The final days of 1860 demonstrated a marked difference from the joys of secession just weeks before. Chapter 5 explains the relativity of time for South Carolinians as they rapidly approached secession and then spent the next several months waiting for action. The occupation of Fort Sumter caused women in South Carolina to feel constantly on edge and anticipate war. This chapter discusses melancholy Christmases, comparisons of weather to the state of the Union, and a restless energy that caused the most pacifist of women to long for action. Some women used writing to relieve their tensions, and others could not write. Those that did utilized popular conventions of the sentimental novel to express their political misgivings and describe their subdued holidays. Anxious women increasingly predicted a millenarian end of days and prayed for God to take them to heaven rather than allow them to exist in a world with freed African Americans. This chapter takes seriously these women’s frantic, religious pleas and explores the interrelation between emotions, politics, and religion. It ends on the eve of yet another moment of catharsis: the siege of Fort Sumter in April 1861.