Page:Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (1906).djvu/29

Rh With such a spirit animating each heart, it was not surprising that, when the bugle sounded to arms, from the prairies of Texas to the cotton and rice fields of South Carolina, and the blue-tinged hills of the Old Dominion, men sprang to arms by the thousands, eager for the battle to begin. If the Southerner felt his arm strengthened and nerved for the conflict, the Northern son as confidently rushed to the front at his country's call.

The muttering thunders of war rolled over the vast sweep of country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and was echoed back from the Gulf to the Lakes.

The hour for calm, sober reflection had passed; no time to reason now, but from hilltop to valley echoed the tramp of war, till a nation trembled beneath the tread of armies.

As the drunken, frenzied rabble rolls on, moved by they know not what, so the gathering hosts shouted, "To arms! To arms!"

From the time of the election of Abraham Lincoln in November, 1860, until the conflict actually began, the whole country was thrown into a fever of excitement, and this was increased in intensity with every floating breeze. One startling event followed another in quick succession; reason was dethroned, and the great whirlwind of passion and prejudice swept the whole land, kindling the fires of conflict in all the States.

On the 20th of December, 1860, the Legislature of South Carolina unanimously declared that that State no longer belonged to the American Union. In January, 1861, Florida withdrew, followed by Mississippi on the 9th of the same month, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 20th, Louisiana on the 26th, and Texas on February 1st. Thus, in less than three months from the time of the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, all the cotton states, proper, had, by a unanimous vote, withdrawn from the Union, and had taken possession of all the Federal fortifications except those in Charleston harbor.

While the sympathies of the people of Virginia were overwhelmingly with the South, yet her condition, adjacent as she was to the border of the Free States, made her hesitate before she took a decided stand. She even tried to