Another destruction of Government property by Government officers, about this time, most unnecessary and unfortunate, deprived the Navy Department of ships and material that would have been incalculably precious, and furnished the Confederates with three ships, one of which, the Merrimac, was to be heard from later in a signal manner.
At the Gosport Navy Yard, opposite Norfolk, Va., there were, besides many munitions of war, no less than eleven fine war ships, a majority of which were armed and ready for sea. The Government made prompt preparations to secure these after the fall of Sumter; and but for the delay of the commandant, Commodore Charles S. McCauley, in executing his orders, a number of the vessels, with stores, armament, and crews, would have been withdrawn into safe waters. But under the influence of his junior officers, most of whom subsequently joined the Confederacy, he deferred action until better prepared. This delay was fatal; for on April 18 he suddenly was confronted by a hostile force, though small in numbers, under General Taliaferro, which had seized Norfolk and threatened the navy yard. The action of the latter in waiting one day for expected reinforcements from Richmond, and Commodore McCauley's promise not to move a vessel or fire a shot except in defence, gave the Union commander time to do what he could to destroy the property in his charge; and on April 20 he scuttled every ship in the harbor, sinking them just before the arrival of Capt. Hiram Paulding in the Pawnee with orders to relieve McCauley, and to save or destroy the property. Seeing that it would be possible for the enemy to raise the sunken vessels, and that after the ships had been rendered useless he could not hold the place with his small force, Paulding decided to complete the work of destruction as far as possible, and told off his men in detachments for this duty. Ships, ship-houses, barracks, wharves, were at the signal (a rocket) set ablaze, and the display was magnificent as pyrotechnics, and discouraging to the enemy, which had expected to secure a ready-made navy for the taking of it. When to the roar of the flames was added the boom of the loaded guns as the fire reached them, the effect was tremendous. Under cover of all this, the Pawnee drew out of the harbor, accompanied by the steam-tug Yankee towing the Cumberland, which alone of the fleet had not been scuttled, and bearing the loyal garrison and crews. In the haste with which the work of destruction had been undertaken, the result was incomplete. The mine under the dry-dock did not explode; and that most useful appliance, together with many shops, cannon, and provisions, was secured by the Confederates, who also succeeded in raising and using three of the sunken and partially burned vessels—the Merrimac, Raritan, and Plymouth, under the guns of the first of which, from behind its armored sides, the Cumberland afterward came to grief in Hampton Roads.
| BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM S. HARNEY. |
CHAPTER III.
THE BEGINNING OF BLOODSHED.
LINCOLN'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS—THE STRUGGLE FOR VIRGINIA—OPPOSING VIEWS EXPRESSED BY ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS—THE SLAVE-TRADE OF VIRGINIA—VIRGINIA DRAGOONED—THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS—LINCOLN'S FAITH IN THE PEOPLE—ORIGIN OF THE WORD "COPPERHEAD."
Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address was one of the ablest state papers recorded in American history. It argued the question of secession in all its aspects—the constitutional right, the reality of the grievance, the sufficiency of the remedy—and so far as law and logic went, it left the secessionists little or nothing to stand on. But neither law nor logic could change in a single day the pre-determined purpose of a powerful combination, or allay the passions that had been roused by years of resentful debate. Some of its sentences read like maxims for statesmen: "The central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy." "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws?" "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?" With all its conciliatory messages it expressed a firm and unalterable purpose to maintain the Union at every hazard. "I consider," he said, "that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary." And in closing he said: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.... We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."