Fort Jackson, on the Mississippi, below New Orleans, $837,608. Its fellow, Fort St. Philip, $258,734. (Both seized Jan. 10th, 1861.)
Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, $1,208,000. (Not convenient for the Rebels to appropriate.)
Fortress Monroe, the most expensive, as it is the largest of our forts, $2,476,771. (Taken by Jeff Davis in May, 1865, under peculiar circumstances, and still occupied by him at this date, May, 1866.)
I found eighty-five United States soldiers in Sumter: a mere handful, yet they were five more than the garrison that held it at the time of Beauregard’s bombardment in April, 1861. My mind went back to those earlier days, and to that other little band. How anxiously we had watched the newspapers, week after week, to see if the Rebels would dare to execute their threats! Even the children caught the excitement, and asked eagerly, as papa came home at night with the news, “Is Fort Sumter attackted?” At last the defiant act was done, and what a raging, roaring fire it kindled all over the land! How our hearts throbbed in sympathy with Major Anderson and his seventy-nine heroes! Major, Colonel, General Anderson,—well might he step swiftly up the degrees of rank, for he was already atop of our hearts.
It was so easy for a man to blaze forth into sudden glory of renown at that time! One true, loyal, courageous deed, and fame was secure. But when the hurricane howl of the storm was at its height, when the land was all on fire with such deeds, glory was not so cheap. Only the taller flame could make itself distinguished, only the more potent voice be heard amid the roar. So many a hero of many a greater exploit than Anderson’s passed on unnoted.
And looking back coolly at the event from the walls of Sumter to-day, it is not easy to understand how a patriot and a soldier, who knew his duty, could have sat quiet in his fortress while Rebel batteries were rising all around him. He was acting on the defensive, you say,—waiting for the Rebels to commence hostilities. But hostilities had already begun. The first spadeful of earth thrown up, to protect the first Rebel gun, within range of Sumter, was an act of war upon Sumter. To wait until surrounded by a ring of fire, which could not be resisted, before opening the guns of the fort, appears, by the light both of military duty and of common sense, absurd. But fortunately something else rules, in a great revolution, besides military duty and common sense; and in the plan of that Providence which shapes our ways, I suppose Major Anderson did the best and only thing that was to be done. Besides, forbearance, to the utmost verge of that virtue, and sometimes a little beyond, was the policy of the government he served.
Reëmbarking on the steamer, and running over to Morris Island, I noticed that Sumter, from that side, looked like nothing but a solitary sandy bluff, heaved up in the middle of the harbor.
CHAPTER LXXIII.
A PRISON AND A PRISONER.
“Is this your first visit to Charleston?” I asked General S——, one day as we dined together.
“My first visit,” he replied, “occurred in the summer of 1864, considerably against my inclination. I was lodged at the expense of the Confederate Government in the Work-House,—not half as comfortable a place as this hotel!”