The Daily Dispatch: January 22, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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Interesting statement of Lieut. Hall of the
Army.

One of the reporters gathered the following from Lieut. Hall, in an interview had with him while at New York on a visit to a sick relative. He says Fort Sumter did not fire on Fort Moultrie or Morris' Island, because Maj. Anderson did not know that reinforcements had been sent in the Star of the West. He could only just discover a large vessel through the fog, it being impossible to ascertain her character or to learn her object or mission; it would have taken five or six hours to destroy Fort Moultrie, and half an hour or an hour to stop their firing upon the Star of the West, whereas this vessel could come as near Fort Sumter as she could get in five minutes. During the half hour she would have been in the fire from Fort Moultrie, and very likely would have been sunk and many lives on board lost.

Nothing would have been gained but the immediate opening of a civil war, the loss of the ship and the lives of those on board. The men were all at the loaded guns, with matches lighted, expecting the word every minute to fire; but Major Anderson, after a struggle with his feelings, withheld the order to fire. He says the inhabitants of Charleston, and indeed of the whole State of South Carolina, have pledged all they have in the world — property, honor, lives — to maintain the independence of South Carolina. Some of the better and more cautions people admit that they have perhaps gone too fast, but they will keep their pledges to sustain her to the very last, even if they come out of the contest ruined. The stores in Charleston were all closed, except a few candy shops and provision stores. Fort Sumter does not need reinforcements; a ship of the size of the Star of the West could not now get into the harbor, as vessels have been sunk on the bar to prevent ingress.