exterior sides, They were built close to the edge of the water and without a berme. The advantages of delay which the Lincoln government had obtained by the pretence of the evacuation of Sumter, and the adroitness of Mr. Seward with the commissioners, had been profitably employed by it in naval and other preparations for its meditated blow on the Southern coasts. Unusual activity was perceptible in all the dock-yards, armories, and military depots throughout the North. The arsenals of Troy and Wa tertown were constantly occupied, and the creaking of blocks, the clang of hammers, and the hum of midnight labor resounded through every manufactory of arms. Numerous large transports were employed by the government for the conveyance of soldiers and war material, and the signs of the times betokened that the administration was preparing for a long and bloody struggle. Within ten days from the first of April, over eleven thousand men were sent from Fort Hamilton and Governor's Island. The recruiting offices in New York were daily engaged in enrolling men for the Federal service. On the 6th of April, the frigate Powhatan was ready for sea, and, with her armament of ten heavy guns and four hundred men, prepared as convoy to the transports Atlantic, Baltic, and Illinois. On the 8th, the Atlantic sailed with Barry's battery (four guns and ninety-one men), four hundred soldiers and a large store of supplies. The same morning the steam-cutter Harriet Lane, Captain J. Faunce, eight guns and one hundred men, sailed for Charleston harbor. Late at night, the transport Baltic, with twenty surf-boats, stores, and two hundred recruits from Governor's Island, and the transport Illinois, with five hundred cases of muskets, stores, three hundred soldiers, and the steam-tug Freeborn, sailed from New York harbor. On the whole, besides the Powhatan, eleven vessels were ordered to be got in readiness, with an aggregate force of 285 guns and 2400 men. There was now not the slightest doubt that the first blow of the rival forces would be struck at Sumter. The fleet dispatched to Charleston harbor consisted of the sloop-of-war Pawnee, the sloop-of-war Powhatan, and the cutter Harriet Lane, with three steam transports. No sooner was the hostile fleet of the Federal government safely on its way to the Southern coasts, than the perfidy of Abraham Lincoln and his advisers was openly and shamelessly consummated. The mask was dropped. The Southern com missioners who had been so long cozened, were distinctly re buffed; and simultaneously with the appearance of the Fed eral fleet in the offing of the Charleston harbor, an official message, on the 8th day of April, was conveyed to Governor Pickens, of South Carolina, by Lieutenant Talbot, an authorized agent of the Lincoln government, announcing the deter mination of that government to send provisions to Fort Sumter, peaceably if they can, forcibly if they must." The message was telegraphed by General Beauregard to Montgomery, and the instructions of his government asked. He was an swered by a telegram from Mr. Walker, the Secretary of War, instructing him to demand the evacuation of the fort, and, if that was refused, to proceed to reduce it. The demand was made; it was refused. Major Anderson replied that he regretted that his sense of honor and of his obligations to his government prevented his compliance with the demand. Nothing was left but to accept the distinct challenge of the Lincoln government to arms. The most intense excitement prevailed in Charleston. No sooner had the official message of Mr. Lincoln been received, than orders were issued to the entire military force of the city to proceed to their stations. Four regiments of one thousand men each, were telegraphed for from the country. Ambulances for the wounded were prepared; surgeons were ordered to their posts, and every preparation made for a regular battle. Among the portentous signs, the community was thrown into a fever of excitement by the discharge of seven guns from the Capitol Square, the signal for the assembling of all the reserves ten minutes afterwards. Hundreds of men left their heds, hurrying to and fro towards their respective locations. In the absence of sufficient armories, the corners of the streets, the public squares, and other convenient points formed places of meeting. All night long the roll of the drum and the steady tramp of the military and the gallop of the cavalry, reounding through the city, betokened the progress of prepara tion for the long-expected hostilities. The Home Guard corps of old gentlemen, who occupied the position of military exempts, rode through the city, arousing the soldiers and doing other duty required at the moment. Hundreds of the citizen were up all night. A terrible thunder-storm prevailed until a late hour, but in nowise interfered with the ardor of the soldiers. On the 12th day of April, at half-past four o'clock in the morning, fire was opened upon Fort Sumter. The firing was deliberate, and was continned, without interruption, for twelve hours. The iron battery at Cumming's Point did the most. effective service, perceptibly injuring the walls of the fortifica tion, while the floating battery dismounted two of the parapet guns. The shell batteries were served with skill and effect, shells being thrown into the fort every twenty minutes. The fort had replied steadily during the day. About dark, its fire fell off, while ours was continued at intervals during the night. The contest had been watched during the day by excited and anxious citizens from every available point of observation in Charleston-the battery, the shipping in the harbor, and the steeples of churches-and, as night closed, the illuminations of the shells, as they coursed the air, added a strange sublimity to the scene to men who had never before witnessed the fiery splendors of a bombardment. The next morning, at seven o'clock, the fort resumed its fire, doing no damage of conse quence. A short while thereafter, the fort was discovered to be on fire, and through the smoke and glare, its flag was discovered at half mast, as a signal of distress. The Federal fleet, which was off the bar, contrary to all expectations, remained quietly where it was; they did not remove from their anchorage or fire a gun. In the mean time, the conflagration, which had seized upon the officers' quarters and barracks at the fort, continued; it no longer responded to our fire, which was kept up with an anxious look-out for tokens of surrender; its garrison, black and begrimed with smoke, were employed in efforts to extinguish the conflagration, and in some instances had to keep themselves lying upon their faces to avoid death from suffocation. During the height of the conflagration, a boat was dispatched by General Beauregard to Major Anderson, with offers of assistance in extinguishing the fire. Before it could reach the fort, the long-expected flag of truce had been hoisted; and the welcome event was instantly announced in every part of the city by the ringing of bells, the pealing of cannon, the shouts of couriers dashing through the streets, and by every indication of general rejoicing. Major Anderson agreed to an unconditional surrender, as demanded of him; he received of his enemy in return, the most distinguished marks of lenity and consideration: his sword was returned to him by General Beauregard; himself and garrison allowed to take passage, at their convenience, for New York; and, on leaving the fort, he was permitted to salute his flag with fifty guns, the performance of which was attended with the melancholy occurrence of mortal injuries to four of his men by the bursting of two cannon. There was no other life lost in the whole affair. Thus ended the bombardment of Sumter. It had continued during two days; it was estimated that two thousand shots had been fired in all; a frowning fortification had been reduced to a blackened mass of ruins; and yet not a life had been lost, or a limb injured in the engagement. The news of the fall of Fort Sumter, when it was received in Washington, did not disturb President Lincoln. He received it with remarkable calmness. The usual drawing-room entertainment at the White House was not intermitted on the evening of the day of the commencement of civil war. The same evening the President turned to a Western Senator and asked, "Will your State sustain me with military power?" He made no other comment on the news, which was agitating every part of the country to its foundation. The fact was that the President had long ago calculated the result and the effect, on the country, of the hostile movements which he had directed against the sovereignty of South Carolina. He had procured the battle of Sumter; he had no desire or hope to retain the fort: the circumstances of the battle and the non-participation of his fleet in it, were sufficient evidences, to every honest and reflecting mind, that it was not a contest for victory, and that "the sending provisions to a starving garrison" was an ingenious artifice to commence the war that the Federal Government had fully resolved upon, under the specious but shallow appearance of that government being involved by the force of circumstances, rather than by its own volition, in the terrible consequence of civil war. On the 14th day of April, Mr. Lincoln published his proc lamation of war. He acted to the last in a sinister spirit IIe had just assured the commiss.oners from Virginia, who had been deputed to ascertain the purposes of his government, that he would modify his inaugural only so far as to "perhaps cause the United States mails to be withdrawn" from the seceded States. The following proclamation was the "modification” of the inaugural : "Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past, and now are, opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceeding, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law " 'Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details for this object will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the War Department. "I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured. "I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth, will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation and destruction of, or interference with property, or any disturbance of peaceful itizens in any part of the country. And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid, to disperse and retire peaceably to their repective abodes within twenty days from this date. 營 * * * "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." The trick of the government, to which we have referred, in its procurement of the battle of Sumter, is too dishonest and shallow to account for the immense reaction of sentiment in the North that ensued. That reaction is certainly to be attributed to causes more intelligent and permanent than the weak fallacy that the Lincoln government was not responsible for the hostilities in Charleston harbor, and that the South itsel had dragged the government and people of Abraham Lincoln unwillingly into the inauguration of war. The problem of this reaction may be more justly solved. In fact, it involved |