Excerpt from The Battles of the War for the Union: Being the Story of the Great Civil War From the Election of Abraham Lincoln to the Surrender at Appomaton The South had been contemplating rebellion for years, and had only refrained from attempting it because hitherto she had pretty generally had her own way. The Choice of Lincoln immediately determined their resolution. John B. Floyd, of Virginia, the Secretary of War under Buchanan, had quietly contrived that the arsenals of all the Northern States should be stripped of their arms and ammunition, and those warlike mate rials concentrated in the Southern section of the Union. South Carolina naturally led off in the Secession movement, her Ordinance of Secession being adopted on November 17, 1860; Georgia came next, and the remainder of the border (or planting) States quickly followed. Virginia joined two days after the fall of Sumter. On February 9, 1861, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was declared President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice - President of the confederate states OF america. On March 4, 1861, the Confederate flag was unfurled from the State House at Montgomery, Alabama, and the Confederacy was inaugurated. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.