And later in the conference Toombs, in opposing the attack on
Sumter, said:
"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."(20)
The taking of Fort Sumter was the signal for unrestrained exultation of the part of the Secessionists. They for a time gave themselves up to the wildest demonstrations of joy. The South now generally looked upon the Confederacy as already established. The Confederate flag floated over Sumter in place of the Stars and Stripes. At the Catholic cathedral in Charleston a Te Deum was celebrated with great pomp, and the Episcopal bishop there attributed the event to the "infinite mercy of God, who specially interposed His hand in behalf of their righteous cause."
The taking of Sumter was undoubtedly the most significant event of the age. The achievement was bloodless; not a man was killed or a drop of blood spilled by a hostile shot, yet in inaugurated a war that freed four millions of God's people.(21)
Montgomery, the temporary Capital of the Confederacy, wildly celebrated the event as the first triumph.
Bloodless was Sumter; but the war it opened was soon to swallow up men by the thousand.
Fort Pickens, in Pensacola Harbor, now only remained in the possession of the United States of all the forts or strongholds in the seceded South.
This fortification was taken possession of by Lieut. A. J. Slemmer of the United States Army, and though in great danger of being attacked and taken, it was successfully reinforced on April 23, 1861, and never fell into Confederate hands. At a special session of the Confederate Congress at Montgomery (May 21, 1861), Richmond, Virginia, was made the Capital of the Confederacy, and the Congress adjourned to meet there.
Howell Cobb (late Buchanan's Secretary of the Treasury), the President of this Congress, with some of the truth of prophecy defiantly said:
"We have made all the necessary arrangements to meet the present crisis. Last night we adjourned to meet in Richmond on the 20th of July. I will tell you why we did this. The 'Old Dominion,' as you know, has at last shaken off the bonds of Lincoln, and joined her noble Southern sisters. Her soil is to be the battle-ground, and her streams are to be dyed with Southern blood. We felt that her cause was our cause, and that if she fell we wanted to die by her."