This chapter examines the process of military mobilization in South Carolina during the initial months of the war. It probes what motivated men to volunteer for military service at this time and gives sustained consideration to flag presentations to volunteer units, public occasions that have been insufficiently appreciated by historians as important sites for the construction of Confederate nationalism at the local level. White women proved integral to the ritual and rhetoric surrounding these presentations, and so their role in the wider process and culture of mobilization is also analyzed. The final part of the chapter turns its attention to Federal forces establishing a vital foothold on South Carolina’s coast in late 1861 and, in particular, considers its consequences for the interior sections of the state. Federal success on the coast meant that the war had come a lot closer to home for those in the upcountry and this, when coupled with a growing realization that victory was likely to entail considerable sacrifice in terms of both blood and treasure, sowed the seeds for a more ardent national vision to emerge among some South Carolinians.