While the levies were coming into Washington, the Southern leaders had not been idle. Response to Jefferson Davis's call for troops was general all over the States, and the week that intervened between Sumter and the riot in Baltimore was a busy one. In Virginia, the Governor took into his own hands measures for the defence of his State. As early as April 15 he caused a number of militia officers to be summoned to Richmond, and he placed in their hands the execution of a movement to capture the United States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. Proceeding with a small command through an unfriendly country, these officers, among whom was the afterward famous Confederate general, John D. Imboden, reached their destination in the gray of the early morning of April 18, the day after the Virginia Legislature had passed the ordinance of secession. Instead of the resistance they had looked forward to on information that a Massachusetts regiment was guarding Harper's Ferry, they were welcomed with the sight of buildings in flames, which told them, only too truly, that the United States garrison had abandoned the place on their approach, and had set fire to the arsenal and stores to save them from falling into the hands of the Confederates.
[Illustration: JEFFERSON DAVIS'S RESIDENCE IN RICHMOND.]
Early warning of the attempted seizure of Harper's Ferry had been confided to a messenger who had volunteered to acquaint the Government with the impending peril, and word was sent that heavy reinforcements alone would save this property to the United States. But in those formative days, when many earnest men hesitated between loyalty to the Union and loyalty to their State, when officers like Lee abandoned the old service with reluctance under a sense of paramount duty to their State, a man who was loyal one day would conclude overnight to secede with his State. And from some such cause as this, or through fear of the consequences, the messenger never delivered the message to the War Department, and the reinforcements, though anxiously expected, never came. The arsenal had been left in charge of Lieut. Roger Jones, who had been ordered to Harper's Ferry from Carlisle Barracks, Penn., with a small force of forty-five men. Hearing nothing from Washington in response to his request for aid, he made up his mind on the evening of April 17, that the only course open to him was to save his garrison by retreat, and destroy the property thus abandoned. This determination was confirmed by the news brought to him, by a former superintendent of the arsenal, of the coming of the Virginia troops. Although this same man had loyally reported, so long before as January, that an attempt might be made, he now told the workmen engaged at the arsenal that within twenty-four hours the arsenal would be in the hands of the Virginia forces, and advised them to protect the property, cast their lot with the secessionists, and insure to themselves a continuance of work under the new régime.