Sentiments on Secession

Alexandria Gazette on Secession.PNG

“I am too nervous, too wretched to-day to write in my diary, but that the employment will while away a few moments of this trying time. Our friends and neighbors have left us. Every thing is broken up. The Theological Seminary is closed; the High School dismissed. Scarcely any one is left of the many families which surrounded us. The homes all look desolate; and yet this beautiful country is looking more peaceful, more lovely than ever, as if to rebuke the tumult of passion and the fanaticism of man. We are left lonely indeed; our children are all gone—the girls to Clarke, where they may be safer, and farther from the exciting scenes which may too soon surround us; and the boys, the dear, dear boys, to the camp, to be drilled and prepared to meet any emergency.1 Can it be that our country is to be carried on and on to the horrors of civil war? I pray, oh how fervently do I pray, that our Heavenly Father may yet avert it.” Judith Brockenbrough McGuire

Votes on Secession.PNG

This snippet from the Morning Democrat in Davenport, Iowa provides statistics that show exactly how the deal of secession went in the city of Alexandria. 

Alexandria and Rebels.PNG

Measures taken to protect the region in which Alexandria found itself were detailed in another part of the Morning Democrat copy. The fact that these sentiments were recorded in Iowa show the impact of even the issue in Virginia. 

Sentiments on Secession