The refusal of Mr. Seward to treat with the rebel government was promptly made the occasion for the act of violence which was to unite the Confederacy. There was, near Charleston, South Carolina, a fort called Sumter, held for the United States by Major Robert Anderson, a brave and loyal man. On the 11th of April, 1861, he was summoned to surrender the fort to the Confederate Government, which he refused to do. As he was, however, without provisions, it was eventually agreed, on the 12th April, that he should leave the fort by noon on the 15th. But the rebels, in their impatience, could not wait, and they informed him that, unless he surrendered within one hour, the fort would be bombarded. This was done, and, after a bombardment of thirty-three hours, bravely borne, the Major and his band of seventy men were obliged to surrender. It is true that this first firing on the American flag acted like the tap of the drum, calling all the South to arms in a frenzy, and sweeping away all the remnants of attachment to the old Union lingering in it. The utmost hopes of the rebel leaders were for the time fully realised. But the North was, to their amazement, not paralysed or struck down, nor did the Democratic sympathisers with the South arise and crush “Lincoln and his minions.” On the contrary, the news of the fall of Sumter was “a live coal on the heart of the American people;” and such a tempest of rage swept in a day over millions, as had never before been witnessed in America. Those who can recall the day on which the news of the insult to the flag was received, and how it was received, have the memory of the greatest conceivable outburst of patriotic passion. For a time, all party feelings were forgotten; there was no more thought of forgiveness, or suffering secession; the whole people rose up and cried out for war.