—Lowell.
The attack upon Fort Sumpter was the final challenge to the birthright of a race. The North accepted the challenge. The traditions of a thousand years had prepared its people for the contest. They must fight. The struggle promised to be the deadliest of all the ages; and yet—they were ready.
For years the question of slavery had been the all-absorbing theme. "The Missouri Compromise," "Slavery in the Territories," "The Underground Railroad," "Bleeding Kansas," "The Dred Scott Decision," "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the "John Brown Raid," all were household themes, discussed at the fireside in every farmer's home, at the cross-roads, the schoolhouses, at country stores and preached persistently in churches, at camp-meetings, caucuses and elections, until every man, woman, boy and girl had a settled conviction concerning them. Conflict seemed inevitable. The very atmosphere was charged with foreboding. Men were serious, alert and restless as if apprehensive of some impending calamity. Strange as it may now seem, this feeling was intensified among many by a vague and superstitious dread of which rural preachers were quick to take advantage as presaging "the end of the world." Ominous words of the prophets were recalled by them as having direct application to the time. "In those days," they quoted, "there shall be wars and rumors of wars"; "There shall be signs and wonders in the Heavens"—pointing with manifest aptness to Donati's great comet whose marvelous and awe-inspiring train dominated the sky, as a proof, the awful finality of which could not be questioned. The phenomenal auroral displays of that year accentuated the proof; the gorgeous red tones being likened to "streaks of blood" and the rapidly shifting lights to the "marching and countermarching of armies." If further proof were required, it was supplied by some who recalled that the Canadian rebellion occurred during "the year when the stars fell." It was a time of universal expectancy and profound conviction and required but one swift influence to unify and concentrate it, as the lightning flash precipitates the drops from the thunder-cloud. The flash came at Sumpter. "After this the deluge!"—and those awful words of Madam Roland were verified when two million men were opposed in a struggle to the death. War had come. The question throughout the South was: "Will the Northern man fight?" Its reply was the famous quotation: "He who hath no sword, let him sell his coat and buy one."
Lincoln's proclamation, calling for three hundred thousand men for ninety days was soon supplemented by one involving a larger levy—"for three years or during the war." Preparation was everywhere. The recruiting officer was omnipresent. Hosts flocked to the standard like the "minute-men" at Lexington. As the summer advanced the excitement grew. Men carried their tools from the fields and hastened to enlist. A farmer-boy in the morning was a soldier at night. The fife and drum was the popular music. Every city, village, and hamlet in the land resounded with patriotic songs. Every letter-sheet, every envelop, bore a picture of the flag. Confections were stamped with union mottoes or symbols and their packages bore the national colors. The breast-pins of the girls were the brass-buttons of their soldier lovers and the shortest path to a sweetheart was through a recruiting office. The entire North was a hive of preparation and industry, the grewsome meaning of all of which was merged in the one word—WAR.
Such was the condition in the little town of Lane, Ogle County, Illinois, in the early summer of 1861.
Lieutenant Albert J. Jackson
CHAPTER II.
Organization and Departure—Presentation of Flag—Address by David B. Dewey—"Nick Hotaling's Speech"—Capture of a Masked Battery—Mustered Into Service—Camp Butler—Fort Massac—Cairo—Bird's Point—Adventure of Harvey James—Paducah and Murray, Kentucky—Releasing Imprisoned Slaves.