his habit of listening to what everybody said without expressing his own conclusions. They feared he lacked decision. of character, but it was not long before it was seen that he had the great qualities of a leader who not only knew his own mind, but the mind of the people he was leading. The President of the Confederacy was a graduate of the United States Military Academy, who had achieved distinction as an officer in the Mexican War, and as Secretary of War, under President Pierce. He was a man familiar with public affairs. The Condition of the Country. Mr. Lincoln, upon taking the President's chair, found the government in great confusion. The treasury was nearly empty. There were but few troops within call. Military stores were largely in Southern forts and arsenals. The vessels of the navy were scattered in distant waters, and officers both of the army and of the navy were resigning their commissions on the ground that they owed allegiance first to the States from which they came. The public offices were largely occupied by persons in sympathy with the secession movement, and every step taken by the new government was known at once to the leaders of the Confederacy. Mr. Lincoln, meanwhile, was beset by a vast horde of office seekers, eager to take advantage of the change of administration. 188. The Attack on Sumter. - President Lincoln waited a month, and then notified Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, that he should send supplies to Fort Sumter at all hazards. Thereupon General Beauregard asked instructions from the government at Montgomery, and was ordered to open fire on the fort. He first called on Major Anderson to surrender; but Anderson refused, and at daybreak on the morning of Friday, April 12, 1861, the Confederacy began its attack on the United States. 1 There are many lives of Lincoln, but no one that is at once brief and adequate. Perhaps the most satisfactory sketch is that by Carl Schurz. Chittenden's Recollections of President Lincoln and his Administration gives well the human side of the great man. A readable story, The Graysons, by Edward Eggleston, has Lincoln for a prominent figure in it. The first shot was fired from the Cumming's Point battery. Fort Sumter replied with a shot, and the bombardment thus begun continued for thirty hours without loss of life on either side. The ammunition in Fort Sumter was then exhausted, and the fort was on fire. Thereupon the United States flag was lowered, and the garrison capitulated. The housetops in Charleston were thronged with spectators, and the telegraph carried news of the engagement hourly over all the land. On Sunday, April 14th, the garrison marched out. On the morning of the 15th President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers, to serve for three months, and summoning Congress to meet in extra session. The response to the demand for troops was immediate; distinctions of party were swept aside, and for a time there was but one party at the North, the party for the Union. 189. The Marshaling of the Opposing Forces. Immediately the States of the South which had wavered were compelled to make their choice. Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy. There was a strong antiUnion element in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri; but, though many men went from these States into the Confederate army, the States did not break away from the Union. The high table-land of the Appalachian range, which is the backbone of the eastern part of the Union, was unfavorable to slave labor; it was occupied by a sturdy mountain folk, and throughout the war a vigorous Union sentiment prevailed there, especially in east Tennessee and west Virginia. Virginia was the most important accession to the Confederacy. There was, however, in the western counties so strong an opposition to secession, that these counties refused to obey the convention which passed the ordinance of secession; they chose a legislature which claimed to be the true government, and at last formed a new State, which was admitted into the Union in 1863 under the name of West Virginia. Old Virginia at once became the chief battle ground of the war. The Confederate government was moved from Montgomery to Richmond; and since Washington was separated from the Confederacy only by the Potomac, it was clear that the great contest would be fought in the country which lay between the two capitals. Throughout the war which followed, the Southern people called themselves Confederates; the Northern people called themselves Unionists. These names are full of meaning. The contest was between the Confederacy and the Union; for, little by little, the Southern people had strengthened themselves in the belief that the weak union. of the days of the formation of the Constitution was a confederation of sovereign States; the Northern people had grown to the conception of a Nation which included all the States in an inseparable Union. QUESTIONS. Why did the North disbelieve threats of secession? What had led the South to entertain the thought of secession? What State took the lead in carrying out the promise of secession? What other States followed her lead? What general government was formed at the South? What was the first governmental act in opposition to the United States? What forts came into the hands of the Southern States? What forts in the South remained in the possession of the United States? Narrate the action that took place with regard to the forts in Charleston harbor. What was Buchanan's position? What attempts were made at conciliation in Congress? What was the Peace Conference? What was the condition of affairs on the eve of President Lincoln's inauguration ? Narrate the incidents of Mr. Lincoln's life before he was elected President. What had been Jefferson Davis's antecedents? In what condition did President Lincoln find the country when he took office? Relate the incidents connected with the attack on Sumter. What was the immediate effect on the country? What effect did the attack on Sumter have on the South? What action did Virginia take? Where in the South was there a sentiment for the Union? What were the names the two opposing sections gave each other and themselves? SEARCH QUESTIONS. How did President Lincoln enter Washington? What was the Confederate flag? Where was the first capital of the Confederacy? the second? On which side was ex-President Tyler in the war? What became of the various members of President Buchanan's Cabinet? SUGGESTIONS FOR LITERARY TREATMENT. COMPOSITIONS: The firing on Fort Sumter. What President Jackson would have done if he had been in Buchanan's place. The remote and the immediate causes of the war for the Union. Arguments of those who believed slavery to be wrong. DEBATES: Resolved, That a way out of the difficulty would have been the purchase and freeing of slaves by the appropriation of money raised by taxation from the whole country. Resolved, That the States have no right to secede from the Union. |