of his followers were killed: he himself was captured, and, after being tried and convicted by the State authorities, was hanged (Dec. 2, 1859).

SECESSION OF STATES.—In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln received the electoral vote of every Northern State except New Jersey. The conviction of the Southern political leaders that the anti-slavery feeling of the North, with its great and growing preponderance in wealth and population, would dictate the policy of the general government, determined them to attempt to break up the Union. The result, it was expected, would be the permanent establishment of a slave-holding confederacy, or the obtaining of new constitutional guaranties and safeguards of the institution of slavery; which, it was felt, would be undermined even if nothing more were done than to prevent the spread of it beyond the States where it existed. South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession (Dec. 20, 1860), and was followed in this act by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The delegates of the seceding States met at Montgomery, Ala., and formed a new government under the name of the Confederate States of America (Feb. 8, 1861). Jefferson Davis was elected president, and Alexander H. Stephens vice-president. Except at Pensacola in Florida, and in Charleston, all the national property within the borders of the seceding States was seized. Efforts looking to compromise and conciliation were of no effect. After the accession of Mr. Lincoln, the purpose of the government to send supplies to the garrison of Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, caused the Confederates to attack that fortress, which the commander, Major Anderson, after a gallant defense, was obliged to surrender. President Lincoln immediately issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers to serve for three months, and called Congress together (April 15). There was a great uprising in the Northern States. The President's call for troops at once met with an enthusiastic response. Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina now joined the Southern Confederacy, the capital of which was established at Richmond. Great Britain recognized the Confederate States as having the rights of belligerents (May 13). France did the same.

EVENTS OF THE WAR IN 1861-62.—Only a brief account can be given of the events of the war. General Winfield Scott was at first in command of the Union forces, and General J. E. Johnston of the forces of the Confederates. It was imagined at the North, that there could be an easy and quick advance of the Federal forces to Richmond; but the troops were not drilled, and the preparations for a campaign were wholly inadequate. The Union troops were defeated at Bull Run, or Manassas, and Washington was thrown into a panic (July 21, 1861). Congress at once adopted energetic measures for raising a large army and for building a navy. General George B. McClellan was placed in command of the forces. It was foreseen on both sides, that the result of the conflict might depend on the course taken by foreign powers, especially by England. The South counted upon the demand for cotton as certain to secure English help, direct or indirect, for the Southern cause. Mr. Charles Francis Adams was selected by Mr. Seward, the secretary of state, to represent the Union at the Court of St. James. The Confederates sent abroad Mr. Mason and Mr. Slidell to procure the full recognition of the new Confederacy by England and France. The Trent, on which they sailed, was stopped by Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy, and the commissioners taken from it. This breach of international law threatened war, which was averted by the surrender of the two captives to England. England, however, refused to assent to Louis Napoleon's proposal to recognize the independence of the seceding States; but the laxness of the British Government in not preventing the fitting out of vessels of war in her ports, to prey on American commerce, excited indignation in the United States. Palmerston was at the head of the cabinet, and Lord John Russell was secretary for foreign affairs. For the depredations of the Alabama, the tribunal chosen to arbitrate at the end of the war, and meeting at Geneva, condemned England to pay to the United States an indemnity of fifteen and a half millions of dollars. Early in 1862 Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland, were taken by General Ulysses S. Grant, who led the land forces, and Commodore A. H. Foote, who commanded the gunboats. At Fort Donelson nearly fifteen thousand prisoners were captured. Grant fought the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, which continued two days (April 6, 7), and ended in the retreat of the Confederates. Their general, A. S. Johnston, was killed, and the command of his troops devolved on Beauregard. Grant, who had been reinforced by Buell, drove the Confederates back to Corinth, Miss., nineteen miles distant. The capture of Island Number Ten, by Pope, followed; and soon Memphis was in the hands of the Union forces. Farragut ran the gauntlet of the forts at New Orleans (April 24), and captured that city. In the East the Union forces had not been so successful. The iron-sheathed frigate Merrimac destroyed the Union fleet at Hampton Roads (March 9), but was driven back to Gosport by the timely appearance of the iron-clad Union vessel, the Monitor. McClellan undertook to approach Richmond by the peninsula. The campaign lasted from March to July, and included, besides various other engagements, the important battles of Fair Oaks, and of Malvern Hill (July 1). At the end of June the Union army was driven back to Harrison's Landing on the James River. Meantime the Confederate general, Jackson, in the valley of the Shenandoah, repulsed Fremont, Banks, and McDowell, and joined General Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate forces, who now pressed forward towards Washington. Pope was defeated at Manassas (Aug. 29, 30), and Lee crossed the Potomac into Maryland. He was met by McClellan, and defeated at Antietam (Sept. 17), but was able to withdraw in safety across the river. McClellan was superseded by Burnside, who was defeated by Lee at Fredericksburg (Dec. 13).

EMANCIPATION.—On the 1st of January, 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring all slaves in States or parts of States in rebellion, to be free. This act was legally possible only as a belligerent measure, or as an exercise of the right of a commander. The refusal of the Government to carry on the war for the direct purpose of emancipation, or to adopt measures of this character before,—measures which the Constitution did not permit,—was not understood in foreign countries, and, in England especially, had tended to chill sympathy with the Northern cause. Regiments of negro soldiers were now formed.

THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF 1863.—Hooker succeeded Burnside in command of the Potomac Army, and was defeated by Lee at Chancellorsville (May 3). There "Stonewall" Jackson, one of the best and bravest of the Confederate generals, lost his life. Lee now crossed the river, and entered Pennsylvania. This was the critical moment in the struggle. Great pains were taken, by such people in the North as were disaffected with the administration at Washington, to manifest hostility to the war, or to the method in which it was prosecuted. A riot broke out in the city of New York while the drafts for troops were in progress, and it was several days before it was put down. The defeat of Lee by Meade at Gettysburg (July 1-3) turned the tide against the Confederates; their army again retired beyond the Potomac. At the same time, in the West, General Grant captured Vicksburg with upwards of thirty thousand men (July 4), and Port Hudson was taken. The Mississippi was thus opened to its mouth. The Union navy acted effectively on the Atlantic coast, and at the end of the year nearly all the Southern ports were closed by blockades.

VICTORIES AT CHATTANOOGA.—Grant assumed command of the military division of the Mississippi, including the region between the Alleghanies and that river. With the Army of the Cumberland under Thomas, with reinforcements from Vicksburg under Sherman and from the Army of the Potomac under Hooker, he won the victories of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, at Chattanooga, Tennessee (Nov. 24 and 25). This success opened a path for the Union forces into Alabama and the Atlantic States. Sherman was sent to reinforce Burnside in Tennessee, and defeated Longstreet.

TO THE SURRENDER OF LEE.—Grant was made lieutenant-general, or first in command under the President (March 7, 1864). Three attempts to reach Richmond, made severally by McClellan, Hooker, and Burnside, had failed, as Lee's two aggressive movements had been defeated at Antietam and Gettysburg. The "border States" in the West were in the hands of the Union forces, as well as the lower Mississippi; and the blockade was maintained along the Atlantic coast. The plan now was for Sherman to secure Georgia, and to march eastward and northward into the heart of the Confederacy, starting at Chattanooga. Military operations, which had been prosecuted over so vast an extent of territory, now began to have a unity which they had greatly missed before. Grant personally took command of the Army of the Potomac. His object was to get between Lee's army and Richmond. This object was not effected; but the sanguinary battle of the Wilderness (May 5, 6), and other subsequent battles, had the effect, in the course of six weeks, to push Lee back within the fortifications of Petersburg and Richmond. During the long siege of these places, diversions were attempted by Early in Maryland and Pennsylvania; but he was repelled and defeated by Sheridan. The Confederate vessel Alabama was sunk in the English Channel by the Kearsarge (June, 1864). Farragut captured the forts in Mobile Bay. Sherman's forces, after a series of engagements, entered Atlanta, Ga., which the Confederates had been compelled to evacuate (Sept. 2). A detachment was sent by Sherman, under Thomas, after Hood, which defeated him at Nashville (Dec. 15, 16). Sherman marched through Georgia, and entered Savannah (Dec. 21). On Feb. 1, 1865, he commenced his movement northward. The attempts of General J. E. Johnston to check his advance were ineffectual. Sherman entered Columbia, S. C., and pushed on to Raleigh; Johnston, whose numbers were inferior, retiring as he approached. The efforts of Lee to break away from Grant, in order to effect a junction with Johnston, did not succeed. Sheridan's victory over Lee at Five Forks (April 1) compelled him to evacuate Petersburg. He was pursued and surrounded by Grant, and surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House (April 9). The Union forces had entered Richmond (April 2). Johnston surrendered his forces to Sherman (April 26). Jefferson Davis was captured by a body of Union cavalry in Georgia (May 10).

MURDER OF LINCOLN.—The joy felt in the North over the complete victory of the Union cause was turned into grief by the assassination of President Lincoln (April 14), who had begun his second term on the 4th of March. He was shot in a theater in Washington, by a fanatic named Booth, who imagined that he was avenging wrongs of the South. An attempt was made at the same time to murder Secretary Seward in his bed. The assailant inflicted on him severe but not fatal wounds.

Mr. Lincoln had taken a strong hold upon the affections of the people. With a large store of plain common-sense, with an even temper, an abounding good-nature, and a humor that cast wise thoughts into the form of pithy maxims and similes, he combined an unflinching firmness, and loyalty to his convictions of duty. He refused to be hurried to the issue of an edict of emancipation, which, as he judged, if prematurely framed, would lose to the Union cause the great States of Maryland, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. Keeping steadily before him the prime object of the war, he inculcated, as he felt, malice toward none, and charity for all. What Clarendon says of Cromwell is true of Lincoln: "As he grew into place and authority, his parts seemed to be raised, as if he had had concealed faculties, till he had occasion to use them."