The material interests which were affirmed, and by many believed to be at stake in the conflict for “Southern rights,” had their influence to increase the number of secessionists in parts of Tennessee after the appeal to arms. The growth of disunion sentiments, like their germination, depended more or less upon the climate and soil. In West Tennessee, where cotton is the chief product and slaves were very numerous, the friends of the Union eventually, were few and far between. At the city of Memphis, a large cotton port, where a strong Union sentiment existed in the autumn of 1860, the voters against secession four months later, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. In Middle Tennessee the secessionists increased in numbers, less in proportion to population, than in West Tennessee: but in East Tennessee, there was no important change in the relative strength of parties produced by the commencement of hostilities. During April, the political excitement in the chief town of the latter region, rapidly waxed strong as it did elsewhere in the land: but it differed then and afterwards in the bitterness mixed with it growing out of the close and sharp divisions among neighbors. The near prospect of a general civil war increased the disposition of the revolutionary party to vigorous proceedings and added something to its confidence. The friends of the United States were put more on the defensive against the charge of disloyalty to their own section of country, and found it necessary to use discretion as well as firmness. Sometimes the adverse parties came near to collisions on the streets. Tidings of “the fight at Baltimore” vibrated on men’s nerves like a shock of electricity. It was on Friday, April 19. On Sunday, people went to church with the exciting news yet ringing in their ears. Singularly enough, as a co-incidence, widely observed, and thought by some to be prophetic, the first lesson for the day (third Sunday after Easter) read in the worship of God in many churches of the land, began with the ninth verse of the third chapter of the prophet Joel, in these words: “Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up; beat your plough-shares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.” Universally the worshippers were unprepared to hear a portion of God’s Word, long before prescribed, but so well suited to the particular time that it might have been selected that morning, and they were impressed or startled. Another portion of Holy Scripture read on the same occasion by like prescription, and which had special fitness to existing circumstances, breathed no martial strains, and therefore received less attention as a co-incidence. It was in the Epistle for the Sunday, from St. Peter’s first Epistle: