At our seminary the order of exercises went along with the regularity of the seasons.

Once a week, I had the older cadets to practise reading, reciting, and elocution, and noticed that their selections were from Calhoun, Yancey, and other Southern speakers, all treating of the defense of their slaves and their home institutions as the very highest duty of the patriot.

Among boys this was to be expected; and among the members of our board, though most of them declaimed against politicians generally, and especially abolitionists, as pests, yet there was a growing feeling that danger was in the wind.
I recall the visit of a young gentleman who had been sent from Jackson, by the Governor of Mississippi, to confer with Governor Moore, then on his plantation at Bayou Robert, and who had come over to see our college.

He spoke to me openly of secession as a fixed fact, and that its details were only left open for discussion.

I also recall the visit of some man who was said to be a high officer in the order of "Knights of the Golden Circle," of the existence of which order I was even ignorant, until explained to me by Major Smith and Dr.Clark.