in these States, and northern people who were down South for business or pleasure, if they expressed opinions in opposition to the popular political sentiments of that section, were at once warned to leave. Hundreds came North immediately to seek personal safety, often leaving possessions of great value behind them. Even native southerners who

believed thoroughly in the Union - and there were hundreds of such were not allowed to say so. This class of people suffered great indignities during the war, on account of their loyalty to the old flag. Many of them were driven by insult and abuse to take up arms for a cause with which they did not sympathize, deserting it at the

earliest opportunity, while others held out to the bitter end, or sought a refuge from such persecution in the Union lines.

As early as the 25th of October, several southerners who were or had been prominent in politics met in South Carolina, and decided by a unanimous vote that the State should withdraw from the Union in the event of Lincoln's election, which then seemed almost certain. Some other States held similar meetings about the same date. Thus early did the traitor leaders prepare the South for disunion. These men were better known at that time as

"Fire-eaters."

As soon as Lincoln's election was announced, without waiting to see what his policy towards the slave States was going to be, the impetuous leaders at the South addressed themselves at once to the carrying out of their threats; and South Carolina, followed, at intervals more or less brief, by Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, seceded from the Union, and organized what was known as the Southern Confederacy. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee seceded later. The people at the North stood amazed at the rapidity with which treason against the government was spreading, and the loyal Unionloving men began to inquire where President Buchanan was at this time, whose duty it was to see that all such uprisings were crushed out; and "Oh for one hour of Andrew Jackson in the President's chair!" was the common exclamation, because that decided and unyielding soldier-President had so promptly stamped out threatened rebellion in South Carolina, when she had refused to allow the duties to be collected at Charleston. But that outbreak in its proportions was to this one as an infant to a giant, and it is quite doubtful if Old Hickory himself, with his promptness to act in an emergency, could have stayed the angry billows of rebellion which seemed just ready to break over the nation. But at any rate he would have attempted it,

even if he had gone down in the fight, at least so thought the people.

The very opposite of such a President was James Buchanan, who seemed anxious only for his term of office to expire, making little effort to save the country, nor even willing, at first, that others should do so. With a traitor for his Secretary of War, the South had been well supplied with arms under the very nose of the old man. With a traitor for his Secretary of the Navy, our vessels-not many in number, it is true had been sent into foreign waters, where they could not be immediately recalled. With a traitor as Secretary of the Treasury, the public treasury had been emptied. Then, too, there began the seizure of arsenals, mints, custom-houses, post-offices, and fortifications within the limits of the seceding States, and still the President did nothing, or worse than nothing, claiming that the South was wrong in its acts, but that he had no right to prevent treason and secession, or, in the phraseology of that day, "no right to coerce a sovereign State." And so at last he left the office a disgraced old man, for whom few had or have a kind word to offer.

Such, briefly, was the condition of affairs when Abraham Lincoln, fearful of his life, which had been threatened, entered Washington under cover of darkness, and quietly assumed the duties of his office. Never before were the people of this country in such a state of excitement. At the North there were a large number who boldly denounced the "Long-heeled Abolitionists" and "Black Republicans " for having stirred up this trouble. I was not a voter at the time of Lincoln's election, but I had taken an active part in the torchlight parades of the "Wide-awakes" and "Railsplitters," as the political clubs of the Republicans were called, and so came in for a share of the abuse showered upon the followers of the new President. As fresh deeds. of violence or new aggressions against the government were reported from the daily papers in the shop where I was

then employed, some one who was not a

"Lincolnite " would exclaim, in an angry tone; "I hope you fellows are satisfied now. I don't blame the South an atom. They have been driven to desperation by such lunatics as Garrison and Phillips, and these men ought to be hung for it." "If there is a war, I hope you and every other Black Republican will be made to go and fight for the niggers all you want to."... "You like the niggers so well you'll marry one of them yet." . . . And, "I want to see those hot-headed Abolitionists put into the front rank, and shot first." These are mild quotations from the daily conversations, had not only where I was employed, but in every other shop and factory in the North. Such wordy contests were by no means one-sided affairs; for the assailed, while not anxious for war, were not afraid of it, and were amply supplied with arguments with which they answered and enraged their antagonists; and if they did not always silence them, they drove them into making just such ridiculous remarks as the foregoing. If I were asked who these men were, I should not call them by name. They were my neighbors and my friends, but they are changed men to-day. There is not one of them who, in the light of later experiences, is not heartily ashamed of his attitude at that time. Many of them afterwards went to the field, and, sad to say, are there yet.

But this was the period of the most intemperate and abusive language. Those who sympathized with the South were, some months later, called Copperheads. Lincoln and his party were reviled by these men without any restraint except such as personal shame and self-respect

might impose; and these qualities were conspicuously absent. Nothing was too harsh to utter against Republicans. No fate was too evil for their political opponents to wish them.

Of course all of these revilers were not sincere in their ill-wishes, but the effect of their utterances on the community was just as evil; and the situation of the new President, at its best a perplexing and

critical one, was thus made all the harder, by leading him to believe that a multitude of the citizens at the North would obstruct instead of supporting him. It also gave the slave-holders the impression that a very considerable number of northern men were ready to aid them in prosecuting their treasonable schemes. But now the rapid march of events wrought a change in the opinions of the people in both sections.

The leading Abolitionists had argued that the South was too cowardly to fight for slavery; and the South

had been told by the "Fire-eaters" and its northern friends that the North could not be kicked into fighting; that in case war should arise she would have her hands full to keep her enemies at home in check. Alas! how little did either party understand the temper of the other! How much like that story of the two Irishmen. Meeting one day in the army, one says, "How are you, Mike?" "How are you, Pat?" says the other. "But my name is not Pat," said the first speaker. "Nather is mine Mike," said the