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Hammond took the cars at Madison, and I rode alone to Augusta, Georgia, where I left the horse and returned to Charleston and Fort Moultrie by rail. Thus by a mere accident I was enabled to traverse on horseback the very ground where in after-years I had to conduct vast armies and fight great battles.
On the 26th of December, Major Anderson evacuated Fort Moultrie, removing all his troops and munitions of war to Fort Sumter whereupon a cry went up from Charleston that this was in violation of the President's promise to take no step looking to hostilities, provided the Secessionists committed no overt act of Rebellion, up to the close of his fast expiring Administration.
I started January 25,1845; went to Washington, Baltimore, and Lancaster, Ohio, whence I went to Mansfield, and thence back by Newark to Wheeling, Cumberland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, whence I sailed back for Charleston on the ship Sullivan, reaching Fort Moultrie March 9, 1845. We all expected war as a matter of course.
She had heard her father say, that very noon, that South Carolina would fight to keep its slaves, and she wondered if the soldiers in Fort Moultrie would not fight to set the black people free.
Pleasant and James Island are quite high land, high at least for the coast of South Carolina, and are separated from the mainland, the one by the Wando River, the other by Wappoo Creek; while Sullivan's Island, where stand Fort Moultrie and other Rebel batteries, corresponds almost precisely to Morris Island, both being low and sandy, and being, as it were, bent inland from the sea, with sharp points looking toward the city, their convex shores forming a rounded entrance to the harbor.
"My father must be worried about me." "No one from this fort can go to Fort Moultrie," he responded gravely. "Those flash-lights are from a guard-boat which the South Carolina people have sent down the harbor so that Major Anderson won't send us reinforcements without their knowledge. I wish Anderson would send some message to the President," he added, as if thinking aloud.
He had foreseen the coming danger, had advised the Government, and called for reënforcements; had recommended not only strengthening the garrison of Moultrie, but the effective occupation of both Sumter and Castle Pinckney; and had made an effort in good faith to remove the public arms and goods from their exposed situation in the arsenal in the city of Charleston, to the security of the fort.
There were three minor forts: Castle Pinckney, dozing away, in charge of a solitary sergeant, on an island less than a mile from the city; Fort Moultrie, feebly garrisoned and completely at the mercy of attackers on its landward side; and Fort Johnson over on James Island.
We passed Sullivan's Island on the right a long, low, sandy island, which is the summer residence of many of the inhabitants of Charleston. On this island Fort Moultrie is situated, which commands the passage to the city, about four miles distant.
At the shoulder of this island was Fort Moultrie, an irregular fort, without ditch or counterscarp, with a brick scarp wall about twelve feet high, which could be scaled anywhere, and this was surmounted by an earth parapet capable of mounting about forty twenty-four and thirty-two pounder smooth-bore iron guns.
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