d to Fort Johnston on the
south side of the harbor and gave the order to fire.

The council of the aides at Sumter is the dramatic detail that has
caught the imagination of historians and has led them, at least in some
cases, to yield to a literary temptation. It is so dramatic--that
scene of the four young men holding in their hands, during a moment
of absolute destiny, the fate of a people; four young men, in the
irresponsible ardor of youth, refusing to wait three days and forcing
war at the instant! It is so dramatic that one cannot judge harshly
the artistic temper which is unable to reject it. But is the incident
historic? Did the four young men come to Sumter without definite
instructions? Was their conference really anything more than a careful
comparing of notes to make sure they were doing what they were intended
to do? Is not the real clue to the event a message from Beauregard to
the Secretary of War telling of his interview with the pilots? *

* A chief authority for the dramatic version of the council
of the aides is that fiery Virginian, Roger A. Pryor. He and
another accompanied the official messengers, the signers of
the note to Anderson, James Chestnut and Stephen Lee. Years
afterwards Pryor told the story of the council in a way to
establish its dramatic significance. But would there be
anything strange if a veteran survivor, looking back to his
youth, as all of us do through more or less of mirage
yielded to the unconscious artist that is in us all and
dramatized this event unaware?

Dawn was breaking gray, with a faint rain in the air, when the first
boom of the cannon awakened the city. Other detonations followed in
quick succession. Shells rose into the night from both sides of the
harbor and from floating batteries. How lightly Charleston slept that
night may be inferred from the accounts in the newspapers. "At the
report of the first gun," says the Courier, "the city was nearly emptied
of its inhabitants who crowded the Battery and the wharves to witness
the conflict."

The East Battery and the lower harbor of the lovely city of Charleston
have been preserved almost without alteration. What they are today they
were in the breaking dawn on April 12, 1861. Business has gone up the
rivers between which Charleston lies and has left the point of the
city's peninsula, where East Battery looks outward to the Atlantic,
in its perfect charm. Ther