1861_ The Civil War Awakening - Adam Goodheart [244]
62. AL to Seward, Apr. 1, 1861, AL Papers. It is unclear whether Lincoln ever sent his note to Seward. Nicolay and Hay thought he had, but other historians assert that he did not, since there is no surviving copy in Seward’s papers. Undoubtedly, however, Lincoln did communicate those sentiments to his secretary of state, either orally or in writing.
63. Sowle, “A Reappraisal,” p. 236.
64. Abner Doubleday to Mary Doubleday, Mar. 27 [?], 1861 [fragment], AL Papers.
65. Nicolay and Hay, Inside Lincoln’s White House, vol. 4, pp. 64–65.
66. Stampp, And the War Came, pp. 87–90.
67. James L. Hill to AL, Mar. 14, 1861, AL Papers.
68. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (New York, 1939), pp. 233–34.
69. Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, pp. 105–06.
70. Ibid., pp. 123–24; McClintock, Lincoln and the Decision, pp. 247–49.
71. Thompson and Wainwright, Confidential Correspondence, vol. 1, pp. 31–32.
72. SWC Diary, Apr. 11, 1861, SWC Papers; Chepesiuk, “Eye Witness,” p. 275. Some of the hardtack that the army issued to troops in 1861 was reported to have been in storage since the end of the Mexican War in 1848. William C. Davis, A Taste for War: The Culinary History of the Blue and the Gray (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2003), p. 41.
73. SWC Diary, Apr. 11, 1861, SWC Papers.
74. Stephen D. Lee, “The First Step in the War,” in Doubleday, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, pp. 74–75; A. R. Chisholm, “Notes on the Surrender of Fort Sumter,” in Doubleday, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, p. 82.
75. OR I, vol. 1, 13; Crawford, History of the Fall, p. 423.
76. Crawford, History of the Fall, p. 423; SWC Diary, Apr. 11, 1861, SWC Papers.
77. OR I, vol. 1, p. 103.
78. OR I, vol. 1, pp. 293–94; Crawford, History of the Fall, p. 111.
79. Instruction for Field Artillery, Horse and Foot. Compiled by a Board of Artillery Officers (Baltimore, 1845), pp. 16–17.
80. Hay Diary, May 9, 1861, in Burlingame, Inside Lincoln’s White House, p. 21.
81. James Chesnut and Stephen D. Lee to Robert Anderson, Apr. 12, 1861, Robert Anderson Papers, LC.
82. Chester, “Inside Sumter in ’61,” p. 65.
83. Chepesiuk, “Eye Witness,” p. 276; Chester, “Inside Sumter in ’61,” p. 66.
84. Doubleday, Reminiscences, pp. 141–44.
85. Ibid., pp. 143–44.
86. Ibid., pp. 145–46; OR I, vol. 1, pp. 18, 44.
87. Chester, “Inside Sumter in ’61,” p. 67; Doubleday, Reminiscences, pp. 146–47.
88. Doubleday, Reminiscences, p. 147; Chepesiuk, “Eye Witness,” p. 276.
89. On April 5, 1861, the New York Herald published a letter from another Sumter private, who it said had dictated the missive to a sergeant who could write.
90. Coffman, The Old Army, p. 137–41; Doubleday, Reminiscences, appendix. I am grateful to Rick Hatcher, National Park Service historian at the Fort Sumter National Monument, for sharing with me his unpublished listing of the Sumter garrison’s names, service records, and enlistment data (which include places of birth and physical characteristics).
91. Coffman, The Old Army, pp. 137–41. A former soldier wrote, “Two-thirds of those in the service are foreigners, generally of the lowest and most ignorant class. The few Americans to be met with are men who have led dissipated lives and incapacitated themselves for any respectable business, taking up the army as a last resource [sic].”
Enlisted men even looked physically different from their superiors. Although several of Sumter’s officers—including Doubleday and Crawford—were over six feet tall, not a single private was, according to their enlistment records. The average height of the garrison’s foreign-born privates was only 5 feet, 5¾ inches, fully three inches shorter than the average American male of the mid–nineteenth century. This was almost certainly a result of poor nutrition in childhood in many cases. The average age of Sumter’s enlisted men was twenty-nine, with several of the men in their forties.
92. SWC Diary, Apr. 11, 1861, SWC Papers; Coffman, The Old Army, p. 205. Several of the Sumter privates’ enlistments expired during the siege, but they apparently insisted on remaining