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SIXTH REGIMENT.
By captain NEILL W. RAY.
When the country was passing through the throes of the early
part of 1861 the writer of this sketch was a cadet at the North
Carolina Military Institute at Charlotte, N. C. It was a time
of great excitement—stirring events of great import were fol-lowing
each other in rapid succession, and every mail was anx-iously
waited for. State after State was seceding from the
Union. There was talk in the U. S. Congress of coercing, of
subjugating, and, if necessary, exterminating the seceders. A war-cloud
was looming up on the horizon ; military companies were
organizing; an army had been gathered at Charleston; all eyes were
turned toward Fort Sumter. The cadets partook of the general
excitement, and as the operations in and around Charleston became
more and more serious they became restive. Our Superintendent,
Major (afterwards General) D. H. Hill, went down there, and
when, after a few days' stay, he returned to the Institute, the
whole corps assembled to hear him tell what he had seen and
heard. He gave a full account of what was being done by
General Beauregard and his Confederates, of their plans for
preventing the re-inforcement of Sumter, and for capturing it,
by bombardment, if necessary. Several of the cadets expressed
a desire to go at once to the seat of war, for fear, as they said,
Sumter would be taken and the war be over before they could
have a chance to see anything of it. To them Major Hill said,
in a very serious manner : " Young gentlemen, if there be one
hostile gun fired at Sumter, we will all see enough of it before
the war is over." Prophetic words ! Soon thereafter that gun
was fired, and its booming and the crashing caused by its shot
echoed and re-echoed far and wide.
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