[Footnote 2:  Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol.  I., pp. 60-73.]

%426.  The Life of the Republic at Stake%.—­Thus was begun the greatest war in modern history.  It was no vulgar struggle for territory, or for maritime or military supremacy.  The life of the Union was at stake.  The questions to be decided were:  Shall there be one or two republics on the soil of the United States?  Shall the great principle of all democratic-republican government, the principle that the will of the majority shall rule, be maintained or abandoned?  Shall state sovereignty be recognized?  Shall states be suffered to leave the Union at will, or shall the United States continue to exist as “an indestructible Union of indestructible States”?  As Mr. Lincoln said, “Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.”

%427.  The South better prepared%.—­For the struggle which was to decide these questions neither side was ready, but the South was better prepared than the North.  The South was united as one man.  The North was divided and full of Southern sympathizers.  She knew not whom to trust.  Officers of the army, officers of the navy, were resigning every day.  The great departments of government at Washington contained many men who furnished information to Southern officials.  Seventeen steam war vessels (two thirds of all that were not laid up or unfit for service) were in foreign parts.  Large quantities of military supplies had been stored in Southern forts.  All the great powers of Europe save Russia were hostile to our republic, and would gladly have seen it rent in twain.  The South, again, had the advantage in that she was to act on the defensive.

[Illustration:  The United States July 1861 Showing the greatest extension of the Southern Confederacy]

%428.  Results of firing on the Flag.%—­Not a man was killed on either side during the bombardment of Sumter.  Yet the battle was a famous one, and led to greater consequences: 

1.  Lincoln at once called for 75,000 militia to serve for three months.

2.  Four “border states,” as they were called, thus forced to choose their side, seceded.  They were Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

3.  The Congress of the United States was called to meet at Washington, July 4, 1861.

4.  After Virginia seceded, the capital of the Confederacy, at the invitation of the Virginia secession convention, was moved from Montgomery to Richmond, and the Confederate Congress adjourned to meet there July 20, 1861.

%429.  West Virginia.%—­The act of secession by Virginia was promptly repudiated by the people of the counties west of the mountains, who refused to secede, and voted to form a new state under the name of Kanawha.  They adopted a constitution and were finally admitted in 1863 as the state of West Virginia[1].