over with Major Jones (who
was chief-of-staff to Beauregard, and adjutant-general of the
Provisional Army), to settle the details of the evacuation. There was
some difficulty about permitting us to salute our flag; but that, too,
was finally conceded. In case we held out for another day, the rebels
had made arrangements to storm the fort that night.

During all these operations, our officers and men behaved with great
gallantry. Hall, Snyder, and Meade had never been under fire before, but
they proved themselves to be true sons of their Alma Mater at West
Point.

The first contest of the war was over, and had ended as a substantial
victory for the Secessionists. They had commenced the campaign naked and
defenseless; but the General Government had allowed them time to levy an
army against us, and we had permitted ourselves to be surrounded with a
ring of fire, from which there was no escape. Nor had we employed to the
fullest extent all our available means of defense. No attempt had ever
been made to use the upper tier of guns, which contained our heaviest
metal, and which, from its height, overlooked the enemy's works, and
was, therefore, the most efficient part of our armament. Although the
fire of our columbiads, under ordinary circumstances, could not quite
reach the city, we had arranged one of them to point upward at the
maximum angle. As the carriage would not admit of this, the gun was
taken off, and made to rest on a bed of masonry. Seymour and myself
thought, by loading it with eccentric shells, we could increase the
range of the guns so that the balls would reach that part of Charleston
which was nearest to us; but we were not allowed to use the gun at all.
It seemed to me there was a manifest desire to do as little damage as
possible.

About eighteen hundred shot had been fired into Fort Sumter, and the
upper story was pretty well knocked to pieces. To walk around the
parapet, we had constantly to climb over heaps of debris. With all this
expenditure of ammunition, we had but one man dangerously wounded. This
was John Schweirer, foreman of the Baltimore brick-layers. He was struck
by a piece of shell while standing near the open parade-ground. So long
as our men fought in the lower casemates, which were shell-proof, the
vertical fire could not reach them; and by drilling them to step one
side of the embrasure whenever they saw the flash of a gun opposite,
they escaped the danger of being struck by any ball