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The End of New York
by
The popular excitement throughout the country was intense. There was a universal demand for war. It was pointed out that the country was never so prosperous, or better able to bear the burden of a conflict; that, with our immense resources, an army could be raised and a navy equipped inside of sixty days; that such a war would be of short duration, and that the result could be none other than the humiliation of Spain, and the ceding to us of the Spanish West Indies as a war indemnity.
The House of Representatives fairly rung with bellicose speeches, and the press, with a few exceptions, reflected the popular feeling.
On the other hand, however, there was a powerful party attempting to stem the precipitancy of the nation. The great moneyed corporations viewed the matter with alarm, and advocated peaceful settlement, or, at most, inaction. This, however, was attributed to their fears of unsettlement of values, and consequent depreciation of their property.
The Senate, refusing to be influenced by popular clamor, steadily opposed all hasty legislation originating in the lower House. The President and Cabinet brought down upon themselves the bitter denunciation of the opposition press for “cowardly truckling to Spain,” because no immediate steps were taken to place army and navy on a war footing, and no volunteers were called for.
A month went by. The popular excitement in this period perceptibly decreased; and, as it did so, the New York World and Tribune, which, from the first, had given but weak support to the cry for war, became more outspoken against hostilities. The bill agreed to by both Houses of Congress, providing for the immediate construction of ten swift armored cruisers, was strongly attacked in both journals, and the arming of the harbor forts, and the elaborate preparations which began to be visible for protecting the harbor by torpedoes, were sneered at as “useless precautions, dictated by an unworthy fear of a nation which would never venture to attack us.”
The stocks of the New York Central, Western Union Telegraph, Lake Shore, and other corporations controlled by Vanderbilt and Jay Gould, which had fallen during the excitement of the previous month, rose slowly, but steadily.
On the afternoon of March 6th, the Evening Telegram issued an extra, reporting the sailing from Coruna of four Spanish ironclads. The announcement on the London Stock Exchange was that they were going to Cuba.
On the following day there was a decided fall in American Securities in London, and a weak market in Wall Street; which degenerated into a rapidly declining one when it became rumored that Gould was selling Western Union short in large blocks, and that Vanderbilt’s brokers were similarly disposing of N.Y. Central and other stocks.
At 10 o’clock that night the news came that Spain had formally declared war upon the United States. It was posted in all the hotels, and read from the stages of all the theatres. The people flocked into the streets en masse. Speeches were made, breathing defiance and demands for an immediate attack upon Spain, before tremendous crowds, in Madison and Union Squares. No one slept that night.
Next morning there was a panic in Wall Street, which was arrested, however, by the intelligence from London that, although Government four-per-cents had fallen to 86, they were steady at that figure, and that the Rothschilds and Baring Brothers were buying them in largely. Before night Congress had voted a special appropriation of a hundred million dollars for purposes of defense, authorized the immediate construction of twenty armored ships, and the President issued his proclamation, calling for the raising of four hundred thousand men “to repel an invasion of the Union.”
Within twenty-four hours the regiments of the National Guard in New York and vicinity were mustered into the service of the United States and ordered into camp, under command of General Hancock. That officer at once began the construction of sea-coast batteries on Coney Island, Rockaway Beach, and the New Jersey coast. A crack city regiment was detailed to complete the partially finished fort on Sandy Hook and throw up earthworks along the Peninsula; but, as the hands of most of the men became quite sore through wielding shovels and picks, they were relieved and sent to garrison Governor’s Island, where they gave exhibition drills daily, and, on Friday evenings, invited their female friends to hops of the most enjoyable description. The Hook fort was subsequently completed by a volunteer regiment of Cuban cigar-makers, from the Bowery.