CHAPTER TEN:
Hostilities Commence in the Charleston Harbor
How Lincoln Manipulated Public Opinion
Such was Lincoln's dilemma: On the one hand, he was being pressured by the industrial and banking interests of the New England and Midwestern States, who were clamoring for the removal of the South as a viable competitor in the international and domestic markets. In addition to these were the Republican politicians who saw war against the South as the surest means to secure their newly obtained control of the Government. However, on the other hand, Lincoln was faced with an overwhelmingly popular anti-war sentiment among the Northern citizens. According to the 1 January 1861 edition of the Boston Daily Advertiser: "The people desire no war; no attack upon South Carolina; nor do they wish to see her needlessly supplied with any pretext for the beginning of hostilities."(1) The mood of the people throughout the North was so strong in favor of allowing the Southern States to depart in peace that if the Government were to make any aggressive move at all at Fort Sumter, upon which all eyes were focused, Lincoln would be denounced by "a thousand northern presses... as a provoker of war."(2) Most of the people in the North were not fooled by the conciliatory tone of Lincoln's Inaugural Address of 4 March 1861. Only a few days after the speech had been delivered, the Democratic editors of the New York Herald stated:
The possession of Forts Sumter and Pickens is the avowed intention of President Davis and his Cabinet. But when the nation turns to Washington to look for information as to the design of the military and naval preparations of the Northern government, it is met either with mysterious silence, or conflicting stories, or ambiguous utterances, like the responses of the Delphic oracles.
Now, the effect of all this mystery, so foreign to the genius of a republican government, is most disastrous to the whole country. As to the North, with its idle capitalists, surplus breadstuffs and its enterprising spirit chafing for employment, the policy of the administration is most ruinous to it. All the operations of trade and commerce and manufactures are paralyzed and fettered by uncertainty, which is more fatal to business interests than the worst reality. Merchants cannot make their calculations, and dare not invest till they have some idea of what is before them. If it be war, they will know what to do. If it be peace, they will promptly act accordingly. But suspense is death to all enterprise. So destructive to the public welfare is the conduct of the administration that the people of the North will not stand it much longer...
... This we have no doubt is what Mr. Lincoln wants, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing upon the Southern confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities. But the country and posterity will hold him just as responsible as if he struck the first blow. The provocation to assault is often more culpable than the assault itself.(3)
From present appearances we know what we may expect in the future. We see that all the professions of peace uttered by Mr. Lincoln and others were mere idle talk, or else made to lull the country into a state of false security till the administration concluded its loans and was ready to strike a blow. Fort Pickens, on its lonely sandbar, may, in its ruins in years hereafter, tell of the bloody battle of Pensacola which commenced the civil war that desolated the United States in the year of our Lord 1861...
Similar sentiments likewise appeared in the Baltimore Sun around the same time:
The Inaugural, as a whole, breathes the spirit of mischief. It has only a conditional conservatism — that is, the lack of ability or some inexpediency to do what it would. It assumes despotic authority, and intimates the design to exercise that authority to any extent of war and bloodshed, qualified only by the withholding of the requisite means to the end by the American people. The argumentation of the address is puerile. Indeed, it has no quality entitled to the dignity of an argument. It is a shaky specimen of special pleading, by way of justifying the unrighteous character and deeds of the fanaticism which, lifted into power, may be guilty, as it is capable, of any atrocities. There is no Union spirit in the address, it is sectional and mischievous, and studiously withholds any sign of recognition of that equality of the States upon which the Union can alone be maintained. If it means what it says, it is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of hope.(5)
Lincoln's former political opponent, Illinois Democrat Stephen Douglas, had also warned the American people a month earlier that the Republican leaders who put Lincoln into office "are striving to break up the Union under the pretense of preserving it," and that "they are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while professing undying attachment to it, and a willingness to make any sacrifice to maintain it... [and] are trying to plunge the country into a cruel war as the surest means of destroying the Union upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting public property."(6) Such warnings were resounding throughout the North and the South. In fact, before the fall of Fort Sumter, an estimated two-thirds of the newspapers in the North “were the virtual allies of the Secessionists, their apologists, their champions.”(7)
Lincoln's plan to shift these circumstances in his favor, and to put "the rebellion... in 'the wrong,'"(8) was an exercise of the treacherous ingenuity of a would-be despot. In its resolution of 15 February 1861, the Confederate Congress authorized the C.S. President to appoint "a commission of three persons" to be "sent to the Government of the United States of America, for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that Government and the Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two Governments, upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith."(9) Lincoln, however, refused to see these Peace Commissioners upon their arrival at Washington, as also did William Seward, who reasoned that he could do nothing that could be interpreted as a recognition of the Confederate States as an independent power.(10) However, Seward agreed to meet with intermediary John A. Campbell of the U.S. Supreme Court, through whom he assured the Peace Commissioners, on or around 15 March 1861, that "the order for the evacuation of Sumter had been made."(11) Five days later, when questioned why no action had been taken by the occupants of the fort to evacuate as promised, Seward "spoke of his ability to carry through his policy with confidence," and "he accounted for the delay as accidental, and not involving the integrity of his assurance that the evacuation would take place."(12) On the first day of April 1861, Seward again declared that "the President may desire to supply Sumter, but will not do so," and that there was "no design to reinforce Fort Sumter" [emphasis in original].(13) When rumors began to circulate about the preparation of a secret expedition to the Pensacola and the Charleston harbors, Campbell expressed his "anxiety and concern" in a letter to Seward dated the seventh of April.(14) Seward's response was as follows: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait and see."(15) Oddly, Seward's written response was omitted from the records compiled by the War Department in 1880.
Judge Campbell's personal testimony, given later that same year, sheds further light on these events:
... "Mr. Seward authorised me to communicate the fact of the evacuation to Mr. Davis, and the precise object was to induce him to render his commissioners inactive. I did not anticipate having any other interview with Mr. Seward. I supposed that Sumter would be evacuated in the course of a very few days, and without any other action on my part. When upon the second and third interviews with him I found there was to be delay, I conversed with Judge Nelson as to the delicacy of my position, and it was at his suggestion and by his counsel that I agreed to be the "intermediary" until Sumter was evacuated. Neither of us doubted that the fort was to be surrendered or abandoned.... I asked Governor Seward about the evacuation of the fort. Without any verbal reply, he wrote: "The President may desire to supply Sumter, but will not do so without giving notice to Governor [Francis] Pickens." Upon reading this, I asked if the President had any design to attempt to supply Sumter. His reply contained an observation of the President. That I pass. But he said he did not believe any attempt would be made to supply Sumter, and there was no design to reinforce it. I told him if that were the case, I should not employ this language, that it would be interpreted as a design to attempt a supply, and that, if such a thing were believed in Charleston, they would bombard the fort, that they did not regard the surrender of Sumter as open to question, and when they did, they would proceed to extremities. He left the State Department, I remaining there till his return; and, on his return, he wrote these words: "I am satisfied that the Government will not undertake to supply Sumter without giving notice to Governor Pickens." This excluded the matter of desire, and with what had taken place, left the impression that if any attempt were made it would be an open, declared, and peaceful offer to supply the fort, which, being resisted by the Carolinians, the fort would be abandoned as a military necessity and to spare the effusion of blood — the odium of resistance and of the evacuation being thrown upon the late Administration and the Confederate States. Had these counsels prevailed — had the policy been marked with candour and moderation — I am not sure that even before this the fruit might have been seen ripening among the States in renewed relations of kindness and goodwill, to be followed ere long by a suitable political and civil union, adequate to the security of both sections at home and abroad. The ideas of union and a common country, as applied to all the States, are now simply obsolete [emphasis in original].(16)
Hostilities Commence in the Charleston Harbor
How Lincoln Manipulated Public Opinion
Such was Lincoln's dilemma: On the one hand, he was being pressured by the industrial and banking interests of the New England and Midwestern States, who were clamoring for the removal of the South as a viable competitor in the international and domestic markets. In addition to these were the Republican politicians who saw war against the South as the surest means to secure their newly obtained control of the Government. However, on the other hand, Lincoln was faced with an overwhelmingly popular anti-war sentiment among the Northern citizens. According to the 1 January 1861 edition of the Boston Daily Advertiser: "The people desire no war; no attack upon South Carolina; nor do they wish to see her needlessly supplied with any pretext for the beginning of hostilities."(1) The mood of the people throughout the North was so strong in favor of allowing the Southern States to depart in peace that if the Government were to make any aggressive move at all at Fort Sumter, upon which all eyes were focused, Lincoln would be denounced by "a thousand northern presses... as a provoker of war."(2) Most of the people in the North were not fooled by the conciliatory tone of Lincoln's Inaugural Address of 4 March 1861. Only a few days after the speech had been delivered, the Democratic editors of the New York Herald stated:
The possession of Forts Sumter and Pickens is the avowed intention of President Davis and his Cabinet. But when the nation turns to Washington to look for information as to the design of the military and naval preparations of the Northern government, it is met either with mysterious silence, or conflicting stories, or ambiguous utterances, like the responses of the Delphic oracles.
Now, the effect of all this mystery, so foreign to the genius of a republican government, is most disastrous to the whole country. As to the North, with its idle capitalists, surplus breadstuffs and its enterprising spirit chafing for employment, the policy of the administration is most ruinous to it. All the operations of trade and commerce and manufactures are paralyzed and fettered by uncertainty, which is more fatal to business interests than the worst reality. Merchants cannot make their calculations, and dare not invest till they have some idea of what is before them. If it be war, they will know what to do. If it be peace, they will promptly act accordingly. But suspense is death to all enterprise. So destructive to the public welfare is the conduct of the administration that the people of the North will not stand it much longer...
... This we have no doubt is what Mr. Lincoln wants, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing upon the Southern confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities. But the country and posterity will hold him just as responsible as if he struck the first blow. The provocation to assault is often more culpable than the assault itself.(3)
From present appearances we know what we may expect in the future. We see that all the professions of peace uttered by Mr. Lincoln and others were mere idle talk, or else made to lull the country into a state of false security till the administration concluded its loans and was ready to strike a blow. Fort Pickens, on its lonely sandbar, may, in its ruins in years hereafter, tell of the bloody battle of Pensacola which commenced the civil war that desolated the United States in the year of our Lord 1861...
Similar sentiments likewise appeared in the Baltimore Sun around the same time:
The Inaugural, as a whole, breathes the spirit of mischief. It has only a conditional conservatism — that is, the lack of ability or some inexpediency to do what it would. It assumes despotic authority, and intimates the design to exercise that authority to any extent of war and bloodshed, qualified only by the withholding of the requisite means to the end by the American people. The argumentation of the address is puerile. Indeed, it has no quality entitled to the dignity of an argument. It is a shaky specimen of special pleading, by way of justifying the unrighteous character and deeds of the fanaticism which, lifted into power, may be guilty, as it is capable, of any atrocities. There is no Union spirit in the address, it is sectional and mischievous, and studiously withholds any sign of recognition of that equality of the States upon which the Union can alone be maintained. If it means what it says, it is the knell and requiem of the Union, and the death of hope.(5)
Lincoln's former political opponent, Illinois Democrat Stephen Douglas, had also warned the American people a month earlier that the Republican leaders who put Lincoln into office "are striving to break up the Union under the pretense of preserving it," and that "they are struggling to overthrow the Constitution while professing undying attachment to it, and a willingness to make any sacrifice to maintain it... [and] are trying to plunge the country into a cruel war as the surest means of destroying the Union upon the plea of enforcing the laws and protecting public property."(6) Such warnings were resounding throughout the North and the South. In fact, before the fall of Fort Sumter, an estimated two-thirds of the newspapers in the North “were the virtual allies of the Secessionists, their apologists, their champions.”(7)
Lincoln's plan to shift these circumstances in his favor, and to put "the rebellion... in 'the wrong,'"(8) was an exercise of the treacherous ingenuity of a would-be despot. In its resolution of 15 February 1861, the Confederate Congress authorized the C.S. President to appoint "a commission of three persons" to be "sent to the Government of the United States of America, for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between that Government and the Confederate States of America, and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two Governments, upon principles of right, justice, equity, and good faith."(9) Lincoln, however, refused to see these Peace Commissioners upon their arrival at Washington, as also did William Seward, who reasoned that he could do nothing that could be interpreted as a recognition of the Confederate States as an independent power.(10) However, Seward agreed to meet with intermediary John A. Campbell of the U.S. Supreme Court, through whom he assured the Peace Commissioners, on or around 15 March 1861, that "the order for the evacuation of Sumter had been made."(11) Five days later, when questioned why no action had been taken by the occupants of the fort to evacuate as promised, Seward "spoke of his ability to carry through his policy with confidence," and "he accounted for the delay as accidental, and not involving the integrity of his assurance that the evacuation would take place."(12) On the first day of April 1861, Seward again declared that "the President may desire to supply Sumter, but will not do so," and that there was "no design to reinforce Fort Sumter" [emphasis in original].(13) When rumors began to circulate about the preparation of a secret expedition to the Pensacola and the Charleston harbors, Campbell expressed his "anxiety and concern" in a letter to Seward dated the seventh of April.(14) Seward's response was as follows: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept. Wait and see."(15) Oddly, Seward's written response was omitted from the records compiled by the War Department in 1880.
Judge Campbell's personal testimony, given later that same year, sheds further light on these events:
... "Mr. Seward authorised me to communicate the fact of the evacuation to Mr. Davis, and the precise object was to induce him to render his commissioners inactive. I did not anticipate having any other interview with Mr. Seward. I supposed that Sumter would be evacuated in the course of a very few days, and without any other action on my part. When upon the second and third interviews with him I found there was to be delay, I conversed with Judge Nelson as to the delicacy of my position, and it was at his suggestion and by his counsel that I agreed to be the "intermediary" until Sumter was evacuated. Neither of us doubted that the fort was to be surrendered or abandoned.... I asked Governor Seward about the evacuation of the fort. Without any verbal reply, he wrote: "The President may desire to supply Sumter, but will not do so without giving notice to Governor [Francis] Pickens." Upon reading this, I asked if the President had any design to attempt to supply Sumter. His reply contained an observation of the President. That I pass. But he said he did not believe any attempt would be made to supply Sumter, and there was no design to reinforce it. I told him if that were the case, I should not employ this language, that it would be interpreted as a design to attempt a supply, and that, if such a thing were believed in Charleston, they would bombard the fort, that they did not regard the surrender of Sumter as open to question, and when they did, they would proceed to extremities. He left the State Department, I remaining there till his return; and, on his return, he wrote these words: "I am satisfied that the Government will not undertake to supply Sumter without giving notice to Governor Pickens." This excluded the matter of desire, and with what had taken place, left the impression that if any attempt were made it would be an open, declared, and peaceful offer to supply the fort, which, being resisted by the Carolinians, the fort would be abandoned as a military necessity and to spare the effusion of blood — the odium of resistance and of the evacuation being thrown upon the late Administration and the Confederate States. Had these counsels prevailed — had the policy been marked with candour and moderation — I am not sure that even before this the fruit might have been seen ripening among the States in renewed relations of kindness and goodwill, to be followed ere long by a suitable political and civil union, adequate to the security of both sections at home and abroad. The ideas of union and a common country, as applied to all the States, are now simply obsolete [emphasis in original].(16)