Read Online This Great Struggle by Steven Woodworth - Free Book Online

D.C., guarded by large numbers of U.S. Army troops deployed by aged General in Chief Winfield Scott to prevent any attempt at disrupting the inauguration, Lincoln took office March 4, committed to preserving the Union intact. Standing in front of the capitol with its unfinished dome, Lincoln read an inaugural address couched in conciliatory terms. He was duty bound to preserve the Union, Lincoln explained, but he would not be the aggressor. He would not attack the southern states or their institution of slavery unless they attacked first. He would enforce all of the laws, even the Fugitive Slave Act, but otherwise he would respect the rights of the states within the Union. He would maintain current garrisons like Fort Sumter, but they would attempt neither to collect the tariff nor to take any other action against the secessionists. In conclusion, Lincoln showed some of the eloquence that has led scholars to consider him the most adept user of the English language of any American statesman:
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine , is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you . You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. 1
    White southerners were for the most part as unmoved by Lincoln’s eloquence as they were by his restraint. His statement that secession was not a constitutional right, guaranteed to the states and to be accepted without question by the federal government, they characterized as a virtual declaration of war.
    FORT SUMTER
    On taking over the presidency, Lincoln found the nation’s situation even worse than he had imagined. The army was small and scattered, most of it defending the western frontier against Indians. The navy was also small and scattered, most of it patrolling against the Atlantic slave trade. The aged commanding general had little encouragement to offer. Winfield Scott had been one of the greatest military minds of his time but his time was most emphatically passed by 1861. Once a majestic sight in full dress uniform, the six-foot-four-inch Scott had grown so old, fat, and gouty that he could not mount a horse but had to be hoisted onto its back by something like a small crane. Scott told Lincoln that getting an expedition through to Fort Sumter would require more men than the army had and counseled giving up the fort. Most of the president’s cabinet agreed, including the forceful and cunning Secretary of State Seward, who thought that he should have been president instead of Lincoln. Worst of all, reports from Fort Sumter indicated that the garrison was running out of food. If not resupplied within a few weeks, Anderson and his men would have no choice but surrender or starvation, and surrender of the fort would be read in the South and in the rest of the world as the government’s acceptance of southern secession.
    A desperate Lincoln seized on a plan presented by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus V. Fox. What army leadership thought impossible, the navy proposed to do: get a relief expedition through to Fort Sumter. Though most of the fleet was unavailable, one reasonably powerful unit was on hand in the side-wheel steamer USS Powhatan , mounting sixteen guns, eleven of them heavy. It would form the nucleus of a task force whose mission would be resupplying Sumter. If the Rebels offered no resistance, Powhatan and the other warships would wait outside