In the early part of April, the convention had become very anxious in regard to the uncertain condition of things, and appointed a committee of three of its members, of great ability and experience to wait upon Mr. Lincoln and ascertain from him, in a respectful manner, what course he proposed to take in regard to the seceded states. This committee reached Washington a little before the attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and had an interview with Mr. Lincoln, receiving very little encouragement from him. While the committee was awaiting a formal answer, which was promised, the news of the commencement of the bombardment of Fort Sumter was received, and the reply from Mr. Lincoln appeared in extra issues from the press without having been communicated to the committee. This reply was enigmatical in its terms like the inaugural, but was rather stronger on the question of coercion. The committee at once returned and reported to the convention the result of its mission, and Fort Sumter having fallen, a proclamation from Lincoln soon followed, on the 15th of April, calling on the states, Virginia included, for 75,000 troops "to repossess the forts, places and property which have been seized from the Union." There was no mistaking that this meant war on the seceded states, and the Virginia convention went into secret session, when an ordinance of secession was introduced by Mr. Ballard Preston, Chairman of the Committee, which had waited on Lincoln, and up to that time an opponent of secession. After a very earnest discussion, that ordinance was adopted on the 17th day of April. A number of members of the convention, including myself, who afterwards fully sustained the action of the state, voted against the passage of this ordinance with the hope, even in that stage of the controversy, that the people of the North would not respond to the call of Lincoln for troops, and that a disruption of the Union and the horrors of war might still be avoided. The scenes which occurred during the discussion which ensued after the convention went into secret session, were characterized by a solemnity rarely witnessed in a deliberative body and several members while speaking were unable to restrain their tears. As for myself, it was exceedingly difficult to surrender the attachment of a lifetime to that Union which had been cemented by the blood of so many patriots, and which I had been accustomed to look upon (in the language of Washington) as the palladium of the political safety and prosperity of the country, and therefore I had hoped even against hope, but I soon became convinced fully that the action of the convention was right, and that it could have pursued no other course, consistently with the honor and dignity of Virginia, and in this opinion I have remained firmly fixed, notwithstanding the result of the war which ensued.