Not Afraid to Fight

Visitors to Princeton, New Jersey, may find there the grave of a former New York state judge who died in 1919 at the advanced age of 90. Judge Roger Pryor was not from New Jersey, however, nor was he a native of New York. A Virginian by birth, as a young man Pryor had been one of the Old Dominion's foremost secessionist "fire-eaters." Impatient with Virginia's reluctance to secede from the Union, Pryor traveled to South Carolina in April 1861 and gave a speech urging the newborn Confederacy to resist Abraham Lincoln's attempt to reinforce the U.S. Army contingent holding the fort that commanded Charleston harbor.

"Strike a blow!" Pryor cried, assuring his "immense and enthusiastic audience" that if the crisis led to war, Virginia would secede immediately -- "within an hour by Shrewsbury clock," he said.