resigned from the Cabinet, which act was a fitting rebuke to Buchanan's course. Oh, for sixty days of Old Hickory to stamp out this rebellion in its infancy!

While deprecating slavery as a heaven-defying practice, we do not anathematize all who held slaves, and these often by inheritance, to whom the laws forbade manumission. There were good men among them as their system allowed. The edicts of heaven were against it, but what to do they knew not, no more than sober reason in the North could tell. Notwithstanding the secession leaders, there was a large Union sentiment in parts of the South, of which Alexander H. Stevens, of Georgia, the ablest statesman in the South in his time, was the exponent. He openly declared that the South had not sufficient cause for secession, and clearly foretold the evils that it would bring upon that section. But the "fire-eaters," as the radical disunionists were called, fired the Southern heart, and by the most deceptive arguments and murderous browbeating all but four of the slave States passed ordinances of secession and formed a Southern Confederacy, with Jefferson Davis for president and Alexander H. Stevens for vice-president. The latter was a disciple of Calhoun's teachings, and he followed his State out of the Union.

THE WAR BEGUN-UPRISING OF THE PEOPLE.

Ere the conspirators in Washington had gone forth to organize secession, the approaching storm became manifest by the seizure of

FORT SUMTER- 1861.

unguarded forts in the seceding States. On the night of December 26, 1860, Major Anderson transferred his command of four score men from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, the strongest in Charleston Harbor, to the indignation of all secessiondom.

On March 4, 1861, Mr. Lincoln became President, and in his "In your hands, not in The government will not

assail you; you can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors." And such they became by firing upon the Nation's flag and Major Anderson's devoted band to prevent this half-starved garrison from receiving provisions. The first treasonable shot was fired before daybreak of April 12, 1861, and on the following day, when all provisions were gone but half a barrel of pork, the fort was surrendered to the thousands of traitors who assailed it.

The patriotism of the North was powerfully aroused, and all loyal hearts throbbed at the thought that the secession traitors had dared to fire upon the flag and its defenders. There was a unity of determination that the dastardly act should be avenged, and the President's call for troops filled every loyal heart with patriotic fervor. The uprising of the people was a sublime spectacle, like that of the Crusader hosts who sought to rescue the Holy Land from infidel hands. The national flag was displayed from every housetop, and busy preparations were made for the coming struggle.

THE NATION UNPREPARED.

War had come and found the nation unprepared for it. For many months the South had been preparing for the conflict. Nearly all the war material had been shipped from Northern arsenals to the South. At the Dearborn Arsenal, eight miles west of Detroit, in the summer of 1860, a few boxes of guns were auctioned off at one dollar apiece, and the balance sold for a small sum to some mysterious stranger, an agent of the embryo Southern Confederacy. Every war ' vessel except a few useless hulks, had been ordered as far away in foreign seas as wind could blow and water float them.

FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR.

The first great contest occurred at Bull Run, on Sunday, July 21, 1861. The Union army was everywhere victorious until in the afternoon, when re-inforcements of the insurgents turned the tide of battle in their favor, and a panic routed our army back to Washington in great confusion. The South was exalted and thousands joined its standards of revolt. The North recovered from its humiliation, abandoned the delusion that the struggle would be brief, and made preparations for a desperate war. Gen. George B. McClellan was put

in command to organize and lead the national forces.

In the West, a battle was fought at Wilson's Creek, Missouri, in August, in which Gen. Lyon of the Union army was killed. In

October, the Union Gen. Baker lost his life at Ball's Bluff on the Potomac. In November, two rebel emissaries, Mason and Slidell, were forcibly taken from the British steamer Trent, and a war with England barely averted. The South had been the best prepared to fight. Most of the army and many of the navy officers were from that section and joined the Southern forces, with a few notable exceptions. And thus the year 1861 closed dismally for the Union

cause.

SECOND YEAR OF THE WAR-SUCCESS IN THE WEST.

The year 1862 opened with a series of victories that cheered the hearts of Unionists. While "all quiet on the Potomac" was nightly for months, telegraphed over the land, good work was being done in the West. January 19 and 20 brought a brilliant victory at Mill Spring, Kentucky, which prepared the way for expelling the insurgent armies from that State and Tennessee. On February 6 followed the evacuation of Fort Henry on the Tennessee, and on February 8, another victory at Roanoke Island in the East. Yet these hardly awakened the North from its depression.

February 14, 15 and 16 brought a victory that was the wonder of both continents, and introduced to fame the man who proved to be the general of the war-Ulysses S. Grant. The Fort Henry insurgents had escaped a dozen miles east, to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland river, where they were arrested by Grant's army. It was a keen, wintry, Sunday morning when, as preparations for a renewal of the battle were going forward, a white flag appeared. General Buckner suggested to General Grant an armistice for commissioners to arrange a capitulation. Then was sent back the famous "unconditional surrender" reply: "I propose to move immediately upon your works," was Grant's answer, and forthwith, large white sheets pinned to poles appeared on the fort, in token of surrender. This capitulation included 14,000 prisoners and a vast amount of military stores, involving the loss to the Confederates of Missouri, Kentucky and all Northern and Middle Tennessee, including Nashville. The moral effect of this victory was like that of Saratoga in the Revolution. It brought heart back to the North, produced a depression in the South and set Europe to doubting the success of the Confederate cause.

Three weeks later General Curtis routed Van Dorn and Price at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. On the 6th and 7th of April was fought at Pittsburgh Landing on the Tennessee, a bloody battle in which the

insurgents were put to route. On April 8th, Admiral Foote captured Island No. 10 in the Mississippi, with 5,000 prisoners. New Orleans and Memphis fell into Union hands soon after, and so the successes in the West rejoiced the nation.'

DISASTER IN THE EAST.

In April, 1862, General McClellan transferred the main portion of the Army of the Potomac to Fortress Monroe for the Peninsular Campaign. Investing Yorktown until its evacuation, the retreating

64

THE PENINSULA," VIRGINIA

enemy were overtaken at Williamsburg, and put to rout after a sharp contest. Pursuing to the Chickahominy,

McClellan's advance reached within seven miles of Richmond, the Confederate capital. Amid the malarial swamps of this stream he remained with his army several weeks. It was astride of the stream, which by a sudden rise divided his forces. The Confederates attacked the half that lay south of that river, at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, but were repulsed. Meanwhile, the Union army became greatly reduced by malarial fevers from lying in the swamps, and the Confederates were strengthened by fresh conscript levies.

On June 25, the insurgent General Jackson, better known as "Stonewall Jackson," by forced marches from the Shenandoah Valley, struck McClellan's right, at Mechanicsville, but was repulsed the next day. On June 27, the enemy again attacked his right at Gaines' Farm and drove it in, with terrible slaughter on both sides.

McClellan now resolved to unite his army on the south side of the Chickahominy and move it to the James River for a new base of supplies. General Robert E. Lee, whose magnificent residence crowned Arlington Heights, in view of Washington, had succeeded to the full command of the Confederate forces about Richmond. Lee might have commanded the Union army and become president of the United States, had he not violated his oath and become a traitor to the country which had educated and honored him. But he went with his State when it seceded. He hastened to intercept McClellan's left flank movement, and struck the Union army at Savage Station

and White Oak Swamp. He pursued it to Malvern Hill, where was fought, on July 1, 1862, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Lee massed his forces to carry the position by storm. All the Union cannon were drawn up along the crest of the hill, and again and again did the enemy charge up out of the deep pine forest, only to be cut in pieces by the Union artillery from Malvern Hill and the Union gun boats lying in the James.

Although victorious, the withdrawal of the Union army continued the next day to Harrison's Landing on the James. McClellan's army had become greatly reduced by battle, fevers and a large number on furlough. He called for reinforcements, but was told that there were none available. He wanted McDowell's corps at Fredericksburg to be sent to him, but the President did not deem it prudent thus to uncover the defenses of Washington and allow a sally by the enemy to result in the capture of the National Capital, as such an event might result in the end in a foreign recognition of the Confederacy. The military events that followed a few weeks after proved the wisdom of this decision. About this time President Lincoln made a call upon the country for three hundred thousand new volunteers. And here we must leave this army to note the raising of this vast additional levy which included the regiment whose war history this volume is designed to contain.