the neighborhood of Charleston till after the departure of her consorts, and eventually returned to New York. Nothing was heard of the Uncle Ben until the 30th of April, when intelligence was received that she had been captured by the insurgents off the coast of North Carolina.

The orders of the expedition were, that unarmed boats should first be sent to the fort with stores only; but if these were fired upon, every effort was to be made to relieve the fort by stratagem or force. The vessels of war and the Baltic proved of too heavy draft for any hopes of passing the bar, and the steam-tugs which were to have been sent in with supplies, failed to make their appearance. The attack on the fort, before any measures of a peaceable character could be adopted for its relief, left no alternative but force, to the commandant of the fleet, if the object of his expedition was to be accomplished. A consultation of officers was held at four o'clock on the afternoon of the 12th, and the following plan was agreed upon: the Pawnee and the Harriet Lane were to remain at anchor during the night; at dawn, on the 13th, the Pawnee was to hoist out her armed launches, and the Baltic was to put her boats alongside, freighted with the provisions and troops designed for the fort. The war vessels were then to tow the boats as far as possible on their perilous journey, when they were to be cast off, and allowed to pursue their course toward the fort, relying upon the guns of the men-of-war, and what aid might be extended from Sumter, to protect them from the batteries and flotilla of armed boats, which were in readiness to dispute their advance. During the night the Baltic went aground on Rattlesnake Shoals, and the plan agreed upon was, from necessity, relinquished. The conflagration of the barracks of the fort having precipitated its evacuation earlier than was anticipated, the officers of the fleet abandoned other plans for its relief.

At two o'clock on the 14th of April, Major Anderson and the garrison of Fort Sumter were received on board the Baltic, and the fleet shortly after sailed for New York. The flag of the fort was borne at the mast-head of the Baltic as she entered the bay of New York, where it was saluted by guns from every fort in the harbor, and hailed by the shouts of more than a hundred thousand people, who lined the wharves of the city. It was also raised over the equestrian statue of Washington in Union Square, in that city, when the great Union meeting was held on the afternoon of Saturday, April 20.

THE NATION'S RESPONSE.

TE first gun that boomed against Fort Sumter struck the great American Union with a shock that vibrated from the centre to its outer verge. Every heart, true or false to the great Union, leaped to the sound, either in patriotism or treason, on that momentous day.

The North and South recoiled from each other; the one in amazement at the audacity of this first blow against the Union, the other rushing blindly after a few leaders, who had left them little choice of action, and no power of deliberation. The first news of the attack took the Government at Washington almost by surprise. President Lincoln and his Cabinet had not allowed themselves to believe that a civil war could absolutely break out in the heart of a country so blessed, so wealthy, and so accustomed to peace. True, political strife had waged fearfully; sections had clamored against sections, factions North had battled with factions. South; but in a country where free speech and a free press were a crowning glory, a war of words and ideas could hardly have been expected to culminate in one of the most terrible civil wars that will crimson the world's record.

The first boom of the cannon's blackened lips-the first shot hurled against the stars and stripes, aroused the Government from its hopes of. security. Scarcely had the telegraph wires ceased to tremble under the startling news, before the Cabinet assembled in President Lincoln's council chamber, and when it broke up, a proclamation, calling for seventy-five thousand troops, had been decided upon, and Congress was to be convened on the Fourth of July.

The startling news, this prompt action, and the defenceless state of Washington, filled the country with wild excitement. It was known that the South had been for months drilling troops; that large portions of Virginia and Maryland were ready for revolt, and many believed that bodies of men were organized and prepared for an attack on the capital. Had this been true, had a considerable number of men marched upon Washington any time within four days after the news from Fort Sumter reached it, nothing could have saved it from capture, and probably, destruction. With only a handful of troops, and exposed at every point, no effectual resistance could have been made The news reached Washington on Sunday; the next day such troops as could be mustered, appeared on parade.. Pickets were stationed outside the town; horses were galloped furiously from point to point, and the first faint indication of this most awful civil war dawned upon a people so used to peace, that its import could not be wholly realized. Smothered alarm prevailed in the city; a military guard was placed

each night in the White House, and great anxiety was felt for the arrival of troops, which had been hastily summoned from the North.

That week the near friends of the President were under painful apprehensions for his safety. It was known to a few persons that the very gang of men who had planned his death at Baltimore, were in the neighborhood of the capital, plotting against him there. It was even known that a design existed by which a sudden descent of swift riders was to be made on the White House, with the bold object of killing Lincoln in his cabinet, or carrying him off by force into Virginia. The night-guard in the Presidential mansion was but small, and by day Lincoln had always been imprudently accessible.

The persons believed to be in this plot were brave, reckless men, ac、 customed to adventures of every kind, and quite capable of carrying out a programme of abduction or bloodshed under more difficult circumstances than surrounded this enterprise. But men of reckless action are seldom prudent in speech; the wild project was too exciting for proper reticence. By a few incautious words, dropped here and there, this treasonable design was fathomed; the friends of President Lincoln warned, and the whole thing quietly defeated, for the gang soon ascertained that their treason had been discovered, and, as its success depended on a surprise of the President's household, the project was abandoned.

Meantime the news of Fort Sumter, and the call for troops, had shot its lightning along every telegraph in the Union; the response was an instantaneous uprising of the people, such as no country on earth ever witnessed before.

The great majesty of the Union had been insulted and set at defiance, and as one man, thousands upon thousands rushed around the worshipped banner of their country, firm in their patriotism, and terrible in their determination that it should never be trailed in the dust, or torn with hostile shot, unavenged.

The proclamation of President Lincoln calling for volunteers, was apswered by the voices of freemen from every hill-top and valley, and almost fabulous numbers stood ready and anxious to devote themselves to the vindication of the national honor. Wild indeed was the enthusiasm that ran from heart to heart, linking the great west and the east together. But one sentiment found expression from any lip among the excited populace, and that sentiment was, the Union should be sustained at all hazards. Wealth, life, everything must be counted as dust till the Union had redeemed itself. Who in New York does not remember how the city was ablaze with flags and tri-colored bunting on the memorable day, when, "the Seventh regiment," responded to the call? Never did a finer or braver body of young men pass down

Broadway. Although their arms were not now corded or hands hardened by labor, their prompt action was a living proof that gentle breeding can be associated with hearts of oak, with stern determination, coolness and discretion. Leaping to their arms at the first note of danger, impatient of delay and thrilling with the hope of weaving in their peace-won wreaths laurels earned by hard fighting, this regiment marched from its armory, the very first of the Empire State to obey the call to arms. Their object was war. They hoped ardently that it was no light duty which might fall upon them. They expected to meet hard work and hard fighting too before the capital was reached, for danger menaced them on all sides. Baltimore had risen in revolt even while they were arming for the march and they fully depended on fighting their way through its turbulent streets.

On the 19th of April, at the very time revolt broke out in Baltimore, a very different scene was going on in New York.

Amidst unparalleled enthusiasm the volunteer soldiers of New England and New York struck hands on their march to the rescue of the national capital. And beautiful the streets looked, with bannered parapets, peopled roofs, windows thronged with sympathetic beauty, and sidewalks densely packed with multitudes of excited and applauding citizens.

But it required only a single glance at the faces of this great multitude to become convinced that no mere gala or festive purpose had called out this magnificent demonstration. In every eye burned the unquenchable fire of patriotic ardor, and in every heart was the aspiration to join in defence of one common country. Old men, who must have seen the earlier struggles of our history, came forth to bless the young soldiers on their march to take share in a grander and more noble struggle than any the American continent had yet witnessed.

Mothers, with tears of joyous pride half blinding them, helped to buckle on the accoutrements of their sons, and kissed them as they went forth to battle. Sisters and sweethearts, fathers and wives, friends and relatives, all were represented, and had their individual characteristics in the immense concourse of life which held possession of Broadway.

Perhaps if there could have risen from the dead one of the old Girondists, after being bloodily put away to repose during the great French Revolution, and if he had been dropped down in New York,-by allowing a little for advance in costumes and architecture, he might have seen many curious points of resemblance between the scenes and those of seventy years ago in Paris. Then the inspiration of liberty ran through the people, and the most powerful aristocracy of Europe was destroyed. The result of the struggle which broke out in New York, and in the streets of Baltimore, in one day, time has yet to reveal.

7

The children of New York, the Seventh regiment, the pets and pride of her society, were going forth to their first war duty. Eight hundred chosen young men, with threads woven to hold them, wherever they went, to the million hearts they left behind-moved down Broadway and started for the capital.

Eight hundred young citizens, each with musket and knapsack, borne along calmly and impassively on a tide of vocal patriotism, making the air resonant with shouts and warm with the breath of prayer.

With that regiment went young Winthrop, on that memorable day, who afterwards passed from the literary fame he had so richly earned, to military glory at the battle of Big Bethel. There also was O'Brien, one of the most promising poets of the age, doomed like Winthrop to reap bloody laurels, and fill a soldier's grave. Let no one say that the Empire State was not nobly represented in these young soldiers. Gentlemen as they were, one and all, no man was heard to complain of hard work, soldiers' fare, or no fare at all, as sometimes happened to them. How cheerful they were in the cedar groves for two days and nights-how they endured the hardships of a bivouac on soft earth-how they digged manfully in the trenches. With what supreme artistic finish their work was achieved-how they cleared the brushwood from the glacis-how they blistered their hands and then hardened them with toil-how they chafed at being obliged to evade Baltimore, and how faithfully they guarded Washington and achieved the object for which they were sent, will be best given in a description of the march from Annapolis of which O'Brien has left a brilliant record.

Nor were their services in protecting the capital all that the Seventh regiment of New York has given to its country. Many a regiment which has since won lasting fame on the battle-field has been officered to some extent from its ranks.

Two days after the departure of the Seventh regiment, the Seventyfirst, since renowned for its bravery at Bull Run, the Sixth, and Twelfth, all city regiments of New York, took the same glorious track, and were hailed with like enthusiasm. In military drill and social position, some of these regiments were not inferior to the Seventh, and their departure was witnessed by a concourse of people equal to that which filled the streets on the 19th.

It was with pride that a city saw her first quota of soldiers departing en route for Washington, to take the Empire share with the troops of other loyal states in the contest now inaugurated. The spectacle, instead of being a great pageant, had all the grandeur and solemnity of a step in one of those crises of events which involve individual and national life engraving new names and new dynasties upon the tablets of history.