Governor Jackson of Missouri was indignant beyond all others:
"Your requisition in my judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary—its objects inhuman and diabolical."
Tennessee followed Virginia by seceding on May 6. Arkansas on May 18, and North Carolina by unanimous vote on May 21.
North Carolina had been slow to announce her final separation from the old Union. But she had been prompt in proclaiming her own sovereign rights within her territory when the National Government had dared to call them in question. On the day the President had issued his proclamation she seized Fort Macon at Beaufort. Fort Caswell was taken and garrisoned by her volunteers, and on April 19, the arsenal at Fayetteville was captured without bloodshed. The value of this achievement to the South was incalculable. The Confederacy thus secured sixty-five thousand stand of arms, of which twenty-eight thousand were of the most modern pattern.
Virginia had seceded on April 17 and immediately moved to secure under the resumption of her complete sovereignty all the arms, munitions of war, ship stores and military posts within her borders. Two posts of tremendous importance she attempted to seize at once—the great navy yard at Norfolk and the arsenal and shops at Harper's Ferry. The navy yard contained a magnificent dry dock worth millions, huge ship houses, supplies, ammunition, small arms and cannon, and had lying in its basin several vessels of war, complete and incomplete.
Harper's Ferry contained ten thousand muskets, five thousand rifles and a complete set of machinery for the manufacture of arms capable of turning out two thousand muskets a month.
A force of Virginia volunteers moved on Harper's Ferry. The small Federal garrison asked for a parley, which was granted. In a short time flames were pouring from the armory and arsenal. The garrison had set fire to the buildings and escaped across the railroad bridge into Maryland.
The Virginia troops rushed into the burning buildings, and saved five thousand muskets and three thousand unfinished rifles. The garrison had laid trains of powder to blow up the workshops, but the Virginians extinguished the flames and saved to the South the invaluable machinery for making and repairing muskets and rifles. It was shipped to Fayetteville and Richmond and installed for safety.
The destruction of the navy yard at Norfolk was more complete and irreparable. The dry dock was little damaged, but the destruction of stores and property was enormous. All ships in the harbor were set on fire and scuttled.