No time was lost by the gallant fellows in setting out on their journey to Montgomery. As they went on they found the whole country in a blaze of enthusiasm. No one who saw the scene would have doubted for a moment that the South was an ardent unit in support of its cause. By day the troop trains were wildly cheered as they passed; at night bonfires blazed on the hills and torchlight processions paraded the streets of the towns. As no cannon were at hand to salute the incoming volunteers, blacksmith anvils took their place, ringing with the blows of hammers swung by muscular arms. Every station was a throng of welcoming people, filling the air with shouts and the lively sound of fife and drum, and bearing banners of all sizes and shapes, on which Southern independence was proclaimed and the last dollar and man pledged to the cause. The women were out as enthusiastically as the men; staid matrons and ardent maids springing upon the cars, pinning blue cockades on the lapels of the new soldiers' coats, and singing the war-songs already in vogue, the favorite "Dixie" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag," in whose chorus the harsh voices of the Raccoon Boughs mingled with the musical tones of their fair admirers. Montgomery was at length reached to find it thronged with shouting volunteers, every man of them burning with enthusiasm. Mingled with them were visiting statesmen and patriotic citizens, for that city was the cradle of the new-born Confederacy and the centre of Southern enthusiasm. Every heart was full of hope, every face marked with energy, a prayer for the success of the cause on every lip. Never had more fervent and universal enthusiasm been seen. On the hills and around the capital cannon boomed welcome to the inflowing volunteers, wagons rumbled by carrying arms and ammunition to the camps, on every street marched untrained but courageous recruits. As for the Raccoon Roughs, Governor Moore kept his word, assigning them to a place in the Sixth Alabama Regiment, of which Captain Gordon, unexpectedly and against his wishes, was unanimously elected major. Such were the scenes which the coming war excited in the far South, such the fervid enthusiasm with which the coming conflict for Southern independence was hailed. So vast was the number of volunteers, in companies and in regiments, each eager to be accepted, that the Hon. Leroy P. Walker, the first Secretary of War of the Confederacy, was fairly overwhelmed by the flood of applicants that poured in on him day and night. Their captains and colonels waylaid him on the streets to urge the immediate acceptance of their services, and he was obliged to seek his office by roundabout ways to avoid the flood of importunities. It is said that before the Confederate government left Montgomery for Richmond, about three hundred and sixty thousand volunteers, very many of them from the best element of the Southern population, had offered to devote their lives and fortunes to their country's cause.