Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/33

Rh dearer to them as thoughtful men, were all impersonate, living, speaking, commanding in the State of which they were children. Never in the history of the world has there been a nobler response to a more thoroughly recognized duty; nowhere anything more truly glorious than this outburst of the youth and manhood of the South.

And now that the end has come and we have seen it, it seems to me that to a man of humanity, I care not in what section his sympathies may have been matured, there never has been a sadder or sublimer spectacle than these earnest and devoted men, their young and vigorous columns marching through Richmond to the Potomac, like the combatants of ancient Rome, beneath the imperial throne in the amphitheater, and exclaiming with uplifted arms, &quot;morituri te salutant&quot;

President Lincoln had issued his proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers to coerce the South; Virginia had withdrawn from the Union, and before the end of April had called Lee, J. E. Johnston and Jackson into her service; the seat of the Confederate government had been transferred from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond; and early in May, General Beauregard was relieved from duty in South Carolina and ordered to the command of the Alexandria line, with headquarters at Manassas Junction. He had been preceded by General Bonham, then a Confederate brigadier, with the regiments of Colonels Gregg, Kershaw, Bacon, Cash, Jenkins and Sloan First, Second, Seventh, Eighth, Fifth and Fourth South Carolina volunteers.

Before General Beauregard’s arrival in Virginia, General Bonham with his Carolina troops had been placed in command of the Alexandria line, the regiments being at Fairfax Court House, and other points of this line, fronting Washington and Alexandria.

These South Carolina regiments were reinforced during the month of July by the Third, Colonel Williams; the Sixth, Colonel Rion, and the Ninth, Colonel Blanding. The infantry of the Hampton legion, under Col. Wade