arrived at. Whether the North would agree to admit the
constitutional rights of secession, or whether it would use force to
compel the Seceding States to remain in the Union, was still
uncertain; but the idea of a civil war was so terrible a one that the
general belief was that some arrangement to allow the States to go
their own way would probably be arrived at.

For the time the idea of Vincent going to West Point was
abandoned. Among his acquaintances were several young men
who were already at West Point, and very few of these returned to
the academy. The feeling there was very strongly on the side of
secession. A great majority of the students came from the
Southern States, as while the sons of the Northern men went
principally into trade and commerce, the Southern planters sent
their sons into the army, and a great proportion of the officers of
the army and navy were Southerners.

As the professors at West Point were all military men, the feeling
among them, as well as among the students, was in favor of State
rights; they considering that, according to the constitution, their
allegiance was due first to the States of which they were natives,
and in the second place to the Union. Thus, then, many of the
professors who were natives of the seven States which had seceded
resigned their appointments, and returned home to occupy
themselves in drilling the militia and the levies, who were at once
called to arms.

Still all hoped that peace would be preserved, until on the 11th of
April General Beauregard, who commanded the troops of South
Carolina, summoned Major Anderson, who was in command of