204. Poplar Grove Church

205. Bridging the Rappahannock under Fire

206. Signalling

207. A Flagman, Plate 1

208. A Flagman, Plate 2

209. A Flagman, Plate 3

210. A Signal Tree-Top

211. A Signal Tower, before Petersburg, Va.

HARD TACK AND COFFEE.

CHAPTER I.

THE TOCSIN OF WAR.

A score of millions hear the cry
And herald it abroad,

To arms they fly to do or die

For liberty and God.

E. P. DYER.

And yet they keep gathering and marching away!
Has the nation turned soldier-and all in a day?
There's the father and son!

While the miller takes gun
With the dust of the wheat still whitening his hair;
Pray where are they going with this martial air?

F. E. BROOKS.

the 6th of November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the Republican party, was elected President of the United States, over three opponents. The autumn of that year witnessed the most exciting political canvass this country had ever seen. The Democratic party, which had been in power for several years in succession, split into factions and nominated two candidates. The northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, who was an advocate of the doctrine of Squatter Sovereignty, that is, the right of the people living in a Territory which wanted admission into the Union as a State to,

15

decide for themselves whether they would or would not have slavery.

The southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge, of Kentucky, at that time Vice-President of the United States. The doctrine which he and his party advocated was the right to carry their slaves into every State and Territory in the Union without any hindrance whatever. Then there was still another party, called by some the Peace Party,

A BELL AND EVERETT CAM

PAIGNER,

which pointed to the Constitution of the country as its guide, but had nothing to say on the great question of slavery, which was so prominent with the other parties. It took for its standardbearer John Bell, of Tennessee; and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, was nominated as VicePresident. This party drew its membership from both of the others, but largely from the Dem

ocrats.

Owing to these divisions the Republican party, which had not been in existence many years, was enabled to elect its candidate. The Republicans did not intend to meddle with slavery where it then was, but opposed its extension into any new States and Territories. This latter fact was very well known to the slave-holders, and so they voted almost solidly for John C. Breckenridge. But it was very evident to them, after the Democratic party divided, that the Republicans would succeed, and so, long before the election actually took place, they began to make threats of seceding from the Union if Lincoln was elected. Freedom of speech was not tolerated

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 im-mediately 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,