might obtain universal confidence in the commonwealth, and Lefit the heroic and momentous occasion. Lieut.-Col. Robert E. Lee, a son of the famous Harry Lee, of the Revolution, and descended from a family conspicuous for two hundred years in Virginia, had resigned his commission in the United States Army, immediately on learning of the secession of his State. He had done so, protesting an attachment to the Union, but putting above that a sense of duty, that would never allow him to take part against his State, and "raise his hand against his relatives, his chil dren, his home." This sentiment of duty was expressed in very noble terms in the letter which tendered his resignation. The man who, some years ago, had written in a private letter to his son at college, "Duty is the sublimest word in our language," was now in his own life to attest the sentiment, and give its example; and when we find him in his farewell letter to Gen. Scott, referring to "the struggle it had cost him" to separate himself from the Federal service, we are prepared for the touching and noble declaration of his wife: "My husband has wept tears of blood over this terrible war; but he niust, as a man of honour and a Virginian, share the destiny of his State, which has solemnly pronounced for independence."

Governor Letcher was not slow in nominating Lee Major-General in command of all the military forces in Virginia. The nomination was unanimously confirmed by the Convention. Gen. Lee was conducted to the State House; there was an imposing ceremony of reception; the trust reposed in him was announced in a glowing speech from the Chair. In the excitement and elation of the occasion, his reply was singularly solemn and beautiful. He said:

"Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention: Profoundly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion, for which I must say I was not prepared, I accept the position assigned me by your partiality. I would have much preferred, hrad your choice fallen upon an abler man. Trusting in Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellowcitizens, I devote myself to the service of my native State, in whose behalf alone, will I ever again draw my sword."

But a few days after the secession of Virginia, she was a great camp. It was popularly estimated that in the early summer there were within her borders forty-eight thousand men under arms. The valleys and hills swarmed with soldiers; the rush to arms could scarcely be contained; the alternative was not who should go to the war, but who should stay at home. Two merchants had fought in Richmond, because one had reproached the other for being in his store, when nearly everybody in the city was following the drum, and companies were actually begging to be accepted into service. It is no wonder that Gen. Lee made a very unpopular and just remark: that the volunteer spirit of the country should be in

GENERAL LEE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

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a measure checked and moderated, and that he threw cold water on a rabble who hurrahed him at a railroad station, by telling them they had better go home.

Gen. Lee's first task was to organize and equip the military forces that were from every direction flowing in upon his charge. The military council at the State House, Richmond, consisting of Governor Letcher, Lieut.Gov. Montague, Lieut. M. F. Maury, of the Navy, Gen. Lee and others, was in almost constant session. The raw material promptly brought forward was to be effected for speedy service. The quartermaster and commissary departments were to be organized, to enable the immediate concentration of troops upon the borders of the State, wherever the movements of the enemy might demand the presence of troops. In fact, Gen. Lee had now all the duties of a minister of war to discharge, in addition to those more immediate of general-in-chief. And yet all these duties were executed with a rapidity and effect, and an easy precision of manner that may be said, at the outset of the war to have secured Lee's reputation as an unrivalled organizer of military forces, and thus early to have indicated one conspicuous branch of his great mind.

On the 6th of May, Virginia was admitted into the Southern Confederacy; and her forces then forming part of the entire Confederate Army, Lee's rank was reduced to that of Brigadier-General. In that position he was to remain for some time in comparative obscurity, while the more conspicuous names of Beauregard and others were to ride the wave of popular favour.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WHAT SENSE VIRGINIA SECEDED FROM THE UNION.-A NEW INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR OF THE CONFEDERATES.-INFLUENCE OF VIRGINIA ON THE OTHER BORDER STATES.-REPLIES OF THESE STATES TO LINCOLN'S REQUISITION FOR TROOPS.—SECESSION OF TENNESSEE, ARKANSAS, AND NORTH CAROLINA.-SEIZURE OF FEDERAL FORTS IN NORTH CAROLINA.-MOVEMENTS IN VIRGINIA TO SECURE THE GOSPORT NAVY YARD AND HARPER'S FERRY.-THEIR SUCCESS.-BURNING OF FEDERAL SHIPS.-ATTITUDE OF MARYLAND. THE BALTIMORE RIOT.-CHASE OF MASSACHUSETTS SOLDIERS.-EXCITEMENT IN BALTIMORE.-TIMID ACTION OF THE MARYLAND LEGISLATURE.-MILITARY DESPOTISM IN MARYLAND.-ARRESTS IN BALTIMORE.-A REIGN OF TERROUR.-LIGHT ESTIMATION OF THE WAR IN THE NORTH.-WHY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SOUGHT

TO BELITTLE THE CONTEST.-LINCOLN'S VIEW OF THE WAR AS A RIOT.-SEWARD'S

LETTER TO THE EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS.-EARLY ACTION OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE WITH RESPECT TO THE WAR.—Mr. GREGORY'S LETTER TO THE LONDON TIMES.-NORTH ERN CONCEIT ABOUT THE WAR.-PROPHECIES OF NORTHERN JOURNALS.-A THREB MONTHS' WAR."-ELLSWORTH AND BILLY WILSON.-MARTIAL RAGE IN THE NORTH.IMPERFECT APPRECIATION OF THE CRISIS IN THE SOUTH.-EARLY IDEAS OF THE WAR AT MONTGOMERY.-SECRET HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION.-SOUTHERN OPINION OF YANKEE SOLDIERS.-WHAT WAS THOUGHT OF "KING COTTON."— -ABSURD THEORIES ABOUT EUROPEAN RECOGNITION.-LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.-BLINDNESS AND LITTLENESS OF MIND NORTH AND SOUTH.-REFLECTION ON PUBLIC MEN IN AMERICA.-COMPARISON OF THE RESOURCES OF THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN STATES. THE CENSUS OF 1860.-MATERIAL ADVANTAGES OF THE NORTH IN THE WAR. THE QUESTION OF SUBSISTENCE. POVERTY OF THE SOUTH IN THE MATERIEL AND MEANS OF WAR. HOW THE CONFEDERACY WAS SUPPLIED WITH SMALL ARMS. PECULIAR ADVANTAGES OF THE SOUTH IN THE WAR.-THE MILITARY VALUE OF SPACE. LESSONS OF HISTORY.-THE SUCCESS OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY, A QUESTION ONLY OF RESOLUTION AND ENDURANCE.-ONLY TWO POSSIBLE CAUSES OF FAILURE.

Ir is to be remarked that Virginia did not secede in either the circumstances or sense in which the Cotton States had separated themselves from the Union. She had no delusive prospects of peace to comfort or sustain her in the decisive step she took. She did not secede in the sense in which separation from the Union was was the primary object of secession. On the contrary, her attachment to the Union had been proved by the most

untiring and noble efforts to save it; her Legislature originated the Peace Conference, which assembled at Washington in February, 1861; her representatives in Congress sought in that body every mode of honourable pacification; her Convention sent delegates to Washington to persuade Mr. Lincoln to a pacific policy; and in every form of public assem bly, every expedient of negotiation was essayed by Virginia to save the Union. When these efforts at pacification failed, and the Government at Washington drew the sword against the sovereignty of States and insisted on the right of coercion, it was then that Virginia appreciated the change of issue, and, to contest it, found it necessary to withdraw from the Union. Her act of secession was subordinate; it was a painful formality which could not be dispensed with to contest a principle higher than the Union, and far above the promptings of passion and the considerations of mere expediency.

It takes time for popular commotions to acquire their meaning and proper significance. A just and philosophical observation of events must find that in the second secessionary movement of the Southern States, the war was put on a basis infinitely higher and firmer in all its moral and consitutional aspects; that at this period it developed itself, acquired its proper significance, and was broadly translated into a contest for liberty.

It was in this changed view of the contest and on an issue in which force was directly put against the sentiment of liberty, that the Border States followed the lead of Virginia out of the Union. The particular occasion of the movement was not so much the fire at Sumter as the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln to raise forces, the only purpose of which could be the subjugation of the South. In this proclamation the issue was distinctly put before the Border States; for Mr. Lincoln called upon each of them to furnish their quotas of troops for a war upon their sister States. The unnatural demand was refused in terms of scorn and defiance. Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky replied that that State "would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." Gov. Harris of Tennessee notified Mr. Lincoln that that State "would not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defence of her rights." Gov. Ellis of North Carolina telegraphed to Washington: "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people." Gov. Rector of Arkansas replied in terms of equal defiance, and declared "the demand is only adding insult to injury;" and Gov. Jackson showed an indignation surpassing all the others, for he wrote directly to Mr. Lincoln: "Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary, and, in its objects, inhuman and diabolical." The only Southern State that did not publicly share in this resentment, and that made it an occasion of official ambiloquy, was Maryland. Her Governor, Thomas

Holladay Hicks, had advised that the State should occupy for the present a position of "neutrality;" and while he amused the country with this absurd piece of demagogueism, and very plainly suggested that in the approaching election of congressmen, the people of Maryland might determine their position, it is equally certain that he gave verbal assurances to Mr. Lincoln that the State would supply her quota of troops, and give him military support.

The indications of sentiment in the Border States soon ripened into open avowals. Tennessee seceded from the Union on the 6th of May; on the 18th day of May the State of Arkansas was formally admitted into the Southern Confederacy; and on the 21st of the same month, the sovereign Convention of North Carolina, by a unanimous vote, passed an ordinance of secession. This latter State, although slow to secede and accomplish formally her separation from the Union, had acted with singular spirit in giving early and valuable evidence of sympathy with the Southern cause. Under the orders of her Governor, Fort Macon, near Beaufort, was seized on the 15th of April, and promptly garrisoned by volunteers from Greensborough and other places. Fort Caswell was also taken, and on the 19th the Arsenal of Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed, thus securing to the State and the South sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand were of the most approved modern construction.

Virginia had taken the decisive step, and passed her ordinance of secession on the 17th day of April. It became an immediate concern to secure for the State all the arms, munitions, ships, war stores, and military posts within her borders, which there was power to seize. Two points were of special importance: one was the Navy Yard, at Gosport, with its magnificent dry-dock-its huge ship-houses, shops, forges, ware-rooms, rope-walks, seasoned timber for ships, masts, cordage, boats, ammunition, small arms, and cannon. Besides all these treasures, it had lying in its waters several vessels of war. The other point was Harper's Ferry on the Potomac River, with its armory and arsenal, containing about ten thousand muskets and five thousand rifles, with machinery for the purpose of manufacturing arms, capable with a sufficient force of workmen, of turning out twenty-five thousand muskets a year.

Movements to secure these places and their advantages were only partially successful. In two days a large force of volunteers had collected at Harper's Ferry. The small Federal force there requested a parley; this was granted; but in a short time flames were seen to burst from the armory and arsenal; the garrison had set fire to the arms and buildings, and escaped across the railroad bridge into Maryland. The Virginia troops instantly rushed into the buildings. A large number of the arms were consumed, but about five thousand improved muskets in complete order, and three thousand unfinished small arms, were saved. The retreat