country. Private means, as well as public, were
resorted to to arouse the men and bring them to the front. Officers
warned the private, and he in turn rode with all the speed his horse,
loosed from the plow, could command, to arouse his comrades. It was
on Saturday when word was first sent out, but it was late the next
day (Sunday) before men in the remote rural districts received the
stirring notice. Men left their plows standing in the field, not to
return under four years, and many of them never. Carpenters came down
from the unfinished roof, or left their bench with work half finished.
The student who had left his school on the Friday before never recited
his Monday's lesson. The country doctor left his patients to the care
of the good housewife. Many people had gone to church and in places
the bells were still tolling, calling the worshippers together to
listen to the good and faithful teachings of the Bible, but the sermon
was never delivered or listened to. Hasty preparations were made
everywhere. The loyal wives soon had the husband's clothes in the
homemade knapsack; the mother buckled on the girdle of her son, while
the gray haired father was burning with impatience, only sorrowing
that he, too, could not go. Never before in the history of the world,
not even in Carthage or Sparta, was there ever such a spontaneous
outburst of patriotic feeling; never such a cheerful and willing
answer to the call of a mother country. Not a regret, not a tear;
no murmuring or reproaches--not one single complaint. Never did the
faithful Scott give with better grace his sons for the defense of
his beloved chief, "Eric," than did the fathers and mothers of South
Carolina give their sons for the defense of the beloved Southland.

The soldiers gathered at the railroad stations, and as the trains
that had been sent to the farthest limits of the State came along, the
troops boarded them and hurried along to Charleston, then the seat
of war. General M.L. Bonham had been appointed Major General of State
troops and called his brigades together. Colonel Gregg was already in
Charleston with the First Regiment. Col. Joseph B. Kershaw with the
Second, Colonel James H. Williams with the Third, Colonel Thomas Bacon
with the Seventh, and Colonel E.B.C. Cash with the Eighth, formed
their regiments by gathering the different companies along at the
various railroad stations. The Second, Seventh, and Eighth came on
to Charleston, reaching there w