Seventh had reached Perryville, on the Susquehanna, some days before. Finding further transit by rail impracticable, Butler had availed himself of the railway company's ferry-boat there, and taken his men thereon by the river and the bay to Annapolis, where he possessed himself of the old ship Constitution, then in use at the Naval Academy; later went into camp on shore, regardless of the personal protest of Governor Hicks; sent the ferry-boat back for more troops and for supplies, and began to advance along the line of the Annapolis Branch railway, of which the track had been torn up and the locomotives disabled. Both the rails and the engines were put in order as rapidly as his soldiers, including many skilled machinists, could do the work, and soon trains were running to the Junction and to Washington, bearing their freight of Northern legions, and letting in full daylight on the darkness of the capital city. The Seventh Regiment of New York was the first to arrive there, marching in its beautiful way down Pennsylvania Avenue, to the delight of a multitude of welcoming beholders. Other soldiers came with little delay, and henceforward at will.

The severest calamity that had actually befallen the Government during this time was in the losses it had suffered at Norfolk and Gosport. Among the vessels there were the steam frigate Merrimac, forty guns scuttled by the commandant, but afterwards raised and made into a formidable iron-clad by the Confederates; the Cumberland, in which the officers of the post made their escape; the Plymouth, Raritan, Germantown, Columbia, Dauphin, the old three-decked Pennsylvania, the Delaware, and the Columbus-the last two being

dismantled seventy-fours. There were also two or three thousand cannon, as estimated, munitions, stores, timber, and other valuable property, either destroyed or captured. In general, the destruction aimed at was far from effectual. The actual aggregate cost of all these classes of property, in time of peace, was reckoned as high as ten million dollars. Great as was the pecuniary sacrifice herein comparison with which that at Harper's Ferry was but slight—the losses in both cases were enhanced by the fact that these war materials were pressingly needed and could not be readily replaced.

As to Norfolk and Gosport there were, very naturally, complaints of culpable neglect or mismanagement. The officer in command there, Captain McCauley, was well advanced in years, and without judicial inquiry was directly after placed on the retired list. Captain Paulding had been dispatched from Washington with the steam frigate Pawnee to that post on the 19th, with orders to supersede McCauley. Arriving at Old Point Comfort next day, he took four hundred and fifty Massachusetts soldiers on board, and reached Gosport in the evening. Paulding had discretionary powers, but was instructed to take care, at all events, that the Government property in that quarter should not fall into the hands of the insurgents. He found that McCauley had already begun the work of destruction, and tried to make it complete. Without awaiting attack, he departed at midnight, his retreating course being illuminated by the flames of ships and boats, marine barracks, storehouses, and other combustible materials of the abandoned post, of which the enemy took prompt possession.

Harper's Ferry was occupied by Virginia militia soon after the retirement of Lieutenant Jones. There, as at Norfolk, the insurgents saved much valuable property. The important bridge of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway at that point was destroyed by them, and this great western thoroughfare closed.

Fortress Monroe, fortunately secured in time, was presently further reinforced by the arrival of the First Vermont Regiment, under Colonel J. W. Phelps.

CHAPTER XXIV.

1861.

Taking Up the Burden of War.

On the very day, as it happened, that Washington was isolated by the Baltimore outbreak, the President proclaimed a blockade of the insurgent ports. Whether blockade or embargo were better was discussed in Cabinet. Did not declaring a blockade under the war power of the Government involve a concession of belligerent rights to the Confederates? Secretary Welles, whose department was charged with executing the great undertaking, favored an embargo. Secretary Seward, to whom the matter belonged in its foreign relations, believed a blockade would involve fewer complications, and that British construction would deny the right of a government to close any port not in its actual possession. To maintain a blockade of the extent proclaimed would require a large and effective naval force; but in this respect the embargo, which avoided some seeming inconsistencies, would have little advantage, and to gain and keep actual possession of all the Southern ports was at present out of the question. The President appears to have agreed with Mr. Seward from the first.

At the beginning of the War of 1812, Jefferson wrote privately (June 28th) to President Madison: "Upon

the whole, I have known no war declared under more favorable circumstances." He confidently expected the prompt conquest of Canada and an early peace. On the 6th of February following, after disasters and mortifications, he wrote to Madison of the events of the war:

Our first entrance on them has been peculiarly inauspicious. Our men were good, but force without conduct is easily baffled. The Creator has not thought proper to mark those on the forehead who are of stuff to make good Generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of losses

President Lincoln, at the beginning of a great war, had at his side a veteran commander famous in both hemispheres. Secretary Chase justly declared that General Winfield Scott was venerated" by the American people. The South would have deemed it victory itself to gain the grand old Virginian as their leader in arms. But the Lieutenant-General was as unhesitating and as faithful now as when, thirty years earlier, he aided in putting down the first outbreak of disunion in South Carolina. The very name of Winfield Scott was' assuring.

Aside from the blockade, which was deemed of prime moment, two objects required immediate care. First, to hold the national capital, confidently claimed by the Confederate press and orating leaders as a speedy prey; and, secondly, to re-possess Federal forts and property already captured by the seceding authorities. Military and naval preparations for these ends were pushed with such rapidity as the conditions permitted. The late Adjutant-General Cooper and Brigadier-General Lee in whom Scott had specially confided- had at the last