Alfred Roman, The military operations of General Beauregard in the war between the states, 1861 to 1865

Sullivan's Island was under Brigadier-General R. G. M. Dunovant; and the command of all its batteries had been assigned to Lieutenant-Colonel Ripley, of the First Artillery Battalion. Captain Ransom Calhoun was stationed at Fort Moultrie, and Captain Hallonquist at the ‘Enfilade’ or masked battery. They were assisted by Lieutenants Wagner, Rhett, Yates, Valentine, Mitchel, and Parker. Captain Butler was on duty at the mortar battery, east of Fort Moultrie. Captain J. R. Hamilton commanded his own floating battery and the Dahlgren gun. Captain Martin was at the Mount Pleasant mortars; Captain George S. Thomas at Fort Johnson; and Castle Pinckney had been placed under the charge of an officer whose name we have not been able to procure.

A few days previous to the bombardment, the general commanding had announced, in general orders, the names of the officers composing his staff. They were Major D. R. Jones, Assistant-Adjutant-General, Captain S. D. Lee, Captain S. Ferguson, Lieutenant Sydney Legare—of the Regular staff; Messrs. John L. Manning, James Chestnut, Jr., William Porcher Miles, A. J. Gonzales, and A. R. Chisolm, and Colonels L. T. Wigfall, of Texas, and Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia—of the Volunteer staff.

Though the opening of hostilities had, for the last two days, been almost hourly expected by officers and men of the various commands, and by the whole population of the city of Charleston, still, so good was the tone of the troops, so confident of the result were the non-combatants, that when the last message of the commanding general had been delivered, notifying Major Anderson that fire would open on him in an hour's time, quiet, order, and discipline reigned throughout the city and harbor.

The peaceful stillness of the night was suddenly broken just before dawn. From Fort Johnson's mortar battery, at 4.30 A. M., April 12th, 1861, issued the first-and, as many thought, the toolong-deferred-signal shell of the war. It was fired, not by Mr. Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia, as has been erroneously believed, but by Captain George S. James, of South Carolina, to whom Lieutenant Stephen D. Lee issued the order. It sped aloft, describing its peculiar arc of fire, and, bursting over Fort Sumter, fell, with crashing noise, in the very centre of the parade.