'War Inevitable' (1861)

Source: The Polynesian. Honolulu: Thursday, June 6, 1861

All eyes still turn with increasing anxiety towards America, and each arrival, pointing as it does to a portentous future, betokening a bloody and terrible struggle of some kind, only whets the appetite for further news from the scene of approaching conflict. The advices brought by the Asterion on the 2d instant, published on our next page, are only three days later, and consequently throw but little additional information on the state of affairs at the South. One thing only seem certain -war is inevitable. The telegraphs South of Washington are all cutoff, so that very little authentic news is being published from thence, except such as is brought by circuitous conveyances. The policy of the Southern Government is inevitably to keep its military plans as concealed as possible from the federal government, hoping thereby to gain some advantages in any movements which it may make.

There can be no doubt that before the 1st July there will be at least 250,000 soldiers under arms in the service of the General Government, or subject to its call at a moment’s notice. This large force, or so much of it as may be required, will be employed in various parts of the border, mainly to act as a guard for defense, in case of attack from any quarter. The New York Herald gives the following programme of what the government will do which appears very plausible, though the number required to effectively blockade all the Southern ports will be much larger than that designated:

First-A corps d’armie of 35,000 men will be collected in and about Washington for the purpose of defending the seat of Government, protecting the military posts, controlling the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay, and keeping open the communication between the North and the Capital. Washington will serve for its point d’ appui, while its line of operation will extend along the left bank of the right shore of the bay. 

Second-A second corps, 25,000 strong, will be formed in and around St. Louis. A portion of it will be employed in protecting the Union men and Federal property in that state from the violence of secession sympathizers, and the rest in holding Cairo, and the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, the most important strategical point in the West.

Third-Of the remaining 40,000-5000 are expected to be thrown into Western Texas, to form a nucleus around which the Unionists of that State will gather.

Fourth-25,000 will be employed in a demonstration for the relief of Fort Pickens and the recapture of the other fortifications around Pensacola bay.

Fifth-10,000 men will be kept hovering in steam transports between Charleston and Savannah, to worry the rebels by necessitating the presence of a large defensive force in both places, and effect a landing wherever opportunity shall offer.

The army operations will be seconded by a strict blockade of the mouths of the Mississippi and all the Southern Ports. Orders for a general blockade have not as reported already, been issued but will doubtlessly be given as soon as the steam-frigates now fitting out will be ready for sea. 

This programme reflects exactly what the Government has decided to do, but will of course be materially changed in case Virginia and the other Border Slave States should secede. Washington, however, will be defended, and Fort Pickens relieved at any cost of blood and treasure.

We cannot better fill our columns to-day than by inserting another of the admirable letters of Mr. J.W. Simonson to the Bulletin, written from Washington, which gives probably a better insight into the relative position of the two sections of the country, which are soon to be engaged in war. The writers sympathies are, of course, altogether with the North and do allowance should be made for that circumstance; but many facts are given which will be read with interest, and which are necessary to a correct understanding of the claims and position of the North and South: 

THE CIVIL WAR-NORTH AND SOUTH CONTRASTED.
-I shall be expected to say something in respect to the probable issue of the Civil War if it must come let me say at the beginning that it cannot and will not be a war for “the subjugation of the South,” but in defense of the government and to prevent it subjugation by the South. It is the seceding States who rebel and who seek to overturn. The Government, which consequently must always have the advantage that belongs to him who stands on the defense only. Government does not propose “invasion of the South,” only to retake its own property where ever it can, and to execute such of the laws of United States now as will make it a necessity of existence that the remainder shall be voluntarily obeyed by the rebels by and by. Thus, for instance, they will blockade ports of the Seceding States in order to prevent smuggling and execute the revenue laws. Similar guards against smuggling will be instituted  on the inland border in the waters traversing the loyal and disloyal states. These things done and supplies caught off from the Seceding States, the latter must either return their allegiance, retire from their assault upon their assault upon the Constitution, or make offensive, and invasive war against the Government. To do this, they will need twice the force which the Government will need for successful defense. The call of the Government for 75,000 men, has already brought forth proffers of at least 300,000 and if they are needed, the state of the North alone can furnish and keep in the field half 1 million of men. Jefferson, after four months of recruiting, has an army of 25,000 men. True, the telegraph tells us that he will call for 150,000 more. This is simply a desperate brag and it betrays only is insanity or insincerity. Nothing can be better settled than that the Confederate States are wholly unable to raise any such force as thus proposed. Their utmost possible force of citizens able to bear arms, even for defense at home ,is 300,000 -or one-eighth their entire white population -and more than half of these must be kept at other pursuits of life, to say nothing of the force necessary to keep the slave population in subjection. As to arming, clothing, and feeding any such force as 175,000 men the proposition is simply absurd. Each soldier and campaign costs not less than $600 per annum to the government employing him, which, multiplied by 175,000 gives an aggregate costs of $105 million annually for this simple item! The Confederate States have not been able to raise $15,000,000, even on forced loans, and moneyed men will not and cannot, be expected willingly to contribute their funds to the creation of the state of anarchy which destroys all property values and makes the rich man poorer than the poor. 

On the other hand let me quote the late secession organ, the N.Y. Herald, upon the strength of the North, as that authority, speaking against its own inclinations must be admitted to tell no more than the truth. It says:

The Northern and Western States have an enrolled militia of nearly two and a half millions of men, most of whom are trained to the use of firearms ,and can make a pretty good shot, and many of them are regularly drilled and disciplined in organized companies. These States have also abundance of munitions of war and money enough at command to sustain a large force in the field. There exists, moreover, a perfect unanimity of feeling to make all these resources available to the surface of the Government. It is true that half the men who are now hurrying on to Washington do not care who is President; many of them may be opposed to Mr. Lincoln and his party; but they do care for the integrity of life the permanency of the republic and in the sentimental all party predilections prejudices are now submerged. 

The North and the South are equal in courage. If either has superior endurance and coolness it is the North who is climate makes the blood runs slower, but the pulses in whose patriotic bosoms we all the more fiercely and persistently when once aroused. The lion which will longest bear shaking by the mane is most terrible when at last excited beyond endurance -and so it will be, as someone has expressed it, when the people of the East go in to battle “singing psalms” while dealing death. These are no words of menace. God save me in this unhappy hour of our country, from any any disposition to do injustice, or to offer taunt to the people of any section. The issues of war now-a-days are accurately measured by the amount of money which belligerents can respectively command. Cash is equivalent to miracle numerical superiority in men and all else that makes an army terrible and invincible, for it supplies subsistence, munitions, perfection of engines of human destruction, and means of rapid transportation. The combatant who excels in the means of war and has equal skill and wielding them must win in the end. This premise is universally admitted, and it relieves us at once of all doubt as to the issue of the impending contest. Concede, as we do, in the Seceding States, personal courage to the equal to that of the loyal States, and the former are still left in a hopeless inferiority and all other respects. The Confederate States contain a white population of 2,500,000 or about one-eighth the population of the Northern States. The latter can, if necessary, bring a force eight times greater into the field. All the Slave States together have a white population of only 8,000,000 against 19,000,000 in the North. Measured by numbers, the North's twice and a half as powerful, assuming all the Southern States to be a unit in sentiment and purpose. But this is impossible. Missouri in no contingency will join the Gulf Confederacy, neither will Delaware or Maryland or Western Virginia or Eastern Kentucky, nor Tennessee. In case of hostilities the proper surveillance over the negro would compel at least one half of the white males to remain at home as a local police, increasing the disparity to such a degree is to render it the height of foolhardiness for the South to venture upon the contest. They cannot be expected to overcome impossibilities, and they have no grievance calling for exhibitions of the stoicism which leads men sometimes to seek death rather than yield to the force of surrounding circumstances. 

They have no munitions of war except their small arms and a few cannon; nor have they a single manufactory of arms or a powder mill in all the Seceded States. They cannot arm themselves efficiently, therefore, however brave, especially when the Federal Government commands the sea and blockades all their ports. Neither do they manufacture a yard of cloth suitable for soldiers clothing, or raise a pound of food for their rations. They must be supplied with these from the North, if at all; and the granaries of the Northwest, which are ready to pour forth their treasures like water to feed our Southern brethren, free of cost if they need it, are our friends, will be sealed to them by war as closely as a vice. Even for its own safety from starvation, the Cotton States must this year devote all their slave labor to the raising of food, while the North has stores enough on hand to keep the wolf from the door, though no crop is raised during the summer campaign.

But it is in money that the disloyal States are weakest. They spend the price of the cotton crop always before it is raised, and have no funds of any consequence to fall back upon.  Every bank in South Carolina is broken, and the first bugle-note of war broke down Southern State stocks and bank stocks so terribly that they are a drug at any price. While over $100,000,000 is been freely tendered to the United States Government within the last week, the $15,000,000 loan of the Confederate States cannot be got rid of two voluntary purchasers. The moment a State secedes, her credit is ruined -for secession becomes repudiation by ultimately rendering her unable to pay her debts. A people who trample on the Constitution they have sworn support will not hesitate and throwing off a debt whenever it is found a burden. Mississippi and Florida, even for slighter temptation, blasted their financial reputations long years ago, and the stain is so deep and damning as to cast a shadow over its associates. It is a warning. Neither the Confederate States nor its individual members can have any credit abroad, and every dollar of available means in the hands of its people at home must be exhausted in a very brief time. It is a terrible reflection in times like these that the wealth of the seceding States consist chiefly of lands and negroes, and war renders both the species of property almost valueless, while they are entirely so for work purposes. The disloyal States can get no money except by spoilation, which will soon exhaust itself. 

Again the loyal States have an immense advantage in the fact that they hold the commerce and command the sea, so that the Confederate States are quite at their mercy in their numerous vulnerable points of attack upon the coast. They need 2000,000 men as defense against 10,000 on board a well-appointed fleet. One day this force could threaten Norfolk, the next Wilmington, the next Charleston, the next Savannah; than Florida, Mobile, New Orleans and Galveston. No one could tell where the blow was to be struck, and consequently every menaced point would have to be well guarded. Such a fleet and force could in six months put the whole South in a perfect frenzy, by constantly hovering upon their coast with hostile demonstrations. And yet with the mercantile marine of New York in Boston at their disposal Government could precipitate 100,000 men upon any required point. A dozen points could be threatened at the same moment, and having thus the command of the sea in the hands of the North, the South, having no navy, nor ships, nor sailors, could not defend themselves with even ten times their presents number. They have more than 5,000 miles of frontier line to protect; what folly then to talk of invading the North. Would to Heaven that wise councils might stay the mad passions of the rebel conspirators, and avert them from the destruction towards whose brink they rush. There is one door of escape left open for them- the Congress to meet in July. The Herald (I quote it because its view will not be supposed to be those of a partisan Republican,) speaking of the President, says:

But he has chosen to cut the Gordian knot the north response was startling unanimity and we must deal with the solemn facts of war which are before us. We presume that Virginia and the other Border Slave States will come up with the representatives of the North to Congress in July and that their object in coming will be a treaty of peace. In this connection the resolute policy of Mr. Lincoln and General Scott, and the significant co-operation and enthusiasm of the North may operate powerfully in behalf of peace with the beleaguered Southern Confederacy. 

If the Border Slave States cannot a present act with the Northern States in this great crisis, neutrality is their best policy; and we think they will adopt it to escape the destructive visitations of this Civil War upon themselves; in the field of warlike operations being thus confined to the Seceding States, their reduction or destruction appears almost inevitable. Beyond a year or two of exhausting civil war, they cannot hold out without losing the monopoly of the cotton culture; for if our Southern supplies of cotton fail beyond a year or two, they may be raised in other parts of the world to supply the world’s necessities. 

The same journal, arguing that the Border Slave States will not rush into the whirlpool of civil war, but will arrange for a position of armed neutrality, has the following:

We are inclined to this opinion from the fact that secession and full cooperation with the Montgomery government would only throw the brunt of the war upon Virginia and the Border Slave States in making, them the field of battle, but in bringing down the Canadian fugitive slave line to the borders of Virginia, she would risk a grand stampede and demoralization of her slaves, which might only end with the destruction of her to hundred millions of cash involved in her slave property. And so with Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. The Union is indispensable to the safety of their slave property in this crisis of Civil War. Let Virginia secede and let General Jeff Davis establishes military headquarters at Richmond as it is said he expects to do and amidst the confusion of contending armies Within their borders Virginia will hazard the additional calamities of a ruinous demoralization of her Negros.

If the Border States haply take this position the war at worst will be a short one; if they, on the other hand united with the Confederate States, or allow the Southern force to cross their soil to invade the capital, Virginia will become the battle ground, and will necessarily be devastated by fire and sword, while her slave population will in 80 days be entirely beyond its borders either South or North. Virginia neutral in the war becomes little more than a blockade of the Southern ports; Virginia active in hostility, and no man can estimate the baptism of horrors through which our country must pass. The bonds of the Northern States today or almost as good as before the war panic broke out, and many of them are at a high premium. The stocks of Virginia have going to 50 per cent, already, and holders have not the least idea what they are worth a cent except the State keeps out of fratricidal war. It is Jeff Davis's purpose to have the war on her soil, if he is to have it all, for his own dominions are barren of food. He must move his army to a theater where food can be seized or he must disband. So, too, if he can transfer the war two Virginia, Davis probably thinks there will be peace at home and that cotton can by cultivated their next summer. In that he is greatly mistaken; for if he attempts invasion, he will be repelled by invasion. If he comes towards this capital he will be attacked in the in the rear, while chivalrous Virginia for the sack of her cities the desolation of her fields, the liberation of her Negroes, and see all her interests completely blasted by the military despot. Of all the States that have seceded, or threatened to secede, Virginia is the most vulnerable and exposed. The United States holding Fort Monroe completely cuts off her communication with the sea. From this port expeditions may penetrate by water far into the interior. On the North, Washington will be a fortified camp of 25,000 men. On the west, she will be threatened by her own free territory, and by Ohio and Pennsylvania. Between all these forces she will be grounded to powder-eaten up by those who profess to come to her aid and commanded at every turn to buy the overwhelming forces of the United States. 

But Jeff Davis threatens our commerce with privateers. The threat is perfectly idle. His letter of marque will be laughed to scorn, and every man who accepts one will be treated as a pirate wherever found. The Southern ports will all be blockaded by the United States, and there will be no port in the world to which they can carry a prize for god condemnation every naval power of the world who will be compelled to aid us and sweeping these piratical craft from the seas. The only danger of this piratical proclamation of Davis is that it may provoke the in roads of scores of John Brown Crusaders into the Southern States, for the express purpose of setting free of the Southern slaves, and arming them against the Southern rebels. The “property” of the South is much more open to assault and even the commerce of the Northern States. No letters of marque and reprisal will be needed to make the wort effective heaven save the land from so fearful and demonic a retaliation but it forced to the death struggle men will strike at that point there assailants person which is most exposed. 

Even the dastardly New York Express which has been the least manly of all the opponents of the administration has wheeled intuit support. As another evidence of the overwhelming unanimity of sentiment of the North I take from the journal in question the following: 

Not another gun cannon revolver or pound of powder should be permitted to go to the Seceding States. The President of United States, through his revenue officers, should instantly stop their exportations and states should stop their intern transit trade. The port of Charleston ought to be instantly blockaded there may be no wall for it but South Carolina has put herself out of the protection of any loss of hours she does not respect us and we cannot be expected to respect her.