ere is a wonderful soft
strength in the peaceful brightness of the sun. In such an atmosphere
the harbor was flecked with brilliantly decked craft of every
description, all in a flutter of flags and carrying a host of passengers
in gala dress. The city swarmed across the water to witness the ceremony
of evacuation. Wherry men did a thriving business carrying passengers to
the fort.

Anderson withdrew from Sumter shortly after two o'clock amid a salute of
fifty guns. The Confederates took possession. At half after four a new
flag was raised above the battered and fire-swept walls.

Chapter II. The Davis Government

It has never been explained why Jefferson Davis was chosen President
of the Confederacy. He did not seek the office and did not wish it.
He dreamed of high military command. As a study in the irony of fate,
Davis's career is made to the hand of the dramatist. An instinctive
soldier, he was driven by circumstances three times to renounce the
profession of arms for a less congenial civilian life. His final
renunciation, which proved to be of the nature of tragedy, was his
acceptance of the office of President. Indeed, why the office was given
to him seems a mystery. Rhett was a more logical candidate. And when
Rhett, early in the lobbying at Montgomery, was set aside as too much of
a radical, Toombs seemed for a time the certain choice of the majority.
The change to Davis came suddenly at the last moment. It was puzzling at
the time; it is puzzling still.

Rhett, though doubtless bitterly disappointed, bore himself with the
savoir faire of a great gentleman. At the inauguration, it was on
Rhett's arm that Davis leaned as he entered the hall of the Confederate
Congress. The night before, in a public address, Yancey had said that
the man and the hour were met. The story of the Confederacy is filled
with dramatic moments, but to the thoughtful observer few are more
dramatic than the conjunction of these three men in the inauguration of
the Confederate President. Beneath a surface of apparent unanimity they
carried, like concealed weapons, points of view that were in deadly
antagonism. This antagonism had not revealed itself hitherto. It was
destined to reveal itself almost immediately. It went so deep and spread
so far that unless we understand it, the Confederate story will be
unintelligible.

A strange fatality destined all three of these great men to despair.
Yancey, who was perhaps most directly answe