"A Crisis Unprecedented" > Fort Sumter
The row over sandy cotton was superseded by the secession crisis. In April 1861, when Carolina batteries bombarded Fort Sumter, the Chamber of Commerce united in common cause to defend the Union, and – a not unrelated matter – the interests of Northern business.
A special session on April 19, drew “a larger number of members than at any previous meeting of the Chamber."
Cursing "the madness of the south," pledging "unanimity and patriotic order," and overflowing into the adjacent rooms, the crowd clearly understood the seriousness of the occasion. “Our country has, in the course of events, reached a crisis unprecedented in its past history,” said George Opdyke, chairman of the executive committee. “[T]he merchants of New York, represented in this Chamber, have a deep stake in the results which may flow from the present exposed state of national affairs, as well as a jealous regard for the honor of that flag under whose protection they have extended the commerce of this city to the remotest parts of the world.”
The next day, April 20, the stock exchange closed and Chamber members organized a massive demonstration in Union Square. More than one hundred thousand people – “the entire population in the streets,” the Times exulted – gathered to hear leading merchants and politicians discuss the crisis. The multitudes greeted Major Robert Anderson, the lionized defender of Fort Sumter, with a bombardment of huzzahs. Even Fernando Wood – the mayor who had recently suggested that New York itself should secede, in order to preserve its trading contacts with the South – was greeted with applause and just “a few hisses.”
After the meetings broke up, the Chamber of Commerce continued organizing for the federal cause. Supplying money – it had only taken ten minutes at the special session for the members to raise more than $20,000 to support the war effort – and honoring military heroes. In June, the Chamber “unanimously and enthusiastically” voted to commission “a series of Medals, of an appropriate character, to be presented to each officer, non-commissioned officer and soldier engaged in the defence of Fort Sumter.”
Among the recipients was Abner Doubleday, of upstate New York, a captain in Anderson’s artillery unit. Doubleday – who would later be misremembered as the father of the game of baseball – fired the first Union shot of the war. In his letter accepting the medal, he was suitably appreciative. “Although conscious, on the occasion alluded to, that I did no more than my simple duty in defending the flag of our country against traitors,” he wrote. “I am none the less grateful for the compliment of this medal the possession of which will always be to me a source of the highest gratification.” Later in life, his modesty dissipated some; Doubleday took to calling himself, the “hero of Sumter.”