It soon became evident to all that the South had gone to war without counting the cost. Our chief difficulty was the want of arms and munitions of war. Lamentable cries came to us from the West for the supplies which would enable patriotic citizens to defend their homes. The resources on which our people had relied — the private arms in the hands of citizens — had proved a sad delusion; and the Confederacy was not only deficient in ammunition but in the material for making it.
Undue elation over our victory at Manassas was followed by dissatisfaction at what was termed the failure to reap the fruits of victory; and rumors were circulated that the heroes of the hour were prevented from reaping the fruits of the victory by interference from the President. Naturally there followed another rumor, equally false, that the inaction of the victorious army was due to the policy of the President. Unjust criticisms based on these slanderous accusations weakened the power of the Government to meet its pending and provide for its coming necessities; but I bore them in silence, lest to vindicate myself should injure the public service by turning public censure on the generals on whom the hopes of the country rested. That motive no longer exists, and it is due to the truth that I should record that no executive interference prevented active operations by the generals in command, and that neither the President nor any other civil officer was responsible for the dilatory execution of the law of Congress providing for a reorganization of the armies.
In November, 1861, reports became current that the enemy was concentrating troops west of the valley of the Shenandoah with a view to a descent on it. Late in November General T. J. Jackson (better known as “Stonewall” Jackson) proposed an expedition to Romney in order to frustrate this movement.
The War Department adopted the proposition and strengthened General Jackson’s forces by transferring to his command his old brigade, then attached to the Army of the Potomac.
After General Jackson began his march, the cold became unexpectedly severe; and as he ascended into the mountain region the slopes were covered with ice, which impeded his progress the more because his horses were smooth-shod; but his tenacity of purpose, fidelity, and daring triumphed over every obstacle, and he drove the enemy from Romney and its surroundings, took possession of the place, and prevented the threatened concentration.
The development of the enemy’s plans in Eastern Virginia showed that he had decided to move down the Potomac for a campaign against Richmond, from the Peninsula as a base. The principal portion of our army was consequently ordered to the Peninsula between the York River and the James. Thus the northern portion of Virginia, which in the first year of the war had been the main field for skirmishes, combats, and battles, of advance and retreat, and the occupation and evacuation of fortified positions, ceased for a time to tremble beneath the tread of contending armies.
On the 8th of November, 1861, an outrage was perpetrated by an armed vessel of the United States in the forcible detention on the high seas of a British mail-steamer, the Trent, making one of her regular trips from one British port to another, and the seizure, on that unarmed vessel, of the Confederate Commissioners, Mason and Slidell, who, accompanied by their secretaries, were bound for Europe on diplomatic service. The seizure was made by an armed force, against the protests of the captain of the vessel and of Commander Williams, R. N., the latter protesting as the representative of Her Majesty’s Government. The Commissioners yielded only when force which they could not resist was used to remove them from the mail-steamer and carry them to the United States vessel-of-war.
The outrage was the more marked because the United States had been foremost in resisting the right of “visit and search,” and had made it the cause of the war of 1812 with Great Britain.
The commissioners and their secretaries were transported to the harbor of Boston and imprisoned in its main fortress.
The British Government demanded the immediate and unconditional release of the commissioners, “in order that they may again be placed under British protection,” and a suitable apology for the aggression which had been committed.
In the meantime Captain Wilkes, commander of the vessel which had made the visit and search of the Trent, returned to the United States and was received with general plaudits both by the people and the Government. The House of Representatives passed a vote of thanks.
In the midst of this exultation came the demand for the restoration of the imprisoned commissioners to British protection. As it was little to be expected, after such explicit and general commendation of the act, that the Government of the United States would accede to the demand, the War and Navy Departments of the British Government made active and extensive preparations to enforce it. The haughty temper displayed toward the four gentlemen arrested on an unarmed ship subsided in view of a demand to be enforced by the army and navy of Great Britain, and the United States Secretary of State, after a wordy and ingenious reply to the British Minister at Washington, wrote: “The four persons in question…will be cheerfully liberated.” There was a time when the Government and the people of the United States would not have sanctioned such aggression on the rights of friendly ships to pass unquestioned on the highway of nations and on the right of a neutral flag to protect everything not contraband of war; but that was a time when arrogance and duplicity had not led them into false positions, and when the roar of the British lion could not make Americans retract what they had deliberately avowed.