A few months later, at the State Convention at Columbia, assembled under the direction of the President of the United States, it is none other than our reconstructed friend, Ex-Governor Pickens, who rises amid the ashes of his once beautiful Capital, and offers the following ordinance:

"Resolved, We, the delegates of the people of the State of South Carolina, in general convention met, do ordain, that the ordinance [of secession] passed in convention on the twentieth of December, 1860, withdrawing this State from the Federal Union, be, and the same is hereby repealed. The fortunes of war, together with the proclamations of the President of the United States and the generals in the field commanding, having decided that domestic slavery is abolished, that therefore, under the circumstances, we acquiesce in said proclamations, and do hereby ordain implicit obedience to the Constitution of the United States, and all laws made in pursuance thereof."

He had thus at last learned the truth of that ancient and profound maxim, that "he who would aspire to govern, should first learn to obey!"

General Sherman did not pause in his rapid march northward from Savannah, through the Carolinas, to make any demonstration against Charleston; he conquered it, in the words of General Robert Anderson, "by turning his back on it!" His military operations compelled the evacuation of the city, which was occupied by the Union troops on the eighteenth of February, 1865. Lieutenant-Colonel A.G. Bennett, of the Twenty-first United States colored troops, was the first to land with a small force, while some of the rebel mounted patrols still remained, applying the torch as they retreated. The Colonel at once addressed himself to the Mayor: "In the name of the United States government I demand a surrender of the city, of which you are the executive officer." The Mayor responded by immediately turning over the Cradle of Rebellion to its rightful owners. The Colonel then proceeded to the citadel with his colored troops, two companies of the Fifty-second Pennsylvania Regiment, and about thirty men of the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, under Lieutenant-Colonel Ames, and proclaimed martial law. In his official report he says: "Every officer and soldier exerted himself to a most willing performance of every allotted duty, yet I do not deem it invidious for me to make special mention of Lieutenant John Hackett, Company M, Third Rhode Island Artillery, who volunteered to go alone to Fort Moultrie, and there raised the flag." This was a most perilous service, gallantly performed amid the danger of exploding rebel powder magazines.

It was the beginning of the end. President Lincoln, realizing that the fall of the Confederacy was near at hand, determined to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sumter by replanting the old flag of 1861, with imposing ceremonies, upon the ruins of the fort, and the following order was accordingly issued:

General Orders, No. 50.
War Department, Adjutant-General's Office,
Washington, March 27, 1865.		}

Ordered: First, That at the hour of noon, on the 14th day of April, 1865, brevet Major-General Anderson will raise and plant upon the ruins of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, the same United States flag which floated over the battlements of that fort during the rebel assault, and which was lowered and saluted by him, and the small force of his command, when the works were evacuated on the 14th of April, 1861.

Second, That the flag, when raised, be saluted by one hundred guns from Fort Sumter, and by a national salute from every fort and rebel battery that fired upon Fort Sumter.

Third, That suitable ceremonies be had upon the occasion, under the direction of Major-General William T. Sherman, whose military operations compelled the rebels to evacuate Charleston, or, in his absence, under the charge of Major-General Q.A. Gilmore, commanding the Department. Among the ceremonies will be the delivery of an address by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher.

Fourth, That the naval forces at Charleston, and their commander on that station, be invited to participate in the ceremonies of the occasion.