e rebels are a band of ragamuffins who will fly like chaff
before the wind on our approach."

The West vied with the East in boastful clamor.

The Chicago _Tribune_ shouted from the top of its columns:

"We insist that the West be allowed the honor of settling this little
trouble by herself since she is most interested in its suppression to
insure the free navigation of the Mississippi River. Let the East stand
aside. This is our war. We can end it successfully in two months.
Illinois can whip the whole South by herself. We insist on the affair
being turned over to us."

With prospects of a short war and cheaply earned glory the rage for
volunteering was resistless. The war for three months was to be a
holiday excursion and every man would return a hero crowned with
garlands of flowers, the center of admiring thousands. The blacksmiths
of Brooklyn were busy making handcuffs for one of her crack regiments.
Each volunteer had sworn to lead at least one captive rebel in chains
through the crowded streets in the great parade on their return.

Socola on his arrival at Montgomery from Charleston read these
fulminations from the North with amazement and rage. He sent his bitter
and emphatic protest against such madness to Holt. The faithful Joseph
had been rewarded with an office to his liking. He was now the Judge
Advocate General of the United States Army. He turned Socola's letters
over to Cameron, the new Secretary of War, who read them with rising
wrath.

"The author of those letters," he said with a scowl, "is either a damned
fool, or traitor."

Holt's lower lip was thrust out and the lines of his big mouth drawn
into a knot.

"I assure you, sir--he is neither. He is absolutely loyal. His
patriotism is a religion. He has entered his dangerous and important
mission with the zeal of a religious fanatic."

"That accounts for it then--he's insane. I don't care to read any more
such twaddle and I won't pay for the services of such a man out of the
funds of the War Department."

With the utmost difficulty Holt secured the consent of the Secretary of
War to continue Socola's commission for two months longer.

The only consolation the young patriot found in the contemptuous reply
his Government made to his solemn warnings was the almost equal fatuity
with which the Southern people were now approaching their first test of
battle.

Until the proclamation of President Lincoln, both Jefferson Davis and
the South had