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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln by Helen Nicolay: Fort Sumter began active war. This added to the difficulty of
sifting the loyal from the disloyal, and the yet more pressing
labor of organizing an immense new army.
Hundreds of clerks employed in the Government Departments left
their desks and hurried South, crippling the service just at the
time when the sudden increase of work made their presence doubly
needed. A large proportion of the officers of the Army and Navy,
perhaps as many as one-third, gave their skill and services to
the Confederacy, feeling that their allegiance was due to their
State or section rather than to the general government. Prominent
among these was Robert E. Lee, who had been made a colonel by
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