states and all the government property they wanted. We let them boldly inaugurate a rival republic within our borders, elect a president and declare their independence. Even then we made no effort to school and train our men so that they might have some chance. General Scott early begged Buchanan and Secretary of War Floyd to raise a small, efficient, trained force to stem possible trouble, but these men of state merely shrugged. Since Scott was too old to mount a horse, he was too old to give advice. After all he was only at the top of his profession, practically and theoretically. Our attitude was _not_ to be ready for possible emergencies, and particularly an emergency that had been slapping us in the face for over thirty years, but to do as wretchedly as we could when the emergency struck us. And we surely lived up to expectations. When the gun at Fort Sumter waked the sleeping North into action, we were destitute of anything like a proper tool to handle the situation. Even our new President because there were no trained troops in the East to protect him, had to make his way in disguise to a threatened White House; whereas President Davis, a trained, tried and educated soldier and statesman had collected thirty-five thousand troops, who were being trained and equipped. So when President Lincoln, unlettered and unskilled in the art and science of war arrived in office, he found the South had a magnificent start on him. From then on throughout the war he had to work against horrible handicaps, even though we had three times the man-power and many times the resources of the Confederates. In desperation he called out seventy-five thousand men for three months--seventy-five thousand raw men to do the work of veterans. In response to this call, a Massachusetts regiment was mobbed while passing through Baltimore and a Pennsylvania regiment had to turn back because it had no arms. Meanwhile nearly three hundred southern officers of the small, far-scattered trained army went over to the South.