rom Pennsylvania,
Fitz-John Porter is from New Hampshire, Sedgwick from Connecticut, Sykes
from Delaware, and Averell from New York. And away, away out yonder, in
the midst of sage brush and Apaches, when any of us chance to meet
around a camp-fire, there we sit, while coyotes are yelling off in the
dark, there we sit and tell stories of home, of Virginia and
Pennsylvania, of Georgia and New Hampshire!"

He paused, drew himself up, looked out over the throng to the mountains,
studied for a moment their long, clean line, then dropped his glance and
spoke in a changed tone, with a fiery suddenness, a lunge as of a tried
rapier, quick and startling.

"Men of Botetourt! I speak for my fellow soldiers of the Army of the
United States when I say that, out yonder, we are blithe to fight with
marauding Comanches, with wolves and with grizzlies, but that we are
not--oh, we are not--ready to fight with each other! Brother against
brother--comrade against comrade--friend against friend--to quarrel in
the same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousand
dangers--no, we are not ready for that!

"Virginians! I will not believe that the permanent dissolution of this
great Union is come! I will not believe that we stand to-day in danger
of internecine war! Men of Botetourt, go slow--go slow! The Right of the
State--I grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were you all.
Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The Botetourt
Resolutions--amen to much, to very much in the Botetourt Resolutions!
South Carolina! Let South Carolina go in peace! It is her right!
Remembering old comradeship, old battlefields, old defeats, old
victories, we shall still be friends. If the Gulf States go, still it is
their right, immemorial, incontrovertible!--The right of
self-government. We are of one blood and the country is wide. God-speed
both to Lot and to Abraham! On some sunny future day may their children
draw together and take hands again! So much for the seceding States. But
Virginia,--but Virginia made possible the Union,--let her stand fast in
it in this day of storm! in this Convention let her voice be heard--as I
know it will be heard--for wisdom, for moderation, for patience! So, or
soon or late, she will mediate between the States, she will once again
make the ring complete, she will be the saviour of this great historic
Confederation which our fathers made!"

A minute or two more and he ended his speech. As he moved fr