war
was the lack of a navy. A navy could not be built in a day, or a year or
two years, were the resources of the Confederacy boundless. The ships of
war now in the possession of the United States were of incalculable
power in such a crisis. The South was cut in every quarter by navigable
rivers. Many of their waters opened on Northern interiors accessible to
great workshops from which new gunboats could be built with rapidity and
launched against the South. The Mississippi River, navigable for a
thousand miles, flowed through the entire breadth of the Confederacy
with its approaches and its mouth in the hands of the North. Both the
Tennessee and the Cumberland rivers had their mouths open to Northern
frontiers and were navigable in midwinter for transports and gunboats
which could pierce the heart of Tennessee and Alabama.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the first purpose of the
President of the Confederacy was to secure peace by all means consistent
with public honor and the trust imposed on him by the people.

His first official act was the dispatch of Confederate Commissioners to
Washington to treat for peace.

The hope that they would be received with courtesy and consideration was
a reasonable one. The greatest newspapers of the North were outspoken in
their opposition to the use of arms against any State of the Union.

The New York _Tribune_, the creator of Lincoln's party, led in this
opposition to the use of force. The Albany _Argus_ and the New York
_Herald_ were equally emphatic. Governor Seymour of New York boldly
declared in a great mass meeting his unalterable opposition to coercion.
The Detroit _Free Press_ suggested that a fire would be poured into the
rear of any troops raised to coerce a State. It was already known that
Mr. Lincoln would not advocate coercion in his inaugural.

Stephen A. Douglas, leader of the millions of the Northern Democracy,
offered a resolution in the Senate of the United States recommending the
immediate withdrawal of the garrisons from all forts within the limits
of the States which had seceded except those at Key West and Dry
Tortugas needful for coaling stations.

"I proclaim boldly," declared the Senator from Illinois, "the policy of
those with whom I act. We are for peace!"

Socola reported to his Chief in Washington that nothing was more certain
than that Jefferson Davis hoped for reunion, with guarantees against
aggression by the stronger section of