RUFFIN'S CANNON.-FORT SUMTER.-THE EFFECT ON THE MASSES.-THE NATION MUST BE SAVED. THE ATTITUDE OF THE REBELS.-OUR OWN DUTY CLEAR. THE RUSH TO ARMS. OUR IGNORANCE OF WAR.-THE WANT OF EVERY THING.-THE EDUCATION NEEDED AND EVENTUALLY OBTAINED.-GRANT AN APT SCHOLAR.
FROM profound peace to civil war! premonitions that we could regard, so often had the threat been made, and the promise not made good,-the poetical tocsin sounded historically for America in the first gun, fired with great joy and gratitude by the venerable Edmund Ruffin,* of Virginia, against the devoted band of seventy patriot soldiers, whom, by a providential policy, and in spite of an effete administration, Major Robert Anderson had placed in Fort Sumter. This was a strong work of the United States, built with government money on government property, in Charleston harbor, for the occupation of which South Carolina, even after her unlawful secession, had not even the shadow of a State-rights' claim. Foul as was the deed, it was needed to awake the nation to its self-respect and self-preservation. The
"The first shot at Fort Sumter, from Stevens' Battery, was fired by the venerable Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia.”—New York Herald, April 13, 1861. On the 20th of June, 1865, this venerable gentleman, disgusted at the downfall of the cause of which he had fired the signal-gun blew out his brains: he cer tainly made two remarkable shots.