struggle, was, in the estimation of the Rebels, an assurance of victory
to their cause. And the Secession of Virginia for a time had a
depressing influence upon the friends of the Union everywhere.

The refusal of West Virginia to go with the rest of the State into
Rebellion, was, to be sure, some consolation; and the checkmating of the
Conspirators' designs to secure to the Confederacy the States of
Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, helped the confidence of Union men. In
fact, as long as the National Capital was secure, it was felt that the
Union was still safe.

But while the Confederacy, by the firing upon Fort Sumter, and thus
assailing that Government which Lincoln had promised would not assail
the Rebels, had gained much in securing the aid of the States mentioned,
yet the Union Cause, by that very act, had gained more. For the echoes
of the Rebel guns of Fort Moultrie were the signal for such an uprising
of the Patriots of the North and West and Middle States, as, for the
moment, struck awe to the hearts of Traitors and inspired with courage
and hopefulness the hearts of Union men throughout the Land.

Moreover it put the Rebels in their proper attitude, in the eyes of the
World--as the first aggressors--and thus deprived them, to a certain
extent, of that moral support from the outside which flows from
sympathy.

Those echoes were the signal, not only of that call to arms which led to
such an uprising, but for the simultaneous calling together of the
Thirty-seventh Congress of the United States in Extra Session--the
Congress whose measures ultimately enabled President Lincoln and the
Union Armies to subdue the Rebellion and save the Union--the Congress