CHAPTER XXIX THE FORTY MUSKETS LIK IKE the commandant of Fort Moultrie, the CH. XXIX. other officers of the garrison keenly watched the development of hostile public sentiment, and the steady progress of the secession movement. Some had their wives and families with them, and to the apprehensions for the honor of their flag, and the welfare of their country, was added a tenderer solicitude than even that which they felt for their own lives and persons. Hostility from the constituted authorities of South Carolina or a tumultuary outbreak of the Charleston rabble was liable to bring overwhelming numbers down upon them at any hour of the day or night. L'other officers on the watched The special study of this danger, or rather of the means to meet and counteract it, fell to Captain J. G. Foster, of the engineer corps, who had been assigned to the charge of these fortifications on the 1st of September. But his services were also in demand elsewhere, and for more than two months afterwards the works at Baltimore appear to have claimed the larger part of his time. On the day after the Presidential election he was directed to give the Charleston forts his personal supervision, and he arrived there on the 11th of November, CH. XXIX. remaining thenceforward till the surrender of Sumter. In time of peace, the administration of military affairs in the United States is somewhat spasmodic, resulting directly and unavoidably from the fact of our maintaining only the merest skeleton of a standing army compared to the vast territorial extent of the Union. As an incident of this system, Fort Moultrie had been allowed to become defenseless. "A child ten years old can easily come into the fort over the sand-banks," wrote an officer June 18, 1860, "and the wall offers little or no obstacle." "The ease with which the walls can now be got over without any assistance renders the place more of a trap, in which the garrison may be shot down from the parapet, than a means of defense. To persons looking on it appears strange, not to say ridiculous, that the only Breck to garrisoned fort in the harbor should be so much banked in with sand, that the walls in some places are not one foot above the tops of the banks." Lieut. Major Deas, June 18, 1860. By the 14th of November Captain Foster had removed the sand which had drifted against the walls, repaired the latter, and supplied certain expedients in the way of temporary obstructions and defenses which were suggested by his professional skill, and available within his resources. "I have made these temporary defenses as inexpensive as possible," he writes, "and they consist simply of a stout board fence ten feet high, surmounted by strips filled with nail-points, with a dry brick wall two bricks thick on the inside, raised to the height of a man's head, and pierced with embrasures and a sufficient number of loop-holes. Foster to De Russy, Their immediate construction has satisfied and CH. XXIX. gratified the commanding officer, Colonel Gardiner, and they are, I think, adequate to the Nov present wants of the garrison." Of what avail, however, all the resources of engineering science, where forts were absolutely soldierless, and their walls without even a solitary sentinel? This was the condition of Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, after weeks of warning and positive entreaty to the Government at Washington, by engineer, inspectors, and commandants alike, all without having brought one word of encouragement or a single recruit. But though the President and Secretary of War neglected their proper duty, Captain Foster did not remit his efforts. The exposed condition of these two priceless forts was the daily burden of his thoughts. Under Colonel Gardiner he had asked for forty muskets to arm his workmen to defend Sumter. The engineer bureau at Washington, seconding the suggestion, had obtained the approval of the Secretary of War, and had issued the order to the storekeeper of the Charleston arsenal. But when the matter was brought to the notice of Colonel Gardiner he objected. He was unwilling that this expedient, of doubtful utility at best, should serve as an excuse to the Secretary of War to refuse to send him the substantial reënforcement of two regular companies and fifty drilled recruits which he had requested. It has already been stated how Colonel Gardiner, instead of obtaining his reënforcements, lost his command, and as a consequence Captain Foster's order for the forty muskets was duly put to 14, 1860. W. R. Vol. I., p. 73. CH. XXIX. slumber in a pigeon-hole at the arsenal. When Major Anderson arrived and assumed control he not only, as we have seen, repeated the demand for additional troops, but recognizing at a glance the immense interests at stake had himself renewed to Captain Foster the suggestion about arming some engineer workmen. Captain Foster promptly made the application to the department for permission, Dec. 2, 1860. and soon after for arms. Permission came in due course of mail; but by this time Secretary Floyd would issue no order for the hundred muskets asked for. Foster to De Russy, 1860. W. R. Vol. I, p.77. Ibid., Indorse Dec. 6 and 7. W. R. Vol. I., pp. 83, 84. Wright to Foster, Nov. 28, 1860. W. R. Vol. I., p. 78. Foster to De Russy, Dec. 2, 1860. Indorsement, Dec. 6 and 7. Nevertheless, the working party of thirty was quartered in Castle Pinckney as quietly as possible, in order not to irritate the sensitive Charlestonians, and the officers and overseers in the two forts were instructed to sound and test the loyalty and trustworthiness of the mechanics and laborers. Those in Sumter had been brought from Baltimore, and in them Captain Foster placed his greatest hopes; but they disappointed him. On December 3 his overseer informed him that while they professed a willingness to resist a mob, they were disinclined to fight any organized volunteer force, and he was reluctantly compelled to abandon the scheme, at least as to Fort Sumter. But he still clung to the hope that the thirty men sent to Castle Pinckney, having been chosen with more care, might prove of some service in the hour of need. He gave orders to his officers to resist to the utmost any demands or attempts on the works. "Having done thus much," he wrote to the department, "which is all I can do in this respect, I feel that I have done my duty, and that if any overt act takes place, no blame can properly attach to me. CH. XXIX. I regret, however, that sufficient soldiers are not in this harbor to garrison these two works. The Government will soon have to decide the question whether to maintain them or to give them up to South Carolina. If it be decided to maintain them, troops must instantly be sent and in large numbers." Though neither Major Anderson nor Captain Foster could obtain any official replies to distinct and vital questions involving the issue of peace or war, a trivial episode soon furnished them a very broad hint as to what the Secretary of War would ultimately do about the forts. On the same day on which the South Carolina secession convention met at Columbia, the State capital, Captain Foster had occasion to go to the United States arsenal in the city of Charleston to procure some machinery used in mounting heavy guns. While there he remembered that two ordnance sergeants, respectively in charge of Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, had applied to him for the arms to which they were by regulations entitled. He therefore asked the military storekeeper in charge of the arsenal for two muskets and accouterments for those two sergeants. The storekeeper replied that he had no authority for the issue of two muskets for this purpose, but that the old order for forty muskets was on file, and the muskets and accouterments were ready packed for delivery to him. Foster received them, and after issuing two muskets to the ordnance sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, placed the remainder in the magazines of those two forts. Foster to Dec. 4, 1860. De Russy, W. R. Vol. Ibid.. Dec. 20,1860. W. R. Vol. I., p. 100. |