CHAPTER TWO
1862
The nineteenth of April, 1861, was a fateful day in the lives of all Virginians. Newspapers all over the state had reported on the decision to secede from the United States. Virginia would join ranks with her sister states in the South in the formation of the Confederate States of America. She would quickly become the heart of this new nation and would soon house its government in Richmond.
Tom Covington received the news with mixed emotions. Like most people in the South he did not have passionate feelings one way or the other concerning slavery. As a younger man he had reached a personal conviction concerning his own participation in the continuance of the peculiar institution. He had given the Henrys their freedom and land of their own to farm.
Secession was another question which generated ambivalence in Covington’s breast. Did such a right exist? He thought the courts offered the most logical forum for such a question to be resolved, but it was painfully obvious no solution would be forthcoming from any legal venue. Fort Sumter had been fired upon. The die had been cast. The clash of arms would prove the only arbiter of secession.
On one issue alone did he have strong convictions. He was a Virginian from a long line of Virginians. He would not turn his back on hi