ere sincere when they declared that all they desired was to be
permitted to leave the Union in peace. But they did not do it. They
could not wait three days. They wanted the honor of reducing Fort
Sumter, and of humbling the flag which had never been lowered to any
nation on earth. They wanted to "fire the Southern heart," and make sure
of the secession of Virginia by "sprinkling blood in the people's
faces," and so they opened their batteries upon the fort. After a long
waiting, which was "symbolic of the patience, endurance, and long
suffering of the Northern people," the fort replied, and the war between
Union and Disunion, freedom and slavery, was fairly begun. Major
Anderson knew from the first that this battle could end but in one way,
and when his provisions were all gone, and his ammunition so nearly
exhausted that he could not respond to the enemy's fire oftener than
once in ten minutes, he hauled down his flag and marched his handful of
men out with the honors of war. It wasn't a victory to be proud of, but
the Governor of South Carolina must have thought it was, for that night
he said to the excited people of Charleston:

"I pronounce here before the civilized world that your independence is
baptized in blood; your independence is won upon a glorious
battle-field, and you are free now and forever, in defiance of the world
in arms."

So thought the aged Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, who claimed the privilege
of firing the first gun upon Sumter; but he did not think so a little
while afterward, when he was preparing to hang himself because he saw
that his dreams of Southern independence could not be realized.

Of course this thrilling news, and the fiery editorials commenting upon
it, had an effect upon the students at Barrington academy. The Union
boys were sadly depressed; Dixon and Graham shook their heads every time
their eyes met; while Billings, Cole, and the rest of the rebels were
fierce for another fight, and immediately became as noisy and aggressive
as they had ever been in Rodney Gray's time.

"'The proud flag of the Stars and Stripes has been lowered in humility
before the Palmetto and Confederate flags,'" shouted Billings, reading
an extract from the speech of Governor Pickens. "Cole, where is the flag
those Taylor girls gave you? Now is the time to unfurl it to the breeze,
and let the good people of Barrington see that they are not the only
ones who can rejoice over this glorious news. When it is