This Country of Ours Part 65

Chapter 82 - Buchanan - The First Shots

Meanwhile a great man was coming into power. This was Abraham Lincoln. He was the son of very poor people and his earliest days were spent in the utmost poverty and want. His home in Kentucky was a wretched little log cabin without doors or windows, and the bare earth for a floor. But in spite of his miserable and narrow surroundings Lincoln grew up to be a great, broad-minded loveable man.

He was very anxious to learn, and he taught himself nearly all he knew, for in all his life he had only two or three months of school.

The few books he could lay hands on he read again and again till he almost knew them by heart.

Lincoln grew to be a great, lanky, hulking boy. He had the strongest arm and the tenderest heart in the countryside, and was so upright in all his dealings that he earned the name of Honest Abe.

Everybody loved the ungainly young giant with his sad face and lovely smile, and stock of funny stories.

He began early to earn his living, and was many things in turn. He did all sorts of farm work, he split rails and felled trees. He was a storekeeper for a time, then a postmaster, a surveyor, a soldier.

But none of these contented him; he was always struggling towards something better.

While keeping shop he began to study law, and when he was not weighing out pounds of tea and sugar he had his head deep in some dry book. While trying his hand at other jobs, too, he still went on studying law, and at length he became a lawyer.

Even before this he had taken great interest in politics and had sat in the Illinois House of Representatives, and at length in 1846 he was elected to Congress. But he only served one term in the House, after which he returned to his law business and seemed for a time to lose interest in politics.

But the pa.s.sing of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill aroused him again.

As a boy he had been to New Orleans. There he had seen the slave market. He had seen negro parents parted from their children, and sold to different masters. He had seen them chained like criminals, beaten and treated worse than beasts of burden, and from these sights he had turned away with an aching heart. "Boys," he said, to his companions, "let's get away from this. If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I'll hit it hard."

And he did not forget what he had seen; the memory of it was a constant torment and a misery to him. And now the chance had come, and he hit "that thing" hard.

In 1858 he challenged Douglas, the author of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, to go round the country with him and make speeches on the great subject of the day: Douglas to take one side of the question and Lincoln the other. It was a bold thing to do, for Douglas was considered the greatest speaker of the time, and Lincoln was scarcely known. But the speeches made Lincoln famous and henceforth many of the men in the North looked upon him as their leader. He wanted to have slavery done away with, but above all he loved his country.

"A house divided against itself," he said, "cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure half-slave, half-free. I do not expect the Union to be divided. I do not expect the House to fall. But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

He had no bitterness against the South, for he loved his whole country, South as well as North. It was slavery he hated, not the slave-holders. But the slave-holders hated him and his ideas. So when in November, 1860, Lincoln was chosen President the Southern States declared that they would not submit to be ruled by him.

As you know, the new President is always chosen some months before the end of the last President's term. Lincoln was thus chosen in November, 1860, but did not actually become President till March, 1861.

So with Buchanan still President, several of the Southern States declared themselves free from the Union. South Carolina led the rebellion. Amid great excitement, a new declaration of independence was read, and union with the other states was declared to be at an end.

The example of South Carolina was soon followed. Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas all declared their union with the States at an end. They then joined together. And calling themselves the Confederate States, they elected a President, drew up a Const.i.tution, and made ready to seize the Union forts and a.r.s.enals.

Meanwhile President Buchanan knew not what to do. He tried to steer both ways at once. He said the Southern States had no right to break away from the Union, but he also said that the Government had no power to force them to return. In reality, however, his heart was with the South, and he believed that the Southerners had just cause for anger. So the Southerners soon came to believe that the President would let them go their own way. Some of the Northerners, too, thought a division would be a good thing, or at least that disunion was better than war. "Let the slave states depart in peace,"

they said. But others would not hear of that, and were ready to fight to the last if only the Union might be preserved.

The country was fast drifting towards war; and soon the first shot was fired. Charleston, the harbour of South Carolina, was guarded by two forts, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter. Fort Moultrie was large, needing about seven hundred men to guard it properly, and Major Anderson, who was in command, had only sixty men under him.

So, seeing that the people of South Carolina were seizing everything they could, and finding that the President would send him no help, he drew off his little force to Fort Sumter which could be more easily defended.

Again and again Major Anderson asked for more men, and at length an ordinary little pa.s.senger vessel was sent with two hundred and fifty men. But when the little s.h.i.+p steamed into Charleston harbour the Southerners fired upon it. And as it had no guns on board or any means of defence it turned and sped back whence it had come.

Thus the first shots in the Civil War were fired on Jan. 9th, 1861.

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Chapter 83 - Lincoln - From Bull Run to Fort Donelson

IN the midst of all this confusion the new President took his seat.

The Southerners were so angry that it was feared that Lincoln would never be allowed to become President at all, but would be killed on his way to Was.h.i.+ngton. Yet he himself felt no fear, and he journeyed slowly from his home to Was.h.i.+ngton, stopping at many places, and making many speeches on the way. Day by day, however, his friends grew more and more anxious. Again and again they begged him to change his plans and go to Was.h.i.+ngton by some other way. But Lincoln would not listen to their entreaties. At length, however, they became so insistent that he yielded to them.

So instead of proceeding as he had intended, he left his party secretly, and with one friend turned back, and went to Was.h.i.+ngton by a different route. The telegraph wires were cut, so that had any traitor noticed this change of plan he could not tell his fellow conspirators. Thus, all unknown, Lincoln stole silently into the capital during the night. And great was the astonishment both of friend and foe when it was discovered that he was there.

Almost the first thing Lincoln had to do was to send relief to Major Anderson at Fort Sumter. So vessels were laden with food and sent off to the gallant little band.

But as soon as the Southerners heard the news they determined to take the fort before help could arrive. Soon a terrible bombardment began. Half a hundred cannon roared against the fort, sh.e.l.ls screamed and fell, and the walls were quickly shattered. The barracks took fire, and after two days it became utterly impossible to resist longer.

So Major Anderson yielded, and with his brave company marched out with all the honours of war.

War was now begun in real earnest, although strange to say, in spite of the terrific firing, not a life had been lost on either side.

Both North and South now began to arm. But when the President called for troops four states scornfully refused to obey. These were Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, and instead of gathering troops to help the Government they joined the Confederates.

Richmond, Virginia, was chosen as the capital and Jefferson Davis was made President of the Confederacy, which included eleven states.

In the west of Virginia, however, the people were loyal to the Union and it was here that the first great battles of the war were fought.

Life in this part of Virginia which lay beyond the Alleghenies was very different from life in Eastern Virginia. Western Virginia was not a land suitable for slaves, and for a long time the people had desired to part from Eastern Virginia. Now during the war they had their wish, and West Virginia became a separate state. In June, 1863, it was admitted to the Union as the thirty-fifth state.

The war which had now begun was the most terrible ever fought on American soil. For far more even than the War of Independence, it was a war of kindred. It made enemies of comrades and brothers. Men who had been dear friends suddenly found themselves changed into ruthless enemies, families even were divided against each other.

For four years this bitter war lasted, and counting all battles great and small there were at least two thousand, so we cannot attempt to follow the whole course of the great struggle.

The first blood was shed, strangely enough, on the anniversary of the battle of Lexington. On that day, 19th April, 1861, some Ma.s.sachusetts soldiers were pa.s.sing through Baltimore, when they were attacked by the mob. Pistols were fired from the houses, paving stones and bricks flew about. Several of the soldiers were killed, many more were wounded; and to protect themselves they fired on the mob, several of whom were killed also.

The greatest leader on the Federal side was General Ulysses S. Grant, and next to him came William T. Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan.

But it was not until the war had been going on for some time that these soldiers came to the front, and at first all the fortune was on the side of the South.

General Albert S. Johnston was commander-in-chief of the Southern army by the two most famous Southern leaders were Robert E.

Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. Jackson is best known by the nickname of Stonewall, which he received at Bull Run in West Virginia, the first great battle of the war.

It seemed as if the Federals were winning the battle, and some of the Confederates were driven backward. But Jackson and his men stood solid.

"See!" cried a general, "there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!" Thus Jackson got a new name, and the Confederates won the day.

"It was one of the best planned battles of the war," said Sherman afterwards, "but one of the worst fought. Both armies were fairly defeated, and whichever stood fast the other would have run."

Less than three weeks after Bull Run, the Federals met with another disaster at Wilson's Creek in Missouri. Here, after a desperate and gallant fight, they were defeated, and General Nathaniel Lyon, their brave leader, was killed.