Battle Cry of Freedom

by James M. McPherson

  Lincoln's dilemma was made worse by conflicting counsels and cross purposes within his government. General Scott said that reinforcement was now impossible without a large fleet and 25,000 soldiers. The government had neither the ships nor the men. Scott's advice to pull out

  69. This and the following paragraphs on Lincoln and Fort Sumter—one of the most thoroughly studied questions in American history—are based on a variety of sources including Catton, Coming Fury, 271–325; Swanberg, First Blood, 219–332; Richard N. Current, Lincoln and the First Shot (Philadelphia, 1963); Kenneth M. Stampp, "Lincoln and the Strategy of Defense in 1861," JSH, 11 (1945), 297–323; Nevins, War, I, 30–74; Potter, Impending Crisis, 570–83; Randall, Lincoln the President, I, 311–50; and Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, III, 375–449, IV, 1–63.

  swayed the secretaries of war and navy. Seward also concurred. He wanted to give up Sumter for political as well as military reasons. Such a gesture of peace and good will, he told Lincoln, would reassure the upper South and strengthen unionists in Confederate states. Seward was playing a deep and devious game. In line with his aspirations to be premier of this administration, he established independent contact through an intermediary with the Confederate commissioners. On his own authority, and without Lincoln's knowledge, Seward passed the word to these commissioners that Sumter would be yielded. He also leaked this news to the press. Within a week of Lincoln's inauguration, northern papers carried "authoritative" stories that Anderson's men would be pulled out.

  Lincoln had made no such decision—though the nearly unanimous advice of those who were paid to advise him nearly persuaded him to do so. But what then would become of his inaugural pledge to "hold, occupy, and possess" federal property? At the very least he could reinforce Fort Pickens; on March 12, General Scott issued orders for that purpose.70 When Lincoln polled his cabinet on March 15 concerning Sumter, however, five of the seven secretaries recommended evacuation. A sixth, Chase, advised resupplying the garrison only if it could be done without risking war. Montgomery Blair alone wanted to hold on to the fort whatever the risk. He believed that instead of encouraging southern unionists, surrender would discourage them. Only "measures which will inspire respect for the power of the Government and the firmness of those who administer it" could sustain them, said Blair. To give up the fort meant giving up the Union.71

  Lincoln was inclined to think so, too. And Blair offered the president more than supportive advice. He introduced Lincoln to his brother-in-law Gustavus V. Fox, a thirty-nine-year-old Massachusetts businessman and former navy lieutenant. Fox was the first of many such men who would surge into prominence during the next four years: daring, able, fertile with ideas for doing things that the creaking old military establishment

  70. Like so much else in the crisis of the forts, the first attempt to reinforce Pickens was also bungled. The naval captain on the Pickens station refused to carry out the order, which had been sent to the army officer commanding the troops on shipboard, because the order was not signed by the secretary of the navy. The captain cited his previous orders not to reinforce so long as the Confederates refrained from attacking Pickens. When Lincoln learned on April 6 of this foul-up, it may have influenced his final decision to send supplies to Fort Sumter.

  71. Excerpts from the written opinions of the seven secretaries are printed in CWL, IV, 285.

  said could not be done. Fox proposed to send a troop transport escorted by warships to the bar outside Charleston harbor. Men and supplies could there be transferred to tugs or small boats which could cross the bar after dark for a dash to Sumter. Warships and the Sumter garrison would stand by to suppress attempts by Confederate artillery to interfere.

  It might just work; in any case, Lincoln was willing to think about it. For he was now hearing from the constituency that had elected him. Many Republicans were outraged by reports that Sumter was to be surrendered. "HAVE WE A GOVERNMENT?" shouted newspaper headlines. "The bird of our country is a debilitated chicken, disguised in eagle feathers," commented a disgusted New York lawyer. "Reinforce Fort Sumter at all hazards!" ran a typical letter from a northern citizen. "If Fort Sumter is evacuated, the new administration is done forever," declared another.72 Even Democrats called for reinforcement of the "gallant band who are defending their country's honor and its flag in the midst of a hostile and traitorous foe." The prolonged uncertainty was stretching nerves to the breaking point. "The Administration must have a policy of action," proclaimed the New York Times. "Better almost anything than additional suspense," echoed other northern papers. "The people want something to be decided on [to] serve as a rallying point for the abundant but discouraged loyalty of the American heart."73

  These signs of northern opinion hardened Lincoln's resolve. Meanwhile, however, Seward continued to tell Confederate commissioners that Sumter would be given up. One of the three emissaries that Lincoln sent to Charleston to appraise matters, his old friend Ward H. Lamon, seems to have told Carolinians and Anderson himself that evacuation was imminent. Hawks and doves within the administration were clearly on a collision course. The crash came on March 28. That day Lincoln learned that General Scott wanted to evacuate both Forts Pick-ens and Sumter. His grounds for urging this were political rather than military: "The evacuation of both the forts," wrote the general, "would instantly soothe and give confidence to the eight remaining slave-holding States, and render their cordial adherence to this Union perpetual."

  72. Perkins, ed., Northern Editorials, 652; Strong, Diary, 109; Current, Lincoln andthe First Shot, 118; Stampp, And the War Came, 266.

  73. New York Times, April 3, 1861; New York Morning Express, April 5, 1861, quoted in Stampp, And the War Came, 268.

  Lincoln called his cabinet into emergency session after a state dinner that evening. "Blank amazement" registered on most faces as an obviously nettled president read to them Scott's memorandum. The general (a Virginian) was advising unconditional surrender to the Confederacy. Whether or not influenced by Seward (as most cabinet members assumed), Scott's politically motivated recommendation rendered suspect his initial opinion that reinforcement of Sumter was impossible. The cabinet reversed its vote of two weeks earlier. Four of the six members (Caleb Smith still went along with Seward; Cameron was absent) now favored resupply of Sumter. All six supported additional reinforcement of Pickens. Lincoln issued orders for a secret expedition to carry out the latter task. More momentously, he also instructed Fox to ready ships and men for an attempt to reinforce Sumter.74

  This backed Seward into a corner. His assurances to southern commissioners, his peace policy of voluntary reconstruction, his ambitions to be premier—all appeared about to collapse. To recoup his position Seward acted boldly—and egregiously. He intervened in the Fort Pickens reinforcement and managed to divert the strongest available warship from the Sumter expedition, with unfortunate consequences. Then on April 1 he sent an extraordinary proposal to Lincoln. In mystifying fashion, Seward suggested that to abandon Sumter and hold Pickens would change the issue from slavery to Union. Beyond that, the secretary of state would "demand explanations" from Spain and France for their meddling in Santo Domingo and Mexico, and declare war if their explanations were unsatisfactory. Presumably this would reunite the country against a foreign foe. "Whatever policy we adopt," Seward pointed out, "it must be somebody's business to pursue and direct it incessantly." He left little doubt whom he had in mind.

  Lincoln's astonishment when he read this note can well be imagined. Not wanting to humiliate Seward or lose his services, however, the president mentioned the matter to no one and wrote a polite but firm reply the same day. He had pledged to hold, occupy and possess federal property, Lincoln reminded his secretary of state, and he could not see how holding Sumter was any more a matter of slavery or less a matter of Union than holding Pickens. Ignoring Seward's idea of an ultimatum

  74. Nicolay and Hay, Lincoln, III, 394–95, 429–34; Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, 75–81. Rumors had already reached Washington
that Lincoln's first order to reinforce Pickens had not been carried out.

  to Spain or France, Lincoln told him that whatever policy was decided upon, "I must do it."75 A chastened Seward said nothing more about this and served as one of Lincoln's most loyal advisers during the next four years.

  Seward recognized that he would have to endure accusations of deceit from southerners when his assurances of Sumter's evacuation turned out to be wrong. He made one last effort to salvage the situation. The Virginia convention, still in session, would undoubtedly vote to secede if a clash of arms occurred. Seward persuaded Lincoln to meet with a Virginia unionist in Washington on April 4. The purpose was to see if a bargain could be struck: evacuation of Sumter in return for adjournment of the convention without secession. Just before his inauguration Lincoln had expressed interest in this idea. Whether he explicitly offered such a deal in his private conversation with John Baldwin in April 4 has long been a matter of controversy.76 In any event nothing came of this meeting, from which Lincoln emerged with a soured view of Virginia unionism. That very day he gave the go-ahead for the Sumter expedition.77

  The nature of that enterprise had changed subtly but significantly from Fox's first proposal. Instead of trying to shoot its way into the harbor, the task force would first attempt only to carry supplies to Anderson. Warships and soldiers would stand by for action but if Confederate batteries did not fire on the supply boats they would not fire back, and the reinforcements would remain on shipboard. Lincoln would notify Governor Pickens in advance of the government's peaceful intention to send in provisions only. If Confederates opened fire on the unarmed boats carrying "food for hungry men," the South would stand convicted of an aggressive act. On its shoulders would rest the blame for starting a war. This would unite the North and, perhaps, keep the South divided. If southerners allowed the supplies to go through, peace and the status quo at Sumter could be preserved and the Union government would have won an important symbolic victory. Lincoln's new conception of the resupply undertaking was a stroke of genius. In effect he was

  75. CWL, IV, 316–18, for Seward's memorandum and Lincoln's reply.

  76. Historians have analyzed the meager evidence on this matter in varying ways; for a summary of the evidence, with citations to relevant works, see William C. Harris, "The Southern Unionist Critique of the Civil War," CWH, 31 (1985), 50–51.

  77. Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, 96.

  telling Jefferson Davis, "Heads I win, Tails you lose." It was the first sign of the mastery that would mark Lincoln's presidency.78

  On April 6, Lincoln sent a special messenger to Charleston to inform Governor Pickens that "an attempt will be made to supply Fort-Sumter with provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or ammunition, will be made, without further notice, [except] in case of an attack on the Fort."79 This put the ball in Jefferson Davis's court. The Confederate president was also under great pressure to "do something." Seward's dream of voluntary reconstruction was Davis's nightmare. "The spirit and even the patriotism of the people is oozing out under this do-nothing policy," complained a Mobile newspaper. "If something is not done pretty soon . . . the whole country will become so disgusted with the sham of southern independence that the first chance the people get at a popular election they will turn the whole movement topsy-turvy." Other Alabamians agreed that war

  78. Contemporaries and historians have long debated Lincoln's motives and purposes in this Sumter resupply plan. Three main positions emerged in the debate: 1) Lincoln knew that he could save his administration and party only by war, so he deliberately manipulated the Confederacy into firing the first shot so that he could have his war at maximum political advantage. The two principal historians who advanced this interpretation, both of them southerners, were Charles W. Ramsdell, "Lincoln and Fort Sumter," JSH, 3 (1937), 259–88; and J. S. Tilley, Lincoln Takes Command (Chapel Hill, 1941). 2) Lincoln wanted to preserve the status quo to give the policy of voluntary reconstruction a new lease on life, but he feared that giving up Sumter would discredit the government and bolster the Confederacy in the eyes of the world. Hoping to preserve peace but willing to risk war, he devised the resupply scheme in such a way as to give Confederates the choice of peace or war. This interpretation has been advanced mainly by James G. Randall, Lincoln the Liberal Statesman (New York, 1947), 88–117, and David M. Potter, "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," in George Harmon Knoles, ed., The Crisis of the Union, 1860–1861 (Baton Rouge, 1965), 90–106. 3) Lincoln would have been happy to preserve the peace but probably expected the Confederates to open fire; either way he won. Numerous historians have offered this interpretation; it is most prominently identified with Kenneth M. Stampp, "Lincoln and the Strategy of Defense in the Crisis of 1861," loc. cit., and Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, 182–208. The differences between interpretations 2 and 3 are subtle, and hinge on efforts to read Lincoln's mind to guess what he wanted or expected the Confederates to do. Although he never said explicitly what he expected them to do, Lincoln had become rather disillusioned with the prospects for voluntary reconstruction and he had plenty of reason to believe that the Confederates would open fire on a peaceful resupply effort. Therefore interpretation 3 seems most plausible.

  79. CWL, IV, 323.

  was the best way "of avoiding the calamity of reconstruction. . . . South Carolina has the power of putting us beyond the reach of reconstruction by taking Fort Sumter at any cost. . . . Sir, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days!"80

  Even if the seven lower-South states held together, the Confederacy's future was precarious without the upper South. After talking with Virginia secessionists, the fire-eater Louis Wigfall urged a prompt attack on Sumter to bring that commonwealth into the fold. The hot-blooded Edmund Ruffin and Roger Pryor, vexed by the lingering unionism in their native state of Virginia, echoed this exhortation. "The shedding of blood," wrote Ruffin, "will serve to change many voters in the hesitating states, from the submission or procrastinating ranks, to the zealous for immediate secession." If you want us to join you, Pryor told Char-lestonians, "strike a blow!" The Charleston Mercury was willing. "Border southern States will never join us until we have indicated our power to free ourselves—until we have proven that a garrison of seventy men cannot hold the portal of our commerce," declared the Mercury. "Let us be ready for war. . . . The fate of the Southern Confederacy hangs by the ensign halliards of Fort Sumter."81

  Therefore to Abraham Lincoln's challenge, Shall it be Peace or War? Jefferson Davis replied, War. A fateful cabinet meeting in Montgomery on April 9 endorsed Davis's order to Beauregard: reduce the fort before the relief fleet arrived, if possible. Anderson rejected Beauregard's ritual summons to surrender, but remarked in passing that he would be starved out in a few days if help did not arrive. The Confederates knew that help was about to arrive, so they opened fire on April 12 at 4:30 a.m. Fox's fleet, scattered by a gale and prevented by high seas from launching the supply boats, was helpless to intervene.82 After thirty-three hours of bombardment by four thousand shot and shells which destroyed part

  80. Mobile newspaper quoted in Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, 134; J. L. Pugh to William Porcher Miles, Jan. 24, 1861, in Richard N. Current, "The Confederates and the First Shot," CWH, 7 (1961), 365; J. G. Gilchrist quoted in Nevins, War, I, 68.

  81. Current, Lincoln and the First Shot, 151, 139; William K. Scarborough, ed., The Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. I: Toward Independence, October 1856-April 1861 (Baton Rouge, 1972), 542; Charleston Mercury, Jan. 24, 1861.

  82. Fox was also handicapped by the absence of U.S.S. Powhatan, the navy's strongest available warship. A tragicomic confusion of orders for which both Seward and Lincoln were responsible had diverted the Powhatan to the Fort Pickens expedition.

  of the fort and set the interior on fire, Anderson's exhausted garrison surrendered. Able to man
only a few of Sumter's forty-eight mounted guns, they had fired a thousand rounds in reply—without much effect. On April 14 the American flag came down and the Confederate stars and bars rose over Sumter.

  This news galvanized the North. On April 15 Lincoln issued a proclamation calling 75,000 militiamen into national service for ninety days to put down an insurrection "too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." The response from free states was overwhelming. War meetings in every city and village cheered the flag and vowed vengeance on traitors. "The heather is on fire," wrote a Harvard professor who had been born during George Washington's presidency. "I never knew what a popular excitement can be. . . . The whole population, men, women, and children, seem to be in the streets with Union favors and flags." From Ohio and the West came "one great Eagle-scream" for the flag. "The people have gone stark mad!"83 In New York City, previously a nursery of pro-southern sentiment, a quarter of a million people turned out for a Union rally. "The change in public sentiment here is wonderful—almost miraculous," wrote a New York merchant on April 18. "I look with awe on the national movement here in New York and all through the Free States," added a lawyer. "After our late discords, it seems supernatural." The "time before Sumter" was like another century, wrote a New York woman. "It seems as if we never were alive till now; never had a country till now."84