Charleston with supplies and soldiers. But the Confederates fired on
her, and she steamed away without landing the soldiers or the supplies.
Lincoln waited a month, hoping that the secessionists would come back to
the Union of their own accord. Then he decided to send supplies to Major
Anderson and told the governor of South Carolina of his decision.
Immediately (April 12) the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter. On
April 14 Anderson surrendered. The next day President Lincoln issued a
proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand volunteers.

[Sidenote: The Northern volunteers. _McMaster_, 386-387; _Source-Book_,
303-305.]

[Sidenote: Douglas, Buchanan, and Pierce]

[Sidenote: Progress of secession.]

382. Rising of the North.--There was no longer a question of
letting the "erring sisters" depart in peace. The Southerners had fired
on "Old Glory." There was no longer a dispute over the extension of
slavery. The question was now whether the Union should perish or should
live. Douglas at once came out for the Union and so did the former
Presidents, Buchanan and Franklin Pierce. In the Mississippi Valley
hundreds of thousands of men either sympathized with the slaveholders or
cared nothing about the slavery dispute. But the moment the Confederates
attacked the Union, they rose in defense of their country and
their flag.

[Sidenote: West Virginia.]

383. More Seceders.--The Southerners flocked to the standards of
the Confederacy, and four more states joined the ranks of secession.
These were Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia. In
Virginia the people were sharply divided on the question of secession.
Finally Virginia seceded, but the western Virginians, in their turn,
seceded from Virginia and two years later were admitted to the Union as
the state of West Virginia. Four "border states" had seceded; but four
other "border states" were still within the Union. These were Delaware,
Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.

[Sidenote: Kentucky and Maryland saved to the Union.]

[Sidenote: Missouri saved to the Union. _Eggleston_, 310.]

384. The Border States.--The people of Maryland and of Kentucky
were evenly divided on the question of secession. They even tried to set
up as neutral states. But their neutrality would have been so greatly to
the advantage of the seceders that this could not be allowed. Lincoln's
firm moderation and the patriotism of many wise leaders in Kentucky
saved that state to the