A wave of fierce anger swept the North. The fall of Sumter was the one topic on every lip. Men stopped their trade, their work, their play and looked about them for the nearest rallying ground of soldiers.

The President of the United States was quick to seize the favorable moment to call for 75,000 volunteers. That these troops were to fight the Confederacy was not questioned for a moment.

The effect of this proclamation on the South was a political earthquake. In a single day all differences of opinion were sunk in the common cause. A feeling of profound wonder swept every thoughtful man within the Southern States. To this moment, even a majority of those who favored the policy of secession had done so under the belief that it was the surest way of securing redress of grievances and of bringing the Federal Government back to its original Constitutional principles. Many of them believed, and all of their leaders in authority hoped, that a re-formation of the union would soon take place in peaceful ways on the basis of the new Constitution proclaimed at Montgomery. Many Northern newspapers, led by the New York Herald, had advocated this course. The hope of the majority of the Southern people was steadfast that the union would thus be continued and strengthened, and made more perfect, as it had been in 1789 after the withdrawal of nine States from the Old union by the adoption of the Constitution of 1787.

Abraham Lincoln\'s proclamation shattered all hope of such peaceful adjustment.

Thousands of the best men in Virginia and North Carolina had voted against secession. Not one of them, in the face of this proclamation, would dispute longer with their brethren. Whatever they might think about the expediency of withdrawing from the union, they were absolutely clear on two points. The President of the United States had no power under the charter of our Government to declare war. Congress only could do that. If the Cotton States were out of the union, his act was illegal because the usurpation of supreme power. If they were yet in the union, the raising of an army to invade their homes was a plain violation of the Constitution.

The heart of the South beat as one man. The cause of the war had been suddenly shifted to a broader and deeper foundation about which no possible difference could ever again arise in the Southern States.

The demand for soldiers to invade the South was a bugle call to Southern manhood to fight for their liberties and defend their homes. It gave even to the staunchest union men of the Old South the overt act of an open breach of the Constitution. From the moment Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a war without the act of Congress, from that moment he became a dictator and a despot who deliberately sought to destroy their liberties.

The cause of the South not only meant the defense of their homes from foreign invasion; it became a holy crusade for the re?stablishment of Constitutional freedom.

Virginia immediately seceded from the union by the vote of the same men who had refused to secede but a few weeks before. The old flag fell from its staff on her Capitol and the new symbol of Southern unity was unfurled in its place. As if by magic the new flag fluttered from every hill, housetop and window, while crowds surged through the streets shouting and waving it aloft. Cannon boomed its advent and cheering thousands saluted it.

A great torchlight parade illumined the streets on April 19. In this procession walked the men who a week ago had marched through Franklin Street waving the old flag of the union and shouting themselves hoarse in their determination to uphold it. They had signed the ordinance of secession with streaming eyes, but they signed it with firm hands, and sent their sons to the muster fields next day.

Augusta County, a Whig and union center, and Rockingham, an equally strong Democratic union county, each contributed fifteen hundred soldiers to the new cause. Women not only began to prepare the equipment for their men, but many of them began to arm and practice themselves. Boys from ten to fourteen were daily drilling. In Petersburg three hundred free negroes offered their services to fight or to ditch and dig.

The bitterness of the answers of the Southern Governors from the Border States yet in the union amazed the President at Washington.

His demand for troops was refused in tones of scorn and defiance.

Governor Magoffin of Kentucky replied:

"The State will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."

Governor Harris telegraphed from Nashville:

"The State of Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand if necessary for the defense of her rights."

The message of Governor Ellis of North Carolina was equally emphatic:

"I will be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of our country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people."

Governor Rector of Arkansas replied:

"Your demand adds insult to injury."

Governor Jackson of Missouri was indignant beyond all others:

"Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary—its objects inhuman and diabolical."

Tennessee followed Virginia by seceding on May 6. Arkansas on May 18, and North Carolina by unanimous vote on May 21.

North Carolina had been slow to announce her final separation from the old union. But she had been prompt in proclaiming her own sovereign rights within her territory when the National Government had dared to call them in question. On the day the President had issued his proclamation she seized Fort Macon at Beaufort. Fort Caswell was taken and garrisoned by her volunteers, and on April 19, the arsenal at Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed. The value of this achievement to the South was incalculable. The Confederacy thus secured sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand were of the most modern pattern.

Virginia had seceded on April 17 and immediately moved to secure under the resumption of her complete sovereignty all the arms, munitions of war, ship stores and military posts within her borders. Two posts of tremendous importance she attempted to seize at once—the great navy yard at Norfolk and the arsenal and shops at Harper\'s Ferry. The navy yard contained a magnificent dry dock worth millions, huge ship houses, supplies, ammunition, small arms and cannon, and had lying in its basin several vessels of war, complete and incomplete.

Harper\'s Ferry contained ten thousand muskets, five thousand rifles and a complete set of machinery for the manufacture of arms capable of turning out two thousand muskets a month.

A force of Virginia volunteers moved on Harper\'s Ferry. The small Federal garrison asked for a parley, which was granted. In a short time flames were pouring from the armory and arsenal. The garrison had set fire to the buildings and escaped across the railroad bridge into Maryland.

The Virginia troops rushed into the burning buildings, and saved five thousand muskets and three thousand unfinished rifles. The garrison had laid trains of powder to blow up the workshops, but the Virginians extinguished the flames and saved to the South the invaluable machinery for making and repairing muskets and rifles. It was shipped to Fayetteville and Richmond and installed for safety.

The destruction of the navy yard at Norfolk was more complete and irreparable. The dry dock was little damaged, but the destruction of stores and property was enormous. All ships in the harbor were set on fire and scuttled.

Events moved now with swift and terrible certainty.

Massachusetts attempted, on April 19, to send a regiment through the streets of Baltimore to invade the South, and the indignant wrath of her citizens could not be controlled by the mayor or police. The street cars on which they were riding across town to the Camden station were thrown from the tracks. The crowds jammed the streets and shouted their curses in the face of the advancing volunteers. Stones were hurled into their ranks and two soldiers dropped. A volley was poured into the crowd and several fell dead and wounded.

The crowd went mad. Revolvers were drawn and fired point blank into the ranks of the soldiers and those who were unarmed rushed to arm themselves. From Frederic to Smith Streets the firing on both sides continued with the regular crash of battle. Citizens were falling, but even the unarmed men continued to press forward and hurl stones into the ranks of the New Englanders.

The troops began to yield before the determined onslaughts of the infuriated crowds, bewildered and apparently without real commanders. They pressed through the streets, staggering, confused, breaking into a run and turning to fire on their assailants as they retreated.

Harassed, bleeding and exhausted, the regiment at last reached the Baltimore & Ohio station. The fight continued without pause. Volleys of stones were hurled into the cars, shattering windows and paneling. The troops were ordered to lie down on the floors and keep their heads below the line of the windows. Maddened men pressed to the car windows, cursing and yelling their defiance. For half a mile along the tracks the crowd struggled and shouted, piling the rails with new obstructions as fast as policemen could remove them. Through a steady roar of hoots, yells and curses the train at last pulled slowly out, the troops pouring a volley into the crowd.

In this first irregular battle of the sections the Massachusetts regiment lost four killed and thirty-six wounded. The Baltimoreans lost twelve killed and an unknown number wounded.

A wave of tremendous excitement swept the State of Maryland. Bridges on all railroads leading north were immediately burned and the City of Washington cut off from communication with the outside world. Troops were compelled to avoid Baltimore and find transportation by water to Annapolis. Mass meetings were held and speeches of bitter defiance hurled against the Federal Government. The Baltimore Council appropriated five hundred thousand dollars to put the city in a state of defense, though the State had proclaimed its neutrality.

The shrewd, good-natured, even-tempered President at Washington used all his powers of personal diplomacy to pour oil on the troubled waters of Maryland. In the meantime with swift, sure, and merciless tread he moved on the turbulent State with the power of Federal arms. It was impossible to hold the Capit............