12. CHAPTER XII.
INSURRECTION OF THE SLAVES.
The excitement and consternation in all sections of the
country increased in intensity. One-fourth of the great city
of New York was in ashes, and Boston was the scene of a
Reign of Terror never surpassed in Paris. The Unitarians
had assailed the Catholics; and after a number of sanguinary
battles, the city fell completely into the hands of the
foreign population. The Rev. T—e P—r, W—ll
P—s, Wm. Lloyd G—n, Senators S—r and W—n,
and the chivalrous B—e, with sundry masculine women,
and lesser clerical abolition lecturers, including Mr. K—ll—h,
had been shipped on a vessel, chartered for the purpose, to
Liberia. Nevertheless, the Northern States, with some
show of concert of action, if not unanimity of sentiment,
proceeded to appoint delegates to a Northern Convention,
and Philadelphia was designated as the place for the sessions.
Senator Langdon was chosen one of the delegates,
whilst nursing his sick daughter. But he accepted the
honor, if such it might be called, that had been conferred
on him. He deemed it a duty to contribute his energies for
the public good in such an exigency.
In the South, while all were ready to defend the soil,
there was a manifest reluctance on the part of the people to
adopt final measures. The Convention, in which all the
Southern States were represented, had assembled at Richmond,
and appointed Henry Blount commander-in-chief of
the armies to be raised for their defence. Blount was
the possessor of vast wealth, of distinguished extraction,
endowed with genius of a high order, and had been educated
in one of the best military schools in the country.
But there was no military organization, and months would
be required to place a well-appointed army in the field.
Money, arms, ammunition would have to be procured, and
contributions exacted from the people. There were, however,
some forty or fifty thousand volunteers, recognising
General Crook as their leader, composed in part of enthusiastic
patriots, who defrayed their own expenses, and as
many destitute adventurers, who deemed anything they
could lay their hands on fair prize. This promiscuous army
was concentrating in Delaware to oppose the progress of
General Ruffleton. Neither of these generals was acting
in pursuance of authority derived from the sections or people
they professed to represent; but there existed no means,
for the time being, in either section, of controlling their
operations or of annulling their action. It was supposed,
however, that a few engagements, the fatigues of a short
campaign, and, above all, the absence of a military chest,
would render them subservient to the civil authority.
At all the important points the agents of the central
government at Washington were surrounded and protected
by the soldiers of the United States; and so far, in every
instance, the picked men of the President had vindicated
his wisdom and foresight. Not a dollar of the Federal
money had been lost. Not a cargo had been landed without
paying duty; and all the forts, and arsenals, and ships,
with a few exceptions in the South, were still held by Randolph.
Several incumbents, in the civil service, who sympathized
with the sectional factions, were summarily removed,
and even then no difficulty was experienced in finding other
men to take their places. Nor were these the most extraordinary
achievements of the President. In the very teeth
of the disruption of the sections, and in despite of the contempt
of law and order that prevailed, this great man had
issued a proclamation, calling out a certain portion of the
militia of all the States for the “suppression of domestic
violence;” and
every State in some degree responded, or,
at all events, more or less of the militia promptly joined
the Federal standard. Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and
Indiana furnished seventy thousand men and fifteen thousand
horses. In those great Western States the sentiment
against disunion was nearly unanimous, and Southern Fire-eaters
and Northern Abolitionists were seized alike in any
of them and incarcerated in the same prison.
Alabama, and all the cotton States, were in a perfect
blaze; and no wonder, for a vast conspiracy for the enfranchisement
of the slaves and the massacre of the white population
had been discovered, and the accomplishment of the
fiendish purpose had been prevented with difficulty, and not
till after the effusion of much blood. Several thousand of
the whites fell victims to the servile insurrection, and a still
greater number of the deluded slaves paid the penalty of
following the evil counsels of their worst foes in the disguise
of friends. But the slaughter was not confined to the master
and slave. More than three hundred fanatics, or the
rash agents of fanatics, were arrested, tried, condemned,
and executed on the scaffold.
So great was the indignation in these States, that their
journals teemed with the most urgent appeals to the Convention
at Richmond to cut the Gordian knot, and sever all
intercourse, of whatever nature, with the North. They
likewise demanded the appointment of General Crook to
the head of the Southern armies. And when it was announced
that the appointment had been conferred on Henry
Blount, and that a subordinate position had been tendered
Crook, then at the head of the only Southern army in the
field, there arose a very great outburst of dissatisfaction.
Under such circumstances, the controlling spirits in the
Convention advised a postponement of decisive action, until
events should unite the Southern people in opinion, in
policy, and in destiny.
