From the Charleston Daily Courier

Mr. Inglis made the following report:

The Committee appointed to prepare the draft of an Ordinance proper to be adopted by the Convention, in order to effect the secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, respectfully report, that they have had the matter referred to, under consideration, and believing that they would best meet the exigencies of the great occasion, and the just expectations of the Convention by presenting in the fewest and simplest words possible to be used, consistent with perspecuity and all that is necessary to effect the end proposed and no more, and so excluding everything which, however proper in itself, for the action of the Convention is not a necessary part of the great solemn act of secession, and may at least be effected by a distinct Ordinance or resolution, they submit for the consideration of the Convention the following proposed draft:

AN ORDINANCE

To Dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the Compact, entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

We, the People of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified, and also, all Acts and parts of Acts of the General Assembly of the State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States under the name of “The United States of America,” is hereby dissolved.

[During the reading of the above the most profound silence prevailed over the Assembly.]

The Ordinance of Secession as Charleston first read it, printed on the Courier's front page the morning after the Convention passed it at St. Andrew's Hall. What makes this the version to read is the reporter's own bracketed line at the end. He was in the room, and what he thought worth recording was not the cheering but the silence.

At 5 P.M., after the most delightful trial trip on record, the graceful fabric reached her wharf and was safely moored, while the departing guests wended their way homewards full of pleasant reminiscences of the King, her Commander and Agents.

At 4 A.M., on Tuesday morning, I was roused from my slumbers, on board the Marion, by the watchman's alarm of fire, and, rushing over to the new ship with the Marion's crew, I found her in flames, and the black smoke pouring from her chimney and hatchways.

The fire department were soon on hand, and by the greatest exertions the flames were measurably subdued, but temporarily only, and it was at last deemed advisable to tow her out into the stream and endeavor to scuttle her.

Two steam tugs were procured, and the late proud and beautiful ship was towed from the dock, a mass of flames, while her falling pipe and spars added to the horrors of the scene, and forcibly illustrated the heart-rending scenes of fire and wreck.

I have no words adequate to convey a faint impression of the sorrow that pervades all hearts at this deplorable end of the sweetest craft that ever floated in New York harbor, and promised to make your Southern eyes dance with joy in the contemplation.

On the same page as the Ordinance, and worth putting beside it. A brand-new Charleston Line steamer burned at her New York wharf the night South Carolina left the Union, and the paper's correspondent writes about her the way you write about a death. The commercial rope between Charleston and New York was still tied on 21 December 1860, and everyone reading the page knew it.

Mr. Miles. I have a resolution to offer which I am sure will meet with the hearty concurrence of every member of this body.

Resolved, That the Clerk of the Convention be directed to forthwith telegraph to the members of Congress from this State, at Washington, the action of our Convention on the Ordinance of Secession.

Mr. Perrin moved that the Ordinance and vote first taken, be telegraphed by the Clerk of Convention to our members of Congress at Washington. Mr. Miles accepted the above as an amendment to his resolution. The resolution as amended was then agreed to unanimously.

Mr. W. F. DeSaussure offered the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Ordinance be engrossed under the direction of the Attorney-General, upon parchment, and signed by the President and Members of the Convention, at Institute Hall, and be deposited in the Archives of the State.

What the Convention did in the minutes after the vote: wire Washington, and order the parchment. The signing at Institute Hall on Meeting Street that evening is the scene in the familiar engravings; the Hall burned a year later in the great fire of December 1861, and the site is now marked by the ruins beside the Circular Church.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31. — Secretary Floyd sent a communication to the Speaker of the House to-day, explaining the nature, character and cause of his acceptances in the Russell-Bailey case. He said the acceptances were not due and payable until the services for which they were given were performed. His communication was referred to a select committee on the subject.

Thaddeus Stephens, of Pennsylvania, offered a resolution of enquiry in relation to the public property in Charleston harbor, garrisons, &c., but the House refused to suspend the rules for its reception, by a vote of 91 to 82.

Mr. Stanton introduced a resolution, which was adopted, to the effect that the Committee on Military Affairs report at any time in reference to the recent sales of public arms to States; also, in regard to Charleston Harbor and Arsenal affairs.

Pryor's resolution, declaring any attempt to preserve the Union by force impracticable and destructive of Republican liberty, was tabled by a vote of 98 to 55.

The Commissioners have sent a dispatch to Charleston, stating that they have reason to believe that troops have been ordered to that point.

Secretary Floyd has written a letter to the President, in which he states the reasons of his resignation. They are the same as already given in the Constitution. The President replies, regretting the cause, and saying that his late Secretary has been an efficient Cabinet officer. He hopes that peace will return to the country.

A rumor prevails that Scott has been appointed Secretary of War, causing great excitement. There is no truth in it. Though he has often acted ad interim, he will not take the appointment to fill the post.

The Commissioners have but little hope of the recognition of the sovereignty of South Carolina.

Read the fifth paragraph. Nine days after Anderson moved his garrison into Fort Sumter, and five days before the Star of the West was fired on trying to enter the harbour, Charleston was told in plain type that troops had been ordered to that point. The dispatch is dated 31 December 1860 and the paper printed it on 4 January. The batteries that fired on the ship on the 9th had four days' notice from their own newspaper. Around it: Floyd resigning over the Indian Trust bonds, Thaddeus Stevens trying to get the House to ask what was happening to the public property in Charleston harbour and being refused, and Roger Pryor's motion that force could never preserve the Union, tabled 98 to 55.

FORT SUMTER RESTORED! THE VICTORY COMPLETE! “Our Flag is There!” SOUTH CAROLINA TRIUMPHANT. SURRENDER AND DEPARTURE OF MAJOR ANDERSON.

To report in full and adequately the great and glorious events of Friday and Saturday, would require a volume and better opportunities than we can now command. We can only group together for the present the facts of most prominent interest.

In continuation of our report of Saturday morning, we state that the firing was kept up slowly through the night, and after our report was closed. The effect and success of the shooting on Friday were even better than we then supposed, for we now know that the wood work of Fort Sumter was on fire three times but was extinguished.

Saturday will be ever memorable in the annals of our State and our country as the date of an unparalleled victory.

Marked by no bloodshed, it is, nevertheless, a most astonishing feat of arms. In a description of its details, we shall endeavor to lay the facts before our readers as concisely as possible.

The effect on Friday night, as most persons in the city know, was truly grand and terrific. The firing reached its most awful climax at about ten o'clock. The heavens were obscured by rain clouds, and the horizon was as dark as Erebus. The guns were worked with vigor, and their booming was heard with astonishing distinctness, because the wind was blowing in shore. At each discharge, a lurid sheet of flame was belched forth, and then another and another was seen before the report reached the ears. The spectacle was grand. Sometimes a shell would burst in mid-air, directly over the doomed fortress, and at all times the missiles of this character could be distinguished in their course by the trail of fire left momentarily behind them.

All night nearly the streets of the city was thronged with people. The housetops, the Battery, the wharves, shipping and every available space for witnessing the splendid scene, was thronged with people, notwithstanding the pelting storm, which during most of the night was raging. The fire from all the forts, Sumter included, and from the batteries of the Confederate States, was kept up with unabated vigor till early dawn. Then the rapidity of the discharges gradually diminished.

When the sun rose, all the clouds which had obscured the night were dissipated. The day was a beautiful one. The air balmy and refreshing. The streets were soon filled with citizens, male and female, white and black, young and old. From the Battery to the wharves and the steeples — hither and thither they went, eagerly seeking the best positions to use their glasses and telescopes.

Until about eight o'clock but a few random shots were fired from our batteries, Sumter only occasionally replying. Then it became apparent that the fortress on which all eyes were rivetted was on fire. A dense smoke was seen gradually to rise above its ramparts. The fort certainly was on fire. This appeared evident, though some supposed it was merely a signal of Anderson to draw in the fleet to his aid. In the offing, quietly riding at anchor, were clearly distinguished four vessels ranged in line directly over the bar and apparently blockading the port completely. The long black hulls and smoke stacks of two of the vessels proved them to be Federal steamers. Every one anxiously awaited the issue. The suspense was very exciting. Will they come in and engage the batteries was the query on every one's lips. Poltroons, if they do not was the response. Certainly, every person expected, fully expected the engagement to become general. By the aid of glasses it was thought that a movement was made to this end by two of the war ships, and we thought soon to see the sand flying in all directions from the Morris' Island batteries.

Towards ten o'clock, attention was riveted upon Sumter — now beyond doubt there was a fire in the Fort. It was raging. The flames soon burst through the roofs of the houses within its walls. The densest black smoke and the bright flames poured forth in volumes. All this time, Maj. Anderson scarcely fired a shot. His barbet guns, that is, the guns on the ramparts, were untenable. The bursting shells and grape shot scattered like hail over them, and drove the soldiers under cover. Not one dared show his head, but at the risk of having it taken off.

From the Iron Battery at Cummings' Point, a continuous fire was kept up, and as was afterwards known its played sad havoc with that portion of Sumter facing it. The firing from the Floating Battery and from Moultrie was also very regular.

As we stand on the Charleston Battery looking seaward you have a Mortar Battery and Fort Johnson nearest the city, perhaps two miles and a half off. A mile and a half from Johnson is the Iron Battery of Cummings, mounting ten guns, viz.: three ten inch columbiads, three sixty-four pounders, three mortars, and one rifled cannon. The men working its guns were perfectly protected. Their sand redoubt was scarcely injured by the weak fire Major Anderson kept upon it. The Battery was commanded by Major Stevens, of the Citadel Cadets. Under his direction each shell found its destination within the walls of Sumter, and during the entire bombardment scarcely one missile of this character went wide its mark.

On the other side of the harbor, directly opposite Sumter, is one of the strongest sides of Moultrie. During the past three months, it has been strengthened by every appliance military art could suggest. Its merlons, moat, glacis, embrasures, &c., perfectly protect the weak walls of the old Fort, and made the gunners perfectly secure while at work. From this point throughout the engagement vast numbers of hot shot and heavy balls were discharged with precision, fully attested by the walls of Sumter.

The Courier's account of the bombardment, printed the Monday after the fort came down, and the best eyewitness prose the paper ever produced. It was written from the city, not the batteries, and that is what makes it: the crowd on the housetops in the pelting rain, the whole population out at dawn “male and female, white and black, young and old” with their glasses and telescopes, the query on every lip about whether the fleet would come in. Note also the detail the paper is proudest of — Major Peter Fayssoux Stevens of the Citadel Cadets commanding the Iron Battery at Cummings Point, “each shell found its destination within the walls of Sumter.” The account runs on for columns after this.

After remaining in the Fort some minutes, Maj. Anderson got into the barge of Capt. Gillis, of the U. S. Navy, and was rowed to the steamer Isabel. The boat was manned by eight Federal sailors, and carried in her stern-sheets a small Federal Flag. During the disembarkation the same flag was still waving over Sumter, where it remained all night.

On board the Isabel, during the temporary absence of Maj. Anderson, Capt. Gillis said he did not know whether Anderson would go round to New York in the Isabel or in the Fleet. This he would determine when he got outside.

Anderson was much moved on leaving the Fort. He expressed himself neither sorry nor glad. He said he had plenty of provisions, and his men attested the fact, for they were the best looking stragglings we have ever seen.

Soon after Anderson went on board the Isabel a salute of fifty guns was fired in rapid succession from the ramparts of Sumter, and in the midst of the firing the Federal flag was hauled down, in view of the thousands of spectators. As soon as the garrison were ready to leave, the Confederate troops landed from a steamer and took possession. We went out and got into a boat to witness the spectacle of lowering the flag.

The lowering of the flag took place at a quarter past two o'clock. The hoisting of the Confederate flag did not take place till an hour afterwards. Every one was thrown into consternation at the untoward accident occurring to the evacuating forces.

At nine o'clock the troops had not gone out to sea.

ANOTHER ACCOUNT. — The staff of General Beauregard, Messrs. Chesnut and Manning, were received on their arrival at the fort with great politeness and courtesy. He expressed great regret that so much injury had been done by the fire to the property and the fortification, and expressed great gratification that no lives were lost.

The end of it, in the Courier's own words. The “untoward accident” it passes over in half a line is the explosion during Anderson's hundred-gun salute that killed Private Daniel Hough and mortally wounded Private Edward Galloway — the first deaths of the war, after a thirty-four-hour bombardment in which nobody on either side had been killed. The paper was still reporting the whole affair as bloodless on the same page. Anderson's fifty guns here, against the hundred he had asked for, is the number the salute was cut to after the gun burst.

Among those consumed are the foundries of Cameron & Co., Lockwood & Johnson, Smith & Porter, the State Cotton Press containing a large amount of Cotton, the Union Cotton Press, Dr. Pritchard's large residence, and Jno. Townsend's residence, Deighan's Stable, on Queen-street. A number of large residences on the West side of East Bay, from Pinckney to Hasell-streets, almost the entire square around Market and Linguard-streets. The fire had also broken out in Meeting-street next to the Theatre.

The wind between ten and eleven o'clock became terrific and the work of desolation made awful stride. The supply of water was in many places exhausted, and the firemen as well as the military, who were guarding property and otherwise assisting, were exposed to the greatest danger from the red hot tiles and slates falling and striking them upon the head and shoulders. They kept to it, however, even while the fire was raging all about.

TWO O'CLOCK. — The fire is still raging with great fury. Several squares from where the fire commenced have been swept by the flames, and some of the finest portions of the city are in ruins. The fine old mansion of the Pinckney family, on East Bay, has fallen a prey to the devouring element, along with numerous other large buildings. From the South side of Market-street the flames have spread to Meeting, Cumberland and Church streets, destroying everything in their path. Cumberland-street Methodist Church, the Circular Church, Institute Hall, the Theatre, Southern Express building, are all consumed.

The Mills House is in great danger, but great efforts are making to save it. The fire has also extended to King-street, taking in the square between Market and Queen-streets. We trust there has been no loss of life.

The Courier went to press with the city still burning, and the bulletin is stamped by the hour — “TWO O'CLOCK. — The fire is still raging with great fury.” The great fire of 11–12 December 1861 cut a diagonal swath from the Cooper River across to the Ashley and left the burnt district that appears in every photograph made in Charleston for the next four years. Note one name in the list of buildings consumed: *Institute Hall*, on Meeting Street, where the Ordinance of Secession had been signed on parchment not quite twelve months earlier. The fire was an accident. Nobody had to point out the arithmetic.

The next morning's headline stack, set in the paper's largest type: “Five Churches Burnt. St. John's and St. Finbar's Cathedral in Ruins. Great Distress and Suffering.” The Cathedral of St. John and St. Finbar, at Broad and Legare, was never rebuilt on that footprint; its ruins stood through the bombardment and are among the most photographed in the city.

Our community was intensely agitated Tuesday morning by the intelligence that the steamer Planter, for the last twelve months or more employed both in State and Confederate service, had been taken possession of by her colored crew, steamed up and boldly run out to the blockaders. The news at first was not credited; and it was not until, by the aid of glasses, she was discovered, lying between two Federal frigates, that all doubt on the subject was dispelled. A great variety of rumors and surmises were circulated in reference to the parties concerned, and the number of the fugitives on board the steamer. The most authentic particulars that we could gather are as follows:

Between three and four o'clock, Tuesday morning, the steamer left Southern Wharf, having, it is supposed, on board five negroes, namely three engineers, one pilot and a deck hand. Upon leaving the wharf the usual wharf signal was given by those on board, and the usual private signals given when passing Fort Sumter. The officer of the watch at the latter post was called, as usual, but observing the signal and supposing all right, allowed her to proceed. She ran immediately out to the blockading vessels.

The Planter had on board four large guns destined for one of our new fortifications, and were as follows: one rifled forty-two pounder, lately put in splendid condition at the Foundry of Eason & Brothers, and said to be a splendid piece; two eight inch Columbiads, and one thirty-two pounder. In addition to these, she had on board her own armament, which consisted of one thirty-two pounder and one twenty-four pounder, making six guns in all taken out to the fleet.

The Planter was a new high-pressure steamer, belonging to Captain John Ferguson. She was regarded as one of the fastest boats in the harbor, and very valuable for river service, but unfit for sea work. Three of the negros who left also belonged to Captain Ferguson, one to Mrs. McKee.

Robert Smalls took the Planter out of Charleston harbour before dawn on Tuesday, 13 May 1862, gave the private signal at Fort Sumter, and delivered her to the blockading squadron. This is how Charleston learned of it. The paper never names him — the pilot is “one to Mrs. McKee,” which is to say the property of the household that held him. It undercounts too: five aboard, it says, where in fact there were sixteen, the crew having gone back for their families. What it does count exactly is the artillery: six guns, four of them heavy pieces meant for the new works, delivered to the enemy in one night. Read the last line again. The paper's way of identifying the most consequential man in the harbour that morning was to say whose he was.

We are informed that this shameful proceeding is due wholly to the criminal absence of the Master, Mate and Engineer from their posts; and that General Ripley has arrested them for the purpose of having them Court Martialed. The escape took place in broad daylight, the crew taking advantage of the absence of all the officers, and the vessel having been seen, on her way, by both the police detective and a sentinel on duty, they supposing her on the lawful errand of conveying cannon from one post to another.

The next column's verdict, and the reflex is worth noticing: the fault must lie with the white officers who were not at their posts, not with the men who were. General Ripley arrested all three for court martial. The paper's own front page had put the departure between three and four in the morning; here it becomes “broad daylight.” Charleston did not, that week, have a way of describing what Smalls had done that did not begin by looking for a white man to blame.

We are indebted to a participant in the action for the following particulars:

For several days the enemy had been shelling Col. Lamar's battery at Secessionville and the houses and tents occupied by the Charleston Battalion and Smith's Battalion. Both of these Battalions were very much exhausted by heavy picket duty, by work on the fortifications, and by furnishing guards under arms at the battery.

A new battery had been erected by the enemy, mounted, as prisoners said, with three rifled Parrott guns, and a severe fire was kept up from this battery through the whole of Sunday. Several tents were destroyed, houses were pierced, and but one single casualty occurred, as trenches have been dug to protect our men, on which they retired from the shelling. The shells generally exploded too far — in fact so far that it was conjectured that the enemy intended to destroy the bridge which furnishes means of communication between Secessionville and the main land, the road in front of the village being under the control of the enemy's guns.

About four o'clock, Sunday morning, the firing of the enemy having ceased during the night, the Charleston Battalion and Smith's Battalion were directed to haul the heavy guns that had been landed, and place them in position. One gun had been carried to the battery hastily thrown up. — An alarm was given that the enemy were advancing in force, and the battery of Parrott guns and gunboats commenced bombarding, and the sound of musketry was also heard.

Colonel Gaillard directed the Charleston Battalion to stop work at the new battery, return to their quarters, arm themselves and return to their battery, (Lamar's.)

This was done with the utmost alacrity, and the companies, as they formed, hurried off to the scene of action. On their way to the battery they were exposed to a heavy flanking fire. A regiment of the enemy's riflemen occupied the bank beyond the river, and fired upon the entire advance with terrible effect.

Before the foremost companies of the Charleston Battalion reached the battery, the enemy had stormed it, and were on the ramparts, in fact had taken one prisoner in the battery. The Charleston companies rushing in, drove back the advance, occupied the rifle pits, where a hand to hand fight ensued, and the enemy were finally driven back.

It appears that the storming party of the enemy forming the advance, sent in front two regiments, the Eighth Michigan and Seventy-ninth New York Highlanders. It was probable they intended to spike the guns, and their rush was made with great daring, but ineffectually. Their dead lay on the rampart and on the sides of the breast work in the ditch, and alongside of the abattis. But for this latter, the entire column would have penetrated and flanked the breastwork. It proved too formidable an obstacle, and too much praise cannot be given to Colonel Gaillard, who had insisted on his being placed in front.

The enemy then opened fire from their gunboats at Grimball's, and from the battery of nine Parrott guns on the left, and two gunboats that had descended the river, also to the left, further down, from three sections of field artillery in front of the work, and on the right with a tremendous fire from their riflemen, which, owing to the peculiar construction of the work, drove the gunners from their guns. The pieces, however, were manned after a short pause.

Under the efficient guidance of Col. Gaillard and the skilful management of Col. Lamar the battalion was reinvigorated for defence, and saved the battery.

The individual instances of courage and resolution are almost beyond commendation. The ammunition immediately in and around the battery giving out, the officers themselves repaired to the wagons and brought the cartridges in their hands to their respective commands through a most severe and galling fire and falling shell and musketry. Lieut. A. E. Aullmore several times passing in this way with ammunition in his arms received special commendation from the officers in command. Lieut. Brown, Union Light Infantry, was wounded while in this service. In fact, when it is stated that more than half of the officers of the Charleston Battalion are to be found in the list of wounded and killed, it will be seen how faithfully they discharged their duty.

Lieutenant Jas. Campbell and Mr. Josiah Tennent, of the Sumter Guards, repelled the skirmishers on the left of the battery, and it was by their unerring rifles that the stormers were repelled at that point. Lieutenant Campbell, having no other weapon at first, seized a large log of wood which, from the rampart, he threw down the side, rolling off several stormers, taking one of their own rifles, and continuing to fight with that. Mr. Tennent alone brought down six of the storming party.

Capt. Miles was wounded in the rifle pits while attending to an injured man, risking his own life in the most gallant manner. The lamented and much beloved Capt. Henry C. King, while leading his men forward, fell at their head cheering and waving them on. Both the Judicial Magistrates of Charleston, T. P. Lockwood and G. W. Dingle, Esqs., serving as privates in the Charleston Battalion, were wounded.

A remarkable circumstance connected with Mr. Poznanski deserves mention. He had expressed to several friends his solemn presentiment that he was to fall in battle, and yet went forward to repel the stormers and received his death wound on the rampart.

Mr. Isaac Valentine, after receiving his death wound, stated that he felt no apprehension of death; that he had done his duty, and had but one wish that he might see his family before he died for his country.

About twenty or thirty prisoners came into the battery unable to escape beyond reach of the fire and preferring to surrender themselves to running the gauntlet of about a mile and a half through grape and musketry. They are generally fine looking athletic men, and still express conviction that the Federal arms will be triumphant.

Sergeant R. J. Henery who, under orders of the gallant officer of the guard that day (Lieutenant Mulvaney, Irish Volunteers,) had rallied the guard and held the enemy at bay until the battalion arrived from their tents, lay dead upon the field, having fallen in the discharge of this duty.

Among the last to fall was the accomplished, the amiable and the loved Lieutenant J. J. Edwards, who was killed by the explosion of a shell while assisting Captain Blake, of the Charleston Riflemen, who was wounded, to a place of safety.

It was a surprise on the part of the enemy well managed, and but for the vigor and daring of our own Charleston Battalion and Col. Lamar's command, Secessionville, with its guns and public property, would be in the hands of the foe.

The Federal loss in officers is very great. Several who have become well known for their daring were shot down. The colors of the Eighth Michigan were thrice cut down, but as often up borne again.

The battle of Secessionville, fought on James Island on the morning of Sunday 16 June 1862, told two days later by a man who was in it. The Federal assault on the Tower Battery — the 8th Michigan and the 79th New York Highlanders in front — came within a hand-to-hand fight on the rampart of taking the work, and with it the road to Charleston. What lifts this above a dispatch is that the Courier was writing about its own neighbours: two of the city's judicial magistrates in the ranks as privates; Captain Henry C. King killed leading his company; Gustavus Poznanski, son of the minister of Beth Elohim, going forward to the rampart after telling friends he knew he would not come back; Isaac Valentine dying with one wish, to see his family first. The abattis in front of the work is what saved Charleston, and the paper says so.

In speaking of the part performed by Lieutenant James Campbell in the late action, we accidentally associated his name with the Sumter Guard. This was a mistake. Mr. Campbell is Lieutenant in the Union Light Infantry.

The case of Mr. Campbell affords another illustration of the deplorable consequences of this fratricidal war. The color bearer of the 79th Highlanders who fought gallantly in the late action and carried his colors off safely, is a brother of Lieutenant Campbell. They had both been fighting each other hard without recognition.

A correction that turned into the story of the battle. Lieutenant James Campbell held the left of the battery at Secessionville with his rifle and, when that failed him, with a log of wood rolled off the rampart. The man carrying the colors of the 79th New York Highlanders up the same slope was his brother. Neither knew. The Courier prints it in two sentences and moves on.

What can we say, however, of the mothers and sisters of Rhode Island who pray and hope that the mothers and sisters of Charleston will be exposed to insolence, indignities and insults, more intolerable than death, by the peaceable surrender of the city?

Other letters before us express great desire for a close of the war, and great reliance on “what the papers say.”

A poor benighted and deluded people, reading nothing but the Northern papers, may be charitably excused for ignorance of the South and of the only possible end of this war.

As the mails from Richmond even are uncertain, and from places beyond Richmond more certainly uncertain, we shall take it as a favor to receive — to be returned, if desired — any letters or papers which may be found on the bodies of Yankees or other suspicious strangers who have no further use for them.

Three days after Secessionville the Courier was reading the mail taken from the Federal dead on the field, and quoting it in a leader headed “Yankee Literature.” The last paragraph is a standing request to its readers, printed as a piece of ordinary editorial housekeeping: send us the letters you find on the bodies. It is the coldest sentence in the paper's whole war.

HEADQUARTERS DEP'T OF S. C., GA. AND FLA., Charleston, S. C., April 5, 1863.

[GENERAL ORDERS, No. 63.]

I. Field and company officers are specially enjoined to instruct their men, under all circumstances, to fire with deliberation at the feet of the enemy; they will thus avoid over-shooting, and besides, wounded men give more trouble to our adversary than his dead, as they have to be taken from the field.

II. Officers in command must be cool and collected, in action hold their men in hand, and caution them against useless, aimless firing. The men must be instructed and required each one to single out his mark. It was the deliberate sharp-shooting of our forefathers in the Revolution of 1776, and at New Orleans in 1815, which made them so formidable against the odds with which they were engaged.

III. In the beginning of a battle, except by troops deployed as skirmishers, the fire by file will be avoided; it excites the men, and renders their subsequent control difficult; fire by wing or company should be resorted to instead. During the battle the officers and non commissioned officers must keep the men in the ranks, enforce obedience, and encourage and stimulate them if necessary.

IV. Soldiers must not be permitted to quit the ranks to strip or rob the dead, nor even to assist in removing our own dead, unless by special permission, which shall only be given when the action has been decided. The surest way to protect our wounded is to drive the enemy from the field; the most pressing, highest duty is to win the victory.

V. Before the battle, the Quartermaster of the Division will make all the necessary arrangements for the immediate transportation of the wounded from the field. After consultation with the medical officers, he will establish the Ambulance Depot in the rear, and give his assistants the necessary instructions for the efficient service of the ambulance wagons and other means of transportation.

VI. The ambulance depot, to which the wounded are to be carried, or directed for immediate treatment, should be established at the most convenient building nearest the field of battle. A red flag marks the place and way to it.

VII. Before and immediately after battle the roll of each company will be called, and absentees must strictly account for their absence from the ranks. To quit their standard on the battle field, under fire, under the pretence of removing or aiding the wounded, will not be permitted: any one persisting in it will be shot on the spot, and whosoever shall be found to have quit the field, or his regiment or company, without authority, will be regarded and proclaimed as a coward.

Beauregard's fighting instructions for the defence of Charleston, issued 5 April 1863 and printed in the paper two days after the ironclads were driven off. Read the first paragraph twice. It is not bloodthirstiness; it is logistics — a wounded man costs the enemy stretcher-bearers, an ambulance, a surgeon and a bed, and a dead one costs him nothing. The rest of the order is about controlling men who are frightened: single out your mark, no fire by file, stay in the ranks, and do not use the wounded as a reason to leave the line.

Lodged at the Charleston Workhouse, as a runaway, JULIUS, who says he belongs to George Evers, of Augusta, Georgia. Julius is a bright mulatto, 17 years of age.

W. WITHERS, M. W. H.

Two columns from Beauregard's general orders and the news of the Keokuk, in the ordinary advertising matter of the same page. Julius was seventeen. He had got himself from Augusta to Charleston, and the notice is an invitation to his owner to come and collect him. The Workhouse stood on Magazine Street; its ruins are the ones behind the Old City Jail. Nothing else is known of him.

OFFICE NO. 10 BROAD-STREET, Charleston, April 6th, 1863.

The General Commanding having notified the Commissioners for the City of Charleston that it is extremely desirable that all NON COMBATANTS should be removed as speedily as possible, in view of the threatened attack upon our City, notice is hereby given to all those not able to participate in the defence of the City that transportation will be furnished them at this Office, under the provisions of the Ordinance of the State.

FREE TICKETS will be issued to those in indigent circumstances, and places of refuge assigned them in the interior.

It is earnestly enjoined upon the women and children of our City to comply without delay with this requirement, or otherwise they may be subjected to all the calamities of siege and assault by a brutal enemy.

SAML. Y. TUPPER, For Commissioners.

Dated the day before the ironclads came in. Charleston's civil authorities were offering free railway tickets out of the city and assigned places of refuge in the interior — the machinery of an evacuation, set up and advertised in the classified columns. Many families went to Columbia. Some of them, and a great deal of what they took with them, were still there in February 1865.

An official dispatch from Col. Graham, commanding on Morris' Island, received in the city Wednesday morning, at Gen. Ripley's Headquarters, stated that an iron clad Monitor, supposed to be the Keokuk, had sunk at nine o'clock, on the beach inside the Bar, off Morris' Island. The gratifying intelligence was shortly after confirmed by a dispatch from Fort Sumter, and the arrival of several officers and others who saw the Keokuk going down until she disappeared, with nothing but her chimneys appearing above water.

The Keokuk was one of the most powerful of her class, and her loss will be a staggering blow to the enemy. She was built last spring and summer, in accordance with plans furnished by Mr. Whitney, an iron merchant of New York, and was said to be impervious to the largest shot or shell capable of being thrown from the most formidable fortification. Her armament consisted of two fifteen inch Dahlgrens — one in each turret. Thus ends one of the boasted invulnerable fleet, which, it has long been trumpeted forth, could not be sunk, but would demolish and wipe out everything that opposed their progress.

The result so far has elated our people and given the highest satisfaction to our military commanders. — Whether it will prove as equally satisfactory to the enemy remains to be seen.

It is known that several others of the fleet, said to have been ten in number, that made the attack, were severely injured.

We learn from good authority that the distance of the Monitors from Fort Sumter during the engagement was not over eight hundred yards. The steamer Passaic was the leader and not the Keokuk as at first reported. The latter is said to have been the last to come into line and the last going out.

Seven of the Monitors and the Ironsides were reported at headquarters as still inside the bar Wednesday morning. A later report in the afternoon stated that these vessels had gone outside and eight turretted Monitors were seen steaming South, apparently bound to Port Royal. It was thought they remained inside during the night and following morning to render assistance to the Keokuk, but finding all their efforts to save her useless, they abandoned her and left as above stated.

In the evening, however, the seven turretted monsters re-appeared, and it is believed they had merely gone round to Stono to avoid the heavy blow that prevailed at the bar during the afternoon.

The nondescript, or “Yankee Devil,” for clearing the channel, was washed ashore on Morris' Island yesterday, and is now in our possession. It is described as an old scow like vessel, painted red, with a long protruding beak and jutting iron prongs or claws, intended for the removal and bursting of torpedoes. It was attached to the Passaic, the leading vessel, and managed by her during the engagement.

It is also reported that two of the small boats belonging to the Keokuk have been secured by our men on Morris' Island.

It is hardly probable that the enemy, after his injuries and experience received in the attack of Tuesday, will be ready for another trial very soon, if at all, especially in the same direction.

It is a curious coincidence of war that the commanders Generals Beauregard, Ripley, Colonel Rhett, Lieut. Colonel Yates, and nearly all the garrison of Fort Sumter, were the same men who were the chief actors in the bloodless reduction of Fort Sumter in April, 1861, and who have now so gloriously and successfully repelled a formidable attack upon this famous fortress, while in their keeping.

Du Pont took nine ironclads into the harbour on the afternoon of Tuesday 7 April 1863 and was beaten in about two hours. The Keokuk, hit some ninety times, kept afloat overnight and went down off Morris Island the next morning; this is Charleston reading the news. Two corrections the paper could not have made: the Keokuk was not a monitor but an experimental two-tower gunboat carrying 11-inch Dahlgrens in fixed towers, not 15-inch in turrets; and the vessel that led the line with the anti-torpedo raft — the “Yankee Devil” washed up on Morris Island — was the Weehawken, not the Passaic. What the paper gets exactly right is the last paragraph: the same men who had taken Fort Sumter in 1861 were the ones holding it in 1863. Newspapers.com files this page under the 8 April issue; the masthead on it reads Thursday morning, 9 April 1863.

This far-famed female soldier, who was taken to Richmond a few weeks ago, under arrest for appearing in officer's attire, having been released, passed through this city yesterday, and will again proceed to active service in the field. She has already been in the service a great while, and is represented to be a woman of heroic character, fearing no danger and shrinking from no undertaking. She was first commissioned as a Lieutenant, and served several months before her sex was suspected. When arrested and brought to trial, she only had to prove her identity to secure her release. — [South Carolinian, 19th inst.]

Printed on the same page as the Battery Wagner casualty lists. “Mrs. Alice Williams” is the name Loreta Janeta Velázquez was arrested and tried under; she later published a memoir claiming to have served as Lieutenant Harry T. Buford, and how much of that account is true has been argued over ever since. What is not in doubt is this paragraph: on 19 July 1863, while Charleston was counting its dead from the ditch at Wagner, she passed through the city and the papers noticed.

From communications with various prisoners the following facts gathered may thrown additional light upon the affair:

In the first column were the 6th Connecticut, 76th, 55th and 36th Pennsylvania, and 48th New York; in the second, 9th Maine, 3d New Hampshire, 7th Massachusetts, and 54th Massachusetts (colored.) The 100th New York; 66th Ohio, Lieut. Col. Stevens commanding; 67th Ohio, Col. Voorhees, and 1st South Carolina Regiment, (colored,) commanded by Col. Montgomery, were held in reserve. The whole force was commanded by Brigadier-General Strong, who led the charge in person. The report that he was wounded in the assault of the 11th instant was incorrect.

It was believed by the Yankee officers that the troops in Battery Wagner were perfectly exhausted from the bombardment, and that a bold, sudden assault or coup de main would effect its capture. A mortar battery, erected on the site of the old Lazaretto, kept up a continued shelling on Battery Wagner until the front line of their troops had [reached the work].

The following is a list of some of the captured officers:

Lieut. Col. Bedell, 3d New Hampshire — said to have been taken while attempting to reach and spike one of our guns.

Major John H. Filler, 55th Pennsylvania.

1st Lieut. D. G. West, Company I, 6th Connecticut.

2d Lieut. John King, Company F, 6th Connecticut.

2d Lieut. F. J. Sullivan, Company E, 67th Ohio.

The Courier's order of battle for the assault of 18 July 1863, assembled from prisoners two days after. It places the 54th Massachusetts in the second column — not the first, where the regiment in fact led — and it lists the 1st South Carolina (colored) in reserve. Both are named without comment, in a routine order of battle, in a Charleston paper. Note also what the paper reports the Federal officers believing: that Wagner's garrison was “perfectly exhausted from the bombardment,” and that one sudden rush would carry it. That belief is the whole of the disaster. Brigadier-General George C. Strong, who “led the charge in person,” was mortally wounded and died on 30 July.

In one of the late Yankee raids through Hanover, Va., a Federal officer, in conversation with a lady, remarked that, as to the loss of men on their side, they did not care how many men they lost, as they were either foreigners or their places could easily be supplied by such.

A four-line filler, and an argument the Southern press made constantly in the summer of 1863: that the North was spending immigrants and Black soldiers because it valued neither. It sits a column away from the paper's own order of battle listing the 54th Massachusetts and the 1st South Carolina. The two items are answering each other without either one knowing it.

HEAD'QRS DEP'T OF S. C., GA. AND FLA. Charleston, S. C., August 22, 1863.

SIR: — Last night at fifteen minutes before 11 o'clock, during my absence on a reconnoissance of my fortifications, a communication was received at these Headquarters, dated Headquarters Department of the South, Morris' Island, S. C., August 21, 1863, demanding the “immediate evacuation of Morris' Island and Fort Sumter, by Confederate forces,” on the alleged grounds that “the present condition of Fort Sumter and rapid and progressive destruction which it is undergoing from my batteries seem to render its complete demolition within a few hours a matter of certainty” — and that if this demand were “not complied with and no reply thereto was received within four hours after it is delivered into the hands of your (my) subordinate commander at Fort Wagner for transmission,” a fire would be opened “on the city of Charleston from batteries already established within easy and effective range of the heart of the city.” This communication to my address was without signature, and was of course returned.

About half past one this morning one of your batteries did actually open fire and throw a number of heavy rifle shells into the city, the inhabitants of which, of course, were asleep and unwarned.

About 9 o'clock this morning, the communication alluded to above, was returned to these Headquarters, bearing your recognized official signature — and it can now be noticed as your deliberate official act.

Beauregard's protest, printed in Charleston two days after the first shell fell. The rest of the letter — the left edge of the column is cut in the scan and is not transcribed here — makes the argument the Courier's leader is built on: that the usages of war allow a city one to three days' notice so that women and children can be withdrawn; that Gillmore allowed four hours, knowing the notice could not reach headquarters and be answered in that time; and that Charleston lies five miles from the battery that fired on it, while the works he had failed to take in forty days lie one to two and a quarter miles away. Gillmore's unsigned demand of 21 August is printed beside it. The unsigned first copy is the hinge of the whole exchange, and Beauregard knew it.

The startling events that have occurred since our last issue have opened up a new chapter in the history of the war. Our ferocious foe, maddened to desperation at the heroic obstinacy and resistance of his powerful combination of land and naval forces to reduce Fort Sumter and our batteries on Morris' Island, tries the horrible and brutal resort, without the usual notice, of firing, at midnight, upon the city, full of sleeping women and children, to intimidate our Commanding General into a surrender of those fortifications. This atrocious and unprecedented act in the annals of civilized warfare, was perpetrated on Friday night.

While we have been prepared to look for no magnanimity from such an enemy, the affair very naturally created intense excitement and aroused the bitterest feelings of scorn and indignation in our community. This threat, however, and the exhibition of the enemy's impotent malice, have signally failed. Our people are nerved for the crisis and with calm determination have resolved on making it a struggle for life or death.

Our last report showed that the enemy for several days past had been concentrating his heaviest fire on Fort Sumter. Since then the bombardment has been incessant, the Ironsides and six Monitors alternately keeping up a steady fire on the fort and Batteries Gregg and Wagner, in connection with the furious and intermitting fire from Gillmore's land batteries. Considerable damage was inflicted during Friday and Saturday on the East or sea face of Sumter and several guns dismounted. The old fortress, however, continues to frown defiance and to be a terror to its iron clad assailants.

The city had been under siege for a year, but until the night of 21–22 August 1863 the shells had all gone at the forts. This is the Courier on the first Monday after the Swamp Angel opened on Charleston itself. “Firing, at midnight, upon the city, full of sleeping women and children” is the sentence the paper reached for, and it is worth noticing what it is arguing: not that the shelling was unbearable, but that it was illegitimate — an act “without the usual notice.” The same page prints the correspondence that made that the argument.

Persons having Oak Ashes which they are willing to dispose of, will do us a great favor by sending them to this office, for which a fair price will be paid. Any one in the country having any on hand which they will sell, or any one who is willing to undertake to collect some for us, will please make the fact known by letter. We use it, instead of Potash, for making ley to wash the ink off the type.

The blockade, measured in a newspaper's own housekeeping. There was no potash to be had in Charleston in August 1864, so the Courier advertised on its own front page for wood ashes to boil into lye to clean the type it printed the paper with. Every issue of the paper from here to the evacuation was washed with something somebody burned in a fireplace and sent in.

One hundred and fifty-nine shots have been fired at Fort Sumter, and thirty-nine, including eighteen fuse shells, at the city, since last report. The firing of the enemy Wednesday night was very slow until about half past twelve o'clock, when a very rapid and general fire, continuing till daylight, was opened upon Fort Sumter, Sullivan's Island, Batteries Simkins and Cheves. — Our batteries replied handsomely; Sullivan's Island batteries fired one hundred and nine shots; Batteries Simkins and Cheves thirty-two shots; Battery Wagner in reply fired seventy-five shots at Sullivan's Island, and forty-two at Batteries Simkins and Cheves.

The Yankee gunboat Flambeau, which has been absent from this post since the 20th instant, returned Thursday morning. She came in with all her colors flying, and it is supposed communicated the news from Farragut's fleet at Mobile, as both the Yankee fleet and land batteries at half past five o'clock yesterday afternoon fired a salute and hoisted their flags.

The enemy during the day were employed in the erection of a stockade between Batteries Gregg and Wagner, doubtless intended for a breakwater at high tides.

Private D. W. Hay, 1st S. C. Infantry, was severely wounded at Fort Sumter Thursday.

Considerable rocket signalling off the East end of Sullivan's Island has been observed among the Yankee blockaders.

The Courier kept its own siege tally, like the Mercury, and its arithmetic was better: 26 August 1864 is day 414 counting from the Morris Island landing of 10 July 1863, and that is exactly right. (The Mercury was a day behind by that November.) Three things on this one day are worth holding together: Charleston hearing the enemy's guns fire a salute and not knowing why — it was Mobile Bay, three weeks earlier; the Federals building what the paper took for a breakwater between Gregg and Wagner, which was in fact the stockade about to hold six hundred Confederate officers under Confederate fire; and Private D. W. Hay of the 1st South Carolina, severely wounded, named.

The New York Herald of the 15th inst. says: Six hundred rebel officers, prisoners of war, are to be sent to Charleston harbor in a few days. It will be remembered that the rebel authorities, after exchanging the fifty officers first placed under fire at Charleston, sent six hundred more there for the same purpose. These six hundred rebel prisoners will no doubt receive the same treatment as may be applied to Union prisoners at that place.

Charleston reading, in a New York paper, what was about to be done to six hundred of its own side. The Confederates had held fifty captured Union officers in the shelled district of the city; the Federals answered by penning six hundred Confederate officers in a stockade on Morris Island, between Batteries Gregg and Wagner, directly under the fire of the Charleston guns. They became known as the Immortal Six Hundred. On the same page, the paper's siege column reports the enemy “employed in the erection of a stockade between Batteries Gregg and Wagner, doubtless intended for a breakwater at high tides.” It had no idea what it was looking at.

A private dispatch received in this city states that the 27th South Carolina Volunteers carried into action in the fight of Sunday one hundred and sixty men, of whom only sixty were brought off. The remainder are believed to have been mostly captured. Among the captured are Lieut. Col. J. Blake and Lieut. Charles J. Macbeth, son of Mayor Macbeth. The dispatch states that our men captured the enemy's breastworks, but not being supported were nearly all made prisoners.

The 27th South Carolina was a Charleston regiment, and on 21 August 1864 at the Weldon Railroad below Petersburg it went in a hundred and sixty strong and came out with sixty. Among the captured was the mayor's son. Six months later Charles Macbeth would write out the surrender of the city in thirty-eight words.

Two of the Yankee officers violated their Hospital Parole Wednesday night, and made their escape from the Hospital, eluding the guard by climbing the fence by means of a grape vine running along the wall. A third prisoner also attempted to get away but was caught in the yard. He stated that their plan was to get off in a skiff. The other two, after being at large all day, were at length arrested by the indefatigable and energetic efforts of the Provost Marshal about six o'clock in the evening, in a house in Hasell street. The parties who were harboring them were also arrested.

Two Union officers went over the hospital wall on a grape vine, were loose in Charleston all day, and were taken that evening in a house on Hasell Street. The last sentence is the one that matters: somebody in Charleston was hiding them, and was arrested for it. The paper does not say who.

The terrible scenes through which this community has passed since our last issue can only be conceived by those who witnessed the dreadful reality. The saddest part of all is the loss of life which occurred between eight and nine o'clock Saturday morning from an accidental explosion of powder and the blowing up of the Northeastern Rail Road Depot. About one hundred and fifty persons, including men, women and children, were either instantly killed or perished in the flames, and about two hundred wounded. Of the immense destruction of property no estimate can be formed, but will amount to several millions.

Early Saturday morning before the retirement of General Hardee's troops every building, warehouse or shed, stored with cotton, was fired by a guard detailed for the purpose. The engines were brought out, but with the small force at the disposal of the Fire Department, very little else could be done than to keep the surrounding buildings from igniting. On the Western side of the city the conflagration raged with great fury.

On the wharf of the Savannah Rail Road Depot, several hundred bales of cotton were awaiting shipment on blockade runners; also, several thousand bushels of rough rice. On Lucas street, leading to the depot, was a long shed containing twelve hundred bales of cotton, which, together with several other sheds and buildings filled with cotton, belonging to private parties, fell a prey to the flames. Lucas' Mill, containing some thirty thousand bushels of rice, and R. T. Walker's warehouse at the foot of Broad-street, filled with commissary stores, were also destroyed.

The Courier came out on Monday, 20 February 1865, two days after the Federals walked in — the same press, the same masthead, the same issue number sequence, No. 20,001. The Mercury was gone; the Courier simply kept printing. This is its account of the last hours of Confederate Charleston, and it puts the explosion at the Northeastern Depot first, ahead of everything: about a hundred and fifty killed and two hundred wounded, most of them civilians, many of them children who had come to scavenge the spilled powder. The cotton was fired on Hardee's order by a guard detailed for the purpose; the city burned because the army that was leaving set it alight.

A committee, consisting of Aldermen Gilliland and Williams, to proceed to Morris' Island, informing the commanding officer there of the evacuation of the city. The following is a copy:

[COPY OF LETTER OF MAYOR MACBETH TO THE GENERAL COMMANDING THE ARMY OF THE UNITED STATES AT MORRIS' ISLAND.]

To the General Commanding the Army of the United States at Morris' Island:

Sir: — The military authorities of the Confederate States have evacuated this city. I have remained to enforce law and preserve order, until you take such steps as you may think best.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

CHARLES MACBETH, Mayor.

The boat, with a white flag, containing the Aldermen, was observed approaching by Colonel Bennett, who started to meet it, and in the interview which followed in the stream, the reply below was made to the Mayor's communication:

[COPY OF LETTER OF COL. BENNETT TO MAYOR OF CHARLESTON.]

HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES FORCES, CHARLESTON HARBOR, Near Atlantic Wharf, February 18, 1865.

Mayor Charles Macbeth:

I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your communication of this date.

I have in reply thereto to state that the troops under my command will render every possible assistance to your well disposed citizens in extinguishing the fires now burning.

I have the honor to be, Mayor, Very respectfully, Your obedient servant,

A. G. BENNETT, Lieut. Col. Commanding U. S. Forces, Charleston.

The landing of the United States troops was effected in the most orderly manner. Detachments were at once sent to take charge of all the public buildings and depots. The Arsenal was taken possession of a little before twelve o'clock, just in time to save the buildings. The citizens in the neighborhood had nearly all left in terror on the report that the Arsenal was to be blown up at twelve, and a wagon loaded with lightwood for the purpose of firing arrived in the vicinity a few moments before the Federals. Had the latter been a little later the results might have proved most disastrous.

Four years, ten months and five days after the first shell, this is the surrender of Charleston, printed in Charleston. Two aldermen rowed out under a white flag; Lieutenant Colonel Augustus G. Bennett of the 21st United States Colored Troops came to meet them, and the two letters were exchanged in mid-stream. Mayor Macbeth's is thirty-eight words long. Bennett's first act on paper was to offer help putting out the fires the departing army had set. The regiments that took possession of the city were Black.

Persons having notices intended for publication in the Courier must hand them in before seven o'clock in the evening, as it is necessary for us to close at that hour.

The Courier will not be served by carriers after this morning. Those who desire copies must send to the Office. Such subscribers as have paid in advance will only be supplied, and they are requested to call at the Office with their receipts.

Two housekeeping notices at the top of the first column, on the first morning of the occupation. No carriers — there was no longer a delivery round to run, and half the subscribers had gone. Come to the office, and bring your receipt. A newspaper deciding, on the day its country ended, what to do about the paper round.