Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[50] “This State is ready to assert her rights and independence. The leading men are eager for the business.” --“There is a great deal of excitement here,” said a dispatch from Washington City; “several extreme Southern men, in office, have donned the Palmetto cockade,¹ and declared themselves ready to march South.” --“If your State secedes,” said another, from Richmond, Virginia, “we will send you troops of volunteers to aid you.” --“Placards are posted about the city,” said a message from New Orleans, “calling a convention of those favorable to the organization of a corps of Minute-men. The Governor is all right.” --“Be firm,” said a second dispatch from Washington; “a large quantity of arms will be shipped South from the Arsenal here, to-morrow. The President is perplexed.

Secession Cookade.

His feelings are with the South, but he is afraid to assist them openly.” --“The bark James Gray, owned by Cushing's Boston line, lying at our wharves,” said a message from Charleston, “has hoisted the Palmetto flag, and fired a salute of fifteen guns, under direction of her owner. The Minute-men throng the streets with Palmetto cockades in their hats. There is great rejoicing here.”

Stimulated by these indications of sympathy, the South Carolina Legislature took bold and vigorous action. Joint resolutions were offered in both Houses, providing for the calling of a State Convention at an early day, for the purpose of formally declaring the withdrawal of the State from the Union. These, generally, contemplated immediate separate State action, before the excitement caused by the election should subside, and the heads of the people should become cool and capable of sober reflection. But there were able men in that Legislature, who foresaw the perils which a single. State, cut loose from her moorings during a terrible storm of passion, would have to encounter, and pleaded eloquently for the exercise of reason and prudence. They were as zealous as their colleagues for ultimate secession, but regarded the co-operation of at least the other Cotton-growing States as essential to success. “If the State, in her sovereign capacity, determines that secession will produce the co-operation which we have so earnestly sought,” said Mr. McGowan, of Abbeville, “then it shall have my hearty approbation. . . . If South Carolina, in Convention assembled, deliberately secedes-separate and alone, and, without hope of co-operation, decides to cut loose from her moorings, surrounded as she is by Southern sisters in like circumstances — I will be one of her crew, and, in common with every true son of hers, will endeavor, with all the power that God has given me, to

Spread all her canvas to the breeze,
     Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the God of storms,
     The lightning and the gale.

”

But these cautious men were overborne by the fiery zealots. One of these (Mullins, from Marion), in his eagerness to hurry the State out of the Union, revealed not only the fact that the heads and hearts of the great mass of the people of South Carolina were not in unison with the desperate