124 



CONFEDERATE STATES. 



all of the following posts : Forts Jackson and 

 St. Philip in the Mississippi, below New Or- 

 leans, both without garrisons ; Fort Morgan, 

 below Mobile, without a garrison ; Forts Pick- 

 ens and McKae, Pensacola harbor, -with an in- 

 sufficient garrison for one ; Fort Pulaski, be- 

 low Savannah, without a garrison ; Forts Moul- 

 trie and Sumter, Charleston harbor, the former 

 with an insufficient garrison, and the latter 

 without any ; and Fort Monroe, Hampton 

 Roads, without a sufficient garrison. In my 

 opinion, all these works should be immediately 

 so- garrisoned as to make any attempt to take 

 any one of them, by surprise or coup de main, 

 ridiculous. 



" With the army faithful to its allegiance, and 

 the navy probably equally so, and with a Fed- 

 eral Executive, for the next twelve months, of 

 firmness and moderation, which the country 

 has a right to expect moderation being an ele- 

 ment of power not less than firmness there is 

 good reason to hope that the danger of secession 

 may be made to pass away without one conflict 

 of arms, one execution, or one arrest for treason. 



" In the mean time it is suggested that ex- 

 ports should remain as free as at present ; all 

 duties, however, on imports, collected, (outside 

 of the cities,*) as such receipts would be needed 

 for the national debt, invalid pensions, &c., and 

 only articles contraband of war be refused ad- 

 mittance. But even this refusal would be un- 

 necessary, as the foregoing views eschew the 

 idea of invading a seceded State. 



"WlNFIELD SCOTT. 

 "New YOEK, October 29, 1860." 



The copy sent to Secretary of War, Floyd, 

 contains these additional remarks : 



"It will be seen that the 'Views' only apply 

 to a case of secession that makes a gap in the 

 present Union. The falling off say of Texas, 

 or of all the Atlantic States, from the Potomac 

 south, was not within the scope of General S.'s 

 provisional remedies. 



" It is his opinion that instructions should be 

 given, at once, to the commanders of the Bar- 

 ancas, Forts Moultrie and Monroe, to be on 

 their guard against surprises and coups de main. 

 As to regular approaches, nothing can be said 

 or done, at this time, without volunteers. 



"There is one (regular) company at Boston, 

 one here, (at the Farrows,) one at Pittsburgh, 

 one at Augusta, Ga., and one at Baton Rouge in 

 all five companies only, within reach, to garrison 

 or reinforce the forts mentioned in the ' Views.' 



" General Scott is all solicitude for the safety 

 of the Union. He is, however, not without 

 hope that all dangers and difficulties will pass 

 away without leaving a scar or painful recollec- 

 tion behind. 



" The Secretary's most obedient servant, 



" October 30, 1860. W. S." 



* In forts or on board ships of war. The great aim and 

 object of this plan was to gain time say eight or ten 

 months to await expected measures of conciliation on the 

 part of the North, and the subsidence of angry feelings in 

 the opposite quarter. 



The part taken by the Secretary of War in 

 favor of the seceding States was not made ap- 

 parent until some months later. On the 1st 

 of April, three months after the resignation of 

 the Secretary, there appeared at Richmond, 

 Virginia, a eulogy of him which vindicates 

 his patriotism to the Confederate States by a 

 statement of facts : 



" All who have attended to the developments 

 of the last three months, and know aught of the 

 movements of the Buchanan Administration up 

 to the time of Floyd's resignation, will justify 

 the assertion that the Southern Confederacy 

 would not and could not be in existence at this 

 hour but for the action of the late Secretary of 

 War. The plan invented by Gen. Scott to stop 

 secession was, like all campaigns devised by 

 him, very able in its details, and nearly certain 

 of general success. The Southern States are 

 full of arsenals and forts, commanding their 

 rivers and strategic points. Gen. Scott desired 

 to transfer the army of the United States to 

 these forts as speedily and as quietly as possi- 

 ble. Had he succeeded in doing so, revolution 

 would have been paralyzed in the whole South, 

 and the submissionist party would have been 

 organized on a very different footing from what 

 we now know. The Southern States could 

 not have cut off communication between the 

 Government and the forts without a great 

 fleet, which they cannot build for years, or 

 take them by land without one hundred thou- 

 sand men, many hundred millions of dollars, 

 and several campaigns, and many a bloody 

 siege. Had Gen. Scott been enabled to get 

 those forts in the condition he desired them to* 

 be, the Southern Confederacy would not now 

 exist. 



"But the cooperation of the Secretary of 

 War is necessary to the movement of troops ; 

 and in lieu of cooperating, the Secretary of 

 War thwarted, objected, resisted, and forbade. 

 Every day saw the battle fought in President 

 Buchanan's Cabinet, and every day the solitary 

 champion of the South was forced closer to the 

 corner of the wall. That day came when he 

 was fairly beaten. He resigned, but not with 

 stealth or shame ; he resigned with a clap of 

 thunder. While the Administration was giving 

 the orders for the military occupation of the 

 Southern country, it was actually in negotiation 

 with the Commissioners of South Carolina. 

 This fact, if made clearly manifest, sufficiently 

 unveiled the design and the character of the 

 Cabinet, and, causing his resignation to turn on 

 that specification, the Secretary drew the eyes 

 of the entire world on that one focus. The 

 Southern leaders awoke to a sense of their 

 position, and perceiving that if they gave a 

 week's respite to a plot actually in course of 

 execution they were hopelessly lost, they sent 

 over the country the orders which led to the 

 popular seizure of all the forts in the South ex- 

 cept two." 



By these movements the seceding States were 

 protected from the military arm of the Govern- 



