Chapter 5:
- Condition of Fort Sumter after the bombardment. -- repairs begun at once. -- mustering of South Carolina Volunteers. -- Bonham's brigade. -- General Beauregard makes a reconnoissance of the South Carolina coast. -- recommends works at Stono, the two Edistos, and Georgetown. -- Declines advising plan of defence for Port Royal harbor. -- Yields under pressure, but predicts the result. -- receives congratulations upon the reduction of Sumter.-vote of thanks of Congress. -- Resolutions of the General Assembly of South Carolina. -- General Beauregard is called to Montgomery. -- the President wishes him to assist General Bragg at Pensacola. -- he Declines. -- his reasons therefor. -- deputation from New Orleans asking his transfer to Louisiana. -- the President sends him back to Charleston. -- propositions of the house of John Frazer & Co., relative to purchase of steamers. -- comments thereon. -- General Beauregard advocates the plan. -- government Declines moving in the matter. -- silence of Mr. Davis's book about it. -- General Beauregard ordered to Richmond. -- regrets of Carolinians at his departure. -- letter of Governor Pickens.
What with the burning of its quarters, the injury inflicted on its walls, and the shattered condition of its parade and parapets, where dismounted guns, broken carriages and chassis, fragments of shell and shot, lay scattered on all sides—Fort Sumter, when our troops marched into it, presented a picture of desolation and ruin. One could well understand, upon viewing it then, how impossible it would have been for Major Anderson and his command to hold out more than a few hours longer. Suffocation and an endangered magazine, if not starvation, and, above all, the firing from Moultrie and other batteries, must soon have destroyed the entire garrison. With or without the assistance of the fleet, a surrender was a foregone conclusion. The triumph of our arms, so complete and—through the kindly protection of Providence—so bloodless, was solemnly celebrated in several of the ancient churches of Charleston; and a Te Deum was sung, with great pomp, in the beautiful cathedral, on the Sunday next following this opening scene of the war. General Beauregard, in orders issued on the day after the surrender, congratulated his troops on ‘the brilliant success which had ’
