before the war are preserved with a vividness that seems almost magical. Estelle Hall echoes with fierce discussions of the great Compromise of 1850. What a vista of history opens before the mind as the streets resound to the tramp of Colonel Buford's men on their vain errand to Kansas! And what a sobering sense of reality it brings to read his card in the papers! "I wish to raise three hundred industrious, sober, discreet, reliable men, capable of bearing arms; not prone to use them wickedly or unnecessarily, but willing to protect their section in every real emergency."
But interesting as these incidents are to the student, they were historically only preliminary to the dramatic events connected with the secession of the State and the organization of the Confederate Government. The course of South Carolina and the propositions for compromise had been watched with the greatest eagerness, and when the Alabama Convention assembled in the capitol on January 7, 1861, the excitement was intense. Hotels were crowded, lobbies thronged, the factions were busy caucusing, and so close did the estimate of votes run that a delegate who was opposed to secession exclaimed: "Mr. Yancey can save
