The South sang the pæan of victory, achieved with an odds of a hundred to one in its favor, and the Southern heart was fired. By the same deed another heart was fired. The North rose as one man to resent the base outrage, the cowardly assault. The last moment when compromise was possible, passed away with the report of the first gun aimed at Sumter. That gun awoke the slumbering North, and in every peaceful hamlet the drum-beat of preparation sounded, beginning on the St. Croix and ending far west of the Mississippi. The news that the first blow had been struck flashed through the land, silent between hope and fear, and kindled an enthusiasm which had no bound or limit. Traitors north and traitors south were marked men from that thrilling hour. There was no voice but for the nation's honor and the nation's defence, in the onslaught of a treacherous foe. For years the military spirit in the people had been repressed and discouraged. The soldier was regarded as an obsolete necessity, and the profession of arms had become absolutely disreputable in many parts of the country. Except here and there one who had served in the Mexican war, and a superannuated veteran of 1812, there was not a soldier in the land who had any experience of actual warfare. Half a century had elapsed since the fact of war in their own midst had been realized by the people, and all their traditions were of peace and prosperity. But in spite of their peaceful antecedents, in spite of the seeming indifference with which they had regarded the gathering storm, they flew to arms. Without any concert of action, without any startling proclamations to rouse their sleeping energies, they rallied beneath the banner of the country, and the spectacle of a united North was held up to the view of the astonished South. The proclamation of the president calling for seventy-five thousand men--an unheard-of army within our peaceful borders--immediately followed the tidings of the shock of actual conflict. The government had come out of its lethargy with the people, and both were in hearty sympathy.