HISTORICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ILLINOIS.
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BEGINNING OF THE REBELLION.-Almost simultaneously with the accession of the new State Government, and before the inauguration of the President at Washington, began that series of startling events which ultimately culminated in the attempted secession of eleven States of the Union-the first acts in the great drama of war which occupied the attention of the world for the next four years. On Jan. 14, 1861, the new State administration was inaugurated; on Feb. 2, Commissioners to the futile Peace Convention held at Washington, were appointed from Illinois, consisting of Stephen T. Logan, John M. Palmer, ex-Gov. John Wood, B. C. Cook and T. J. Turner; and on Feb. 11, Abraham Lincoln took leave of his friends and neighbors at Springfield on his departure for Washington, in that simple, touching speech which has taken a place beside his inaugural addresses and his Gettysburg speech, as an American classic. The events which followed; the firing on Fort Sumter on the twelfth of April and its surrender; the call for 75,000 troops and the excitement which prevailed all over the country, are matters of National history. Illinoisans responded with promptness and enthusiasm to the call for six regiments of State militia for three months' service, and one week later (April 21), Gen. R. K. Swift, of Chicago, at the head of seven companies numbering 595 men, was en route for Cairo to execute the order of the Secretary of War for the occupation of that place. The offer of military organizations proceeded rapidly, and by the eighteenth of April, fifty companies had been tendered, while, the public-spirited and patriotic bankers of the principal cities were offering to supply the State with money to arm and equip the hastily organized troops. Following in order the six regiments which Illinois had sent to the Mexican War, those called out for the three months' service in 1861 were numbered consecutively from seven to twelve, and were commanded by the following officers, respectively: Cols. John Cook, Richard J. Oglesby, Eleazer A. Paine, James D. Morgan, W. H. L. Wallace and John McArthur, with Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss as brigade commander. The rank and file numbered 4,680 men, of whom 2,000, at the end of their term of service, re-enlisted for three years. (See War of the Rebellion.)
Among the many who visited the State Capitol in the early months
