te from Georgia to the
congress.

While these events were occurring, having completed the most urgent of
my duties at the capital of Mississippi, I had gone to my home,
Brierfield, in Warren County, and had begun, in the homely but
expressive language of Mr. Clay, "to repair my fences." While thus
engaged, notice was received of my election to the Presidency of the
Confederate States, with an urgent request to proceed immediately to
Montgomery for inauguration.

As this had been suggested as a probable event, and what appeared to me
adequate precautions had been taken to prevent it, I was surprised, and,
still more, disappointed. For reasons which it is not now necessary to
state, I had not believed my self as well suited to the office as some
others. I thought myself better adapted to command in the field; and
Mississippi had given me the position which I preferred to any
other--the highest rank in her army. It was, therefore, that I afterward
said, in an address delivered in the Capitol, before the Legislature of
the State, with reference to my election to the Presidency of the
Confederacy, that the duty to which I was thus called was temporary, and
that I expected soon to be with the Army of Mississippi again.

While on my way to Montgomery, and waiting in Jackson, Mississippi, for
the railroad train, I met the Hon. William L. Sharkey, who had filled
with great distinction the office of Chief-Justice of the State. He said
he was looking for me to make an inquiry. He desired to know if it was
true, as he had just learned, that I believed there _would_ be war. My
opinion was freely given, that there would be war, long and bloody, and
that it behooved every one to put his house in order. He expressed much
surprise, and said that he had not believed the report attributing this
opinion to me. He asked how I supposed war could result from the
peaceable withdrawal of a sovereign State. The answer was, that it was
not my opinion that war _should_ be occasioned by the exercise of that
right, but that it _would_ be.

Judge Sharkey and I had not belonged to the same political party, he
being a Whig, but we fully agreed with regard to the question of the
sovereignty of the States. He had been an advocate of nullification--a
doctrine to which I had never assented, and which had at one time been
the main issue in Mississippi politics. He had presided over the
well-remembered Nashville Convention in 1849, and had possessed much