intain
the Union against all its enemies. The secession of one State after
another followed, until eleven had gone out. On the 11th of April Fort
Sumter, a National fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, was
fired upon by the Southerners and a few days after was captured. The
Confederates proclaimed themselves aliens, and thereby debarred
themselves of all right to claim protection under the Constitution of
the United States. We did not admit the fact that they were aliens, but
all the same, they debarred themselves of the right to expect better
treatment than people of any other foreign state who make war upon an
independent nation. Upon the firing on Sumter President Lincoln issued
his first call for troops and soon after a proclamation convening
Congress in extra session. The call was for 75,000 volunteers for
ninety days' service. If the shot fired at Fort Sumter "was heard
around the world," the call of the President for 75,000 men was heard
throughout the Northern States. There was not a state in the North of a
million of inhabitants that would not have furnished the entire number
faster than arms could have been supplied to them, if it had been
necessary.

As soon as the news of the call for volunteers reached Galena, posters
were stuck up calling for a meeting of the citizens at the court-house
in the evening. Business ceased entirely; all was excitement; for a
time there were no party distinctions; all were Union men, determined to
avenge the insult to the national flag. In the evening the court-house
was packed. Although a comparative stranger I was called upon to
preside; the sole reason, possibly, was that I had been in the army and
had seen service. With much embarrassment and some prompting I made out
to announce the object of the meeting. Speeches were in order, but it
is doubtful whether it would have been safe just then to make other than
patriotic ones. There was probably no one in the house, however, who
felt like making any other. The two principal speeches were by B. B.
Howard, the post-master and a Breckinridge Democrat at the November
election the fall before, and John A. Rawlins, an elector on the Douglas
ticket. E. B. Washburne, with whom I was not acquainted at that time,
came in after the meeting had been organized, and expressed, I
understood afterwards, a little surprise that Galena could not furnish a
presiding officer for such an occasion without taking a strange