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

Charleston was full of demagogues at that time, busily engaged in inflaming the populace and the soldiers; and that city became, in miniature, what Paris was just before the attack on the Bastile.

Among the demagogues in Charleston was Roger A. Pryor, lately a member of the National House of Representatives; and also Edmund Ruffin,¹ both from Virginia. Their State Convention was then in session at Richmond. The Union sentiment in that body seemed likely to defeat the secessionists. Something was needed to neutralize its power, by elevating passion into the throne of judgment. It was believed by many that this could be done only by shedding blood. Pryor and Ruffin were self-constituted preachers of the sanguinary doctrine. They were earnest missionaries; and on the evening of the 10th, while the city was rocked with excitement, a rare opportunity was offered to Pryor for the utterance of his incendiary sentiments. He was serenaded, and made a fiery speech to the populace, in response to the compliment. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I thank you, especially, that you have at last annihilated this cursed Union, reeking with corruption, and insolent with excess of tyranny. Thank God! it is at last blasted and riven by the lightning wrath of an outraged and indignant people. Not only is it gone, but gone forever. In the expressive language of Scripture, it is water spilt upon the ground, and cannot be gathered up. Like Lucifer, son of the morning, it has fallen, never to rise again. For my part, gentlemen, if Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, to-morrow, were to abdicate their office, and were to give me a blank sheet of paper to write the conditions of reannexation to the defunct Union, I would scornfully spurn the overture. . . . I invoke you, and I make it in some sort a personal appeal — personal so far as it tends to our assistance in Virginia — I do invoke you, in your demonstrations of popular opinion, in your exhibitions of official interest, to give no countenance to the idea of reconstruction. In Virginia, they all say, if reduced to the dread dilemma of this alternative, they will espouse the cause of the South as against the interests of the Northern Confederacy; but they whisper of reconstruction, and they say Virginia must abide in the Union, with the idea of reconstructing the Union which you have annihilated. I pray you, gentlemen, rob them of that idea. Proclaim to the world that upon no condition and under no circumstance will South Carolina ever again enter into political association with the Abolitionists of New England. Do not distrust Virginia. As sure as to-morrow's sun will rise upon us, just so sure will Virginia be a member of the Southern Confederation. And I will tell you, gentlemen,” said the speaker, with great vehe. mence, “what will put her in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock — strike A blow! The very moment that blood is shed, old Virginia will make common cause with her sisters of the South. It is impossible she should do otherwise.” ²

This speech was vehemently applauded. It was in consonance with the diabolical spirit of the more zealous conspirators and insurgents everywhere The cry of Pryor for blood was sent to Montgomery by telegraph the next morning, and Mr. Gilchrist, a member of the Alabama Legislature, said to Davis and a portion of his “Cabinet” (Walker, Benjamin, and Memminger):--“Gentlemen, ”