[The following takes place during the incident at Fort Sumter, in which the Federal garrison off the coast of South Carolina has abandoned Fort Moultrie to the newly-seceded South Carolina, and has garrisoned itself in the more defensible Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney. As the politicians on both sides struggle to resolve the issues that would soon lead to the American Civil War, the South Carolinians lurk around the fort and wait to be allowed to take Sumter.]
On the evening of December 20 a civilian watchman at Fort Sumter came to Lieutenant Snyder and reported something fishy going on near the fort’s wharf. Snyder went to look. What he saw he later passed on to Captain Foster. A small boat, coming from the city, had appeared out of the darkness without lights. She was moving slowly near the wharf, apparently sounding the waters thereabouts. After a bit she moved away, apparently toward Moultrie. Snyder could see her settle herself in about six hundred yards away, probably anchoring.
That same evening a boat had also approached Castle Pinckney, circling it for a bit. The watchman there shouted at her, asking what she wanted. A voice called back through the chill night air, “You will know in a week.”
Source:
Detzer, David. “Slim Pickens, Stout Fort.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 99, 100. Print.
Original Source Listed:
OR, I, p. 106.
Further Reading:
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