f War hastily telegraphed him,
in the middle of the night, to send them back again immediately. And yet
at this same period two thousand additional United States muskets were
forwarded by Floyd's order to South Carolina; and the _Charleston
Courier_ stated that five thousand more were on their way. This did not
look, much as if the Administration intended to sustain us. While the
honorable secretary was thus supplying our enemies with arms, and
leaving the United States Arsenal in Charleston, full of military
stores, without a guard, he was very solicitous to ascertain whether our
garrison duties were accurately performed, and sent an assistant
inspector-general, Major Fitz John Porter, to make a thorough
examination. As the secretary intended neither to re-enforce nor
withdraw us, and as he made no effort at any time to remedy defects in
our armament, this inspection seemed to us to be a mere pretense. It
resulted, however, in relieving Colonel Gardner from his command, on
Porter's recommendation, Major Robert Anderson being ordered to take his
place.

Mr. Greeley was at this time the head of the Republican party, and one
of the great leaders of Northern opinion. His immense services in
rousing the public mind to the evils of slavery can not be
overestimated, but some of his views were too hastily formed and
promulgated. In this crisis of our history he injured the cause he
afterward so eloquently advocated by publishing an opinion, on the 9th
of November, that the South had a perfect right to secede whenever a
majority thought proper to do so; and, in another communication, he
stated that the Union could not be pinned together with bayonets.
General Scott was also at one time in favor of letting the "wayward
sisters depart in peace;" and I have heard on good authority that at
least one member of the Cabinet and one leading general, appalled by the
magnitude of the conflict, were willing to consent to a separation,
provided the Border States would go with the North. Greeley's article
went farther than this, for it seemed to favor a simple severance of the
North and the South. This was not only a virtual abandonment of the
rights of Northern men who had invested their capital in the Southern
States, but it amounted to giving up all the sea-coast and magnificent
harbors south of New Jersey, including Chesapeake Bay. It was expressing
a willingness to surrender the mouth of the Mississippi, the commerce of
the great Nort