Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/260

 fortunes and their sacred honors, to Carolina's independence. The sidewalks were crowded with ladies, wearing bonnets made of black and white cotton, decorated with ornaments of palmetto trees and lone stars.

In the frenzy of their unstinted patriotism, they impressed the men. At the signing of the ordinance—a ceremony declared to be profoundly grand and impressive—a venerable clergyman, whose hair was white as snow, implored the favoring auspices of heaven.

The Governor was authorized to receive ambassadors, converts, etc., from abroad; to appoint similar officers to represent South Carolina in foreign countries, and to organize a cabinet.

A banner of red silk was adopted. It bore a blue cross, on which were set fifteen stars for the fifteen slave-holding States; one of them central, and larger than the rest, represented South Carolina. On a red field was a palmetto and crescent. Polkas and the Marseillaise Hymn were played in the streets. The Charleston newspapers published intelligence from other parts of the United States, under the title of Foreign News. Several of our national airs were struck from the music books in South Carolina and replaced by revolutionary melodies of France, with the necessary variations to suit the change of place, etc.

In June, 1861, a Charleston (S. C.) ship hoisted the flag of the Confederate States at Cronstadt, and for so doing the captain was arrested and placed in the guard house by the Russian officers.

On the 21st of December, 1860, there was a general demonstration at New Orleans over the secession of South Carolina. One hundred guns were fired, and the pelican flag unfurled.

The Southern Marseillaise was sung as the flag was raised, amid reiterated and prolonged cheers for South Carolina and Louisiana.

A month later, on the 21st of January, the Legislature of Louisiana convened at Baton Rouge, when a flag, with fifteen stars, representing the number of slave States, was raised over the dome of the Capitol. The convention met at the same place two days later (23d), and on the 26th adopted the Ordinance of Secession by a vote of 113 ayes to 17 noes. When the result