movement paused, and Farragut earnestly
trusted would stop. Born in a Southern State, and passing his childhood
in the extreme Southwest, his relations with both had been severed at
too early an age to establish any lasting hold upon his affections; but,
though he was to the end carried upon the Navy Register as a citizen of
Tennessee, the tenderest and most enduring ties of his life had been
formed in Virginia. Nowhere were local bonds stronger, nowhere State
pride greater or more justified, than in the famous Commonwealth, which
had stood in the center of the line in the struggle for independence,
and had given to the nation so many illustrious men from Washington
downward. It was impossible that Farragut--who at so early an age, and
when attached to no other spot, had married in Norfolk, and
thenceforward gone in and out among its people--should be insensible to
these influences, or look without grief to a contingency which should
force him to sunder all these associations and go forth, on the verge of
old age, to seek elsewhere a new home. Nor is it possible to many,
however conscious of right, to bear without suffering the alienation and
the contempt visited upon those who, in times of keen political
excitement, dare to differ from the general passion which sways the mass
around them.
Farragut therefore naturally hoped that this bitter trial might be
spared him. The Virginian people had taken what seemed then to be a
conservative attitude; and, although he was determined to abide by the
Union if it were severed by violent action, he was anxious to believe
that his home might be saved to him. The Legislature of the State met
early in January and recommended all the States to appoint deputies to a
peace convention, which accordingly met on the 4th of February; but the
propositions made by it were not such as the National Congress could
accept. On the 13th of the same month there was assembled at Richmond a
State convention, the majority of the delegates to which were Union men,
in the then sense of the word in that State. This fact, and the
character of some of the speeches made, tended to encourage the belief
to which Farragut's wishes led him; but this hope was soon damped by the
passage of resolutions affirming the right of secession, and defining
the grounds upon which Virginia would be justified in exercising the
right. Among these grounds were the adoption of any warlike measures by
the United States Governme
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