his Secretary that if a dictator were needed
to save the country he would undertake the dangerous and difficult job
himself inasmuch as he had been called by the people to be their
Commander-in-Chief, and that he expected the cooeperation, advice and
support of _all_ the members of his Cabinet.

He did not even refer to the wild scheme of plunging the country into
war with two-thirds of the civilized world. The bare announcement of
such a suggestion would have driven the Secretary from public life. The
quiet man who presided over the turbulent Cabinet never hinted to one of
its members that such a document had reached his hands.

But as the shades of night fell over the Capitol on that first day of
April, 1861, there was one distinguished statesman within the city who
knew that a real man had been elected President and that he was going to
wield the power placed in his hands without a tremor of fear or an
instant's hesitation.

It took many months for other members of his Cabinet to learn this--but
there was no more trouble with his Secretary of State. He became at once
his loyal, earnest and faithful counsellor.

On April the 6th, the fleet was sent to sea under sealed orders to
relieve Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. The
President had been loath to commit the act which must inevitably provoke
war--unless the whole movement of Secession in the South was one of
political bluff. The highest military authority of the country had
advised him that the fort could not be held by any force at present
visible, and that its evacuation was inevitable in any event.

His Cabinet, with two exceptions, were against any attempt to relieve
it. The sentiment of the people of the North was bitterly opposed to war
on the South.

On April the 7th, the fleet was at sea on its way to the Southern coast,
its guns shotted, its great battle flags streaming in the wind.

In accordance with the amenities of war the President notified General
Beauregard, Commander of the Southern forces in Charleston Harbor, that
he had sent his fleet to put provisions into Sumter, but not at present
to put in men, arms or ammunition, _unless the fort should be attacked_.

On the night this message was dispatched Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia,
made a speech in Charleston, from the balcony of the Mills Hotel to
practically the entire white population of the city. Its message was
fierce, direct, electric. It was summed up in a single