A Concise History of The

7- I V I « I < « 4 ( I i •'* 1 } f 4 I t I u'O V i* ^ A CONCISE pSTORY OF THE WAR. DESIGNED TO ACCOMPANY P E K RI N E ’ S TsTEW or THE SOUTHERN STATES, WITH AN . * "TRODUCTION AND STATISTICAL APPENDIX, • COMPILED FROM AUTHENTIC SOURCES. LT.-COL. JOHN S. BISHOP, 108th U. S. C. T. > r INDIANAPOLIS, IND.: CHARLES 0. PERRINE, PUBLISHER. t -t' . 1 V • * Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 18G4, By CHARLES O. PERRINE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Indiana. '6i' I .V J « c • < c Stereotyped at the Fraaklitt Type Foundry, Cincinnati. INTRODUCTION The student of history must pause at this period in the history of the American Republic to contemi)late one of the most extra¬ ordinary rebellions that ever occurred against the constituted authority of any government—a rebellion foul in its conception and relentless in its prosecution. Ilis mind will naturally revert to the days of the Revolution, when we were but a handful, struggling for independence and for a position among the nations of' the earth. All then were united in the common cause. *itanding upon the broad platform of equal rights, and avow- i, the j)rinciple of self-government, that independence was av deved; and the fathers of the country, profiting by the les- B07 i of the past, established a Constitution which bound tho hiinerto independent colonies in one indissoluble Union. Under ’’ protecting segis of this Constitution, the American Republic rusned on to a pinnacle of greatness unparalleled in the annals of the world. State after State was organized, until thirty-fivo stars made brighter the efl’ulgence of a new constellation. The genius of America points yet to that vast, almost unbroken West, where new States are to be carved out to take their place in the confederacy, the compeers of their elder sisters. Such j has been the rapid progress of this nation, that the mind is lost I ii^ contemplation of its grandeur and its vastness. At the begin¬ ning of the present century, it scarcely attracted attention in Europe, and was, probably, as little thought of in the delibera¬ tions of diplomatists as Holland or Belgium. At the close of 1860 it stood like a Titan, feared by the world, and occupying a larger share of foreign thought than did France, clothed in the dazzling magnificence which the matchless genius of the First Napoleon threw over the empire. With a far more fertile territory than Rome possessed, even in her palmiest days—with a people whose obstinate bravery and fiery, irresistible valor (V) vi INTRODUCTION. fully equaled the famed virtue of the Roman, whose skill, judg¬ ment, and genius were not surpassed by the M’orld-famous mind of the Greek—it was no wonder that the United States of Amer¬ ica were as much feared as Rome herself had been. The proud title “I am a Roman citizen” found its counterpart in the expression “ I am an American.” In the second war with Great Britain—the Republic yet in its infancy—the world saw, with astonishment, a raw, undis¬ ciplined army overthrow her boasted veterans, and an im¬ promptu navy wrest from her the scepter of the seas. The Mexican and various Indian wars passed over the Republic like a summer cloud, in the sunshine of her prosperity. From a small strip of territory lying' along the Atlantic, having a population of less than three millions in 1776, the census of 1860 gave us a country three millions square miles in extent, and a hardy, ingenious, and industrious population of nearly thirty-two millions, an increase unparalleled since the world began. And yet, amidst all this grandeur and prosperity, there were found those, unmindful of their country’s honor or their own, who, in the madness of thwarted ambition, endeavored to pull down this fair temple of liberty, to build upon its ruins a gov¬ ernment where they might rule supreme—who sought to rend that flag under whose protecting folds they had grown rich and pros2:>erous. The elements of sectional agitation were first manifested in 1819, in the ai)plication of Missouri for admission into the Union. The attention of thoughtful men of both sections was then attracted to the danger. Mr. JetTerson said “ it came upon him like the sound of a fire-bell in the night.” The danger was averted. In 1832 the insidious doctrines of Calhoun had found many advocates, and nullification reared its head A Jackson then was President, and choked the monster. Find¬ ing themselves foiled in this direction, the leaders took up the question of slavery—a question on which a large majority of the people of the North were opposed to them-as a pretext for a disruption of the Union. They lost no opportunity of inflam- iufi the Southern mind and of demanding concessions from the ) INTRODUCTION. vi: Bovernment. Many of their arguments found color in the acts of a party of extremists in the North, and thus they were enabled more securely to pave the way for the accomplishment of their nefarious designs. Agitation was kept up, crimination and recrimination followed, until, finally, it culminated in open ^ resistance to the Federal Government and its flag, singularly simultaneous throughout the whole of the Southern Slates, and the humiliating spectacle was presented to the world of a President-elect of a free republic fleeing by night, and in dis¬ guise, to avoid a crowd of assassins thirsting for his life, into the Federal Capital, to assume the reins of government, which (had nearly slipped from the grasp of an imbecile old man. ^ And yet, with all our strength and vast resources, the inaugura¬ tion of Abraham Lincoln found us really weak—weak not in i the will to do, or the capacity to endure, but in the actual 1 power to resist invasion or quell rebellion, should either, as was most likely, occur suddenly. Our army, scarcely ever number- ing over fourteen thousand effective men—the smallest, per- I# haps, in the world—was scattered over thousands of miles of ; frontier, beyond the reach of immediate concentration, save I here and there a small garrison in an unfinished fort. Our p arsenals and armories were emptied, and arms and munitions : of war sent beyond our reach, by a treacherous Cabinet officer, 1 whose duty it was to guard well the national defenses. Our I navy, few vessels of which were fit for service, were dismantled : or scattered over the globe by another. Our treasury had ! been plundered by a third unscrupulous accomplice of the con- jyapirators. One-third of the officers of the army and many in the ■ navy had thrown up their commissions, and had arrayed the>m- selves against that flag which had so long floated grandly and triumphantly above them, and many more were disaffected. ^.These things being accomplished, the traitors avowed their purposes. State after State seceded, and arrayed themselves in arms, fondly imagining that this show of power was all that ■^■was necessary to awe the country into the recognition of their independence. The patriotic mind of the North refused to yield ^0 their intimidations, and the country was launched into the ''vortex of civil war. When the fall of Fort Sumter was announced, and the heart Tin INTRODUCTIOIT. of the nation, in the electric intensity of the excitement, for a moment ceased to beat, a disinterested and calm looker-on would have said, that never was there a country, in its* hour of direst need, so poorly prepared as was this for such a gigantic task of quelling and crushing the rebellion. But he would have been of those who do not comprehend the genius of our institu¬ tions. We had required no legions of armed men, stationed here and there, for our protection. We had not needed a thou¬ sand frov^ning ships of war to guard the sea-girt coast of the Republic, smiling with happiness, peace, and plenty. The Stars and Stripes floated grandly and proudly over the whole country, and the flaunting of its folds thrilled the heart of its people. The true army and navy were in the genuine, indom¬ itable patriotism of the American people. Wrapped up in trade and commerce, seemingly devoted to the business of money-getting, there was yet in the American heart a spark th of chivmlry—part of his inheritance from the race whence hej “ sprung—that needed but some such sacred breath as the call of his country to fan it into a quenchless flame. He paid no hire¬ ling army to protect himself or his rights, for he knew, when the time came that they were invaded, his own good arm was the keenest sword—his own dauntless bosom the most irnpreg-^ nable breastwork his country could erect. Such were those who, at New Orleans, overthrew thrice their number of the flower of the British army ; and that succession of triumphs from Mata- moras to the halls of the Montezumas was won by volunteer arms. Such a state of things could exist only in a republic. At the first sign of invasion or of wrong, the republican citizens of Athens threw down the pen of the scholar and the tools of the artisan for the javelin of the soldier or the pike of tha mariner, and they never failed, save through treachery, tof overthrow the regularly-drilled veterans of monarchical Mace- don, Persia, or Sparta. So it was with Rome.

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