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Free Republic University, Department of History presents U.S. History, 1855-1860: Seminar and Discussion Forum
Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott, Lincoln-Douglas, Harper’s Ferry, the election of 1860, secession – all the events leading up to the Civil War, as seen through news reports of the time and later historical accounts

First session: November 21, 2015. Last date to add: Sometime in the future.
Reading: Self-assigned. Recommendations made and welcomed.

Posting history, in reverse order

https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:homerjsimpson/index?tab=articles

To add this class to or drop it from your schedule notify Admissions and Records (Attn: Homer_J_Simpson) by reply or freepmail.

Link to previous Harper’s Weekly thread

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3911111/posts

Roger B. Taney – 1-3
A Human Skull – 3
Editorials – 3-4
The Lounger – 4-5
Humors of the Day – 5
The Marine School at Charleston, South Carolina – 6-7
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, Ch. V – 8-9
Alone – 9-11
Domestic Intelligence – 11
Foreign News – 11-12
The Fortifications for the Defense of New York – 12-14
A Day’s Ride: A Life’s Romance, by Charles Lever. Ch. XXIV-XXV – 14-15
Fashions for the Season – 15-17
The Inquisition at Rome – 17-18
Up a Step-Ladder – 18-19
The Port of Gaeta – 19-20
Housekeeping – 21

Continued from November 28 (reply #25).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3909150/posts#25

Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher

Continued from December 7 (reply #42).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3911111/posts#42

The Diary of George Templeton Strong, Edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas

Howell Cobb to James Buchanan, December 8, 1860*

WASHINGTON CITY, Dec. 8, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR: A sense of duty to the State of Georgia requires me to take a step which makes it proper that I should no longer continue to be a member of your Cabinet.

In the troubles of the country consequent upon the late Presidential election, the honor and safety of my State are involved. Her people so regard it, and in their opinion I fully concur. They are engaged in a struggle where the issue is life or death. My friends ask for my views and counsel. Not to respond would be degrading to myself and unjust to them. I have accordingly prepared, and must now issue to them, an address which contains the calm and solemn convictions of my heart and judgment.

The views which I sincerely entertain, and which therefore I am bound to express differ in some respects from your own. The existence of this difference would expose me, if I should remain in my present place, to unjust suspicions, and put you in a false position. The first of these consequences I could bear well enough, but I will not subject you to the last.

My withdrawal has not been occasioned by anything you have said or done. Whilst differing from your Message upon some of its theoretical doctrines, as well as from the hope so earnestly expressed that the Union can yet be preserved, there was no practical result likely to follow which required me to retire from your Administration. That necessity is created by what I feel it my duty to do; and the responsibility of the act, therefore, rests alone upon myself.

To say that I regret — deeply regret — this necessity, but feebly expresses the feeling with which I pen this communication. For nearly four years I have been associated with you as one of your Cabinet officers, and during that period nothing has occurred to mar, even for a moment, our personal and official relations. In the policy and measures of your Administration I have cordially concurred, and shall ever feel proud of the humble place which my name may occupy in its history. If your wise counsels and patriotic warnings had been heeded by your countrymen, the fourth of March next would have found our country happy, prosperous, and united. That it will not be so, is no fault of yours.

The evil has now passed beyond control, and must be met by each and all of us under our responsibility to God and our country. If, as I believe, history will have to record yours as the last administration of our present Union, it will also place it side by side with the purest and ablest of those that preceded it.

With the kindest regards for yourself and the members of your Cabinet, with whom I have been so pleasantly associated.

I am most truly and sincerely, your friend,

HOWELL COBB.

To the PRESIDENT.

_______________

* From the Constitution, Washington, D. C, Dec. 12, 1860.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 517-8; “The Resignation Of Secretary Cobb. The Correspondence,” The New York Times, New York, New York, December 14, 1860.

civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/howell-cobb-to-james-buchanan-december.html

Horace Bushnell, December 8, 1860

CLIFTON SPRINGS, December 8,1860.

You want to know about every where and what and why and wherefore of our very idle, insignificant life. We go to bed, we get up, we look about, we yawn, stretch, and yawn again. And to this I sometimes add a little coughing. As to weather, we do not have any, or it is so mixed that nobody can tell what it is. The cold I had has either not left me, or it has left me not improved.

The state of the country discomposes and untones everything. What is to be the end of it? I do not exactly like the temper of our Republicans, — The Independent, for example, and The Tribune. There is too much of a provoking uppishness that wants dignity, and can only be mischievous in its effects. My Thanksgiving sermon was on this subject, the same that I delivered on the census a year ago, with some filling added. My conviction of the want of such a view just now has induced me to send it on to Hartford, where it is setting up for the press. You will see it in due time, and I guess will not be displeased by it. If you are, why, then I will secede.

SOURCE: Mary A. Bushnell Cheney, Editor, Life and Letters of Horace Bushnell, p. 442

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/06/horace-bushnell-december-8-1860.html

https://youtu.be/UK3ajYSpVN0

Magwitch confessing he stole the food and drink from the Gargery household to spare Pip.

Continued from December 1 (reply #3).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3911111/posts#3

Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

Continued from December 2 (reply #17).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3911111/posts#17

With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865, edited by Michael Burlingame

John McQueen et al to James Buchanan, December 9, 1860

TO HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES BUCHANAN,
President of the United States.

In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authority nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina will either attack or molest the United States forts in the harbor of Charleston previous to the act of the Convention, and, we hope and believe, not until an offer has been made through an accredited representative to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal Government; provided that no reinforcement shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military status shall remain as at present.

(Signed.)

JOHN McQUEEN.
WILLIAM PORCHER MILES.
M. L. BONHAM.
W. W. BOYCE.
LAWRENCE M. KEITT.

WASHINGTON, 9th December, 1860.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 38-9

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/01/john-mcqueen-et-al-to-james-buchanan.html

Commissioners of the State of South Carolina to James Buchanan, December 9, 1860

To His Excellency James Buchanan,
President of the United States:

In compliance with our statement to you yesterday, we now express to you our strong convictions that neither the constituted authorities, nor any body of the people of the State of South Carolina, will either attack or molest the United States Forts, in the harbor of Charleston, previously to the action of the Convention, and we hope and believe, not until an offer has been made, through an accredited representative, to negotiate for an amicable arrangement of all matters between the State and the Federal Government, provided that no reinforcements shall be sent into those forts, and their relative military status shall remain as at present.

JNO. MCQUEEN,
WM. PORCHER MILES,
M. L. BONHAM,
W. W. BOYCE,
LAWRENCE M. KEITT.

Washington, 9th Dec, 1860.

SOURCE: The Correspondence Between the Commissioners of the State of So. Ca. to the Government at Washington and the President of the United States, p. 7

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2018/07/commissioners-of-state-of-south_23.html

Continued from November 19 (reply #11).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3906799/posts#11

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals

Continued from November 8 (reply #34).

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3901270/posts#34

Mary Chesnut’s Diary, Edited by Isabella D. Martin and Myrta Lockett Avary

We have several excerpts today -

Team of Rivals at reply #15
Letter from Lincoln at #16
Mary B. Chesnut diary entry at #17
George Templeton Strong at #18
and Major Sedgwick still out in the wilds of Colorado here, along with Pres. Buchanan's reply to his departing Treasury Secretary.

Major John Sedgwick to his Sister, December 10, 1860

FORT WISE, December 10, 1860.

My dear sister:

Our winter of discontent has not as yet been made glorious by a mail, although the sun has favoured us almost daily for the last four months.

A messenger starts to-day for Denver City, and I will direct this to him, trusting that it may reach you in the course of the winter. Does it not seem strange that you can send and receive answers to letters from Europe sooner than from this post, even under the most favourable circumstances? I have nothing important to write. The only event we look forward for is for fair weather to help us finish our quarters. So far we have little to complain of, and two weeks more will enable us to shelter ourselves from the uncertainty of the storms that sometimes do occur here. Yesterday a snow-storm came up that foreboded a violent one, but this morning the sun came out, bright and pleasant, and the snow, although in considerable quantity, is fast disappearing, and by to-morrow we can resume our work. The hunters are all out after deer and antelope, and with any luck will get enough to last a month at least.

If we receive no mail, we escape the excitement and turmoil of the election, that seems to have disturbed everything in the States, if it has not broken you to pieces. We have heard of Mr. Lincoln's election and the probable difficulty he will experience, if not direct opposition, to his inauguration. It seems lamentable that this Union that we have boasted of and glorified so much should be broken up, but I hope our next news will be more satisfactory. How a disruption will affect me I cannot foresee; probably would result in my leaving the service at once. I do not feel quite ready to do this, but when I am ready I want to, in looking back, if I have any cause of regret, have no one to blame but myself.

Believe me, as ever,

Your affectionate brother,

JOHN SEDGWICK.

SOURCE: George William Curtis, Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major-General, Volume 2, p. 29-30

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/05/major-john-sedgwick-to-his-sister_15.html

James Buchanan to Howell Cobb, December 10, 1860

WASHINGTON, 10 December, 1860.

MY DEAR SIR: I have received your communication of Saturday evening resigning the position of Secretary of the Treasury which you have held since the commencement of my administration. Whilst I deeply regret that you have determined to separate yourself from us at the present critical moment, yet I admit that the question was one for your own decision. I could have wished you had arrived at a different conclusion, because our relations both official and personal have ever been of the most friendly and confidential character. I may add that I have been entirely satisfied with the ability and zeal which you have displayed in performing the duties of your important office.

Cordially reciprocating your sentiments of personal regard, I remain, very respectfully, your friend.

JAMES BUCHANAN.

Hon. HOWELL COBB.

SOURCE: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, Editor, The Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, Volume 2: The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, p. 518; “The Resignation Of Secretary Cobb. The Correspondence,” The New York Times, New York, New York, December 14, 1860.

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/james-buchanan-to-howell-cobb-december.html

Four additions to the thread today.

Bruce Catton on Fort Sumter at reply #21
A letter from Lincoln at #22
Two notes from John Nicolay at #23
And these here letters below.

Major Robert Anderson to Robert N. Gourdin, December 11, 1860

You need no assurance from me that, although I am exerting myself to make this little work as strong as possible and to put my handful of men in the highest state of discipline, no one will do more than I am willing to do to keep the South in the right and to avoid the shedding of blood. You may be somewhat surprised at the sentiment I express, being a soldier, that I think an appeal to arms and to brute force is unbecoming the age in which we live. Would to God that the time had come when there should be no war, and that religion and peace should reign throughout the world.

I am, dear Sir,

Yours very respectfully,

ROBERT ANDERSON.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 6

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/01/major-robert-anderson-to-robert-n.html

Memorandum of Verbal Instructions to Major Anderson, First Artillery, Commanding Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, December 11, 1860

FORT MOULTRIE, S.C., December 11, 1860.

Memorandum of verbal instructions to Major Anderson, First Artillery, commanding at Fort Moultrie, S.C.

You are aware of the great anxiety of the Secretary of War that a collision-of the troops with the people of this State shall be avoided, and of his studied determination to pursue a course with reference to the military force and forts in this harbor which shall guard against such a collision. He has therefore carefully abstained from increasing the force at this point, or taking any measures which might add to the present excited state of the public mind, or which would throw any doubt on the confidence he feels that South Carolina will not attempt, by violence, to obtain possession of the public works or interfere with their occupancy. But as the counsel and acts of rash and impulsive persons may possibly disappoint those expectations of the Government, he deems it proper that you should be prepared with instructions to meet so unhappy a contingency. He has therefore directed me verbally to give you such instructions.*

You are carefully to avoid every act which would needlessly tend to provoke aggression; and for that reason you are not, without evident and imminent necessity, to take up any position which could be construed into the assumption of a hostile attitude. But you are to hold possession of the forts in this harbor, and if attacked you are to defend yourself to the last extremity. The smallness of your force will not permit you, perhaps, to occupy more than one of the three forts, but an attack on or attempt to take possession of any one of them will be regarded as an act of hostility, and you may then put your command into either of them which you may deem most proper to increase its power of resistance. You are also authorized to take similar steps whenever you have tangible evidence of a design to proceed to a hostile act.

D.C. BUELL,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

_______________

* See also Floyd to Anderson, December 21, 1860, and Holt to Anderson, February 23, 1860, post.

SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 1 (Serial No. 1), p. 89-90; Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 73; The Correspondence Between the Commissioners of the State of So. Ca. to the Government at Washington and the President of the United States, p. 8-9

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/01/memorandum-of-verbal-instructions-to.html

Charles Eliot Norton to Arthur H. Clough, December 11, 1860

SHADY HILL, 11 December, 1860.

. . . Confusion and alarm are the order of the day with us. The movement for the breaking-up of the Union has acquired a most unexpected force. No one could have supposed beforehand that the South would be so blind to its own interests, so deaf to every claim of safety and honour, as to take such a course as it has done since the election a month ago. This course if followed out must bring ruin to the Southern States, and prolonged distress to the North. We are waiting on chance and accident to bring events. Everything in our future is uncertain, everything is possible. The South is in great part mad. Deus vult perdere. There is no counsel anywhere; no policy proposed. Every man is anxious; no one pretends to foresee the issue out of trouble. I have little hope that the Union can be preserved. The North cannot concede to the demands of the South, and even if it could and did, I doubt whether the result would be conciliation. The question is now fairly put, whether Slavery shall rule, and a nominal Union be preserved for a few years longer; or Freedom rule and the Union be broken up. The motives which the Southern leaders put forward for disunion are mere pretexts; their real motives are disappointed ambition, irritated pride, and the sense that power which they have so long held has now passed out of their hands.

There is little use in speculating on the consequences of disunion. If but one or two States secede, if the terrorism now established in South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and which has strength to control every expression of sentiment opposed to disunion, — if this terrorism be broken through, and a chance be given for the conservative opinion in these States to manifest itself, it is possible that secession may take place without violence. But if, on the other hand, the excited feeling now prevalent should extend and gather force, peaceable secession becomes hardly possible, and all the horrors of servile insurrection and civil war loom up vaguely in the not distant future.

At present there is universal alarm; general financial pressure, great commercial embarrassment. The course of trade between the North and the South is interrupted; many manufacturing establishments are closed or working on short time; there are many failures, and many workmen thrown out of employment. This general embarrassment of business is shared in by foreign commerce, and must be sympathetically felt in England. The prospects of the next cotton crop are most uncertain.

The North stands in a perfectly fair position. It waits for action on the part of the South. It has little to regret in its past course, and nothing to recede from. It would not undo the election of Mr. Lincoln if it could; for it recognizes the fact that the election affords no excuse for the course taken by the South, that there was nothing aggressive in it and nothing dangerous to real Southern interests. It feels that this is but the crisis of a quarrel which is not one of parties but of principles, and it is on the whole satisfied that the dispute should be brought to a head, and its settlement no longer deferred. It is, however, both astonished and disappointed to find that the South should prefer to take all the risks of ruin to holding fast to the securities afforded to its institutions and to all the prosperity established by the Union. It is a sad thing, most sad indeed, to see the reckless flinging away of such blessings as we have hitherto enjoyed; most sad to contemplate as a near probability the destruction of our national existence; saddest of all to believe that the South is bringing awful calamities upon itself. But on the other hand there is a comfort in the belief that, whatever be the result of present troubles, the solution of Slavery will be found in it; and that the nature of these difficulties, the principles involved in them, and the trials that accompany them, will develop a higher tone of feeling and a nobler standard of character than have been common with us of late.

All we have to do at the North is to stand firm to those principles which we have asserted and which we believe to be just, — to have faith that though the heavens fall, liberty and right shall not fail, and that though confusion and distress prevail for the time in the affairs of men there is no chance and no anarchy in the universe.

We are reaping the whirlwind, — but when reaped the air will be clearer and more healthy.

I write hastily, for it is almost the mail hour, and I want to send this to you to-day. But even were I to write at length and with all deliberation, I could do no more than show you more fully the condition of anxious expectancy in which we wait from day to day, and of general distress among the commercial community.

Of course in these circumstances there is little interest felt in other than public affairs. It is a bad time for literature; the publishers are drawing in their undertakings; — and among other postponements is that of your poems. So much do our personal concerns depend on political issues. The only new book of interest is Emerson's.1 It was published a day or two since and could not have appeared at a fitter time, for it is full of counsels to rebuke cowardice, to confirm the moral principles of men, and to base them firmly on the unshaken foundations of eternal laws. It is a book to be read more than once. It is full of real wisdom, but the wisdom is mingled with the individual notions of its author, which are not always wise. . . .

_______________

1 The Conduct of Life.

SOURCE: Sara Norton and M. A. DeWolfe Howe, Letters of Charles Eliot Norton, Volume 1, p. 212-5

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/11/charles-eliot-norton-to-arthur-h-clough_13.html

Three Items from John G. Nicolay at reply #25
George Strong’s diary entry at #26
President Buchanan’s Secretary of State resigns with this letter.

Lewis Cass to James Buchanan, December 12, 1860

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Dec . 12, 1860.

SIR:

The present alarming crisis in our National affairs has engaged your serious consideration, and in your recent message you have expressed to Congress, and through Congress to the Country, the views you have formed respecting the questions, fraught with the most momentous consequences, which are now presented to the American people for solution. With the general principles laid down in that message I fully concur, and I appreciate with warm sympathy its patriotic appeals and suggestions. What measures it is competent and proper for the Executive to adopt under existing circumstances is a subject which has received your most careful attention, and with the anxious hope, as I well know, from having participated in the deliberations, that tranquillity and good feeling may be speedily restored to this agitated and divided Confederacy.

In some points which I deem of vital importance, it has been my misfortune to differ from you.

It has been my decided opinion, which for some time past I have urged at various meetings of the Cabinet, that additional troops should be sent to reinforce the forts in the harbor of Charleston, with a view to their better defence should they be attacked, and that an armed vessel should likewise be ordered there, to aid, if necessary, in the defence, and also, should it be required, in the collection of the revenue; and it is yet my opinion that these measures should be adopted without the least delay. I have likewise urged the expediency of immediately removing the Custom House at Charleston to one of the forts in the port, and of making arrangements for the collection of the duties there by having a Collector and other officers ready to act when necessary, so that when the office may become vacant, the proper authority may be there to collect the duties on the part of the United States. I continue to think that these arrangements should be immediately made. While the right and the responsibility of deciding belong to you, it is very desirable that at this perilous juncture there should be, as far as possible, unanimity in your Councils, with a view to safe and efficient action.

I have therefore felt it my duty to tender you my resignation of the office of Secretary of State, and to ask your permission to retire from that official association with yourself and the members of your Cabinet which I have enjoyed during almost four years without the occurrence of a single incident to interrupt the personal intercourse which has so happily existed.

I cannot close this letter without bearing my testimony to the zealous and earnest devotion to the best interests of the Country with which during a term of unexampled trials and troubles you have sought to discharge the duties of your high station.

Thanking you for the kindness and confidence you have not ceased to manifest towards me, and with the expression of my warmest regard both for yourself and the gentlemen of your Cabinet, I am, sir, with great respect,

Your obedient servant,

LEWIS CASS.

To the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES.

SOURCES: John Bassett More, Editor,

The Works of James Buchanan, Volume 11, p. 57-8; Cass Canfield, General Lewis Cass 1782-1866, p. 33-6

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/08/lewis-cass-to-james-buchanan-december.html

Major Robert Anderson: December 14, 1860*

When I inform you that my garrison consists of only sixty effective men, that we are in a very indefensible work, the walls of which are only about fourteen feet high, and that we have within 100 yards of our walls, sand-hills which command our work, and which afford admirable sites for their batteries and the finest covers for sharpshooters, and that besides this there are numerous houses, some; of them within pistol-shot — you will at once see that if attacked in force, headed by any one not a simpleton, there is scarcely a probability of our being able to hold out long enough to enable our friends to come to our succor.

Trusting that, etc.,

(Signed.)

ROBERT ANDERSON.

_______________

* From the Richmond Whig, December 24, 1860.

SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 100

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/03/major-robert-anderson-december-14-1860.html