Lincoln was judicious and fortunate in his cabinet.  Seward, the ablest and most experienced statesman of the day, accepted the office of Secretary of State; Salmon P. Chase, who had been governor of Ohio, and United States Senator, was made Secretary of the Treasury; Gideon Welles, of great executive ability and untiring energy, became Secretary of the Navy; Simon Cameron, an influential politician of Pennsylvania, held the post of Secretary of War for a time, when he was succeeded by Edwin M. Stanton, a man of immense capacity for work; Montgomery Blair, a noted antislavery leader, was made Postmaster-General; Caleb B. Smith became Secretary of the Interior; and Edward Bates, of Missouri, Attorney-General.  Every one of these cabinet ministers was a strong man, and was found to be greater than he had seemed.

Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, an old-time Democrat, was elected President of the Southern Confederacy, and Alexander H. Stephens, a prominent Whig of Georgia, Vice-President.  Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808, and was a graduate of West Point.  He was a Congressman on the outbreak of the Mexican War, resigned his seat, entered the army, and distinguished himself, rising to the rank of colonel.  He was Secretary of War in President Pierce’s cabinet, and Senator from Mississippi on the accession of President Buchanan,—­a position which he held until the secession of his State.  He thus had had considerable military and political experience.  He was a man of great ability, but was proud, reserved, and cold, “a Democrat by party name, an autocrat in feeling and sentiment,—­a type of the highest Southern culture, and exclusive Southern caste.”  To his friends—­and they were many, in spite of his reserve—­there was a peculiar charm in his social intercourse; he was beloved in his family, and his private life was irreproachable.  He selected an able cabinet, among whom were Walker of Alabama, Toombs of Georgia, and Benjamin of Louisiana.  The Provisional Congress authorized a regular army of ten thousand men, one hundred thousand volunteers, and a loan of fifteen millions of dollars.

But actual hostilities had not as yet commenced.  The Confederates, during the close of Buchanan’s administration, were not without hopes of a peaceful settlement and recognition of secession, and several conferences had taken place,—­one overture being made even to the new administration, but of course in vain.

The spark which kindled the conflagration—­but little more than a month after Lincoln’s inauguration, April 12, 1861—­was the firing on Fort Sumter, and its surrender to the South Carolinians.  This aroused both the indignation and the military enthusiasm of the North, which in a single day was, as by a lightning flash, fused in a white heat of patriotism and a desire to avenge the dishonored flag.  For the time all party lines disappeared, and the whole population were united and solid in defence of the Union.  Both