ck
P.M. five of us took an impressed carriage and started for the
Charleston Hotel, to attend a reception given by General Gilmore. On
our arrival, we made a bargain with our negro driver to wait for us,
say half an hour, more or less, and then take us over to the Battery,
to General Hatch's grand military ball. But once inside, we became so
much absorbed, like little Tommy Tucker, in the supper and the toasts,
that we forgot all about our colored driver outside,--just as people
do at parties still. The following are brief extracts from the remarks
of two or three of the principal speakers.

Judge-Advocate Holt, in responding to the toast, "General Robert
Anderson," said:

"It is not uncommon for organizations in treason or in
crime, on a vast scale, to commit mistakes in the selection
of agents to accomplish their work; and no man in all
history committed a greater mistake than Floyd, in the
selection of General Anderson, on the sole ground of his
being a southern man, to command Fort Sumter. He thought to
find in him a tool of treason, but he found instead a loyal,
fearless, and true man. Those who have led great treasonable
enterprises, or great crimes, have suffered most from
mingled rage and angry fear when they discovered such
mistakes in the selection of their agents, and none suffered
more in this respect than Secretary Floyd, on hearing of the
transfer of the small but devoted garrison from Fort
Moultrie to the solid walls of Fort Sumter. There was one
man, still in the service of the government, who was with
Floyd, in the Cabinet, at the time, and could bear evidence
to the rage of the defeated traitor, and that man, with
giant brain and steadfast heart, has for three years
presided at the head of the war Department--Edwin M.
Stanton."

Major-General Abner Doubleday was called out by some remarks referring
to the part he took in the defense of Fort Sumter, and said:

"I feel to-day as if I had been present at the birth of a
new nation. I was most happy to have been present at the
impressive ceremonies this day, and glad to remember that I
dealt some blows against secession in the same place four
years ago. I never doubted then the propriety of our
resistance. I felt that the only answer to armed treason
must come from the mouth of the cannon. There is one class
of