These schemers led the eager South into a needless
civil war.
The holiest feelings of heredity dragged the Southerners who lingered
into war. It was a sacrifice of half of the splendid generation
which fought under the Southern Cross.
When broken ranks appealed for the absent, when invaded States and
drooping hopes aroused desperation, the last California contingents
braved the desert dangers. Indian attack and Federal capture were
defied, only to die for the South on its sacred soil. "Salut aux
braves!" The loyalists of California were restrained from disturbing
the safe tenure of the West by depleting the local Union forces.
Abraham Lincoln saw that the Pacific columns should do no more
than guard the territories adjacent. To hold the West and secure
the overland roads was their duty. To be ready to march to meet
an invasion or quell an uprising. This was wisdom.
But the country called for skilled soldiers and representative
men to join the great work of upholding the Union. A matchless
contingent of Union officers went East.
California had few arms-bearing young Americans to represent its
first ten years of State existence. But it returned to the national
government men identified with the Pacific Coast, who were destined
to be leaders of the Union hosts.
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