ILLUSTRATIONS "LET US HAVE PEACE"-APPOMAT- From the painting by Ferris. In the NORTH AND SOUTH IN 1861 Frontispiece Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1862 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- CIVIL WAR: VIRGINIA CAMPAIGNS, Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1863 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- CIVIL WAR: CAMPAIGNS OF 1864 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geo- ла a preface CAPTAINS OF THE CIVIL WAR CHAPTER I THE CLASH: 1861 STATES Which claimed a sovereign right to secede from the Union naturally claimed the corresponding right to resume possession of all the land they had ceded to that Union's Government for the use of its naval and military posts. So South Carolina, after leading the way to secession on December 20, 1860, at once began to work for the retrocession of the forts defending her famous cotton port of Charleston. These defenses, being of vital consequence to both sides, were soon to attract the strained attention of the whole country. There were three minor forts: Castle Pinckney, dozing away, in charge of a solitary sergeant, on an island less than a mile from the city; Fort Moultrie, feebly garrisoned and completely at the mercy of attackers on its landward side; and Fort Johnson over on James Island: Lastly, there was the worldrenowned Fort Sumter, which then stood, unfinished and ungarrisoned, on a little islet beside the main ship channel, at the entrance to the harbor, and facing Fort Moultrie just a mile away. The proper war garrison of all the forts should have been over a thousand men. The actual garrison — including officers, band, and the Castle Pinckney sergeant - was less than a hundred. It was, however, loyal to the Union; and its commandant, Major Robert Anderson, though born in the slaveowning State of Kentucky, was determined to fight. The situation, here as elsewhere, was complicated by Floyd, President Buchanan's Secretary of War, soon to be forced out of office on a charge of misapplying public funds. Floyd, as an ardent Southerner, was using the last lax days of the Buchanan Government to get the army posts ready for capitulation whenever secession should have become an accomplished fact. He urged on construction, repairs, and armament at Charleston, while refusing to strengthen the garrison, in order, as he said, not to provoke Carolina. Moreover, in November he had replaced old Colonel Gardner, a Northern veteran of "1812," by |