Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
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March 16 – 23, 1861
Faced with unpalatable recommendations from his civilian and military advisers alike, but braced by the stirring advocacy of Blairs pere et fils, and intrigued by the can-do spirit of the relatively young Gus Fox, Abraham Lincoln this week . . . stalled for time.
The more the president pondered, the more he wanted to know. What really is the supply situation in Fort Sumter? How formidable are the armaments arrayed against the fort? Despite Charleston’s fervor for secession, is there a residual feeling for the union that can be quickened to life? Sumter may be more easily resupplied than his superannuated advisers believe, and yet Lincoln might conclude that an accommodationist posture might serve him better in the long run. Paris was worth a mass, Henry of Navarre trenchantly concluded; Virginia may well be worth a fort.
Just a few days before his inauguration, in a meeting with delegates to the Virginia secession commission, Lincoln broached the possibility of yielding Sumter in exchange for Virginia’s pledge to remain in the union. Lincoln fairly blurted the idea in a way that almost seemed unserious. But more and more, Virginia seems to hold the key to the controversy: if she stays, the seceded states are a breakaway republic that faces long odds of success, but if she leaves, other states will accompany her, and suddenly the Confederacy would become a going concern, with a government that might win diplomatic recognition from the powers of Europe.
If you can believe Thurlow Weed, Lincoln has three times in recent days returned to the idea of yielding Sumter in order to strengthen the hand of Virginia’s unionists. The risks are high: if he relieves Sumter and Virginia secedes, he has erred; if he cedes Sumter and Virginia goes anyway, he has erred even more egregiously.
Library of Congress Gustavus V. Fox
Craving more information, Lincoln separately sent three emissaries to Charleston this week to learn more. So far only one has returned. Last week, Gustavus Fox was a soft-bellied, walrus-mustachioed manager of a Massachusetts textile mill whose wife called him Fatty. This week, he is a knowledgeable ex-naval officer who has become the personal envoy of the president of the United States. But after visiting Fort Sumter, he reports a situation bleaker than had been assessed.
Outside the fort, a vigorous General Beauregard is applying all the principles of engineering he studied at West Point and all the experience in ordinance and fortification he developed in the ensuing two decades to sharpen the effectiveness of the forces that have turned out against Sumter. In just two weeks, the handsome, impassive Louisianan, a man whose every gesture suggests the hauteur of Napoleon’s great marshals, has requisitioned slaves to build up the coastal defenses and redeployed the cannon targeting the fort. “Evacuation Day” — the day last week the federal government was supposed to have abandoned Sumter — came and went, leaving the rebels in a generally churlish disposition, more frustrated and if possible even more angry than before.
Inside the fort, Fox found the situation even less tenable than reported in Anderson’s letter. The garrison was exhausted from 10 weeks of ceaseless vigilance against an ever-looming threat, complicated by constant isolation and monotony. Major Anderson seemed taut and snappish, and Fox observed that relations between him and his officers were cool and tense. Anderson told Fox to tell the president that his provisions were dwindling; he would put the men on half rations, which meant that he could feed them until April 15. Fox explained the relief mission he had designed, but Anderson dismissed its potential for success.
Fox, however, was not dissuaded, and when well after nightfall a boat came to return him to the mainland, Fox noted that even though the small vessel was close enough for him to hear the creaking of the oars, he could not see the thing until had all but reached Sumter’s small pier. How much harder would it be for Charleston’s cannoneers to discern it from 1,300 yards away?
Anderson was not much impressed; he knew that troops at Fort Moultrie had trained a dozen batteries on that very pier, and he didn’t think it would much matter whether the gunners could actually see the boat or not. But Fox emphasized his optimism in his report. Now Lincoln awaits the return of Messrs. Hurlbut and Lamon, both sent to gauge vestigial loyalty among South Carolinians.
Meanwhile, in all quarters of the land, brushfires of the rebellion continued to spark. Some fizzled and some burned. In the faraway southwest, a portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel broke away, named itself the Arizona Territory, and declared its allegiance to the Confederacy. In Missouri, on the other hand, a state convention rebuffed Governor Claiborne Jackson’s effort to lead the state out of the union and into the Confederacy. In Montgomery, President Davis appointed the fiery secessionist William L. Yancey of Alabama as minister to Great Britain, entrusting him to plead the cotton kingdom’s cause in the capital of the textile industry.
Library of Congress Sam Houston
Almost in response, President Lincoln named the reserved and proper Charles Francis Adams — congressman, son of a president and diplomat, grandson of a president and diplomat — to represent the United States in the same dominion. In Texas, Sam Houston — governor of the state, hero of San Jacinto, Father of Texan Independence — sat whittling in the basement of the state capital as the secession convention, which Houston vociferously opposed, met in session in the chambers above. Three times the chairman of the convention summoned Houston to appear and swear an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy — “Sam Houston! . . . Sam Houston! . . . Sam Houston!” — but the old lion whittled on, and presently the convention declared his office vacant and named a replacement who was compliant to its demands.
And in the new Confederacy, the constitutional convention in Montgomery adjourned, its delegates returning to their home states to campaign for the ratification of what they profess is a familiar but significantly improved Constitution.
Among those hitting the stump in Georgia was Vice President Alexander Stephens. Just two months ago, the one time congressman had stood at the Georgia secession convention in the state capital in Milledgeville, a giant intellect inside an emaciated body, and railed against disunion. “When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us — who but this Convention shall be held responsible for it?’’ was his question on Jan. 17. Now overtaken by events — and unexpectedly elevated by them — Stephens appeared last week in Savannah, where he argued on behalf of the legitimacy and future prospects of the Confederate States of America:
The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution of African slavery as it exists amongst us, and the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him . . . were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. . . . Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its corner- stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. . . . Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system . . . . I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we must triumph.
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In Montgomery, President Davis was slightly vexed to hear of his vice president’s speech, though less by its content than its timing. Like his presidential counterpart in Washington, Davis believes more and more that Virginia seems to hold the key to the controversy: if she stays, the seceded states face long odds of success, but were she to join, then suddenly the Confederacy would have a legitimacy that Great Britain would have to recognize. But though Virginia may be a slave state, there is plenty of anti-planter sentiment among the yeoman farmers and mechanics, and secession seems no better than an even-money proposition. The Confederacy’s fundamental tie to slavery may not be exactly the right message to emphasize at this moment to Virginia or, for that matter, to anti-slavery Britain. But it’s water over the dam: Little Aleck was triumphant in Savannah, and the constitution was approved.
Sources: To learn more about these events, please see “Lincoln and His Admirals,’’ by Craig L. Symonds and “Look Away: A History of the Confederate States of America,’’ by William C. Davis.
Jamie Malanowski has been an editor at Time, Esquire and Spy, and is the author of the novel “The Coup.”
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Will Lincoln Bargain Away Fort Sumter?
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