The example of South Carolina was soon followed. Mississippi,
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas all declared their
union with the States at an end. They then joined together. And
calling themselves the Confederate States, they elected a President,
drew up a Constitution, and made ready to seize the Union forts
and arsenals.
Meanwhile President Buchanan knew not what to do. He tried to
steer both ways at once. He said the Southern States had no right
to break away from the Union, but he also said that the Government
had no power to force them to return. In reality, however, his heart
was with the South, and he believed that the Southerners had just
cause for anger. So the Southerners soon came to believe that the
President would let them go their own way. Some of the Northerners,
too, thought a division would be a good thing, or at least that
disunion was better than war. "Let the slave states depart in peace,"
they said. But others would not hear of that, and were ready to
fight to the last if only the Union might be preserved.
The country was fast drifting towards war; and soon the first shot
was fired. Charleston, the harbour of South Carolina, was guarded
by two forts, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter. Fort Moultrie was
large, needing about seven hundred men to guard it properly, and
Major Anderson, who was in command, had only sixty men under him.
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