, both before and
after the passage of the ordinance, favored its reference to the
people in the vain hope that the measure would in this way be
frustrated. They declared that, in a matter of such vital importance,
involving the lives and liberties of a whole people, the ordinance
should be submitted to them for their discussion, and that secession
should be attempted only after ratification by a direct vote of the
people on that single issue.

Affecting and exciting scenes followed the passage of the ordinance.
One by one the strong members of the minority arose and, for the sake
of unity at home, surrendered the opinions of a lifetime and forgot
the prejudices of years. This was done with no feeling of humiliation.
To the last they were treated with distinguished consideration by
their opponents.

Shortly after the convention began its deliberations a mass meeting
was held in Leesburg, where the secession sentiment was practically
unanimous, for the purpose of adopting resolutions to be sent to that
important body recommending the immediate passage of the ordinance of
secession. The citizens were addressed by Col. J.M. Kilgore and
others.

The vote in Loudoun for the ratification or rejection of the ordinance
of secession, while not close, was somewhat spirited and marked by
slight disturbances at the polls. In practically every precinct
outside the German and Quaker settlements a majority vote was cast in
favor of secession.

No county in the State eclipsed Loudoun in devotion to the principles
on which Virginia's withdrawal from the Union was based, and the
courage displayed by her in maintaining these principles made her the
acknowledged equal of any community in the Southland.

_Loudoun's Participation in the War._

A discussion in this volume of the great Civil War and its causes has
at no time been contemplated, and vain appeals addressed to surviving
Confederate soldiers and Government record keepers long ago
demonstrated the impracticability of a thorough account of the part
borne by Loudoun soldiers in that grand, uneven struggle of 1861-'65.
Their exact numbers even can not be ascertained as the original
enlistment records were either lost or destroyed and duplicates never
completed.

It may with truth be said that the extent of the service rendered by
Loudoun in this, as well as preceding wars, will never be fully known
or adequately appreciated. However, certain it is that thousands of
her son