And Raccoon Roughs they continued through all the war, Gordon's fine-spun name being never heard of again. The feeble remnant of the war-scarred company which was mustered out at Appomattox was still known as Raccoon Roughs.
Who would have them, since Governor Brown would not, was now the question. Telegrams sped out right and left to governors of other States, begging a chance for the upland patriots. An answer came at length from Governor Moore, of Alabama, who consented to incorporate the Raccoon Roughs and their captain in one of the new regiments he was organizing. Gordon gladly read the telegram to his eager company, and from their hundred throats came the first example of the "rebel yell" he had ever heard,—a wild and thrilling roar that was to form the inspiration to many a mad charge in later years.
No time was lost by the gallant fellows in setting out on their journey to Montgomery. As they went on they found the whole country in a blaze of enthusiasm. No one who saw the scene would have doubted for a moment that the South was an ardent unit in support of its cause. By day the troop trains were wildly cheered as they passed; at night bonfires blazed on the hills and torchlight processions paraded the streets of the towns. As no cannon were at hand to salute the incoming volunteers, blacksmith anvils took their place, ringing with the blows of hammers swung by muscular arms. Every station was a throng of welcoming people, filling the air with shouts and the lively sound of fife and drum, and bearing banners of all sizes and shapes, on which Southern independence was proclaimed and the last dollar and man pledged to the cause. The women were out as enthusiastically as the men; staid matrons and ardent maids springing upon the cars, pinning blue cockades on the lapels of the new soldiers' coats, and singing the war-songs already in vogue, the favorite "Dixie" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag," in whose chorus the harsh voices of the Raccoon Boughs mingled with the musical tones of their fair admirers.
Montgomery was at length reached to find it thronged with shouting volunteers, every man of them burning with enthusiasm. Mingled with them were visiting statesmen and patriotic citizens, for that city was the cradle of the new-born Confederacy and the centre of Southern enthusiasm. Every heart was full of hope, every face marked with energy, a prayer for the success of the cause on every lip. Never had more fervent and universal enthusiasm been seen. On the hills and around the capital cannon boomed welcome to the inflowing volunteers, wagons rumbled by carrying arms and ammunition to the camps, on every street marched untrained but courageous recruits. As for the Raccoon Roughs, Governor Moore kept his word, assigning them to a place in the Sixth Alabama Regiment, of which Captain Gordon, unexpectedly and against his wishes, was unanimously elected major.
Such were the scenes which the coming war excited in the far South, such the fervid enthusiasm with which the coming conflict for Southern independence was hailed. So vast was the number of volunteers, in companies and in regiments, each eager to be accepted, that the Hon. Leroy P. Walker, the first Secretary of War of the Confederacy, was fairly overwhelmed by the flood of applicants that poured in on him day and night. Their captains and colonels waylaid him on the streets to urge the immediate acceptance of their services, and he was obliged to seek his office by roundabout ways to avoid the flood of importunities. It is said that before the Confederate government left Montgomery for Richmond, about three hundred and sixty thousand volunteers, very many of them from the best element of the Southern population, had offered to devote their lives and fortunes to their country's cause.
Many striking examples of this outburst of enthusiasm and patriotic devotion might be adduced, but we must content ourselves with one, cited as an instance in point by General Gordon. This was the case of Mr. W. C. Heyward, of South Carolina, a West Point graduate and a man of fortune and position. The Confederate government was no sooner organized than Mr. Heyward sought Montgomery, tendering his services and those of a full regiment enlisted by him for the war. Such was the pressure upon the authorities, and so far beyond the power of absorption at that time the offers of volunteers, that Mr. Heyward sought long in vain for an interview with the Secretary of War. When this was at last obtained he found the ranks so filled that it was impossible to accept his regiment. Returning home in deep disappointment, but with his patriotism unquenched, this wealthy and trained soldier joined the Home Guards and died in the war as a private in the ranks.
Such was the unanimity with which the sons of the South, hosts of them armed with no better weapons than old-fashioned flint and steel muskets, double-barrelled shot-guns, and long-barrelled squirrel rifles, rushed to the defence of their States, with a spontaneous and burning enthusiasm that has never been surpassed. The impulse of self-defence was uppermost in their hearts. It was not the question of the preservation of slavery that sustained them in the terrible conflict for four years of desolating war. It was far more that of the sovereignty of the States. The South maintained that the Union formed under the Constitution was one of consent and not of force; that each State retained the right to resume its independence on sufficient cause, and that the Constitution gave no warrant for the attempt to invade and coerce a sovereign State. It was for this, not to preserve slavery, that the people sprang as one man to arms and fought as men had rarely fought before.