Excerpt from Lee's Invasion of Northwest Virginia in 1861 Fifty years after the event, there are signs of a renascent literature dealing with the southern rebellion, which apologists for that attempt at national homicide prefer to describe as the "War between the States." In this semi-centennial year, the American citizen may well suspend his mad pursuit after the almighty dollar and take a few minutes off to recall the events and portents which a half century ago darkened the western hemisphere. This slender volume is a modest attempt to trace the salient features of a single episode in the great tragic story; the opening chapter in a volume whose "finis" no man could then forecast. The sole attempt to justify the rebellion in its initial stage was the protest against "coercion." This was simply a demand by the conspirators, who had seized the machinery of all the Southern state governments, that the lawful authority of the nation should not interfere with their plans or pleasure in the trifling matter of upsetting the United States government. Yet when the next stage had been reached, coercion was the first weapon drawn in Virginia against every citizen who resisted the usurpation which had seized the Commonwealth. It was first employed in the State capital to compel a sovereign convention to pass an ordinance of secession against the expressed will of two-thirds of the voters of Virginia. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.