o his tendency to cling to the
hope of reconciliation.

It was exactly one o'clock on Monday, February 18, 1861, that Jefferson
Davis rose between the towering pillars of the State Capitol in
Montgomery and began his inaugural address. It was careful, moderate,
statesmanlike, and a model of classic English. The closing sentence
swept the crowd.

"It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look thus upon a people
united in heart, whose one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates
the whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the
balance against honor, and right, and liberty and equality."

The cheer that greeted his appeal rose and fell again and again the
third time with redoubled power and enthusiasm.

The President-elect stepped forward, placed his hand on the open Bible,
and took the oath of office. As the last word fell from his white lips
cannon thundered a salute from the hill crest and the great silk ensign
of the South was slowly lifted by the hand of the granddaughter of
President Tyler.

As the breeze unrolled its huge red, white and blue folds against the
shining Southern skies the crowd burst into hysterical applause.

A Nation had been born whose history might be brief, but the people who
created it and the leader who guided its destiny were the pledge of its
immortality.

Socola found no difficulty in possessing himself of every secret of the
new Government. What was not proclaimed from the street corners and
shouted from the housetops, the newspapers printed in double leads. The
new Government had yet to organize its secret service.

The President addressed himself with energy to the task which confronted
him. But seven States had yet enrolled in the Confederacy. Of four more
he felt sure. The first attempt to coerce a Southern State by force of
arms would close the ranks with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and
Arkansas by his side. Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri were peopled by
the South and the institution of Slavery bound them in a common cause.

And yet the defense of these eleven Southern States with their five
million white population and four million blacks was a task to stagger
the imagination of the greatest statesman of any age. This vast
territory would present an open front on land of more than a thousand
miles without a single natural barrier. Its sea coast presented three
thousand miles of water front--open to the attack of the navy. This
enormous co