The act of rebellion on the part of South Carolina was completed. She was the first state to take the several steps here enumerated leading up to that culmination. She was followed in the act of rebellion by ten other Southern States, as follows—I take the date on which the state conventions passed their secession ordinances to be the date on which the rebellion of the respective states was completed:
Mississippi, January 9th, 1861; Florida, January 10th; Alabama, January 11th; Georgia, January 19th; Louisiana, January 26th; Texas, February 1st; Virginia, April 17th; Arkansas, May 6th; North Carolina, May 20th; Tennessee, June 8th, all of the same year, 1861.12
Having proven that the Great Rebellion began with the rebellion of South Carolina, I wish now to show that the war itself actually began there.
The states which seceded from the union in the last months of Mr. Buchanan's administration, quietly took possession of all the forts within their respective limits, except Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, and Fort Pickens, at Pensacola, Florida; and transferred them to the Confederate States. After the Southern States united into a confederacy, that government "appointed a commission consisting of Mr. John Forsyth, of Alabama, Mr. Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia, and Mr. A. B. Roman, of Louisiana, to open negotiations for the settlement of all matters of joint property, forts, arsenals, arms, or property of any other kind within the limits of the Confederate States, and all joint liabilities with their former associates, upon the principles of right, justice, equity and good faith."13 Separate states previous to this action of the confederate states had sent commissioners to accomplish the same purpose; but of course these gave place to the commission from the general government of the confederacy.
During an attempt of this commission to obtain official recognition from the administration at Washington, active preparations for war were going on at the New York navy yard. Early in April a squadron of seven ships, carrying two thousand four hundred men, and two hundred and eighty-five guns put to sea from New York and Norfolk navy yards, under sealed orders. The design of the enterprise was to re-provision and re-enforce Fort Sumpter, which at the time was held by Major Anderson, with a small garrison of men very ill provisioned for a siege.
On the 8th of April Washington authorities, ignoring the commission in Washington from the Confederate States, sent word to Governor Pickens of South Carolina of a change in the attitude of the general government in regard to unofficial assurances given respecting the withdrawal of Federal forces from Fort Sumter, and declaring the intention of the government to re-provision and re-enforce the garrison there, "peaceably if permitted; otherwise, by force."14
At the time General Gustave T. Beauregard was at Charleston, with six thousand Confederate volunteer troops, for the purpose of defending the city. Governor Pickens informed him of the notice he had received from the authorities at Washington; and General Beauregard immediately telegraphed the information to the Confederate authorities at Montgomery. The reply received by General Beauregard was that, "if he had no doubt of the authenticity of the notice of the intention of the Washington government to supply Fort Sumter by force, to demand at once its evacuation; and if this should be refused, to proceed to reduce it."15
On April the 11th the demand for its evacuation was made. Major Anderson refused to comply with the demand, and at 4:30, on the morning of the 12th of April, 1861, General Beauregard opened fire on the fort, to which the guns of the fort promptly replied. The bombardment lasted thirty-two hours; and then Major Anderson capitulated, though the fleet from the north was within view during the bombardment. "This was the beginning of a war between the states of the Federal Union, which has been truly characterized as 'one of the most tremendous conflicts on record.' The din of its clangor reached the remotest part of the earth and the people of all nations looked on, for four years and upwards, in wonder and amazement, as its gigantic proportions loomed forth, and its hideous engines of destruction of human life and everything of human structure were terribly displayed in its sanguinary progress and grievous duration."16 It began where the Prophet Joseph twenty-eight years before said it would commence—with the rebellion of South Carolina.
II. This war, beginning with the rebellion of South Carolina, did terminate in the death and misery of many souls. Though it is notorious that it did so, let us consider the history of it somewhat in detail. Mr. Alexander H Stephens, in concluding the chapter he devotes to the Civil War, in his history of the United States, says: "The Federal records show that they had, from first to last, 2,600,000 men in the service; while the Confederates all told, and in like manner, had but little over 600,000. * * * Of Federal prisoners during the war, the Confederates took in round numbers 270,000; while the whole number of Confederates captured and held in prisons by the Federals was in like round numbers 220,000. * * * Of the 270,000 Federal prisoners taken, 22,576 died in Confederate hands; and of the 220,000 Confederates taken by Federals, 26,436 died in their hands. * * * The entire loss on both sides, including those who were permanently disabled, as well as those killed in battle, and who died from wounds received and diseases contracted in the service, amounted, upon a reasonable estimate, to the stupendous aggregate of 1,000,000 of men."17
In 1887, the Cincinnatti Commercial Gazette published the following interesting compilation of statistics in relation to the number that fell in the Civil War on the side of the Federal armies:
"Official returns show that about 2,653,000 soldiers enlisted during the war in response to the successive calls of President Lincoln, and of that number 186,097 were colored troops. Reports show that the Northern and Southern armies met in over two thousand skirmishes and battles. In 148 of these conflicts the loss on the Federal side was over 500 men, and in at least ten battles over 10,000 men were reported lost on each side. The appended table shows that the combined losses of the Federal and Confederate forces in killed, wounded, and missing in the following engagements were: Shiloh, 24,000; Antietam, 18,000; Stone River, 22,000; Chickamauga, 33,000; McClellan's Peninsula campaign, 50,000; Grant's Peninsula campaign, 140,000; and Sherman's campaign, 80,000.
"Official statistics show that of the 2,653,000 men enlisted, there were killed in battle 44,238; died of wounds, 49,205; died of disease, 186,216; died of unknown causes, 24,184; total 303,843. This includes only those whose death while in the army had been actually proved. To this number should be added first 26,000 men who are known to have died while in the hands of the enemy as prisoners of war, and many others in the same manner whose deaths are unrecorded; second, a fair percentage of the 205,794 men who are put down on the official reports as deserters and missing in action, for those who participated in the war know that men frequently disappear who, it was certain, had not deserted, yet could not be otherwise officially accounted for; third, thousands who are buried in private cemeteries all over the north, who died while at home on furlough.
"The dead are buried in 73 national cemeteries, of which only twelve are in the Northern States. Amongst the principal ones in the North are Cypress Hill, with its 3,786 dead; Finns Point, N. J., which contains the remains of 2,644 unknown dead; Gettysburg, Pa., with 1,967 known and 1,608 unknown dead; Mound City, Ill., with 2,505 known and 2,721 unknown graves; Philadelphia, with 1,909 dead; and Woodlawn, Elmira, N. Y., with its 3,900 dead. In the South, near the scenes of the terrible conflicts, are located the largest depositories of the slain: Arlington, Va., 16,264, of which 4,319 are unknown; Beaufort, S. C., 9,241, of which 4,493 are unknown; Chalmettee, La., 12,511, of which 5,674 are unknown; Chattanooga, Tenn., 12,972, of which 4,963 are unknown; Fredricksurg, Va., 15,257, of which 12,770 are unknown; Jefferson Barracks, Mo., 11,290, of which 2,900 are unknown; Little Rock, Ark., 5,602, of which 2,337 are unknown; City Point, Va., 5,122, of which 1,374 are unknown; Marietta, Ga., 10,151, of which 2,963 are unknown; Memphis, Tenn., 13,997, of which 8,817 are unknown; Nashville, Tenn., 16,526, of which 4,700 are unknown; Poplar Grove, Va., 6,190, of which 4,001 are unknown; Richmond, Va., 6,542, of which 5,700 are unknown; Salisbury, N. C., 12,126 of which 12,032 are unknown; Stone River, Tenn., 5,602 of which 288 are unknown; Vicksburg, Miss., 16,600 of which 12,704 are unknown; Antietam, Va. 4,671 of which 1,818 are unknown; Winchester, Va., 4,559 of which 2,365 are unknown. In all, the remains of 300,000 men who fought for the stars and stripes find guarded graves in our national cemeteries. Two cemeteries are mainly