Darien and west to the Pacific Ocean, and made slavery its cornerstone. They talked of conquering the North. They declared that the time would come when they would muster their slaves on Bunker Hill, when the laboring men of the North, “with hat in hand, should stand meekly before them, their masters.”[2]

They besieged Fort Sumter, fired upon the ships sent to its relief, bombarded the fort and captured it. To save their country, their government, all that was dear to them, to protect their insulted, time-honored flag, the men of the North took up arms.

CHAPTER II.

THE GATHERING OF A GREAT ARMY.

The Rebels began the war by firing upon Fort Sumter. You remember how stupefying the news of its surrender. You could not at first believe that they would fire upon the Stars and Stripes,—the flag respected and honored everywhere on earth. When there was no longer a doubt that they had begun hostilities, you could not have felt worse if you had heard of the death of a very dear friend. But as you thought it over and reflected upon the wickedness of the act, so deliberate and terrible, you felt that you would like to see the traitors hung; not that it would be a pleasure to see men die a felon’s death, but because you loved your country and its flag, with its heaven-born hues, its azure field of stars! Not that the flag is anything in itself to be protected, honored, and revered, but because it is the emblem of constitutional liberty and freedom, the ensign of the best, freest, noblest government ever established. It had cost suffering and blood. Kings, aristocrats, despots, and tyrants, in the Old World and in the New hated it, but millions of men in other lands, suffering, abused, robbed of their rights, beheld it as their banner of hope. When you thought how it had been struck down by traitors, when you heard that the President had called for seventy five thousand troops, you hurrahed with all your might, and wished that you were old enough and big enough to go and fight the Rebels.

The drums beat in the street. You saw the soldiers hasten to take their places in the gathering ranks. You marched beside them and kept step with the music. The sunlight gleamed from their bayonets. Their standards waved in the breeze, while the drum, the fife, the bugle, and the trumpet thrilled you as never before. You marched proudly and defiantly. You felt that you could annihilate the stoutest Rebel. You followed the soldiers to the railroad depot and hurrahed till the train which bore them away was out of sight.

Let us follow them to Washington, and see the gathering of a great army. The Rebels have threatened to capture that city and make it their seat of government, and it must be saved.

We have been a quiet, peaceable nation, and have had no great standing armies of a half-million men. We know but little about war. The Northern States are unprepared for war. President Buchanan’s Secretary of War, Floyd, has proved himself a thief. He has stolen several hundred thousands of muskets, thousands of pieces of artillery, sending them from the Northern arsenals to the South. The slaveholders have been for many years plotting the rebellion. They are armed, and we are not. Their arsenals are well filled, while ours are empty, because President Buchanan was a weak old man, and kept thieves and traitors in places of trust and power.

At the call of the President every village sends its soldiers, every town its company. When you listened to the soul-thrilling music of the band, and watched the long, winding train as it vanished with the troops in the distance, you had one little glimpse of the machinery of war, as when riding past a great manufactory you see a single pulley, or a row of spindles through a window. You do not see the thousands of wheels, belts, shafts,—the hundred thousand spindles, the arms of iron, fingers of brass, and springs of steel, and the mighty wheel which gives motion to all,—and so you have not seen the great, complicated, far-reaching, and powerful machinery of war.

But there is activity everywhere. Drums are beating, men assembling, soldiers marching, and hastening on in regiments. They go into camp and sleep on the ground, wrapped in their blankets. It is a new life. They have no napkins, no table-cloths at breakfast, dinner, or supper, no china plates or silver forks. Each soldier has his tin plate and cup, and makes a hearty meal of beef and bread. It is hard-baked bread. They call it hard-tack, because it might be tacked upon the roof of a house instead of shingles. They also have Cincinnati chicken. At home they called it pork; fowls are scarce and pork is plenty in camp, so they make believe it is chicken!

There is drilling by squads, companies, battalions, and by regiments. Some stand guard around the camp by day, and others go out on picket at night, to watch for the enemy. It is military life. Everything is done by orders. When you become a soldier, you cannot go and come as you please. Privates, lieutenants, captains, colonels, generals, all are subject to the orders of their superior officers. All must obey the general in command. You march, drill, eat, sleep, go to bed, and get up by order. At sunrise you hear the reveille, and at nine o’clock in the evening the tattoo. Then the candle, which has been burning in your tent with a bayonet for a candlestick, must be put out. In the dead of night, while sleeping soundly and dreaming of home, you hear the drum-beat. It is the long roll. There is a rattle of musketry. The pickets are at it. Every man springs to his feet.

“Turn out! turn out!” shouts the colonel.

“Fall in! fall in!” cries the captain.

There is confusion throughout the camp,—a trampling of feet and loud, hurried talking. In your haste you get your boots on wrong, and buckle your cartridge-box on bottom up. You rush out in the darkness, not minding your steps, and are caught by the tent-ropes. You tumble headlong, upsetting to-morrow’s breakfast of beans. You take your place in the ranks, nervous, excited, and trembling at you know not what. The regiment rushes toward the firing, which suddenly ceases. An officer rides up in the darkness and says it is a false alarm! You march back to camp, cool and collected now, grumbling at the stupidity of the picket, who saw a bush, thought it was a Rebel, fired his gun, and alarmed the whole camp.

In the autumn of 1861 the army of the Potomac, encamped around Washington, numbered about two hundred thousand men. Before it marches to the battle-field, let us see how it is organized, how it looks, how it is fed; let us get an insight into its machinery.

Go up in the balloon which you see hanging in the air across the Potomac from Georgetown, and look down upon this great army. All the country round is dotted with white tents,—some in the open fields, and some half hid by the forest-trees. Looking away to the northwest you see the right wing. Arlington is the centre, and at Alexandria is the left wing. You see men in ranks, in files, in long lines, in masses, moving to and fro, marching and countermarching, learning how to fight a battle. There are thousands of wagons and horses; there are from two to three hundred pieces of artillery. How long the line, if all were on the march! Men marching