CHAPTER II.
PREPARATION FOR CONFLICT.
DEFENCELESS CONDITION OF WASHINGTON—SECESSION SYMPATHIZERS IN OFFICE—VOLUNTEERS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA—COL. CHARLES P. STONE—PROTECTION OF PUBLIC OFFICES AND GUARDING OF COMMUNICATIONS—UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE—RESPONSE OF THE MILITIA—THE SIXTH MASSACHUSETTS IN BALTIMORE—THE NEW YORK SEVENTH REACHES WASHINGTON—DEATH OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH—SOUTHERN MILITARY AGGRESSION—HARPER'S FERRY CAPTURED—GOSPORT NAVY YARD BURNED AND EVACUATED.
During the interval between the election and the inauguration of President Lincoln, a very alarming condition of affairs existed at the national capital. The administration was in the hands of men who, even those who were not actively disloyal, were not Republicans, and did not desire to assume responsibility for the crisis which the Republican success at the polls had precipitated.
The Government service was honeycombed with secession sentiment, which extended from cabinet officers down to department clerks. Always essentially a city of Southern sympathies, Washington was filled with the advocates of State Rights. The retiring Democratic President, James Buchanan, in addition to a perhaps not unnatural timidity in the face of impending war and a reluctance to embroil his administration in affairs which it properly belonged to the incoming administration to settle, was also torn with conflicting opinions as to the constitutional questions involved, especially as to his power to coerce a sovereign State. Turning to his cabinet for advice, he was easily led to do the things that simplified the Southern preparations to leave the Union.
It has been told that the regular army troops had been sent away from Washington, leaving a mere handful of marines on duty there. It became a problem for loyal men to devise means for the maintenance of order at the seat of Government. It being the policy of the Government at that time to do nothing to provoke hostilities, it was deemed unwise to bring regular troops openly into Washington. There was no regularly organized militia there; only a few independent companies of doubtful, or unascertained, loyalty.
The aged Gen. Winfield Scott was in command of the army in 1860, and appreciating that trouble would come either from continued acquiescence in the aggressions of the South or from a show of force, he advised the President to quietly enroll the loyal people of the District of Columbia for the guardianship of the capital. For this duty he called in Charles P. Stone, a graduate of West Point and a veteran of the Mexican war, who was made Inspector-General of the District of Columbia, with the rank of colonel.
Colonel Stone took measures to ascertain the sentiments of the existing independent military companies. With admirable diplomacy he disarmed such of them as were found to be disloyal. Some of them he found to be in excellent condition of drill and equipment, by connivance of the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, and they were well aware that it was their destiny to help defend the South against the "coercion" of the Yankees. Opposition from the War Department to Colonel Stone's measures ceased with Floyd's resignation, and under the new Secretary of War, Joseph Holt (afterward Lincoln's Attorney-General), he was able to enroll in a few weeks thirty-three companies of infantry volunteers and two troops of cavalry, under trustworthy leaders. These were recruited from neighborhoods, from among artisans, and from fire companies. All this was done with the discretion required by the strained condition of public feeling, which was such that, as General Scott said to Colonel Stone, "a dog-fight might cause the gutters of the capital to run with blood." As the time for Lincoln's inauguration approached, it became safe to move more openly; and by the 4th of March a company of sappers and miners and a battery had been brought down from West Point, while thirty new companies had been added to the volunteer force of the District.
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