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

[384] by Governor Letcher; and the “Mother of States,” the “Mother of Presidents,” and equally the Mother of Disunion, was forced into the position of an important member of the league against the Republic. Eastern and Northern Virginia soon became the theater of great battles, fought by immense armies, at various times during the war that ensued.

When the time approached for the people of Virginia to vote on the Ordinance of Secession, in accordance with its own provisions, Senator James M. Mason, one of the most malignant and unscrupulous of the conspirators, addressed a letter to them from his home near Winchester, in which, after saying that the Ordinance “withdrew the State of Virginia from the Union, with all the consequences resulting from the separation,” annulling “all the Constitution and laws of the United States within its limits,” and absolving “its citizens from all obligations or obedience to them,” he declared that

James M. Mason.

a rejection of the Ordinance by the people would reverse all this, and that Virginia would be compelled to fight under the banner of the Republic, in violation of the sacred pledge made to the “Confederate States,” in the treaty or “Military league” of the 25th of April. He then said:--“If it be asked, What are those to do who, in their conscience, cannot vote to separate Virginia from the United States? the answer is simple and plain. Honor and duty alike require that they should not vote on the question; and if they retain such opinions, they must leave the State.” ¹ The answer was, indeed, “simple and plain,” and in exact accordance with the true spirit of the conspirators, expressed by their chosen leader:--“All who oppose us shall smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.” Submission or banishment was the alternative offered by Mason, in the name of traitors in power, to Virginians who were true to the principles of the Father of his Country, whose remains were resting within the bosom of their State, and to the old flag under which the independence of their common country had been achieved. He well knew that his words would be received as expressions of the views of the usurpers at Richmond, and that thousands of citizens would thereby be kept from the polls, for in Virginia the votes were given openly, and not by secret ballot, as in other States.

Mason's infamous suggestion was followed by coincident action. Troops had been for some time pouring into Virginia from the more Southern States, and the vote on the Ordinance of Secession was taken toward the close of May,

May 23, 1861.

in the midst of bayonets thirsting for the blood of Union men. Terror was then reigning all over Eastern Virginia. Unionists were hunted like wild beasts, and compelled to fly from