inevitably attending a revolution like this, and you have a sum-total literally appalling. Could any people on earth tamely submit to spoliation so thorough and so fatal? The very Bengalese would muster the last man, and stake the last jewel, to avert it.

In the last days of March, 1861, I was sent by President Lincoln on a confidential mission to Charleston, South Carolina. It was in its nature one of great delicacy and importance; and the state of the public mind in the South at that juncture made it one not altogether free from danger to life and limb, as I was rather roughly reminded before the adventure was concluded. Throughout the entire land was heard the tumult of mad contention; the representative men, the politicians and the press of the two sections were hurling at one another deadly threats and fierce defiance; sober and thoughtful men heard with sickening alarm the deep and not distant mutterings of the coming storm; and all minds were agitated by gloomy forebodings, distressing doubts, and exasperating uncertainty as to what the next move in the strange drama would be. Following

the lead of South Carolina, the secession element of other Southern States had cut them loose, one by one, from their federal moorings, and "The Confederate States of America" was the result. It was at the virtual Capital of the State which had been the pioneer in all this haughty and stupendous work of rebellion that I was about to trust my precious life and limbs as a stranger within her gates and an enemy to her cause.

Up to this time, Mr. Lincoln had been slow to realize or to acknowledge, even to himself, the awful gravity of the situation, and the danger that the gathering clouds portended. Certain it is that Mr. Seward wildly underrated the courage and determination of the Southern people, and both men indulged the hope that pacific means might yet be employed to arrest the tide of passion and render a resort to force unnecessary. Mr. Seward was inclined, as the world knows, to credit the Southern leaders with a lavish supply of noisy bravado, quite overlooking the dogged pertinacity and courage which Mr. Lincoln well knew would characterize those men, as well as the Southern masses, in case of armed conflict between the sections. Mr. Lincoln had Southern blood in his veins, and he knew well the character of that people. He believed it possible to effect some accommodation by dealing directly with the most chivalrous among their leaders; at all events he thought it his duty to try, and my embassy to Charleston was one of his experiments in that direction.

It was believed in the South that Mr. Seward had given assurances, before and after Lincoln's inauguration, that no attempt would be made to reinforce the Southern forts, or to resupply Fort Sumter, under a Republican Administration. This made matters embarrassing, as Mr. Lincoln's Administration had, on the contrary, adopted the policy of maintaining the federal authority at all points, and of tolerating no interference in the enforcement of that authority from any source whatever.

When my mission to Charleston was suggested by Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward promptly opposed it. "Mr. President," said he, "I greatly fear that you are sending Lamon to his grave. I fear they may kill him in Charleston. Those people are greatly excited, and are very desperate. We can't spare Lamon, and we shall feel very badly if anything serious should happen to him."

"Mr. Secretary," replied Mr. Lincoln, "I have known Lamon to be in many a close place, and he has never been in one that he did n't get out of. By Jing! I'll risk him. Go, Lamon, and God bless you! Bring back a Palmetto, if you can't bring us good news."

Armed with certain credentials- from the President, Mr. Seward, General Scott, Postmaster-General Blair, and others I set out on my doubtful and ticklish adventure.

While I was preparing my baggage at Willard's Hotel, General (then Mr. Stephen A.) Hurlbut, of Illinois, entered my room, and seeing how I was engaged inquired as to the object. He being an old and reliable friend, I told him without hesitation; and he immediately asked if he might not be allowed to accompany me. He desired, he said, to pay a last visit to Charleston, the place of his birth, and to a sister living there, before the dread outbreak which he knew was coming. I saw no objection. He hurried to his rooms to make his own preparations, whence, an hour later, I took him and his wife to the boat.

On arriving at Charleston about eight o'clock Saturday night, the Hurlbuts went to the house of a kinsman, and I went to the Charleston Hotel. It so happened that several young Virginians arrived on the same train, and stopped at the same hotel. They all registered from Virginia, and made the fact known with some show of enthusiasm that they had come to join the Confederate army. I registered simply "Ward H. Lamon," followed by a long dash of the pen.

That evening, and all the next day (Sunday), little attention was paid to me, and no one knew me. I visited the venerable and distinguished lawyer, Mr. James L. Pettigrew, and had a conference with him, - having been enjoined to do so by Mr. Lincoln, who personally knew that Mr. Pettigrew was a Union man. At the close of the interview Mr. Pettigrew said to me that he seldom stirred from his house; that he had no sympathy with the rash movements of his people, and that few sympathized with him; that the whole people were infuriated and crazed, and that no act of headlong violence by them would surprise him. In saying farewell, with warm expressions of good-will, he said that he hoped he should not be considered inhospitable if he requested me not to repeat my visit, as every one who came near him was watched, and intercourse with him could only result in annoyance and danger to the visitor as well as to himself, and would fail to promote any good to the Union cause. It was now too late, he said; peaceable secession or war was inevitable.

Governor Pickens and his admirable and beautiful wife were boarding at the Charleston Hotel. Early Monday morning I sent my card to the governor requesting an interview, and stating that I was from the President of the United States. The answer came that he would see me as soon as he was through with his breakfast. I then strolled downstairs into the main lobby and corridors, where, early as the hour was, I soon discovered that something wonderful was "in the wind," and, moreover, that that wonderful something was embodied in my own person. I was not, like Hamlet, "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," yet I was somehow "the observed of all observers." I was conscious that I did not look like "the expectancy and rose of the fair state;" that my "personal pulchritude," as a witty statesman has it, was not overwhelming to the beholder; and yet I found myself at that moment immensely, not to say alarmingly, attractive.

The news had spread far and wide that a great Goliath from the North, a "Yankee Lincoln-hireling," had come suddenly into their proud city, uninvited, unheralded. Thousands of persons had gathered to see the strange ambassador. The corridors, the main office and lobby, were thronged, and the adjacent streets were crowded as well with excited spectators, mainly of the lower order, that class of dowdy patriots who in times of public commotion always find the paradise of the coward, the bruiser, and the blackguard. There was a wagging of heads, a chorus of curses and epithets not at