Many were glad that he had made the issue.

The enthusiasm swelled yet further, when they heard that the Confederate envoys at Washington, treating for a peaceful separation, had left the capital at once when Lincoln had sent his message that Sumter would be relieved.
"It looks more like war now," said Langdon, with satisfaction, "and I may make my victorious march into the North after all." Harry said nothing.

As events marched forward on swift foot, he felt more intensely their gravity.

For every month that had passed since he put the Tacitus in his desk at Pendleton Academy, the boy had grown a year in mind and thought.

So, that rumor about the relieving fleet had come true and they might look for it in Charleston in two or three days.
Harry had his place in one of the batteries nearest Sumter, and he often went with Colonel Talbot on tours of inspection and once or twice he was in General Beauregard's own party.