election of such a President in the person of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, was the determining factor. To the South it seemed best to withdraw from the Union and set up a government of her own.

Secession. The secession of the States followed, under the leadership of South Carolina, and a Confederacy of eleven States resulted. This was an exceedingly difficult task, when the right of secession, in the excitement of the hour, was now seriously disputed by States once ardent advocates of it, and also by a few eminent men of the South. The complications growing out of the ownership of property that had been ceded by the States to the general government, such as forts, custom houses, postoffices, etc., were very annoying. There would have been danger of conflict in its settlement, even had there been no unusual excitement and no feeling of hostility between the sections; but years of discussion had developed great bitterness, and the deeds of violence that had accompanied these discussions had wrought the public mind to such a pitch of irritation that it was practically impossible to bring about a peaceable adjustment that would have preserved the independence of the Southern States.

The First Gun.-Interest in the grave problem was centred in Charleston harbor, where United States troops, under Major Anderson, a Kentuckian and a slaveholder, were quartered in Fort Moultrie at the time of South Carolina's secession, December 20, 1860. Anderson moved his garrison from Fort Moultrie to the stronger fort, Sumter, during the night. This act,

whether suggested or authorized by higher authorities at Washington, or not, looked distinctly toward a conflict of arms. When two hundred armed soldiers, sent in an unarmed vessel, the Star of the West, attempted on January 9, 1861, to reinforce Anderson in Fort Sumter and take him supplies, pending the discussion of a peaceable separation, the South felt that overt acts of war had been committed. The vessel, after a warning shot across her bows (young George E. Haynesworth pulling the lanyard), and after she had been fired at several times by a body of South Carolina cadets on Morris Island, put back and returned North with the troops.

After Mr. Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, and the publication of his inaugural address, which showed that he was determined there should be no recognition of secession, but that the South should be forced, by the use of the military arm of the government, to continue its relationship with the Federal Government, and active preparations began to be made to reinforce Major Anderson, the Confederate Government, which had been organized in February, determined that it would protect itself by taking possession of all the forts along the coast.

Confederates Capture Fort Sumter.-General Beauregard, in command of the troops at Charleston, was ordered to reduce Fort Sumter, and he began the attack at 4 o'clock in the morning, April 12, 1861. Though the firing was kept up by both sides for thirty-two hours, when Anderson surrendered, no one was killed, but four were

wounded on each side. The Federal troops were treated with every possible consideration, even before their surrender, for it should never be forgotten that when General Beauregard saw Major Anderson's barracks on fire and his magazine endangered, though the battle was then raging, he offered to send fire engines to the fort that the garrison might not be destroyed by an explosion. The offer was bravely declined. After their surrender the Federal troops were allowed to fire a salute to their flag on leaving the fort and to take their colors with them. In saluting the flag a premature explosion caused the first death. Anderson and his men were not retained as prisoners, but were conveyed by the Confederates to the Northern fleet that was waiting outside the bar, and sailed immediately for New York. It is worthy of remark here that Northern soldiers afterwards requited this generous treatment at the opening of the war by their magnanimous conduct toward the Confederates at its close at Appomattox.

Thus it will be seen that though the South felt that while self-protection demanded that she must have the forts in her own harbors, she had no desire for war, and that the few persons of a belligerent spirit who preferred war to peace, were alone in this feeling, as the acts of the Southern government conclusively prove. But war, and a most disastrous one, inevitably followed.

CHAPTER XXIV

WAR BETWEEN THE SECTIONS-IN SOUTH CAROLINA

Battles in This State.-It is not our part in this volume to give an account of battles outside the State, even of those in which our troops participated. It seems sufficient to record that to the call for troops by the Confederacy South Carolina responded with an alacrity

and generous ardor unsurpassed by any other State. Brief mention is also due to the fine leaders that she contributed to the Confederate armies.

Her ranking officer was Lieut.-Gen. Richard H. Anderson, known as "Fighting Dick," who so daringly and skilfully commanded the troops in Virginia as to make