150-Year-Ago -- PROGRESS OF THE WAR

A Confederate captain.
(9th palte tintype, Blog author's collection)

The Richmond Daily Dispatch
April 30, 1861


South Carolina. The following address has been issued by Gov. Pickens to the volunteers of the State:
       I am informed from high authority that the State of Virginia has adopted our Confederate Constitution, and is virtually a member of our Confederacy. I called for volunteers because I did not consider Virginia as under our Government. But when I am officially informed that she has joined our Confederacy I shall consider her as part of our country, and to defend her or Maryland is to defend South Carolina. Whatever troops may be ordered will be still considered as volunteers from South Carolina, and there is no power to lengthen or change their term of service; they are still volunteers from South Carolina for twelve months, and if they leave the State will be under the command of a General in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States. If two or more regiments are marched together out of this State, I will assign to their command one of our Brigadier-Generals, who will command until a General be appointed or designated by the President of the Confederate Government. One of our noble regiments is now in Virginia, and the Palmetto flag floats from the beautiful hills of Richmond. Another of the same kind started last night. You will be eager to follow wherever that banner waves.
     Soldiers of South Carolina! Hold yourselves in readiness to march, at the word, to the tomb of Washington, and swear that no Northern Goths and Vandals shall ever desecrate its sacred precincts, and that you will make of it an American Mecca, to which the votaries of freedom and independence, from the South, shall make their pilgrimage through all time to come. Let the sons of South Carolina answer to the call from the sons of Colonel Howard who led the Maryland Line in triumph over the bloody battlefield of our Cowpens. Let them know that we will return that blood with full interest, and let them feel that they are now, as they were then, our brothers. March to Virginia and lay your heads upon the bosom of this mother of States, and hear her great heart beat with new impulses for a renewed and glorious independence.
     Surely the good and the virtuous of the Northern States cannot sanction the lawless and brutal despotism now maturated at Washington.
     Be ready! Stand by your arms — mark time to the tap of independence, and at the word march forward and on ward to the Borders.--Our glorious old sister, North Carolina, is with you, and her freemen are in arms. Join them in the struggle for defence; and let tyrants know that there are men who can make them hear the firing and feel the weight of Southern steel. I shall endeavor not to expose our own State, and shall only march you beyond our borders under pressing emergency; but wherever the Confederate Flag floats, there, too, is our country, now and forever.
F. W. Pickens.
 
Alabama troops for Virginia.

     Within four or five days a regiment of Alabama troops will concentrate at this point and immediately embark for Virginia. Several of our companies will probably go in this regiment. The next regiment, which is to be composed of North and East Alabama companies, will concentrate in a few days afterwards at Dalton, Georgia, and also proceed to Virginia at as early a moment as possible.--Montgomery Advertiser.

First National Confederate Flag.

The Capitol flag.

     A splendid new flag of the Southern Confederacy, made to the order of the State, by Mr. Geo. Ruskell, of Main street, eighteen by twenty-five feet long, of the best bunting, was run up to the top of the flag-staff on the Southern end of the State House yesterday — a glorious symbol of a new order of things. Mr. Ruskell is now making for Capt. Robt. C. Triggs' company of Montgomery Fencibles. (we believe they are here now,) a beautiful little company flag of blue silk, embellished with the Virginia coat of arms, which the ladies of Christiansburg had intended to present to the Fencibles in May. May is not quite here, but the Fencibles are. Their flag has on it the significant and appropriate motto: "Virginia knows her rights, and will maintain them." That's the right talk.