The convention had obdurately refused, week after week, to pass the ordinance of secession.

Now the naked question was, whether Virginia should fight with or against her sisters of the Gulf States.

She was directed to furnish her quota of the seventy-five thousand troops called for by President Lincoln, and must decide at once.

On the 17th of April, 1861, accordingly, an ordinance of secession passed the Virginia Convention, and that Commonwealth cast her fortunes for weal or woe with the Southern Confederacy.
Such is a brief and rapid summary of the important public events which had preceded, or immediately followed, Lee's return to Washington in March, 1861.

A grave, and to him a very solemn, question demanded instant decision.