In the new Confederacy the Provisional Congress continued in session in Montgomery while President Toombs departed to set up new government offices in Columbia. His journey became a festive event with his special train stopping at every town for celebrations, patriotic flourishes and of course speeches. Along with the bouncy strains of ‘Bonnie Blue Flag’ and the minstrel plunking of ‘Dixie’, the marching beat of a new song rang out:
“There’s a new star tonight in the Southern sky,
Shining bright for all the world to see!
Yes, a brave new star for a grand new land,
A Southern Confed-ra-cy!”
As exhausting as the travel must have been, Toombs undoubtedly enjoyed the celebrations and the admiring attention showered on him at every stop. His arrival in Columbia meant an end to the parade of well-wishers, replaced by a host bearing news of serious problems ahead. Instead of men who were eager to shake his hand the new President was beset by men who wanted jobs, favors or contracts. And Columbia, while a pleasant enough city, soon revealed itself unready to take on the new role as capital of an infant nation. The state government had offered the use of its facilities as an interim measure, but the sad truth was that the state had little to offer. The new statehouse, a-building since 1851, was still no more than a pile of masonry, marble, lawsuits and accusations; state officials were conducting their business in converted warehouses, rented rooms and the like. The new Confederate government had no money, little credit and lacked the officers who could oversee the construction of the new buildings that would be required. For the moment, Toombs telegraphed, the Congress must continue to meet in Montgomery. Above all, he stressed, he must have funds, and secondly he must have expert engineering assistance.
Scratching away at his writing desk in a suite at the newly renamed Confederate Hotel, Toombs wrestled first with the task of filling out his cabinet. No state could be excluded from the cabinet, which conveniently would have six positions, but other considerations were also in play. The President was a Georgian, the Vice-President was from Louisiana and the capital was to be in South Carolina. Clearly, in order that the more populous states should not seem to exert an undue share of influence, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida must be honored with appointments to the highest available offices. The new President was a moderate, as were all his close friends and allies. They believed it was essential to their chances of attracting the other Southern states that the new government be seen to be in the hands of moderates and not radicals and ‘fire-eaters’. Unstated was the assumption that a moderate, conservative government that based its case on states’ rights would be more appealing to foreign governments than a ‘fire-eating’, pro-slavery one. In order of importance, the six cabinet offices would be State, Treasury, War, Justice, Navy and the Post. War must go to Jefferson Davis, should he be well enough to accept it; Davis had been an exceptional Secretary in the Pierce administration and would be a popular choice, as well as a fulfillment of the obligation to Mississippi. The Navy could be offered to Stephen Mallory of Florida, who had extensive experience in naval and maritime affairs. The State Department must go to an Alabamian, and as William Yancey was too ‘ultra’ and too ill besides, the lesser-known Jabez Curry would receive the nod. Treasury must go to Memminger or Trenholm of South Carolina as they were the closest to financial experts that the South could offer. That left Judah Benjamin of Louisiana for Attorney General, a post for which the affable and talented man from New Orleans was perhaps not well suited, but a man of his talents must be gotten into the administration somehow. Having disposed of the major offices, Toombs proposed to offer the Postmaster’s hat to fatherly Robert Barnwell of South Carolina. He would have liked to have his good friend Alexander Stephens in the Cabinet as well, but would content himself with having a sure ally in the Congress instead.
And what of Howell Cobb, whose dreams of the Presidency had been shattered, and his brother Thomas, whose ambitions had been transparent enough to be the subject of scorn and derision from the other delegates? Howell was named presiding officer of the Provisional Congress and had done a competent if not inspiring job. His revelation of the contents of Bright’s letter had been calculated to vault him to the front-runner’s position for the Presidency, but other delegates had more accurately assessed the import of the news. Bright had only a short time remaining in office, they noted, and the reaction of the Northern public to Bright’s proposals was unlikely to be kind. Consequently, they reasoned, the best way to make use of Howell Cobb’s influence with Bright – and to remove his interference with their own presidential hopes – was to send him to Washington, post-haste, as a negotiator and advocate for the new Confederacy. Cobb must have known it was a form of political exile, but he was patriot enough to take up the task as directed. Before he could arrive in Washington the storm had well and truly broken; Bright was on trial for treason and was under virtual house arrest, certainly unable to see an ambassador from the rebellious states. Doubly crushed, Cobb returned to Montgomery and took up his former post as presiding officer, well aware that his old enemy Toombs would have no position in the administration for him. His brother Tom had also taken the temper of the proceedings and found the prospects for advancement sour. Declaring that he would not accept a Cabinet position below State, and perhaps not even that, Tom Cobb had put on his white gloves and boarded the train for Georgia.
The Provisional Congress could and did enact a sum of fiat money, essentially promissory notes to state banks, to be redeemed when the country was able to collect taxes and tariffs. An issue of bonds was eagerly subscribed by wealthy planters, and for the moment the new republic was equipped with credit necessary for its needs. The most pressing of those needs was the establishment of a national army to regularize and supplement the militias of the various states. The Yankees were not thought to be a serious threat in the short term – in Lincoln’s inaugural address he had promised to ‘suspend’ federal activities in the rebellious states ‘for a time’ – but everyone thought it was better to be safee than sorry. The arrival of P G T Beauregard in Columbia proved fortuitous as it enabled Toombs to unload most of the organizational work of the new army onto the Creole’s shoulders. The Secretary of War would be fully occupied with the setting up of the administrative and logistical elements of the service, in particular the supply of weapons, gunpowder, uniforms and rations. Most of this would have to come from foreign sources, until or unless the Confederacy could develop its own resources. Beauregard’s advice was frequently also sought on matters such as the construction of coastal fortifications and the design of a new national capitol, intended to grace the high ground to the east of the city.
In the North, Lincoln had likewise settled his Cabinet. Most of the hard choices had been made after his nomination, for the new President was determined to staff his administration with as many capable men of the new Republican Party as possible, and with as many Democrats as could be persuaded to join. To William Seward of New York, the elder statesman of the young Party, must go the most prestigious post: the State Department. Salmon Chase of Ohio would take the Treasury, though Seward did not want him in the Cabinet at all. Montgomery Blair from the critical state of Missouri would receive the War Department; Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania had coveted the Treasury, or the War office as a lesser prize, but the odor of corruption that clung to him made his confirmation impossible. He was instead sent to be Minister to France, disgruntled but unable to find anyone in the Party to take his side. Lincoln’s most surprising choice was to offer to bring in his old opponent Stephen Douglas as Attorney General. Dispirited and in ill-health, Douglas at first refused, but Lincoln tendered the offer a second time and Douglas agreed for the sake of national unity. Democrat Edwin Stanton would continue as Secretary of the Interior, having served in that capacity in the last days of the ‘dead duck’ Bright administration. Gideon Welles of Connecticut was a popular choice to head the Navy, and Edward Bates of the key state of Maryland would be Postmaster.
With the dead hand of the Bright administration removed the Congress, less the members from the seceded states, remained in session and strove diligently to produce a compromise that would bring the errant Southern states back into the Union. Taking their cue from Lincoln, Republicans participated in these discussions while remaining skeptical of any chance of success. “Let us not impede these discussions, if a compromise can be had without our giving up any of the critical points on which the administration was elected,” one Washington newspaper editor urged. “But let us make no shameful peace.” And so began the period of ‘watchful waiting’, or ‘masterly inactivity’, the North refusing to offer provocation and the Upper South refusing to secede without cause. Delegations from the Confederacy visited the Border and Upper South, but to no immediate avail. The men of those states who favored secession were a minority, and lacked the influence to carry their states out of the Union.
That did not mean the Lincoln administration was wholly idle, for supplementary appropriations were immediately necessary for the expansion of the Army and Navy, and for bringing the state militias to a higher standard of readiness. To Democrats who denounced these measures as ‘provocative’ and ‘infamous’, Lincoln merely replied that the Southern states were rapidly recruiting a large army, and that while he proposed no invasion at this time, to see to the national defense was only prudent. Pursuant to this, Lincoln was meeting on April 1st with the principal members of his military team, Secretary Blair, General of the Army Winfield Scott and the Commandant of Cadets at West Point, W T Sherman, when word arrived by telegraph that an armed gang had descended upon the little town of Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. Then the telegraph had gone dead, presumably cut by the invaders.
At that time, Harpers Ferry was a small town of only modest importance. Water power from the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers had been its original reason for existence, but transportation along the Potomac canal was limited, and steam power had made water power of limited utility. Then the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had come, riding the same gaps in the mountains that allowed the Potomac River to pass, and Harpers Ferry had gained a new lease on life as a way-station between the Ohio River valley and the great cities of the east. Through it all there had been the federal arsenal, a complex of buildings that used water power to shape gun butts, drill rifle barrels and carry out the hundreds of mechanical operations necessary to make small arms. It was for this stock of over 100,000 rifles and muskets, and for the gunpowder and ammunition stored nearby, that the raiders had come.
As the world would soon know, their leader was a man named John Brown. A fervent abolitionist, Brown had taken his own advice to direct action in Kansas, killing at least eight pro-slavery farmers. As Lincoln’s election came and as the six Southern states went out of the Union, Brown had joined his voice to that of prominent New England men to urge immediate, direct action. Disgusted with Lincoln’s cautious, pragmatic policy, Brown had embarked on a speaking tour designed to raise money for a bold stroke, a move he predicted would electrify the nation. His exact intentions were disclosed to only a very few: John Brown would seize the arsenal, arm the slaves and raise the region in revolt.
Any sober contemplation would have revealed dozens of flaws, any one of which would serve to doom the plan outright. But if Brown’s plans were faulty his righteous indignation convinced his supporters to fund, equip and in some cases to join his tiny band. No more than thirty men marched over the railroad bridge in the early morning hours of April 1st, and few of them had any practical knowledge of military matters. Whatever plan Brown might have had went by the wayside when a night watchman put a bullet into Brown’s son, Watson. In the melee that followed, Brown’s supporters torched the better part of the town and retreated into the arsenal works to await the slaves they confidently expected to flock to their standard.
In mid-morning a B&O train was fired upon as it neared the Harpers Ferry station, probably by angry residents who had taken up positions on the heights around the town from which they could pepper the thick masonry walls of the arsenal. The engineer was wounded but managed to open the throttle and speed past, sending out an alert from the next stop. This telegraph was received at the War Department and forwarded to the White House in mid-morning of April 1st where it was read with amazement by President Lincoln and General Winfield Scott. After only a few minutes of deliberation it was settled that Colonels Sherman and Grant would take charge of any troops available in the Washington area and proceed at once to the site.
