high
places, seemed bent on giving the South every opportunity to strengthen
itself against the North.

In many of the Northern States, it was hoped by the timid that war
could be averted by passing laws which would please the South. But
Garfield knew better. He saw that war must come, and he urged his
friends to be prepared. One night he said to a fellow-Senator, Cox,
who shared his lodgings, "Cox, war is inevitable."

"It is, as sure as you live," was the reply.

Then said Garfield, "If it comes, you and I must fight; let us then
pledge our lives to our country in her hour of peril." And standing
there, these two men, grand types of the Young America which was rising
above the shame of its dark past, pledged themselves to fight for the
old flag and for human right.

Abraham Lincoln succeeded Buchanan in the Presidency of the United
States, and the Confederates withdrew from the Union, and elected a
friend of the slave-owners, named Jefferson Davis, as their President.
Then the first blow was struck. At Charleston was a stronghold called
Fort Sumter, which commanded the bay and harbour. The fort was held by
Major Andersen for the Federal Government. The garrison was small,
consisting only of some seventy men, who were without provisions.

[Illustration: The defense of Fort Sumter.]

The Confederates demanded possession of the fort. Anderson held out
for a day or two, until the walls were beaten down about his ears, and
then surrendered the fortress to the rebels. This was the beginning of
war.

The news of the victory was flashed through the land, and the nation
stood aghast, to find that the Great Rebellion had begun.

CHAPTER XV.

DARK DAYS FOE THE UNION.

President Lincoln's Appeal to the Country--Dark Days for the Northern
States--A Decisive Battle--Glorious News.

The question of slavery was the real cause of the American Civil War,
though in the first instance the object of the North was solely to save
the Union. Six of the slave States had withdrawn from the Union. They
had appointed as their President Jefferson Davis, and had attempted to
seize all the arms and forts within the border of the States.

The ease with which Fort Sumter had fallen into their hands encouraged
them to believe that they could easily snap the bonds which held the
Union together. In the South the white population was supposed to be
far superior to their Northern neighbours in all the arts of war.

The