still in its possession, the surrender of which had been demanded by authorities of the States in which they were situated.

In the midst of this stirring and rapid sequence of events, Gov. John Letcher, by proclamation, convened the general assembly of Virginia in extra session, on the 7th of January, 1861, to consider the critical political condition of the country. On the 14th that body ordered an election, on the following 4th of February, of delegates to a convention of the State, the people at the same time to vote on the question as to whether any ordinance changing the relations of Virginia to the other States of the Union should be submitted to a popular vote for approval or rejection. On the 19th the general assembly invited the other States of the Union to meet it in a peace conference, at Washington, that should endeavor to heal the dissensions then prevailing, and appointed exPresident John Tyler, Hons. William C. Rives, John W. Brockenbrough, George W. Summers, and James A. Seddon, some of its most distinguished citizens, as delegates to that conference. It also appointed ex-President Tyler a commissioner to the President of the United States, and Judge John Robertson a commissioner to the States that had seceded, to request each of these to abstain from acts likely to bring on a collision of arms pending Virginia's efforts to secure peace. On February 4th this peace conference met in Washington, D. C., with representatives present from thirteen of the free States and seven of the border slave States. On the same day the Southern slave States, with the exception of the seven border States that had not seceded, met in convention at Montgomery Ala. Subsequently, during the conference at Washington, delegates appeared from other States until twenty-one were represented. That conference submitted a plan of reconciliation to Congress which was rejected, and soon thereafter Congress adjourned.

On February 13th the delegates that had been elected to the Virginia convention met at Richmond. On March 4th Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. On the 6th the Virginia commissioners to the peace convention at Washington submitted a report, through Governor Letcher, to the Virginia convention, setting forth the unsatisfactory results of the conference. On the 8th of April the Virginia

convention, still anxiously seeking to secure peace, selected three of its most distinguished members, Alexander H. H. Stuart, William Ballard Preston and George W. Randolph, to visit Washington and confer with President Lincoln in reference to the course he intended to pursue in dealing with the Confederate States. This delegation met Mr. Lincoln on the 12th, and on the next day, by appointment, had a conference with him, during which he read and handed them a paper setting forth his views and declaring his intention to coerce the seceding States into obedience to Federal authority. That same day Fort Sumter surrendered to the Confederate States.

On the 15th of April, President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 militia, apportioned among the States, to serve for three months, to suppress combinations against the laws of the United States in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. He also summoned the Congress to meet on the 4th of July, 1861. That there might be no misunderstanding of the object of his call for troops, Lincoln stated in his proclamation: "I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union." In pursuance of Lincoln's call, the following letter was sent to Governor Letcher:

War Department, Washington, April 15, 1861. To His Excellency the Governor of Virginia:

Sir: Under the act of Congress for calling forth "militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.," approved February 28, 1795, I have the honor to request your Excellency to cause to be immediately detached from the militia of your State the quota designated in the table below, to serve as infantry or riflemen for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged.

Your Excellency will please communicate to me the time, at or about, which your quota will be expected at its rendezvous, as it will be met as soon as practicable by an officer to muster it into the service and pay of the United States.

SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.

The quota of Virginia called for in the table attached to this letter was three regiments, embracing 2,340 men, to rendezvous at Staunton, Wheeling and Gordonsville. To this communication Governor Letcher made prompt reply, as follows:

Executive Department, Richmond, Va., April 15, 1861.

Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War:

Sir: I received your telegram of the 15th, the genuineness of which I doubted. Since that time I have received your communication, mailed the same day, in which I am requested to detach from the militia of the State of Virginia "the quota designated in a table,” which you append, "to serve as infantry or riflemen for the period of three months, unless sooner discharged."

In reply to this communication, I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me for such an object-an object, in my judgment, not within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795-will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and, having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South.

Respectfully, JOHN LETCHER.

At

Lincoln's call for troops to invade and coerce the newborn Confederacy, and Letcher's reply to that call, wrought an immediate change in the current of public opinion in Virginia, from the mountains to the sea. the election of delegates to the State convention, held on the 4th of February, the best and ablest men of the commonwealth had been chosen, largely without regard to party affiliation, but because they were for the maintenance of the Union. The citizens of the State further safeguarded their views upon this subject by deciding, by a large majority, at the time of that election, that any action of the convention looking to a change of the relations of the States to the Union must be submitted to a popular vote for approval or rejection.

Up to this time the convention had been mainly engaged in efforts to conciliate the discordant sections, urging the general government, which was now entirely Northern in character, to abstain from hostile action toward the seceded States, and at the same time endeavoring to restrain the latter, in the hope that time and reflection would lead to a reconsideration of their, in its opinion, hasty and premature action. The Confederacy had sent its ablest men to urge Virginia to join it, satisfied that unless she did so the effort to organize a new and independent nation would be a failure. To these eminent men the convention had given a respectful hearing, but had declined the proffered alliance, satisfied that if she joined the Southern Confederacy, almost her entire territory would become the scene of a fierce and long-continued

civil war, the brunt and burden of which would fall upon her more heavily than upon any other State. But as the views of the people were changed by Lincoln's call, so were those of a majority of the members of the convention. As soon as the President's call for troops was known, the convention met, with closed doors, and within two days thereafter, on Wednesday, April 17, 1861, adopted an ordinance of secession, in these words:

An ordinance to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution:

The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whenever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the South or slaveholding States,

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention, on the twenty-fifth of June, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the general assembly of this State ratifying or adopting amendments to said Constitution are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignity which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day when ratified by a majority of the votes of the people of this State, cast at a poll to be taken thereon, on the fourth Thursday in May next, în pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.

Done in convention in the city of Richmond, on the seventeenth day of April, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-one, and in the eighty-fifth year of the commonwealth of Virginia.

This ordinance was adopted by a vote of 81 for and 51 against. Subsequently, after the will of the people was made known by a vote taken on May 23d, which by an overwhelming majority ratified the act of the convention, others signed the ordinance, until the signatures of 146 members of the convention were attached to it, leaving but few, mainly from Trans-Appalachian Virginia, who refused to sign.

Gen. J. E. Johnston, in the opening of his Narrative,

says:

"

The composition of the convention assembled in Richmond in the spring of 1861, to consider the question of secession, proved that the people of Virginia did not regard Mr. Lincoln's election as a sufficient cause for that measure, for at least two-thirds of its members were elected as "Union men.' And they and their constituents continued to be so, until the determination to "coerce" the seceded States was proclaimed by the President of the United States, and Virginia required to furnish her quota of the troops to be organized for that purpose. War being then inevitable, and the convention compelled to decide whether the State should aid in the subjugation of the other Southern States, or join them in the defense of the principles which they had professed since 1789-belong to the invading party, or to that standing on the defensive-it chose the latter, and passed its ordinance of secession. The people confirmed that choice by an overwhelming vote.

The action of the Virginia convention was kept secret for nearly two days in order to give time to take possession of the United States armory and arsenal at Harper's Ferry, and volunteer companies were secretly hurried from the valley for this purpose. These troops reached Halltown, about five miles from Harper's Ferry, late in the afternoon of the 18th of April. Learning of their advance, the small Federal garrison there, at 10 p. m., fired the armory, and crossing into Maryland retreated all night toward the United States barracks at Carlisle. The Virginia troops occupied the town shortly after its evacuation, and proceeded to extinguish the fires. On the nomination of the governor, Gen. William B. Taliaferro was, on the 18th, assigned to the command of Virginia troops ordered to assemble at Norfolk for the purpose of capturing the Gosport navy yard. The same day, at the instance of General Scott, President Lincoln offered to Col. R. E. Lee the command of the United States army intended for the invasion of Virginia. On the 20th Colonel Lee resigned his commission in the United States army, and on the 22d he was elected by the Virginia convention, major-general to command the forces of the State, for which provision had been made to mobilize for its defense. General Lee accepted this appointment, and on the 23d was assigned to the command of the military and naval forces.

On April 20th a Federal expedition from Fort Monroe attempted to destroy the dry dock at the Gosport navy yard, near Norfolk, but only with partial success, as the Virginia troops arrived and took possession.