outerments were ready
packed for delivery to him. Foster received them, and after issuing two
muskets to the ordnance sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney,
placed the remainder in the magazines of those two forts.

[Sidenote] Humphreys to Foster, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., p. 96.

Whether the vigilance of a spy or the subservient fear or zeal of the
storekeeper gave the Charleston authorities information of this
trifling removal of arms, cannot now be ascertained. The muskets had
scarcely reached their destination when Captain Foster was astonished
by receiving a letter from the military storekeeper saying that the
shipment of the forty muskets had caused intense excitement; that
General Schnierle, the Governor's principal military officer, had
called upon him, with the declaration that unless the excitement could
be allayed some violent demonstration would be sure to follow; that
Colonel Huger had assured the Governor that no arms should be removed
from the arsenal. He (Captain Humphreys) had pledged his word that the
forty muskets and accouterments should be returned "by to-morrow
night," and he therefore asked Captain Foster to make good his pledge.

Captain Foster wrote a temperate reply to the storekeeper, which, in
substance, he embodied in the more vigorous and outspoken report he
immediately made to the Ordnance Department at Washington: "I have no
official knowledge (or positive personal evidence either) that Colonel
Huger assured the Governor that no arms should be removed from the
arsenal, nor that, if he did so, he spoke by authority of the
Government; but on the other hand I do know that an order was given to
issue to me forty muskets; that I actually needed them to protect
Government property and the lives of my assistants, and the ordnance
sergeants under them at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney, and that I
have them in my possession. To give them up on a demand of this kind
seems to me as an act not expected of me by the Government, and as
almost suicidal under the circumstances. It would place the two forts
under my charge at the mercy of a mob. Neither of the ordnance
sergeants at Fort Sumter and Castle Pinckney had muskets until I got
these, and Lieutenants Snyder and Meade were likewise totally destitute
of arms."

[Sidenote] Foster to De Russy, Dec. 18, 1860. W.R. Vol. I., pp. 95,
96.

"I propose to refer the matter to Washington, and am to see several
gentlemen, who are promine