Edmund Ruf­fin was in Tal­la­has­see observ­ing Flori­da’s seces­sion con­ven­tion when the news broke on Jan­u­ary 9 that the *Star of the West* attempt­ed to rein­force Fort Sumter. This event had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the del­e­gates; those pre­vi­ous­ly opposed to seces­sion began to sup­port it fer­vent­ly. The fol­low­ing morn­ing, the con­ven­tion vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly in favor of seces­sion, with a tal­ly of 62 to 7. Ruf­fin eager­ly telegraphed the news to Gov­er­nor Pick­ens in Charleston and edi­tors of the *Rich­mond Enquir­er*, express­ing his dis­con­tent about the expense—six dol­lars and thir­ty cents for just six words, approx­i­mate­ly two hun­dred dol­lars today.

Ruf­fin quick­ly received fur­ther encour­ag­ing news about Mis­sis­sip­pi’s seces­sion and South­ern states mov­ing to occu­py fed­er­al assets. He attrib­uted this momen­tum to Major Ander­son­’s con­tin­ued pres­ence at Fort Sumter and Pres­i­dent Buchanan’s inac­tion. Writ­ing that if Fort Sumter had not been “treach­er­ous­ly gar­risoned,” no state would have pre­emp­tive­ly seized a fort, he felt a sense of urgency to return to Charleston.

Ruf­fin depart­ed Tal­la­has­see at four p.m., endur­ing a gru­el­ing jour­ney that involved a train to Mon­ti­cel­lo and a stage­coach ride to Quit­man, Geor­gia. The rough, unpaved roads made the jour­ney chal­leng­ing for a six­ty-sev­en-year-old man. After arriv­ing at Quit­man in the dark, he found the train wait­ing with no avail­able seats, forc­ing him to stand by a fire for two hours before it depart­ed at 3:30 a.m. The train jour­ney to Savan­nah took nine and a half hours, where he received addi­tion­al uplift­ing news about Alaba­ma’s recent vote to secede by a mar­gin of 61 to 39.

Ruf­fin reached Charleston by one o’clock the next after­noon and the fol­low­ing day took a tour of the for­ti­fi­ca­tions seized by state forces, accom­pa­nied by South Car­oli­na Sec­re­tary of War Jami­son. They were joined by engi­neers, vol­un­teers, and even one hun­dred enslaved per­sons sent by their own­ers to assist. At Fort Moul­trie, Ruf­fin observed activ­i­ty and enthu­si­asm among the mili­tia vol­un­teers. Rec­og­niz­ing the optics of labor, he jok­ing­ly asked a sol­dier if he could take his place briefly “to com­mit a lit­tle trea­son to the north­ern gov­ern­ment,” before shov­el­ing sand and fill­ing a wheel­bar­row, a sym­bol­ic act reflect­ing his com­mit­ment to the South­ern cause.