Northern
animosity against Charleston in general as the “hotbed of secession”
and against Fort Sumter in particular was intense. “Doom hangs over
wicked Charleston,” wrote the New York Tribune, “If there is any city
deserving of holocaustic infamy, it is Charleston.” Fort Sumter’s
garrison never surrendered to Northern forces, it was occupied only
after evacuation in February 1865.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
The Name is All That They Wanted
“We
want it for the name of the thing,” are the significant words of the
correspondent of a Northern journal,” as he closes a long list of
reasons for the reduction of Fort Sumter. “We want it for the name of
the thing.” That is the keynote of the great charivari, the monster
cat-concert, which the North has kept up with increasing spirit from the
days of the First Revolution down to the present time.
“Going
to war for an idea” is an unfortunate expression of the Emperor of the
French, an expression for which he has to encounter no little ridicule
or unmeasured obloquy . . . “Going to war for a name” is a “Yankee
notion” worthy of a people worthy of a people unrivaled for emptiness
and impudence.
There has never been a period in their history when a
catchword was not a great reality . . . To them a nickname is a nugget, a
phrase of fortune, and the happy turn of a period of far more
importance than a happy turn of events.
Every
general has his sobriquet; every State has its flash name; every
political creed has a condensed confession of faith compressed into a
single sentence. Once stigmatized with the names of Butternut and
Rebels, the Southrons were disposed of in the Yankee mind, and it is
only now and then in their rare “flashes of silence” that they reflect
for a moment how hard these Butternuts are to crack, how difficult these
Rebels to quell.
It
was for the name of the thing that they unfurled the stars and stripes
in every State of the “so-called” Confederacy; for the name of the thing
that they took every little village on the Florida coast; for the name
of the thing that they opened the Mississippi; for the name of the thing
that erected a new State of West Virginia; confirmed Maryland in her
loyalty by the mild agency of Hicks and Schenck, and held elections in
Alexandria, Norfolk and the Eastern Shore.
No
one was deceived by these names of things – nobody supposed that every
rebellious State was subjugated, that Florida was completely under
Yankee control, that the Mississippi was actually free to traffic, that
the new State of West Virginia was anything but a territorial sham, that
Maryland was heart and soul with the North, that those sections of
Eastern Virginia, which are occupied by the Federal armies, had returned
their allegiance.
But
the Yankees cared nothing for the reality. The name is all that they
wanted, a paragraph for the situation article in the New York Herald, a
period for their President’s message, a point for the orations of
Lincoln’s stump-speakers.
But
at one or two points we have been absolutely rude. They doubtless want
Richmond merely for the name of the thing, but we have repelled their
advances with the utmost coolness, or with the utmost warmth – And now
they want Charleston, for the name of the thing, and we will not let
them have it. “How unkind,” they say . . . “the city, half consumed by
one conflagration, will soon be wholly consumed by our Greek fire. Give
it up. You do not want it. We do. [We] could make capital and
capitals out of the capture. Think of it. Tremendous Triumph of the
Union Unicorn! Crushing the Cradle of Secession! Charleston Chewed Up!
The Rebels Radically Routed! . . . “
Alas,
they speak to deaf ears. It is not merely for the name of the thing
that the “heroic garrison” of Fort Sumter – now no idle appellation –
hold the trust committed to their charge. They care as little for
paragraphs as they care for projectiles, and they stand firm, have stood
firm thus far, because duty and honor require it.”
But
the Yankees, if foiled here, will get up some other excitement “for the
name of the thing,” and continue the invention of sensational lies to
the end of time, or until their national life is exhausted, and over
their worn-out carcass is written the worn-out quotation, “Nominis
Umbra.”
(Soldier
and Scholar, Basil L. Gildersleeve and the Civil War, Ward W. Briggs,
editor, University Press of Virginia, 1998, pp 146- 151)
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