een prepared
and intended for Sumter, to Fort Pickens. In doing this he consulted
neither the War nor Navy Departments, to which the service belonged; but
discarding both, and also the General-in-Chief, his preceding special
confidant, and with whom he had until then acted in concert, he took to
his counsel younger military officers, secretly advised with them and
withdrew them from their legitimate and assigned duties. The discourtesy
and the irregularity of the proceeding, when it became known, shocked
General Scott. His pride was touched. He felt the slight, but he was too
good an officer, too subordinate, and too well disciplined, to complain.
The secret military expedition undertaken by the Secretary of State
without the knowledge of the proper departments and of himself, was so
irregular, such evidence of improper administration, that he became
alarmed. He felt keenly the course of Mr. Seward in not consulting him,
and in substituting one of his staff as military adviser for the
Secretary of State; but he was more concerned for the Government and
country.

A native of Virginia, and imbued with the political doctrines there
prevalent, but unflinching in patriotism and devotion to the Union and
the flag, General Scott hesitated how to act--objected to the hostile
invasion of any State by the national troops, but advised that the
rebellious section should be blockaded by sea and land. He thought that
surrounded by the army and navy the insurgents would be cut off from the
outer world, and when exhausted from non-intercourse and the entire
prostration of trade and commerce they would return to duty; the
"anaconda principle" of exhausting them he believed would be effectual
without invading the territory of States. When the mayor of Baltimore
and a committee of secessionists waited upon the President on the 20th
of April to protest against the passage of troops through that city to
the national capital, he, in deference to the local government, advised
the President to yield to the metropolitan demand, and himself drew up
an Executive order to that effect. The seizure of Harper's Ferry and
Norfolk and the threatened attack upon Washington greatly disturbed him,
but not so much as the wild cry of the ardent and impulsive which soon
followed of "on to Richmond" with an undisciplined army.

Sensible of his inability to take the field, he acquiesced in the
selection if he did not propose after the disaster at Bull Run, th