confided to him. He felt that he had no moral right to shrink, nor even to count the chances of his own life in what might follow."
The only direct request made in the message was that, to make "this contest a short and decisive one," Congress would "place at the control of the government for the work at least 400,000 men, and $400,000,000. That number of men is about one tenth of those of proper ages within the regions where apparently all are willing to engage, and the sum is less than a twenty-third part of the money value owned by the men who seem ready to devote the whole."
The message was well received by the people, as it deserved to be.
The proceedings of Congress can only be referred to with brevity. Yet a mere recital of the names of the more noteworthy members of the Senate and the House must be intruded, if merely for the flavor of reminiscence which it will bring to readers who recall those times. In the Senate, upon the Republican side, there were: Lyman Trumbull from Illinois, James Harlan and James W. Grimes from Iowa, William P. Fessenden from Maine, Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson from Massachusetts, Zachariah Chandler from Michigan, John P. Hale from New Hampshire, Benjamin F. Wade from Ohio, and John Sherman, who was elected to fill the vacancy created by the appointment of Salmon P. Chase to the Treasury Department, David Wilmot from Pennsylvania,
filling the place of Simon Cameron, Henry B. Anthony from Rhode Island, Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, Jacob Collamer from Vermont, and James R. Doolittle from Wisconsin. On the Democratic side, there were: James A. McDougall of California, James A. Bayard and William Saulsbury of Delaware, Jesse D. Bright of Indiana, who was expelled February 5, 1862, John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky, who a little later openly joined the Secessionists, and was formally expelled December 4, 1861; he was succeeded by Garrett Davis, an "American or Old Line Whig," by which name he and two senators from Maryland preferred to be described; James W. Nesmith of Oregon. Lane and Pomeroy, the first senators from the free State of Kansas, were seated. In the House Galusha A. Grow of Pennsylvania, who had lately knocked down Mr. Keitt of South Carolina in a fisticuff encounter on the floor of the chamber, was chosen speaker, over Francis P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania was the most prominent man in the body. Among many familiar names in running down the list the eye lights upon James E. English of Connecticut; E.B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold, and Owen Lovejoy of Illinois; Julian, Voorhees, and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana; Crittenden of Kentucky; Roscoe Conkling, Reuben E. Fenton, and Erastus Corning of New York; George H. Pendleton, Vallandigham, Ashley, Shellabarger, and S.S. Cox of Ohio;
Covode of Pennsylvania; Maynard of Tennessee. The members came together in very good temper; and the great preponderance of Republicans secured dispatch in the conduct of business; for the cliques which soon produced intestine discomfort in that dominant party were not yet developed. No ordinary legislation was entered upon; but in twenty-nine working days seventy-six public Acts were passed, of which all but four bore directly upon the extraordinary emergency. The demands of the President were met, with additions: 500,000 men and $500,000,000 were voted; $207,000,000 were appropriated to the army, and $56,000,000 to the navy. August 6 Congress adjourned.
The law-makers were treated, during their session, to what was regarded, in the inexperience of those days, as a spectacle of real war. During a couple of months past large bodies of men had been gathering together, living in tents, shouldering guns, and taking the name of armies. General Butler was in command at Fortress Monroe, and was faced by Colonel Magruder, who held the peninsula between the York and the James rivers. Early in June the lieutenants of these two commanders performed the comical fiasco of the "battle" of Big Bethel. In this skirmish the Federal regiments fired into each other, and then retreated, while the Confederates withdrew; but in language of absurd extravagance the Confederate colonel reported that he had won a great victory, and
Northern men flushed beneath the ridicule incurred by the blunder of their troops.
A smaller affair at Vienna was more ridiculous; several hundred soldiers, aboard a train of cars, started upon a reconnoissance, as if it had been a picnic. The Confederates fired upon them with a couple of small cannon, and they hastily took to the woods. When they got home they talked wisely about "masked batteries." But the shrewdness and humor of the people were not thus turned aside, and the "masked battery" long made the point of many a bitter jest.