Late April, 1861 --- written from inside the wall of a house, Charleston, SC I’m safe and sound, at last -- after that big battle at Fort Sumter. Maybe I’m safe! This is WAR! What have I gotton into? South Carolina has beautiful big plantations, like I imagined -- because I watched cotton & tobacco arrive in Europe, to be sold. People here say it requires slaves working hard to grow so much cotton. Slaves are people owned by other people. My ancestors saw a lot of slavery. The house rats say slavery is "right" in SC, but "wrong" up North, & it’s creating this war! But I hear there’s much more to it than that. I’m VERY confused. Why would humans kill each other, burning each other’s food & houses? Rats are smarter than THAT! We greet each other by saying: "may grain pile up at your feet!" The house rats tell me the war is all about "economic and philosophical differences," which rats ignore. But if our nests are burned, & our food disappears, then survival depends on knowing what’s happening. So we had a great gathering of rats in an empty warehouse. A hawk and 2 horses brought news -- they’ve migrated and galloped up and down the whole country! This is what’s happening - The 13 states of this land, each with it’s own government (like SC), agreed to join in a Union, creating a national government. Together, they wrote the "Constitution of the United States," binding their agreements into law. 9 out of 13 states had to RATify (NICE word!) the Constitution before it took effect. Several important states refused, until "individual rights and liberties" were more protected. So 10 Amendments were added, called the "Bill of Rights." The first 8 were about basic rights and freedoms of every citizen. The last 2 forbid Congress to pass laws violating these rights. Even so, each state began to go it’s own way, depending mostly on whether people lived by planting, which most Southerners did, often using of slaves -- or worked in industry and finance, which most Northerners did, without slaves. The North traded with settlers out West, so they didn’t need much from the South. But the South did need things manufactured in the North, which the South could buy, because they sold their cotton in Europe. This is called "economics," and is very confusing to rats. Then Mr. Lincoln was elected President last year. He’s a Northerner, born in the South. (I wonder if that confuses him -- or if he’s taken sides -- or if it lets him see both sides all at once?) The house rats say people here think he’s taken sides, and will abolish slavery and ruin the South’s "economy." So a few weeks after he was elected, SC seceded from the Union. They don’t want to be told how to live -- and since SC voluntarily joined the Union, they believe they have a "state’s right" to leave it ("secede")! Within weeks, 6 other Southern states seceded (Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, & Texas). Then all 7 states held a Convention, adopting a new (RATified) "Confederate Constitution" for the CSA, with laws giving each state more self-rule, & naming their own President, Jefferson Davis. 4 more states joined the Confederacy after the battle at Fort Sumter (Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, & Tennessee). The South is ready to fight, and Lincoln is calling for a volunteer army to meet "force with force." Humans call that "Civil War" --- I call it scary!