split by a diversion to the "Know-Nothing Party,” which aimed to exclude all foreign-born citizens from public office. The Know-Nothing Presidential candidate was ex-President Millard Fillmore of New York. Buchanan received 1,838,169 votes; Fremont 1,341,264, and Fillmore 874,538. In 1860 the Republicans rashly nominated Abraham Lincoln, who was not only a western man, but little known and less understood in the East and in the South. Upon his election the slave states expected a precipitate adoption of roughshod methods and began immediately to secede from the Union. The Civil War had for its main purpose the restoration and preservation of the Union. The emancipation of the slaves was adopted as a war

measure.

A

CHAPTER XCI

THE CIVIL WAR

POLITICAL campaign of extraordinary enthusiasm marked the year 1860. The anti-slavery and FreeSoil elements had at last come into coalition in a party all their own. On September 4 there was an immense Republican gathering in Detroit. A semi-military organization of young Republicans, known as the "Wide-Awakes," was much in evidence in all the state towns of size. They gathered in Detroit wearing hats of uniform pattern and oilcloth capes of brilliant hue. Each one was provided with a kerosene torch. A procession containing 3,500 of them paraded the main streets of Detroit that night with flaming torches, and the enthusiasm seemed to presage victory for the new party.

This enthusiasm, which was manifested in many Northern states, created alarm in the slave states, for, in case of a Republican victory, they expected an immediate emancipation of their slaves. They were so adjusted to slave labor that free labor was not available. The value of a Southern farm or plantation was, for the time, entirely dependent upon sufficient slave labor to work it. With slavery suddenly destroyed, the landowners believed they would be left helpless and destitute. Years of bitter controversy and recrimination had destroyed all sympathy and confidence between North and South. Beyond question, majority sentiment favored the abolition of slavery. Many farsighted Southerners regarded slavery as a curse and an economic fallacy. Many had voluntarily emancipated their slaves.

Another question divided the North from the South. The North held that the union of states had created a nation, a political unit which could not be again divided into its component parts. The majority of Southerners adhered to the doctrine of "state rights," which implied that the Union had been a

voluntary agreement, and since each state had been free to join it or remain independent, each state had retained the right to withdraw from the Union whenever it found the Federal authority burdensome or intolerable. Many of the foremost Southerners were strong Union men. In his time Andrew Jackson, himself an ardent Southerner, had been a fierce advocate of the supremacy of the Federal power. Such men as Alexander H. Stephens, afterward vice-president of the Confederate government, and Robert E. Lee were strongly opposed to secession and spoke boldly against it.

But state rights and secession sentiment were in the majority in the South and the leaders of this element decided that their one hope lay in immediately withdrawing from the Union and forming a new and independent confederation. To do this they must act before the Republican Party would come into power. The movement was begun by South Carolina.

With the Republican administration at Washington established in power, the Army and Navy of the nation, the arsenals, fortifications and all military equipment would be at its disposal. The presumption was that all these would be used to coerce the states which were determined to secede. Long before the real war cloud loomed on the horizon certain mysterious activities were noticed. At Springfield, Mass., Watervliet, N. Y., and several other places in the North were United States arsenals. There was a small arsenal at Dearborn, Mich., nine miles from Detroit's City Hall. Just below Detroit was Fort Wayne with a row of huge, muzzle-loading, cast-iron cannon facing the river.

Mysterious orders came to each of these places. Thousands of muskets long in storage were condemned as obsolete and ordered sold. They were all of too large caliber for any other purpose than warfare or big game hunting, and when the sales occurred only a few were sold to local buyers, as relics and curios. The others were sold at very low prices and in large lots to strangers who appeared at the sale. They shipped their purchases South and then disappeared. An order came condemning the battery of cannon at Fort Wayne, so the carriages were

burned and the dismounted cannon were rolled out on the parade ground, where they remained for nearly 40 years undisturbed. Altogether 135,430 muskets were transferred from the North to the South., A large part of the United States Army was sent with abundant supplies into Texas and placed in command of Gen. David Emanuel Twiggs, a pro-slavery man. Gen. Twiggs was a veteran of the Seminole, Black Hawk and Mexican wars and was 71 years of age at the beginning of the Civil War. On the outbreak of the war Gen. Twiggs promptly surrendered the army and all its stores to the State of Texas. The property loss in military stores was estimated at $1,209,500.

The Department of the Interior had $870,000 in its vaults, the proceeds of land sales. This money myste iously disappeared. Jacob M. Thompson, of Mississippi, was Secretary of the Interior. A strong-willed and farsighted President of the United States could have nipped the rebellion in the bud by placing the Federal military forces in charge of the Southern ports and fortifications. President James Buchanan was a timid and hesitating man. He believed in the doctrine of state rights. He asserted that each state was sovereign in its own rights and could not be coerced by any combination of states or by the union of states. He feared to take any action that would offend the South, so the preparations for war went on actively in the southern states. Buchanan's Cabinet was made up as follows: Secretary of State, Lewis Cass of Michigan; Secretary of the Treasury, John A. Dix of New York; Secretary of War, John B. Floyd of Virginia; Secretary of the Interior, Jacob Thompson of Mississippi; Secretary of the Navy, Isaac Toucey of Connecticut; Postmaster-General, Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee.

Gen. Cass demanded that measures be taken for strengthening the military power of the Government in the South, and when President Buchanan refused to act, Gen. Cass promptly resigned from the Cabinet and returned to Detroit. John B. Floyd, on being charged with corrupt and treasonable conduct in the War Department, resigned and demanded an investigation. The subsequent investigation exonerated him. At

Charleston, S. C., Maj. Robert Anderson, with a command of 70 troops of the Federal Army, saw formidable preparations for war. He called upon Washington for reinforcements. No attention was paid to his report for a time. In fear of being taken by surprise, Maj. Anderson moved his command from Fort Moultrie on the mainland to Fort Sumter, on an island in the harbor. This action stirred up great excitement in Charleston. After a time the little steamer Star of the West was sent with some supplies and reinforcements, but it was prevented from delivering them by hostile demonstrations on the part of the Southern men.

In the meantime a convention of the seceded states organized the government of the "Confederate States of America" at Montgomery, Ala., and demanded the withdrawal of United States troops from all posts in the South on the ground that they were now outside of Federal jurisdiction. The Government at Washington was afraid to reinforce Fort Sumter for fear of precipitating a conflict. It was equally afraid to order a withdrawal of troops from Fort Sumter because of sentiment in the North. The Confederate authorities ordered Anderson to withdraw, but he could not do so without orders from Washington. After due warning several shore batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and on the following day the fort was surrendered. Such was the beginning of the Civil War.

The whole country saw the Civil War approaching and no one seemed to see a way of preventing the outbreak until it actually occurred. When Maj. Anderson transferred his command to Sumter, Detroit signified its approval by firing a salute of 100 guns in his honor. When he was forced to surrender for lack of Government support the North was inflamed with sudden passion and the South with a great joy, for the Southerners believed they had broken the last restraint upon their independence.

A huge mass meeting assembled in Detroit April 15th on the call of President Lincoln for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. Nobody realized the extreme gravity of the situation. It was the common belief that an army of 100,000 green troops