CENTENNIAL TALE; Memoirs Of Colonel “Chester” S. Bassett French: Extra Aide-de-Camp to Generals Lee and Jackson, The Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865

Virginia

CHAPTER ONE—THE SOUTHERN RIGHTS CONVENTION HELD AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, APRIL, 1861

"There was heard the sound of a coming foe,

There was sent through Britain a bended bow,

And a voice was poured on the free wind far,

As the land rose up at the sound of war."—Hemans

1. The Four Factions

The presidential canvass of 1860 presented to popular favor four candidates, representative men of the four factions into which the great Whig and Democratic parties of the country had been reduced through the evil influences sequent on the persistent agitation of the question of slavery.

The Whig party—one wing of it—was led by John Bell of Tennessee; the other wing of the party, combining with it for the nonce all the isms, therefore repugnant to both of the two controlling parties of the county, was championed by Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. The Democratic party also presented two candidates in the persons of John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. The Whigs of the North and South were of one accord on the great political question of the day. On the one question of slavery in the North there was much division of sentiment, which separated the two wings as the canvass progressed until the extremists joined hands with those, who for a series of years had openly demanded the interposition of the strong hand of the government, not to stop the progress but to blot out slavery.

Between the Democrats of the North and South there was no disturbing element save the same apple of discord, the slavery question. The Douglas wing espoused the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty which was repudiated in toot by the followers of Breckinridge. The canvass was heated in the extreme, and bitterness of spirit marked the conduct of the four contending parties, the results of which have proved to be the most momentous in the history of our Republic.

2. States—Sovereign or Subordinate?

The South, with here and there an exception, was united on the question of States’ Rights, with, in the North, here and there a follower, while the prevailing sentiment in the North was that the states were subordinate to the Federal power; in other words, the South held that the Confederation was of sovereign states by virtue of a compact between the states revocable at will for cause, whereas the North held that it was a nation sovereign quoad its own maintenance and protection, and to it the states and their people owed allegiance. The election of Mr. Lincoln was therefore viewed by the South with the deepest concern and with serious alarm in respect both as to their status in the government and to the security of their property in their slaves.

They saw, or thought they saw, in the election of the representative of the radical wing of the North not only the downfall of the rights of the states in the Territories but of their sovereignty itself and also an emancipation of their slaves, and these fears were sedulously stimulated by the politicians of the South, notably of the Gulf states, and were not a little fomented by wily Democrats [in] the North (who swore in high places to stand musket in hand by the South in case of resort to force on the part of [the] Federal government to constrain the South) until the Cotton states under such influences withdrew from the Union and established a rival Confederacy on the base of state sovereignty.

While the extreme South was so exercised, the excitement in the other states was intense and to such a degree even in the North that it was deemed necessary for the safety of the President-Elect to enter the Federal capital immediately preceding his inauguration, privately unheralded in the night-time, in disguise.

The cabinet which Mr. Lincoln drew around him did not, as it was hoped, lull the excited fears of the country, but on the contrary, added fuel to the fire, at least in the South. The Cotton states had not waited for this period but had already dissolved their connection with the Union and established another and rival Confederacy. The seceding states already were using every effort to persuade the eight remaining slave states to abandon the old and become part of the new Confederacy. They sent to these border states their most gifted men, and to Virginia especially these heralds came to persuade her to abandon her own creation and link her future with theirs, protesting that so to do was to establish her independence and advance her glory.

Virginia was racked from center to circumference, and her people, all loyal in their devotion to her, pondered which was the path of her duty. The struggle in her heart was whether on the one hand to link her fortunes with those who had abandoned the Union which her Conscript Fathers had contributed in such large degree to establish and maintain, or on the other hand to separate from and abandon to their fate her sisters to whom she was bound by cords of love and interest stronger than hoops of steel.

3. Virginia’s Loyalty to Union

The prevailing sentiment in Virginia had from the birth of the Republic been [one] of intense loyalty to the Union, and her people were prepared to suffer much and long before they could be brought to give her assent to the dismantlement of the fabric which had for more than three-quarters of a century challenged the admiration of the civilized world.

Under the impulses of such a loyalty which theretofore had never shown variableness nor shadow of change, and with sincere regard and desire for her rights as a state and for the welfare of the seceding states, the sovereign people of Virginia under the call of the General Assembly of the state met at Richmond in state convention assembled one day early in February, 1861, to consider the exigency of the occasion and, if possible, to devise measures which at once would maintain the integrity of the Union and secure to all the states the full, free and undisturbed enjoyment of their rights under the Federal Constitution.

4. Peace Convention

In this convention, regardless of political antecedents, were the best, purest and ablest men in the state, and for very much the larger part, they were men without fear and above reproach. Never assembled a body of men in Virginia or elsewhere more deeply impressed with a sense of responsibility [nor] more determined to meet it; in overwhelming proportion they were Union men. A comparatively small number of the delegates were secessionists per se, and the submissionists all under all circumstances were in still fewer numbers. The former were active, zealous, aggressive, whereas the submissionists were content to lie dormant. The intermediate class were of divers shades from those who were for fighting in the Union for the sake of the Union, to those who were for fighting under another banner when all peaceful measures had been tried and exhausted.

The secessionists were impatient of delay. The submissionists waited for something to turn up, while the other class needed the application of fire to vivify them into aggressive action. The history of that convention abundantly shows how earnest and patient was the struggle to ward off the evil day. Day by day measures were discussed—time and again appeals were made to the Federal Government and to the states of the North and to the states of the South to stay the progress of secession; and with each unsuccessful effort, new impetus was given to the zeal of the secessionists, and a spirit of disunion was being scattered broadcast over the state, and it was fanned by the repulses of the government. Love for the Union grew weaker and weaker. Yet the convention held to its purpose to save the Union if possible, and the goal of the secessionists, after months of deliberation, seemed to be as far away in the future as when [their] labors first began.

Early in January, 1961 there had met at Richmond in an upper chamber, in sight of the state capitol, twenty-five gentlemen from different sections of the state—sojourners for the winter in Richmond who organized themselves into an association to discuss the question and promote the doctrine of States’ Rights and to facilitate the secession movement by some fixed plan of operations to work up in each city, town and county a sentiment of disunion where none then existed, and to encourage and advance it where it did exist, which thereafter should be made influential through a popular convention to be held at the State Capitol, so to impress the State Convention as to hasten its action directly and with certainty to a dissolution of Virginia’s connection with the Federal Union.

[These] twenty-five Virginia gentlemen were pledged to each other to spare no honorable effort to effect [the association’s] purpose. They met at regular weekly meetings and oftener, if required, on call of chairman, and the association had the benefit of the counsel of the more elderly and distinguished men of the state who were apprised of its purposes. Some of these gentlemen were members of the Convention and of the state legislature (which was, at that time, also in session) with whom frequent interviews were had by individual members of the association. Occasionally, upon invitation, the wisest and most distinguished attended the meetings and addressed the association and submitted plans of operation. The plan which was finally adopted was presented by two Democrats who were high in the favor of that party, one of whom was afterwards Secretary of War under the Con federate Government. Henry A. Wise also presented his plan of fighting in the Union, which, however, received no favor. The plan as finally adopted was as follows.

(Compiler’s note: Here ends Colonel French’s account of the Convention; the concluding portion is lost. But the result of that convention, as everyone should know, is now a matter of history.)

5. Vote for Secession

A resolution to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and privileges and powers granted under the said Constitution was introduced in the Convention by William B. Preston, who had been theretofore a strong supporter of the Union. The acceptance of this resolution meant that Virginia would return to the status of an independent state by revoking the action whereby she had joined the Union.

On April 17, 1861, the Convention voted for secession, the count being 103 to 46. An Ordinance of Secession was drawn, which would become effective upon ratification by the voters of the Commonwealth of Virginia on May 23. However, the exigencies of the time would permit no delay. On April 23, John Tyler placed before the Convention a tentative treaty with the Confederate States of America which was adopted, and on April 29, the Convention elected five men to represent Virginia in the Confederate Congress.

The vote on May 23 indicated a six-to-one majority for secession—125,950 to 20,373.

From the official copy of the Ordinance of Secession, which is in the Virginia State Library, the signature of the Convention delegates are noted. Among them are:

"William B. Preston, John Tyler, E. M. Armstrong, John Baldwin, George Baylor, M. W. Fisher, William Campbell Scott, William T. Thornton, G. M. Cabell, G. L. Graham, Henry A. Wise, James Barbour, John Critcher Samuel Price, T. R. Slaughter, Alex H. H. Stuart, S. G. Staples, James B. Dorman, Napoleon B. French, Addison Hall, W. South all, William L. Goggin, John Goode, Jr., James Holcombe, Lewis Doswell, Charles Mallory, R. L. Scott, J. L. Sharp, James E. Strange, John Armistead Carter, Robert L. Montague, John Echols, and other signatures not so legible.{1}

(Note: The following is taken from a reprint of The Richmond Journal of April 22, 1861. The article is of special interest because it appears directly under a photograph of Governor Letcher of Virginia and his reply to Lincoln’s proclamation of a blockade of Southern ports, and because it was written and signed by Colonel "Chester" S. Basset French, Secretary to Governor Letcher.)

"We give below the resolutions passed yesterday by the popular Convention in this city which is the first response of the people held in the Metropolitan Hall in the city of Richmond on Thursday, April 18, 1861, on the motion of the Honorable Willoughby Newton, it was unanimously Resolved, that the thanks of this Convention be cordially tendered to the State Convention for the noble act of patriotic duty which they have just performed; and forgetting all past dissensions, we will rally