thirty-six hours the flag of the union was kept floating above the ramparts until the last cartridge had been loaded into the guns and the last biscuit eaten. Reduced to these straits, Major Anderson, on Sunday, April 14, 1861, sur

aside-men were Republicans and Democrats no more-all were now unionists. Now that the nation's flag had been fired upon and the national authority defied and insulted, there was but one thought uppermost in the northern mind, -"the union must and shall be preserved," and rebellion suppressed.

On the day following the surrender, Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers, and the loyal states responded with such enthusiasm and promptness that troops began arriving in Washington on the very next day following the call. Within a very short space of time, 50,000 soldiers were encamped in and about the national capital. The whole north sprang to arms. All talk of compromise now ceased. Those who advocated peace at the sacrifice of the union were reviled as "copperheads."

The south, on its part, looked upon the fall of Sumter as a glorious victory, and Charleston and the confederacy went wild with joy. The southerners believed that the north would not fight that the northern people were too much engrossed with the spirit of commercialism to risk a contest at arms with

the south. Jefferson Davis issued a call for 38,000 southern troops, which was responded to with alacrity. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee, whose people had at first refused to join the seceded states, now defied the authority of President Lincoln, passed acts of secession, and joined the confederacy. Thus was the number of revolted states increased to eleven, holding within their borders a population of nine millions of people, more than one-third of whom were slaves.

496. Davis's Reprisals and Lincoln's Blockade.-On the 17th of April, Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation granting letters of marque and reprisal to all owners of private armed vessels, who would prey upon the commerce of the United States. Two days later, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all the southern ports. All the resources of the north were brought to bear to make this blockade effective. Within a few months, it was impossible for the southern states to carry on their commerce, or hold communication with the outside world, except through the agency of blockade runners. The southern people could grow food in abundance, but they were not a manufacturing people, hence the south must look to Europe for supplies of arms and ammunition. And then, too, England and France had been the chief markets for the raw cotton product of the south. The blockade meant that the south would now be deprived of this source of revenue. In 1860, the amount of cotton exported by the southern states amounted, in round numbers, to $200,000,000; in 1861, to $42,000,000; in 1862, to $4,000,000,-these decreasing figures eloquently show how complete and effective was the blockade of the southern ports.

497. The Border States. On the secession of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, President Lincoln instantly recognized that the very life of the nation demanded that the remaining border slave statos of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri be saved to the

union cause. Delaware gave but little anxiety, but the struggle in each of the other three states was bitter in the extreme. When one of the Massachusetts regiments was hastening to Washington it was attacked by a mob in the streets of Baltimore, whereupon the soldiers were forced to defend themselves at the point of the bayonet. This riot was a most unfortunate circumstance, for it came at a time when the people of Maryland were ready to yield their support to the national government, though the opposing parties were quite evenly divided. As a consequence, it required the greatest tact on the part of Lincoln in all his relations with the Maryland authorities to prevent Maryland from assuming a hostile attitude toward the government at Washington. Lincoln, however, by his patience and forbearance and his conciliatory tone, finally allayed the excitement, the union sentiment revived, and this important border state was saved to the union. Lincoln, by his wisdom, was also enabled to strengthen the hands of the supporters of the union in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. When Virginia seceded, the inhabitants in the western portion of the state remaining loyal, imitated in a good cause her bad example and seceded from the Old Dominion. West Virginia at once organized a state government, and two years later (1863), was admitted to the union as a separate state.

498. George B. McClellan and the Campaign in West Virginia.—The national government, recognizing the necessity of extending prompt aid to the loyal West Virginians, appointed George B. McClellan of Cincinnati to the command of the troops in that vicinity. He crossed into the territory of the Old Dominion in the latter part of May, surprised and routed a confederate force at Philippi on the 3d of June, which encouraged the West Virginians to call a convention at Wheeling, and, one week later, to set up a government of their own. The seceded government of Virginia now put forth extraordinary efforts to crush this opposition to her own authority. McClellan, however, at once began an ag