Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

Such explanations for conversion to secession were undoubtedly sincere. But their censure of Lincoln had a certain self-serving quality. The claim that his call for troops was the cause of the upper South’s decision to secede is misleading. As the telegraph chattered reports of the attack on Sumter April 12 and its surrender next day, huge crowds poured into the streets of Richmond, Raleigh, Nashville, and other upper South cities to celebrate this victory over the Yankees. These crowds waved Confederate flags and cheered the glorious cause of southern independence. They demanded that their own states join the cause. Scores of such demonstrations took place from April 12 to 14, before Lincoln issued his call for troops. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence. News of Sumter’s fall reached Richmond on the evening of April 13. A jubilant procession marched on the state capital where a battery fired a hundred-gun salute “in honor of the victory.” The crowd lowered the American flag from the capital building and ran up the Confederate stars and bars. Everyone “seemed to be perfectly frantic with delight, I never in all my life witnessed such excitement,” wrote a participant. “Everyone is in favor of secession.” Citizens of Wilmington, North Carolina, reacted to the news of Sumter with “the wildest excitement,” flew Confederate flags from public buildings, and fired salutes to them. In Goldsboro,...