existence of any design to seize upon the city, their acts indicated an
apprehension of danger, or at least a desire to take all possible
precautions against treachery. The district militia were called out and
sworn for service, and the result showed that there were more citizens
in the ranks ready to stand by the Government than there were
Secessionists who would not defend it. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday
last were very busy days. The companies forming the battalions of the
district militia were mustered and marched off from their various
quarters to the inclosure in front of the War Department, where they
took or refused the oath of service, as the humor moved them. It is
scarcely possible to imagine a more heterogeneous-looking body of men;
the variety of uniform, of clothing, and of accoutrements was as great
as if a specimen squad had been taken from the battalions of the Grand
Army of 1812. The general effect of the men and of their habiliments is
decidedly French, and there is even a small company of Zouaves, but I
cannot understand how these little independent bodies are to be brought
into line of battle, or depended on for united action. On the days above
mentioned the monotony of the wide, lifeless streets was broken at
intervals by the tap of the drum, beating a pas in the French fashion,
and then came the crowd of idlers who are fond of cheap martial display.
To a company of forty rank and file there are generally two drummers
and six or seven officers or more, and the glory of epaulettes shines
out bravely through the cloud of French gray, and light and dark blue
capotes. The musters are not, I am told, as they should be. There are
some pale faces, rounded shoulders, and weak frames in the ranks, but
the majority are very fair specimens of a fine race of men, and some
companies were composed of soldier-like, stout fellows, who only
required active service to set them up for any military duty. Not a
fourth of those bound to serve were ready, however, to come forward and
fight for the Government at Washington; and it is probable that nothing
short of a struggle for life or death would induce one-half to take the
field. Not one-half of the militia is properly armed. It is a great army
on paper; no army in the world is so magnificently officered, even in
proportion to its numbers. The strength of the militia of the whole of
the ex-United States is nearly 3,000,000 men of all ranks. Of those
there are no less than 3,833 generals of all sorts, 9,800 colonels and
field officers, 38,680 captains and subalterns. Kentucky boasts of 188
generals, New York has not less than 392, Michigan is rich in 383
generals, and so on. But, unless there were some popular passion to
excite the country, the actual force available for the field would be a
fractional part of these grand totals. The American Minerva which sprang
from the womb of the great Revolutionary War with panoply of proof,
believes that she is invincible, and there is unquestionably a strong
military spirit among the people, generated by the instances which
attended their national birth, and developed by the subsequent small
wars in which they have been engaged with rather impotent enemies.
Whether this spirit will be called forth in the North and West as
largely as it unquestionably has been in the South, remains to be seen.
The evidences of the near approach of a civil war are now beyond all
dispute, but the nature of the conflict will depend on the steps taken
by the belligerents. If the Southern States await invasion they fight
over a loaded mine. To avoid the horrors of a conflict on their own
soil, they will probably seek to make good their boast of marching upon
Washington; but whether they will reach it is quite another matter. The
present means of defending it are very contemptible; but vast
populations are close at hand which can furnish thousands of men for its
protection. The city contains no stragetical points, and in a military
sense its possession is not so important that it would be worth while
to risk all to gain it; but its political significance is enormous, and
it is likely enough that the Capital will become the object of military
demonstrations on both sides. With the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay
strongly held by the Federal Government, Virginia, in case she casts in
her lot with the South, will find herself menaced in the most formidable
manner. Southern men have complained to me in terms of the strongest
indignation, that Virginia Secessionists have applied to South Carolina
for five thousand men to enable them to seize the forts which command
the rivers and the sea-coast. It proves that little active aid can be
expected from that State if the Confederate party cannot do that little
piece of business on their own account.
From the date of this letter it will be seen that I am on my way to the
South; and, although I shall not arrive in time to give any account of
the recent operations against Fort Sumter, I hope to gain some insight
into the actual condition of the army of the Confederate States.
On Friday evening I bade good-by to Washington, and none of the
Ministers had any idea that Sumter had been attacked, nor had Lord Lyons
received any intelligence from Charleston.
LETTER V.
CHARLESTON, S. C., April 21, 1861.
I FIND some consolation for the disappointment of not arriving in time
to witness the attack upon Fort Sumter in describing the condition of
the work soon after Major Anderson surrendered it. Already I have upon
my table a pamphlet entitled “The Battle of Fort Sumter and First
Victory of the Southern Troops,” &c.; several “poems,” and a variety of
versicules, songs, and rhetorical exercitations upon this event, which,
however important as a political demonstration, is of small value in a
military sense, except in so far as the bloodless occupation of a
position commanding Charleston Harbor is concerned. It may tend to
prevent any false impressions founded on imperfect information to state
a few facts connected with the fire in the work, and its effects, which
will interest, at least, some military readers.
In the first place, it may be well to admit that the military
preparations and positions of the South Carolinians were more formidable
than one was prepared to expect on the part of a small State, without
any considerable internal organization or resources. This comparative
efficiency was due mainly to General Beauregard and his assistant
engineer, Major Whiting, who are both professional engineer officers of
the United States Army, and who had capacity and influence enough to
direct the energies of the undisciplined masses in the proper direction,
instead of allowing them to rush on their fate in the perilous essay of
an escalade, as they intended. The State of South Carolina had for a
long time past been accumulating arms and munitions of war, and it may
be said that ever since the nullification contest she had permitted
herself to dwell on the idea of ultimate secession, to be effected by
force, if necessary. When General Beauregard and Major Whiting came
here, the works intended to resist the fleet and to crush the fort were
in a very imperfect state. Major Anderson and his officers had a true
professional contempt for the batteries of the civilians and militiamen,
which was in some measure justifiable. One morning, however, as they
took their survey of the enemy’s labors for the previous night, they
perceived a change had come over the design of their works. That “some
one who knows his business is over there” was evident. Their strange
relationship with those who were preparing to destroy them if possible,
however, prevented their recourse to the obvious means which were then
in abundance in their hands to avert the coming danger. Had Major
Anderson maintained a well-regulated fire on the enemy the moment they
began to throw up their batteries and prepare Fort Moultrie against him,
he could have made their progress very slow and exceedingly laborious,
and have marked it at every step with blood. His command over the ground
was very decided, but he had, it is to be supposed, no authority to
defend himself in the only way in which it could be done. “Too
late”--that fatal phrase--was the echo to every order which came from
the seat of government at Washington. Meantime the South Carolinians
worked at their batteries, and were soon able to obtain cover on the
soft sandy plains on which they were planting their guns and mortars.
They practised their men at the guns, stacked shot and shell, and
furnished their magazines, and drilled their raw levies with impunity
within fourteen hundred yards of the fort. We all know what impunity is
worth in offensive demonstrations. It is a powerful agent sometimes in
creating enthusiasm. Every day more volunteers flocked to the various
companies, or created new associations of armed men, and the
heterogeneous and motley mass began to assume some resemblance to an
army, however irregular. At the present moment Charleston is like a
place in the neighborhood of a camp where military and volunteer tailors
are at work trying experiments in uniforms, and sending in their
animated models for inspection. There is an endless variety--often of
ugliness--in dress and equipment and nomenclature among these companies.
The head-dress is generally, however, a smart cap like the French kepi;
the tunic is of different cuts, colors, facings, and materials--green
with gray and yellow, gray with orange and black and white, blue with
white, and yellow facings, roan, brown, burnt sienna, and
olive--jackets, frocks, tunics, blouses, cloth, linen, tweed, flannel.
The officers are generally in blue frocks and brass buttons, with red
sashes, the rank being indicated by gold lace parallelograms on the
shoulder straps, which are like those in use in the Russian army. The
arms of the men seem tolerably well kept and in good order. Many,
however, still shoulder “White Bess”--the old smooth-bore musket with
unbrowned barrel. The following is an official return, which I am
enabled to present to you through the courtesy of the authorities,
showing the actual number of men under arms yesterday in and around
Charleston:--
MORRIS ISLAND.--17th Regiment, 700 men; 1st Regiment, 950
men; 2d Regiment, 975 men. Total, 2625.
SULLIVAN’S.--5th Regiment, 1,075 men; detachment of 8th
Regiment, 250 men; detachment of 6th Regiment, 200 men; cavalry
and others, 225 men. Total, 1,750.
Stone and other points, 750 men; Charleston, 1,900 men; Columbia,
1,950 men.
Men.
Morris Island, 2,625
Sullivan’s Island, 1,750
Stone and other points, 750
-----
Total, 5,125
Columbia, 1,950
Charleston, 1,900
-----
Total, 8,975
In field at the time of report, 3,027
-----
Total, 12,002
The regiments mentioned here are composed of the various companies
raised in different localities with different names, but the State
regulars are in expectation that they will soon be made portions of the
regular army of the Confederate States, which is in course of formation.
There are, I believe, only fifty-five thousand registered voters in
South Carolina. The number of men furnished by them is a fair indication
of the zeal for the cause which animates the population. The _physique_
of the troops is undeniably good. Now and then undersized, weakly men
may be met with, but the great majority of the companies consist of rank
and file exceeding the average stature of Europeans, and very well built
and muscular. The men run very large down here. Nothing, indeed, can be
more obvious when one looks at the full-grown, healthy, handsome race
which developes itself in the streets, in the bar-rooms, and in the
hotel halls, than the error of the argument, which is mainly used by the
Carolinians themselves, that white men cannot thrive in their State. In
limb, figure, height, weight, they are equal to any people I have ever
seen, and their features are very regular and pronounced. They are,
indeed, as unlike the ideal American of our caricaturists and our stage
as is the _“milor”_ of the Porte St. Martin to the English gentleman.
Some of this superiority is due to the fact that the bulk of the white
population here are in all but name aristocrats or rather oligarchs. The
State is but a gigantic Sparta, in which the helotry are marked by an
indelible difference of color and race from the masters. The white
population, which is not land and slaveholding and agricultural, is very
small and very insignificant. The masters enjoy every advantage which
can conduce to the physical excellence of a people, and to the
cultivation of the graces and accomplishments of life, even though they
are rather disposed to neglect purely intellectual enjoyments and
tastes. Many of those who serve in the ranks are men worth from £5,000
to £10,000 a year--at least, so I was told--and men were pointed out to
me who were said to be worth far more. One private feeds his company on
French pâtés and Madeira, another provides his comrades with unlimited
champagne, most grateful on the arid sand-hill; a third, with a more
soldierly view to their permanent rather than occasional efficiency,
purchases for the men of his “guard” a complete equipment of Enfield
rifles. How long the zeal and resources of these gentlemen will last it
may not be easy to say. At present they would prove formidable to any
enemy, except a regular army on the plain and in the open field, but
they are not provided with field artillery or with adequate cavalry, and
they are not accustomed to act in concert and in large bodies.
Yesterday morning I waited on General Beauregard, who is commanding the
forces of South Carolina. His aides-de-camp, Mr. Manning, Mr. Chesnut,
Mr. Porcher Miles, and Colonel Lucas, accompanied me. Of these, the
former has been Governor of this State, the next has been a Senator, the
third a member of Congress. They are all volunteers, and are gentlemen
of position in the State, and the fact that they are not only content
but gratified to act as _aides_ to the professional soldier, is the best
proof of the reality of the spirit which animates the class they
represent. Mr. Lucas is a gentleman of the State, who is acting as
aide-de-camp to Governor Pickens. Passing through the dense crowd which,
talking, smoking, and reading newspapers, fills the large hall on
Mills’s house, we emerge on the dirty streets, sufficiently broad, and
lined with trees protected by wooden sheathings at the base. The houses,
not very lofty, are clean and spacious, and provided with verandahs
facing the South as far as possible. The trees give the streets the air
of a boulevard, and the town has somehow or other a reminiscence of the
Hague about it, which I cannot explain or account for satisfactorily.
The headquarters are in a large, airy, public building, once devoted to
an insurance company’s operations, or to the accommodation of the public
fire companies. There was no guard at the door; officers and privates
were passing to and fro in the hall, part of which was cut off by
canvass screens, so as to form rooms for departments of the Horse Guards
of South Carolina. Into one of these we turned, and found the desks
occupied by officers in uniform, waiting despatches and copying
documents with all the _abandon_ which distinguishes the true soldier
when he can get at printed forms and Government stationery. In another
moment we were ushered into a smaller room, and were presented to the
General, who was also seated at his desk. Any one accustomed to soldiers
can readily detect the “real article” from the counterfeit, and when
General Beauregard stood up to welcome us, it was patent he was a man
capable of greater things than taking Sumter. He is a squarely-built,
lean man, of about forty years of age, with broad shoulders, and legs
“made to fit” a horse, of middle height, and his head is covered with
thick hair, cropped close, and showing the bumps, which are reflective
and combative, with a true Gallic air, at the back of the skull; the
forehead, broad and well-developed, projects somewhat over the keen,
eager, dark eyes; the face is very thin, with very high cheek-bones, a
well-shaped nose, slightly aquiline, and a large, rigid, sharply cut
mouth, set above a full fighting chin. In the event of any important
operations taking place, the name of this officer will, I feel assured,
be heard often enough to be my excuse for this little sketch of his
outward man. He was good enough to detail his chief engineer officer to
go with me over the works, and I found in Major Whiting a most able
guide and agreeable companion. It is scarcely worth while to waste time
in describing the position of Charleston. It lies as low as Venice, the
look of which it rather affects from a distance, with long, sandy
islands stretching out as arms to close up the approaches, and lagunes
cutting into the marshy shores. On a sandy island and spit on the left
hand shore stands Fort Moultrie. On the southern side, on another sandy
island, are the lines of the batteries which, probably, were most
dangerous, from their proximity and position, to the unprotected face of
Sumter. The fort itself is built in the tideway, on a rocky point, which
has been increased by artificial deposits of granite chips. Embarked,
with a few additions to our original party, on board a small steamer,
called the Lady Davis, we first proceeded to Morris Island, about 3¾
miles from Charleston. Our steamer was filled with commissariat stores
for the troops, of whom 4,000 were said to be encamped among the
sand-hills. Any one who has ever been at Southport, or has seen the
dunes about Dunkirk or Calais, will have a good idea of the place. Our
landing was opposed by a guard of stout volunteers, with crossed
firelocks; but they were satisfied by the General’s authority, and we
proceeded, ankle-deep in the soft, white sand, to visit the batteries
which played on the landward face of Sumter. They are made of sand-bags
for the most part, well placed in the sand-hills, with good traverses
and well-protected magazines, the embrasures being faced with palmetto
logs, which do not splinter when struck by shot. It did not, however,
require much investigation to show that these works would be greatly
injured by a fire of vertical and horizontal shell from the fort, and
that the distance of their armament would render it difficult to breach
the solid walls which were opposed to them at upward of 1,200 yards
away. However, there were two powerful mortar batteries, which could
have done great damage if they were well served, and have made the
terreplein and parade of the fort a complete “shell trap” unless the
mortars were injured. The civilians and militiamen set greater store on
the Iron Battery at Cummings’ Point, which is the part of the island
nearest to the fort, but the fire of heavy guns would have soon
destroyed their confidence. It consists of yellow pine logs placed as
vertical uprights. The roof, of the same material, slopes from the top
of the uprights to the sand facing the enemy; over it are dovetailed
bars of railroad iron, of the T pattern, from top to bottom, all riveted
down in the most secure manner. On the front the railroad iron roof and
incline present an angle of about thirty degrees. There are three
portholes with iron shutters. When opened by the action of a lever the
muzzles of the columbiads fill up the space completely. The columbiad
guns with which this battery is equipped bear on the south wall of
Sumter at an angle. The inclined side of the battery has been struck by
six shots, the effect of two of which is enough to demonstrate that the
fire of the guns _en barbette_ would have been destructive. The
columbiad is a kind of Dahlgren--that is, a piece of ordinance very
thick in the breech, and lightened off gradually from the trunnions to
the muzzle. The platforms were rather light, but the carriages were
solid and well made, and the elevating screws or hitches of the guns
were in good order. The mortars are of various calibres and
descriptions, mostly 8-inch and 10-inch; and it is said there were
seventeen of them in position and working against the fort, and that
thirty-five guns were from time to time directed against it. Shot and
shell appeared to be abundant enough. The works are all small detached
batteries, with sand-bag merlons, and open at the gorge, and they extend
for four miles along the shore of the island. The camps are pitched most
irregularly between the sand-hills--tents of all shapes and sizes, in
the fashion called higgledy-piggledy, here and there, in knots and
groups, in a way that would drive an Indian quartermaster-general mad.
Bones of beef and mutton, champagne and wine bottles, obstructed the
approaches, which were of a nature to afflict Dr. Sutherland and Sir
John M’Neill most bitterly, and to suggest the reflection that the army
which so utterly neglected sanitary regulations could not long exist as
soon as the sun gained full power. They say, however, the men are not
sickly, and that these sand-hills are the most healthy spots about
Charleston. The men were occupied as soldiers generally are when they
have nothing to do--lounging or lying on the straw and plank carpets,
smoking, reading, sleeping. The owners of the tents give them various
names, of which “The Lions’ Den,” “The Tigers’ Lair,” “The Eagles’
Nest,” “Mars’ Delight,” are fair specimens, and these are done in black
on the white calico. In one which we visited, the hospitable inmates
were busily engaged in brewing claret cup, and Bordeaux, lemons, sugar,
ice, and Champagne, and salads were in abundance, and at the end of the
tent was a Bar, where anything else in reason could be had for the
asking, though water was not so plentiful. At one of the batteries the
great object of attraction was a gun made on Captain Blakeley’s
principle, by Messrs. Fawcett, Preston & Co., of Liverpool, which was
only put in battery the day before the fire opened, and the effect of
which on the masonry is said to have been very powerful. It is a
12-pounder--the same which was tried last year, I think--and bears a
brass plate with the inscription, “Presented to South Carolina by one of
her citizens.” It is remarkable enough that the vessel which carried it
lay in the midst of the United States war vessels at the mouth of the
harbor.
Having satisfied our curiosity as well as time and a sand-storm
permitted, we got in a row-boat and proceeded to Sumter. At a distance,
the fort bears some resemblance to Fort Paul at Sevastopol. It is a
truncated pentagon, with three faces armed--that which is toward Morris
Island being considered safe from attack, as the work was only intended
to resist an approach from the sea. It is said to have cost altogether
more than £200,000 sterling. The walls are of solid brick and concrete
masonry, built close to the edge of the water, sixty feet high, and from
eight to twelve feet in thickness, and carry three tiers of guns on the
north, east, and west exterior sides. Its weakest point is on the south
side, where the masonry is not protected by any flank fire to sweep the
wharf. The work is designed for an armament of one hundred and forty
pieces of ordnance of all calibres. Two tiers are under bomb-proof
casemates, and the third or upper tier is _en barbette_; the lower tier
is intended for 42-pounders paixhan guns; the second tier for eight and
ten-inch columbiads, for throwing solid or hollow shot, and the upper
tier for mortars and guns. But only seventy-five are now mounted. Eleven
paixhan guns are among that number, nine of them commanding Fort
Moultrie. Some of the columbiads are not mounted. Four of the 32-pounder
_barbette_ guns are on pivot carriages, and others have a sweep of 180°.
The walls are pierced everywhere for musketry. The magazine contains
several hundred barrels of gunpowder, and a supply of shot, powder, and
shells. The garrison was amply supplied with water from artificial
wells. The war garrison of the fort ought to be at least six hundred
men, but only seventy-nine were within its walls, with the laborers--one
hundred and nine all told--at the time of the attack.