<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
<h3>GLOOMY FOREBODINGS OF COMING CONFLICT.</h3>
<p>After the first shout of triumph and the first glow
of exultation consequent on his Inauguration, Mr.
Lincoln soon began to realize with dismay what was
before him. Geographical lines were at last distinctly
drawn. He was regarded as a sectional representative,
elected President with most overwhelming majorities
north of Mason and Dixon's line, and not a single electoral
vote south of it. He saw a great people, comprising
many millions and inhabiting a vast region of our
common country, exasperated by calumny, stung by
defeat, and alarmed by the threats of furious fanatics
whom demagogues held up to them as the real and
only leaders of the triumphant party. His election had
brought the nation face to face with the perils that had
been feared by every rank and party since the dawn of
Independence,—with the very contingency, the crisis in
which all venerable authority had declared from the
beginning that the Union would surely perish, and the
fragments, after exhausting each other by commercial
restrictions and disastrous wars, would find ignominious
safety in as many paltry despotisms as there were
fragments.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span>On the 3d of March, 1861, the Thirty-sixth Congress
had reached the prescribed period of its existence, and
had died a constitutional death. Its last session of
three months had been spent in full view of an awful
public calamity, which it had made no effort to avert or
to mitigate. It saw the nation compassed round with a
frightful danger, but it proposed no plan either of conciliation
or defence. It adjourned forever, and left the
law precisely as it found it.</p>
<p>In his message to Congress, President Buchanan had
said: "Congress alone has power to decide whether the
present laws can or cannot be amended so as to carry
out more effectually the objects of the Constitution."
With Congress rested the whole responsibility of peace
or war, and with them the message left it. But Congress
behaved like a body of men who thought that the calamities
of the nation were no special business of theirs.
The members from the extreme South were watching for
the proper moment to retire; those from the middle
slave States were a minority which could only stand and
wait upon the movements of others; while the great and
all-powerful Northern party was what the French minister
called "a mere aggregation of individual ambitions."
They had always denied the possibility of a dissolution
of the Union in any conjuncture of circumstances; and
their habit of disregarding the evidence was too strong
to be suddenly changed. In the philosophy of their
politics it had not been dreamed of as a possible thing.
Even when they saw it assume the shape of a fixed and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span>
terrible fact, they could not comprehend its meaning.
They looked at the frightful phenomenon as a crowd of
barbarians might look at an eclipse of the sun: they saw
the light of heaven extinguished and the earth covered
with strange and unaccountable darkness, but they could
neither understand its cause nor foresee its end,—they
knew neither whence it came nor what it portended.
The nation was going to pieces, and Congress left it to
its fate. The vessel, freighted with all the hopes and all
the wealth of thirty millions of free people was drifting
to her doom, and they who alone had power to control
her course refused to lay a finger on the helm.</p>
<p>Only a few days before the convening of this Congress
the following letter was written by Hon. Joseph
Holt, Postmaster-General, afterward Secretary of War,
under Buchanan:—</p>
<blockquote><p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">Washington, Nov. 30, 1860.</span></p>
<p><span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>, — I am in receipt of yours of the 27th
inst., and thank you for your kindly allusion to myself, in
connection with the fearful agitation which now threatens
the dismemberment of our government. I think the President's
message will meet your approbation, but I little hope
that it will accomplish anything in moderating the madness
that rules the hour. The indications are that the movement
has passed beyond the reach of human control. God alone
can disarm the cloud of its lightnings. South Carolina will
be out of the Union, and in the armed assertion of a distinct
nationality probably before Christmas. This is certain, unless
the course of events is arrested by prompt and decided
action on the part of the people and Legislatures of the
Northern States; the other slave States will follow South
Carolina in a few weeks or months. The border States,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</SPAN></span>
now so devoted to the Union, will linger a little while; but
they will soon unite their fortunes with those of their Southern
sisters. Conservative men have now no ground to stand
upon, no weapon to battle with. All has been swept from
them by the guilty agitations and infamous legislation of the
North. I do not anticipate, with any confidence, that the
North will act up to the solemn responsibilities of the
crisis, by retracing those fatal steps which have conducted
us to the very brink of perdition, politically, morally, and
financially.</p>
<p>There is a feeling growing in the free States which says,
"Let the South go!" and this feeling threatens rapidly to
increase. It is, in part, the fruit of complete estrangement,
and in part a weariness of this perpetual conflict between
North and South, which has now lasted, with increasing
bitterness, for the last thirty years. The country wants
repose, and is willing to purchase it at any sacrifice. Alas
for the delusion of the belief that repose will follow the overthrow
of the government!</p>
<p>I doubt not, from the temper of the public mind, that the
<i>Southern States will be allowed to withdraw peacefully</i>;
but when the work of dismemberment begins, we shall break
up the fragments from month to month, with the nonchalance
with which we break the bread upon our breakfast-table. If
all the grave and vital questions which will at once arise
among these fragments of the ruptured Republic can be
adjusted without resort to arms, then we have made vast
progress since the history of our race was written. But the
tragic events of the hour will show that we have made no
progress at all. We shall soon grow up a race of chieftains,
who will rival the political bandits of South America and
Mexico, and who will carve out to us our miserable heritage
with their bloody swords. The <i>masses</i> of the people dream
not of these things. They suppose the Republic can be
destroyed to-day, and that peace will smile over its ruins<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</SPAN></span>
to-morrow. They know nothing of civil war: this Marah in
the pilgrimage of nations has happily been for them a sealed
fountain; they know not, as others do, of its bitterness, and
that civil war is a scourge that darkens every fireside, and
wrings every heart with anguish. They are to be commiserated,
for they know not what to do. Whence is all this?
It has come because the pulpit and press and the cowering,
unscrupulous politicians of the North have taught the people
that they are responsible for the domestic institutions of the
South, and that they have been faithful to God only by being
unfaithful to the compact which they have made to their
fellow-men. Hence those Liberty Bills which degrade the
statute-books of some ten of the free States, and are confessedly
a <i>shameless</i> violation of the federal Constitution in
a point vital to her honor. We have presented, from year to
year, the humiliating spectacle of free and sovereign States,
by a solemn act of legislation, <i>legalizing the theft of their
neighbors' property</i>. I say <i>theft</i>, since it is not the less so
because the subject of the despicable crime chances to be a
slave, instead of a horse or bale of goods.</p>
<p>From this same teaching has come the perpetual agitation
of the slavery question, which <i>has reached the minds of the
slave population of the South</i>, and has rendered every home
in that distracted land insecure. This is the feature of the
irrepressible conflict with which the Northern people are not
familiar. In almost every part of the South miscreant
fanatics have been found, and poisonings and conflagrations
have marked their footsteps. Mothers there lie down at
night trembling beside their children, and wives cling to
their husbands as they leave their homes in the morning. I
have a brother residing in Mississippi, who is a lawyer by
profession, and a cotton planter, but has never had any connection
with politics. Knowing the calm and conservative
tone of his character, I wrote him a few weeks since, and
implored him to exert his influence in allaying the frenzy of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</SPAN></span>
the popular mind around him. He has replied to me at
much length, and after depicting the machinations of the
wretches to whom I have alluded, and the consternation
which reigns in the homes of the South, he says it is the
unalterable determination of the Southern people to overthrow
the government as the only refuge which is left to
them from these insupportable wrongs; and he adds: "On
the success of this movement depends my every interest,—the
safety of my roof from the firebrand, and of my wife and
children from the poison and the dagger."</p>
<p>I give you his language because it truthfully expresses the
Southern mind which at this moment glows as a furnace in
its hatred to the North because of these infernal agitations.
Think you that any people can endure this condition of
things? When the Northern preacher infuses into his audience
the spirit of assassins and incendiaries in his crusade
against slavery, does he think, as he lies down quietly at
night, of the Southern homes he has robbed of sleep, and the
helpless women and children he has exposed to all the <i>nameless
horrors of servile insurrections</i>?</p>
<p>I am still for the Union, because I have yet a faint, hesitating
hope that the North will do justice to the South, and
save the Republic, before the wreck is complete. But action,
to be available, must be prompt. If the free States will
sweep the Liberty Bills from their codes, propose a convention
of the States, and offer guaranties which will afford the
same repose and safety to Southern homes and property
enjoyed by those of the North, the impending tragedy may
be averted, but not otherwise. I feel a positive personal
humiliation as a member of the human family in the events
now preparing. If the Republic is to be offered as a sacrifice
upon the altar of American servitude, then the question
of man's capacity for self-government is forever settled.
The derision of the world will henceforth justly treat the pretension
as a farce; and the blessed hope which for five<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</SPAN></span>
thousand years our race, amid storms and battles, has been
hugging to its bosom, will be demonstrated to be a phantom
and a dream.</p>
<p>Pardon these hurried and disjointed words. They have
been pressed out of my heart by the sorrows that are weighing
upon it.</p>
<p class="signature">
Sincerely your friend,
<br/>
<span class="smcap">J. Holt</span>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Within forty-eight hours after the election of Mr.
Lincoln, the Legislature of South Carolina called a State
Convention. It met on the 17th of December, and
three days later the inevitable ordinance of secession
was formally adopted, and the little commonwealth began
to act under the erroneous impression that she was
a sovereign and independent nation. She benignantly
accepted the postal service of the "late United States of
America," and even permitted the gold and silver coins
of the federal government to circulate within her sacred
limits. But intelligence from the rest of the country was
published in her newspapers under the head of "foreign
news;" her governor appointed a "cabinet," commissioned
"ambassadors," and practised so many fantastic
imitations of greatness and power, that, but for the
serious purpose and the bloody event, his proceedings
would have been very amusing. It was a curious little
comedy between the acts of a hideous tragedy.</p>
<p>In the practice which provoked the fury of his Northern
countrymen, the slaveholder could see nothing but
what was right in the sight of God, and just as between
man and man. Slavery, he said, was as old almost as<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</SPAN></span>
time. From the hour of deliverance to the day of
dispersion, it had been practised by the peculiar people
of God, with the awful sanction of a theocratic State.
When the Saviour came with his fan in his hand, he not
only spared it from all rebuke, but recognized and regulated
it as an institution in which he found no evil. The
Church had bowed to the authority and emulated the
example of the Master. With her aid and countenance,
slavery had flourished in every age and country since the
Christian era; in new lands she planted it, in the old
she upheld and encouraged it. Even the modest of the
sectaries had bought and sold, without a shade of doubt
or a twinge of conscience, the bondmen who fell to their
lot, until the stock was exhausted or the trade became
unprofitable. To this rule the Puritans and Quakers
were no exceptions. Indeed, it was but a few years
since slavery in Massachusetts had been suffered to die
of its own accord, and the profits of the slave-trade were
still to be seen in the stately mansions and pleasant
gardens of her maritime towns.</p>
<p>The Southern man could see no reason of State, of
law, or of religion which required him to yield his most
ancient rights and his most valuable property to the
new-born zeal of adversaries whom he more than suspected
of being actuated by mere malignity under the
guise of philanthropy. All that he knew or had ever
known of the policy of the State, of religion, or of law
was on the side of slavery. It was his inheritance in the
land descended from his remotest ancestry; recorded<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</SPAN></span>
in the deeds and written in the wills of his nearest
kindred; interwoven more or less intimately with every
tradition and every precious memory; the basis of
public economy and of private prosperity, fostered by
the maternal care of Great Britain, and, unlike any
other domestic institution, solemnly protected by separate
and distinct provisions in the fundamental law of
the federal Union. It was, therefore, as much a part
of his religion to cherish and defend it as it was part of
the religion of an Abolitionist to denounce and assail
it. To him, at least, it was still pure and of good report;
he held it as sacred as marriage, as sacred as the relation
of parent and child. Forcible abolition was in his
eyes as lawless and cruel as arbitrary divorce, or the
violent abduction of his offspring; it bereft his fireside,
broke up his family, set his own household in arms
against him, and deluded to their ruin those whom the
Lord had given into his hand for a wise and beneficent
purpose. He saw in the extinction of slavery the extinction
of society and the subversion of the State;
his imagination could compass no crime more daring
in the conception, or more terrible in the execution.
He saw in it the violation of every law, human and
divine, from the Ten Commandments to the last Act of
Assembly,—the inauguration of every disaster and of
every enormity which men in their sober senses equally
fear and detest; it was the knife to his throat, the torch
to his roof, a peril unutterable to his wife and daughter,
and certain penury, or worse, to such of his posterity<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</SPAN></span>
as might survive to other times. We smile at his
delusion, and laugh at his fears; but we forget that they
were shared by eight millions of intelligent people, and
had been entertained by the entire generation of patriots
and statesmen who made the Union,—by Jefferson who
opposed slavery and "trembled" for the judgment, as
by the New-England ship-owner and the Georgia planter,
who struck hands to continue the African slave-trade
till 1808.</p>
<p>Mr. Lincoln himself, with that charity for honest but
mistaken opinions which more than once induced him
to pause long and reflect seriously before committing
his Administration to the extremities of party rage, declared
in an elaborate speech, that, had his lot been cast
in the South, he would no doubt have been a zealous
defender of the "peculiar institution,"—and confessed,
that, were he then possessed of unlimited power, he
would not know how to liberate the slaves without fatally
disturbing the peace and prosperity of the country. He
had once said in a speech; "The Southern people are
just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did
not now exist among them, they would not introduce it:
if it did now exist among us, we should not instantly give
it up. This I believe of the masses North and South.
Doubtless, there are individuals on both sides who
would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and
others would gladly introduce slavery anew if it were
out of existence. We know that some Southern men do
free their slaves, go North, and become tip-top Abolitionists;<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span>
while some Northern men go South, and become
cruel slave-masters."</p>
<p>Judge Jeremiah S. Black, in a paper written in response
to a memorial address on William H. Seward,
said: "The Southern people sprang from a race accustomed
for two thousand years to dominate over all
other races with which it came in contact. They
supposed themselves greatly superior to negroes, most
of them sincerely believing that if they and the African
must live together, the best and safest relations that could
be established between them was that of master and
servant.... Some of them believed slavery a dangerous
evil, but did not see how to get rid of it. They felt
as Jefferson did, that they had the wolf by the ears:
they could neither hold on with comfort nor let go with
safety, and it made them extremely indignant to be
goaded in the rear. In all that country from the Potomac
to the Gulf there was probably not one man who felt
convinced that this difficult subject could be determined
for them by strangers and enemies; seeing that we in
the North had held fast to every pound of human flesh
we owned, and either worked it to death or sold it for a
price, our provision for the freedom of unborn negroes
did not tend much to their edification. They had no
confidence in that 'ripening' influence of humanity
which turned up the white of its eyes at a negro compelled
to hoe corn and pick cotton, and yet gloated over
the prospect of insurrection and massacre."</p>
<p>Further, emancipation was a question of figures as well<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</SPAN></span>
as feeling. The loss of four millions of slaves, at an
average value of six hundred dollars each, constituted in
the aggregate a sacrifice too vast to be contemplated for
a moment. Yet this was but a single item. The cotton
crop of 1860 was worth the round sum of a hundred and
ninety-eight million dollars, while that of 1859 was
worth two hundred and forty-seven million dollars, and
the demand still in excess of the supply. It formed the
bulk of our exchanges with Europe; paid our foreign
indebtedness; maintained a great marine; built towns,
cities, and railways; enriched factors, brokers, and
bankers; filled the federal treasury to overflowing, and
made the foremost nations of the world commercially
our tributaries and politically our dependants. A short
crop embarrassed and distressed all western Europe; a
total failure, a war, or non-intercourse, would reduce
whole communities to famine, and probably precipitate
them into revolution. It was an opinion generally
received, and scarcely questioned anywhere, that cotton-planting
could be carried on only by African labor, and
that African labor was possible only under compulsion.
Here, then, was another item of loss, which, being prospective,
could neither be measured by statistics nor computed
in figures. Add to this the sudden conversion
of millions of producers into mere consumers, the depreciation
of real estate, the depreciation of stocks and
securities as of banks and railways, dependent for their
value upon the inland commerce in the products of
slave-labor, with the waste, disorder, and bloodshed<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</SPAN></span>
inevitably attending a revolution like this, and you have
a sum-total literally appalling. Could any people on
earth tamely submit to spoliation so thorough and so
fatal? The very Bengalese would muster the last man,
and stake the last jewel, to avert it.</p>
<p>In the last days of March, 1861, I was sent by President
Lincoln on a confidential mission to Charleston,
South Carolina. It was in its nature one of great
delicacy and importance; and the state of the public
mind in the South at that juncture made it one not
altogether free from danger to life and limb, as I was
rather roughly reminded before the adventure was concluded.
Throughout the entire land was heard the tumult
of mad contention; the representative men, the politicians
and the press of the two sections were hurling
at one another deadly threats and fierce defiance; sober
and thoughtful men heard with sickening alarm the deep
and not distant mutterings of the coming storm; and all
minds were agitated by gloomy forebodings, distressing
doubts, and exasperating uncertainty as to what the
next move in the strange drama would be. Following
the lead of South Carolina, the secession element of
other Southern States had cut them loose, one by one,
from their federal moorings, and "The Confederate
States of America" was the result. It was at the virtual
Capital of the State which had been the pioneer in all
this haughty and stupendous work of rebellion that I
was about to trust my precious life and limbs as a
stranger within her gates and an enemy to her cause.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</SPAN></span>Up to this time, Mr. Lincoln had been slow to realize
or to acknowledge, even to himself, the awful gravity of
the situation, and the danger that the gathering clouds
portended. Certain it is that Mr. Seward wildly underrated
the courage and determination of the Southern
people, and both men indulged the hope that pacific
means might yet be employed to arrest the tide of
passion and render a resort to force unnecessary. Mr.
Seward was inclined, as the world knows, to credit the
Southern leaders with a lavish supply of noisy bravado,
quite overlooking the dogged pertinacity and courage
which Mr. Lincoln well knew would characterize those
men, as well as the Southern masses, in case of
armed conflict between the sections. Mr. Lincoln had
Southern blood in his veins, and he knew well the
character of that people. He believed it possible to
effect some accommodation by dealing directly with the
most chivalrous among their leaders; at all events he
thought it his duty to try, and my embassy to Charleston
was one of his experiments in that direction.</p>
<p>It was believed in the South that Mr. Seward had
given assurances, before and after Lincoln's inauguration,
that no attempt would be made to reinforce the Southern
forts, or to resupply Fort Sumter, under a Republican
Administration. This made matters embarrassing, as
Mr. Lincoln's Administration had, on the contrary,
adopted the policy of maintaining the federal authority
at all points, and of tolerating no interference in the
enforcement of that authority from any source whatever.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span>When my mission to Charleston was suggested by
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward promptly opposed it. "Mr.
President," said he, "I greatly fear that you are sending
Lamon to his grave. I fear they may kill him in
Charleston. Those people are greatly excited, and are
very desperate. We can't spare Lamon, and we shall
feel very badly if anything serious should happen
to him."</p>
<p>"Mr. Secretary," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I have known
Lamon to be in many a close place, and he has never
been in one that he didn't get out of. By Jing! I'll
risk him. Go, Lamon, and God bless you! Bring back
a Palmetto, if you can't bring us good news."</p>
<p>Armed with certain credentials—from the President,
Mr. Seward, General Scott, Postmaster-General Blair,
and others—I set out on my doubtful and ticklish
adventure.</p>
<p>While I was preparing my baggage at Willard's Hotel,
General (then Mr. Stephen A.) Hurlbut, of Illinois, entered
my room, and seeing how I was engaged inquired
as to the object. He being an old and reliable friend, I
told him without hesitation; and he immediately asked
if he might not be allowed to accompany me. He
desired, he said, to pay a last visit to Charleston, the
place of his birth, and to a sister living there, before the
dread outbreak which he knew was coming. I saw no
objection. He hurried to his rooms to make his own
preparations, whence, an hour later, I took him and his
wife to the boat.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span>On arriving at Charleston about eight o'clock Saturday
night, the Hurlbuts went to the house of a kinsman,
and I went to the Charleston Hotel. It so happened
that several young Virginians arrived on the same train,
and stopped at the same hotel. They all registered
from Virginia, and made the fact known with some show
of enthusiasm that they had come to join the Confederate
army. I registered simply "Ward H. Lamon,"
followed by a long dash of the pen.</p>
<p>That evening, and all the next day (Sunday), little
attention was paid to me, and no one knew me. I
visited the venerable and distinguished lawyer, Mr. James
L. Petigru, and had a conference with him,—having
been enjoined to do so by Mr. Lincoln, who personally
knew that Mr. Petigru was a Union man. At the close
of the interview Mr. Petigru said to me that he seldom
stirred from his house; that he had no sympathy with
the rash movements of his people, and that few sympathized
with him; that the whole people were infuriated
and crazed, and that no act of headlong violence by
them would surprise him. In saying farewell, with warm
expressions of good-will, he said that he hoped he should
not be considered inhospitable if he requested me not
to repeat my visit, as every one who came near him was
watched, and intercourse with him could only result in
annoyance and danger to the visitor as well as to himself,
and would fail to promote any good to the Union cause.
It was now too late, he said; peaceable secession or war
was inevitable.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span>Governor Pickens and his admirable and beautiful
wife were boarding at the Charleston Hotel. Early
Monday morning I sent my card to the governor requesting
an interview, and stating that I was from the
President of the United States. The answer came that
he would see me as soon as he was through with his
breakfast. I then strolled downstairs into the main
lobby and corridors, where, early as the hour was, I
soon discovered that something wonderful was "in the
wind," and, moreover, that that wonderful something was
embodied in my own person. I was not, like Hamlet,
"the glass of fashion and the mould of form," yet I was
somehow "the observed of all observers." I was conscious
that I did not look like "the expectancy and
rose of the fair state;" that my "personal pulchritude,"
as a witty statesman has it, was not overwhelming to
the beholder; and yet I found myself at that moment
immensely, not to say <i>alarmingly</i>, attractive.</p>
<p>The news had spread far and wide that a great
Goliath from the North, a "Yankee Lincoln-hireling,"
had come suddenly into their proud city, uninvited, unheralded.
Thousands of persons had gathered to see
the strange ambassador. The corridors, the main office
and lobby, were thronged, and the adjacent streets were
crowded as well with excited spectators, mainly of the
lower order,—that class of dowdy patriots who in times
of public commotion always find the paradise of the
coward, the bruiser, and the blackguard. There was a
wagging of heads, a chorus of curses and epithets not at<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span>
all complimentary, and all eyes were fixed upon the
daring stranger, who seemed to be regarded not as the
bearer of the olive-branch of peace, but as a demon
come to denounce the curse of war, pestilence, and
famine. This was my initiation into the great "Unpleasantness,"
and the situation was certainly painful
and embarrassing; but there was plainly nothing to do
but to assume a bold front.</p>
<p>I pressed my way through the mass of excited
humanity to the clerk's counter, examined the register,
then turned, and with difficulty elbowed my way through
the dense crowd to the door of the breakfast-room.
There I was touched upon the shoulder by an elderly
man, who asked in a tone of peremptory authority,—</p>
<p>"Are you Mark Lamon?"</p>
<p>"No, sir; I am Ward H. Lamon, at your service."</p>
<p>"Are you the man who registered here as Lamon,
from Virginia?"</p>
<p>"I registered as Ward H. Lamon, without designating
my place of residence. What is your business with
me, sir?"</p>
<p>"Oh, well," continued the man of authority, "have
you any objection to state what business you have here
in Charleston?"</p>
<p>"Yes, I have." Then after a pause, during which I
surveyed my questioner with as much coolness as the
state of my nerves would allow, I added, "My business
is with your governor, who is to see me as soon as
he has finished his breakfast. If he chooses to impart<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span>
to you my business in this city, you will know it;
otherwise, not."</p>
<p>"Beg pardon; if you have business with our governor,
it's all right; we'll see."</p>
<p>Shortly after breakfast I was waited upon by one of
the governor's staff, a most courtly and agreeable gentleman,
in full military uniform, who informed me that the
governor was ready to receive me.</p>
<p>My interview with Governor Pickens was, to me, a
memorable one. After saying to him what President
Lincoln had directed me to say, a general discussion
took place touching the critical state of public affairs.
With a most engaging courtesy, and an open frankness
for which that brave man was justly celebrated, he told
me plainly that he was compelled to be both radical
and violent; that he regretted the necessity of violent
measures, but that he could see no way out of existing
difficulties but <i>to fight out</i>. "Nothing," said he, "can
prevent war except the acquiescence of the President
of the United States in secession, and his unalterable
resolve <i>not</i> to attempt any reinforcement of the Southern
forts. To think of longer remaining in the Union is
simply preposterous. We have five thousand well-armed
soldiers around this city; all the States are arming with
great rapidity; and this means war with all its consequences.
Let your President attempt to reinforce Sumter,
and the tocsin of war will be sounded from every hill-top
and valley in the South."</p>
<p>This settled the matter so far as accommodation was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span>
concerned. There was no doubt in my mind that
Pickens voiced the sentiment of Rebellion.</p>
<p>My next duty was to confer with Major Anderson at
the beleaguered fort. On my intimating a desire to see
that officer, Governor Pickens promptly placed in my
hands the following:—</p>
<blockquote><p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">State of South Carolina</span>,<br/>
<span class="smcap">Executive Department</span>, 25 March, 1861.</p>
<p>Mr. Lamon, from the President of the United States,
requests to see Major Anderson at Fort Sumter, on business
entirely pacific; and my aid, Colonel Duryea, will go
with him and return, merely to see that every propriety is
observed toward Mr. Lamon.</p>
<p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">F. W. Pickens</span>, <i>Governor</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="figcenter bord" style="width: 400px;">
<ANTIMG src="images/facing076.jpg" width-obs="400" height-obs="406" alt="Hand written letter" title="Hand written letter" /></div>
<p>A flag-of-truce steamer was furnished by the governor,
under charge of Colonel Duryea, a genial and accomplished
gentleman to whom I am indebted for most
considerate courtesy, and I proceeded to Fort Sumter.
I found Anderson in a quandary, and deeply despondent.
He fully realized the critical position he and his men
occupied, and he apprehended the worst possible consequences
if measures were not promptly taken by the
government to strengthen him. His subordinates generally,
on the contrary, seemed to regard the whole affair
as a sort of picnic, and evinced a readiness to meet any
fate. They seemed to be "spoiling for a fight," and
were eager for anything that might relieve the monotony
of their position. War seemed as inevitable to them as
to Governor Pickens.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>After a full and free conference with Major Anderson,
I returned to the Charleston Hotel. The excited crowds
were still in the streets, and the hotel was overflowing
with anxious people. The populace seemed maddened
by their failure to learn anything of the purpose or
results of my visit. The aspect of things was threatening
to my personal safety, and Governor Pickens had already
taken steps to allay the excitement.</p>
<p>A rope had been procured by the rabble and thrown
into one corner of the reading-room; and as I entered
the room I was accosted by a seedy patriot, somewhat
past the middle age. He was dressed in a fork-tailed
coat with brass buttons, which looked as if it might have
done service at Thomas Jefferson's first reception. He
wore a high bell-crowned hat, with an odor and rust of
antiquity which seemed to proclaim it a relic from the
wardrobe of Sir Walter Raleigh. His swarthy throat was
decorated with a red bandana cravat and a shirt-collar
of amazing amplitude, and of such fantastic pattern that
it might have served as a "fly" to a Sibley tent. This
individual was in a rage. Kicking the rope into the
middle of the room, and squaring himself before me,
he said,—</p>
<p>"Do you think <i>that</i> is strong enough to hang a
damned —— Lincoln abolition hireling?"</p>
<p>To this highly significant interrogatory I replied, aiming
my words more at the crowd than at the beggarly
ruffian who had addressed me, "Sir, I am a Virginian
by birth, and a gentleman, I hope, by education and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>
instinct. I was sent here by the President of the United
States to see your governor—"</p>
<p>The seedy spokesman interrupted with, "Damn your
President!"</p>
<p>I continued: "You, sir, are surrounded by your
friends—by a mob; and you are brutal and cowardly
enough to insult an unoffending stranger in the great
city that is noted for its hospitality and chivalry; and
let me tell you that your conduct is cowardly in the
extreme. Among gentlemen, the brutal epithets you
employ are neither given nor received."</p>
<p>This saucy speech awoke a flame of fury in the mob,
and there is no telling what might have happened but
for the lucky entrance into the room at that moment of
Hon. Lawrence Keitt, who approached me and laying
his hand familiarly on my shoulder, said,—</p>
<p>"Why, Lamon, old fellow, where did you come from?
I am glad to see you."</p>
<p>The man with the brass buttons showed great astonishment.
"Keitt," said he, "do you speak to that
Lincoln hireling?"</p>
<p>"Stop!" thundered Keitt; "you insult Lamon, and
you insult me! He is a gentleman, and <i>my</i> friend.
Come, Lamon, let us take a drink."</p>
<p>The noble and generous Keitt knew me well, and it
may be supposed that his "smiling" invitation was
music in one sinner's ears at least. Further insults to
the stranger from the loafer element of Charleston were
not indulged in. The extremes of Southern character—the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span>
top and the bottom of the social scale in the
slaveholding States—were exemplified in the scene just
described, by Keitt and the blustering bully with the
shirt-collar. The first, cultivated, manly, noble, hospitable,
brave, and generous; the other, mean, unmanly,
unkempt, untaught, and reeking with the fumes of the
blackguard and the brute.<SPAN name="FNanchor_5_11" id="FNanchor_5_11"></SPAN><SPAN href="#Footnote_5_11" class="fnanchor">[5]</SPAN></p>
<p>My instructions from Mr. Lincoln required me to see
and confer with the postmaster of Charleston. By this
time the temper of the riotous portion of the populace,
inflamed by suspicion and disappointed rage, made my
further appearance on the streets a hazardous adventure.
Again Governor Pickens, who despised the cowardice as
he deplored the excesses of the mob, interposed his
authority. To his thoughtful courtesy I was indebted
for the following pass, which enabled me to visit the
postmaster without molestation:—</p>
<blockquote><p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">Headquarters</span>, 25 March, 1861.</p>
<p>The bearer, Mr. Lamon, has business with Mr. Huger,
Postmaster of Charleston, and must not be interrupted by
any one, as his business in Charleston is entirely pacific in
all matters.</p>
<p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">F. W. Pickens</span>, <i>Governor</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At eight o'clock that Monday night I took the train
for my return to Washington. At a station in the outskirts
of the city my friends, General Hurlbut and wife,
came aboard. Hurlbut knew the conductor, who gave
him seats that were as private as possible. Very soon
the conductor slipped a note into my hands that was<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
significant as well as amusing. It was from General
Hurlbut, and was in the following words:—</p>
<blockquote><p>Don't you recognize us until this train gets out of South
Carolina. There is danger ahead, and a damned sight of it.</p>
<p class="signature">
<span class="smcap">Steve.</span><br/></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This injunction was scrupulously observed. I learned
afterward that about all of Hurlbut's time in Charleston
had been employed in eluding the search of the vigilants,
who, it was feared, would have given him a rough welcome
to Charleston if they had known in time of his
presence there.</p>
<p>Without further adventure we reached Washington in
safety, only a few days before the tocsin of war was
sounded by the firing on Fort Sumter. On my return,
the President learned for the first time that Hurlbut had
been in South Carolina. He laughed heartily over my
unvarnished recital of Hurlbut's experience in the hot-bed
of secession, though he listened with profound and
saddened attention to my account of the condition of
things in the fort on the one hand, and in the State and
city on the other.</p>
<p>I brought back with me a Palmetto branch, but I
brought no promise of peace. I had measured the
depth of madness that was hurrying the Southern masses
into open rebellion; I had ascertained the real temper
and determination of their leaders by personal contact
with them; and this made my mission one that was
not altogether without profit to the great man at whose
bidding I made the doubtful journey.</p>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />