. As they went on they found the whole country in a blaze
of enthusiasm. No one who saw the scene would have doubted for a moment
that the South was an ardent unit in support of its cause. By day the
troop trains were wildly cheered as they passed; at night bonfires
blazed on the hills and torchlight processions paraded the streets of
the towns. As no cannon were at hand to salute the incoming volunteers,
blacksmith anvils took their place, ringing with the blows of hammers
swung by muscular arms. Every station was a throng of welcoming people,
filling the air with shouts and the lively sound of fife and drum, and
bearing banners of all sizes and shapes, on which Southern independence
was proclaimed and the last dollar and man pledged to the cause. The
women were out as enthusiastically as the men; staid matrons and ardent
maids springing upon the cars, pinning blue cockades on the lapels of
the new soldiers' coats, and singing the war-songs already in vogue, the
favorite "Dixie" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag," in whose chorus the harsh
voices of the Raccoon Boughs mingled with the musical tones of their
fair admirers.

Montgomery was at length reached to find it thronged with shouting
volunteers, every man of them burning with enthusiasm. Mingled with them
were visiting statesmen and patriotic citizens, for that city was the
cradle of the new-born Confederacy and the centre of Southern
enthusiasm. Every heart was full of hope, every face marked with energy,
a prayer for the success of the cause on every lip. Never had more
fervent and universal enthusiasm been seen. On the hills and around the
capital cannon boomed welcome to the inflowing volunteers, wagons
rumbled by carrying arms and ammunition to the camps, on every street
marched untrained but courageous recruits. As for the Raccoon Roughs,
Governor Moore kept his word, assigning them to a place in the Sixth
Alabama Regiment, of which Captain Gordon, unexpectedly and against his
wishes, was unanimously elected major.

Such were the scenes which the coming war excited in the far South, such
the fervid enthusiasm with which the coming conflict for Southern
independence was hailed. So vast was the number of volunteers, in
companies and in regiments, each eager to be accepted, that the Hon.
Leroy P. Walker, the first Secretary of War of the Confederacy, was
fairly overwhelmed by the flood of applicants that poured in on him day
and night. Their captains and colonels wayl