"...simultaneously. It is of course true that the United States was engaging in its own mobilization on precisely the same day, but what may seem like an academic distinction was hardly one. The Confederate war plans - dubbed "HHH" by the Army Staff Office for well over a decade - necessitated a rapid mobilization and while the structure of the Confederate military and the realities of a war vote from Congress being a constitutional necessity were very similar to the circumstances north of the Ohio, this necessity had been built into various redundancies and preparations for years. "Preliminary" and "partial" may seem similar, but what the Confederate military was allowed to do was stage a "preliminary" mobilization of state militias with only the permission of the President and the requisite state governor, which Smith had granted as early as the 3rd. On the 4th, as Hughes and his Cabinet met in Washington only a hundred miles away, this meant that the Confederacy had already gathered key cadres of the Virginia State Militia at its deployment point in Harrisonburg and had routed necessary locomotives to Fredericksburg and Winchester to rapidly move those forces, as well as those of mobilized North Carolinians, northwards.
The key meeting, then, was on the afternoon of the 4th, after Smith had elected to withdraw his acceptance of the September Ultimatum. This move was understood on both sides of the Ohio to presage war; Smith, in a note to General Scott, said as much, informing him: "Now that we have chosen to reject the Yankee demands, we must steel our spines for the storm to come." Full phased mobilization orders were signed and countersigned, allowing the activation of the deep reserves available to various state militias rather than just active duty servicemen; what was needed now was a declaration of war, which would authorize HHH and allow the Confederate military to begin accepting enlistments, placing state militias under Army commanders and tapping its own reserves. As nearly every man in the Confederacy served in their state militia as a form of social duty, and the period in which they stood as an available reserve lasted for ten years after the end of their brief enlistment, this meant that effectively nearly every single white man in the Confederacy between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight, or thereabouts, was in state militia records and could be reached. This was a gargantuan manpower advantage that Richmond enjoyed, and they knew it.
At four in the afternoon, Smith greeted the two key Senators - Tillman of South Carolina, his mentor, and Martin of Virginia, his chief antagonist and rival - as well as the new Speaker, Heflin. There were no Cabinet officers present, for none were needed; knowledge that this meeting even occurred is largely only due to the Heritage House clerk, the testimony of two house slaves who heard much of the conversation, and Tillman's posthumous diaries, which shed tremendous light on the proceedings. Seated in the drawing room drinking mint juleps, Smith explained his decision to revoke the acceptance of terms, for which he received congratulations from Heflin. Tillman outlined the likely consequences of the action, not to condemn but rather to make sure everybody was in agreement on what exactly it meant; Martin concurred that the United States would have little choice but to mobilize and declare war, noting "even a Yankee will see this as an insult." Smith was angered at the clear implication from the Bourbon leader that his move was rash and ill-considered, but Tillman kept the peace. "Pitchfork Ben," having lost much of his fiery demagogy and hypnotic power of rhetoric in age and to two strokes, assured Smith that "the confrontation we have braced for has arrived, and history will congratulate you for having the bravery to end the dance and face it head-on and finally settle the matter." Smith was placated by this and then noted that Scott had begun mobilizations that would continue over the weekend, and that he figured that late Monday evening, the combined forces of the Virginia and North Carolina State Militias would be moved surreptitiously to within a fortifications network southeast of Martinsburg designed specifically for HHH's implementation. Heflin suggested declaring war the next day, Friday, and delivering the declaration to the American embassy on Saturday morning, not wanting to delay matters.
Tillman had a different suggestion. With the United States having a considerable naval advantage, it was better to secure Mexican acquiescence to war over the weekend, ready vessels in the Chesapeake for combat, and then align the war vote with when the preliminary mobilization was complete, late on Monday night. Smith was initially compelled to follow Heflin's suggestion - indeed, he had brought Congressional leaders to Heritage House specifically to ask them to declare war the next day - but elected to listen to his fellow South Carolinian and hear him out. Tillman's next suggestion is what is now known as the infamous "Heritage House Agreement," which was to time the delivery of the declaration of war to the US embassy at the immediate time a surprise attack from the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland and an attack on Baltimore Harbor by the Confederate Atlantic Squadron were executed. Smith, concerned that some Congressmen might get cold feet over the weekend, asked if Tillman was sure of that timing; the old Senator reportedly smiled and uttered his notorious words, "We can count noses in the Senate, Ed."
Following the agreement, Tillman asked Heflin to imply to some of his more loose-lipped colleagues that a war vote might be held as soon as tomorrow, hoping that that news would reach Washington, as Smith met with Scott and other military officers to inform them of the new plan. HHH was to be executed at 5:30 AM sharp on Tuesday, September 9th. Meanwhile, the rumor of a war vote on Friday did in fact reach Washington, and Ambassador Beveridge made plans to leave Richmond on Sunday evening; when Friday came and went without such a vote, the assumption in Washington became that the Confederacy may have been reconsidering, and its original timetables remained unchanged, but Beveridge nonetheless bizarrely elected to stick to his and return to Washington for consultations [1], thus not being in Richmond on Monday evening when Congress gathered there after an uncomfortably quiet, tense and eerie weekend when everyone could feel the world was about to change.
Ironically, Beveridge's train broke down near Fredericksburg; had it moved ahead a few extra miles when it stopped working, the Ambassador may have seen the artillery pieces and soldiers' camps around the city that would the next night be rapidly moved up to the Arlington Heights. As it were, Beveridge and his fellow passengers sat for three hours next to a horse farm south of the Rappahannock in the dead of the night, and by the time he was at the White House the next day to discuss the situation with President Hughes, the Confederate Congress had met to make their fateful vote..."
- Before the Storm: The Crises of 1913
[1] That he didn't dip out on 9/1 is probably unrealistic, to be honest, considering diplomatic protocols of the time
