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Volume 27, No. 11 – November 2014Volume 27, No. 11 The President’s Message Are you tired of dull, drab army rations after long marches and feel the need for hearty holiday chow and cheer? Then join the troops on December 10, 2014 and be part of the Round Table’s annual festivities at our Holiday Party. Our guest speaker will be Robert Macomber and he promises to rally your spirits or help drink them. Remember to pay your dues. Gerridine LaRovere November 12, 2014 Program – Men of the USS Monitor We will be privileged to hear more about the dead heroes of the USS Monitor from Dr. Francis J. DuCoin. Dr. DuCoin, a consultant at the USS Monitor Center in Newport News, Virginia, is an avid Civil War collector and historian. A frequent speaker on Civil War naval history, he contributed a chapter to Craig Symonds’ book "Union Combined Operations in the Civil War" (2010) and has written a number of articles, including "And the Winner Was . . ." in Naval History (April, 2012) about the engagement between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, and "Monitor’s Slow Reveal" and "Secrets of the USS Monitor" in Civil War Times. His second appearance at the Round Table should be just as wonderful as was his first. October 8, 2014 Program Monroe Ackerman, one of the first members of the Roundtable, led us through the prelude to the Civil War. Starting with Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860. Lincoln got only 39% of the popular vote but won 180 electoral votes against a combined total of 123 for his three adversaries. The Republican Party was a sectional party pledged to prevent expansion of slavery into the Federal territories. All of Lincoln’s electoral votes and almost all of his popular votes came from Northern states. His election was a tectonic shift of political power away from the slaveholding states that had controlled the Federal government for decades. The Deep South’s leaders heard the election as the death knell of slavery, an institution felt to be vital to the economy and social fabric of their society. Though Lincoln had pledged to "leave slavery alone where it exists," they feared blocking its expansion would inevitably lead to its extinction. The "crisis" predicted by Lincoln in his "House Divided" speech had come and the Deep South’s leaders would not wait. To save their "peculiar institution" they would resort to secession. Between December 20, 1860 and January 26, 1861, six Deep South states seceded. On February 18, 1861, they swore in Jefferson Davis as Provisional President. Texas seceded on February 23, 1861.
Four forts guarded Charleston harbor (Castle Pinckney, occupied by an Ordnance Sergeant and his family; Fort Johnson, unoccupied; Fort Moultrie, occupied by 8 officers, 61 men and 13 band members under the command of Major Robert Anderson, but indefensible; and Fort Sumter, under construction on a manmade island since 1829, on which 110 civilian workers labored). In addition, the Federal Arsenal in the city was manned by a captain and 14 men. The people and government of South Carolina had worked themselves into fighting fever over the denigration of their state’s sovereignty and the insult to their honor the forts and arsenal represented. Tension grew higher when Major Anderson, acting on his own, secretly moved his garrison to Fort Sumter on December 26th. Gov. Pickens felt this violated his secret agreement with Buchanan to preserve the status quo in Charleston and seized the other three forts and the arsenal and threatened to fire on Fort Sumter unless it was immediately evacuated. Unbeknownst to Pickens, the climate in Washington had changed – Buchanan was now under the sway of pro-Union Cabinet members, especially Attorney General Edward M. Stanton of Ohio, who told Buchanan that if he surrendered Fort Sumter he would be a worse traitor than Benedict Arnold and would deserve hanging. Through this period, all attempts to compromise the uncompromisable differences between North and South failed. The Republican Party downplayed the divisive issue of slavery in favor of the more popular rallying cry, "Save the Union." Buchanan now decided to defend Fort Sumter, sending an unarmed ship, The Star of the West, with 250 troops aboard, to Charleston, but failed to inform Major Anderson that supplies and reinforcements were on the way. When Star of the West reached Charleston, Southern batteries fired on it and it turned back. Anderson, not wanting to be the one who started the war, did not try to defend the relief ship. This insult to "Old Glory" dramatically unified Northern public opinion against secession. Meanwhile, Lincoln remained in Springfield, Illinois, except to meet for the first time his Vice President-elect, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, in Chicago, and to make a last visit with his stepmother, Sally Lincoln. In November Lincoln had naively believed the Southern threats to secede were mere "gasconade" (bluster) designed to panic the North into concessions. The quick and decisive actions by the Deep South combined with Lincoln’s contacts with political figures both North and South disabused him of any misconceptions. Upon his election, Lincoln faced three major and interrelated problems: (1) He had to choose seven men to serve in his Cabinet and head the departments of government; (2) He had to solidify his political base by unifying its disparate factions: former Whigs (many of whom favored concessions) and Free Soilers, Liberty Party members and former Democrats, who had become "Radical Republicans" (who favored "Inauguration First, Adjustment Later); and (3) He had to formulate a national policy. If it was not possible to assuage the South, he had to be prepared to defeat secession, while holding those slave states that had not yet seceded to stay in the Union. Lincoln used two tools to solve these problems. First he would appoint a "balanced" Cabinet of four former Democrats and four former Whigs (three appointees and himself). Displaying amazing self-confidence, he picked five former rivals, even though none were close acquaintances: William H. Seward of New York (State), Salmon P. Chase of Ohio (Treasury), Edward Bates of Missouri (Attorney General), Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania (War) and Caleb Smith of Indiana (Interior), along with Montgomery Blair of Maryland and Missouri (Postmaster General) and Gideon Welles of Connecticut (Navy). Second, he would distribute political appointments among the ravenously hungry new Republicans with "Justice for all." All this took a lot of time and energy, but Lincoln also left his door open to "meet the people," which all too often left him exhausted. However he drew the line at expressing an opinion on current events. Anything he might add would be twisted and turned out of shape by his political enemies but "My old record cannot be so used." He did, however, let it be known he was willing to compromise on many issues: he would not offer but would accept a constitutional amendment guaranteeing slavery where it now existed; he would enforce the fugitive slave laws if they guaranteed trial by jury; he would not oppose repeal of the "personal liberty" laws (protecting free Negroes and fugitive slaves); he would not interfere with interstate slave trade or slavery in the District of Columbia. He might even agree to the admission of New Mexico as a slave state. However, he would "hold firm, as with chains of steel" against the spread of slavery into any Federal territory present or future; he felt no state could leave the Union without the consent of the other states; he was determined to maintain the Union at "all hazards" and if Buchanan surrendered the forts in Charleston Harbor, he would try to retake them as well as all other Federal property appropriated by the Deep South states. He left by rail for Washington on February 11, 1861, the day before his 52nd birthday, spoke at may stops along the way and took 12 days to get there. His resort to a disguise to change trains in Baltimore amidst evidence of real plots against his life, diluted somewhat the favorable impression he had made en route. He immediately became involved in the tortuous process of forming an administration and drafting his Inaugural Address. At his invitation, Seward made valuable suggestions aimed at making the Address less abrasive. When Seward learned that Chase was to be head of Treasury, as a power play he sought to withdraw his acceptance of appointment to State if Chase was nominated. Lincoln asked him not to withdraw but also told a delegation of New Yorkers that if the Cabinet "broke," it would break at the top, meaning that Seward would go. Seward got the word and backed down. Part Two: March 4, 1861 through April 13, 1861 No President was ever inaugurated under less propitious circumstances. The Union was shattered; all attempts at reconciliation had failed. Explosive situations existed in Charleston Harbor and at Fort Pickens, outside of Pensacola Bay, Florida. These forts and forts at Key West, Florida and the Dry Tortugas, were all that was left of Federal property in the Deep South. Ironically, Lincoln was sworn in by the aged, pro-Southern Chief Justice Roger Taney, the author of the Dred Scott opinion declaring Congress powerless to prohibit the spread of slavery that had revived Lincoln’s political career. The so-called "humble rail splitter" was now in charge. Many, North and South, doubted that this allegedly "rustic" lawyer, whose political career consisted of four terms in the Illinois state legislature and one two-year term in Congress, could meet the terrible challenges facing the nation. Lincoln’s Inaugural Address stated that secession was illegal and that he "would hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the government." He would not, however, deliver the first blow. He would neither invade the South nor try to impose his rule on it. He called for calm and eloquently told the secessionists "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government would not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourself 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.’" A deft and simple plan unfortunately based on bad information. Lincoln believed that Fort Sumter had adequate supplies to hold out for months, only to find out the day after his address that they would run out in weeks! He could not sit back waiting for the secessionists to act. He would have to resupply or withdraw the garrison within weeks.
Lincoln, a strong-willed man, did not give up so easily and sent Fox to Charleston to scope out the situation. Fox, a New England patriot, did not quite trust Anderson, a Kentuckian intensely loyal to the Union but with Southern sympathies. Fox probably did not reveal his plan to Anderson, probably because of Anderson’s pessimism about the fort’s future. Fox returned to Washington, still convinced his plan could work. However, two "observers" Lincoln had sent to Charleston reported there was no Union sentiment in South Carolina and any attempt to resupply, let alone reinforce, Fort Sumter would touch off war. Lincoln called a formal Cabinet meeting, at which all (except Seward and the absent Cameron) now voted to resupply Fort Sumter. All, including Seward, favored resupplying Fort Pickens. Lincoln ordered Welles and Cameron to mount a relief expedition for Fort Sumter, ready to leave New York by April 6th. Seward hedged his now awkward position by telling the Commissioners that Gov. Pickens would be informed before any attempt to resupply Fort Sumter would be made. Then, on April Fool’s Day, Seward delivered one of the most bizarre communications ever sent to a President by his Secretary of State: he contended the Administration had neither a domestic nor a foreign policy. He urged the Federal policy to be changed from limiting slavery to saving the Union. To this end, Fort Sumter would be evacuated but Fort Pickens reinforced. The public would be diverted by war-like messages to Spain, France and even England not to interfere. "The President must carry out this policy or give it to some Cabinet member." He ended by stating "I neither seek to evade or assume responsibility." Lincoln, responding in writing, ignored talk of war with Europe, pointed out that the Administration’s domestic policy was set forth in the Inaugural Address, in which Seward had a hand, and that its foreign policy had been jointly drafted by Seward and Lincoln. He could not see how evacuating Fort Sumter could deemphasize the slavery issue while aiding Fort Pickens would shift the issue to preserving the Union. He finished with, "When policy is adopted, it is the President’s duty to see it executed and, in doing so, he is entitled to the advice of not one but all of his cabinet members." Thereafter Seward clearly knew who was President. Nevertheless, Seward tried one last ploy, urging Lincoln to induce Virginia to stay in the Union in exchange for the evacuation of Fort Sumter. Lincoln, desperate to avoid war, tried, saying "a State for a Fort is no bad business," but to no avail. No one was listening.
Fox’s expedition also set sail, but under new and changed orders. No
more stealth. Now Gov. Pickens would receive a curt note, signed by
Cameron: "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify
you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumpter [sic]
with provisions only; and that, if such attempt not be resisted, no
effort to throw in men, arms or amunition [sic] will be made,
without further notice, or in case of attack upon the Fort." If South
Carolina used force to interfere with the resupply of provisions, the
Federal Government would use force to resupply and reinforce the
fort. Lincoln knew from his two "observers" that even a "peaceful"
attempt to resupply starving men with bread would be met with force. He
was in no doubt that civil war was inevitable, but he wanted the South
to fire the first shot. He also knew he was not dealing with the
Governor of South Carolina but with Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy,
but at no time then or during the war would he recognize that such an
entity existed. Nevertheless, there was a Confederacy. When Jefferson
Davis received word of Cameron’s notice on April 9th, he assembled his
Cabinet to decide on war or peace. Lincoln had put them in an impossible
position – if they attacked, they would be blamed for bringing on civil
war; if they exercised restraint, the symbol of Federal sovereignty
would dominate and control one of their principal seaports, damaging
their prestige at home and abroad and hurting their chances for
recognition. There was only one dissenting vote. Secretary of State
Toombs, who had been one of the foremost adherents of secession, saw
Lincoln’s trap and prophetically said, "Mr. President, at this time it
is suicide, murder, will lose us every friend at the North. You will
wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountain to ocean,
and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death; it is
unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal." The next day,
Beauregard was ordered to demand evacuation and if refused, to compel
surrender. Anderson responded with a written refusal, but said to
Beauregard’s aides, "Gentlemen, if you do not batter the fort to pieces
about us, we shall be starved out in a few days." When Davis heard of
this remark, Beauregard was authorized to wait if Anderson would state
the time of his evacuation and agree not to fire without provocation.
Otherwise, he was to "reduce the fort." Just after midnight on April
12th, Anderson responded, "I will evacuate Fort Sumter by noon on the
15th instant, should I not receive, prior to that time, controlling
instructions from my Government, or additional supplies." Beauregard
read the proviso (leaving Anderson free to use his guns to cooperate
with the relief fleet that, so far as they knew, was about to arrive) as
a total rejection. Beauregard informed Anderson the guns would open fire
in one hour and at 4:30 A.M., April 12, 1861, the first shot of the
Civil War was fired. Fox, aboard the liner Baltic, arrived at
3:00 A.M., April 12th, to find only the five-gun revenue cutter,
Harriet Lane. Heavy storms had scattered his fleet. The steam tugs
would never arrive. When USS Monroe received a well-deserved round of applause for a well researched talk. [Editor’s note: With apologies, Monroe’s detailed talk has been severely cut to fit the print newsletter.]
Last changed: 11/06/14 |