We passed in, and wandered unwatched for half an hour about the irregular, many-angled fortress.  One-third of the interior is occupied by two brick barracks, covered with rusty stucco, and by other brick buildings, as yet incomplete, which I took to be of the nature of magazines.  On the walls, gaping landward as well as seaward, are thirty or thirty-five iron cannon, all en barbette, but protected toward the harbor by heavy piles of sand-bags, fenced up either with barrels of sand or palmetto-logs driven firmly into the rampart.  Four eight-inch columbiads, carrying sixty-four pound balls, pointed at Fort Sumter.  Six other heavy pieces, Paixhans, I believe, faced the neck of the harbor.  The remaining armament of lighter calibre, running, I should judge, from forty-twos down to eighteens.  Only one gun lay on the ground destitute of a carriage.  The place will stand a great deal of battering; for the walls are nearly bidden by the sand-covered glacis, which would catch and smother four point-blank shots out of five, if discharged from a distance.  Against shells, however, it has no resource; and one mortar would make it a most unwholesome residence.

“What’s this?” asked a volunteer, in homespun gray uniform, who, like ourselves, had come in by courtesy.

“That’s the butt of the old flag-staff,” answered a comrade.  “Cap’n Foster cut it down before he left the fort, damn him I It was a dam’ sneaking trick.  I’ve a great mind to shave off a sliver and send it to Lincoln.”

The idea of getting a bit of the famous staff as a memento struck me, and I attempted to put it in practice; but the exceedingly tough pitch-pine defied my slender pocket-knife.

“Jim, cut the gentleman a piece,” said one of the volunteers, Jim drew a toothpick a foot long and did me the favor, for which I here repeat my thanks to him.

They were good-looking, healthy fellows, these two, like most of their comrades, with a certain air of frank gentility and self-respect about them, being probably the sons of well-to-do planters.  It would be a great mistake to suppose that the volunteers are drawn, to any extent whatever, from the “poor white trash.”  The secession movement, like all the political action of the State at all times, is independent of the crackers, asks no aid nor advice of them, and, in short, ignores them utterly.

“I was here when the Star of the West was fired on,” the Lieutenant told us.  “We only had powder for two hours.  Anderson could have put us out in a short time, if he had chosen.”

“How rapidly can these heavy guns be fired?”

“About ten times an hour.”

“Do you think the defences will protect the garrison against a bombardment?”

“I think the palmetto stockades will answer.  I don’t know about that enormous pile of barrels, however.  If a shot hits the mass on the top, I am afraid it will come down, bags and barrels together, bury the gun and perhaps the gunners.”