Emory Upton to his Sister, December 1, 1860

WEST POINT, December 1, 1860.

MY DEAR SISTER:  You must pardon me, but I must introduce the general and all-absorbing topic of conversation—secession.  What do people at home think of it?  I believe the Union is virtually dissolved.  South Carolina can not retract.  Her honor demands that she secede, else she would be a “by-word.”  But secession is revolution.  She will seize Fort Moultrie, and hence a collision with the General Government must follow.  War would alienate all the other Southern States from the Union, and a terrible and bloody revolution will result.  Every one in South Carolina is for disunion, at least none dare avow themselves for the Union, and from the accounts of the New York daily papers I sincerely believe she will secede on the 18th or 19th of this month.  If so, the North and the South will be speedily arrayed against each other, and the result will be that the North will be victorious.  The South Carolina Cadets published a manifesto a short time since as follows:

• The South Carolina Cadets of the United States MilitaryAcademy to the Editor of the Columbia (S. C.) Guardian, November 9, 1860

SOURCE: Peter Smith Michie, The Life and Letters of Emory Upton, p. 27

Emory Upton to his Sister, December 21, 1860

WEST POINT, December 21, 1860

DEAR SISTER:  We are on general review in mineralogy and geology preparatory to our last January examination, and, possibly, our very last.  These are delightful studies, and the method of instruction here renders us very familiar with minerals.  Each rock has now its story for us. . . . The political horizon is very black.  Today’s papers inform us that South Carolina has seceded.  The veil behind which Webster sought not to penetrate has been “rent in twain,” and secession, with its evils, is now a reality.  Let her go.  She has been a pest, an eye-sore, an abomination ever since she entered the Union.  Were it not that her example may become contagious, few would regret her course; but, in the present excited state of feeling at the South, there is imminent danger that the whole South will drift into the terrible gulf which secession opens before them.  I believe in Union, but South Carolina has taken the initiative, and she is responsible for whatever follows, and posterity will hold her Every friend of freedom will execrate her course. War, I believe, must speedily follow, and by her act. The papers say, “Buchanan has ordered the commandant of Fort Moultrie to surrender if attacked”; if true, what a traitor! Floyd has sent twenty-five thousand stand of arms to different Southern posts within the past year, and for what? Certainly not for the use of soldiers garrisoning them. What, then, is the inference? That they shall be convenient for secession. The Administration must be deeply implicated in this plot to destroy the government. Its conduct can not be explained otherwise. I heartily rejoice that Abraham Lincoln is elected, and that we have such a noble set of Republicans at Washington to meet this critical emergency. As for myself, I am ambitious, and desire fame, but I will stand by the right; for what is the worth of fame when purchased by dishonor? God orders or suffers all things.

SOURCE: Peter Smith Michie, The Life and Letters of Emory Upton, p. 29-30