The National Capital to be Seized

When the vote was finally taken on the 23d of May, it was in the face of bayonets. Terror reigned all over Eastern Virginia. Unionists were compelled to fly for their lives before the instruments of the civil and military power at Richmond, for the "Confederate government" was then seated there. By these means the enemies of the Union were enabled to report a majority of over one hundred thousand votes of Virginians in favor of secession, the vote being given by the voice and not by the secret ballot. Then the governor of South Carolina, with selfish complacency, said to his people: "You may plant your seed in peace, for Old Virginia will have to bear the brunt of the battle." And so she did much of the time. Her politicians offered her back to the burden which the Gulf States had rolled from their own shoulders, and a most grievous one it was.

Prodigious efforts were now made for the seizure of the National capital. On his journey to Richmond, Alex. H. Stephens had harangued the people at various points, and everywhere raised the cry, "On to Washington!" That cry was already resounding throughout the slave-labor States. Troops were marshaling for the service, in Virginia; and already Carolina soldiers were treading its soil. The Southern press, everywhere, urged the measure with the greatest vehemence. On the day when Stephens arrived in Richmond, one of the newspapers of that city said: "There never was half the unanimity among the people before, nor a tithe of the zeal upon any subject, that is now manifested to take Washington and drive from it every Black Republican who is a dweller there. From the mountain tops and valleys to the shores of the sea, there is one wild shout of fierce resolve to capture Washington city, at all and every human hazard." Yet in the face of the universal chorus, "On to Washington!" Mr. Jefferson Davis, president of the Southern Confederacy, speaking more to Europe than to his people, said to his congress at Montgomery: "We profess solemnly, in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no cession of any kind from the States with which we have lately confederated. All we ask it to be let alone--those who never held power over us, should not now attempt our subjugation by arms." A quaint writer of the day, thus commented on the assertion of Mr. Davis, "All we ask is to be let alone:"

Harper's Ferry, at the confluence of the Potomac and Schenandoah rivers, where their combined waters flow through the Blue Ridge, in Virginia, had been for years the seat of an Armory and Arsenal of the United States, where almost ninety thousand muskets were usually stored. At the time we are considering, the post was in charge of Lieutenant Roger Jones, with some dismounted dragoons and a few other soldiers. Warned of impending danger, Jones was vigilant; and he prepared for any sudden emergency by laying a train of gunpowder for the destruction of the Government property, if necessary. When, late in the evening of the 18th of April, about two thousand Virginia militia were within a mile of the post and were pressing on to seize it, Jones fired his trains, and in a few minutes the Government buildings were all in flames, and the little garrison of forty men were crossing the covered railway bridge into Maryland, in a successful flight to Carlisle Barracks, in Pennsylvania. The insurgents were foiled in their attempt to secure a large quantity of fire-arms; but they seized Harper's Ferry as an important point for future hostile operations. In May, full eight thousand Confederate troops were there.