of resistance, the North would ask, “Where are her soldiers?” “The rich planters’ sons cannot fight.”  “The poor man will not do battle for the negroes of the rich.”  “The South has no arms, no money, no credit.”  So each mistook the strength, motives, spirits, and sentiments that actuated the other.  A great change came over the feelings of the North after the fall of Sumter.  They considered that their flag had been insulted, their country dishonored.  Where there had been differences before at the North, there was harmony now.  The conservative press of that section was now defiant and called for war; party differences were healed and the Democratic party of the North that had always affiliated in national affairs with the South, was now bitter against their erring sisters, and cried loudly for “Union or coercion.”  The common people of the North were taught to believe that the Nation had been irretrievably dishonored and disgraced, that the disruption of the Union was a death knell to Republican institutions and personal liberty.  That the liberty and independence that their ancestors had won by their blood in the Revolution was now to be scattered to the four winds of heaven by a few fanatical slave holders at the South.  But up to this time the question of slavery had not been brought into controversy on either side.  It was not discussed and was only an after thought, a military necessity.

Virginia, three days after the fall of Sumter, joined her sister State.  This act of the old commonwealth was hailed in the Gulf States with great rejoicing.  Bells tolled and cannon boomed and men hurrahed.  Until now it was not certain what stand would be taken by the Border States.  They did not wish to leave the Union; neither would they be a party to a war upon their seceding sisters.  They promised to be neutral.  But President Lincoln soon dispelled all doubt and uncertainty by his proclamation, calling upon all States then remaining in the Union to furnish their quota of troops.  They were then forced to take sides for or against and were not long in reaching a conclusion.  As soon as conventions could be assembled, the States joined the Confederacy and began levying troops to resist invasion.  Tennessee followed Virginia, then Arkansas, the Old North State being the last of the Atlantic and Gulf States to cross the Rubicon into the “plains of Southern independence.”  The troops that had been called for six months were now disbanded, and those who had enlisted for twelve months for State service were called upon to volunteer in the Confederate Army for the unexpired time.  They volunteered almost without a dissenting voice.  Having left their homes so hurriedly, they were granted a furlough of a week or ten days to return to their families and put their houses in order.  They then returned and went into a camp of instruction.