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

[548] Enquirer, who had been sent to chronicle the journey, “arose upon the air, hushed to silence by the profound respect of his auditors, it was not long before there was an outburst of feeling which gave vent to a tornado of voices. Every sentiment he uttered seemed to well up from his heart, and was received with the wildest enthusiasm.” The modesty of Wigfall on the occasion was most remarkable. “In vain,” says the chronicler, “he would seek some remote part of the cars; the crowd hunted him up, and the welkin rang with rejoicings, as he addressed them in his emphatic and fervent style of oratory.” Toombs was likewise modest. “He, too,” said the chronicler, “sought to avoid the call, but the echo would ring with the name of Toombs! Toombs! and the sturdy Georgia statesman had to respond.” At Goldsboroa, in North Carolina, Davis was received at the cars by the military (a part of which were some of the mounted riflemen of that State, then on their way to Virginia), who escorted him to the hotel, where he supped. “The hall,” says the chronicler, “was thronged with beautiful girls, and many were decking him with gar. lands of flowers, while others fanned him. It was a most interesting occasion.” After declaring that the confidence of the people showed “that the mantle of Washington” fell “gracefully upon. the shoulders” of the arch-conspirator, the historian of the journey said: “Never were a people more enraptured with their chief magistrate than ours are with President Davis, and the trip from Montgomery to Richmond will ever be remembered with delight by all who witnessed it.” ¹

North Carolina mounted Rifleman.

Davis and his party were met at Petersburg by Governor Letcher and the Mayor (Mayo) of Richmond; and he was escorted into his future “capital” by soldiers and civilians, and out to the “Fair grounds,” where he addressed a great crowd of people,

May 28, 1861.

and declared that, to the last breath of his life, he was wholly their own. On the evening of the 31st he was serenaded, when he took the occasion to utter that memorable speech, so characteristic of the orator whenever he was impressed with a sense of power in his own hands, which gave the people of the Free-labor States an indication of the spirit that animated the conspirators, and with which the opening war would be waged. He said that upon the Confederates was laid the “high and holy responsibility of preserving the constitutional liberty of a free government.” “Those with whom we have lately associated,” he said, “have shown themselves so incapable of appreciating the blessings of the glorious institutions they inherited, that they are to-day stripped of the liberty to which they were born. They have allowed an ignorant usurper to trample upon all the prerogatives of citizenship, and to exercise powers never delegated to him; and it has ”