“What do you suppose the other officers would be doing, after more than one had been killed?” asked the major.
“It was all to be done at one time; the killing of General Saxton, which would soon be known, to be the signal, then the others would follow.”
“Then,” replied the major, “you are authorized to impart to them that we are ahead of them, and that the assassination of General Saxton, or any other Union officer in Charleston, will be the signal for putting to the sword the enemies of the Union, and laying the city in a heap of smouldering ruins. I give you this in advance of any advice or instructions from my superior officer, and shall not wait for orders in this case, when they are to be the victims, but shall take all the responsibility following it. I believe in the Napoleonic idea—ball-cartridges first, and admonitions after.”
The gentleman left soon after, satisfied that he had discharged his duty.
Strange to say, eleven persons came that day, each in confidence, with the same information. So attached were the people to him, that it is known that a party of ladies actually waited on him, endeavoring to persuade him not to leave his quarters. For their interest in him he expressed his obligations, and reminded them that it was the duty of an officer to go at all times where his services were needed, and added that those who were plotting had more at stake than they against whom the plot was formed, and in the event of attempting it, nothing could save the city.
Not giving full credence to this report, it was received with a degree of deference and careful observation by the major, and may have been entirely forgotten, or treated as the offspring of a sensitive imagination, unguardedly imparted, and resulting in creating alarm among the easily frightened and credulous.
If the major had been awake at a late hour a few nights after these admonitions were given to him, he would, perhaps, have had cause to treat this report with more attention than he gave it; but the affair being told to him, it had not the same effect as it would have had if he had witnessed it.
In front of the piazza of his residence was a space of shrubbery and flower garden, a high fence dividing the place from a Hebrew Synagogue: for concealment it was admirably adapted. It happened about midnight a rustling was heard in the shrubbery; then steps were heard stealthily approaching the piazza, when simultaneously, as it were, faces were seen reconnoitring through the glass door of each apartment, the heads being distinctly seen. Their appearance was as suddenly followed by a rush towards the piazza by the vigilant sentinels. The intruders leaped from the porch, and in an instant the fence being scaled, eluded pursuit. Search was made on the premises, but no traces remained to give a single clew to their designs.
There was no sleep to the inmates of the quarters for the remainder of the night, though the major was not informed of this singular affair until the following morning.
A battalion of four hundred and fifty strong, being under command of acting Captain Shadd,—and no veteran troops could have been better disciplined to meet such an emergency than they, was on duty, and subsequently every entrance to the premises was guarded by his truly devoted sentinels. Thus it may have resulted unfortunately for even some feline pet of some of the neighbors, if it had wandered into that shrubbery, producing such a rustling as on the previous evening.