ently longed. At last the
moment had come, when all the long-treasured vengeance of the South
--outgrown from questions of Tariff, of Slavery, and of Secession--was to
be poured out in blood and battle; when the panoplied powers and forces
of rebellious confederated States, standing face to face with the
resolute patriotism of an outraged Union, would belch forth flame and
fury and hurtling missiles upon the Federal Fort and the old flag
floating o'er it.

And whose the sacrilegious hand that dared be first raised against his
Country and his Country's flag? Stevens's mortar battery at Sullivan's
Island is ready to open, when a lean, long-haired old man, with eyes
blazing in their deep fanatical sockets, totters hastily forward and
ravenously seizing in his bony hands a lanyard, pulls the string, and,
with a flash and roar, away speeds the shrieking shell on its mission of
destruction; and, while shell after shell, and shot after shot, from
battery after battery, screams a savage accompaniment to the boom and
flash and bellow of the guns, that lean old man works his clutched
fingers in an ecstasy of fiendish pleasure, and chuckles: "Aye, I told
them at Columbia that night, that the defense of the South is only to be
secured through the lead of South Carolina; and, old as I am, I had come
here to join them in that lead--and I have done it."

[Edmund Ruffin, see p. 100. This theory of the necessity of South
Carolina leading, had long been held, as in the following, first
published in the New York Tribune, July 3, 1862, which, among other
letters, was found in the house of William H. Trescot, on
Barnwell's Island, South Carolina, when re-occupied by United
States troops:

"VIRGINIA CONVENTION, May 3, 1851

"My DEAR, SIR:--You misunderstood my last letter, if you supposed
that I intended to visit South Carolina this Spring. I am
exceedingly obliged to you for your kind invitations, and it would
afford me the highest pleasure to interchange in person, sentiments
with a friend whose manner of thinking so closely agrees with my
own. But my engagements here closely confine me to this city, and
deny me such a gratification.

"I would be especially glad to be in Charleston next week, and
witness the proceedings of your Convention of Delegates from the
Southern Rights Associations. The condition of things in your
State deeply int