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"But the indications from the North and the South are that the arbitrament of war is to be resorted to for a solution and decision of our troubles. This is not the choice of Tennessee. Let that be understood at the outset. [...] Shall we assist in a war of subjugation against our Southern brethren? Shall we aid in the permanent overthrow of a government to which we are so devotedly attached [...] Or, shall we, by an act of revolution dissolve our relations with that government, and join the “Confederate States?” Or shall we act independently of both by forming a government of our own, in connection with such other States as may agree with us, under a constitution which will secure all our rights and meet our approval?"

Tennessee had voted down a secession convention on February 9 by a wide margin. Here, on the day the guns open, a Unionist paper states the question the upper South will actually be asked — not whether secession was right, but which side to join, or whether to stand apart from both, once the shooting starts. Tennessee seceded on June 8. Three passages joined with [...].

Read it in the original — Nashville Daily Patriot, Apr 12, 1861 ↗

Next post: Mary Boykin Chesnut, Apr 12, 1861 →

"I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four, the orders are, he shall be fired upon. I count four, St. Michael's bells chime out and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon. I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before. [...] The women were wild there on the housetop. Prayers came from the women and imprecations from the men. And then a shell would light up the scene."

Chesnut's husband, James Chesnut Jr., had rowed out to Sumter that night carrying the ultimatum; she waited in a Charleston house and then went up to the roof. Two passages joined with [...]. Important caveat: "A Diary from Dixie" is the 1905 edition of a manuscript Chesnut substantially rewrote in the 1880s from her 1861 journals — it is a revised memoir built on a contemporaneous diary, not the raw 1861 text. Read it as testimony shaped after the fact.

Read it in the original — Diary entry, Apr 12, 1861 ↗