USA > Pennsylvania > Martial deeds of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1 > Part 10
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" As soon as the interview was ended, I called Mr. N. P. Trist into my office, and told him to go to Washington that night, and communicate these facts to General Scott. I also furnished him with some data as to the other routes to Washington, that might be adopted in case the direct route was cut off. One was the Delaware Railroad to Seaford. and then up the Chesa- peake and Potomac to Washington, or to Annapolis, and thence to Washington; another-to Perryville, and thence to
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Annapolis and Washington. Mr. Trist left that night, and arrived in Washington at six the next morning, which was on Sunday. He immediately had an interview with General Scott, who told him he had foreseen the trouble that was coming, and in October previous had made a communication to the President, predicting trouble at the South, and urging strongly the garrison- ing of all the Southern forts and arsenals with forces sufficient to hold them, but that his advice had been unheeded; nothing had been done, and he feared nothing would be done; that he was powerless, and that he feared Mr. Lincoln would be obliged to be inaugurated into office at Philadelphia. He should, however, do all he could to bring troops to Washington sufficient to make it secure; but he had no influence with the Administration, and feared the worst consequences. Thus matters stood on Mr. Trist's visit to Washington, and thus they stood for some time afterwards.
" About this time,-a few days subsequent, however,-a gen- tleman from Baltimore came out to Back River Bridge, about five miles this side of the city, and told the bridge-keeper that he had come to give information, which had come to his knowledge, of vital importance to the road, which he wished to communicate to me. The nature of this communication was, that a party was then organized in Baltimore to burn our bridges, in case Mr. Lincoln came over the road, or in case we attempted to carry troops for the defence of Washington. The party, at the time, had combustible materials prepared to pour over the bridges, and were to disguise themselves as negroes, and be at the bridge just before the train on which Mr. Lincoln travelled had arrived. The bridge was then to be burned, the train attacked, and Mr. Lincoln to be put out of the way. This man appeared to be a gentleman, and in earnest, and honest in what he said; but he would not give his name, nor allow any inquiries to be made as to his name or exact abode, as he said his life would be in peril were it known that he had given this information; but, if we would not attempt to find him out, he would continue to come and give information. He came subsequently, several times, and gave items of information as to the movements of the conspira- tors, but I have never been able to ascertain who he was.
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"Immediately after the development of these facts, I went to Washington, and there met a prominent and reliable gentleman from Baltimore, who was well acquainted with Marshal Kane, then the chief of police. I was anxious to ascertain whether he was loyal and reliable, and made particular inquiries upon both these points. I was assured that Kane was perfectly reliable; whereupon I made known some of the facts that had come to my knowledge in reference to the designs for the burning of the bridges, and requested that they should be laid before Marshal Kane, with a request that he should detail a police force to make the necessary investigation. Marshal Kane was seen, and it was suggested to him that there were reports of a conspiracy to burn the bridges and cut off Washington; and his advice was asked as to the best way of ferreting out the conspirators. He scouted the idea that there was any such thing on foot; said he had thoroughly investigated the whole matter, and there was not the slightest foundation for such rumors.
"I then determined to have nothing more to do with Marshal Kane, but to investigate the matter in my own way, and at once sent for a celebrated detective who resided in the West, and whom I had before employed on an important matter. He was a man of great skill and resources. I furnished him with a few hints, and at once set him on the track with eight assistants. There were then drilling, upon the line of the railroad, three military organizations, professedly for home defence, pretending to be Union men, and, in one or two instances, tendering their services to the railroad, in case of trouble. Their propositions were duly considered; but the defence of the road was never intrusted to their tender mercies. The first thing done was to enlist a volunteer in each of these military companies. They pretended to come from New Orleans and Mobile, and did not appear to be wanting in sympathy for the South. They were furnished with uniforms at the expense of the road, and drilled as often as their associates in arms; became initiated into all the secrets of the organization, and reported every day or two to their chief, who immediately reported to me the designs and plans of these military companies. One of these organizations was loyal, but the other two were disloyal, and fully in the plot
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to destroy the bridges, and march to Washington, to wrest it from the hands of the legally constituted authorities. Every nook and corner of the road and its vicinity was explored by the chief and his detectives, and the secret working of secession and treason laid bare and brought to light. Societies were joined in Baltimore, and various modes, known to and practised only by detectives, were resorted to, to win the confidence of the conspira- tors, and get into their secrets.
" The plan worked well; and the midnight plottings and daily consultations of the conspirators were treasured up as a guide to our future plans for thwarting them. It turned out that all that had been communicated by Miss Dix and the gentleman from Baltimore rested upon a foundation of fact, and that the half had not been told. It was made as certain as strong circumstantial and positive evidence could make it, that there was a plot to burn the bridges and destroy the road, and murder Mr. Lincoln on his way to Washington, if it turned out that he went there before troops were called. If troops were first called, then the bridges were to be destroyed, and Washington cut off, and taken posses- sion of by the South. I at once organized and armed a force of about two hundred men, whom I distributed along the line between the Susquehanna and Baltimore, principally at the bridges. These men were drilled secretly and regularly by drill- masters, and were apparently employed in whitewashing the bridges, putting on six or seven coats of whitewash, saturated with salt and alum, to make the outside of the bridges as nearly fire-proof as possible. This whitewashing, so extensive in its application, became the nine days' wonder of the neighborhood. Thus the bridges were strongly guarded, and a train was arranged so as to concentrate all the forces at one point in case of trouble.
"The programme of Mr. Lincoln was changed, and it was decided by him that he would go to Harrisburg from Philadel- phia, and thence over the Northern Central Road by day to Baltimore, and thence to Washington. We were then informed by our detective, that the attention of the conspirators was turned from our road to the Northern Central, and that they would there await the coming of Mr. Lincoln. This statement
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was confirmed by our Baltimore gentleman, who came out again, and said their designs upon our road were postponed for the present, and unless we carried troops, would not be renewed again. Mr. Lincoln was to be waylaid on the line of the Northern Central Road, and prevented from reaching Washington ; and his life was to fall a sacrifice to the attempt. Thus matters stood on his arrival in Philadelphia. I felt it my duty to communicate to him the facts that had come to my knowledge, and urge his going to Washington privately that night in our sleeping-car, instead of publicly two days after, as was proposed. I went to a hotel in Philadelphia, where I met the detective, who was registered under an assumed name, and arranged with him to bring Mr. Judd, Mr. Lincoln's intimate friend, to my room in season to arrange the journey to Washington that night. One of our sub-detectives made three efforts to communicate with Mr. Judd, while passing through the streets in the procession, and was three times arrested and carried out of the crowd by the police. The fourth time he succeeded, and brought Mr. Judd to my room, where he met the detective-in-chief and myself. We lost no time in making known to him all the facts which had come to our knowledge in reference to the conspiracy; and I most earnestly advised, that Mr. Lincoln should go to Washington privately that night in the sleeping car. Mr Judd fully entered into the plan, and said he would urge Mr. Lincoln to adopt it.
"On his communicating with Mr. Lincoln, after the services of the evening were over, he answered that he had engaged to go to Harrisburg and speak the next day, and he would not break his engagement, even in the face of such peril, but that, after he had fulfilled the engagement, he would follow such advice as we might give him in reference to his journey to Washington. It was then arranged that he should go to Harris- burg the next day, and make his address; after which he was to apparently return to Governor Curtin's house for the night. but in reality go to a point about two miles out of Harrisburg where an extra car and engine awaited to take him to Philadelphia. At the time of his retiring, the telegraph lines, east, west, north, and south from Harrisburg were cut, so that no message as to his movements could be sent off in any direction.
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" Mr. Lincoln could not probably arrive in season for our regu- lar train, that at 11 p. M., and I did not dare to send him by an extra, for fear of its being found out or suspected that he was on the road; so it became necessary for me to devise some excuse for the detention of the train. But three or four on the road, besides myself, knew the plan; one of these I sent by an earlier train to say to the people of the Washington Branch road, that I had an important package I was getting ready for the 11 p. M. train ; that it was necessary I should have this package delivered in Washington early the next morning, without fail; that I was straining every nerve to get it ready by 11 o'clock, but, in case I did not succeed, I should delay the train until it was ready,- probably not more than half an hour; and I wished, as a personal favor, that the Washington train should await the coming of ours from Philadelphia before leaving. This request was willingly complied with by the managers of the Washington Branch; and the man whom I had sent to Baltimore so informed me by tele- graph in cipher. The second person in the secret I sent to West Philadelphia, with a carriage, to await the coming of Mr. Lincoln. I gave him a package of old railroad reports, done up with great care, with a great seal attached to it, and directed in a fair, round hand to a person at Willard's. I marked it 'very important ; to be delivered without fail by 11 o'clock train,' indorsing my own name upon the package. Mr. Lincoln arrived in West Philadel- phia, and was immediately taken into the carriage, and driven to within a square of our station, where my man with the package jumped off, and waited till he saw the carriage drive up to the door, and Mr. Lincoln and the detective get out and go into the station. He then came up and gave the package to the conduc- tor, who was waiting at the door to receive it, in company with a police officer.
"Tickets had been bought beforehand for Mr. Lincoln and party to Washington, including a tier of berths in the sleep- ing-car. He passed between the conductor and the police officer at the door, and neither suspected who he was. The conductor remarked as he passed, 'Well, old fellow, it is lucky for you that our president detained the train to send a package by it, or you would have been left.' Mr. Lincoln and the detective being 8
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safely ensconsed in the sleeping-car, and my package safely in the hands of the conductor, the train started for Baltimore about fifteen minutes behind time.
"Our man No. 3, George -, started with the train to go to Baltimore, and hand it over, with its contents, to man No. 1, who awaited its arrival in Baltimore. Before the train reached Gray's Ferry Bridge, and before Mr. Lincoln had resigned him- self to slumber, the conductor came to our man George, and ac- costing him, said, 'George, I thought you and I were old friends ; why did you not tell me we had Old Abe on board ?' George, thinking the conductor had in some way become possessed of the secret, answered, 'John, we are friends, and, as you have found it out, Old Abe is on board; and we will still be friends, and see him safely through.' John answered, 'Yes, if it costs me my life, he shall have a safe passage.' And so George stuck to one end of the car, and the conductor to the other every moment that his duties to the other passengers would admit of it. It turned out, however, that the conductor was mistaken in his man. A man strongly resembling Mr. Lincoln had come down to the train, about half an hour before it left, and bought a ticket to Wash- ington for the sleeping-car. The conductor had seen him, and concluded he was the veritable Old Abe.
"George delivered the sleeping-car and train over to William in Baltimore, as had been previously arranged, who took his place at the brake, and rode to Washington, where he arrived at 6 A. M., on time, and saw Mr. Lincoln, in the hands of a friend, safely delivered at Willard's, when he secretly ejaculated, 'God be praised !' He also saw the package of railroad reports, marked 'important,' safely delivered into the hands for which it was intended. This being done, he performed his morning ablu- tions in peace and quiet, and enjoyed with unusual zest his breakfast. At S o'clock, the time agreed upon, the tele- graphic wires were joined; and the first message flashed across the line was, 'Your package has arived safely, and been deliv- ered,' signed ' William.' Then there went up from the writer of this a shout of joy and devout thanksgiving to Him from whom all blessings flow; and the few who were in the secret joined in a heartfelt Amen.
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"'Thus began and ended a chapter in the history of the Rebel- lion, that has been never before written, but about which there have been many hints entitled, 'A Scotch Cap and Riding Cloak,' etc., neither of which had any foundation in truth, as Mr. Lincoln travelled in his ordinary dress. Mr. Lincoln was safely inau- gurated, after which I discharged our detective force, and also the semi-military whitewashers, and all was quiet and serene again on the railroad. But the distant booming from Fort Sum- ter was soon heard, and aroused in earnest the whole population of the loyal States. The 75,000 three-months' men were called out, and again the plans for burning bridges and destroying the railroad were revived in all their force and intensity. Again I sent Mr. Trist to Washington to see General Scott, to beg for troops to garrison the road, as our forces were then scattered, and could not be got at. Mr. Trist telegraphed me that the forces would be supplied; but the crisis came on immediately, and all, and more than all, were required at Washington. At the last moment I obtained, and sent down the road, about 200 men, armed with shot guns and revolvers-all the arms I could get hold of at the time. They were raw and undisciplined men, and not fit to cope with those brought against them,-about 150 men, fully armed, and commanded by the redoubtable rebel, J. R. Trimble."
Mr. Arnold in his Life of Lincoln, in referring to this change in the route of travel, says : "From Baltimore there had reached him no committee, either of the municipal authorities or of citizens, to tender him the hospitalities, and to extend to him the courtesies of that city, as had been done by every city through which we had passed. He was, accordingly, persuaded to permit the detective to arrange for his going to Washington that night." Mr. Lincoln afterwards said to Mr. Arnold : "I did not then, nor do I now, believe I should have been assassinated, had I gone through Baltimore, as first contemplated; but I thought it wise to run no risk, where no risk was necessary."
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CHAPTER V.
THE FIRST CAMPAIGN.
HIE authors of the Rebellion, in their mad haste to fire the Southern heart, did not seem to realize that they were wielding a two-edged sword. Major Anderson, who, with his little garrison, had been shut up in Fort Sumter for many weeks, while the South Carolina Secessionists were preparing power- ful batteries bearing upon it, had given notice that his provisions would be exhausted on the 15th of April, and that he would then be compelled to peacefully evacuate. But to allow him to depart without bloodshed, and they to take quiet posses- sion, did not answer the fell designs of the con- spirators. Edmund Ruffin, a suggestive name, who had been sent from Virginia to assist in inciting to action, declared, "The first drop of blood spilled on the soil of South Carolina will bring Virginia and every Southern State to her side." Mr. Gilchrist, a member of the Alabama Legislature, in addressing Mr. Davis and a part of his Cabinet, at Montgomery, said : " Gentlemen, unless you sprinkle blood in the face of the people of Alabama, they will be back in the old Union in less than ten days."
Accordingly, at midnight of the 11th, but four days before hunger would have obliged the garrison of Fort Sumter to with- draw, signal guns were fired, and soon afterwards a bombardment was opened upon the fort from heavy guns at Cumming's Point, Sullivan's Island, Fort Moultrie, and the whole circumference of works erected for its destruction. The fort was in no condition for defence, and after making such resistance as was possible, and suffering from the heat of the burning barracks, which had
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been fired by the insurgents' missiles, Major Anderson surren- dered.
The first shot at Sumter may have had the effect designed- that of stirring the heart of the South-but it no less effectually aroused the heart of the North. The feeling expressed by a soldier by profession, who had grown grey in the service of his country, the late Colonel Seneca G. Simmons, who fell at the climax of the battle at Charles City Cross Roads, was a fair illus- tration of the effect which that shot produced upon the Northern mind. When the first intelligence was received, with much emotion, he exclaimed : "I have been a friend of the Southern people, and in the line of my duty would have lain down my life in their defence; but why did they fire upon the old flag ?" and in his compressed lips and flashing eye was read the answer. In that resolute, grizzly-bearded, silent soldier, with bosom heaving with resentment, was personified the twenty millions of the North.
A little more than a month before this, Mr. Lincoln had been inaugurated, and in his address on that occasion, he had declared his intention, while neither having any right nor desire to inter- fere with Slavery in the States where it then existed, neverthe- less, to take care, as the Constitution enjoined upon him, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. After expressing this, his sworn duty and determination, he appealed in a strain of pathetic tenderness and fraternal feeling rarely excelled, for an observance of the obligations resting on all alike. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen," he said, " and not in mine, are the momentous issues of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict with- out being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath regis- tered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend it.' I am loth 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 battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely it will be, by the better angels of our nature."
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When, therefore, in disregard of the warning and the appeal, the insurgents at Charleston fired upon the flag, and sought by every device known to modern warfare to destroy a fort of the nation, and slaughter its garrison, the President had but one recourse, and every citizen who regarded the National honor, felt a like obligation. Accordingly, on the 15th of April, he issued his proclamation calling out the militia of the several States, to the number of 75,000 men, and convening Congress in extra session on the 4th of July. The troops thus called, he stated, would be used probably to repossess forts, places, and property unlawfully seized.
But the insurgents, intoxicated by their first triumph, talked loudly of more considerable aggressions. "No man can foretell," said the rebel Secretary of War, Walker, in response to a sere- nade of Davis and his Cabinet, on the occasion of the fall of Sumter, " the events of the war inaugurated; but I will venture to predict that the flag which now floats on the breeze will, before the Ist of May, float over the dome of the old Capitol at Wash- ington, and if they choose to try Southern chivalry, and test the extent of Southern resources, will eventually float over Faneuil Hall, in Boston." The Richmond Examiner, of the 13th, said : " Nothing is more probable than that President Davis will soon march an army through North Carolina and Virginia to Wash- ington," and a few days later, in a strain of grandiloquent appeal, said : " From the mountain tops and valleys to the shores of the sea, there is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washing- ton City at all and every human hazard." Instead, therefore, of repossessing forts, places, and property unlawfully seized, or of coercing a State, as the seceders had cried out against, Mr. Lin- coln was obliged, first of all, to defend himself, the Government, and its archives from the actual assaults of the enemy. Insur- gent forces were drilling within sight of the Capitol itself, almost from the moment of his inauguration. Indeed, a skilfully arranged disposition of the military under the command of General Scott alone guaranteed safety for his induction into office.
The plan for the capture of the Capital was ingeniously laid. The rebellious element in Baltimore, which had been purposely
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strengthened by a rushing thither of reckless and daring men from many parts of the South, was able, for the time, to control the city. Its local Government, and even the Executive of the State, were understood to be lukewarm in their support of the National authority, and openly hostile to the passage of troops from the North over Maryland soil in their march to the Capital. If, therefore, the means of communication could be cut, and troops moving southward delayed until a sufficient force had been quietly gathered, the National seat of Government, with all its public property, including vast stores of military weapons and material, would fall an easy prey. But, like many other schemes of Southern leaders, this proved abortive.
The defeat of the plans was largely due to the prompt arrival of Pennsylvania soldiers. As soon as the President's call, which was issued on the 15th of April, was received at Harrisburg, Governor Curtin made haste to repeat it throughout the Com- monwealth, and soon a tide of messages was flowing in, from officers of companies tendering the services of their commands. The first thus to respond, which from their good state of disci- pline and readiness to move, could be made available, were the Ringgold Light Artillery of Reading, Captain James McKnight; the Logan Guards of Lewistown, Captain John B. Selheimer; the Washington Artillery, Captain James Wren, and the National Light Infantry, Captain Edmund McDonald, both of Pottsville ; and the Allen Rifles, Captain Thomas Yeager, of Allentown. The first of these, the Ringgold Artillery, was remarkably well drilled and officered, and had been formed more than ten years previous. Its commander, Captain McKnight, had received inti- mations that his company would be called for in case of emer- gency. When the news came of the attack on Sumter, the com- pany was drilling in a field at some distance from the city. The intelligence created intense excitement, and the call was loudly made to be led at once to the aid of the Government. At the request of the author of this volume, Captain McKnight prepared a full and very interesting account of the service of his command, from which extracts are presented : "The company," he says, "was armed with four six-pounder brass field-pieces and caissons, with the full equipments of artillerists, including sabres. The
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