[13] On the flight of Davis from Richmond, read _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 762-767; or the _Century Magazine_, November, 1883. [14] After firing the shot, the assassin waved his pistol and shouted "_Sic semper tyrannis_"--"Thus be it ever to tyrants" (the motto of the state of Virginia) and jumped from the box to the stage. But his spur caught in an American flag which draped the box, and he fell and broke his leg. Limping off the stage, he fled from the theater, mounted a horse in waiting, and escaped to Virginia. There he was found hidden in a barn and shot. The body of the Martyr President was borne from Washington to Springfield, by the route he took when coming to his first inauguration in 1861. Read Walt Whitman's poem _My Captain_. CHAPTER XXX THE NAVY IN THE WAR; LIFE IN WAR TIMES THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.--The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the coast blockaded from Virginia to Texas. [Illustration: SINKING THE PETREL. Contemporary drawing.] The object of the blockade was to cut off the foreign trade of the Southern states, and to prevent their getting supplies of all sorts. But as Great Britain was one of the chief consumers of Southern cotton, and was, indeed, dependent on the South for her supply, it was certain that unless the blockade was made effective by many Union ships, cotton would be carried out of the Southern ports, and supplies run into them, in spite of Lincoln's proclamation. [Illustration: CARTOON PUBLISHED IN 1861.] RUNNING THE BLOCKADE.--This is just what was done. Goods of all sorts were brought from Great Britain to the city of Nassau in the Bahama Islands (map, p. 353). There the goods were placed on board blockade runners and started for Wilmington in North Carolina, or for Charleston. So nicely would the voyage be timed that the vessel would be off the port some night when the moon did not shine. Then, with all lights out, the runner would dash through the line of blockading ships, and, if successful, would by daylight be safe in port. The cargo landed, cotton would be taken on board; and the first dark night, or during a storm, the runner, again breaking the blockade, would steam back to Nassau.