The governor took possession of the arsenal, with the arms and munitions and stores it contained, except the property of the Second artillery, February 8, 1861, and placed the Phillips Guards, of Helena, in charge, under Captain Otey, who was a son of the Episcopal bishop of Tennessee. The residence and grounds were put under control of Maj. T. C. Peek (who had married a niece of the governor), as military storekeeper. The spacious grounds became a convenient rendezvous and camping-place for volunteers. Those grounds were brightened by the animated scenes of social diversions, engaged in by the young officers and society belles of the city, thenceforward. It was not then known that the incomprehensible man who had been elected President of the United States, as they were then misnamed, did not intend to abate one jot of the authority which he should assert as such President, when called to take his seat in the chair at Washington. He, no doubt, honestly believed that he was a representative of the people, chosen by them according to the forms of law—law, however to be disregarded in the
