Had our Government been really disposed, at this period, to act with ordinary energy, it might have opened a communication with us, and cleared the Morris Island channel without much difficulty. There were only about three hundred Charleston militia guarding the batteries on that island; and it would have been easy for a small force of mariners and soldiers to land there in the night, take the batteries in reverse, and drive the troops out, or capture them. This once accomplished, re-enforcements and supplies could have been sent us to any amount. Buchanan's administration, however, was drawing to a close; and his only desire seemed to be to get through his term of office without a collision, leaving the difficulties and perplexities of his position as a legacy to his successor.
On the 30th, I received an insulting letter from Charleston, informing me that, if I were ever caught in the city, an arrangement had been made to tar and feather me as an Abolitionist.
February had now arrived. The 4th of the month was made memorable by the meeting of the Peace Congress at Washington, and by a convention to represent the Southern States at Montgomery, Alabama.
On the 6th, the new Secretary of War, Judge Holt, wrote to South Carolina that the President did not intend to inaugurate any aggressive measures; and if the State government attacked Fort Sumter, they would incur a fearful responsibility.
On the 8th, some photographic artists were allowed to come over and take our portraits in a group. I think it proved a profitable speculation, for the sale was quite large. One of the party proved afterward to be a lieutenant of a Charleston company. It seems he came as a spy, and, no doubt, thought he had done a very clever thing; but inasmuch as Mr. Gourdin and other Secessionists, including several military and naval officers, were permitted to roam through the fort at will, there was very little use in taking precautions against spies. Indeed, on one occasion, another Major Anderson, a namesake of our commander, came down to Charleston with a freight-train loaded with shot, shell, heavy guns, and mortars for South Carolina, to be used in the batteries against us. He was the owner of the celebrated Tredegar Iron Works, of Richmond, Virginia, already referred to, and had been enriched by the patronage of the United States. I thought it decidedly cool in him, under the circumstances, to come over to call on our Major Anderson. He made no attempt at concealment, but stated without reserve the object of his trip to the South. To my surprise, instead of being summarily expelled, he met with a most cordial reception, was invited to stay to dinner, and when he left he was dismissed with a "Good-bye! God bless you! You haven't such a thing as a late newspaper about you, have you?"
On the 9th of February, the enemy's batteries were completed, manned and ready for action. On the same day the Confederate Government was duly organized by the election of Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, as President, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, as Vice-president. The Cabinet consisted of Robert Toombs, of Georgia, Secretary of State; L. Pope Walker, of Alabama, Secretary of War; and Charles G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Secretary of the Treasury. Afterward, Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, was appointed Attorney-general; Stephen M. Mallory, of Florida, Secretary of the Navy; and John H. Reagan, of Texas, Postmaster-general. Peter Gustave T. Beauregard, of Louisiana, was made Brigadier-general to command the provisional army.
By this time we had finished most of our preparations, and were busily engaged in constructing a mine at the extremity of the wharf, for the benefit of any hostile party that might land there.
Lieutenant Hall returned on the 10th. He had had a very pleasant time in Washington, and had been petted a good deal by the loyal people of the North, but his mission proved of no real benefit to the United States, and we had missed him a great deal, for we had been very short-handed.
He brought nothing definite from the Administration. All the latter desired was to have a peaceable death-bed, leaving its burdens for Mr. Lincoln's shoulders.
As Hall passed through Charleston, one of the young men there told him there was quite a revulsion of feeling with regard to attacking Fort Sumter. Hall inquired the reason. The reply was, that a schooner which had just come in had been in great danger from one of our infernal machines, which had exploded and whitened the water for three hundred yards around. It seems that Seymour, who is very ingenious, had fastened a cannon cartridge in the centre of a barrel of paving-stones, so arranged that when the barrel was rolled off the parapet, the powder would explode about five feet from the base of the wall. I was trying the experiment one day as the schooner passed, and the explosion did look very destructive, as the paving-stones dashed up the water for a distance of fifty feet from the fort.