h-west, and the Capitol at Washington, to the control of a
foreign nation, hostile to us from the very nature of its institutions.
In fact, it was a proposition to commit national suicide. The new
Northern republic would have been three thousand miles long, and only
one hundred miles wide, in the vicinity of Wheeling. A country of such a
peculiar shape could not, as every military man knows, have been
successfully defended, and must inevitably have soon broken up into
small confederacies. We objected, with reason, to the formation of a
European monarchy in far-off Mexico, but the proposed separation would
have created a powerful slave empire, with its northern border within
eighteen miles of Philadelphia. Once firmly established there and along
the Ohio, the Southern army could have burned Cincinnati from the
opposite shore, and have penetrated to Lake Erie by a single successful
battle and march, permanently severing the East from the West.

These unexpected views of Mr. Greeley strengthened the hands of the
Disunionists. They were everywhere quoted as evidence that no attempt
would be made to interfere with or coerce the South. The fearful and
wavering were thus induced to join the clamorous majority.

I think, too, that the publication of these sentiments did much to
influence the after-conduct of Major Anderson. He was not a Republican
himself, and he may very well have thought, if the Republican leaders
did not deny the right of secession, there was little use in his
sacrificing his small command in a feeble attempt to make South Carolina
remain in the Union.

The sky darkened after this, for Georgia voted a million of dollars to
raise troops, and it became evident that the other Southern States would
follow in the same direction.

By the 18th of November we considered ourselves reasonably secure
against a _coup-de-main_. Our guns were up, and loaded with canister,
and we had a fair supply of hand-grenades ready for use. With a view to
intimidate those who were planning an attack, I occasionally fired
toward the sea an eight-inch howitzer, loaded with double canister. The
spattering of so many balls in the water looked very destructive, and
startled and amazed the gaping crowds around. I also amused myself by
making some small mines, which would throw a shell a few feet out of the
ground whenever any person accidentally trod upon a concealed plank: of
course the shell did not have a bursting charge in it. These