A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years

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A PICTORIAL HISTORY

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PAUL M. ANGLE

by

The war

that

American

Iliad"

has been called "the

splendidly presented here in a rare gallery of over 350 pictures,

is

many

never before published, gathered from sources North and South. A compact and masterly history of the war, year by year, written by Civil War

M. Angle, accompanies

authority Paul

the collection of photographs,

sketches

artists'

and

other

combat contem-

porary

are

illustrations. Many of the photos enhanced by reproduction in

duotone.

Important tary

figures, political

and

mili-

- Grant,

Lee, Lincoln, Dred Scott, Roger Taney, Stonewall Jackson, 18year-old Rebel spy Belle Boyd - appear in authentic portraits.

figures

-

a mess boy

So do humbler filling

canteens,

liberated slaves flocking to the

Union

army, a sutler with his wagon

full

of small luxuries, on which he had to keep a close watch.

The

reality of war leaps out of photos of "the grim harvest of Fredericksburg,"

Burnside's

Vicksburg,

Mud Lee's

March, the caves

army

crossing

at

the

Potomac, Union and Confederate dead Gettysburg, an Indiana surgeon caring for Confederate wounded at at

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A «. PICTORIAL HIoTORY

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Angle, Paul M.

Civil WAR YEARS

THE

A

Pictorial History of

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF

THE Civil

War

YEARS

*•*•••* By

PAUL M. ANGLE

r VAN HORN LIBRARY

DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC.

GARDEN

CITY,

NEW YORK

COPYRIGHT ® 1967 BY NELSON DOUBLEDAY,

INC.

All rights reserved

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 67-15353

Printed in the United States of America

To

the

Memory

of

Charles L. Sherman, friend of

who that I

many

years,

suggested

do

this

book.

FOREWORD

THIS BOOK

is

based on several premises.

that the person

wants a book that

is

who

is

first is my belief War picture book Many readers may

The

interested in a Civil

devoted primarily to pictures.

James Ford Rhodes, or Nicolay and Hay, to name only a few of those who have told the story of this great American conflict in full detail. With them I have no quarrel. However, in accordance with my conviction I have held my text to a minimum and emphasized the story as prefer the comprehensive text of Bruce Catton, Allan Nevins,

pictures

My

tell it.

second premise

is

that the picture story should

be

realistic.

upon the camera. But the Civil War photographers, wonderful as they were, had one deficiency. They could show bloated bodies after a battle, but with their slow lenses they could not catch a cavalry charge or an infantry attack. For action, one must rely upon the artists who accompanied the armies. In pen and ink sketches, in wash drawings, and even in oils, they caught aspects of the war that the photographers could not record. My third premise is that the work of the artists deserves to be used in its original state. Most of them sent their drawings, often unfinished, to such publications as Leslie's and Harper's, where This means reliance,

first,

GALLANT CHARGE OF THE

19th

BRIGADEApr«i '

ruk.

iMaa

^S

engravers or lithographers turned them into their conception of what readers wanted to see.

And what

these conventional craftsmen did

was criminal. The worst example I have the lithograph, by Henry Mosler of Harper's Weekly, shown

to honest pictorial reporting

seen

is

here.

It

(Union)

is

supposed to represent the charge of the 19th Brigade

at the battle of Shiloh, but

anyone who has ever read three

hundred words about that conflict will know that nothing of the kind pictured here could have taken place on that confused and bloody field. I

have made no attempt

graphs

I

have used.

to identify the

photographer had assistants

in

Gardner, or Barnard on a print

snapped the

shutter.

On

signed their drawings, so that

is

men who

Accurate identification

is

took the photo-

impossible.

Every

field, and the stamp of Brady, no assurance that that photographer

the is

the other hand, the artists almost always I

have taken pains

to give

them the

credit

their due.

Except for the seals, the sketches used in the margins come from two sources: John D. Billings's Hardtack and Coffee, or The Unwritten Story of

Army

Life (Boston,

1888), illustrated by Charles

W.

Reed

of the 9th Massachusetts Battery;

and the southern song book

War Songs: Camp fire, Patriotic, and Sentimental (New York, 1890), pubhshed by M. T. Richardson & Company, edited by WiUiam Long Fagan, and illustrated by H. D. Nichols. The work of the two

Southern

artists is readily distinguishable.

Reed's drawings are bold and simple;

book are much more

those of the illustrator of the southern song delicate.

In the making of first

debt, of course,

searched their

But

I

files

My

is

to those custodians of picture collections

who

book

I

and permitted

should be remiss

ness to Miss

have incurred many obligations.

this

if I

their holdings to

did not acknowledge

my

be reproduced.

especial indebted-

Margery Melgaard, whose extraordinary

skill

rapher and typist greatly expedited the completion of

as a stenog-

this

book; to

Mrs. Paul H. Rhymer, curator of prints and photographs at the Chicago Historical Society, who constantly amazes me by her knowl-

edge of the thousands of pictures the

in her custody; to

Chicago Historical Society's

staff

Walter

photographer,

a

W.

Krutz,

craftsman

without a superior; and to C. Earl Cooley, of Doubleday

& Company,

who was

and archives

to

which

indefatigable in finding pictures in libraries I

did not have ready access.

Paul M. Angle

Chicago Historical Society October

1,

1966

NOMENCLATURE

In

many instances

different

names

to

Northern and Southern historians have affixed same battle. Several of the engagements

the

referred to or described in this

book have dual names. Thus:

CONFEDERATE

FEDERAL

Sharpsburg

Antietam Bull

Run

Second Bull Run

Second Manassas

Pea Ridge

Elkhorn Tavern

Perryville

Chaplin Hills

Shiloh

Pittsburgh Landing

The Merrimack,

frequently misspelled Merrimac, raised after the

destruction of the Norfolk

renamed

Manassas

Navy Yard and clad with iron, was Navy Department. Most

the Virginia by the Confederate

writers have preferred the original alliterative

name, probably because of

its

appeal when coupled with the Monitor.

Another source of confusion arises from the almost identical names of the two principal Western armies: the Union Army of the Tennessee and the Confederate Army of Tennessee. The Union army was named for the river, the Confederate army for the state. P.M.A.

CONTENTS

The Long Road

to Secession

1

— War Comes 1861 — The 1862 — and Bloody Fighting 1862 — The Big 1863 — The Year 1863 — The Southland 1864 — Union Armies Slug 1864 — The 1865 — The End 1865 — The 1861

Picture Story

Bitter

Picture Story

of

Battles

Picture Story

the

Picture Story

Picture Story

Index

29 53

67 93 123 143 165

187

207 227

239

A

Pictorial History of

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

THE LONG ROAD TO SECESSION

/^CTOBER hot

comes

to South Carolina as a blessed interlude between

summer and

chill

and rainy winter. In the tenth month of warm, the flowers still verdant.

the year the skies are blue, the breezes

But

in October, 1860, the

resolution of William

amenity of nature did not soften the hard Gist, governor of the state. For years this

Henry

man who had

between politics, his plantation, and the Methodist Church had been determined that the South should set itself up as an independent nation. On the fifth day of the month, in somnolent and lovely Columbia, capital of the state, he sat at his desk to write a letter to the several governors of the Cotton

fifty-three-year-old

States.

To each he

predicted that

divided his

Abraham Lincoln would be

to the Presidency of the United States.

decisive action.

life

Gist preferred that

lina should take the lead in seceding

some

state other

desire to

than South Caro-

from the Union, but

South Carolina would act alone. "If you decide

upon the

elected

This event would call for

if

none would,

to call a convention

election of a majority of electors favorable to Lincoln, I

know

the day you propose for the meeting, that

our convention to meet the same day,

if

we may

call

possible."

was realistic. He had watched the two sections of the between union bond of the Democratic party, a country, break apart in the year that was coming to an end. He had Gist's assessment of the political scene

William H. Gist. As Governor of South Carolina, 1858he called for secession in the event of Lincoln's election to the Presidency of the United States. 1860,

seen the northern faction secede from the National Convention to

nominate the

Illinoisan,

Stephen A. Douglas.

He had watched

the die-

hard Southerners choose John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. He was aware that the Republican party, which had put its first candidate into the field only four years earlier, surged with the confidence of sure victory.

He knew

that the

selves the Constitutional

Bell of Tennessee,

remnant of the Old Whigs, who called themUnion party and who had nominated John

would only make the election of Lincoln certain. was correct. On November 6 the voters of the

Gist's assessment

United States gave Lincoln 1,866,452 votes out of a

total

of 4,682,069.

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS His was a minority victory, but in the Electoral College he received

180 votes against 123 for his three opponents. By that time Gist had received replies from most of the governors to whom he had sent his inquiry. Some equivocated but others were forthright. Governor A. B. Moore of Alabama wrote: "It is my opinion that Alabama will not secede alone, but if two or more States will cooperate with her, she will secede with them." John J. Pettus of Mississippi replied without reservation: "I will call our Legislature in

known

extra session as soon as

it

carried the election.

I

expect Mississippi will ask a council of the

if

that council advises secession Mississippi will

Southern States, and

is

that the

Black Republicans have

go with them." The Governor of Georgia replied that

in his opinion the

people of Georgia, in the event of the election of Lincoln, would "meet all

the Southern States in convention and take

protection of the rights of all." "I

Governor M.

S.

our

rights,

If

am

common

action for the

South Carolina

proud

to say that Florida,"

"is

ready to wheel into

Palmetto State, or any other Cotton State or States,

any course which she or they may

adopt. ...

.

.

Perry of that state answered,

line with the gallant

in

.

The Cotton States up behind

line

there

is

sufficient

in their

judgment think proper to

manliness in the South to strike for

honor, and safety, in God's

name

let it

be done before the

inauguration of Lincoln."

South Carolina moved quickly to carry out Gist's promise. In mid-December, in response to a call of the Legislature, delegates to a convention assembled at Columbia. Finding the capital in the throes of a smallpox epidemic they adjourned to Charleston, but not before

James L, Petigru, the only outspoken Unionist in the state, made a Asked by a visitor the location of the insane asylum, Petigru pointed to the Baptist Church where the convention was in session. "It looks like a church," he said, "but it is now a lunatic asylum: go there and you will find one hundred and sixty-four maniacs

pointed quip.

within."

On December

1

8 the convention reassembled at Charleston.

Crowds

of excited people filled the streets and the stairways of the hall in which the delegates met.

The

streets

were gay with bunting and

holiday atmosphere pervaded the to report

city.

flags

The convention took

and pass by unanimous vote an ordinance of

and a

little

time

secession:

"We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, "That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twentythird day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of this State, ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South

To one sturdy South Carolinian, the Secessionists were insane

John C. Breckinridge, candidate of the die-hard Democrats in 1860

Carolina and other States, under the America,'

is

name

of 'The United States of

hereby dissolved."

That evening

in the

presence of crowded galleries every

of the convention signed the ordinance.

member

At the conclusion

of the

ceremony the audience broke into a storm of cheers, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and the palmetto trees ornamenting the chamber were torn to pieces for souvenirs.

The basic cause of disunion: Negro slavery

Outside, the city went wild with

excitement. Church bells pealed and cannon fired salutes. As one observer commented: "The whole heart of the people had spoken." What had brought this prosperous nation, the world's outstanding example of democratic government, to disunion? Negro slavery? In the end, yes, but it had taken almost two centuries for that blight to become a serious divisive force. Throughout most of the colonial

period slavery prevailed in

more numerous

all

the colonies although slaves were far

in those of the south than in those of the north.

The

southern colonies had forced Thomas Jefferson to delete a paragraph

from the Declaration of Independence condemning George III for condoning the slave trade, but the deletion had been accomplished without excessive bitterness. Throughout the Revolution the southern colonists had fought shoulder to shoulder with those of the north. The presence of slavery had resulted in compromises in the Constitutional Convention but had not prevented the adoption of the Constitution. Early in the nineteenth century, however, the two sections of the new nation began to move in different directions. In 1793 Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate tutoring in Georgia, invented the cotton gin.

The

TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY

John Bell of Tennessee and Edward Everett of Massachusetts, candidates of the Constitutional Union party in 1860

AND ARCHIVES

q^Sek'-

James L. ist.

Petigru,

To him,

the

Charleston entire

state

lawyer and Unionwas a madhouse.

machine removed an inherent limit on the crop. As a result, production increased by leaps and bounds. The Negro, adapted to work in the cotton fields, became, in the eyes of southern planters, indispensable. Although the slave trade was prohibited after 1808, the number of slaves increased almost as rapidly as the

came from the plantations. The North, however, began

number

to outstrip the

of bales of cotton that

South in population and

South Bay Street

in

Charleston on the eve of Secession

1800 the United States contained number, 2,622,000 lived in the states of the South. By 1850 the population had increased to 23,000,000. Of these, only 7,250,000 lived in the states that would secede. Ten years later, on the eve of war, the disparity between the two sections was even greater. Of a population of 31,000,000, more than 22,000,000 would cling to the Union with only 9,000,000 seceding. Of the cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, six were located in the northern stood in border states that states. Two St. Louis and Baltimore would remain loyal. The deep South could claim only one. New According

wealth.

to the census of

5,308,000 persons. Of

this

—

—

Orleans.

Nor

is

sections.

population the only gauge of the difference between the two

The

construction of railroads offers another measurement.

In 1850, of the 8600 miles of railroad in the United States, the north-

ern states possessed 6200 miles and the southern and border states

2400

miles.

Ten

years later the totals were 19,700 and 10,800.

In manufactures a similar disparity prevailed. ciencies of the South

volumes of

statistics

would be

tedious.

when he declaimed

One in

To

itemize the defi-

Southerner summarized

1855:

The North

pulls

ahead

of the South in population and wealth

i^J m} U twaiBW^i '

Hall of the

St.

Andrew's Society

of Secession was adopted.

"From born

in Charleston,

where the Ordinance

Fire destroyed the building in 1861.

the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child

in the

South to the shroud that covers the cold form of the dead,

everything comes to us from the North.

The South as poor relation

We

from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feathers, to wash in basins made in the North, dry our beards on Northern towels, and dress ourselves in garments woven in Northern looms; we eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with Northern spades, and our bread kneaded in trays or dishes of Northern wood or tin; and the very wood which feeds our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Connecticut or New York." By the middle of the nineteenth century it was evident that economically the nation had split into two parts. Southern society rested on the production of cotton, tobacco, and other staple crops cultivated by slave labor. Northern society, agricultural, mechanical and commercial, was carried on by free labor. A clash between the two different systems 8

rise

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS was

inevitable although

its

imminence was only imperfectly seen by

men of the time. The earliest overt conflict between North and South came in 1818 when Missouri sought admission to the Union with a constitution which Her admission would upset the balance between had so far prevailed. Two years of bitter controversy resulted in the Missouri Compromise, which admitted the new state to the Union but provided that slavery would be excluded from much of the unorganized country lying to the west. The line of Missouri's southern boundary, 36° 30', was to be extended westward and the territory north of the line would be free soil. permitted slavery. free

and slave

states that

B y LT_ 11

f_m o ji_,.,, TJiJ^.„„ gjmiS.-.:^.,-,..^

Banner of the South Carolina Secession Convention. Of the states shown Maryland and Kentucky remained loyal; Missouri, though bitterly divided, did not pass an ordinance of secession; and Tennessee left the Union by declaring her independence.

.....

.., J!

I

AN ORDUfA]fCE 7o diMotve

the

between the State qf South Canahim mmd

CMon

« I^e other States united with her under the compact* entitled Conatitutimt qf the United States qf .America.'" We, tke People of it

u

the State

herdry declared

of South OaroUna,

and

That the Otdinanoe adopted by ns

I

m

OonvaUioH as$e»Med, do dedare »,

ill

ot Ihoso l>viii

rli. ruwr

riirrj

u||

l iIm^- prlnriplr^ II i> llac Ar Ikr propU' lu Hm' lu Ibrir luijl*)! ua4 M»^

Wll. Kl}Lli€>€;€}! raa4Malr tmr rr^lniloa

lo (

oacrrM,

mIII alMi

adi/^'f^ri 1^ y

Brown on

his

way

to the scaffold.

Opposition of the party's Southern extremists.

A

drawing by A. Berghaus.

In fifty-seven ballots he

could not obtain the necessary two-thirds majority.

Recognizing the

hopelessness of the situation, the Convention adjourned to meet in later. There on June 23 a similar broken by the withdrawal of the Southern delegates. nominated on the second ballot. The bolters organized of their own and nominated the Kentuckian, John C.

Baltimore two months

deadlock was

Douglas was a convention

Breckinridge,

as their candidate.

mid-May, the Republican National Convention had met in Chicago. The delegates had been expected to nominate William H. Seward of New York, the acknowledged leader of the party. Failing Seward, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio appeared to be the most likely choice. After the Convention met, it became apparent that both Seward and Chase, who had long been in public life, had acquired many powerful enemies. Delegates from states essential to victory asserted heatedly that with either Seward or Chase at the head of the ticket they could not succeed. Eyes turned to Abraham Lincoln, who enjoyed the endorsement of only his own state. He had not been before the public long enough to acquire the enemies who were blocking the nomination of Seward and Chase. He came from a pivotal state, he enjoyed the national notice which the debates with Douglas had given Before

this time, in

25

Abraham

Lincoln,

dark horse, wins the Republican nomination

CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Abraham

Lincoln, President-elect,

1860

I

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

Salmon

P.

William Henry Seward of New York, Lincoln's principal rival for the Republican nomination in 1860

Chase of Ohio, the favor-

of the radical wing of the Republican party for the presidential ite

nomination

in

1860

him, and he possessed the log cabin birth and boyhood of frontier hardship that at that time appealed so strongly to the American people.

On the

third ballot

he won the nomination. The

split in

the Democratic

party and the candidacy of John Bell of Tennessee, on the Constitutional

Union

on the

ticket, virtually

crisis

guaranteed Lincoln's election, bringing

which Governor Gist of South Carolina had foreseen.

Lincoln, in his modest office in Springfield, at the

news of South Carolina's

Illinois,

He

secession.

refused to panic

said nothing publicly

but he did indicate to friends that he would not allow the Union to apart without

Washbume

making every

effort to

in Congress he wrote

hold

it

together.

To

fall

Elihu B.

on December 21: "Last night

I

received your letter giving an account of your interview with Gen. Scott,

and and

for tell

which

I

thank you. Please present

him, confidentially,

I shall

my

respects to the General,

be obliged to him to be as well

prepared as he can to either hold, or retake, the require, at,

and

after the inauguration."

forts,

as the case

may

Similar letters went to other

confidants in the capital.

27

The

President-elect

will not

permit

the South to secede in

peace

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, 1860

In the

last

days of 1860 the majority of the people of the North

refused to believe that the Union stood on the edge of dissolution.

The

South had threatened to secede so often that most Northerners considered this to be only another bluff with no more substance than those

Major Robert Anderson of Kentucky, loyal to the Union, garrisons Fort Sumter

which had preceded it. However, South Carolina gave every evidence of sincerity and determination. Private military companies paraded and drilled. By the end of the year they had guns trained on Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor. For five weeks the fort had been commanded by Major Robert Anderson, a popular Kentuckian. Anderson, though sympathizing with the South, was a loyal officer determined to carry out his responsibilities as best he could. Knowing that Moultrie was vulnerable from the land side, he decided to transfer his garrison to Fort Sumter, a

the night of

When day

stronger fortification, but then unfinished.

December 26 he made

the

move

in the

On

utmost secrecy.

broke, the Union flag over Sumter infuriated the people of

Charleston.

28

much

WAR COMES

THE FIRST MONTH

TNthe lead of South

of the

ncw

year other Southern states followed

by an ordinance of secesUnion on January 9; Florida on January 10; Alabama on January 11; Georgia on January 19; Louisiana on January 26; and Texas on February 1. On February 4 delegates from all these states except Texas met at Montgomery, Alabama, to form a provisional government for the Confederate States of America. There they adopted a provisional constitution modeled on that of the Carolina.

Mississippi,

sion, declared herself out of the

United

States.

The

in treasury notes

provisional Congress proceeded to issue $1,000,000

and provided

serve twelve months.

It

for raising

100,000 volunteers to

passed acts to organize a navy, post

office,

and authorized the sending of commissioners to Europe to and commerce. The states turned over to the Confederacy the property of the national government which they had seized, and Louisiana received a special vote of thanks for giving up $536,000 in coin which she had confiscated from the mint and customhouse in New Orleans. and

courts,

make

treaties of friendship

On February

9 the provisional Confederate Congress chose Jefferson

Davis President and Alexander H. Stephens Vice President to serve until

February 22, 1862, when the permanent government would go Davis, a fifty-three-year-old Mississippian, was a West

into effect.

29

Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, inaugurated as Provisional President of the Confederate States of

America on February

18,

1861

Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, Provisional Vice President of the Confederacy

Point graduate

He had been

who had

served in the Black

War

Hawk and Mexican

wars.

and had served most of two terms in the United States Senate, resigning upon the secession of Mississippi. Stephens, a Georgian, had been in Congress for eight terms, including the one in which Lincoln had been a representative from Illinois. The two men had become friendly enough for Lincoln, two days after South Carolina's secession, to appeal to the Georgian Secretary of

for understanding.

"Do

in Pierce's cabinet

the people of the South really entertain fears

that a Republican administration would, directly, or indirectly interfere

with their slaves or with them, about their slaves?

once a friend, and no cause for such fears."

to assure you, as

there

is

From

still,

I

If

they do,

I

wish

hope, not an enemy, that

Washington, where efforts to compromise the differences between the two sections were being made. To Senator William H. Seward, whom he had already chosen to be his Secretary of State, he wrote: "I say now ... as I have all the while said, that on the territorial that is, the question of extending slavery under the national question auspices, I am inflexible. I am for no compromise which assists or permits the extension of the institution on soil owned by the nation. And any trick by which the nation is to acquire territory, and then Springfield, Lincoln sent counsel to Republicans in

— —

30

1861

—

allow some local authority to spread slavery over as

any other." Lincoln had already been

at

work on

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS it,

is

as obnoxious

his inaugural address.

Taking

with him only Henry Clay's speech in support of the Compromise of

1850,

Andrew

Jackson's proclamation against nullification, and a copy

of the Constitution, he retired each day to a vacant second-story

room

With a printed copy of the address in his on February 1 1 for. a trip to Washington that would take almost two weeks. On the way he spoke frequently, but only on one or two occasions did he say anything of consequence regarding the national crisis. The sharpest of these comments came when he addressed the General Assembly of New Jersey at Trenton. "I shall do all that may be in my power," he said, "to promote a peaceful settlement of all our difficulties. The man does not live who is more devoted to peace than I am. None who would do more to preserve it. But it may be necessary to put the foot down firmly." At this point the audience broke into cheers so loud and long that Lincoln could not continue for several minutes. "And if I do my duty," he concluded, facing the State House.

carpetbag he

left

Springfield

The inauguration of Davis and Stephens at Montgomery, Alabama, February 18, 1861

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

1861

"and do right, you will sustain me, cheers answered his question.

Though office,

the sun shone

the day was

March

4,

will

you not?" Another storm of

1861, when the

new

President took

raw and disagreeable.

In spite of the sharp winds, thousands of people lined Pennsylvania

Standing

in the sights of sharpshooters' rifles, Lincoln takes

the oath of office

Avenue as Lincoln and retiring President Buchanan drove from the White House to the Capitol in a barouche drawn by four white horses. Soldiers and District of Columbia militia lined the street and sharpshooters lay on roofs behind parapets ready in case of an attempt at assassination.

After watching the induction of Hannibal Hamlin, Vice

President, in the Senate

Chamber, Lincoln was escorted

to the outdoor

platform at the east portico of the Capitol, where 10,000 curious spec-

had gathered. Chief Justice Taney administered the oath of office and the new President spoke his inaugural address. His tone was pacific, but a vein of iron ran through his words. The tators

accession of a Republican administration, he told the people of the

Southern

states,

personal security. perpetual union.

did not threaten their property, their peace, their

Beyond a doubt,

No

state of

its

the Constitution contemplated a

own motion

could lawfully secede.

he would execute the laws throughout To th^ nation. "In doing this," he asserted, "there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me, will be used to hold, the extent of his ability

Satirical view of Lincoln's secret jour-

ney from Harrisburg to Washington, February 23, 1861. Drawn by Adalbert John Volck, a Baltimore dentist

who possessed extraordinary skill as a draftsman. Volck was an ardent Confederate sympathizer.

32

1861

The inauguration of Lincoln, March

—

4,

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

1861

occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the govern-

ment, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion force against, or

among

—no

may be

using of

the people anywhere."

Lincoln closed with the emotional appeal that made his address forever memorable. "We are not enemies, but friends. We must not

must not break our be enemies. Though passion may bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthhave strained,

stone, all over this

broad land,

when again touched,

will yet swell the

as surely they will be,

it

chorus of the Union,

by the better angels of

our nature."

Moving

as

it

was, the inaugural offered no plan for resolving the

national crisis and spelled out

no compromise. In essence

it

did express

the hope that with time the disaffected South, realizing that the

Administration posed no threat to slavery where

it

new

already existed,

would retreat from the extreme position it had assumed. But there would be no time. As the Southern states had seceded, their local troops had seized nearly all the Federal forts within their boundaries or off their shores. Only four remained in the hands of the 33

The newly-inaugurated President pleads for reconciliation

between North and South

J

In compliance with a custom as old as the government

^

to address

^

stitution of the

i^

execution of his

$

you

and

briefly,

to take, in

I appear before yon

your presence, the cath prescribed by the Con-

States, to be taken

United

itself,

by the President "before he enters on the

oflice."

The more modern custom

of electing a Gh"ef Magistrate upon a previously declared

6

platform of principles, supercedes, in a great measure, the necessity of re-stating those

7

principles in an address of this sort.

jT

elected

f

the plainest grounds of good faith, one so

not at liberty to shift hii position.

is

in his

that,

pressed,

Upon

It

is

necessarily implied, if not ex-

judgment, the platform which he thus accepts, binds him

to

nothing either unconstitutional or inexpedient.

Jf}

Having been

//

so elected

upon the Chicago Platform, and while I would repeat noth-

0^ aspersion or epithet or question of motive against any

man

«

//

i^ig ^^ ^')

or party, I

j

/^

hold myself bound by duty, as well a3 impelled by inelination to follow, within the

^

/4

executive sphere, the principles therein declared.

/•

By

no other course could I meet

the reasonable expectations of the country.

/y

I do not consider

//

it

necessa-y at present for

me

to

say more than I have, in relation J

to those matters of administration, about which there

j®» Apprehension seems

/f

to exist

among

is-

no special excitement.

the people of the Southern States, that by

/^

the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and por-

•^

^

sonal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such

'Z

/

^2 ^J

istcd,

^v /

Z^ ^

^hen

inspection.

to their

who now

^

0^

to

do

I declare that "I have

so,

na purpose,

and I have no inclination

where to

and had never recanted them.

tion

is

found in nearly

all

the while ex-

the pub'ished

direetly or indirectly, to interfere with the exists.

it

Those who nomiinated and elected me

made

And more

I believe I have no lawful right

than

this, thif,

and many similar declarationsr they placed in the platform, for

acceptance, and as a law to themselves, and to me, the clear and emphatic resolu-

which 1 now read

:

That the maintenance

^/ J 2, JJ

ing to

^A

the perfection and endur&nce of our political fabric depend

t^' "^^

all

I do but quote from one of those Hpeeches

do sOi"

did so with full knowledge that I had

my

It

addresses you.

institution of slavery in the States

'^

Z

and been open

speeches of him

24 •^

Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has

apprehension.

^'Resolved,

cially the right of its

own judgment

lawless invasion

inviolate of the rights of the States,

each State to order and control

its

soil

| -

and we denounce the

%

of any State or Territory, no matter under

^

;

3 A vhat pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

The

first

page of Lincoln's Inaugural Address

as he had

it

accord-

S

power on which

exclusively, is essential to that balance of

by armed force of the

and espe-

own domestic institutions

printed before leaving Springfield

1861

—

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

in the Dry Tortugas, Fort Pickens in Pensacola Key West, and transcending all others in imporFort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. On March 5, Lincoln's

Union: Fort Jefferson Bay, Fort Taylor at tance,

first full day in office, he was presented with a shocking fact. Major Anderson in Fort Sumter had provisions for no more than thirty days. If he did not receive additional supplies within a month he would have to surrender. Lincoln had been aware, of course, of the fact that the Buchanan administration, two months earlier, had sent an unarmed merchant ship. The Star of the West, with provisions and additional troops to Sumter, but that she had turned back when fired upon by the shore batteries. He had not suspected, however, that the situation was

as critical as

he

now

discovered

it

to be.

Could Sumter be reinforced? Lincoln's military advisers answered it could not be relieved or even provisioned without an army of 20,000 men and a bloody battle. There were not 20,000 men in the Regular Army of the United States, and if there had been, they could not have been assembled and transported to the danger point in time. that

'

•

f

Robert Anderson. graph,

made

in

This photo1861, shows

)m^^ALM!^^i i

him wearing the

single star of a brigadier general, a rank to

which

May

he

\ ^

1 1

^^^ ft

was promoted on

15, 1861.

¥^^^m^

I

1

Com-

Thomas Jonathan Jackson, graduate

of West veteran of the Mexican War, and Professor of Artillery Tactics and Natural Philosophy at the Virginia Military Institute.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.

Point,

missioned a brigadier general in the Confederate Army on February 20, 1861, he commanded the troops that fired the opening

An

shots of the war.

early photograph.

Naval

officers,

optimistic, but

who even

held shore batteries in low esteem, were more if

they were correct, an attempt to relieve the fort

would be almost certain

As

to precipitate war.

the only apparent alternative, should Sumter be surrendered?

(Southern "commissioners" were even then in Washington attempting to negotiate the transfer of the forts

the Confederacy.)

When

still

in possession of the

confronted with

the Cabinet favored surrender.

Lincoln, never one to

Union

to

a majority of

this question,

move

hastily,

deferred a decision. Within two or three weeks he realized that to the fort in Charleston Harbor had become a symbol. To surwould be equivalent to consenting to a dissolution of the Union. By this time a majority of his Cabinet had swung around to the same view. Lincoln's attitude was strengthened by the reports of emissaries whom he had sent to Charleston. In their opinion the people of South Carolina were adamant in their desire to break up the Union and were no less firm in their determination that Fort Sumter should pass from the hands of the Federal government to the Confederacy. Time pressed. Finally Lincoln made a decision in between relief and abandonment. He would send provisions but no troops to Ander-

North the render

son.

36

it

On

April 6 he dispatched a messenger to Francis

W.

Pickens,

1861

THE CIVIL WAR YEARS

who had succeeded William H.

Gist as Governor of South Carolina. by the President of the United States," the message read, "to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort Sumter with provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the Fort." Immediately upon receipt of this notification Pickens relayed it to Jefferson Davis at Montgomery. After an anxious cabinet meeting, L. P. Walker, the Confederate Secretary of War, ordered General P. G. T. Beauregard, in command at Charleston, to demand the evacuation of the fort and if this were refused to take it by force. On April 1 1 Beauregard sent his demand for surrender to Anderson. Anderson refused it but remarked that he would be forced by lack of provisions to give up the fort in a few days. To Beauregard the reply was unsatisfactory. At 3:30 A.M. on April 12 he notified the Federal commander that he would open fire within an hour. True to his promise a howitzer "I

am

directed

fired the first shot at 4:30.

The engagement

lasted for thirty-three hours.

Sumter's guns were put out of commission and

was

its

Although many of interior burned, none

Near the end of the battle, the relief expedition appeared at the mouth of the harbor but made no effort to come to the aid of the beleaguered fort. With his ammunition nearly exhausted and his provisions gone, Anderson surrendered. Beauregard of the defenders

killed.

Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, who will'f^giy guided the events that his predecessor, William H. Gist,

had set

in

motion

CONFEDERATE MUSEUM, RICHMOND, VA.

Outfitting a Confederate volunteer.

From

a water color by W. L. She p pard.

permitted the garrison to embark on the ships of the expedition and to salute the Stars

exploded and killed

and Stripes. Ironically the gun firing the a Union soldier, the only casualty of the first

salute battle

of the war.

on Sumter and chagrin at its surrender swept the North. Offers of unlimited support poured into Washington. One of the most welcome was that tendered by Lincoln's longtime rival, Stephen A. Douglas. On the evening of April 14 he called on the President to say that while he remained unalterably opposed to the Administration on all political issues, he would sustain the government in preserving the Union. "The capital of our country is in danger," he said, "and must be protected at all hazards, at any expense of men and money." Lincoln responded to the Confederate challenge by issuing three proclamations. The first, dated April 15, called up 75,000 militia Shock and anger

at the assault

38

i

m mmn

flag has been msulted

REBELUON HAS BEEN INAUGURATED! INVASION OK THE TAI'ITAL

riTKIOTa I^dcon.

W

»AIIIIIIALI,


T\

.

THREATENED

.n ™il„|

M

„.

!

„

Saturdu:^ the 5J0th insf., at 1 orhuk IV lo oVuniJ/.«' a yoluDteer Company, to l>c- temh-nMl to fh, Oo^i riimcal fo Kuoixiri tri« '/ >9wlirMrttf?i and the Laiot, in ua^iv;*

^^^^s^^'"^ 4 J> COOK COLLECTION, VALENTINE MUSEUM

The Charleston Light

1861. War, in those early days, called for considerable strutting.

Sergeant

Francis

E.

Brownell,

11th

New

York Volunteers. On May 24, 1861, he killed James T. Jackson, who had assassinated Elmer Ellsworth.

Artillery,

Abram Duryee, commissioned 5th

New York

His uniform

colonel of the Infantry on April 25, 1861.

illustrated the individuality of

the early volunteers.

CHICAGO HISTORICAL

Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. Military Academy, 1843, and a veteran of the Mexican War, left this unpretentious store in Galena, Illinois, to serve on the staff of

Governor Richard Yates, and soon afterward,

56

Illinois Infantry,

a fractious regiment.

to take

command

of the 21st

SOCIETY

•3?

An

example of the

primitive state of the Southern economy

As

the Union troops moved into Alexandria, where Ellsworth was killed, they saw slave pens

Virginia, like this.

I

2fr i

r^

rM^Ja

i % Vi'

:/

!.'•«.

w^*-

tmm-r

Mm v^^i'i^-

-

Volck,

the

Baltimore

artist,

offered a satirical picture of the enlistment of Daniel E. Sickles'

New

Sickles,

Brigade,

Excelsior

York,

in

June,

who had

1861.

killed

wife's lover in 1859,

his

was an

easy target.

NEW YORK

PUBLIC UtRA

Charles W. Reed drew a vivid sketch of a Union war rally. Fervid oratory

induced

man

War

many

to sign the

a

young

muster

roll.

7>iccti}ii

HARDTACK AND COFFEE

NEW YORK

Again Volck dipped in acid.

his

pen

This time his subject

was the German-American, Franz Sigel, who rallied large numbers of Germans to the cause of the Union but fought without distinction. Nevertheless,

"I fights

mit Sigel,"

was the proud slogan of soldiers.

his

PUBLIC LIBRAr

Centreville, Virginia.

Manassas Junction the

Confederates

twenty-five

miles

As McDowell advanced toward

in the First

withdrew

Bull

from

Run Campaign, this

west and south

of

little

town

Washington.

ix:^^^tM

McDowell's advancing men discovered

that the Confederate

defenses at Centreville were less formidable than they aptrunks contributed to the tree peared. "Quaker guns"

—

illusion of strength.

—

59

'-rtalE^i.'

*

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Burnside's brigade opening First Bull Run. the artist,

was

in the field

Alfred R.

Waud,

for the Illustrated News.

The Henry House. Near this structure, on the field of First Bull Run, T. Jackson's Confederate brigade formed and held the defensive line that won for commander the name "Stonewall." CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY

J. its

1st New York Artillery. These rifted cannon 20-pounders are shown here were much superior to the smoothbore Napoleons, the basic field artillery weapon

Parrott guns of the

—

—

of both armies.

est-

NO COMl'ROJUSE WITH

TKAITOItS,

AND NO AUCrMENT BIT A

K>.(K

KIWW N ARGUMENT.

Volunteers Wanted!

FOR COMPANY Nathaniel Lyon, killed at Wibon's Creek,

August

10,

M.

COLONEL OWEN'S 2d REGIMENT,

1861

BAKER'S BRIGADE thin Conipunj-. f\