Page 27, for "12-pounders," read " 10-pounders."

Page 46, first line, for " 'right," read "left."

Page 46, second line, for "execution on our left," read "still further on
the left of Griffin's."

Page 112, sixth line from bottom, for "corps," read "division."

Page 113, eighth line from bottom, for " Bucklin's," read "Buckley's."
Page 115, seventh and eighth lines from bottom, omit "under the tem-
porary command of Col. Nelson Viall." Col. V. took temporary com-
mand of the Mass. 10th at a subsequent date.

Page 116, third line from top, for "Lieut. Waterman," read "Capt.
Weeden." Lieut. Waterman had command of battery C. Allen's Mass.
battery was under the supervision of Capt. Weeden.

Page 116, fifteenth line from top, for "42-pounder," read "32-pounder."
Page 159, eleventh line from top, for "Martindale's brigade," read
"Griffin's brigade."

Page 159, third line from bottom, for "12-pounder," read "10-pounder."
Page 166, third line from bottom, for "Martindale's brigade read "Grif-
fin's brigade.

Page 188, eighth line from bottom, for "18-pounders," read "12-pound-
ers."

Page 297, bottom line, bombardment of Fort Pulaski, should read
April 10th and 11th."

Page 295, Major George Metcalf was commissioned in November, 1863.

INTRODUCTION.

The strangest occurrence of the Nineteenth Century is the attempt commenced, in 1861, to break up our national Union, and to establish, within its limits, a new nation upon the basis of Slavery. Without stopping to discuss the constitutional rights of that institution, or the right or the wrong of its presence on the North American Continent, it is a marvel scarcely less than that excited by the toleration of its iniquities for eighty-five years, that those who lived in the midst of its immoralities, witnessed daily its inhumanities, and saw, as they must, its antagonism to the purity of social life, and its dangerous nature as an element of State policy, should desire not merely its perpetuation, but its extension over regions still free from its blight. Yet such appears the fact, however unaccountable on purely moral grounds. By the natural growth of public opinion adverse to the chattel idea, and the power imparted to free labor by the agency of education, the friends of slavery saw their cherished system losing its controlling influence; and though, as its candid supporters frankly confessed, there was no just ground for complaint against the Free States on the score of unconstitutional aggression, yet, with suicidal fanaticism, the supporters of slavery resorted to every measure short of personal violence, and in some instances including that, to regain lost prestige and to ensure success to their favorite idea of expansion.

The framers of the Constitution, representing the South, were alive to the evils of slavery, and sincerely wished its abolition. The opinions of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and other leading statesmen of the Slave States, are too well known to require repetition. They saw the necessity of union on some common ground, and if they adopted the National Compact with the clause touching involuntary servitude less clear, as to its real meaning, than is now seen to have been desirable, they honestly believed that the institution, which was an abiding contradiction of the declaration of human rights which has so long formed the staple of national boasting, was on the high road to its grave. They believed in the Union as an inviolable contract, and never dreamed that it could be cancelled except by the consent of every State party to it. But it now appears that there were those who privately held different views, and though they entered the Union with apparent sincerity, they did so really from considerations of temporary safety, but with the concealed purpose of leaving it, whenever, in their judgment, sectional interests could be subserved thereby. Of this class was Robert H. Lee, of Virginia, grandfather of the present commander-in-chief of the rebel army. In a letter written April 5th, 1800, and recently brought to light, he develops this design. "I confess," he says, "that I feel myself often chagrined by the taunts against the ancient dominion, but disunion, at this time, would be the worst of calamities. The Southern States are too weak at present to stand by themselves, and a general government will certainly be advantageous to us, as it produces no other effect than protection from hostilities and uniform commercial regulations. And when we shall attain our natural degree of population, 1 flatter myself that we shall have the power to do ourselves justice with dissolving the bond which binds us together. It is better to put up with these little inconveniences than to run the hazard of greater calamities."

This letter shows the early existence of an intention to se

cede, on the part of the slavery propagandists, when the Union should no longer serve their exclusive purpose, a fact charged upon them by Mr. Benton, in his Thirty Years' Recollections. It is also a key to the mystery of Nullification, in 1832, and of the strange and startling declarations, made in the beginning of 1861, that the President elect would never be permitted to reach Washington alive, or if he did, would not be suffered to be inaugurated. The time had now arrived for decisive measures on the part of the disunion leaders. By the legislation of many years, the Southern harbors had been strongly fortified, custom houses and arsenals built, mints established, and other advantages obtained, necessary to the strength and convenience. of a new nation, and it only remained to see that the unreasonable demands of a disloyal minority were yielded to by a loyal majority, or to declare themselves out of the family of States. The latter were true to constitutional obligations, and the former, ill-advisedly for themselves, seized upon the alternative.

When the threats to do this were first made, the Free States were incredulous. The heated declarations, in Congress and out of it, were viewed as ebullitions of passion that would soon exhaust themselves, and all become quiet again. But in this they were mistaken. The mask of a generation was partially removed; and as Mason and Breckenridge boldly talked treason on the floor of the United States Senate, the country, for the first time, became seriously alarmed at the threatened rupture. The Free States had cultivated the arts of peace. The North loved the Union with a devotion deepened by a remembrance of the costly sacrifice at which it had been attained. Detesting the spirit that bold and reckless demagogues had exhibited, deploring the animosity they were exciting among their constituents against a law-abiding people, and shrinking from the calamities of civil war, the friends of the Union in the Free States readily favored the request of the State of Virginia, for a Convention of Commissioners "to confer upon the best mode of adjusting the unhappy differences then disturbing.

B