Franklin: "Chapter XLV. Hasty Preparations for War.," by Alexander K. McClure, 1905
Summary: In this chapter of Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, McClure writes of the beginning battles of the Civil War, Fort Sumter and the First Battle of Bull Run. McClure also describes McClellan's command of the Union Army and Curtin's success as the "Soldiers' Friend."
THE bombardment of Sumter accomplished the enforced secession of Virginia and North Carolina. The conventions of both of these States had previously refused to join in the secession movement.
Looking merely on the surface of the history of those times, the firing on Sumter appears as an act of midsummer madness, when General Beauregard, the Confederate commander, had the assurance of Major Anderson, commanding the little handful of the Union force in Sumter, that he would surrender the fort at noon two days thereafter if not supplied with provisions. It was this firing upon a starving garrison by order of the Confederate government that inflamed the North and gave it substantial unanimity in support of the war, and it was, as I have on several occasions stated, the death knell of the Confederacy.
In a conversation with Jefferson Davis, who was then President of the Confederacy, when I visited his home some ten years after the war, I asked him whether political conditions had not controlled his decision to order the firing upon Sumter when its surrender was assured at a given hour. He declared very positively, however, that the order to fire upon Sumter had been issued solely because the Federal government had, as he believed, been guilty of a breach of faith by starting an expedition by sea to provision and reinforce Sumter. I reminded him that there was no intention on the part of President Lincoln to violate the faith of the government, as was evidenced by his notification to Governor Pickens that an expedition had been started to provision the garrison at Sumter, and with the notice the assurance was given that if provisions were allowed to be supplied to the fort, no attempt would be made to reinforce the garrison or supply munitions of war.
However, Mr. Davis may have been influenced by his belief that a breach of faith had been committed by Lincoln. I cannot doubt that Sumter would not have been fired upon but for the fact that Virginia and North Carolina could not be brought into the Confederacy without first precipitating civil war. Immediately after the surrender of Sumter and the call of the government for 75,000 troops to maintain the Union, the reconvened convention of Virginia, in secret session, adopted the ordinance of secession, and North Carolina followed. The Confederate government at once transferred its Capital to Richmond, and all that Virginia gained by reversing her verdict against secession, and making common cause with the Confederacy, was to make her soil the chief theater of civil war, with almost universal desolation within her borders.
Both sections immediately organized large armies. General Beauregard, who had commanded the bombardment at Charleston, was placed at the head of one army, and advanced to Mantissas, a good strategic point because of its railroad facilities, and General Joseph E. Johnson with another army took possession of the Shenandoah Valley. An army of some 25,000 men was organized at Washington to make the advance upon Manassas and Richmond, commanded by General McDowell, and General Patterson, who was in command of the Department of Pennsylvania, marched with an army of nearly equal numbers through the Cumberland Valley to meet Johnson somewhere on the other side of the Potomac.
General Scott continued as commander-in-chief and personally directed the movements of all the various military forces in the field, but he had outlived his ability to exhibit the great military genius which made his march from Vera Cruz to Mexico so lustrous in achievements, and his utter incapacity for his high command was clearly illustrated when McDowell and Patterson, both moving under his immediate orders, were kept far apart at the battle of Bull Run, while Johnson escaped from Patterson, joined Beauregard, and changed a Union victory into a most disastrous Union defeat.
The people of the North had become somewhat accustomed to the idea of civil war, as immense preparations for it had been going on for nearly three months, but nearly all cherished the hope that in some way, without knowing or pretending to know how it might be accomplished, war would be averted, or at least that a single battle would surely end the conflict and bring about the restoration of the Union on some basis of compromise.
When General Patterson with his army was marching through the Cumberland Valley to the Potomac, he encamped for several days on my farm on the outskirts of Chambersburg, and I had the principal officers to dine with me during their stay. Along with General Patterson were General Cadwallader, General Doubleday, General Keim, Colonel George H. Thomas, then commanding the regulars, Major Fitz John Porter, who was on General Scott's staff and represented the commander-in-chief, and Senator John Sherman, who was a volunteer aide on Patterson's staff. It was a pleasant May evening, and after dinner the parties were enjoying their cigars on the porch, where I heard the whole question of the war freely discussed by the officers and the men whom I supposed to be unerring oracles on the grave question.
The only silent guest of the occasion was Colonel Thomas. He was a Virginian and well knew how terribly the South was in earnest, and how desperately its people would fight for their homes, and only very few questions were asked him at any time during the conversation, to which he always answered very courteously and without expressing any decided opinion. All of the others, with the single exception of Doubleday, agreed that it might be necessary to fight one general battle, but beyond that the war could not possibly be extended. They assumed that the North with its advantage in numbers would be successful in the battle, and that compromise and peace must inevitably follow. General Doubleday, who had been in Sumter, and had been in immediate intercourse with the Southern people, declared with great earnestness that if one general battle was fought between the North and the South, it would precipitate the bloodiest war of the century.
Generals Patterson, Cadwallader, Keim, and Staff Officers Porter and Sherman were entirely agreed in the conviction that one battle might be necessary for peace, but that peace must follow the first defeat of the Southern army. They regarded the capture of Richmond as certain to follow a successful battle in the field, and they believed that peace would come before the Confederate Capital could be captured. Doubleday very earnestly combatted the delusion of his fellow-officers. He was an impetuous man and expressed his views with unusual earnestness. He was called away to his command before any of the others left, and when he had gone out of hearing, General Patterson remarked that it was very unfortunate for Doubleday that he was a spiritualist and "gone in the head."
Both sections were unprepared for war, but the South had the advantage of the transfer of the major portion of the arms of the Union to the Southern arsenals before the war began, by Secretary Floyd, of Virginia. The country had not been engaged in war for half a century with the exception of a short struggle with Mexico that did not require so much as a regiment from each State of the Union, and the martial spirit of the people had almost entirely died out.
Pennsylvania offered enough troops to fill the entire call of the government for 75,000 men, and with her Reserve Corps that was in an advanced stage of organization when the battle of Bull Run was fought, we had a very large excess of our quota of men in the military service. No one in the North doubted that with the overwhelming numbers under Scott's command the battle to be fought at Manassas must be a decided victory for the Union army, and the belief was very general that within a week or two at the most after such a battle, Richmond would be in the possession of Union troops.
Public sentiment was intensely inflamed on the subject of the war, and the cry of "On to Richmond," started in Greeley's "Tribune," was repeated in every community.
Why the battle of Bull Run was lost has never been officially explained to the public. General Patterson, who was severely censured at the time for permitting Johnson to escape from the valley and join Beauregard at Bull Run, promptly demanded a court of inquiry at which he proposed to prove beyond dispute that he had literally and faithfully obeyed the orders of General Scott, and in that he was undoubtedly right. The court of inquiry was refused to him because, as the Department declared, it was not necessary for his vindication.
When McDowell's army was defeated and finally driven in utter confusion back into the defenses of Washington, the people of the North, and especially of Pennsylvania, for the first time began to understand the magnitude of undertaking to lock horns with the South to conquer its people into submission to the Union.
At first a tidal wave of despair swept over the North, but it was speedily dispelled as the people began to understand the duties and sacrifices they must accept. I then represented the Gettysburg district in the State senate, and was engaged nearly all the time with Governor Curtin at Harrisburg. He stood out before the State and the country as grandly vindicated by organizing the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps in the face of the protest of the National government, as it was that corps, enlisted for three years' service or during the war, that was the nucleus of the Grand Army of the Potomac that McClellan so completely organized after he was called into command.
The Governor gave prompt utterance to his patriotic convictions and purposes and inspired the loyal sentiment of the State to aggressive action. It was then known that we were face to face with actual sanguinary war between brethren of opposing sections, and all understood that such a war must be even more desperate than a war between opposing nationalities. McClellan was called to the command of the Army of the Potomac, as he then stood alone with a record of victories in West Virginia, which a few years later would hardly have been regarded as skirmishes, but he had defeated or captured several regimental commands at different points, and as he was known to be one of the most accomplished officers in the army, it was natural, with his prestige of victories in West Virginia, that he should be called to the command of the Army of the Potomac with the very cordial approval of the country.
One of the amusing features of the early part of the war was the hesitation of the government to recognize a condition of war in the South and treat the Confederacy as a belligerent power. When General McClellan demanded the surrender of Colonel Pegram's regiment in West Virginia, he addressed Pegram as if writing a business note, entirely omitting Pegram's title, and General Andrew Porter, a gallant Pennsylvania soldier, and cousin of Horace Porter, who was on Grant's staff and is now Minister to France, informed me of the ludicrous scene when the first flag of truce appeared between the two armies. General Porter was provost marshal of the army, and when information came from the pickets that a Southern command had appeared with a flag of truce, it was brought to him, and the grave question of acknowledging the Confederacy as a belligerent power had to be decided at once. There was great hesitation about the attitude to be assumed, but it was finally decided that any communication from the Southern army should be received without any official recognition of her belligerent rights. The communication related simply to the exchange of some prisoners, and arrangements were made to carry into effect the request that was made, but with scrupulous care to avoid any official recognition as belligerents.
France and England had already recognized the rights of the Confederacy as a belligerent, and we could do nothing less without deciding that there should be neither capture nor exchange of prisoners, leaving the war to be conducted under the old-time laws of barbarism. The protection of the Union prisoners in the hands of the enemy compelled the government to treat with the Confederacy as possessing all the rights of a belligerent power, while we were very careful to avoid any form of distinct recognition. A regular cartel for the exchange of prisoners was agreed upon, and every belligerent right practically accorded to the South simply because it was an imperious necessity.
It was confidently expected that General McClellan, with the new Army of the Potomac, that very largely outnumbered the Confederate force between Washington and Richmond, would march upon Manassas in the early fall, and the belief was generally shared in the North that he would be in Richmond by the 1st of October. But McClellan was, first of all, a thorough disciplinarian, and he was unwilling to advance upon the enemy until he had his army thoroughly disciplined, and September passed and finally October passed with the Army of the Potomac remaining at Washington, and there was profound disappointment throughout the entire North.
The fall elections, the most important of which were held in October, were seriously affected by the inaction of the Union army, and political interests as well as patriotic impulses demanded the advance of the Army of the Potomac. Fortunately, there were no State officers to be elected in Pennsylvania, but the Republicans would have lost the control of the popular branch of the Legislature had it not been for a combination made by which a number of War Demo-crats were elected to the House by the support of the Republicans.
Governor Curtin visited Washington certainly half a dozen times during the fall of 1861 to urge the vigorous prosecution of the war. President Lincoln and War Secretary Cameron both shared Cumin's anxiety, and, although the weather was unusually favorable throughout the fall for army movements, with excellent roads, the Army of the Potomac remained in its Washington camp until midwinter, when McClellan suffered a severe attack of illness, and the President assumed the responsibility of ordering a general advance of the army on the 22d of February, 1862. That order was withdrawn when the President reluctantly yielded to General McClellan's assurances that the advance would be made at an early day. Finally the movement was made upon Manassas, which was found deserted by the Confederate forces, with the defences mounted with wooden imitation guns.
Governor Curtin inaugurated his wonderful system for the care of the Pennsylvania soldiers in the field and in the hospitals early in the fall of 1861. He appointed commissioners representing the State to visit soldiers in the field, and especially sick and wounded in the hospitals, and see that they had every necessary provision for their comfort. I have stated in a former chapter that every Pennsylvania soldier who addressed a letter on any subject, however trivial, received a direct answer from the Executive chamber over the name of the Governor, and he was entirely in advance of all the Northern executives in making provision for the care of our State troops. He carried that theory to the extent of early legislation providing for the body of every Pennsylvania soldier who died on the field, in a hospital, or anywhere in the military service, to be brought home at the expense of the State for burial with his kindred. Curtin's affection for his soldiers was that of the most loving father for his own children. A man clad in his country's blue, although without insignia of command, always was the first of the visitors admitted into the Executive chamber. It soon became well understood throughout the Pennsylvania portion of the army that Governor Curtin was the "Soldiers' Friend," and by that title he was known not only to every Pennsylvanian in the service, but in the home of every soldier in the Commonwealth.
No matter how grave or exacting were his official duties, the presence of a soldier, however humble, always received welcome and attention, and it was the grateful appreciation of this devotion of Curtin to the Pennsylvania soldiers that re-elected him in 1863, when some 70,000 Pennsylvania soldiers were not permitted to vote for Governor, as the amendment to our Constitution permitting soldiers to vote in the field was not accomplished until 1864. The soldiers could not vote for Curtin's re-election themselves, but earnest appeals came to the home of nearly every soldier of the State urging fathers, brothers and friends to support the Soldiers' Friend for re-election, and thus, while Pennsylvania troops were disfranchised, it is quite probable that they exerted even a greater influence upon the election, by bringing Democratic relatives and friends to the support of Curtin, than if they had been permitted to vote themselves.
If a despatch or a letter came to the Governor, even from the most distant section of the Union, telling the story of a sick or wounded soldier who needed attention, it was the first matter to be disposed of, and always in favor of the soldier to the uttermost.
I was one of the party that accompanied him when he delivered the State flags to the Pennsylvania Reserves at Tennallytown, in the presence of President Lincoln, General McClellan, Secretary Cameron and a host of other dignitaries, and the affection exhibited by the soldiers, officers and privates, as he gave them their State standards, and expressed his entire confidence that they would bring them back with honor, was one of the most beautiful spectacles I ever witnessed. When he had completed his work, passing from regiment to regiment and handing each the standard of the State, he was quite overcome as the last flag passed into the hands of the commander of a regiment. With quivering lips and tear-dimmed eyes he raised his hand and said: "God bless you and preserve the flag."
After the flags had been delivered, a ceremony that was witnessed by a considerable portion of the army, a party consisting of eight or ten, headed by McClellan and Lincoln, rode around the entire army of the Potomac on horseback, a journey that occupied more than half the day. The only important feature of that ride, as I recall it, was the incident of McClellan stopping the entire party at one point and calling Mr. Lincoln's attention to the fact that they were for the first time outside of the Union lines, that is, beyond the Union pickets, although the Union picket line was not far in our rear. President Lincoln answered in his quaint way, that he thought it would be a very good place to leave, in which the entire party, including General McClellan, heartily concurred.
Curtin did not leave a single Pennsylvania regiment unvisited on that occasion, and I well remember the satisfaction that all felt the evening after the work of the day and the journey had been accomplished, because of the superb organization of the Army of the Potomac by McClellan, which, as we believed, would capture Richmond before the frosts of autumn came again. How sadly all were disappointed is a story too well known to all to need repetition.
Bibliographic Information: Source copy consulted: Alexander K. McClure, Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania, 1905, pages 489-499.
