Fort Sumter, and Lieutenant
Talbot kept on his way to Washington with dispatches.

Although this affair attracted very little attention or comment at the
North, I was convinced, from the major's depression of spirits, that it
acted a great deal upon his mind. He evidently feared it might be
considered as a betrayal of his trust, and he was very sensitive to
every thing that affected his honor.

I have already stated the reasons for his inaction. In amplifying his
instructions not to provoke a collision into instructions not to fight
at all, I have no doubt he thought he was rendering a real service to
the country. He knew the first shot fired by us would light the flames
of a civil war that would convulse the world, and tried to put off the
evil day as long as possible. Yet a better analysis of the situation
might have taught him that the contest had already commenced, and could
no longer be avoided. The leaders of the South at this period would
hardly have been satisfied with the most abject submission of the
anti-slavery party to all their behests. In fact, every concession made
to their wishes seemed to them to be dictated by the weakness of the
Government, and its fears of internal dissensions and civil war in all
the great cities of the North. They needed blood and the prestige of a
victory to rouse the enthusiasm of their followers, and cement the
rising Confederacy. They wanted a new and powerful slave empire,
extending to the Isthmus of Panama, and for this a direct issue must be
made with the free States. In vain did a member of Congress, who
afterward became a distinguished Union general, offer in Richmond to
raise an army of twenty thousand men in the North to fight the
abolitionists, if the South would consent to remain in the Union. Even
this was not deemed sufficient or satisfactory. Slavery had so long
dominated every thing with a rod of iron, that its votaries deemed it
was born to universal dominion. All the pathways to political power, all
the avenues of promotion in the army and navy, lay in that direction.
General Scott was accustomed to say that "with Virginia officers and
Yankee troops he could conquer the world," and this implied that
slave-holders, in his opinion, were the only men fitted to command.

Washington was too full of spies for the rebel leaders to remain in
ignorance of Lincoln's intention to re-enforce us. On the 6th of April,
Beauregard restricted our marketing to two days in the