Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

“ [549] been reserved to your State, so lately one of the original thirteen, but now, thank God! fully separated from them, to become the theater of a great central camp, from which will pour forth thousands of brave hearts, to roll back the tide of this despotism. Apart from that gratification we may well feel at being separated from such a connection, is the pride that upon you devolves the task of maintaining and defending our new government. I believe that we shall be able to achieve this noble work, and that the institutions of our fathers will go to our children as safely as they have descended to us. In these Confederate States, we observe those relations which have been poetically ascribed to the United States, but which never there had the same reality--States so distinct that each existed as a sovereign, yet so united that each was bound with the other to constitute a whole--‘ Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea.’ Upon every hill which now overlooks Richmond you have had, and will continue to have, camps containing soldiers from every State in the Confederacy; and to its remotest limits

Davis's residence in Richmond.

every proud heart beats high with indignation at the thought that the foot of the invader has been set upon the soil of Old Virginia. There is not one true son of the South who is not ready to shoulder his musket, to bleed, to die, or to conquer in the cause of liberty here. . . . We have now reached the point where, arguments being exhausted, it only remains for us to stand by our weapons. When the time and occasion serve, we shall smite the smiter with manly arms, as did our fathers before us, and as becomes their. sons. To the enemy we leave the base acts of the assassin and incendiary.¹ To them we leave it to insult helpless women; to us belongs vengeance upon man.” He had ceased speaking, and was about to retire, when a voice in the crowd shouted: “Tell us something about Buena Vista,” when he turned and said: “Well, my friends, I can only say we will make the battle-fields in Virginia another Buena Vista, and drench them with blood more precious than that which flowed there.”

The Virginians were so insane with passion at that time, that instead of rebuking Davis for virtually reiterating the assurance given to the people of the more Southern States, “You may plant your seed in peace, for Old Virginia will have to bear the brunt of battle,” ² they rejoiced because upon every hill around their State capital were camps of “soldiers from every State in ”