Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/136

122 peace, fraternity and the preservation of the Union under the Constitution, which her sons had done so much to form. But when all efforts failed, when the administration at Washington violated its plighted faith by attempting to reinforce and provision Fort Sumter, thus forcing the Confederacy to capture it ; when Mr. Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to coerce sovereign States, and honest John Letcher, governor of the State, had replied to the call, "You can get no troops from Virginia for any such wicked purpose . . . you have chosen to inaugurate civil war," then the convention promptly passed an ordinance of secession, thus throwing Virginia into the breach and calling on her sons to rally to her defense. The response was prompt, general and enthusiastic. From Alleghany to Chesapeake, from the blue-crested mountains to the ocean shores, from the Potomac to the North Carolina line, the mustering of her young men to battle and the preparations of her people to endure the shock of war illustrated the nearly universal popular defiance of the invaders of her soil. Hon. John B. Baldwin, the Union leader of the Virginia convention and one of the ablest men the State ever produced, received at the time a letter from a friend at the North, in which was asked: "What will the Union men of Virginia do now?" In response he said: "We have no 'Union' men in Virginia now; but those who were Union men will stand to their guns and make a fight which shall shine on the page of history as an example of what a brave people can do after exhausting every means of pacification."

The proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, which definitely declared the policy of coercion by force of arms, made at once a "solid South," and all classes throughout the Southern section united for the common defense. The farmer left the plow in the furrow, the merchant left his merchandise unsold, the mechanic left his job unfinished, the lawyer left his brief unargued, the physician forsook home practice to render service in hospital, march and