withstood the attack of an army, provided with the heaviest batteries which Europe and America could afford. For thirty-six hours they continued the unequal conflict. And then, when they had not another cartridge to fire, and not another biscuit to divide, they evacuated the ruins, the Stars and Stripes still waving over them, and they stepping proudly to the air of "Hail Columbia." The nation regarded it as a victory, and welcomed them as heroes. And the people of the United States will never cease to regard each member of the intrepid garrison of Fort Sumter with admiration and homage.

From the statistical report, given in the Charleston Mercury of May 3, it appears that the Rebels threw into and upon the fort, from fourteen batteries, 2361 solid shot, and 980 shells. Among the incidents of the battle related by an eye-witness, one is that a ten-inch shell entered the fort just above the magazine, cut its way through a block of granite, a foot thick, as if it had been cheese, and then exploded, casting a fragment of the shell, weighing twenty pounds, against the massive iron door of the magazine with such force, that the door was so bent that it could not be closed. Soon after this a red-hot shot passed quite through the outer wall of the magazine, and penetrated the inner wall to the depth of four inches, when it fell to the floor. All this time grains of powder, spilled by the men, were lying loosely about, so that it is a wonder, almost approaching to a miracle, that the magazine was not fired, and the fort and all its defenders blown into the air.

It is a marvelous fact, but one now apparently well authenticated, that during this long and terrific bombardment no one was killed on either side. After the battle was over, by the accidental explosion of a gun in saluting the national flag, one of the Federal soldiers was killed and several wounded. But in the battle, no one was seriously hurt. The Rebels had been for months preparing for the conflict, and the balls from Sumter which struck their batteries, cased, at a sharp angle, with railroad iron, glanced off, in the express language of an eye-witness, like marbles thrown by the hand of a child against the back of a tortoise. The men in Sumter were so few in number, and in casemates behind walls sixty feet high, and from twelve to fifteen feet thick, that it is not so very incredible that they should have escaped unharmed. And yet when we reflect that fifty tons weight of iron was thrown upon them with force which crumbled down the most massive masonry, it does indeed seem surprising that "nobody was hurt."

Three times the fort was on fire, and twice the flames were extinguished, by the whole garrison ceasing to fire, and passing along water. To do this it was necessary for the men to go outside the walls, and hand the buckets in through the port-holes, all the time exposed to the incessant fire from the batteries. The third time the flames burst out, all their efforts to extinguish them were baffled, and they burned until almost everything combustible was consumed. The scene in Charleston, during this bombardment, must have been such as can not easily be imagined. From the steeples, the house-tops, and Battery, the whole bay was spread out before the eye and never before, perhaps, was there so perfect a panorama of

battle. One of the rebels, who was in Charleston at the time, thus describes the scene:

"At the gray of the morning on Friday, the roar of cannon broke upon the ear. The expected sound was answered by thousands. The houses were in a few minutes emptied of their excited occupants, and the living stream poured through all the streets leading to the wharves and battery. On reaching our beautiful promenade, we found it lined with ranks of eager spectators, and all the wharves, commanding a view of the battle, were crowded thickly with human forms. On no gala occasion have we ever seen so large a number of ladies on our Battery as graced the breezy walk on this eventful morning. There they stood, with palpitating hearts and pallid faces, watching the white smoke as it rose in wreaths, upon the soft twilight air, and breathing out fervent prayers for their gallant kinsfolk at the guns."

The avowed object of the rebels, in their attack upon Sumter, was to cross the Rubicon in the actual inauguration of civil war, and thus to "fire the heart of the South." It was supposed that the South, being thus committed, would be compelled, by pride, to continue the conflict, for southern pride would scorn to entertain the thought of apology and submission. This outrage upon our country's flag, this inauguration of civil war, which was to cost more than a hundred thousand lives, to impoverish countless families, and to imperil our very national existence, was received through out the rebellious cities, with all the demonstrations of pride and joy. Those who still loved their country did not dare to utter a remonstrating word, for an iron tyranny crushed them.

But the uprising in the North was such as the world never witnessed before. The slaveholders at the South had so long been threatening blood and ruin, that the North had quite ceased to regard their menaces. There was hardly a man to be found in all the North, who had any idea that the Southern rebels would venture to commence civil war. The bombardment of Sumter created universal amazement and indignation. As the news of the insult to the national flag, of the battle, and of the capture of the fort by the rebels, was flashed along the wires, excitement, perhaps unparalleled in the history of the world, pervaded every city and hamlet, and almost every heart. All party distinctions seemed to be forgotten. There were henceforth but two parties in the land, the rebels with their sympathizers, and the friends of the Union.

On the next day, Monday, April 15, the President issued a call for three months' service of 75,000 volunteers, and summoned an extra session of Congress to meet on the 4th of July. The response of the loyal States. to this call for troops was prompt and cordial in the highest possible degree. Never perhaps were a people found less prepared for war, than were the people of the Northern States. Accustomed only to peace, and not anticipating any foe, many of the States had not even the form of a military organization. All the energies of the people were consecrated to the arts of industry, not to those of destruction. We had neither soldiers nor officers. The men who had received military education at West Point, weary of having absolutely nothing to do, but to wear away the irksome hours, in

some fort on the shore or in the wilderness, had generally engaged in other pursuits. They had become civil engineers, railroad superintendents, instructors in scientific schools, and thus had become in reality merely civilians who had studied the science and theory of war, but with no practical acquaintance with the duties of the field.

This was not our shame, but our glory. We were men of peace and industry, and of great prosperity. We had not dreamed that traitors would rise to plunge this happy land into anarchy, and to destroy this best government, best notwithstanding all its imperfections,-earth has ever known. Floyd had emptied the arsenals, and placed the guns in the hands of the rebels. Our little standing army, consisting of but 10,755 men, officers and privates all told, he had scattered at almost illimitable distances over our vast frontier. Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of the Navy had equally dispersed the fleet; in fact our neglected navy had fallen almost into decay. And more than all this, the majority of the officers in the army and in the navy were men of slave-holding connections, many of whom openly avowed their sympathy with rebellion, and they had become so lost to all sense of honor, that the betrayal to the enemy of the Flag which they had sworn to protect,—a deed which all the rest of the world called infamous, they deemed chivalrous. Such was the condition of the North, when the war commenced.

Mr. Lincoln, in organizing his cabinet, had gratified the whole country by showing but little reference to party. Aware of the peril impending he had selected the ablest men wherever found, whose patriotism and zeal could not be doubted, to fill these important posts. William H. Seward of New York, was Secretary of State. Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Secretary of the Treasury. Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War. Gideon Welles of Connecticut, Secretary of the Navy. Montgomery Blair of Maryland, Postmaster General. Edward Bates of Missouri, Attorney General. Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior. These were all patriots in whose ability and integrity the community in general, reposed confidence. Mr. Cameron thus describes the condition of the War Department, as he entered upon its duties:

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Upon my appointment to the position, I found the department destitute of all the means of defense; without guns, and with little prospect of purchasing the materiel of war. I found the nation without an army, and I found scarcely a man throughout the whole War Department in whom I could put my trust. The Adjutant General deserted. The Quartermaster General ran off. The Commissary General was on his death-bed. More than half the clerks were disloyal. I remember that upon one occasion General Scott came to me, apparently in great mental tribulation. Said he, 'I have spent the most miserable day in my life; a friend of my boyhood has just told me I am disgracing myself by staying here, and serving this fragment of the government, in place of going to Virginia, and serving under the banner of my native State; and I am pained to death.' But the old hero was patriotic, loyal, and wise enough to say that his friend was wrong, and he was right in remaining where he was."

The conspirators, however, had been busy for years preparing for the

conflict.

In the rebel convention which met in South Carolina to consummate the conspiracy, Mr. Inglis said, "Most of us have had this subject under consideration for the last twenty years." Mr. Keitt said, "I have been engaged in this movement ever since I entered political life." Mr. Rhett said, "It is nothing produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or the nonexecution of the fugitive slave law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years." In many of the States there was an efficient military organization, and the troops were under active drill. Agents had been despatched to England, to try to win sympathy there, and to enlist the coöperation of leading journals, by promises of free trade. Nothing which wealth or intrigue could accomplish, had been neglected by the traitors, to prepare the way for their great purpose. The Richmond Enquirer, to encourage the friends of the conspiracy with the assurance that all things were ripe for the outbreak, published the following notice, the more memorable, as proclaimed by a sheet which was the recognized mouthpiece of Floyd:

"The facts we are about to state are official and indisputable. Under a single order of the late Secretary of War, the Hon. Mr. Floyd, made during the last year, there were 115,000 improved muskets and rifles transferred from the Springfield armory, Mass., and Watervliet arsenal, N. Y., to different arsenals at the South. The total number of improved arms, thus supplied to five depositories in the South, by a single order of the late Secretary of War, was 114,868." In addition to this, the Memphis Appeal (Tenn.) stated, at the same time, that, by this action of Floyd, by the seizure of forts and arsenals, and by purchase from abroad, the rebel states had then, distributed at various convenient points, 707,000 stand of arms, and 200,000 revolvers.

The response from the loyal States to the President's call for troops was so enthusiastic, that far more men were ready to march than were called for, and millions of dollars were immediately offered to replenish the exhausted treasury. Within fifteen days, it is estimated that 350,000 volunteers offered themselves in defense of our national flag. In all the slaveholding States, even in those border States where the majority of the population were in favor of the Union, the conspirators had contrived to place their own friends in all the important offices. Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee were undoubtedly, by the popular vote, in large majority for the Union. But the Governors of these States assumed that the United States had no right to defend its own property and forts, or to protect its own troops, within the limits of the slaveholding States, now that they demanded the surrender of these forts and property, and the departure of these troops. C. M. Jackson, Governor of Missouri, in response to the President's call, said:

"Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its objects, inhuman, and diabolical, and can not be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish, to carry on such an unholy crusade."

B. Magoffin, Governor of Kentucky, responded in the following laconic note:

"Your dispatch is received. In answer, I say emphatically, that Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."

Similar responses came from several of the Governors of States still professedly in the Union. But the people in these States rushed by tens of thousands to defend our common country, and overthrow the traitorous rulers who wished to carry them off into rebellion.

The news of the capture of Sumter was received by the Rebel Congress in Montgomery with the greatest exultation. An immense crowd serenaded Jeff. Davis and his Secretary of War, Leroy P. Walker, at the Exchange Hotel. Jeff. Davis was sick, probably sick at heart, in view of the woes which the rebellion was bringing upon the land. He had thought that the North would yield without a struggle. He saw now that a civil war had commenced of such magnitude, that it must deluge the land in blood, and that the chances were that the rebellion would be crushed. He was sick. There was no tonic in the tidings to raise his head from his pillow. But his Secretary, Mr. Walker, appeared upon the balcony, and, in an exultant speech, said:

"No man can tell where the war, commenced this day, will end. But I will prophecy that the flag which now flaunts the breeze here will float over the dome of the old Capitol at Washington, before the 1st of May. Let them try Southern chivalry, and test the extent of Southern resources, and it may float eventually over Fanueil Hall itself."

The unanimity with which the whole North arose, in this crisis, all party differences being merged in enthusiastic devotion to the Union, is one of the most extraordinary events of history. Men who but a few days before had been bitterly hostile, were at once seen standing side by side, upon the same platform, in earnest coöperation to resist the audacious rebellion. Senator Douglas, one of the candidates for the Presidency, at this crisis, came forward with zeal and power which will forever entitle him to the gratitude of his countrymen. The overwhelming majority of his party followed their illustrious leader in the magnanimity of his patriotism. On the 1st of May, Senator Douglas reached Chicago, Illinois, on his return from Washington. He was met at the depot, by an immense assemblage of citizens, who conducted him in a triumphal procession to the great "Wigwam," where ten thousand persons, of all parties, were seated awaiting him. The Senator addressed them in the following strain, which thrilled the heart of the nation, and which will give him ever-during and grateful remembrance.

"I beg you to believe that I will not do you or myself the injustice to think that this magnificent ovation is personal to myself. I rejoice to know that it expresses your devotion to the Constitution, the Union and the flag of our country. I will not conceal gratification at the uncontrovertible test this vast audience presents-that, what political differences or party questions may have divided us, yet you all had a conviction that, when the country should be in danger, my loyalty could be relied on. That the present danger is imminent, no man can conceal. If war must come-if the bayonet must be used to maintain the Constitution-I say before God,