-
Chapter One: The Volunteer—National War Climate, Recruitment, and War Preparations, August–September 1862
- University of Missouri Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Chapter One The Volunteer National War Climate, Recruitment, and War Preparations, August—September 1862 The War Now we are in a state of war which will yield for nothing. —Robert E. Lee, letter to his sister, April 20, 1861 The election of 1860—when Abraham Lincoln, under the Republican Party banner, carried every free state except New Jersey—was the spark that set off the tinderbox of secession. During the preceding campaign, Southern leaders had threatened secession if the Republicans won the election. Such threats had been raised in the South since 1850, but none was taken seriously. Now, with the sweep of free states in the North bringing Lincoln to the White House, the South was done with empty threats and poised to take action. It was the South’s contention that individual states had joined the Union as sovereign units, able to sever their connection to this“association of sovereign states” whenever they wished and on any substantial grounds. Secession was, to be sure, a drastic measure, but, in the minds of Southern political leaders, it was a lawful act. South Carolina led,withdrawing from the Union in December 1860.Six other states quickly followed: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Your Brother in Arms and Texas. The group of seven was joined by Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina , and Tennessee after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861. The residents of the North observed the process of secession with almost uniform feelings of shock and disbelief. Most Northern free-state citizens and politicians were too stunned by the abrupt unraveling of the Union to consider what policies and strategies were required to meet the crisis head on. Reaction in the North was slow, but momentum was building. “Keep a Sharp Lookout for Traitors” —Rallying cry of Pittsburgh’s Committee of Public Safety, 1861 From 1860 on, the well of pro-Union sentiment ran deep in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the closing days of 1860, Secretary of War John B. Floyd had directed the shipment of heavy ordnance (cannons) from the Allegheny Arsenal in Pittsburgh to Southern military posts. Residents of Pittsburgh, already suspicious of Southern intentions, organized a rally at the Pittsburgh courthouse to protest the action. Angry citizens pushed for retraction of the order at the highest level.A formal protest was sent by telegram over the names of four prominent Pittsburgh residents to President Buchanan requesting that the transfer of ordnance be “immediately countermanded.” The president took notice of these outraged constituents and promptly asked his secretary of war to cancel the order for the removal of ordnance to military posts in the South. The cannons remained in Pittsburgh. The following January, President-elect Lincoln stopped in Pittsburgh en route from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., where he was to be inaugurated . On his way to the Monongahela House to spend the night, he found the crush of Pittsburgh citizens so large that the military was asked to clear a way for the travel-weary president-elect and his small party. The friendly pro-Union crowd begged Lincoln to address them. Climbing onto a chair in the hotel lobby, Lincoln implored the assembled admirers to come back in the morning, when he would have a “few words” for them. The next morning ten thousand eager Pittsburgh residents assembled in front of the Monongahela House to hear their next president deliver a fifteen-minute speech. At the conclusion of his talk, twenty thousand hands came together in a rousing applause of approval. Some pro-Union sentiment was less benign. Right after the news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Pittsburgh, reports tell of hangman’s nooses appearing on lampposts throughout the city attached to signs that read “Death to Traitors.” Despite the bad news from the battlefields, the growing list of casualties and the seeming disarray in the Union’s general officer leadership through- [34.230.66.177] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 07:14 GMT) War Climate, Recruitment, and Preparations, August-September 1862 out 1861, the people of Pittsburgh did not waver in their strong Union support . The favorable results of several waves of recruiting in the Pittsburgh area are compelling evidence of the breadth and depth of support for the Union cause in both the city and surrounding Allegheny County. “Young Men, Your Country Demands Your Service!” —1861 recruiting poster in Pittsburgh Realizing that the regular army strength of 16,000 troops was inadequate to suppress the “rebellion” that was quickly unfolding after the...