CLAMOROUS FOR WAR.

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for war. Referring to President Lincoln's expressed intention to send relief to Fort Sumter, they said that this was, in effect," a declaration of war against the Confederate States," and that, as representatives of their people, they accepted "the gage of battle there thrown down to them." They accordingly departed to their own country, hopeful that the government had forced upon them an attitude of defence. Still, no overt act of warfare was permitted by Lincoln, who patiently waited for the rebels to fire the first gun. He had not long to wait.

The city of Charleston was seething with a mob of secessionists, impatient for the war to open. The newspapers and the more prominent leaders clamored for hostilities to be begun by the Southern States. In a public speech, delivered in Charleston, April 10, 1861, Mr. Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, declared that no terms of agreement could be acceptable to the South short of recognition of the confederacy. Other Southerners expressed similar opinions. The sentiment in the South was overwhelmingly in favor of beginning active hostilities against "the old Union," as the phrase went. The leaders were determined, if possible, to trick the President into giving them a pretext for war. On his part he was equally determined that the overt act, for which everybody was waiting, and about which everybody was talking, should come from the rebels.

The delay was exasperating to many of the people of the loyal States. Men clamored for "a vigorous policy," although just such a policy had been distinctly laid down

in the inaugural of the President. They wanted something done, and they could not see why Lincoln should wait. The newspapers and public speakers of the North generally demanded that the traitors should be arrested and punished. Especially was the attention of the whole people, North and South, fixed upon Fort Sumter, where Major Robert Anderson was in command of a very small force of United States troops. The rebels regarded the occupation of that fort as a standing menace to the city of Charleston, and they had, moreover, all along insisted that all forts, arsenals, and other public property of the United States within the limits of the so-called confederacy were now the property of the seceded States, being their "share" of the joint property of the now divided Union. The garrison of Fort Sumter had been on the mainland, previously, but when the troubles began, Major Anderson moved his command to Fort Sumter one night, to the great wrath of the rebels, who construed this as "an overt act" of hostility from the Government of the United States. The Major Anderson to whom reference is here made is the same who, as Lieutenant Anderson, swore Abraham Lincoln into the military service of the United States during the Black Hawk war, in 1832. Since that time many changes had occurred. One of the three regular officers who were at Dixon's Ferry, preparing for the war with Black Hawk's men, was now in command of beleaguered Sumter. Another, Zachary Taylor, had been President of the United States, and was dead. Another, Jefferson Davis, was president of the rebel confederacy.

SURRENDER of foRT SUMTER.

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And the volunteer captain was President of the United States.

The rebels erected batteries on the land commanding Fort Sumter, and their guns were trained upon the fortification with a view to compelling its surrender. The feeling of the men who were nearest to the President was that the fort should be reinforced and provisioned and held at all hazards. Its was the pivotal point of the impending struggle, it was said, and the fort should be held as a token that the authority of the Government was yet unbroken in the South. Fort Pickens, in the harbor of Pensacola, had been relieved by orders from Washington, and the rebels were greatly enraged thereat. Gen. Scott, on the other hand, advised that the fort in Charleston harbor should be abandoned, as a military necessity. Finally, President Lincoln notified Beauregard, commanding the rebel forces at Charleston, that Fort Sumter would shortly be provisioned. This would be an act of humanity. The garrison were suffering for lack of food. But the rebel authorities were determined to consider the sending of provisions to Sumter as that "overt act for which they had been so long waiting. Accordingly, Beauregard, April 12th, sent a message to Anderson demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter. Anderson declined to surrender. He was then asked if he would evacuate the fort, to which he replied that he would leave it on the 15th, provided he did not receive instructions to the contrary, or succor from the North before the day arrived. Beauregard then sent word in a de

spatch, dated at Charleston, April 12, 1861, 3:30 A.M., that in one hour he would open fire on Fort Sumter. At halfpast four in the morning, true to his word, Beauregard fired the first gun. An aged secessionist-Ruffin by name -was permitted the privilege of firing the first gun. It was said that this was the final knell of the Union, and many estimable men and women in Charleston, as well as throughout the South, envied the amateur gunner that which was thought to be a very precious and glorious privilege. The fort was feebly defended. The entire force left to man the fortifications in Charleston harbor by the treacherous Floyd, Buchanan's Secretary of War, was only sixty-five men, instead of the one thousand or more, usually required. The troops were now nearly famished, and, after a few replies to the fierce cannonading from the rebel batteries, the flag of the United States fell from Fort Sumter. On the following day, April 13th, according to stipulations under which Anderson had surrendered, the flag was again hoisted and saluted with fifty guns. Then the brave fellows marched out, and the fortress was in possession of the troops of the rebel confederacy.

No words can accurately describe the burst of patriotic wrath that now swept over the North. The rebels had insulted the flag of the republic, had driven a little fragment of the widely scattered army out of one of the national defences, and had hoisted over that work the new-fangled emblem of a power that could never be recognized as lawful by any citizen of the United States. Up