True To His Colors

ou were not my cousin, I should be tempted

g in this academy for the last three months, I am more ashamed of it than you can poss

ver since it has been a flag, and, if I can help it, you shall not be the first of our na

, that it shall not stay. Here's our banner; and if there's a war coming, as

the efforts of a band of young secessionists, headed by Rodney Gray, to haul down the academy flag, and to hoist in its place a strange banner-one that nobody had ever seen or heard of previous to the 4th of March, the day on which Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated President of the United States. The studen

invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States of America, and secure the public tranquillity against threatened assault." Every schoolboy who has paid any attention to his history knows that there was not the slightest excuse for calling this immense army into existence. The disunion leaders repeatedly declared that Northern men would not fight, and they seemed to have good grounds for thinking so; for, although Fort Sumter was surrounded by hostile batteries, no attempt had been made to send supplies to Major Anderson and the gallant fellows who were shut up in

essionists to be found among the five millions and more of whites who lived south of Mason and Dixon's line. Of course subsequent events, like the War and Emancipation proclamations, added to this number; but even at the end there were Union-loving people scattered all through the seceded States, and they clung to their principles in spite of everything, fighting the conscript

ur Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in." These were the rabid Abolitionists, who were perfectly willing that the nation should be destroyed rather than that it should continue to exist half-slave and half-free. One of their leaders, who afterward became a Union general, declared, "If slavery i

o break up the government because they could no longer run things to suit themselves; and that there was not room enough for another flag on this Continent. This was the good old Union party, and fortunately it was resolute enough and strong enough to run the starry banner up to the masthead and keep it there. This was what Marcy Gray, a North Carolina boy, had done on this particular morning on the roof of the Barrington Military Institute, and he had done it, too, in spite of all the efforts his cousin, Rodney Gray, backed by nearly all the young rebels in the school, had made to prevent it. Ever since the day on which the news came that So

Union existing between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."' There it is in black and white. She's out, and of course all the other Cotto

they arrived at the dignity of memberships in the first class and company. They were cousins, and both were Southern born. M

re about. But Marcy was not a passive Unionist. On the day South Carolina began threatening secession, he declared that she ought to be whipped into submission; and he had never ceased to proclaim his principles in spite of the lowering looks he saw and the threats he heard on every side. The boys declared that they would send him to Coventry; that is, withdraw from all fellowship with him; but when they came to try it, they found to their surprise and disgust, that they would have to go back on more than half the school, for some of the best boys in it promptly sided with Marcy. The latter had many friends, and the Union sentiment was strong in the academy; but on the morning that Rodney Gray read the e

ou see it has, don't you? It seems that those furious threats about secession were not all talk, don't it? But seriously, Marcy, I know you stand where ev

ht at his cousin he did not appear to know that Rodney wa

al," suggested Dick Gr

may meet again under d

to be, for I don't think

arolina

sorry we haven't a Jackson in Washington at this moment to say that it must and shall be preserved. I

exclaimed Bob Cole, who was one of Rodney's friends and followers. "Coerce a sover

ng around listening to his fiery words, but that was the very argument the frig

ed of the company of those Yankees up North, and now we are going to get rid of them and have a government of our own; see if we don't. Why should we not? The people up there do not belong to the same race we do. They are regicides and Roundheads-plodding, stingy folks, in whose eyes a dollar looks as big as a cart-

silence to this speech, which was addressed to the boys gathered in

irs on which Bob had perched himself when he began his address. "I go wit

o what?" inq

e," Billings

d I go with her, how will I stand in regard to th

ice was drowned in the wild shouts t

wn!" they yelled,

er they had taken time to think twice. "Let's wait up

n the hall had come back to see what it was all about. "Those colors shall not come down without

to order it down, or to permit the students to pull it down. It would be time enough to attend to that when they learned what the State was going to do. The boys went away

they read. The Southern press never did deal fairly with its readers. All dispatches favorable to the secessionists and their cause were published, as a matter of course; but those that were not favorable were either suppressed entirely, or distorted out of all semblance to the truth. The

ustrated by the vigilance and courage of the boys who had not yet lost all love for it, and for the memory of those whose deeds it commemorated. When the colonel

weeks this same Alexander H. Stephens was vice-president of the Confederacy. Mississippi went out of the Union first, and others followed, until there were seven of them to organize a new government under a new flag. Then it was that the first open attempt was made to haul the old banner down from the academy flag-staff; but it was promptly met, and although Rodney Gray and his followers had been reinforced by nearly all the students belonging to the seceded States, the Union boys were strong enough to drive them down stairs, through the hall, and out of the building. They tried to be as good-natured as they could about it, but

but, with the exception of Rodney Gray, no one at the academy gave it a second thought. When you hear what that act was, and what Rodney did about it, you will perhaps realize how very much in earnest the dis

was addressed to Rodney Gray. He ran the guard and went to the post-office after it; or, rather, he climbed the fence in full view of the sentry, who turned his back and walked off wit