Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 1.

[136] more genuine and useful than that displayed by this noble woman; and history and romance will ever delight to celebrate her deed.

We have observed that the occupation of Sumter created great exasperation among the conspirators. They had been outgeneraled, and were mortified beyond measure. They did not expect so daring an assumption of responsibility by the gentle, placid Major, who, only the day before, had accepted their proffered hospitality, and eaten a Christmas dinner in Charleston with some of the magnates of the city and State. Little did they suspect, when seeing him quietly participating in the festivities of the occasion, that, within thirty hours, he would extinguish, for a season, the most sanguine hopes of the South Carolina conspirators. It was even so; and they had no alternative but to consider his movement as an “act of war.” They did so, and proceeded upon that assumption. The Charleston Courier declared that “Major Robert Anderson, of the United States Army, has achieved the unenviable distinction of opening civil war between American citizens, by an act of gross breach of faith. He has, under counsels of panic,

The Citadel (military) Academy at Charleston.

deserted his post at Fort Moultrie, and, under false pretexts, has transferred his garrison, and military stores and supplies, to Fort Sumter.”

Such was the sentiment of the deceived, offended, astonished, and bewildered Charlestonians, who, at dawn, on the morning of the 27th,

December, 1860.

had seen clouds of heavy smoke rolling up from Fort Moultrie. They had crowded the Battery, the wharves, and the roofs of their houses, and gazed seaward for two hours before they comprehended the meaning of the startling apparition. The conflagration was a mystery, and wild conjecture alarmed the timid, and filled every mind with anxiety. There was in it an aspect of war, and many breakfasts in Charleston were left untasted on that eventful morning. At length, some workmen came from the vicinity of Fort Moultrie, and revealed the truth. Exasperation succeeded wonder. The more excitable portion of the population asked to be led immediately in an attack upon Fort Sumter. They declared that they could pull it down with their unarmed hands, they felt so invincible. Martial music and the tramp of military columns were soon heard in the streets. The Secession Convention at once requested Governor