The Senate appoints a committee to ask the President to recall the appointment of Harvey as Minister to Portugal--He had notified Governor Pickens of the Government's intention to relieve Fort Sumter--Trumbull a member of the committee--Seward says that he did not know of Harvey's action till after the appointment was made--In fact, Seward gave the information to Harvey intending that he should send it to Pickens--John Hay's Diary says that Lincoln, before his inauguration, offered to evacuate Fort Sumter--Also that he repeated the offer after inauguration--This confirms a narrative of John Minor Botts--The controversy between Botts and J. B. Baldwin concerning the latter's interview with Lincoln on April 5, 1861--Reasons for believing that Botts's story is true--Remarkable interview between Douglas and Seward as to Fort Sumter 155 CHAPTER X BULL RUN--THE CONFISCATION ACT Trumbull makes an excursion with Senator Grimes to the battle of Bull Run--Is caught by the retreating Union army and driven back to Washington--His account of the panic and stampede says, "It was the most shameful rout you can conceive of"--Sends a telegram to Mrs. Trumbull, but the authorities suppress it--Consternation at the Capital--General Frémont's doings at St. Louis--His military order of emancipation--Lincoln considers it premature and revokes it--Correspondence between Trumbull and M. Carey Lea, of Philadelphia--Cameron follows Frémont's example in his first Annual Report--Sends report to the newspapers without the President's knowledge--Lincoln directs him to recall it and strike out the part relating to slavery--General David Hunter issues an order freeing all slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida--The President revokes it--Trumbull reports a bill from the Senate Judiciary Committee to confiscate the property of rebels and to give freedom to all of their slaves--Collamer opposes confiscation as both unconstitutional and impolitic--He offers an amendment to substitute judicial process for military confiscation--Collamer's views prevail--The President objected, however, to the forfeiture of real estate beyond the lifetime of the owner--This was the first bill passed by Congress dealing a heavy blow at slavery 165 CHAPTER XI THE EXPULSION OF CAMERON