Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 / From Lincoln to Garfield, with a Review of the Events Which Led to the Political Revolution of 1860

by James Gillespie Blaine

The agitation of the Slavery question, while unavoidable, was nevertheless attended with serious embarrassments to the Union cause. The great outburst of patriotism which followed the fall of Sumter contemplated a rally of the entire North for the defense of the Flag and the preservation of the Union. Neither political party was to take advantage of the situation, but all alike were to share in the responsibility and in the credit of maintaining the government inviolate. Every month however had demonstrated more and more that to preserve the government without interfering with Slavery would be impossible; and as this fact became clearly evident to the Republican vision, a large section of the Democratic party obdurately refused to acknowledge it or to consent to the measures which it suggested. It was apparent therefore within the first six months of the struggle that a division would come in the North, which would be of incalculable advantage to the insurrectionists, and that if the division should go far enough it would insure victory to the Confederate cause. If the Democratic party as a whole had in the autumn of the year 1861 taken the ground which a considerable section of it assumed, it would have been impossible to conduct the war for the Union successfully. Great credit therefore was due and was cordially given to the large element in that party which was ready to brave all the opprobrium of their fellow-partisans and to accept the full responsibility of co- operating with the Republicans in war measures.

Congress had hardly come together when the change of opinion and action upon the Slavery question became apparent. Mr. Holman of Indiana, reciting the Crittenden resolution which had been passed the preceding session with only two adverse votes, offered a resolution that its principles "be solemnly re-affirmed by this House." Objection was made by several members. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens moved to lay the resolution on the table, and the motion prevailed on a yea and nay vote by 71 to 65. The majority were all Republicans. The minority was principally made up of Democrats, but Republicans as conspicuous as Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts and Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio voted in the negative. The wide divergence between this action on the part of the Republicans on the third day of December, 1861, and that which they had taken on the preceding 22d of July, was recognized and appreciated by the country, and thus began the open division on the Slavery question which continually widened, which consolidated the Republican party in support of the most radical measures, and which steadily tended to weaken the Democratic party in the loyal States.

SECRETARY CAMERON RESIGNS.

At the height of the excitement in Congress over the engagement at Ball's Bluff there was a change in the head of the War Department. The disasters in the field and the general impatience for more decisive movements on the part of our armies led to the resignation of Secretary Cameron. He was in his sixty-third year, and though of unusual vigor for his age, was not adapted by education or habit to the persistent and patient toil, to the wearisome detail of organization, to the oppressive increase of responsibility, necessarily incident to military operations of such vast proportions as were entailed by the progress of the war. He was nominated as Minister to Russia, and on the eleventh day of January, 1862, was succeeded in the War Department by Edwin M. Stanton.

Mr. Stanton signalized his entrance upon duty by extraordinary vigor in war measures, and had the good fortune to gain credit for many successes which were the result of arrangements in progress and nearly perfected under his predecessor. A week after he was sworn in, an important victory was won at Mill Springs, Kentucky, by General George H. Thomas. The Confederate commander, General Zollicoffer, was killed, and a very decisive check was put to a new development of Secession sympathy which was foreshadowed in Kentucky. A few days later, on the 27th of January, under the inspiration of Mr. Stanton, the President issued a somewhat remarkable order commanding "a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces on the 22d of February." He especially directed that the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and the naval force in the Gulf of Mexico be ready for a movement on that day. The order did not mean what was stated on its face. It was evidently intended to mislead somebody.

The Illinois colonel who had taken possession of Paducah in the preceding September was now known as Brigadier-General Grant. He had been made prominent by a daring fight at Belmont, Missouri, on the 7th of November (1861) against a largely superior force under the command of the Confederate General Pillow. For the numbers engaged it was one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the war. The quarter-master of the expedition intimated to General Grant that in case of a reverse he had but two small steamers for transportation to the Illinois shore. The General's only reply was that in the event of his defeat "the steamers would hold all that would be left." He was now in command at Cairo, and co-operating with him was a flotilla of hastily constructed gunboats under the command of Flag-officer A. H. Foote of the navy. General Grant evidently interpreted Mr. Lincoln's order to mean that he need not wait until the 22d, and he began his movement of the first day of February. By the 16th he had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The flotilla had been more active than the troops, against Fort Henry, which was speedily evacuated, but Fort Donelson did not surrender until after a hard-fought land battle in which the characteristic tenacity, skill, and bravery of General Grant were for the first time fully shown to the country. "The victory achieved," he announced in his congratulatory order to the troops, "is not only great in the effect it will have in breaking down the rebellion, but has secured the greatest number of prisoners of war ever taken in a single battle on this continent." The number of prisoners exceeded ten thousand; forty pieces of cannon and extensive magazines of ordnance with military stores of all kinds were captured. The Confederate commander was General S. B. Buckner, who had joined the rebellion under circumstances which gained him much ill will in the Loyal States. Under a flag of truce he asked General Grant on the morning of the 16th for an armistice to "settle the terms of capitulation." General Grant's answer was, "No terms except unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately on your works." General Buckner felt himself "compelled to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms" which General Grant proposed. It is due to General Buckner to say that he had been left in a humiliating position. The two generals who ranked him, Gideon J. Pillow and John B. Floyd, seeing the inevitable, had escaped from the fort the preceding night with five thousand men, leaving to Buckner the mortification of surrender. In view of this fact the use of the term "unchivalrous" by the Confederate commander can be justly appreciated.

VICTORY AT FORT DONELSON.

The effect of the victory upon the country was electric. The public joy was unbounded. General Grant had become in a day the hero of the war. His fame was on every tongue. The initials of his name were seized upon by the people for rallying-cries of patriotism, and were woven into songs for the street and for the camp. He was "Unconditional Surrender," he was "United States," he was "Uncle Sam." Not himself only but his State was glorified. It was an Illinois victory. No less than thirty regiments from that State were in General Grant's command, and they had all won great credit. This fact was especially pleasing to Mr. Lincoln. Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky were all gallantly represented on the field, but the prestige of the day belonged to Illinois. Many of her public men, prominent in political life before and since the war, were in command of regiments. The moral force of the victory was increased by the fact that so large a proportion of these prominent officers had been, like General Grant, connected with the Democratic party,—thus adding demonstration to assurance that it was an uprising of a people in defense of their government, and not merely the work of a political party seeking to extirpate slavery. John A. Logan, Richard J. Oglesby, William R. Morrison, and William Pitt Kellogg were among the Illinois officers who shared in the renown of the victory. General Lewis Wallace commanded a division made up of Indiana and Kentucky troops, and was honorably prominent. The total force under General Grant was nearly fifty regiments, furnishing about twenty-eight thousand men for duty. They had captured the strongest Confederate intrenchment in the West, manned by nearly seventeen thousand men. The defeat was a great mortification to Jefferson Davis. He communicated intelligence of the disaster to the Confederate Congress in a curt message in which he described the official reports of the battle as "incomplete and unsatisfactory," and stated that he had relieved Generals Floyd and Pillow from command.

Two important results followed the victory. The strong fortifications erected at Columbus, Kentucky, to control the passage of the Mississippi, were abandoned by the Confederates; and Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, was surrendered to the Union army without resistance. The Confederate force at the latter point was under command of General Albert Sidney Johnston, who, unable to offer battle, sullenly retreated southward. If the Confederate troops had been withdrawn from Fort Donelson in season to effect a junction with Johnston at Nashville, that able general might have delivered battle there on terms possibly advantageous to his side. It was this feature of the case which rendered the loss of Donelson so serious and so exasperating to the Confederate Government, as shown in the message of Jefferson Davis.

Another victory for the Union was gained on the coast of North Carolina under the joint efforts of the army and the navy. General Burnside was in command of the former and Commodore Gouldsborough of the latter. The battle of Roanoke Island was fought the day after the capture of Fort Henry, and the Union victory led to a lodgment of the national forces on the soil of North Carolina, which was held firmly to the end. Events beyond the Mississippi were also favorable to the National Government. General Sterling Price had been the cause of much trouble in Missouri, where he was personally popular. He had led many young men into rebellion, and his efforts to carry the State into the Confederacy were energetic and unremitting. He had been dominating a large section of Missouri and creating grave apprehensions for its safety. On the 18th of February General Halleck, who had succeeded General Frémont in the command of the Western Department, telegraphed the Secretary of War: "General Curtis has driven Price from Missouri, and is several miles across the Arkansas line, cutting up Price's army and hourly capturing prisoners and stores. The Army of the South-West is doing its duty nobly. The flag of the Union is floating in Arkansas."