He had a right to look forward to a brilliant future.
Chapter III. A Confederate Soldier
From his dreams of music and poetry and from the ideal he had formed
of study at Heidelberg, Lanier was awakened by the guns of Fort Sumter
and by the agitation everywhere in Georgia. At Milledgeville he heard
some of the great speeches made for and against secession,
for, from November to January, the conflict throughout the State
and especially in the capital was a severe one. He himself,
like his father, hoped that the Union might be preserved,
but the forces of discord could not be stayed. The people of Macon,
on November 8, 1860, passed a declaration of independence,
setting forth their grievances against the North. When secession
was declared in Charleston on December 1, a hundred guns were fired
amidst the ringing of bells and the shouts of the people.
At night there was a procession of fifteen hundred people
with banners and transparencies.* When on January 16 the Georgia convention
voted to secede from the Union, Milledgeville was in "rapturous commotion".
"Tears of joy fell from many eyes, and words of congratulation were uttered
by every tongue. The artillery from the capitol square thundered forth
the glad tidings, and the bells of the city pealed forth the joyous welcome
to the new-born Republic."
--
* Butler's `History of Macon'.
--
Lanier afterwards, in "Tiger Lilies", described the war fever
as it swept over the South.
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