itself,
and I couldn't tell until the 15th, (April) which way she was going; but
now I know. When the Yankee President called for those seventy-five
thousand volunteers our Governor replied: 'I say emphatically that
Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subjugating
her sister Southern States. As Dick Graham used to say, 'That's me.' I
go with the government of my State. Now, then, what have you done? I
shall write the rest of the fellows to-day."

Billings, the South Carolina boy, reached home too late to take part in
the bombardment of Fort Sumter. and he told Rodney that he was very
sorry for it. Every one of the gallant five thousand who had fought for
thirty-four hours to compel a handful of tired and hungry men to haul
down their flag was looked upon as a hero, and Billings said he might
have been a hero too, if he had only had sense enough to leave school a
month earlier. But he was all right now. He was a Confederate soldier
and ready to do and dare with the best of them.

Dick Graham, whose home you will remember was in Missouri, wrote in much
the same strain that Dixon did. His State was in such a turmoil and
seemed to be so evenly divided between Union and disunion, that Dick
could not tell which way she was going until he saw Governor Jackson's
answer to Lincoln's call for volunteers. "There can be, I apprehend, no
doubt that these men are intended to make war upon the seceded States,"
said the Governor. "Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal,
unconstitutional and revolutionary in its objects, inhuman and
diabolical and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of
Missouri furnish to carry on such an unholy crusade."

"When I read those burning words," Dick wrote, with enthusiasm, "my mind
was made up and I knew where I stood. I expected some such move on the
Governors part, for when he came into office in January, he declared
that Missouri must stand by the other slave States whatever course they
might pursue. I kept my promise and enlisted in a company of partisans
raised under the terms of the Military Bill, which makes every
able-bodied man in the State subject to military duty. Price is our
immediate commander, but we were required to take the oath to obey the
Governor alone."

"There, now," exclaimed Rodney, when he read this. "What's the reason
our Governor can't swear the Rangers in as well as the Governor of
Missouri can swear his troops in? I believe he coul