ecution. He could have done nothing without the consent of
Congress, and his party was in a minority both in the Senate and in the
House of Representatives.

Before Christmas South Carolina, not caring for consequences and blind
to the horrible future, passed an ordinance of secession; and her
example was followed in quick succession by Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states organized the
Southern Confederacy, of which Jefferson Davis was inaugurated
President, February 18, 1861. In April Fort Sumter was captured, and on
the 15th of that month President Lincoln issued a proclamation calling
on the remaining states to furnish their quotas of an army of
seventy-five thousand soldiers for the purpose of destroying the
Confederate government. Two days later the Virginia convention passed an
ordinance of secession. Being compelled to take sides, the Old Dominion
naturally cast her lot with her Southern sisters. War had
begun,--intestine war, of whose magnitude and duration no living man had
any adequate conception.

These events conspired with other causes to infuse in me a martial
spirit. The conviction was growing in me that, as my native state was
about to be invaded, I must have a place in the ranks of her defenders.
I was influenced by speeches delivered by Governor Floyd, Professor
Holcombe, and Dr. Bledsoe, and still more by the contagious example of
my roommate, William H. Chapman, who had gone with a company of students
to Harper's Ferry, and had returned. What brought the conviction to a
head was a flag. One morning in the latter part of April, as I was
walking from my boarding-house to the University I saw a Confederate
banner floating above the rotunda. Some of the students during the
night, surmounting difficulty and braving danger, had clambered to the
summit and erected there the symbol of a new nation. I was thrilled by
the sight of it as if by an electric shock. There it was, outstretched
by a bracing northwest wind, flapping defiantly, arousing patriotic
emotion. Unable longer to refrain, I went as soon as the lecture was
concluded to Professor Minor's residence and told him I was going to
enter the military service of Virginia. He sought to dissuade me, but,
perceiving that he could not alter my rash decision, he gave at my
request a written permission to leave his classes.

But how to get home?--that had become a perplexing question. I could not
go the way I ha