distant stations, so that they could not be called upon to help the
government when the insurgents seized the forts that were scattered
along the coast; and the Secretary of War took nearly a hundred and
fifty thousand stand of arms out of Northern arsenals and sent them to
the South. He did it openly and without any attempt at concealment, and
the Southern papers publicly thanked him for so doing. The Mobile
_Register_ said, in so many words, that they were much obliged to Mr.
Floyd for "disarming the North and equipping the South."

After such acts as these on the part of government officials, it is not
surprising that private citizens began to take their local affairs into
their own hands. A regular system of espionage and ostracism was
established all over the South. Everybody who was known or suspected of
being opposed to slavery and disunion was not only closely watched, but
was denied admission to homes in which he had always been a welcome
visitor. Free negroes were given to understand that they could either
clear out, or remain and be sold into bondage. Northern men--even those
who had long been engaged in business in the South, and whose interests
were centered there--were looked upon and treated with contempt, and
their lives were made miserable in every way that the exasperated and
unreasonable people around them could think of.

But, of course, things did not stop here. These suspected persons very
soon became the victims of open violence. Some were taken out of their
houses at night and whipped; others were tarred and feathered; and more
were hanged by self-appointed vigilance committees, or killed in
personal encounters. Up to the time of which we write there had been
none of this violence in and around Barrington, but it was coming now.
Almost the first thing that attracted the attention of Rodney Gray and
his companions when they went into the post-office was a notice that had
been fastened upon the bulletin board. It took them a minute or two to
elbow their way through the crowd of men and boys who were gathered in
front of it, reading and commenting upon the startling intelligence it
contained, and when they succeeded they read as follows:

IMPORTANT NOTICE.

At a meeting of the citizens and voters of Barrington, held this day,
March 9, 1861, it was unanimously

_Resolved:_ That the excitement at present existing among the people
renders it prudent for us to appoint a committee of the citizens of