While I was in Washington I saw Lincoln and some of those around him, and my opinion is that, but for his faith in the Supreme Providence and in the destiny of our Republic, his courage, and with it the whole scheme of defense, would have broken down.  Future generations will not understand the difficulties before him,—­perhaps he himself did not.  The administration of Buchanan had prepared for the secession, and Buchanan as minister to England had already established the opinion of the governing class in that country in the certainty of impending separation,—­a fact which should be remembered when we judge the attitude of England; the fleet had been dispersed to the ends of the earth, and the officers of the army were mainly Southerners.  The support of New York and Massachusetts was of the gravest importance.  The former was largely under the influence of Seward, and he was inclined by nature to conciliation; in the latter State, General Butler, a Democrat, and of seriously questioned loyalty, had an influence which might easily become the dominant one and carry the State over to the Democratic opposition, which was in the country at large distinctly opposed to coercion.  The government and the ruling class in England were clearly hostile to the North, and the position on that side was menacing.

Had the South then been content with separation on the lines of “Mason and Dixon’s line,” I am convinced that it would have taken place without a struggle, if the position could have been defined without bloodshed.  But this was what the most sagacious of the Southern leaders did not desire.  It became evident that the majority in the South did not desire separation, and the leaders knew that a peaceful separation would be followed by reconstruction on something like the old lines, for the South could not stand alone industrially; so that they had not concealed their determination to invade the Middle and Western States, and carry them forcibly over to the new Confederacy, “leaving out New England.”  It was generally known that Pennsylvania and New Jersey were Democratic and lukewarm for the old Union, and that Ohio and the West would not resist if there were a successful beginning of a movement and a military invasion.  So far as the sentiments of the politicians were concerned, the South had a very correct idea of the probabilities of the situation; what they were utterly ignorant of was the spirit of the masses in the North, which they thought to coerce easily.  There they were mistaken, and there Lincoln saw his strength, and that saved the country; for, with the firing on Fort Sumter and the open insult to the flag, the Northern masses took fire, and the conflagration burned out the roots of sympathy for the South.  Butler was given a command in the field; others of the same class were given commands, and the dangerous demagogue class was enlisted for the war.