v f/ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 495 505 5 F 391 .P54 71 Copy 1 A PAPER READ BEFORE THE eit^gi^i^jifi g©eiBfy Ex-Army and Navy Officers, JANUARY 3d, 18S4. Hon. CHARLES ANDERSON, Late Colonel Ninety-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. C I NCINNATI; PETER G. THOMSON, Publisher, 1884. 72 Before, and on the Eve of the REBELLION. Comrades and Ladies and Gentlemen: — It is very doubtful whether any of you fully comprehend the significance of our evening's topic : Texas and her action and influence in and upo?t the Rebellion. It may be very likely, as usual, that your speaker, on this occasion, as much overrates, as his audience underrates, his subject. But even with this caution, you will be surprised to hear a statement of this my be- lief; that, excepting South Carolina alone, Texas had more to do with starting that colossal blunder and crime than any half dozen other States of the Confederacy, and that, without the movements of Texas, the Rebellion would have aborted in its earliest stages, and closed as a ridiculous farce, instead of in that horrific tragedy, which so startled and grieved the Nation and the World. Let us briefly generalize the facts, which seem to justify this, her claim, to that bad preeminence. The History of Texas was very peculiar. Her independence of Mexico was won by the cunning and heroism of mere adventurers. Like spirits followed after these in the permanent settlement of that "Lone Star Nation." It was but natural that, with such a start into national life, secrecy, address, boldness, and disregard of the established codes of morality, or of law and order, in and between men and nationsi should have been characteristics of this new people. And that the sub- sequent enterprise — in one sense new — the annexation of this vast ter- ritory as a slave State against all the laws and traditions of Mexico, and a most earnest and passionate opposition of a large majority of the best people of the United States, must necessarily have called into life, and most energetic action, the same qualities of sly conspiracy and bold execution, was a very certain consequence. 73 — 4 — Then was brought on our war with Mexico, so infamous in its de- signs and false pretenses, and so important, if not grand and glorious, in its far-reaching and complicated results. In all these stages of this great Texas-plot, it is plain enough, that characteristics of the same kind should have been developed in her people. And so the Texans of 1859-60 were the very stuff, fitted and ready for a new and grander adventure of intringue, conspiracy, revolution, rebellion, and war, than had been either of their former enterprises in these lines. Next ; Texas held within her vast area almost the one-half of our entire standing army (two thousand six hundred and twelve men), with arms, ordnance, munitions, and complete furnitures and supplies for an army. These cost millions of dollars, and, in such an enterprise, were worth vastly more to either party in possession — the Government or the Rebels. What a devil's hint and devil's opportunity lurked in this con- dition of a State, when tempted by unprincipled demagogues, to revolt! Again ; behold how her very magnitude of area and boundaries became a facility for successful treason, rebellion, and their war. Her area was 237,231 square miles — more than six-fold Ohio or Kentucky — and her exposed frontiers, between fourteen and seventeen hundred miles long. And this vast line of frontier was exposed to invasions by Indians, Mexicans, both hostile, and was therefore fortified and garri- soned by sixteen forts and posts of all arms, at varying distances from each other, and as far as six hundred and seventy-five miles from San Antonio, their head-quarters, from which they were all supplied, and through which, going or coming, they were all compelled to march. You shall presently see when conspiracy and treason got into their work, how they were helped along, by all those conditions. But let us — once for all — insert here a nota bene about that ugly word — " Treason." Our cau- tion is this : On the one hand, let us not be impelled by passion into passionate or figurative epithets. And on the other, let us not be de- terred by fear, or pity, or policy, from calling things by their right names, in strictest logic and strictest law. As for my single self (absolutely unrestrained by partisan, or sectional predilections, or prejudices of any kind or degree, and swayed no more from the one fixed, narrow. Polar line of utterly impartial history, than every man must be, whose heart- beats are for his whole country alone), as for my single self, I must avow these truths— viz.: That, so far, from considering the great body of the Southern people, who were actually engaged, whether civilly or militar- ily, in that dreadful War of Rebellion as traitors, I do deem them, in the Court of Morals, to have been upon just as high and pure a plane as we were. They acted upon their own convictions of right, under their own educations, and as environed by their own peculiar and irremova- ble circumstances of conditions, etc. Moreover, after the War began — and it was* begun with most Satanic cunning, for the express purpose 74 — 5- of creating that very necessity, — these people, as individuals and fami- lies, and as a section, were under the dire necessity of sustaining their government de facto, and of resisting ours and their government de jure . So mingled a web is this which we call human life ! Nor could they of the South, nor you of the North, nor any other people of any part of this our mundane sphere, have acted differently. This question of guilt or innocence, therefore, in a Court of Morals, becomes for each individ- ual a purely personal matter. " What were the motives yN\\\z\\ governed his actions?" If these were honest and sincere, the issue is settled. The disunionest Rebel was just as good a /nan {not a citizen) as was the unionest Patriot. But for all this, on the other hand, we must not, in our gushes of benevolence, or of unselfishness, confound different things. In spite of all those general truths, there was before, and leading to, that Rebel- lion many instances of treason and traitors, pure and simple. That, compared to the vast numbers of the honestly deluded and of the iron- chained necessitous, these cases were very few, is most true. Still, the fact remains the same. In that vast political party, which agitated those dangerous questions that led to the Rebellion and its war ; among the many active spirits, who deliberately laid that train and fired the fuse of rebellion ; and, indeed, in the actual armies of battle and siege of the eventual Confederacy, there must have been, and there were al- most infinitely, varying degrees of personal innocence and guilt. And amongst them all, there were not a few actual tnala fide traitors. And of these treasons and traitors, I intend to talk awhile this evening, and very plainly, too. Since the year A. D. i860, I have, indeed, discarded all restraints, or darkening circumlocutions of speech, about our public affairs. Resuming our thread of unlucky conditions; in the third place, the Texans had much less of union sentiment in their biographies, as their State had much more of separateness in their geography, commerce, and history than had the citizens of the other States of the United States. The latter had never owed, owned, felt, nor imagined any other bonds than those of loyalty to the one grand "old flag of our fathers." But from their beginnings, under Austin in 1820, and Hous- ton in 1836, many of them had voluntarily expatriated themselves, or had been expatriated by stress of our pursuing writs of law, criminal and civil, to take and to profess a foreign citizenship. Indeed, in that critical period, from the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which be- gan the War, to the fire upon Fort Sumter, which was the War itself, the ties of 'legal obligation to the Union and the love for the Union were very feeble forces upon many, if not the most, of the leading men of Texas. Such, then, being the inducements and opportunities af Texans, as 75 — 6 — individuals and as a State, to embark into this new adventure and en- terprise of Secession and its War, let us now observe ; — Why and how they proceeded in it ? It is very natural, and, perhaps, therefore, a very common habitude of historians, to be looking very far around and very deeply down in their explorations for the causes of all great natural or world-wide events, whether of wars, migrations, revolutions, or reformations, and the like. And, in general, doubtless, great events do owe their origin and accomplishment to wide, and deep truths for their causes. But every general law, however great, must have its exceptions. And our Rebellion is in the category of the exceptions. The philosophy of his- tory hates dreadfully to admit that Alexander the Great died of bad whiskey ; that George Washington, accidentally escaping those famous point-blank bullets at Braddock's Defeat, and the multitudinous other hair-breadth escapes between Cambridge and Yorktown, died actually of a sore throat; that many a "tall admiral," of huge and glorious frames and huger and more glorious names — such as the "Royal Georges," the " Presidents," etc., etc., — have gone down to their inglorious graves in the ocean-valleys from such contemptible causes, as the tooth of a microscopic wormlet, or the careless heading of a little rivet. And then the philosophy of theology must also interpose with her invariable theories of special providence in grand designs, proportionate to grand effects. So the great dramatists, you remember, always invoked a God in every action (the Deus exmachina) — Silenus or Pan, for the trite and ludicrous, but Neptune, or Mars, or Jupiter, for the grand, the royal events ! Our theology, having but one God, may let the toothache or a ward-election pass, without the special agency of that " First great cause, least understood." But, for the grand epics of human life, such as the bullet of a Booth or a Guiteau, or the firing on Fort Sumter, or the defeat at Bulls' Run, (ever using its little self for the measure, and not remembering how infinitesimally atomic are our grandest events, or ac- cidents, compared to that one God,) — our philosophy of theology — feels bound to interpose its divine design and agency of special Providences. Nevertheless, my fellow-countrymen of all classes and sections — nevertheless, I fell bound to think, and to speak now, as always, these my fixed convictions — viz.: That it was not any wide and deep principle in human nature; that it was no broad statesmanship, not even broad sec- tional statesmanship, nor even the interests of slaveholding as a prop- erty, which devised, plotted, and finally accomplished that conspiracy, rebellion and war. They were the mere partisan, office-seeking politi- cians (the wormlets of our National dry-rot), in their contemptible scheme of selfish, sectional and "partisan" aggrandizements in mere office-holding, who contrived and did it all. That they used the other elements of sectional jealousy and slaveholder-pride to gain voices for 76 — 7 — their measures is very true. But it is a very certain and very wonder- ful truth, that their constituency in the Southern States was mainly ob- tained from the non-slaveholders, their "poor white trash," and from their horde of reckless political adventurers. As a class, the former were opposed to all revolutionary processes, as well in Mississippi as in Texas and everywhere else, except in South Carolina. In Mississippi, for example, the line between State and national sovereignties, sec- tional and national patriotism, as a preparation for this scheme, was most notably, if not first, drawn. It was in the great campaign just be- fore the Presidential election between Jefferson Davis and Henry S. Foote. These candidates, both Democrats, but wide apart as the poles, were great debaters. Amongst other questions which they discussed over the State, I remember was, in substance, this : To which author- ity, State or National, is the obligation of the 'citizen primarily due? Against which, primarily , can treason be committed?" Now, with such issues as these, so ventilated and enlightened, Foote obtained the votes of, I think, about seven-tenths of all the Slavocracy. Davis, with all his great natural powers and marvellous mental graces and accomplish- ments, represented, besides his politician class, all the "rag, tag and bobtail" of the regular, olden Democracy. There were in the Presidential campaign of i860, you remember, three sets of candidates ; and loud and frequent menaces of disunion, and preparations for disunion were made, by organizing and drilling military bodies, and by supplying them with arms and munitions of war. And these menaces, both of the talk and the print, and the preparations of conspiracy and treason were made before, and long months before that election. And now I aver, as my solemn belief, after careful and painful ob servation at the time and on the spot, that not one man can be now dis- covered on trustworthy testimony to have so talked or so conspired, who voted either for Bell and Everett, or for Douglass and Johnson. They were (those fire-eaters of that fearful campaign) all unanimously of one political party and ticket. And so the Rebellion was therefore plotted, and the war was initiated by "merest politicians in merest politics. Ac- cursed politics! and politicians!" This was my faith, published then and there, in November, i860. And it was and is the truth. I went to Texas as an explorer for favoring climate and occupation to cure a bronchial affection, I think, in the winter or spring of 1858, I was delighted, if not enchanted, with my visit, in all things save one. I saw, or thought I saw, a painful apathy, and in a few instances, an open hatred towards the Union. I removed to Texas in 1859, ^^''^^ "^Y stallions, as a horse-breeder. At Galveston, Indianola, Corpus Christi, Victoria, and Goliad, where I was cormorant awhile, I not only thought I saw, but as the campaign afterwards waxed warmer, I did see and 77 hear not only convincing proofs of that apathy and hatred toward the Union, but the evident tracks of an active conspiracy leading toward open rebellion. I discovered these movements in the organization and action of a treasonable association. I repeat the word "treasonable," with its fit adjectives, pure and simple, logical and legal, deliberate and of malice prepense ! This body was the "Knights of the Golden Cir- cle," commonly known by their initials of " K. G. C's." Now, why did I not at once sell or give away my horse-menada, and fly from such a people and such dangers ? I can not tell. I think I must have been very much of an idiot for not fleeing, as Lot fled from Sodom. I had, by strange chance, a splendid opportunity for with- drawing from such a commitment of my future fortunes. As it concerns my narrative, at least, so far as to not only to indicate my then political status and its opportunities for observing, but especially my personal relations and predilections toward the leaders of that great party, and the consequent impartiality of this my testimony, I will state it. It was at Goliad, shortly after my arrival in Texas, that I received, through Hon. Joseph Holt, Postmaster-General, President Buchanan's ofi'er to me, of the office of Assistant Secretary of State, vice Appleton, who had been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia ; a:nd with it came a curious intimation in the Secretary's private letter, that this office was a more henorable one than it might seem, because of the age and infirmities of the Secretary of State, Hon. Lewis Cass. He proved himself in the event to be infirm only in and toward treason. He was as true a Union Patriot as ever lived in all these troublous times and scenes — clarum et venerabile nonienl But why I did not snatch at this, such a chance to grasp honors and to escape privations, dangers, shame, perhaps death, I can not ex- plain. I am hopeful. Did I hope for success to the Union cause, even in Texas ? I am not (I flatter myself) given to panics overmuch. Did I despise the dangers from these talks, and newspaper menaces and base obvious conspiracies? I was under personal obligation, or in most friendly relations, to the President, to General Cass, to Colonel Holt, to John B. Floyd, to John C. Breckenridge, and sundry others of both sections of the dominant party ; and I was quite banished from that great body of Whigs, which had organized themselves as the Republi- can party. I was, nevertheless, very decidedly in favor of the defeat of the Regular, or Breckinridge-Democrats and in favor of (I can not say hopeful of) the success of Bell and Everett, or in lieu of that ticket, of Douglass and Johnson. Although retired from open, and much more from active, politics, was I, nevertheless, restrained by my conscious fear that I could not act honestly in harmony with Mr. Buch- anan's administration ? These speculations are now vain, if not super- fluous. I can not now explain my motives. It is only necessary to add — 9 — that, by return mail, I respectfully declined this high honor, and there- upon William H. Tresholm was duly appointed in my stead. What the differences to the Union and to Disunion causes, respec- tively, were or would have been, in case I had become the incum- bent of this office, instead of this South Carolina Democrat, it may be difficult to fix. He was, by the way, probably the most accom- plished scholar in the law of nations, who ever held that or even the chief office of the Department. But as he had been for, at least a de- cade before, a most active and virulent plotter for Secession, and was reasonably beheved to have been, together with Judge John A. Camp- bell, of Alabama, a go-between of Floyd and the open seceders, it is safe enough to say, that in my case. General Cass and the Union cause would have been spared that treacherous work by their humble servant. On my arrival at Cincinnati, I found another letter from Colonel Holt, to my brother Larz, urging him to press my acceptance and en- closing another tender of this office. But I again refused it. On what little things, as causes, do hang the biggest consequences ? Who can now say, that if this persistent, perhaps, foolish rejection of this import- ant office, by an unimportant man, had been accepted, that Fort Sum- ter would have ever become historical ? It is utterly impossible to be- lieve that ever I could have been other than a zealot for the Union in that or any other office or position. For Washington's Farewell Ad- dress and Jackson's Proclamation were and are to me my law and my religion. What "Coke upon Littleton was to the old lawyer; what Paul's epistles to the Hebrews and Romans are to the Calvinists ; were and are these revered documents to my political faith ! Any of you who know me, know how absurd it is to expect me to keep silent or still about any of my passions. And this Union-love was and is to me the most ruling passions of my life. Now, then, do any of you believe, with such experience of the Anderson-intractibility in the Disunion lines in which Floyd, as Secretary of War, was then seduously plow- ing, that he would have given the order (asked by General Scott) consigning my brother to the command of Charleston Harbor.'' I must say I do not. Dear, beloved, honored Robert ! I claim nothing what- ever of any influences over his principles or his conduct in Sumter or elsewhere; and, without mock modesty, I confess that he was as much my superior, by nature and in culture, as he was as a patriot sol- dier, gentleman and Christian. In all these characteristics, he excelled me (myself being the judge) as much as one brother can well surpass another who is not a disgrace to their family. Nevertheless, I do be- lieve (such are the accidents of this our life ! ) if I had accepted this office, that Major Anderson would never have been assigned to Fort Moultrie by that Secretary of War, John B. Floyd. The fact is, that this functionary made the mistake of simply assuming, without inquiry 78 79 ■i or personal knowledge of him, that my brother, like so many Southern officers, wQuld readily desert the old flag, either from sectional and par- tisan zeal, or personal corruptness. That another SouHiern officer would have been sent there by Floyd is most certain ; and that such other Southern sympathizer (for, let us have no nonsense about it, my brother did, most tenderly, sympathize, as I did, with the Southern peo- ple, especially with their women and children) ; that this other Southern officer would have behaved in that post of duty, as he did, any of you may believe, if you can. Again I simply insist, I can not. To return at last from this digression. In the spring or summer of 1859, '^^e gubernatorial election was be- ginning to stir the Texan mind. The Democratic Convention, early in 1859, "nominated a State ticket, pledged to favor the reopening of the African Slave Trade," which was, as Mr. Greeley says, "a well-under- stood shibboleth of the South-western plotters of Disunion ;" and here let me say, that this most infamous of all trades or institutions of earth or hell was then actually reopened in Texas ! At least, two ship-loads of manacled slaves, direct from Africa, were landed — the one near Gal- veston and the other near Indianola — and hundreds of these poor jab- bering barbarians were, then and thereupon, sold and distributed over the State. Nor was all this done under a curtain. The whole State knew it, and, doubtless, our Cabinet at Washington knew it as well as did all we Texans. Governor Runnells, who had defeated General Houston before, was the candidate for reelection on this platform. Mr. Greeley thinks that the " leading politicians had herein shown the cloven-foot too soon." And so, in one respect, they had ; but in another, and that the essential, great thing of the general Disunion movement, their action was in very good season for it and them. For instance ; I can not say that either this resolution for reopening the slave trade, or its actual reopening and operation, was the cause of the defeat of the Breckinridge or Southern party. I do not think it was the cause, or even much contributed to that result. It is very true that there was much hot indignation about it. I know, for example, that for one fanatic (/a«itics, they pronounced the word there), I quarreled an- grily with my nearest neighbor and one of my best friends on this sub- ject. He was an Irish gentleman, who, with his brother, had been many years mining silver at Guanaxuato in Mexico. He had never owned a slave in his life, unless you may so term his peons. But in the few months he had lived in Texas, he had become, like most of his country- men, an earnest Southern Rights and pro-slavery man. I had with two other fanatics — fools, let us now say — tried to get up a company oi new Texas rangers, to march down to the nearest slave-ship, to cut the throat of every pirate aboard, to scuttle their ship. ; \ and so to set all their Ebon-prisoners free. Sublime philanthropy ? If victorious, what next? Where to go? What to do? What to eat? Their first dinner? Whence? What? Whom? etc., etc. These were questionings which our emotional indignation scorned to ask ! But when I proposed my raid to my friend and neigh- bor, Mr. Meade, and when he swore (his face all flushed with the richest of pinks, and, in brogue — tones more fluent and musical than General Scott's poetic Irish votes) that he would raise a " regiment of the rea/ Texas rangers to follow and thrash us on the way" — then my reasoning powers suddenly returned and my indignation quietly gushed itself out into more regular and milder pulsations. For I saw he was in earnest, and I knew he would do it ! The reason why that party was defeated at the polls was this merely, viz : The great body of the people, especially the leading slaveholders and leading business men, were f/ien most sound in their patriotism, and were much alarmed and indignant at this premeditated action of the reigning party. And it was only premature, because the great agency in that movement, and party of disunion, the " K. G. C's," did, in truth, attain to the depth of prostituting a majority of the Texas people to their disunion scheme. But they did acquire sufficient numbers with their organized action and its swift successes, to push the unconscious great majority over that precipice. You shall better under- stand this case as we proceed in the narrative. The campaign waxed hot. For Sam. Houston — he of San Jacinto — had entered the lists independently, and flung down his gage of battle, — " the Union and the constitution forever." I attended several of his meetings, and Imust say, that though I have heard many much greater orators, I never did hear one so effective in a cause and before audien- ces like his, in all my life. And whether, in or after the exposition of his doctrine ("the doctrines of the fathers," he would always say,) it became in place to mention the name of a cotemporary and adverse actor in this great drama, for comparison or contrast, he would shout it right out, in most derisive scorn of epithet or tone, generally ludicrous or viturperative. For instance, after a portrait of Jefferson or Jackson, particularly of Jackson, he would say something of this import and style, viz.: "Now here gets up this Wig-fall, a drunken blather-skite from South Carolina, to teach us the constitution and the morals of pat- riotism ; " or, again, "This Kite, or Keit, or Kit, or whatever his name is ; " or, "This fellow with a tongue, this murderer, this assassin of his poor old mother's honest, helpless husband, this gallows bird, this Yancy," is another professor of law and order and constitutional gov- ernment and decency," and so on for the rest of the disunion leaders, whenever their names emerged or could be dragged to the surface of discussion. Yet, of this man it pleases Mr. Greeley to say, in history : 8" 81 — 1^ — "Had he evinced either principle or courage, General Houston was thus in a position to thwart the Texan conspiracy at the outset." But allow me to say (with many more and better chances for observation than Mr. Greeley had) : First. That he was in no such position. Second. That a truer Union man did not then breathe our vital air than Sam. Houston. Third. And as for courage (though I am no believer in the frequent assertion that any sane mind ever existed without fear), yet I do say : that of all men I ever saw encompassed by dangers and frightful enemies, Sam. Houston was, perhaps, the nearest to being that man " who knows not fear." And as to the nature or degrees of those dangers and enemies, it must not be forgotten, amongst other and like things, that the Hon. Alfred Iverson, Senator of Georgia, was thus speaking of Governor Houston and of these very scenes, when he said : " and if he will not yield to that public sentitnent, some Texan Brutus tnay arise to rid his country of this old, hoary-headed traitor. (Great "sensation.") Moreover, I aver that he did all that could possibly have been done for our and his great cause. For he had extraor- dinary qualities, m addition to great zeal, great courage, and a fine intellect in general for revolutionary times, and scenes, and actions. He was as cunning as a fox, and as cool and self-possessed as a white marble statue of Cato. That in the result, his patriotism, courage, and wonderful address in revolutions were all ^brought to naught by overwhelming and various adverse influences ; that he sank under the mortification of seeing his worst enemies and the enemies of the Union he so loved "flourish in bloody treason over us ;" that he was swiftly and ignominiously and most lawlessly deposed from his office in old age and poverty, and (keenest pang of all) that, too, in the twofold shame of an unjust, cruel ingratitude from both the traitors and the pat-, riots : that he went out of life in the consciousness that he had been cheated out of his true place in history ; that he suffered the more bitter grief to see his own and only sons, and the Benjamin of his old age, too, with all the other bright youth of the country, enlisted under the banners of rebellion, parental and national — all these sad results are undeniable. Still, and nevertheless, all these disasters followed from no fault of his, either in design or even of execution. Let us again understand each other here. I admire Horace Greeley as much as any of you. At least, I consider him to be far the greatest man of his great class in American history — the press gang. A close observer, a most experienced editor and politician, an indefatigable worker, with extraordinary memory, an admirable writer, quick in his perceptions, rather deep in his observations and reflections, he was, withall, as bold a man to censure, and as just, and honest, and kindly a man to retract as ever in troublous times edited a political paper or wrote a history of contemporary events and actors. Have I praised 82 — 13 — him enough to please you and to qualify myself for this witness-stand ? No ? Then I add : that I still think it a great calamity that he, just he, Horace Greeley, was not elected our President in 1872. I was in that canvas, exactly where my saying or doing or writing amounted to just nothing at all. For what is the sense or use of trying to row up the chute of Niagara Falls in a birch bark canoe, with a feather for a pad- dle ? But, all the rowing I did at that election was for Horace Greeley as our President. Notwithstanding these estimates, dispositions, and commitments toward Horace Greeley, 1 must still be allowed to think and say that he made many great mistakes. This was one of them. His "On to Richmond" tocsin was another, and his comparison of Winfield Scott to David E. Twigs was the worst of all. At this election, August, 1859, "in by far the largest vote ever yet polled in the State" (you see how we Texans were aroused by this life and death issue for the Union of our fathers), Houston, the indepen- dent, beat the secessionist Runnels by a majority of 8,670 'votes. Let it be here noted, however, that this victory for the Union cause by no means secured the official organism of the State government to our uses. On the contrary, that remained pretty much wholly in the dis- union interest. And the majority in each branch of the legislature was adverse to the new Governor and to the old Union. And just here begins the error of Mr. Greeley and the other Union historians who follow him, viz : That Governor Houston's election gave him the power to suppress or circumvent this plotting treason. I shall give few details in party events of that dreary, dreary summer of i860. It was to me the very gloomiest, most wretched year of all my life. No time of the actual war — not even that blackest year of all the years of human history — from the middle of 1862 to the middle of 1863, from our retreat from the peninsula to our victory at Gettysburg, and to our capture of Vicksburg, when the scales hung so doubtfully, but ever inclining against the success of the Union cause, was so black to me as was that year. For, in it, I saw only the busy preparations for public treason, tyranny, and war on the one hand, and the sleeping and inno- cent unconsciousness of patriotism, liberty, and peace on the other; and then, in the depths of my despair, was ever imagining the result of a conflict so unequal. If, my friends, ladies and gentlemen, you can, at this late day, bring yourselves into a sympathetic realization of the probability — be the coolly reasonable probability — of the dangers of mur- ders, arsons, and worse crimes, to which all our countrywomen — those refined, pure, noble southern women — and all their children were to be exposed, with their fathers, husbands, brothers, and lovers all " absent in the wars," and no males around or near them, except the semi-savage, the semi-brutal slaves, whom we had ever so long, so unjustly, so cruelly wronged, you will the better comprehend my state of mind in 83 — 14 — Texas and my brother's in Fort Sumter. Oh ! my countrymen, was there ever a National delusion so base as to hazard such peril, or ever, ever in all history such meekness and mercy and forbearance shown on earth as was in the event exhibited by these African slaves throughout that whole war ? May God spare me the curse of surviving to the endur- ance, again, of such days of corroding cares, such long, long nights of sleepless horrors as made up that awful twelve months between our Texas election-victory of 1859 ^"^ the outbreak of the Rebellion, on the 24th of November, i860. I am poor at philosophising at best, and what were the further causes of this difference in my own unhappiness, within the so different periods, I am as unable to guess as any one of you. Whether it was because the rebellion and the war had then and there become to me (being now behind their scenes) as much certainties as if I had seen them going on — whether it was that oyr vague imagining-j of grief to come are often more horrific than what they shall be when experienced in action — whether it was because, when the explosion actually burst, I (a mere witness and speculator before), plunged into the struggle as soon and as far as I could, and, with comrades like you, God bless them, became a positive actor in the scenes of counter-conspiracy and war ; and so, being pre-occupied in all my thinkings, doings, and sympa- thizings in each present scene or act as it arose, had no time to be nour- ishing fears or dreams about the general future, or whether it was each or any of these speculative causes, or still some others, which caused "this dififerAce to me," I can not decide. But of this truth be assured: Those parts of 1859-60, of somewhat more than a year, although passed in the midst of a climate, avocation and society otherwise the most delightful of all my experience, was to me by far the most unhappy of any other equal period of my existence. I think I will not exaggerate if 1 superadd that this period had, within its brief limits, more of real misery than all my other life besides. Upon the election of Mr. Lincoln, events — positive events — emerged into public view most swiftly and portentously. To us, at San Antonio (remember, it was the head-quarters of our army department), the first significant event was a call, published the day after the news of "Lin- coln's election," for a meeting of the Breckenridge and Lane voters on the 24th' day of November, at the Alamo, in San Antonio, to take action for the secession of the State. Within a few days, perhaps, in order to implicate others in this conspiracy, a new hand-bill was issued, addressed to rt// the citizens of Behar county, without regard to party. Yo. political institution , ?i.wdi in soils and climates, where neither ' King Cotton' nor 'Queen Sugar ' can ever reign or reside ? ' Of the scene which followed, (cjuite a riot, with every probability of a most bloody result, and which would have been the first blood of the civil war — desiring to make this narrative as little personal and as much for public history as I well can) I s^iall say but little. The excitement arose from my own heedless, wild anger and attempt to redress myself for a supposed insult to me by Colonel Wilcox, who replied to me. And but for the brave and disinterested violent interference of Mr. Story, the head of the K. G. C's., in actually dragging me out of a fight, doubt- less there would have been, from this my folly, much bloodshed and many deaths at that second tragedy of the Alamo. Whether his con- duct on this occasion was impelled by a calm forethought, that " the time was not yet," or whether he had a half romantic sympathy for a brother Kentuckian, as he said, "born, too, in Anderson County," I can not say. But his course seemed always to me most brave and generous. For his K. G. C's., on the ground, appeared to me the majority. They wore their badges. They were all doubly armed, and the Unionists, so far as I know, were all unarmed. The massacre would have been all one-sided, and of us ; but the appearances were in part deceptive. This riot brought the Union men to the front. They were thus proved to be the majority, if not the boldest party. They took possession of the stand. They squelched Herod Upson's speech. They compelled their hired band to follow our mob around town, " to the wee short hours ayont the Twal," tooting, and thumping, and clanging, "The Star Spangled Banner,'' "Hail Columbia," and "Yankee Doodle," in- stead of their former rebel tunes of "Dixie" and the rest. And so passed away this first great movement in Secession — a flat fail- ure. It is noteworthy that at the Secession election, long after, San Antonio, the head-quarters of the K. G. C's., gave a majority against it. Was our victory at the Alamo the cause, or the effect of this choice of her people. Who knows ? The elation of the Unionists, and the depression of the Disunionists, 81 — i8- in and around this the head-quarters of our army, and of the army of the " Knights of the Golden Circle," were soon changed into a complete re- versal. Inasmuch as this secret order exercised in Texas a controlling, nay, a decisive, influence, in starting the great conspiracy, and as, in my calm judgment, Texas was so potential, if not supreme, in maturing it, it becomes necessary to understand something more of it — its origin, purposes, doings, and results than is usually known. The " Knights of the Golden Circle, or " K. G. C's.," were, then, a military secret order. Their fundamental principles were, or by those who best knew about them, alleged to be these and such as these — viz.: To preserve and extend American slavery ; that Republicanism had, in its experiment, proved a failure ; that a legalized oligarchy, or, perhaps, a monarchy, with hereditary-titled orders, were the only class of institutions suited to the wants of the slave-states, and which were practicable ; that the im- mediate and violent dissolution of the present Union and Government was practicable and indispensable ; that the pending Presidential cam- paign, with its obvious results in the Black Republican victory, should be in due time made the pretext, or false pretense, with the inflamed Southerners in the place of its real cause, which was the slipping from their grasp of their olden supremacy in politics ; that to these ends the organization of these politics was indispensable ; that it should be secret, that it should be sworn, military in its forms and spirit, and most sum- mary, dangerous, and pitiless in all its actions. Accordingly, instructed by^^the amazing, and at that time mysteriousi success of the " Know- Nothings,'' just before, in 1856, etc. — this organ- ization, like that, but with wide difl"erences, by the close of 1859, ^^^ ^^' tained to such form, numbers, and spirit as to betoken somewhat of its deeds of manhood in i860 and the spring of 1861. Then, under the full blazes of Fort Sumter and the Southern Confederacy, and of the stirring events of their war, "it paled its ineffectual fires into the dark- ness of that oblivion and obloquy, under which it now infamously lies, even in the public opinion of the Rebellion which it engendered, and to which it alone imparted its first great success. Originally, probably in 1857 or 1858, this association had been gotten up for fillibustering ; that is, for piracy and robbery purposes. But for some unknown causes, it had fallen through, leaving several wandering knights along the bor- ders with nothing to lose and everything to gain by a revolution. Among these, the two vagabonds, Geo. W. Bickley and his nephew, were employed to travel over the State and organize 'Castles,' receiving the initiation fees (^i by each knight) as their compensation." 1 partly quote the above from a cotemporary pamphlet of James P. Newcomb, in San Antonio, as true a patriot and as truthful and brave a man as ever lived, in my opinion and belief. The degrees were five in number, at a cost of thirty dollars. The 88 19 f 8 funds were placed in the hands of a treasurer, and applied under the direction of a select committee to the purchase of arms, accoutrements, and ammunition. *' It was estimated by competent authority," says Major I. T. Sprague, U. S. A.; and I, as an eye-witness in a certain sense, must add my poor testimony of hearsay, actual observation, and fcelief to his authority, " that eight thousand men could be brought into the field, at four days' notice, well equipped." Their officers were Gen- erals, Colonels, Majors, and Captains. Their discipline stricter than that of regular armies. " In every county there was a place of assemblage, called the 'Cas- tle,' at which reports were made in regard to individuals, their conduct and opinions, and transmitted for final action and adjudication to their head-quarters in San Antonio." Here you have, in substance, and with more accuracy than is usual in such cases, a presentation of that once so formidable, now so con- temptible, fellowship of evil, the " Knights of the Golden Circle.'' It was to this band of mostly mere villainous desperadoes that the success of rebellion in Texas was mainly due — indeed, it may be said wholly due, unless we must except, as another great coadjutant influence to the same end — in another association of a widely different character. This was the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This church had, as you may recollect, its origin in a schism based solely in pro-slavery zeal. I give you my recollection of the case. Bishop James O. Andrews, of Georgia, married a widow owning, perhaps, thirty or forty slaves- Some of the old-time Methodists of his own State took exception to this act as being in violation of the fundamental and living law of the Book of Discipline of the church : that none of its ministers should hold slave property. The Bishop refused to quit preaching, or to give up his "vested rights." He said, besides, that they were his wife's slaves. His adversaries alleged that this was false pretense ; for, that slaves were chattels, and a marriage vested such property in the husband. More- over, that he was working them and receiving the wages of sin, and that Wesley, their great founder, had not only denounced slavery as a sin, but as the "sum of all Ttl/ainies." The disputation waxed wider and hotter. Mr. Calhoun entered into this arena of theological controversy. He decided that Bishop Andrews was manifestly in the right. But the primitive Methodists impudently rejected this arbitrament, and pushed up their litigation, conference after conference, until finally, in the an- nual conference of 1844, at Buffalo, N. Y., I think, by a decisive major- ity in a joint resolution, it was adjudged by this highest possible tri- bunal, under God, that M.&\hod\si preachers could not and should not be slaveholders. Whereupon, immediately ensued the first experiment of Secession; and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, became an or- ganized, separated religious body, and a vast power for evil, as well as 89 for good, in our country. In Texas, certainly, and I believe throughout the Southern States, it was almost unanimous for a dissolution of the Union. Withlmuch careful and painful scrutiny and observation, I, at least, never heard of but one (his name was Henry Pirtle), who was op- posed to Secession. Mr. Calhoun, who was never a secessionist, but only a nullifier in our constitutional issue, applauded this Secession, upon the ground of the moral and legal rights of slaveholding, pure and simple. But modern casuistry has invented a purely technical justifica- tion for this running a surveyor's line— Mason'^s and Dixon's — through the Church of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. With eyes and hands uplifted in holiest horror, touched with a little human mock indig- nation, they now exclaim : "It was done by a joint revolution, sir." The informality of the proceeding has, at last, become more attrocious than the substantive offense. Is it not funny that this same section, under the special leadership of that same John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State under John " Tyler too" — strictest constructionists all — io default of the numbers in Con- gress for a constitutional mode, by treaty, or by statutory enactment, actually annexed this same Texas, by a "join^ resolution only?" And some of us outside sinners might add, if it were not a matter too grave for laughter — indeed, " too deep.for tears ;" — is it not funnier still that, after every other class of our fellow-citizens in business, society, and politics have profusely hugged and kissed each other, " across the bloody chasm ;" have, in truth, filled it up and covered it over with fresh- est earth, and greenest sod, and brightest flowers ; that two churches, the largest and most influential of all the land, do, yet, stoutly maintain, on purely technical grounds (their basis of slaveholding all vanished !), their eternal Mason and Dixon's line between the saints ? And a third church of the meek and lowly Jesus ("Peace on earth and good will to man," you know !), and next only in influence to these two leading Protestant bodies, even at this late day, refuses to give up their absurd prayers for "our rulers," or that foundation-stone of slavery and rebel- lion, the "resolutions of '78," and to acknowledge, in their " Book of Common Prayer," the nationahty of our government. As Shakespeare wrote: "How these Christians do hate each otJierT" And oh ! what would Bob Ingersoll say of Christianity, if he only knew of these spe- cimens of odium theologicmn, or brotherly love ? So potent, far-reach- ing and enduring are these religious hatreds — worse even than -more natural sin ! ^ This church, then composed of as good men and women, and as good Christians as in any in the Nation, were as solid a phalanx, in that movement for disunion, as were the Knights of the Golden Circle, which was, in general, as bad a band of men as ever confederated for robbery, pi- racy, murder, and, eventually, for treason. Moreover, that church was the 90 only numerous, honest, intluential class of men in Texas, which did favor secession. And, on account of that general good character, with their sincere zeal in this cause, they were, alas ! the m^re fatal to our cause. These were the two agencies which whirled Texas into rebellion . Without the K. G. C's., both in conspiracy and waged war, no move- ment could have been made against a Union-State executive for dis- union. And, without the votes and zealous co-operation of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, Sout/i, in those sham elections, no approach to a majority, either for the convention, or for secession, could have been procured. No great public agitation followed the news of Mr. Lincoln's election, nor the local and temporary excitement at the Alamo meeting. The feelings of our people were adversely, and somewhat passionately, stirred by the secession of South Carolina, December 20th, and by the removal of the garrison from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, with its sud- den interruption of the treaty, "in greviio legis," between that most supreme sovereignty and the "Washington City Agency," miscalled a Nation ; and which was then represented by President Buchanan and his Cabinet, the leader in which was John B. Floyd. Still, in the main, by the close of the year i860, on the surface, Texas seemed to be rather pacific, calm, and idle. She seemed, and her people zuere so. But be- low the surface, the K. G. C's. were anything else than idle, or calm, or pacific. Constant vigilance, vigorous organization and action, with busi- est and promptest preparations for war, must have been going on below. In this state of affairs, there appeared on the stage of action a new and most unexpected actor. This was Major-General David E. Twiggs. He was by no means unknown to us Texans of either party. On the contrary, we, each of us, thought we knew and understood him w&ll. What the disunion party thought and felt about this event, can not be guessed. The Union party were in much doubt. A few, if not confi- dent, were, at least, hopeful. And so, for the most part, was I. Never- theless, I well remember to have had some scruples in the case. The caution of the Queen to Hamlet, about his " player-queen." " The lady doth protest too much, methinks." For I had heard General Twiggs speak, over and over again, of his own part in squelching the rebellion of South Carolina at Charleston, in 1832 (where, by the way, strangely enough, there was also under General Scott, one Captain Robert Anderson, and his Lieutenant W. T.' Sherman of company K- Third Artillery, U. S. Army), in almost these precise words, interlarded with most ludicrously-frequent and oddly-placed, and impious oaths: " There, sir, was a great man for you — of the olden times — that Andrew Jackson ! And he was the last of them too, sir. For God Almighty, sir, lost his moulds, sir, when Jackson died ! The assortment is closed out, sir." Remember, now, the single topic was on many different 91 occasions — this or these solely, viz.: State Nullification against the Uni- ted States authority ; Calhoun, with his ordifiances ?i^2L\nsi Jackson, with his Proclamation, and Force Bill, and his Army and Navy, under his own admired commander, General Scott, and he (Twiggs), a Georgia Union-Democrat, joyfully helping in the coercion of that most sovereign of all earthly sovereignties, South Carolina. Remember this well, I approved of every thought and feeling, uttered so often and so forcibly by General Twiggs. A blind adherent — yes, devotee of Henry Clay during his whole career, I had by this time gotten to take President Jackson's side in this affair. I regretted that Mr. Clay had offered his Olive-Branch, of the compromise bill, to afford a plausible loop-hole of retreat for the South Carolina fire-eaters, which they were but too willing, yes, too happy to slink into. "Fire-eating," when it was the Jackson- fire, was not so delicious a food for them, as it had proved so often before, and so much oftener long afterwards, when the Jackson-fire of Union-democracy was quenched, and he (heroic patriot and founder of democracy) was coldly, and stilly, and forever at rest in his hermitage- tomb. I thought it a great, a National, a world's misfortune and pity, that Mr. Clay had not permitted President Jackson to collect his duties and to ^'coerce' South Carolina, at the points of the Twiggs' sabers, and. at the mouths of the Anderson, Sherman, cannons; and that Charleston, if she whimpered, should not have been left a formeless mass of ashes in blood. I think and feel so yet. If you think me rash in reasoning, or cruel in feelings, or heedless in speech, do but recall the oceans of blood actually shed by that South Carolina, in the years i860 to 1864, not to specify other more precious treasures, our debased institutions, and lost morals ; and then compare this preventative with that proposed pool of bad blood in 1832. General Twiggs had been ever most courteous, even kindly to me, in all our many interviews. But many persons told me he was both cunning and insincere. And so, I somewhat feared, "he doth profess foo much.'" . His arrival at Indianola to reassume the command was, I believe, on the 5th of December, i860. As dates are of importance in this issue, I am compelled to ask your attention to them. In a lecture, " The treachery in Texas,'' read before the New York Historical Society on June 25th, 1861, and by it published among the documents for history, p. iii, etc., you may find this statement, viz.: " On the 5th of December, i860, Brevet Major-General David E. Twiggs, U. S. Army, arrived at Indianola, Texas, and by orders from Washing- ton, assumed command of this military district, known as the Depart- ment of Texas. For two years he had resided in New Orleans, La., retired from active military duties, owing to age and impaired health. For forty-eight years he had been in the service of the Federal Govern- ment. Nature had endowed him with a sagacious and active mind, far 92 23 — higher than with that element so essential to a soldier. Caution and self-preservation distinguished his career in the army," etc. Mr. Greeley, in his ''American conflict" and, so far as I know, all other annalists adopt these dates. But well-knowing, personally, that they were erroneous at least by one year, and believing them to be very significant, I applied through my nephew, General L. N. Anderson, to the War Department, for the exact dates of his service in Texas, and I have just received the follow- ing facts, viz.: "Twiggs was assigned to the command of the Department of Texas, March i8, 1857. From March 24 to June i, 1858, he was on leave of absence," (an interregnum of two months and six days). On December 7, 1859, he again went on leave of absence, trans- ferring the command to Lieutenant-Colonel Seawell ; and on reporting for duty, he was reassigned to the command, by special order No. '33, on November 7, i860. It was "under this order, that, on November 27, i86o (not December 5th), Twiggs resumed command." Here was an absence on leave for eleven months and twenty days. I made his acquaintance upon the passage from New Orleans, in the steamship, in 1858 (I believe), and knew him most pleasantly, as before said, aftei-wards at San Antonio, and up to his second leave of absence, December 7, 1859. He was, therefore, on December 5 (or else, November 27), i860, by no means a stranger to Texas or the army-officers, or the people, or their agitations, public opinions, party- spirit, or elections. On the contrary, from my knowledge of him and them, 1 fully believe that, save only a few professional politicians. Gen- eral Twiggs knew more of all than almost any man in Texas. Nor was his alleged retirement at New Orleans by any means a loss of opportu- nities to maintain his correspondences with, and knowledge- of, Texas men and things. Indeed, I should say that, except San Antonio alone. New Orleans was their very best point in the world for that advantage. It was our sole gate-way, going or coming, for communications with the outside world. That year"s leave occurred in this way. The General was really and seriously an invalid. Others, as usual, thought him, " Avialadc im- maginairc,'' I did not. I thought him, as it turned out, most seriously affected. His' complexion, and sundry other symptons, to me (no doctor though) betokened grave causes of apprehension. Amongst other indi- cations of a decHning old age, was a most romantic, and, to me, a most touching — almost womanly — affection for two of his officers, Van Dorn and Withers. He was assuredly unfit for any inportant business, and ought to have been retired for life, noletis aut voiens. It was certainly sometimes amusing, to us ot the laiety (to a surgeon it would have been funny) to hear the poor old invalid tatthng over his complaints, organs, functions, remedies, and the like charming topics of conversation. One 93 24- of his conceits was, that his ^-'rt/Z-bladder had burst an opening into either his stomach or heart, I forget which, and his hope and beUef were, that if he could get to Paris, where those wondrous body-carpen- ters and cobblers lived (as we all once thought), he could be mended and patched up, in these organs, so as to have another lease of useful life. And this was his purpose, as he gave out often, in applying for tliis year's leave of absence. But, he never went to Paris. He stopped and passed his time far more pleasantly, and doubtless with quite as much benefit to his health, in the delightful home of his only daughter, the wife of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. Myers, quartermaster^ stationed at New Orleans in 1858 and 1861, and until, very suddenly, he on February 5, 1861, resigned and took office straight-way, under the Confederacy. It will be remembered that Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, First Cavalry U. S. Army, was in command of the Department of Texas, from February 20, i860, to the return of General Twiggs, say eleven months. It would be superfluous to say, how capable, diligent, faithful, and universally trusted an officer this gentleman was in all his duties, official, civic, social, domestic, and christian, during his whole — a model — life! I trust it will not be out of place, even here, for me to add my poor testimony. I knew him well, perhaps I might say, intimately, though his grave, cold dignity of bearing and the prudential reserve of his manners, rather chilled over-early, or over-much intimacy. And of all the officers or men whom I ever knew, he came (save one other alone) the nearest in likeness to that classic ideal. Chevalier Bayard — "Sans peur et sans reproche." And if these, our nxodern, commercial, mechanical, utilitarian ages, ever did develope a few of these types of male chivalric virtues, which we attribute solely to these "ages of faith,' Robert E. Lee was one of the highest and finest models. ^Imagine, then, our surprise — our amazement — when, without a soul expecting him (unless it were some traitor-soul), Triggs startled Texas by reassuming this command. IVhy did he, with more than promptitude, apply for orders on November 7, 1S60, the first day^fter the Presidential elec- tion ? Why, did his friends permit him to assume the duties of such a department, so onerous in the quietest of periods, and, now, upon the plain verge of overwhelming troubles and dangers ? No "man in Texas better forsaw that the result of the great and wide schism in the Demo- cratic party must be Lincoln's election. No one better comprehended, or had oftener foreseen, or more forcibly foretold the troubles and ruins to ensue. Was his health restored ? By no means ; it was painfully and visibly worse than when he left, in order to have his heroic operations of the new surgery performed. Was he himself more hopeful of hirti- self, or of the common weal? On the contrary, Jeremiah was a lively joker, to Twiggs in all questions pertaining to his own health and life, 94 '■S as well as to those of that government. Whose bread he had eaten, and whose best Bovnbon and richest wines he had been drinking for these fifty years, and until they had chronically turned sour on his stomach I am no doctor, nor surgeon, I repeat. I know almost nothing of the gall-bladder, nor even of gall in social or domestic life, nor even of wormwood since my infant life, but with some little experience in dys- pepsia, and not a few ruminations, thereon or therefrom, my own opin- ion was and is, that the aforesaid Bourbons and wines quite well ac- counted for the symptoms of this broken-down, worn-out valetudinarian And why then, was he so promptly ordered, on the 27th of November, A D. i860, to assume such a command ? We come now to safe ground. Doubts and speculations are out of place in this question. This was but fourteen days after Lincoln's election. It was but three days after the Alamo meeting, where, as generally already throughout the South, the "regular democrats" boldly ^/«^ possession of any of the Federal property, within the limits of the State." I am quoting here their own official language. In another "State paper," they are 101 — 32 reported and described thus: "Resolved, that Sam. A. Maverick, Thomas Devine, Phillip N. Lucket, and James Rogers, be appointed commissioners to confer with General D. E. Twiggs," etc And again their formal commission, dated February 5, 1861, signed by the chair- man of that committee, J. W. Robertson, and attested by the first two Rebel Governors, is actually in these words, viz : " are hereby appointed commissioners to visit Major-General Twiggs," etc. And this was the sole authority under whicli that supreme triumvirate (for Rogers did not appear), and Ben McCullough acted. (He was "commissioned" only by themselves; and thus, "hereby, appoint you, Ben McCullough, mili- tary officer, and order you," etc., etc.) And such was the authority which proceeded to usurp and exercise supremest powers in civic admin- istration and of open war; and it was such a lawless trio which met Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee, of Virginia (and whose general character and standing I have briefly hinted), with this distinct proposi- tion, that, unless he would then and there engage to resign his commis- sion in the United States Army, and to take one under the confederate authority, he should not have transportation for his effects (which were bulky and valuable) to the coast. Colonel Lee, thereupon, came to me and made this statement in greatest agitation of indignation. I was even surprised, not at his emotions, but at this exhibition of them. He said, that after forty years of faithful duty to his whole country, and he must add, that it was always as he was sure with personal honor, to be thus maltreated by such a committee, was beyond his patience to en- dure. He then asked me to take charge of his property and have them sent on at his private cost, after him. I undertook this duty, and we walked to the proper warehouse and commission merchants, Vance & Co., to make the necessary preliminary arrangements. On our way, or else at the final parting, I think, on the same day, he asked me if I remembered our talk at his rooms, with Dr. Edwards ? I told him that I did very distinctly. He then said, in substance : " I think it but due to myself to say that I can not be moved by the conduct of these peo- ple," or "these fellows" (I am not sure which epithet he used), from my own sense of.duty. I still think, as I then told you and Dr. Edwards that my loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is due to the Federal Government. And I shall so report myself at Wash- ington. If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But, if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is a sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow my native State, with my sword, and if need be with my life. I know you think and feel very differently, but I can't help it. These are my principles, and I must follow them." Now, these are not pretended to have been his literal words, but it is a very faithful report of what he did say, in its spirit and very nearly in its language. ; orl02 — 33 — Now comes our climax to this little episode. When I reached New York, on my escape from imprisonment in Texas, in the latter part of December. i86l, General Scott invited me to dine with him. I duly reported myself at the Clarendon Hotel where he staid. But he said, as he wanted to have a long and confidential talk with me, he had ordered our dinners away up town at a favorite restaurant, where they had the best old wines in the city — especially their clarets. So we rode many squares to our meal and conference. Our talk was of very many things, past, present and to come; Toward the conclusion of our chat, I sud- denly asked : " But, General, what about General Lee ? He answered: " Well, my friend, Robert E. Lee is the first soldier of his rank in Chris- tendom." I said, "General Scott, do you habitually use the same identi- cal words, years apart to express the same thoughts? " " What do you mean ! I don't understand you ; but I do not see why I should not." I then told him that I would be qualified, that when 1 asked him a like question about Lee (as to his fitness for the Superintendency of West Point) that he had replied almost, if not exactly, in these very same words. He then went on in his usual, rather prolix, but wonderfully lucid phrases to give his reasons for that exalted opinion of Lee's, in his services in Mexico, especially. "But," I interrupted, "what about him, in this, our great matter, this — Rebellion — War? " When he told me in substance that, on Lieutentant-Colonel Lee's return from Texas to Wash- ington, they had an interview, and that he informed Colonel Lee that, among other things in addition to his speedy promotion to the Colonel- cy of his regiment (and which immediately occurred), he was author- ized to offer to him the command of our armies, next only to Scott's own rank of command. But, that Lee, thanking him politely, went on to say just what he had told me, on leaving Texas, which was in effect; that he would be guided wholly in his action by that of Virginia. And here again, I will not hold myself responsible for "ipsissima verba" (the very words) ; but I do say that the two declarations in Texas and in Washington City were just as nearly identical as the two reporters — by no means inexpert or regardless in the use of words — could make them in their respective reports. And so, this Robert E. Lee, upon a principle, his own sense of duty, turned his back on the highest ofifice on this earth (being, considering General Scott's age and infirmi- ties, really the commander-in-chief), under an established government; and with a foreboding mind and a saddened heart, went to Virginia to share her fortunes in her most uncertain destiny and in a certainly very subordinate rank, up to the time when his great abilities compelled his promotion. My comrades, what do you call this sacrifice — for its grandeur ? Where in history can you find its equal ? I fail to find one which is equal to it. Others, perhaps not a few, may have been sufficiently 103 34 — devoted to their principles to have been able thus to resist such high temptations. But, it must be a very few, if any, in all history, who have been at once blessed with the opportunity and the self-abnegation to pass by such powers and honers so offered. I am well aware that several publications have been made by offi- cers and gentlemen of very exalted characters, which give a wholly different statement of General Scott's and Colenel Lee's interviews, from these my own recollections of them. And 1 much regret this contradic- tion. Nor can I either avoid or explain it. But. whether the alleged official final interview between them was, or was not, fully reported, or whether the alleged charge by General Scott, /^a^' Colonel Lee was a ''traitor,^' was ever made at all, or else was made at a date subsequent to the interview or communication herein narrated ; — I am very sure of the general accuracy of my own account as well of General Scott's dis- position toward General Lee. And, moreover, it is just because I be- lieve my translations of General Lee's character and conduct to be true, and these contradictory assertions to be most erroneous and cruelly un- just, that I feel bound — all the more in proportion to the rank and influ- ence of his posthumous accusers— to disclose the truth of history. And 1 am yet more impelled to such vindication of that great and good man's fame by the conviction that, under the baneful influences of clique and party at Washington City, our Government committed a most disgrace- ful outrage in the seizure and uses of his wife's estate at Arlington. Pru- dence in my own interests might deter me in this conflict of testimony. But duty to the memory of a soldier, of whom the whole Nation ought to be proud, is a higher law in my faith. Let us now review a few of the events themselves, in their order. On January 15, 1861, General Twiggs writes to General Scott: "As soon as I know certainly that Georgia has separated from the Union, I must of course follow her. I most respectfully ask to be relieved, in the command of this department, 'on or before the 4th of March next." (In- auguration day. He picks his own time). "Signed, D. E. Twiggs." But others had different ideas. ■ Endorsed on this letter on its receipt^ are these words, viz.: " Relieve Major-General Twiggs, and ask the Secretary (Holt) to devolve the command on Colonel Waite, with an assignment according to his brevet. W. S." On January i8th, Twiggs writes again, after more prophesyings and a sarcasm on the commander of the Department of the East (Gen- eral Wood) for his boasting "that he had 200,000 men on hand to regu- late the South," he adds: " After secession, I know not what will be done. I know one thing. 1 will never fire on American citizens." D. E. Twiggs to Adjutant-General, at Washington City, id. p. 361. And all these official reports were repeatedly exposed in his letter book to private-known rebels as well as to the rebel commissioners, even at their first interview, on February 8, 1861, (Sprague, p. 119). -104 — 35 — But here begun a new correspondence between dovernor Houston and General Twiggs. On January 22, 1861, being notified by Governor Houston of the danger of an unauthorized mob, etc., he issues orders to the troops at the Posts to take up arms and to march to San Antonio. On the 28th of January he countermands these orders. (No. 10.) It must be remembered distinctly, on this my testimony, and that of very many others, that, from the time of his return, with increasing frequency and vehemence of his speeches, General Twiggs had not only declared that he "would never fire on American citizens under any cir- cumstances," but that he would surrender the United States property in his department to the State of Texas, whenever it was demanded. If it were not making this narrative too biographical, I could relate an instructive and amusing colloquy, between General Twiggs and myself, upon this precise point. All these speeches and pledges were duly reported to Governor Houston, when made in the hearing of Union men, mostly through our leader, Judge I. A. Paschall- Governor Houston, who was quite as cunning as Twiggs, on Jan- uary 20, 1 86 1 (the day before the convening of the Legislature, in which, by the way, he had no faith), addressed a letter to Twiggs, with these points, viz.: " I send General J. M. Smith on a confidential mis- sion, to know what you consider it your duty to do, as to maintaining, in behalf of the Federal Goverment, or passing over to the State, the pos- session of the forts, arsenals, and public property within this State ; and, also, if a demand for the possession of the same is made by the execu- tive (whether), you are authorized, or, if it would be conformable to your sense of duty, to place in possession of the authorities of the State the forts, arsenals, munitions, and property of the Federal Government, on the order of the executive to an officer of the State, empoiuered to receive and receipt for the same. Arrangements made with you, by General Smith, will be sanctioned and approved by me ; and, should you recjuire any assistance to aid you in 'resisting the contemplated at- tack upon the public property, etc., and to place the same in possession of the State authorities, you are, hereby, authorized to call on the Mayor and citizens of San Antonio for such assistance as you may deem neces- sary. Hoping to hear promptly, etc., etc. Sam. Houston." Was not this a snug cornering of the " old Georgia fox ?" And if he had been restrained by the least regard for his promises, threats, or other words, he. would have been cornered. Houston almost uses his own language in these inquiries of what he would do. The status, so often foretold in his own petitions for instructions, was actually upon him. The demand of the State sovereignty was formally made of him, now became so ardent a "States-rights man." And the aid offered was, by no means, to be despised. San Antonio was then, as long after- wards, unquestionably loyal to the Union by a large majority. What 105 -36- was he to do, thus caught in his own trap ? We shall see presently what, in fact, he did. Meantime, we must intercalate other actions here. About this time — I think, a little before — I received, in a letter from Judge I. A. Paschall, and others, a request from Governor Houston to come up to Austin, forthwith, on pressing public business. And, forth- with, I went. On my arrival there I learned two things. The first was, that it had been intended to make of me a big man, or officer ; that is, to have been "empowered to receive and receipt for all the forts, ar- senals, arms, munitions, and other property of the United States within the State of Texas ;" but the second fact 1 learned was, that I was only, "in the panning out" (as the miners phrase it), a very common man, and no officer of a Sovereign State at all ! Governor Twiggs, on Ja7iHary 22, /86/, ha.d replied, to Governor Houston, thusly : — "To his Excel- lency, Samuel Houston, Governor of Texas : Sir; yours received : I am without instructions from Washington, in regard to the disposition of the public properties here, or the troops, in the event of the State's se- ceding." Now, whoever thought of such ''instructions from Washing- ton ?" He had, over and over again, declared that "instructions, or no instructions," he would never, never — no, never — fire on American citi- zens ; and so, with the air full of rumors of mobs, arming to seize this trust in his keeping, and of his own consequent commands and counter- mands for all the troops to march to his and their defense, he had plainly and repeatedly invited those American citizens to their work of easy and big plunder, as well as Governor Houston to his demand. And he had as often said, and in my hearing too, that, if the State made this demand of him (a sworn trustee !), he would surrender up his whole trust, and that, too, with no such absurd qualifications about "instruc- tions from Washington." But hear him farther in this letter. It gets richer and richer to the perfect day. He proceeds : "After secession, if the Executive of the State make a demand of the commander of this Department, he w/// receive an answer!! Signed, David A. Twiggs." On February 2, i86i (ten days after his correspondence with Governor Houston), Twiggs writes to Colonel S. Cooper, Adjutant-General at Washington (yet), enclosing Govei-nor Houston's letter and his reply. He adcjs : "As I do not think any one in authority desires me to carry on a civil war against Texas, I shall, after secession, if the Governor re- peats his demand, direct the arms and property to be turned over to his agents, keeping in the hands of the troops the arms they now have." He repeats his demand for "instructions as to what I should do after secession," etc., etc. It now remains to show that, after refusing to the duly-authorized executive of a Sovereign State this turning over of the United States property, after refusing to that officer, even to say what he would do even after secession, promising only "afi answer," whilst he was threat- 'loe — 37 — ening our two parties and the Government at Washington, that he would then surrender it, and knowing well enough that his time for surrender could not be circumvented by the United States Government ; with all these facts and false pretenses upon his own records, it only remains to be shown, that he did actually and formally make that surrender before secession, and to a 7nob of volunteer maurauders, with no shadow of pretense of any recognized authority on earth. Unless the force of the K. G. C's., invited by his own loose talks and close collusions, are to be adjudged as legitimate authority. Nor, can any defense be made for him» as to his acting thus under mistaken convictions. He had him- self distinctly construed this date of Texas-secession, as legally fixed, if ever, upon March z^ proximo. The months of December, i860, and January, 1861, passed away with Twiggs' contradictory talks and dispatches, and with no other inci- dent worthy of our notice here, except that sundry petitions were sent to Governor Houston to convene the Legislature. This he, at first, sturdily refused to do. Whereupon, some time in January, 1861, sixty-one private persons and conspirators — a majority of them clerks in the departments at Austin, and, as I believe, all Knights of the Golden Circle — issued a hand-bill, over their own signatures, ordering an election of delegates to a constitutional convention, to be held on January 28, 1861 ; and even legislating the modes of conducting and officering it. The convention itself was ordained to meet at Austin. Of this document (with all its results, of course), it is well remarked by Mr. Greeley that "it had just as much legal validity and force as a harangue at a negro camp-meet- ing." And yet, with this incoritestible legal proposition staring him in the face, he calls the mere offspring of that fraud, hatched "within a lit- tle month," "the State authorities." This election, if it may be so called^ was held. The polls were opened by the " K. G. C's.," and but ten thousand votes were even reported to be cast, out of the eighty-odd thousand of the State. And many of those, reported as cast, were as false and fraudulent as were the sham authority and proceedings by which the election was ordered and the convention ordained. Indeed, with such an area and diffusion of its population, with the time and labor requisite for the conveyance of information, as were these conditions in Texas, it is safe to say, that this mere sham of an election was over be- fore a majority of our people had ever heard of this scheme. According to Newcomb, Governor Houston, seeing this drift of French-revolutionary proceedings, and in order to head off this mere mob of a convention, and, if possible, to get a fair expression of the people in a proper and dignified manner, and, with some semblance of legal forms, after repeated refusals, called an extra session to take into consideration the ordering of a real election for delegates to a conven- tion. By this time it had become plain enough that it was indispensable 107 -38- that the Legislature should, as a legal body, meet, to consider and de- cide upon these outrageously revolutionary proceedings under such sham forms of law, as well as to take action about the crisis itself. And it is merely a contemptible bit of partisan sarcasm for a Union annalist to call "Governor Houston nicknames, because he did not persist in his re- fusal? to convene the Legislature, for the reason that he knew its ma- jority to be opposed to his politics. He did not know — he could not know — he had no right to dream that men, who wore clean shirts under broad-cloth, and who had all the semblance of being gentlemen and men of average honesty and honor, would act and enact as they event- ually did. Moreover, I insist, that, if he had been one of those modern nliracles (a statesman or soldier who sees the future as clearly as he sees the past, which most of our orators and historians seem to demand of all other actors than themselves, in those early rebellion-scenes)— Governor Houston ought still to have convened the Legislature ! Here was a critical dilemma in the State's destiny. The Legislature was as gen- uine a department of her government as was the Executive. This novel state of her affairs, wholly unprovided for by any laws for the Governor to execute, was naturally and specially within the province and sphere of the law-making power. The Governor of Texas was as yet no dicta- tor. Texas was as yet under no martial law, nor given over to the man- agement of mere party-tricksters. The forms and the spirit of regular, legitimate civic government were still his plain duty, as it was his most politic (curse that word, "politic" ) course. It passes my patience to read in works of history, by men and writers of genius and moral worthy like Horace Greeley, the violent, passionate epithets of partisan politics for thus doing what George Washington or Algernon Sidney would have done in like cases. And as for the party-game aspect of the case, it passes dispute that this was one of the cutest tricks ever devised or attemped. For, tirst, a legislature or legitimate convention would have caused delay in lieu of the K. G. C.'s indispensable haste. Second. It would have commanded the support of every honest and conservative disunionist in the Legisla- ture and among the people (if anythere were), as well as of all who were afraid of their constituents, as all demagogues ever are. In other words, it tended to produce a division, discord, indeed, among the secessionists, and so to help the Union cause most critically. That it failed in all these ends was no fault of this design. It was circumvented only be- cause the conspirators were more unprincipled in their plots and more recklessly bold in their bad, bad execution of them, than even Governor Houston had ever experienced or could have foreseen. The rascal, within his olden acquaintance in former Texas, plots and revolutions, had at least varnished over their villainies with a pre- tense of legal forms of law and order or of popular rights. But these Texas 108 39 — conspirators and traitors threw oil" all masks and vaunted themselves for their lawlessness, faithlessness, and disorder. Nevertheless, it is simply not true that this action ended in no good. You see it every- where stated in history that Texas was the sole southern State that sub- mitted her act of secession to the people for their adoption. The seces- sion of all the southern states were, in fact, sheer usurpations of authority over all popular rights. As Mr. Stephens truly told the Georgia Legis- lature, "Gentlemen, you were not sent here, with these extraordinary powers. You are transcending your delegated authority." Neither the southern "States" nor "people" ever did conspire, secede, or rebel in any legal or honest sense. Squads of conspirators plotted and usurped the authority of the "States" and the rights of their peoples. The peo- ples, betricked, betrayed, and entangled, only acquiesced in the una- voidable. And this usurpation and invasion of the people's rights was as strong in the matter of the subsequent confederatifig, as it had been in the previous dissolving proceedings. "aijx.But, why did Texas alone, in her ordinance of secession, require the vote of the people to give it life ? Was it, think you, that her Legislature or convention were more under the restraints of the forms of law and order or of popular rights, or, that Texas was more conservative than the other seceding States ? Not a bit of it 1 On the contrary, Texas was notoriously the least conservative State in the Union, probably in the world. She inserted that clause simply and purely, because Sam. Hous- ton had cornered and turned the lights upon this squad and their total want of authority from either the written constitution or from the voting people. A debate about the legitimacy of that convention, thus sitting by the authority or sixty-one loafers on the one hand, and of Governor Houston's proposed convention, with all the sanctions of constitution, law, and popular power on the other how else could it end — than as it did.? "We must now fill up this vacuum by a retro-active popular vote." And this ruse of Houston enforced that change of programme. But it is alleged again that this proviso, or reservation availed noth- ing in its outcome. And that the State was, in fact, whirled out of the Union by the K. G. C's., before the day of the popular ratification (vivi- fication, I should rather call it). This is also most true. But was that Governor Houston's fault of omission or of commission ? You might as well blame the architect or custodian of one of your banks for insufficient walls, or locks in the safe, if adverse villains should blow the whole building down into the earth, by dynamite, as to censure this true Union , loyal Governor, because these yet more desperate villains, the K. G. C's and their tools, had no regard for his restraints or defenses, which were all that an honest man and law-abiding officer could have interposed. The Legislature met, and, as Newcomb says, " most atrociously V TOO ~4o— recognized the convention wholesale." The Governor vetoed this enact- ment. It was again enacted over his veto. And, on January 28th, this convention, so-called, thus elected and authorized, assembled in the Hall of the House of Representatives. Having been ordered to Austin by Governor Houston, I had remained there, conferring with him, John Hancock, Dr. Phillips, Judge George H. Paschall (brother of our San Antonio leader). Banning Norton, Senator Haynes, and a few others as true a band of patriots as ever thought, felt, talked, worked, suffered or fought for the best, but surely then a very desperate cause. On Febru- ary 1st, the convention, by a vote of 166 yeas to seven nays, passed a secession ordinance, to be submitted to the people of Texas for their rati- fication or rejection by the qualified voters, "on the 23d of February," and, if adopted by them to go into effect upon the id of March, proximo, On February 4th, the Legislature, by a joint resolution, affirmed their or- dinance. It remains ne.xt to show the transparent villainy under all these shams and impudent frauds. On the same 2d of February, the conven- tion created a committee of pubhc safety, with the most absolute and unlimited military powers within their own discretion. This committee, by its chairman, Hon. John C. Robertson, reports to Hon. O. M. Roberts, president of the convention that, on the 2nd day of February, the very tiext day to their ordinance of secession, and twenty-two days before the pretended election-vote by the people for ratification or rejection, and the whole of the time , less than that one day, of February 1st, before the sacred day when the secession was, if ratifi- ed to take effect, actually proceeded to perpetrate as follows, viz.: Resolved, That "by the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in convention assembled, that, should the standing committee of Public Safety deem it essential to the public safety, to appoint commissioners, officers, or persons, in reference to taking charge of the Federal property within the limits of this State, they shall have power to appoint such and assign them their duties and give them instructions, under which they shall act, but this power shall only extend to such cases in which the committee may deem prompt action and secrecy absolutely necessary. That a copy of this resolution, signed by the president of this convention, and the appointment and instructions signed by Hon. John C. Robert- son, chairman of said committee, shall be /2^//a«///