Lest We Forget, III: Abraham Lincoln

Lest We Forget By Dr. Seymour B. Young, President of the First Council of Seventy III. Abraham Lincoln* (Continued) Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated March 4, 1861. The new administration was beset with difficulties on every side. Many of those, who for years had guided the ship of state and who underrated its workings, were now foremost in advocating secession. The treasury by defalcation was nearly bankrupt. Few troops were within call and the army was almost broken up. The public offices were largely occupied by persons in sympathy with the secession movement, and every step taken by the government was known at once by the leaders of the secession movement. The President, after a month of waiting, notified Governor Pickins, of South Carolina, that he would immediately send supplies to Fort Sumter, and this announcement percipitated an attack upon the Fort. Major An- derson was summoned to surrender, but he refused. On the morning of April 12, 1861, the Confederacy began its open conflict with the United States. — Encyclopedia Britannica. The First Shot I quote again from Dixon: The First month of the new administration passed in a strange silence that proved to be the calm before the storm. On the first day of April, 1861, All fool's day, Mr. Seward decided to bring to a definite issue the question of supreme authority in the government. That Abraham Lin- coln was nominally the President was true; of course, Mr. Seward gener- ously decided to allow him to remain nominally at the head of the nation and assumed to himself the full responsibility of the Dictatorship. The Secretary of State strolled leisurely into the executive office, more careless in dress than usual, the knot of his cravat under his left ear, a huge, lighted cigar in his left hand. He handed the President a folded sheet of official paper, bowed carelessly and retired. He had drawn up his proclamation under the title: Some thoughts for the Presidents consideration. In this remarkable document he proposed to assume the Dictator- ship and outlined his policy as director of the Nation's affairs. "He would immediately provoke war with Great Britain, Russia, Spain and France." The dark-visaged giant adjusted his glasses and read this paper with a smile of incredulous amazement. He wiped his glasses and read it again. And then, without consultation with a single human being, and without a moment's hesitation, he wrote a brief reply to the great man and his generous offer. There was no bluster, no wrath, no demand for an apology to his insulted dignity; but in the simplest and friendliest and most direct language he informed his Secretary that if a dictator were needed to save the country he would undertake the dangerous and dif- ficult job to be the Commander-in-chief, and that he expected the co-opera- tion, advice and support of all members of his Cabinet.

260 IMPROVEMENT ERA He did not even refer to the wild scheme of plunging the country into war with two-thirds of the civilized world. The bare announcement of such a suggestion would have driven the Secretary from public life. The quiet man who presided over the turbulent Cabinet never hinted to one of its members that such a document had reached his hands. But as the shades of night fell over the Capitol, on that first day of April, 1861, there was one distinguished statesman within the city who knew that a real man had been elected President and that he was going to wield the power placed in his hands without a tremor of fear or an instant's hesitation. It took may months for other members of his Cabinet to learn this, but there was no more trouble with the Secretary of State. He became at once the loyal, earnest and faithful coun- selor of the President. I quote from Encyclopedia Brittanica: On April 6, the fleet was sent to sea under sealed orders to relieve Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The President bad been loath to commit the act which must inevitably provoke war, unless the whole movement of secession in the South was a political bluff. The highest military authority of the country had advised him that the fort could not be held by any force at present visible, and that its evacuation was inevitable, in any event. His Cabinet, with two exceptions, were against any attempt to relieve it. The sentiment of the people of the North, they said, was bitterly op- posed to war on the South. On April 7th, the fleet was at sea on its way to the southern coast, its guns shotted, its great battle flags streaming in the wind. In accordance with the amenities of war the President notified Gen- eral Beauregard, Commander of the Southern Forces in Charleston Har- bor, that he had sent his fleet to put provisions into Fort Sumter, but not at present to put in men, arms or ammunition, unless the fort should be attacked. This from Dixon: On the night this message was dispatched Roger A. Pryor, of Vir- ginia, made a speech in Charleston, from the balcony of 'the Mills Hotel, to practically the entire white population of the city. Its message was fierce, direct, electric. It was summed up in a single sentence: "Strike the first armed blow in defense of Southern rights, and within one hour, Shrewsbury clock, Old Virginia, will stand, her battle flags flying, by your side." On the morning of the 11th, General Beauregard sent Pryor as a special messenger to Major Anderson, demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter, and on his refusal, which was a matter of course, instructed him to go at once to the nearest battery and order its commander to open fire. The formalities at Sumter quickly ended, Pryor repaired to Bat- tery Johnson, met the young Captain of Artillery in command, and pre- sented his order. "With a shout the Captain threw his arms around the messenger and with streaming eyes said: "Your wonderful speech last night made this glorious thing possible! You shall have the immortal honor of firing the first gun!"

LEST WE FORGET 261 And then a strange revulsion of feeling took possession of Pryor, or was it a flash of foreboding from the hell-lit, battle scorched future? The orator hesitated and turned pale. It was an honor he could not now decline and yet he instinctively shrank from it. He mopped the perspiration from his brow and looked about in a helpless way. His eye suddenly rested on a grey-haired, stalwart sentinel passing with quick, firm tread. He recognized him immediately as a dis- tinguished fellow Virginian, a man of large wealth and uncompromising opinions on Southern rights. When Virginia had refused to secede he cursed his country- men as a set of hesitating cowards, left the state and moved to South Carolina. He volunteered among the first, and carried a musket as a private soldier, in spite of his snow-white hairs. Pryor returned to the commandant: "I appreciate, sir, the honor you would do me, but I could not think of taking it from one more worthy than myself. There is the man," pointing to the sentinel, "whose devotion to our cause is greater than mine." "He introduced Edmon Ruffin, and gave a brief outline of his career. The boyish Commandant faced him. "Will you accept the honor of firing the first shot, sir?" The square jaw closed with a snap: "By heaven, I will!" The old man seized the lanyard and waited for the Captain and messenger to reach the front to witness the effect of the shot. They had scarcely cleared the enclosure, when the first gun of actual civil war thundered its fateful message across the still waters of the beautiful Charleston Harbor. They watched the great screaming shell rise into the sky, curve down- ward and burst with sullen roar squarely over the doomed fort. The deed was done! Instantly came the answering cry of fierce, ungovernable wrath from the millions of the North. The four remaining Southern States wheeled into line, flung their battle flags to the sky, and the bloodiest war in the history of the world was begun. Those southern states which had wavered were now compelled to make their choice. When President Lincoln called for troops, the Gov- ernors of Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee refused to obey. North Carolina and Arkansas immediately joined the confederacy. In Tennessee and Virginia the question of secession was submitted to popular vote, and the secession of these two states were thus decided. However, in the western part of Virginia the inhabitants refused to obey the orders of the convention for secession. They chose a legislature which claimed to be the true government, and at last formed a new state, which was admitted into the Union in 1863, under the name of West Vir- ginia. Even thus curtailed Virginia was one of the most important accessions to the confederacy. It increased its military strength and at once became the chief battle ground of the war, and the confederate government was moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Richmond, Old Virginia, and this state was the richest and greatest of the slave states, and furnished the Southern army with its ablest leaders, such as Lee, Jackson, Johnson and Newell, who were opposed to secession at first but concluded to remain with then- native state and espouse the secession cause. Soon after, Maryland, Ken- tucky and Delaware were induced to declare in favor to the Federal Government.— Encyclopedia Britannica. . That Monday morning in Springfield, when, at eight o clock, on the

262 IMPROVEMENT ERA eleventh of February, the train bore Lincoln toward the great task of his life. A large number of his old friends came to bid him good bye, a quartet sang and Lincoln asked his friends and neighbors to pray for his success. The bell rang, the train started, he waved his hand to them and was gone. Not many of us who stood by trying to see through our tears were again to look upon him, the years of preparation were ended and those of sacrifice were begun, and now we are at the foot of the last hill. For a long time I have seen it loom in the distance, those days filled my heart with great fear, now how beautiful, how lonely it seems, oh! what a beautiful vineyard on that hill, I speak low when I think of it. My comrade and I were on our way to Washington that fateful night of April 14, 1865 ; we reached there at an early hour in the morning. We made our way through the crowded streets to the little hotel opposite Ford's Theatre. Reporters, statesmen, citizens, were massed in the street, waiting, many of them, with tear-stained faces, for the end; some of them were sobbing as we passed. We were admitted without delay. A minister and a doctor sat by the bedside, the latter held an open watch in his hand. I could hear it ticking the last moments, in an age of history. What a silence as the great soul of my friend was breaking camp to go home. A few friends of the family and members of the Cabinet were in the room, through the open door into the room beyond I saw Mrs. Lincoln, the children and others. We looked at our friend lying on the bed, his kindly face was pale and haggard, he breathed faintly and at long intervals; his end was near. Poor Abe, my friend whispered, as he looked down at him. He has had to die on the cross. The doctor put his ear against the breast of the dying man; there was a moment in which you could hear the voices in the street; the doctor rose and said, "He is gone." Secretary Stanton, who more than once had spoken lightly of him, came to the bedside and tenderly closed the eyes of Lincoln, saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." We went out of the door, the sound of mourning was in the streets, a dozen bells were tolling. On the corner of Tenth street a quartet of negroes was singing that wonderful negro melody: "Swing low, sweet chariot, swing low, Coming for to carry me home." — From The Man of Destiny, Landow. And now we see fulfilled the vision of his mother, which was shown to her in their little log cabin home in the back woods of Old Kentucky. He had builded a beautiful palace for her by preserving the Union, but it had cost him his life. Tobacco Much stress is laid upon the "sustaining and consoling" influence of tobacco upon its addicts. The Beacon Light, Manchester, England, truly says: "He who has to seek consolation in a drug is going wrong. There is something out of condition in his make-up." The Tobacco Record, New York, makes this strange admission, in at- tempting to defend the tobacco habit: "Men are not like the animals who are satisfied to be fed on wholesome food." Truly, tobacco users are being made ridiculous by their defenders. The Tobacco Leaf says that a resolution has been adopted by the New York Athletic Club, "permitting ladies to smoke in the club house and grounds." It is a safe prediction that no lady will ever smoke there. — — Will H. Brown.