A History of the American People

which, at this stage, he could see clear, and he stuck to it. This strategy, in turn, set off the
mechanism of the war. On asserting its independence in December 186o, South Carolina called
on the custodians of all federal property within the state to surrender it. Major Robert Anderson,
the federal commander of the fortifications in Charleston Harbor, concentrated his forces in Fort
Sumter and refused to act without instructions from Washington; President Buchanan, lax in
most ways, likewise declined to have the federal forces evacuated. General F. W. Pickens of
South Carolina thereupon trained his guns on the Fort. When Lincoln took over, the Cabinet
deliberated on what to do. The Commander-in-Chief, General Scott, who might have been
expected to be anxious to poke his old imbecile' enemy Davis in the eye, in fact advised doing nothing. Five out of seven members of Lincoln's Cabinet agreed with him. But Lincoln decided otherwise. His decision to send a relieving expedition by sea, carrying food but no arms or ammunition, and to inform General Pickens of what he was doing, demonstrated his policy of upholding the Union at any cost. The response of the Confederate forces, to fire on the Fort, and the flag, was a decision to secede at any cost. That began the war on April 12, 1861. As the South was arming and recruiting, Lincoln had no alternative but to take steps too.The
star-spangled banner has been shot down by Southern troops,' he said, and on April 15 asked for
75,000 volunteers (answered by 92,000 within days). This move by Lincoln was, curiously
enough, the last straw' which pushed Virginia (and so North Carolina) into secession. This, too, was undemocratic since the state convention voted 88 to 55, on April 17, to submit an Ordinance of Secession to a popular plebiscite. However, the governor put the state under Confederate command without waiting for the vote. This event was decisive for many reasons. Virginia was the most important of the original colonies, the central element in the Revolutionary War, and the provider of most of the great early presidents, as well as of the US Constitution itself. For the state which had done more than any other to bring the Union into existence to leave it in such an underhand and unconstitutional manner was shabby beyond belief. It is astonishing that the Virginians put up with it. And of course many of them did not. The people of West Virginia, who had no slaves, broke off and formed a separate state of their own, acknowledged by Congress as the State of West Virginia in 1863. General Lee, the state's most distinguished soldier, had been asked by Lincoln to become commander-in-chief of the Union forces. This was a wise choice and would have been a splendid appointment, for Lee was decent, honorable, and sensible as well as skillful. But Lee was a Virginian before anything else and he waited to see what Virginia did. When Virginia seceded, he reluctantly resigned his commission in the US Army, which he had served for thirty-two years. It seems to us quixotic but he felt he had no other option. He wrote to his sister in Baltimore and his brother in Washington DC:With all my devotion to the Union, and the
feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to
raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.’
Arkansas seceded on May 6. The next day Tennessee formed an `alliance' with the
Confederacy, the only decision to be endorsed by popular vote. North Carolina, sandwiched
between Virginia and South Carolina, had not much choice and joined on May 20. Missouri was
divided but refused to join the Confederacy. Delaware was solid for the Union but shaky on
coercion. Maryland too protested against coercion but declined to summon a state convention
and so remained in the Union. Kentucky initially refused to send volunteers at Lincoln's request
but by the end of 1861 had joined the Union war-effort. So only eleven out of the fifteen slave
states formed the Confederacy.