Wednesday, April 17, 1861. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Five days ago, Confederate forces began shelling Fort Sumter in South Carolina, which had been captured by Confederate forces three days earlier. The Lincoln administration in Washington issued a crusade two days earlier, and a doomed civil war finally broke out.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, the state legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas are in the final discussion and voting on leaving the Union and joining the League of America, and they will leave the Union at any time and become part of the League of America.

In the midst of tension, in Washington, D.C., it was completely shrouded in a gloomy fog. Washington in 1861 was more of a seedy town than a nation's capital, and because it was originally built on warm land on the riverside, there were more mosquitoes than anywhere else, and the lavish Hotel Villard was its temple in the middle of the city. The roads were littered with horse feces and garbage.

It's a city where the air smells!

But now, the members of the Senate and House of Representatives on the pot-bellied Capitol Hill in Washington are discussing the current situation nervously as if they can't breathe the stench, and the reason why they are so nervous is that the reason why they are so nervous could not be simpler.

To the north of Washington is the slave-raising state of Maryland, and to the south is the state of Virginia, which is preparing to declare secession from the Union. It can be said that Washington is completely surrounded by slave states, and Washington at this time is like an island on the sea, standing in this storm, no, not an island, but a broken ship!

Although President Lincoln had announced the enlistment of 75,000 volunteers on the 15th, due to the urgency of the situation, the northern states loyal to the Union were not fully prepared, so that until now no troops have been able to appear in Washington in time to pacify the panicked people in the capital of the United States.

Even on the banks of the Potomac River, just across the river from Washington, the flag of the "Rebel Army" in the name of the Union has flown over City Hall, a constant reminder of the gravity of Washington's situation. The Richmond Examiner urged Virginians to march into Washington and sweep "that filthy birdcage," and the Confederate Secretary of War predicted that his Confederate flag would fly over the Capitol in Washington by May 1.

Lincoln, president of the United States and responsible for the division of the United States and the outbreak of war in newspapers in the South and parts of the North, now feared a coup d'état in Washington, with its many Southern sympathizers, like Richmond. Just a few days earlier, just as he had announced the call-up of 75,000 volunteers to quell the rebellion in the southern states, thousands of people stormed the state capitol in Richmond, removed the United States' Star-Spangled Banner, and hoisted the Confederate "Seven Star Flag."

Lincoln had to work up to 18 hours a day in dangerous situations, and like any previous American president, anyone who wanted to see him could see him. The White House remains a place where you can come and go as you please, in a sense, anyone who wants to talk to the president can go to the White House and talk to the president in person. On the one hand, he had all the military books in the Library of Congress moved to the White House, and every day he saw late at night, and at the same time, he had to deal with all kinds of people who came to apply for jobs. Just a few minutes earlier, he had sent off Carl Schulz, the leader of the German immigrants who had helped Lincoln run for president, and who was now enlisting his support.

With a tired face, he put on a large black coat and put on his tall black top hat again, his signature top hat can be seen at any point in the noisy halls of the White House. Tall, skinny, with thick black hair, deep-eyed, wrinkled eyes, and a hometown of Southern President Jefferson Davis, both in Kentucky, he was poor, uneducated, and self-taught.

As a leader of German immigration, Schultz had always been a radical, and he demanded that Lincoln take active action against the South, but Lincoln had promised the South at his presidential inauguration a month earlier that the federal government would not be the first to use force against the South. Now that the South has fired its first shot at Sumter Fortress, it's time to act, but Washington doesn't even have troops at his disposal.

"I think Mr. Scholz is the leader of the Germans, and we should unite the immigrants so that Mr. Scholz can do war mobilization among his fellow Germans."

In the conference room of the War Department, Lincoln stared at the general sitting in a chair in front of him, who was not so much sitting as he was seated, and when he was invited here, he could not move. The tassels on his tassel epaulettes hung there so deadly, and there were three silver stars on them, which belonged to the general. On the face that looked cynical because of severe obesity and age spots, those eyes narrowed tiredly. He was Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of the Union Army, and he had been suffering from severe obesity and dizziness for a long time, and now he could not even get downstairs without support, but even so, he was still the most famous general of the Union.

Lieutenant General Scott said, moving his unsmiling mouth.

"It's a good suggestion, and it seems that our country is already pinning its hopes on foreigners...... Let Mr. Schultz recruit his "German Legion" to save the Federation? ”

When he spoke, he tried to move his body, but he didn't move, and he was overweight and couldn't move at all.

"General, I'm just thinking about how I can get more soldiers."

Lincoln defended his actions, saying that German immigrants were the second-largest group in the United States.

How, compared to these things, can we quell a rebellion that "the law and the police alone" cannot stop? This slick man was Lincoln's cabinet member, Secretary of War -- Simon Cameron, the big Pennsylvania boss in the United States who was known for his "corruption."

Lincoln's cabinet was undoubtedly extremely complex, with a mix of former Whigs, former Free Landers, and former Democrats. The Republican Party, originally a small local party, rose to prominence on the resentment of slavery in the North and its unprecedented political platform of abolition. But the Democrats were still the largest party, so it is not difficult to explain the incongruity in the cabinet when Lincoln's campaign promised many of them in the 1860 presidential election in order to unite their forces. Secretary of State Seward wanted to replace Lincoln, and Secretary of the Treasury Chase wanted to replace Seward, but they were privately convinced that they were better suited for the presidency than Lincoln.

This cabinet is undoubtedly chaotic and inefficient.

"I have a plan."

Lieutenant General Scott interrupted the elder Cameron's voice, and as a soldier, he was undoubtedly more direct, and then he mentioned his advice:

"As we all know, the economy of the South is completely dependent on their farms, relying on the cotton produced on their farms, so to speak, the plantations are the lifeblood of the South, they need to sell cotton to Europe, and then exchange it for everything they need, even cotton cloth, after all, the industrial base of the South is weak, not only weapons and equipment need to be imported, but even daily necessities such as cotton cloth and soap need to be imported from Europe, and if we blockade the South, they will be like being entangled by a giant python and finally suffocate to death."

Although Lieutenant General Scott was overweight, his suggestion was undoubtedly the best choice for the South's greatest weakness -- weak industrial power and blockade.

"I don't understand how you're going to carry out this plan that sounds like a fantasy."

As Secretary of State, Seward asked incredulously:

"If we interfere with trade between the South and Europe, what will happen if Europe turns south because of the blockade? Don't forget, the South needs to sell cotton to Europe, it needs to import European arms and supplies, and Europe also needs cotton from the South and needs the markets of the South. Without cotton, there is a good chance that factories in Europe will stop production! Have you considered what kind of reaction our blockade will provoke? Your Excellency, General! ”

Secretary of State William Seward, second only to the vice president, was short, lean, and a white-haired old man with no beard; Before the war began, he believed that a war should be waged against foreign countries, and that the third war between the United States and Britain would not work, so he declared war on France, preferably attacking Spain and occupying Cuba as a gift of compromise with the South. Even when the Chinese fleet visited, he had suggested declaring war on China, after all, it was impossible for China to send their troops to the Americas, and in short, for Seward, he was more inclined to use war to divert domestic problems.

In his view, this would not only save Fort Sumter, but also promote patriotism in the United States, which in turn would reunite the country. But now his statement has become a laughing stock, at least some people's stock, because in the eyes of those people, it turns out that the South is determined to be independent.

"If the South is allowed to maintain trade with Europe unscrupulously, then its strength will continue to increase, and the war will never end, we can see from the newspapers that in the past half month, the South has obtained more than 100,000 rifles and hundreds of artillery pieces from Europe through trade, so to speak, as long as the South is still exporting cotton to Europe, then, their military strength will continue to be enhanced, and now the whole of Europe is ready to provide them with arms, as long as their cotton is still exporting, There's enough money to pay for it all! ”

Lieutenant General Scott retorted, and his rebuttal immediately made Seward speechless, after all, he was telling the truth, and there were too many speculators in Europe.

"General, IMHO, is now our Navy capable of implementing this plan?"

Lincoln, who looked at Vice Admiral Scott, understood that perhaps this was the most advantageous option, so he asked the Secretary of the Navy.

"Mr. President."

The frowning Admiralty Gideon Wells replied with some helplessness:

"Frankly, we don't have that capability at all, because we have less than fifty, 42 ships to be exact, and only two of them can be immediately mission-ready, and they are all old sail ships...... With thousands of miles of coastline and hundreds of ports running south from here to the Gulf of Mexico, how can we effectively blockade the South in the face of such a long coast? ”

When Lincoln heard this, he laughed with everyone present, and then the laughter stopped, and then he stared at Wells with a serious expression and said:

"This can only be solved by our competent Admiralty Chief."

In the face of the president's orders, Wells's expression became even more helpless.

"Oh, the trickiest thing right now is that half of our Navy officers quit en masse and go back to their hometowns in the south."

The South has always had a tradition of serving in the military, and after the declaration of independence in the South, those officers whose hometowns were in the South left the army one after another, and the navy was the hardest hit area.

"This problem is indeed serious, so what does the army have in mind?"

"The army has only 15,000 troops, and most of them are in the west guarding the border between Mexico and Canada, and they will not be able to move for a while. At present, it is said that the mobilization of volunteers in the northern states is going well, and Governor Andrew of Massachusetts has sent a vanguard, but the details are not yet known. There will definitely be plenty of soldiers, and we can only rely on them...... For reasons of preserving state power, each state has its own militia, and it is precisely because of this that it is difficult to coordinate this ready-made military force. ”

The United States has never had a strong standing army, and in fact, even those poor army forces were only deliberately created after the Mexican-American War, fearing that Mexico would attack the United States, and the defense of the United States was completely dependent on the militias of the states. Lincoln was very aware of this, and the reason why he emphasized not to shoot first was because he knew very well that the United States had no power to block the independence of the South, and that he could only legally call up troops until the first sound of the South, and before that, he did not even have the power to mobilize or call up troops.

"And what about the officers of the Army?"

"Like the Navy, a lot of them resigned and went back to the South."

"My God......"

Faced with such a situation, Lincoln could only pray to God.

"There's worse, Mr. President. Washington is almost an empty city at the moment, protected by no military force, and if the rebels arrive today, they can take it without firing a single shot, yes, of course. ”

"If all the men at West Point are gone, who will be the commander of the soldiers?"

Lincoln asked, looking at Lieutenant General Scott.

"If the president needs a field commander, if one day I retire from the position of commander-in-chief of the Union Army,"

Faced with the president's question, there was hardly any hesitation, and Lieutenant General Scott immediately replied.

"I think there's only one person who is right to continue playing for me in this position."

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