In the chap­ter titled “Mont­gomery and Rich­mond,” the ten­sion mounts in ear­ly April as Con­fed­er­ate Pres­i­dent Jef­fer­son Davis and his cab­i­net grow increas­ing­ly anx­ious about the sit­u­a­tion. Their con­fi­dence relies sole­ly on the assur­ances from their inter­me­di­ary, Jus­tice Camp­bell. The Con­fed­er­ate com­mis­sion­ers in Washington—who were accus­tomed to pow­er and command—struggle with feel­ings of dis­re­spect, par­tic­u­lar­ly due to Sec­re­tary of State Seward’s refusal to meet them. They antic­i­pat­ed being treat­ed as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of a new repub­lic, but the real­i­ty is more dis­heart­en­ing.

Campbell’s reas­sur­ances increas­ing­ly con­flict with ris­ing rumors about impend­ing mil­i­tary action against the Con­fed­er­a­cy, includ­ing reports of ships armed with troops head­ing to Fort Sumter. As they grow alarmed, the com­mis­sion­ers com­mu­ni­cate that Pres­i­dent Lin­coln is meet­ing with naval offi­cers, which rais­es their con­cerns even fur­ther. In response, Con­fed­er­ate Sec­re­tary of War L. P. Walk­er instructs Gen­er­al Beau­re­gard to main­tain a state of “watch­ful vig­i­lance” as if antic­i­pat­ing an attack.

Mean­while, in Charleston, John Man­ning, an aide to Beau­re­gard, con­tin­ues to engage in a flir­ta­tion with Mary Ches­nut, cap­tur­ing the lighter, yet com­plex social dynam­ics amidst the brew­ing con­flict. Mary doc­u­ments moments from their encoun­ters in her diary, notably how Man­ning shared his secret with his wife about their flir­ta­tion, cre­at­ing an amus­ing twist in per­son­al rela­tion­ships dur­ing such tumul­tuous times.

In Rich­mond, the Vir­ginia Con­ven­tion holds a vote on a pro­posed ordi­nance of seces­sion on April 4, which is sound­ly reject­ed, prompt­ing out­rage from fig­ures like Edmund Ruf­fin in Charleston. He express­es his dis­dain for the con­ven­tion’s reluc­tance to secede, hop­ing that a naval attack from Lin­coln would final­ly spur Vir­ginia into action. Ruffin’s frus­tra­tions are pal­pa­ble as he wish­es for cir­cum­stances that would jus­ti­fy seces­sion and rid him of the bur­den of explain­ing Virginia’s hes­i­ta­tion.

Thus, the chap­ter jux­ta­pos­es the grow­ing sense of fore­bod­ing regard­ing mil­i­tary con­flict with the intrigues of social inter­ac­tions, under­scor­ing the con­flict­ing emo­tions expe­ri­enced by indi­vid­u­als in posi­tions of pow­er and their per­son­al lives amid uncer­tain­ty.