Virginia now essayed to arbitrate. Her Peace Commission met in Washington, but without result, except that it was for her a fleeting moment of enthusiasm.
Mr. Kellogg of Illinois said: "She has thrown herself into the breach to turn aside the tide of disunion and revolution, and she says to the nation, 'Be united and be brothers again.' God bless the Old Dominion!" Said Mr. Bigler of Pennsylvania, January 21: "Pennsylvania will never become the enemy of Virginia! Pennsylvania will never draw the sword on Virginia."
Apprehension was felt lest the new President's inaugural might be the occasion of rioting, if not of violence. We were advised to send our women and children out of the city. Hastily packing my personal and household belongings to be sent after me, I took my little boys, with their faithful nurse, Eliza Page, on board the steamer to Acquia Creek, and, standing on deck as long as I could see the dome of the Capitol, commenced my journey homeward. My husband remained behind, and kept his seat in Congress until Mr. Lincoln's inauguration. He described that mournful day to me—differing so widely from the happy installation of Mr. Pierce. "O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear." Every one was oppressed by it, and no one more than the doomed President himself.
We were reunited a few weeks afterward at our father's house in Petersburg; and in a short time my young Congressman had become my young colonel—and Congressman as well, for as soon as Virginia seceded he was elected to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, and was commissioned colonel by Governor Letcher.
I am afraid the evening is at hand, when we must bid adieu to the bright days—the balls, the merry hair-dresser, the round of visits, the levees, the charming "at homes." The setting sun of such a day should pillow itself on golden clouds, bright harbingers of a morning of beauty and happiness. Alas, alas! "whom the gods destroy they first infatuate."
CHAPTER IX
RAPID PROGRESS OF EVENTS AT THE SOUTH
When it was disclosed that a majority of the Virginia Convention opposed taking the state out of the Union, the secessionists became greatly alarmed; for they knew that without the border states, of which Virginia was the leader, the cotton states would be speedily crushed. They were positively certain, however, that, in the event of actual hostilities, Virginia would unite with her Southern associates. Accordingly, it was determined to bring a popular pressure to bear upon the government at Montgomery to make an assault on Fort Sumter. To that end my husband went to Charleston, and delivered to an immense and enthusiastic audience, a most impassioned and vehement speech, urging the Southern troops to "strike a blow," and assuring them that in case of conflict, Virginia would secede "within an hour by Shrewsbury clock." The blow was struck; Mr. Lincoln called upon Virginia for a quota of troops to subdue the rebellion, and the state immediately passed an ordinance of secession.
Mr. Pryor, with other gentlemen, was deputed by General Beauregard to demand the surrender of the fort, and in case of the refusal which he foresaw, to direct the commandant of battery, Johnson, to open fire. When the order was delivered to the commandant, he invited my husband to fire the first shot; but this honor my husband declined, and instead suggested the venerable Edmund Ruffin, an intense secessionist, for that service. It was the prevalent impression at the time, that Mr. Ruffin did "fire the first gun"; at all events he fired, to him, the last; for on hearing of Lee's surrender, Cato-like, he destroyed himself.
I have often wondered what would have been the effect upon the fortunes of our own family, had my husband fired the shot that ushered in the war. Even had his life been spared, he certainly would not have become an eminent lawyer in the state of New York and a justice of its Supreme Court.
Fort Sumter was reduced on April 12, and Virginia was in a wild state of excitement and confusion.