of this Democracy? Do not its principles and theories
become daily more fixed in our practice? (I had almost said in the
opinions of our people, did I not remember with pleasure the great
improvement of opinion in regard to the abstract question of
Slavery). And if such is the case, what are we to hope in the
future? I do not hesitate to say that if the question is raised
between Carolina and the Federal Government, and the latter
prevails, the last hope of republican government, and, I fear, of
Southern civilization, is gone. Russia will then be a better
government than ours.

"I fear that the confusion and interruptions amid which I write
have made this rather a rambling letter. Do you visit the North in
the Summer? I would be very happy to welcome you to the Old
Dominion.

"I am much obliged to you for the offer to send me Hammond's Eulogy
on Calhoun, but I am indebted to the author for a copy.

"With esteem and friendship, yours truly,

"M. R. H. GARNETT.

"WM. H. TRESCOT, ESQ."]

Next morning's New York herald, in its Charleston dispatch of April 12,
announced to the World that "The first shot [fired at Fort Sumter] from
Stevens's battery was fired by the venerable Edmund Ruffin, of
Virginia," and added, "That ball will do more for the cause of
Secession, in Virginia, than volumes of stump speeches."

"Soon," says Greeley in his History, "the thunder of fifty heavy
breaching cannon, in one grand volley, followed by the crashing and
crumbling of brick, stone, and mortar around and above them, apprized
the little garrison that their stay must necessarily be short."

Says an eye-witness of the bombardment: "Shells burst with the greatest
rapidity in every portion of the work, hurling the loose brick and stone
in all directions, breaking the windows and setting fire to whatever
woodwork they burst against. * * * The firing from the batteries on
Cumming's Point was scattered over the whole of the gorge or rear of the
Fort, till it looked like a sieve. The explosion of shells, and the
quantity of deadly missiles that were hurled in every direction and at
every instant of time, made it almost certain death to go out of the
lower tier of casemates, and also made the working of the barbette or
upper (uncovered) guns, which contained all our heaviest metal, and by
which alone