The Alabama telegraph operator must have been horrified as he sat at his post late that night, translating the dots and dashes into letters. The message that they formed — an official, secret missive from Washington, destined for New Orleans – was too awful to be relayed any further. Its final sentence read: “If any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.”
So the operator intercepted the telegram, sending it not to the federal government agent in New Orleans, but to Louisiana’s secessionist authorities, who promptly leaked it to the press. Within a few days, it was being read by thousands of people – and soon, millions – throughout both North and South. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the message was where it had originated: in the heart of President James Buchanan’s vacillating, temporizing, divided cabinet.
John A. Dix as a Civil War general.Library of Congress John A. Dix as a Civil War general.
Early on the evening of Jan. 29, John Adams Dix, the administration’s newly appointed Treasury secretary, had learned that an armed vessel belonging to the Revenue Cutter Service – a predecessor of the Coast Guard – was in danger of seizure by the secessionists in New Orleans. The captain of the cutter McClelland, known to be a rebel sympathizer, was refusing to bring his ship north, as Dix had ordered. And so the secretary dashed off his order, intended for delivery to the cutter’s still-loyal lieutenant. Read more…
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/20 ... more-78527
