It is accordingly safe.
In the mean time, the great revolution was progressing. Abraham Lincoln had delivered his inaugural address, with triple rows of bayonets between him, and the people to whom he was speaking, in which address he had puzzled his hearers, and was no doubt puzzled himself, as to what he really meant. He was like President Buchanan; now he saw it, and now he didn’t. He would not coerce the States, but he would hold on to the ceded places within their limits, and collect the public revenue. Texas, and Arkansas went out whilst I was in New York. The bulletin-boards at the different newspaper offices were daily thronged by an unwashed multitude, in search of some new excitement. The Northern public was evidently puzzled. It had at first rather treated secession as a joke. They did not think it possible that the Southern people could be in earnest, in dissolving their connection with a people, so eminently proper as themselves; but they now began to waver in this opinion. Still they forbore any decided demonstration. Like sensible men they preferred waiting until they could see how large a bull they were required to take by the horns.
Toward the latter part of my stay in New York I received the following letter from the Hon. Stephen R. Mallory, who had been appointed Secretary of the Navy, which branch of the public service had been organized since I had left Montgomery:
Confederate States of America,
Navy Dept., Montgomery, Ala., March 13, 1861.
Commander Raphael Semmes.
Sir:—With the sanction of the President, I am constrained to impose upon you duties connected with this Department, in addition to the important trusts with which you are charged; but I do so, upon the express understanding, that they are not to interfere with the performance of your special duties. I have received reliable information, that two, or more steamers, of a class desired for immediate service, may be purchased at, or near New York; steamers of speed, light draught, and strength sufficient for at least one heavy gun. When I say to you, that they are designed to navigate the waters, and enter the bays, and inlets of the coast, from Charleston to the St. Mary’s, and from Key West, to the Rio Grande, for coast defence; that their speed should be sufficient to give them, at all times, the ability to engage, or evade an engagement; and that eight or ten-inch guns, with perhaps two thirty-twos, or if not, two of smaller calibre should constitute their battery, your judgment will need no further guide. Be pleased, should your other important engagements permit, to make inquiries, in such manner as may not excite special attention, and give me such details as to cost, character, &c., as you may deem important.
Under these instructions I made diligent search in the waters of New York, for such steamers as were wanted, but none could be found. The river, and Long Island Sound boats were mere shells, entirely unfit for the purposes of war, and it was difficult to find any of the sea-going steamers, which combined the requisite lightness of draught, with the other qualities desired.
March was now drawing to a close, the war-cloud was assuming darker, and more portentous hues, and it soon became evident that my usefulness in the North was about to end. Men were becoming more shy of making engagements with me, and the Federal Government was becoming more watchful. The New York, and Savannah steamers were still running, curiously enough carrying the Federal flag at the peak, and the Confederate flag at the fore; and in the last days of March, I embarked on board one of them, arriving in Montgomery on the 4th of April, just eight days before fire was opened upon Fort Sumter. During the short interval that elapsed between my arrival, and my going afloat, I was put in charge of the Light-House Bureau; the Confederate Congress having, upon my recommendation, established a Bureau, with a single naval officer at its head, instead of the complicated machinery of a Board, which existed in the old Government. I had barely time to appoint the necessary clerks, and open a set of books, before Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the tocsin of war was sounded.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COMMISSIONING OF THE SUMTER, THE FIRST CONFEDERATE STATES’ SHIP OF WAR.
Fort Sumter surrendered on the 13th of April. The next day was a gala day in Montgomery. We had driven an insolent enemy from one of the strongest positions in the South, and the people were all agog to hear the news. A large Confederate flag was displayed from a balcony of the War Office, and the Hon. L. P. Walker, the Secretary of War, announced in a brief speech, to the assembled multitude below, amid repeated cheering, and the waving of hats, and handkerchiefs, the welcome tidings. The Union men, who have become so numerous since the war, had, if any of them were in the city, slunk to their holes, and corners, and the air was redolent, alone, of Southern patriotism, and Southern enthusiasm.
The driving of the enemy from Charleston harbor, decided the fate of Virginia, which had been trembling in the balance for some days. The grand old State could no longer resist her generous impulses. Under a proclamation of President Lincoln the martial hosts of an enraged and vindictive North were assembling, to make war upon her sisters, and this was enough—her ordinance of secession was passed, by a very gratifying majority. Patrick Henry had become a prophet, and the beautiful, and touching apostrophe of James Madison to the “kindred blood,” and the “mingled blood” of the American people, which was given to the reader a few pages back, had proved to be the mere chimera of an excited imagination.
The effect of the surrender of Sumter in the North was beyond conception. A prominent leader of the public press of that section had said of the American flag:—
“Tear down that flaunting lie,
Half-mast the starry flag,
Insult no sunny sky
With hate’s polluted rag.”
Instantly, and as if by the touch of a magician’s wand, the polluted rag became the rallying cry of the whole Northern people, and of none more so, than of the very men who had thus denounced it. But there was method in this madness; the rag had only been polluted whilst it was the emblem of good faith between the North, and the South; whilst, in other words, it prevented the mad fanatics of the North from violating that slave property, which their ancestors had promised our ancestors, in the solemn league and covenant of the Constitution, should forever remain inviolate.
But now that the rag, instead of being an obstacle, might be made the means of accomplishing their designs, it was no longer necessary to pull it down. The moment it was fired upon, it became, in their eyes, a new flag, and the symbol of a new faith. It was no longer to represent the federative principle, or to protect the rights of States; it was henceforth to wave over yelling, and maddened majorities, whose will was to be both Constitution, and law. Strange that the thinking portion of the Northern people did not see this; strange that the hitherto conservative Democratic party did not see it. Or was it that the whole North had been wearing a mask, and that the mask was now no longer available, or desirable, to hide their treachery?
Perhaps the future historian, in calmer moments, when the waves of passion engendered by the late storm shall have sunk to rest, will be better able to answer this question. For the present it is sufficient to record the fact, mortifying, it must be confessed, to poor human nature, that all our quondam friends, without so many as half a dozen exceptions in a whole nation—I speak, of course, of prominent men—went over to the common enemy. The very men who had stood, shoulder to shoulder, with us, in resisting Northern aggression, who had encouraged us with pen, and voice, to resist, if need be, unto the death, who promised in case of secession, to stand between us, and the march of Northern armies of invasion, instantly, and without even the salvo to their consciences of circumlocution, changed their political faith of a life-time,
