A Brief History of the United States Part 45

[13] On the flight of Davis from Richmond, read _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 762-767; or the _Century Magazine_, November, 1883.

[14] After firing the shot, the a.s.sa.s.sin waved his pistol and shouted "_Sic semper tyrannis_"--"Thus be it ever to tyrants" (the motto of the state of Virginia) and jumped from the box to the stage. But his spur caught in an American flag which draped the box, and he fell and broke his leg. Limping off the stage, he fled from the theater, mounted a horse in waiting, and escaped to Virginia. There he was found hidden in a barn and shot. The body of the Martyr President was borne from Was.h.i.+ngton to Springfield, by the route he took when coming to his first inauguration in 1861. Read Walt Whitman's poem _My Captain_.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES

THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.--The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the coast blockaded from Virginia to Texas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SINKING THE PETREL. Contemporary drawing.]

The object of the blockade was to cut off the foreign trade of the Southern states, and to prevent their getting supplies of all sorts. But as Great Britain was one of the chief consumers of Southern cotton, and was, indeed, dependent on the South for her supply, it was certain that unless the blockade was made effective by many Union s.h.i.+ps, cotton would be carried out of the Southern ports, and supplies run into them, in spite of Lincoln's proclamation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARTOON PUBLISHED IN 1861.]

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.--This is just what was done. Goods of all sorts were brought from Great Britain to the city of Na.s.sau in the Bahama Islands (map, p. 353). There the goods were placed on board blockade runners and started for Wilmington in North Carolina, or for Charleston. So nicely would the voyage be timed that the vessel would be off the port some night when the moon did not s.h.i.+ne. Then, with all lights out, the runner would dash through the line of blockading s.h.i.+ps, and, if successful, would by daylight be safe in port. The cargo landed, cotton would be taken on board; and the first dark night, or during a storm, the runner, again breaking the blockade, would steam back to Na.s.sau.

THE TRENT AFFAIR.--Great Britain and France promptly acknowledged the Confederate States as belligerents. This gave them the same rights in the ports of Great Britain and France as our vessels of war. Hoping to secure a recognition of independence from these countries, the Confederate government sent Mason and Slidell to Europe. These two commissioners ran the blockade, went to Havana, and boarded the British mail steams.h.i.+p _Trent_. Captain Wilkes of the United States man-of-war _San Jacinto_, hearing of this, stopped the _Trent_ and took off Mason and Slidell.

Intense excitement followed in our country and in Great Britain, [2] which at once demanded their release and prepared for war. They were released, and the act of Wilkes was disavowed as an exercise of "the right of search" which we had always resisted when exercised by Great Britain, and which had been one of the causes of the War of 1812.

THE CRUISERS.--While the commerce of the Confederacy was almost destroyed by the blockade, a fleet of Confederate cruisers attacked the commerce of the Union.

The most famous of these, the _Florida_, _Alabama_, _Georgia_, and _Shenandoah_ [3] were built or purchased in Great Britain for the Confederacy, and were suffered to put to sea in spite of the protests of the United States minister. Once on the ocean they cruised from sea to sea, destroying every merchant vessel under our flag that came in their way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sh.e.l.l LODGED IN THE STERN POST OF THE KEARSARGE. Now in the Ordnance Museum, Was.h.i.+ngton Navy Yard.]

One of them, the _Alabama_, sailed the ocean unharmed for two years.

She cruised in the North Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Brazil, went around the Cape of Good Hope, entered the China Sea, came again around the Cape of Good Hope, and by way of Brazil and the Azores to Cherbourg in France. During the cruise she destroyed over sixty merchantmen. At Cherbourg the _Alabama_ was found by the United States cruiser _Kearsarge_, and one Sunday morning in June, 1864, the two met in battle off the coast of France, and the Alabama was sunk. [4]

OPERATIONS ALONG THE COAST.--Besides blockading the coast, the Union navy captured or aided in capturing forts, cities, and water ways. The forts at the entrance to Pamlico Sound and Port Royal were captured in 1861.

Control of the waters of Pamlico and Albemarle [5] sounds was secured in 1862 by the capture of Roanoke Island, Elizabeth City, Newbern, and Fort Macon (map, p. 369). In 1863 Fort Sumter was battered down in a naval attack on Charleston. In 1864 Farragut led his fleet into Mobile Bay (in southern Alabama), destroyed the Confederate fleet, captured the forts at the entrance to the bay, and thus cut the city of Mobile off from the sea.

In 1865 Fort Fisher, which guarded the entrance to Cape Fear River, on which was Wilmington, fell before a combined attack by land and naval forces.

ON THE INLAND WATERS.--On the great water ways of the West the notable deeds of the navy were the capture of Fort Henry on the Tennessee by Foote's flotilla (p. 358), the capture of New Orleans by Farragut (p.

361), and the run of Porter's fleet past the batteries at Vicksburg (p.

368).

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF PORTER'S GUNBOATS Pa.s.sING VICKSBURG.]

THE MONITOR AND THE MERRIMAC .--But the most famous of all the naval engagements was that of the _Monitor_ and the _Merrimac_ in 1862. When the war opened, there were at the navy yard at Norfolk, Virginia, a quant.i.ty of guns, stores, supplies, and eleven vessels. The officer in command, fearing that they would fall into Confederate hands, set fire to the houses, shops, and vessels, and abandoned the place. One of the vessels which was burned to the water's edge and sunk was the steam frigate _Merrimac_. Finding her hull below the water line unhurt, the Confederates raised the _Merrimac_, turned her into an ironclad ram, renamed her _Virginia_, and sent her forth to destroy a squadron of United States vessels at anchor in Hampton Roads (at the mouth of the James River).

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERRIMAC AND MONITOR.]

Steaming across the roads one day in March, 1862, the _Merrimac_ rammed and sank the _c.u.mberland_, [6] forced the _Congress_ to surrender, and set her on fire. This done, the _Merrimac_ withdrew, intending to resume the work of destruction on the morrow; for her iron armor had proved to be ample protection against the guns of the Union s.h.i.+ps. But the next morning, as she came near the _Minnesota_, the strangest-looking craft afloat came forth to meet her. Its deck was almost level with the water, and was plated with sheets of iron. In the center of the deck was an iron- plated cylinder which could be revolved by machinery, and in this were two large guns. This was the _Monitor_ [7] which had arrived in the Roads the night before, and now came out from behind the _Minnesota_ to fight the _Merrimac_. During four hours the battle raged with apparently no result; then the _Merrimac_ withdrew and the _Monitor_ took her place beside the _Minnesota_. [8] This battle marks the doom of wooden naval vessels; all the nations of the world were forced to build their navies anew.

FINANCES OF THE WAR.--Four years of war on land and sea cost the people of the North an immense sum of money. To obtain the money Congress began (1861) by raising the tariff on imported articles; by taxing all incomes of more than $800 a year; and by levying a direct tax, which was apportioned among the states according to their population. [9] But the money from these sources was not sufficient, and (1862) an internal revenue tax was resorted to, and collected by stamp duties. [10] Even this tax did not yield enough money, and the government was forced to borrow on the credit of the United States. Bonds were issued, [11] and then United States notes, called "greenbacks," were put in circulation and made legal tender; that is, everybody had to take them in payment of debts. [12]

MONEY IN WAR TIME.--After the government began to issue paper money, the banks suspended specie payment, and all gold and silver coins, including the 3, 5, 10, 25, and 50 cent pieces, disappeared from circulation. The people were then without small change, and for a time postage stamps and "token" pieces of bra.s.s and copper were used instead. In March, 1863, however, Congress authorized the Issue of $50,000,000 in paper fractional currency. [13] Both the greenbacks and the fractional currency were merely promises to pay money. As the government did not pay on demand, coin commanded a premium; that is, $100 in gold or silver could be exchanged in the market (down till 1879) for more than $100 in paper money.

NATIONAL BANKS.--Besides the paper money issued by the government there were in circulation several thousand different kinds of state bank notes.

Some had no value, some a little value, and others were good for the sums (in greenbacks) expressed on their faces. In order to replace these notes by a sound currency having the same value everywhere, Congress (1863) established the national banking system. Legally organized banking a.s.sociations were to purchase United States bonds and deposit them with the government. Each bank so doing was then ent.i.tled to issue national bank notes to the value of ninety per cent [14] of the bonds it had deposited. Many banks accepted these terms; but it was not till (1865) after Congress taxed the notes of state banks that those notes were driven out of circulation.

COST OF THE WAR.--Just what the war cost can never be fully determined.

Hundreds of thousands of men left occupations of all sorts and joined the armies. What they might have made had they stayed at home was what they lost by going to the front. Every loyal state, city, and county, and almost every town and village, incurred a war debt. The national government during the war spent for war purposes $3,660,000,000. To this must be added the value of our merchant s.h.i.+ps destroyed by Confederate cruisers; the losses in the South; and many hundred millions paid in pensions to soldiers and their widows.

The loss in the cities and towns burned or injured by siege and the other operations of war, and the loss caused by the ruin of trade and commerce and the destruction of railroads, farms, plantations, crops, and private property, can not be fully estimated, but it was very great.

The most awful cost was the loss of life. On the Union side more than 360,000 men were killed, or died of wounds or of disease. On the Confederate side the number was nearly if not quite as large, so that some 700,000 men perished in the war. Many were young men with every prospect of a long life before them, and their early death deprived their country of the benefit of their labor.

DISTRESS IN THE SOUTH.--In the North the people suffered little if any real hards.h.i.+p. In the South, after the blockade became effective, the people suffered privations. Not merely luxuries were given up, but the necessaries of life became scarce. Thrown on their own resources, the people resorted to all manner of makes.h.i.+fts. To get brine from which salt could be obtained by evaporation, the earthen floors of smokehouses, saturated by the dripping of bacon, were dug up and washed, and barrels in which salt pork had been packed were soaked in water. Tea and coffee ceased to be used, and dried blackberry, currant, and raspberry leaves were used instead. Rye, wheat, chicory, chestnuts roasted and ground, did duty for coffee. The spinning wheel came again into use, and homespun clothing, dyed with the extract of black-walnut bark, or with wild indigo, was generally worn. As articles were scarce, prices rose, and then went higher and higher as the Confederate money depreciated, like the old Continental money in Revolutionary times. In 1864 Mrs. Jefferson Davis states that in Richmond a turkey cost $60, a barrel of flour $300, and a pair of shoes $150. No little suffering was caused for want of medicines, [15] woolen goods, blankets, [16] shoes, paper, [17] and in some of the cities even bread became scarce. [18] To get food for the army the Confederate Congress (1863) authorized the seizure of supplies for the troops and payment at fixed prices which were far below the market rates.

[19]

Some men made fortunes by blockade running, smuggling from the North, and speculation in stocks. Dwellers on the great plantations, remote from the operations of the contending armies, suffered not from want of food; but the great body of the people had much to endure.

SUMMARY

1. The operations of the navy comprised (1) the blockade of the coast of the Confederate States, (2) the capture of seaports, (3) the pursuit and capture of Confederate cruisers, and (4) aiding the army on the western rivers.

2. A notable feature in the naval war was the use of ironclad vessels.

These put an end to the wooden naval vessels, and revolutionized the navies of the world.

3. The cost of the war in human life, money, and property destroyed was immense, and can be stated only approximately.

4. In the South, as the war progressed, the hards.h.i.+ps endured by the ma.s.s of the people caused much suffering.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOADING A NAVAL CANNON IN THE CIVIL WAR. Contemporary drawing.]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The first Confederate privateer to get to sea was the _Savannah_. She took one prize and was captured. Another, the _Beauregard_, was taken after a short cruise. A third, the _Petrel_, mistook the frigate St.

Lawrence for a merchantman and attempted to take her, but was sunk by a broadside. After a year the blockade stopped privateering.

[2] Captain Wilkes was congratulated by the Secretary of the Navy, thanked by the House of Representatives, and given a grand banquet in Boston; and the whole country was jubilant. The British minister at Was.h.i.+ngton was directed to demand the liberation of the prisoners and "a suitable apology for the aggression," and if not answered in seven days, or if unfavorably answered, was to return to London at once.

[3] Early in the war an agent was sent to Great Britain by the Confederate navy department to procure vessels to be used as commerce destroyers. The _Florida_ and _Alabama_ were built at Liverpool and sent to sea unarmed.

Their guns and ammunition were sent in vessels from another British port.

The _Shenandoah_ was purchased at London (her name was then the _Sea King_) and was met at Madeira by a tender from Liverpool with men and guns. On her way to Australia, the _Shenandoah_ destroyed seven of our merchantmen. She then went to Bering Sea and in one week captured twenty- five whalers, most of which she destroyed. This was in June, 1865, after the war was over. In August a British s.h.i.+p captain informed the commander of the _Shenandoah_ that the Confederacy no longer existed. The _Shenandoah_ was then taken to Liverpool and delivered to the British government, which turned her over to the United States.

[4] Read _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 600-614.

[5] In 1864 a Confederate ironclad ram, the _Albemarle_, appeared on the waters of Albemarle Sound. As no Union war s.h.i.+p could harm her, Commander W. B. Gus.h.i.+ng planned an expedition to destroy her by a torpedo.

On the night of October 27, with fourteen companions in a steam launch, he made his way to the ram, blew her up with the torpedo, and with one other man escaped. His adventures on the way back to the fleet read like fiction, and are told by himself in _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 634-640.