in fiery words, urging a Charleston crowd to precipitate war, in
the certainty that Virginia would then have to come to their aid.
When at last Sumter was fired upon and Lincoln called for
volunteers, the second stage of the secession movement ended in a
thunderclap. The third period was occupied by the second group of
secessions: Virginia on the 17th of April, North Carolina and
Arkansas during May, Tennessee early in June.

Sumter was the turning-point. The boom of the first cannon
trained on the island fortress deserves all the rhetoric it has
inspired. Who was immediately responsible for that firing which
was destiny? Ultimate responsibility is not upon any person. War
had to be. If Sumter had not been the starting-point, some other
would have been found. Nevertheless the question of immediate
responsibility, of whose word it was that served as the signal to
begin, has produced an historic controversy.

When it was known at Charleston that Lincoln would attempt to
provision the fort, the South Carolina authorities referred the
matter to the Confederate authorities. The Cabinet, in a fateful
session at Montgomery, hesitated--drawn between the wish to keep
their hold upon the moderates of the North, who were trying to
stave off war, and the desire to precipitate Virginia into the
lists. Toombs, Secretary of State in the new Government, wavered;
then seemed to find his resolution and came out strong against a
demand for surrender. "It is suicide, murder, and will lose us
every friend at the North.... It is unnecessary; it puts us
in the wrong; it is fatal," said he. But the Cabinet and the
President decided to take the risk. To General Pierre Beauregard,
recently placed in command of the militia assembled at