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

[137] Pickens to take military possession of Forts Moultrie and Johnson, and Castle Pinckney. The order for such occupation was speedily given. The hall of the Citadel Academy, the great military school of the State, that opens on the largest of the public squares of the city, was made the place of rendezvous for the military officers, and the grounds near it were covered by an excited populace. The Government Arsenal, into which Secretary Floyd had crowded a vast amount of arms and ammunition, taken from those of Massachusetts and New York,¹ was seized in the name of the State. It had, for some time, been held by only a sufficient number of men to insure its safety in a time of profound peace. For a while a guard of State militia had been there, under the pretext of defending it from injury by an excited population; and these, by order of the State authorities, took full possession of it on Sunday, the 30th of December. Seventy thousand stand of arms, and a vast amount of military stores, valued at half a million of dollars, were thus placed in the hands of the conspirators. These were used at once. Men in Charleston were armed and equipped from this National treasure-house; and within three hours after the ensign of the Republic had been raised over Sumter,

December 27, 1860.

two armed steamers (General Clinch and Nina), which had been watching Anderson's movements, left the city, with about four hundred armed men, under General R. G. M. Dunovant (who had been a captain in a South Carolina regiment in the war with Mexico, and was now Adjutant-General of the State), for the purpose of seizing Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie. One-half of these troops, led by Colonel J. J. Pettigrew, landed at Pinckney. The commandant of the garrison, Lieutenant R. K. Mead (a Virginian, who soon afterward deserted his flag and hastened to Richmond), made no resistance, but fled to Sumter. His men so strongly barricaded the door of the Castle that the assailants were compelled to enter it by escalade. They found the cannon spiked, the carriages ruined, the ammunition removed, and the flag-staff prostrated. Borrowing a Palmetto flag from the captain of one of the steamers, Pettigrew unfurled it over the Castle. It was greeted by the cheers of thousands on the shore. It was the first flag raised by the insurgents over a National fortification.

The remainder of the troops, consisting of the Washington Artillery, the German Artillery, the Lafayette Artillery, and the Marion Artillery, in number about two hundred and twenty-five, under Colonel Wilmot G. I)De Saussure, proceeded in the steamers to Fort Moultrie. The people in Charleston looked on with the greatest anxiety, for they thought the guns of Sumter might open fire upon their friends when they should land on the beach of Sullivan's Island. They did not know how tightly Major Anderson's hands were tied by instructions from his Government. While the insurgents left Fort Sumter unassailed, he was compelled to keep its ports closed.

The insurgent troops were landed without opposition, and Fort Moultrie was surrendered by the sentinel, in accordance with orders, to Colonel Alston, one of Governor Pickens's aids, and Captain Humphreys of the arsenal. They found the fort much more extensive than it was a few months before,