Coming Fury, Volume 1

by Bruce Catton

1. The City by the Sea

  1. The most detailed and graphic account of the Charleston convention which this writer has found is in Murat Halstead’s engaging book, Caucuses of 1860, which has been drawn on liberally in the preparation of this and succeeding chapters. The description of Yancey at the Charleston Hotel is found on pp 5–6; the book is cited hereafter as Halstead. Much reliance was placed also on material found in various manuscript collections which, even when not cited in corroboration of specific statements in the text, were invaluable in providing an understanding of the convention and the men who participated in it. Among the manuscript sources consulted in the preparation of this account were the S. L. M. Barlow Papers, at the Huntington Library; the James Buchanan Papers, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the C. C. Clay Papers, at the Duke University Library; the Stephen Douglas Papers, at the Illinois State Historical Library; the John A. McClernand Papers, at the same depository, and the Joseph Gillespie Papers, at the Chicago Historical Society.

  2. Dwight Dumond: “William Lowndes Yancey,” in the Dictionary of American Biography” (cited hereafter as D.A.B.), Vol. XX, 592–95.

  3. Dumond, op cit.

  4. Halstead, 12–13.

  5. D. E. Huger Smith, A Charlestonian’s Recollections, 63; New York Times, issues dated April 27, April 28, and May 1, 1860; Avery Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 323–24; Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Vol. II, 203–4 (cited hereafter as Nevins); Roy Nichols, The Disruption of American Democracy, 288; Robert Molloy, Charleston: a Gracious Heritage, 1–2, 26–29.

  6. Halstead, 4–5.

  7. cf Craven, op cit, 323: “A place worse than Charleston, South Carolina, in which to hold the convention could not have been selected.” See also Dumond, The Secession Movement, 1860–1861, 4: “Not all of the men of the South were state-rights men, nor was the doctrine of state rights confined to that section of the country; but that doctrine was the constitutional refuge of the secessionists; and the fundamental cause of secession was the threatened extinction of slavery.”

  8. Halstead, 1–3.

  9. Richmond Dispatch, issue dated April 24, 1860.

  10. New York Times, April 27, 1860; Halstead, 5–7, 13.

  11. Halstead, 3–4, 6.

  2. “The Impending Crisis”

  1. French Ensor Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 1859–1861, 90.

  2. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 3; Chadwick, op cit, 91.

  3. For a sketch of Helper’s life, see D.A.B., Vol. VIII, 517–18; also Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, The Course of the South to Secession, 113–14, 154–55, and Craven, op cit, 250. Helper’s The Impending Crisis of the South; How to Meet It, 155–56, urged Southerners to boycott all business and professional men who owned slaves, to hold “no fellowship with them in religion—no affiliation with them in society,” and said that slaveholders should be given no recognition at all “except as ruffians, outlaws and criminals.” In a later book, Nojoque: Question for a Continent, Helper voiced what must be the most bitter anti-Negro diatribe ever written in America. The passage quoted in the text (Nojoque: 105) concludes that Negroes “are not upon the earth to be loved and preserved, but, under the unobstructed and salutary operation of the laws of nature, to be permitted to decay and die, and then to disappear, at once and forever, down, down, deep down, in the vortex of oblivion!”

  4. Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South, 21, 22, 25. For Blair’s work on the Compend, see John Sherman, Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet, Vol. I, 169.

  5. Sherman, op cit, 169–70.

  6. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 17.

  7. Ibid, 21, 44, 45, 82–83.

  8. John B. McMaster, A History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War, Vol. VIII, 434. (This work is cited hereafter as McMaster.)

  9. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 658, 935.

  10. Ibid, III, 2156. For an excellent summary of the situation as it developed in this session of Congress, see Craven, 313–16, 341.

  11. Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. III, 2155–56.

  12. Benjamin Thomas, Abraham Lincoln, 201–2; Roy Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (cited hereafter as Basler) Vol. III, 526, 534.

  13. Halstead, 102; Congressional Globe, as above, Vol. I, 914.

  14. Congressional Globe, Vol. I, appendix, 203–4; James Ford Rhodes, History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the Final Restoration of Home Rule in the South in 1877 (cited hereafter as Rhodes), Vol. II, 439. Reading the record of scenes like this, and the earlier row over the speakership, one sees so much passion and unrestrained invective that one is almost surprised the war did not come earlier than it did.

  15. Nevins, Vol. II, 189–91.

  16. Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 125; Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, First Session, Vol. IV, 2848–49.

  3. Star after Star

  1. Halstead, 5, 18–19.

  2. Ibid, 10.

  3. Ibid, 23–25.

  4. Craven, 320–21, 327; Dumond, The Secession Movement, 1860–1861, 33; John Witherspoon Du-Bose, The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey, 362–63.

  5. Laura W. White, Robert Barnwell Rhett: Father of Secession, 157.

  6. Rhodes, Vol. II, 357.

  7. Halstead, 25–28.

  8. Nevins, Vol. II, 214–15; Halstead, 43–44; Edward Stanwood, A History of the Presidency from 1788 to 1897, Vol. I, 266–69.

  9. Pamphlet in the Newberry Library, “Speech of the Hon. William L. Yancey of Alabama, Delivered in the National Democratic Convention”; Halstead, 47–48.

  10. Halstead, 48–50.

  11. Ibid, 52, 58–59, 61.

  12. Richmond Dispatch, May 5, 1860; Montgomery Weekly Advertiser, May 16, 1860; Nichols, op cit, 303–4.

  13. Halstead, 67–68, 71, 75.

  4. “The Party Is Split Forever”

  1. Emerson Davis Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 110–11; Halstead, 76; B. F. Perry, Biographical Sketches of Eminent American Statesmen, 148.

  2. Official Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention, 74–75; Halstead, 85–87.

  3. Halstead, 97–98.

  4. Benjamin F. Butler, Butler’s Book, 138–40; Halstead, 88, 92; Nichols, 308–9.

  5. New York Times, May 2, 1860.

  6. Richmond Dispatch, May 7, 1860.

  7. Henry A. Wise to William Sergeant, May 28, 1858, in John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, Vol. II, 302. (Cited hereafter as Nicolay & Hay.)

  8. Halstead, 101–3.

  9. Jefferson Davis, Relations of the States: Speech of May 7, 1860, 13–14.

  10. Congressional Globe, 35th Congress, First Session, Vol. I, 18.

  11. Richard Malcolm Johnston and William Hand Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 365.

  12. Ibid, 355–56.

  5. The Crowd at the Wigwam

  1. Halstead, 120.

  2. Ibid, 208–12; Rhodes, Vol. II, 454. Note that Dumond (The Secession Movement, 94) insists that this group actually adopted “a distinctly Southern platform.” He remarks: “It was not an endorsement of Federal supremacy, nor of majority rule, but rather of state rights and constitutional protection for the rights of minorities.”

  3. P. Orman Ray, The Convention that Nominated Lincoln, 5–8, 15.

  4. Ibid, 11, 13–14.

  5. Halstead, 122, 140.

  6. Willard L. King, Lincoln’s Manager, David Davis, 134–36. According to Don G. Fehrenbacher, in Chicago Giant: A Biography of Long John Wentworth, 177, David Davis had previously written to Lincoln recommending Wentworth’s talents as a political manager: “You ought to have got him long ago to ‘run’ you.”

  7. King, op cit, 134. For a succinct discussion of the different candidates and their prospects when the convention opened, see William E. Baringer, Lincoln’s Rise to Power, 204–7.

&nb
sp; 8. King, 138; telegram, Davis and Dubois to Lincoln, May 15, 1860, photostat in the Lincoln Collection, Chicago Historical Society.

  9. Francis Fisher Browne, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, 232–33.

  10. Halstead, 129.

  11. Ray, op cit, 19, 21.

  12. Ibid, 22–23; Halstead, 131, 138–39.

  13. Ray, 25–26; Halstead, 140.

  6. Railsplitter

  1. King, 139.

  2. For a careful weighing of the evidence on this point, see King, 137.

  3. Halstead, 141.

  4. Thomas Haines Dudley, a delegate from New Jersey, was one of the group meeting in Davis’s headquarters suite, and he wrote a detailed account of the night’s operations—“Report on Republican National Convention of 1860—Caucuses etc leading to nomination of Lincoln”—which has been followed in the preparation of this chapter. The manuscript is in the Thomas Haines Dudley Papers in the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.

  5. For the generally accepted version of the deal with the Cameron men, see Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years, Vol. II, 341–42. Alexander K. McClure Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, 20–30 insists that the Pennsylvania delegation caucused and voted to swing to Lincoln because of the pressure exerted by Governor Curtin and the influence of the Indiana delegation’s action; he asserts (139) that the Lincoln managers definitely made a deal with Cameron but that they simply bought something they were going to get anyway. King’s version is in his Lincoln’s Manager, 140–41, 162–64.

  6. Halstead, 143–44.

  7. Ibid, 144–45.

  8. For all of the foregoing, the Halstead account (149–51) is a graphic and detailed bit of reporting.

  9. Ray, op cit, 37.

  10. Addison G. Procter, “Lincoln and the Convention of 1860: an Address Before the Chicago Historical Society,” 10–12.

  11. Halstead, 153.

  CHAPTER TWO: Down a Steep Place

  1. Division at Baltimore

  1. Letter of Lee to Major Earl Van Dorn, July 3, 1860, in the R. E. Lee Papers, Library of Congress.

  2. cf Nichols (320): “The great majority of Americans no longer wished to compromise.”

  3. Halstead, 160; Nichols, 314.

  4. Halstead, 176, 185.

  5. Ibid, 154–56.

  6. Dumond, 81–82; Nichols, 316; Halstead, 185.

  7. This account follows Halstead, who gives the text of Douglas’s letter to Dean Richmond and quotes liberally from the debates. (Halstead, 187–99.)

  8. Ibid, 205–6.

  9. For a résumé of the voting statistics and an excellent analysis of their significance, see Nichols, 321. Douglas’s letter to Richardson, and Richardson’s remarks on it, are from Halstead, 207.

  10. Halstead (citing a news story in the Baltimore Sun) 217–25.

  11. Ibid, 227.

  2. The Great Commitment

  1. Since the Civil War ended, practically every conceivable interpretation of its causes and significance has been advanced. An almost indispensable survey and summary of these varying opinions can be found in Thomas J. Pressly’s Americans Interpret Their Civil War. Highly recommended also is Howard K. Beale’s What Historians Have Said About the Causes of the Civil War (Theory and Practice in Historical Study; a Report of the Committee on Historiography, Bulletin 54, 1946, Social Science Research Council.) Two sharply contrasting analyses which this writer found stimulating and informative are Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War, (second revised edition, 1957) and Nevins, Vol. II, 462 et seq.

  2. “The general period in American history from 1825 to 1860 was one of vast material growth and expansion. But it was also one in which the wealth and power of the few grew disproportionately to that of the many. Democracy was not functioning properly.… Injustice, lack of material prosperity, loss of equality or failure to achieve American purposes—all became matters of moral significance and evidence of God’s plan thwarted.” (Craven, “The Coming of the War Between the States: an Interpretation,” Journal of Southern History, Vol. II, No. 3, 305.)

  3. “The localization of a great manufacture so distant from its sources of supply was as radical an innovation in industrial geography as was Arkwright machinery in industrial mechanics.” (Victor S. Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, Vol. II, 1.)

  4. Clark, op cit, 2.

  5. Ibid, 7.

  6. cf Charles and Mary Beard, (The Rise of American Civilization, Vol. II, 6–7): “The amazing growth of northern industries, the rapid extension of railways, the swift expansion of foreign trade to the ends of the earth, the attachment of the farming regions of the west to the centers of manufacture and finance through transportation and credit, the destruction of state consciousness by migration, the alien invasion, the erection of new commonwealths in the Valley of Democracy, the nationalistic drive of interstate commerce, the increase of population in the north, and the southward pressure of the capitalistic glacier, all conspired to assure the ultimate triumph of what the orators were fond of calling ‘the free labor system.’ This was a dynamic thrust far too powerful for planters operating in a limited territory with incompetent labor on soil of diminishing fertility.”

  7. Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States in the Years 1853–1854, with Remarks on Their Economy, Vol. I, 19–20. See also Ulrich B. Phillips, The Course of the South to Secession, 152–53.

  8. Mary Boykin Chesnut, A Diary from Dixie, (cited hereafter as Mrs. Chesnut), 10–11, 21–22, 142.

  3. By Torchlight

  1. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. II, 284–85.

  2. William E. Baringer, Campaign Technique in Illinois—1860; Illinois State Historical Society Transactions for the Year 1932, 249.

  3. Ibid, 253–56.

  4. The Railsplitter was published between Aug. 1 and Oct. 27, 1860. The quotations in the text are from a reprint by the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop, Chicago.

  5. Baringer, op cit, 261.

  6. Undated paper marked “Form of a reply prepared by Mr. Lincoln with which his private secretary was instructed to answer a numerous class of letters in the campaign of 1860,” in the John G. Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress.

  7. Memorandum dated Nov. 5, 1860, in the Nicolay Papers.

  8. Craven, The Growth of Southern Nationalism, 346.

  9. “Speech Delivered by William H. Seward at St. Paul, Sept. 18, 1860,” a pamphlet printed by the Albany Evening Journal.

  10. Chadwick, Causes of the Civil War, 127.

  11. Ibid, 128, citing The National Intelligencer for Oct. 5, 1860.

  12. Edmund Ruffin Diaries, Vol. IV, 677, 682; in the Library of Congress.

  13. Emerson David Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 314, 317–18.

  4. Little Giant

  1. There is a brilliant analysis of this situation in Craven’s Growth of Southern Nationalism. Pointing out that the Industrial Revolution had already pronounced the doom of slavery, Craven remarks (340): “Douglas had simply recognized inevitable trends and had adjusted his course to them. But because Southern men resented what ‘progress’ had done to them, they saw in Douglas the symbol of it all and hated him accordingly. By rejecting him they were attempting to repudiate the great forces of change that threatened their civilization.”

  2. George Fort Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 492; The Campaign Plain Dealer and Popular Sovereignty Advocate, Cleveland, issue of Sept. 1, 1860. (This is an interesting Douglas campaign paper, counterpart of the Republican Party’s Railsplitter mentioned in the previous chapter. Facsimile reproductions are published by Lincoln College, Lincoln, Ill.)

  3. Milton, op cit, 493; Fite, The Presidential Campaign of 1860, 282.

  4. Howard Cecil Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession, 38–39, 71.

  5. Lucille Stillwell, John Cabell Breckinridge, 82–83.

  6. King, Lincoln’s Manager, 154–55, 158–59.

  7. Diary of Edmund Ruffin, Vol. IV; Dwight L. Dumond, Southern Editorials on Sec
ession, quoting the Charleston Mercury of Oct. 11, 1860.

  8. Dumond, op cit, 185; Dunbar Rowland, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, Vol. IV, 540.

  9. Nicolay & Hay, Vol. II, 306–7.

  10. Ibid, 307–14.

  11. Milton, The Eve of Conflict, 500.

  5. Verdict of the People

  1. Paul Angle, Here I Have Lived: a History of Lincoln’s Springfield, 1821–1865, 251–53; John G. Nicolay to his wife, Nov. 8, 1860, in the Nicolay Papers.

  2. McMaster, Vol. VIII, 476, 478–79; Rhodes, Vol. III, 118.

  3. Johnston and Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens, 564–65.

  4. Ibid, 370–71; Basler, Vol. IV, 146, 160. In the former book, Lincoln is quoted as saying “… while we think it is wrong and ought to be abolished.” The quotation in the text is from Basler.

  5. Memorandum dated at Springfield, Nov. 15, 1860; from the Nicolay Papers.

  6. New York Tribune, Nov. 9, 1860.

  7. Dunbar Rowland, op cit, Vol. IV, 541.

  8. Henry Villard, Lincoln on the Eve of ’61, 17.

  9. Donn Piatt, Memories of Men Who Saved the Union, 30, 33–34.

  6. Despotism of the Sword

  1. Winfield Scott, Memoirs of Lieut. General Scott, LL.D., Written by Himself, Vol. II, 609; James Buchanan, The Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion, 99, 287–88; Mss. copy of Scott’s views, inscribed “To the Hon. E. Everett with the respects of his friend-W.S.” in the Edward Everett Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

  2. Buchanan, op cit, 104; Brevet Major General Emory Upton, The Military Policy of the United States, 224; A. Howard Meneely, The War Department, 1861, 21–22, 24–26.

  3. Philip Gerald Auchampaugh, James Buchanan and His Cabinet on the Eve of Secession, 130; Nicolay & Hay, Vol. II, 36–63, quoting from the diary of John B. Floyd.