CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN, OTHERWISE CALLED THE THE great political mistake that the South made, astute as it was in governmental affairs, was in pressing to a successful issue, in 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which thus became an Act of Congress. The Missouri Compromise, entered into as long before as the year 1820, had admitted the State of Missouri as a slave State into the Union, but with the express agreement that thenceforth slavery should not be permitted north of latitude 36° 30' within the bounds of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the land which the United States had bought of France. By the repeal, in 1850, of the Act of Congress through which this arrangement had been made binding without reference to time, it was believed that, as the status of freedom had been incidentally settled by the fact that the Mexican territory had not recognized slavery, a quietus had been put on the dangerous pro-slavery and anti-slavery agitation in the struggle of the South for the maintenance of its political supremacy, or at least equality; that a reconciliation of conflicting interests and final pacification of the country had been effected. But, by the action of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the whole political aspect of things changed for the worst. As the Compromise of 1850 had repealed the Missouri Compromise, so the Kansas-Nebraska Act had the effect of repealing the Compromise of 1850, and unsettled the whole question. The Kansas-Nebraska Act recognized the right of the people of a Territory to make the final determination as to whether or not the resultant State should be free or slave. It naturally followed, as the opinions and sentiments of the inhabitants of a Territory, existing as a prospective State, would determine whether or not, at the time of admission to the Union, a Territory should, as a State, be free or slave, that a contest should ensue between the existing settlers of a Territory; and moreover, that the new conditions introduced by the repeal of the Compromise of 1850 should lead to the colonization of Territories north of 36° 30' by settlers intending to determine their free or slave status with reference to their ultimate recognition as States. The Territory of Kansas, being just on the western border of Missouri, became, therefore, at once the scene of intestine confusion, freedom of elections being interfered with and forays made into the Territory, so that civic affairs there were kept in the greatest turmoil. The repeal of the Compromise of 1850 was but affording a cause and a great arena for strife to thousands of combatants inspired by sentiments impossible to reconcile regarding the future of the prospective State, as individually concerned and as influentially affecting the fortunes of the whole country. This political situation, resulting from what was called "squatter-sovereignty," which term signified, as already indicated, that they who could arrive and maintain themselves in greatest numbers would be they who would eventually remain masters of the field in the contest between freedom and slavery, was that which led immediately to an acerbity never before reached between the North and South; this, and the feeling on the one side that the Fugitive Slave Law was no more than due recognition of the rights of the South, while, on the other side, it was regarded as imposing upon the North a duty which, considering its sentiments, was revolting. Thus the two parts of the country approached nearer and nearer to strife. The little cloud, of which few took any note in 1850, became larger and larger until it overshadowed the inhabitants of the whole land, who, for the most part, were still unconscious of its portent when the ominous calm set in before the long pent-up storm, before the thunder pealed and lightnings flashed in war. This calm was the period of pause, when Southern Senators and Representatives and Cabinet officers, as their States passed ordinances of secession, gradually took their leave and shook the dust of Washington from their feet; when commissioners, accredited from the Southern States, appeared in Washington to treat with the United States as with a foreign power, the basis of conference being what it was impossible for the nation to grant as a preliminary, the recognition of the Confederacy; when Fort Sumter, manned by a few men under Major Robert Anderson, stood beleaguered in the midst of Charleston harbor by the batteries built around it by an unmolested enemy. Still the North temporized, and protested that there was no reason for this display of force against it; that it merely asserted its right to its territory, to its forts, its custom-houses, and its light-houses; but further than the implication contained therein, that it would repel force by force, all that was done by the North was in the line of conciliation. To no purpose. Suddenly the stillness was broken by a sound that showed that the storm had broken loose at last. The besiegers had fired on Sumter. Then the North roused itself from its partial incredulity as from slumber, and the stand then taken by secession found its grave in four years' time, after a frightful struggle, in the surrender at Appomattox Court House. On the 12th of April, 1861, the bombardment of Fort Sumter had begun, and it had ended on the 13th. Successful resistance was impossible against the batteries of the enemy established at their leisure on the shores surrounding the work. The besieged were only a handful, inadequately provisioned, because the enemy had let no stores reach them, and occupying a partially dismantled work. Mr. Lincoln at once called for a levy of seventy-five thousand men, for three months, apportioned according to their respective populations among the different States which recognized the central Government. The spirit of conciliation still continued to pervade all he said and did, even in this crisis of active hostility to the Government. He did not recognize directly or by implication that it could be possible that States were actually warring against the Government. He treated the situation as if it represented merely the turbulence of an insurrection which would soon subside with due amount of judicious management. But, in meeting the emergency in this admirable manner, he made one capital mistake of far-reaching consequences. He fixed the term of the troops demanded by the levy at only three months' service. It would be vain to say that no man could have foreseen at the time when Mr. Lincoln called for three months' troops, that the emergency which demanded any could possibly last over three months. Many men did not, probably the majority did not; but many did. The First Massachusetts Regiment and the Second Massachusetts Regiment went in for the war. General Patterson, of Philadelphia, so fully realized the inadequacy of a three months' term to cover the exigencies presented by the military situation, that he induced Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, to raise regiments additional to the quota assigned to Pennsylvania, an act disapproved by the War Department, so far as may be indicated by its non-acceptance of them. And yet it fell to the lot of those very repudiated regiments, which formed the celebrated Pennsylvania Reserves, to be the most immediate resource for the defence of Washington after the defeat at Bull Run. The cases cited will suffice for instances of outspoken appreciation of the situation, and doubtless there were many others, even although the form taken by some of them may not have been exactly the same.* The term of three months was not long enough for the men, although largely militia, to acquire the drill and discipline necessary to make good soldiers. The testimony given before the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War showed that the regiments at Bull Run had been brigaded only for the march. The very same thing also happened about the time of the battle of Bull Run, that happened in the Mexican War, when men were disbanding and dispersing at the end of their term of service, at a time when their presence was most urgently needed. This contingency Mr. Lincoln evidently did not see, nor did Mr. Seward either, the Secretary of State, whose view was most roseate as to the small time needed to bring about pacification. Yet to accept troops for any term, however long, it was not necessary to depart from the language which Mr. Lincoln used out of regard * General Patterson's prime agency in this matter, in having made to Governor Curtin the first suggestion of an additional levy for Pennsylvania, has been recently disputed. But, if anything in the world would seem to be clear, as establishing the existence of an occurrence, it is the coincidence between the letter of April 25, 1861, from General Patterson (the authenticity of which is undisputed), requesting the Governor to call out an additional twenty-five regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, with the expression in the Governor's Message of 1862, where he says, "Men more than sufficient in number to form some ten Regiments of the Reserve Corps had, previous to the 15th of May, been accepted by me in pursuance of a call upon me (afterwards rescinded) for twenty-five regiments, and were then already assembled and subject to my control. Most of these men volunteered for the Reserve Corps, and were immediately organized." It was not through the subsequent action of General Patterson, but through that of the Government, that the call was rescinded. |