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| Costume of A rebellious woman. |
April 15, 1861. |
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of malignant secessionists of both sexes, secret and open.1 Secession flags flaunted defiantly from many a window, and secession badges were sold openly at the doors of the Avenue hotels.
It was evident to the
least observant that the disloyal elements of society there were buoyant with pleasant anticipations.
Information had reached the Government that the Minutemen of Virginia and Maryland, and their sympathizers in the District of Columbia, were unusually active.
The leading secessionists of the city of Baltimore, comprising the “State-rights Association,” were in conference every evening; and Governor Hicks had been continually importuned to call an extraordinary session of the Legislature, that a secession convention might be authorized Because he refused to do so, knowing h ow large a portion of its members were disloyal, he was abused without stint.
The Government was soon made painfully aware that the call for troops to put down the rising rebellion was not an hour too soon.
There was a general impression in the Free-labor States that the Capital would be the first point of attack, and thitherward volunteers instantly began to march in large and hourly increasing numbers.
Within three days after the President's call for troops went forth,
probably not less than one hundred thousand young men were leaving their avocations to prepare for war. The movement was simultaneous in all the Free-labor States, and the armories of volunteer companies were ever where thronged with enthusiastic men eager to fly to the protection of the President, his Cabinet, the archives, and the Capital.
The Governor of Massachusetts (Andrew) had been the first of the State Executives, as we have observed,2 to prepare for war. On the 1st of January, Brigadier-General E. W. Peirce, of the Massachusetts militia, wrote
1 Taking advantage of the deference paid to their sex in this country, the women of Washington, Baltimore, and other cities within Slave-labor States yet controlled by National authority, who sympathized with the conspirators, were much more openly defiant of the Government, when the war commenced, than men. They not only worked secretly and efficiently in aid of the rebellion, and used the utmost freedom of speech, but they appeared in public places wearing conspicuously either a secession badge or the “stars and bars” of the Southern Confederacy in their costume. The sacque, then a fashionable outer garment, was sometimes made, as seen in the picture, so as to display the seven stars of the early “Confederate” flag on the bosom, and the red and white bars on the short skirt. These were flaunted in the streets: and women who wore them took every occasion to insult National soldiers, and show their hatred of the National flag. Finding at length that their conduct was more injurious to themselves than annoying to Union soldiers and Union citizens, the vulgar habit soon fell into disuetude, and sensible women who had practiced it became heartily ashamed of their folly.
2 See page 203.
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