d a resource in some
wooden sheds inside the fort, which had been used as a temporary shelter
for cement and building materials. Our position was greatly alleviated
in one respect. Owing, it is said, to the influence of Mr. Gourdin,
already referred to as a leading Secessionist, and an old friend of
Major Anderson, we were allowed to receive our mails once more. After
the _Star of the West_ affair, they probably thought we were very
harmless people, and deserved some reward for our forbearance.

CHAPTER VIII.

A RESORT TO DIPLOMACY.

Major Anderson's Proposed Diplomatic Negotiations.--Defensive
Preparations.--Changes in the Cabinet.--Meade's
Defection.--Anecdote of Governor Pickens.--Battery at Cummings
Point.--Soldiers' Families removed.--A Threatening
Letter.--Confederate Visitors to the Fort.--Organization of the
Confederate Government.

And now the Charleston statesmen concocted a plan to take away from us
all hope of succor, so that we might be induced to surrender. To this
end they determined to fill up the entrance of the harbor by depositing
stone there. Whether they really intended to do this, or made a pretense
of doing it, I never knew; but they certainly did obtain some old hulks
from Savannah, and sunk them in the channel. Either these hulks were
deposited in the wrong places, or else the tide drifted them into deep
water, for it is certain they never formed any impediment to navigation
afterward. Perhaps it was a mere _coup de theatre_, to intimidate us,
and prevent re-enforcements from attempting to come in; at all events,
it was a preliminary to a grand effort to negotiate us out of Fort
Sumter. For this purpose two representative men came over from the city
on the 11th, in the little steamer _Antelope_, under a white flag. The
party consisted of the late United States district judge, A.G. Magrath,
now Secretary of State for South Carolina, and General D.F. Jamison,
their new Secretary of War. The judge, who was the champion orator of
the State, made a long and eloquent speech, the purport of which was
that South Carolina was determined to have Fort Sumter at all hazards;
that they would pull it down with their finger-nails, if they could not
get it in any other way; that the other Southern States were becoming
excited on the subject; that President Buchanan was in his dotage; that
the government in Washington was breaking up; that all was confusion,
despair, an