Excerpt from Mosby's War Reminiscences and Stuart's Cavalry Campaigns How many a spirit born to bless, Hath sunk beneath that withering name, Whom but a day's an hour's success Had wafted to eternal fame. Tom Moore. N April, 1861, I was attending court at Abingdon, Va., when I met a person who had just stepped out of the telegraph office, who informed me that tremendous tidings were passing over the wires. Going in, I inquired of the operator what it was, who told me that Lincoln had issued a proclamation call ing out troops. Fort Sumter had fallen two days before. The public mind was already strained to a high pitch of excitement, and it required only a spark to produce an explosion. The indignation aroused by the President's proclamation spread like fire on a prairie, and the laws became silent in the midst bf arms. People of every age, sex, and condition were home away on the tide of excited feeling that swept over the land. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.