The day after the election, on November 7th, 1860, the Palmetto flag, the ensign of the State of South Carolina, was raised at Charleston, replacing the American flag. High officials in the Government, in sympathy with the Southern cause, had stripped the Northern arsenals of arms and ammunition and had sent them to Southern posts. The little standing army had been so disposed as to leave the city of Washington defenceless, except for a few hundred marines and half a hundred men of ordnance. The outgoing Administration was leaving the national treasury bankrupt, and permitted hostile preparations to go on unchecked, and hostile demonstrations to be made without interference. So little did the people of the North realize that war was impending, that Southern agents found no difficulty in making purchases of military supplies from Northern manufacturers. Except for the purchases made by Raphael Semmes in New England, the Confederacy would have begun the war without percussion caps, which were not manufactured at the South. With every advantage thrown at the outset in favor of the South and against the North, the struggle began. [Illustration: CHARLESTON HARBOR.] [Illustration: THE PALMETTO FLAG.] [Illustration: THE CONFEDERATE FLAG.] The Southern leaders had been secretly preparing for a long time. During the summer and fall of 1860, John B. Floyd, the Secretary of War, had been sending war material South, and he continued his pernicious activity until, in December, complicity in the theft of some bonds rendered his resignation necessary. About the same time the Secretary of the Treasury, Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Interior, Jacob Thompson, and the Secretary of State, Lewis Cass, withdrew from the cabinet. On the election of Lincoln, treasonable preparations became more open and more general. These were aided by President Buchanan's message to Congress expressing doubt of the constitutional power of the Government to take offensive action against a State. On December 20, an ordinance of secession was passed by the South Carolina Legislature; and following this example, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and Virginia seceded in the order named. Virginia held on till the last; and while a popular vote was pending, to accept or reject the action of the Legislature, the seat of government of the Confederate States, established in February at Montgomery, Ala., was removed to Richmond, the capital of Virginia. Governor Letcher turned over to the Confederates the entire military force and equipment of the State, which passed out of the Union without waiting for the verdict of the people. This State was well punished by becoming the centre of the conflict for four years, and by political dismemberment, loyal West Virginia being separated from the original commonwealth and admitted to the Union during the war.