“What if Sumter should open now?” I suggested.

“We should be here to help,” answered the Georgian.

“We should be here to run away,” amended my comrade from Brooklyn.

“Well, I suppose we should be of mighty little use, and might as well clear out,” was the sober second-thought of the Georgian.

Having satisfied our curiosity, we thanked the Lieutenant and left Fort Moultrie.  The story of our visit to it excited much surprise, when we recounted it in the city.  Members of the Legislature and other men high in influence had desired the privilege, but had not applied for it, expecting a repulse.

A walk down a winding street, bordered by scattered cottages, inclosed by brown board-fences or railings, and tracked by a horse-railroad built for the Moultrie House, led us to the ferry-wharf, where we found our baggage piled together, and our fellow-passengers wandering about in a state of bored expectation.  Sullivan’s Island in winter is a good spot for an economical man, inasmuch as it presents no visible opportunities of spending money.  There were houses of refreshment, as we could see by their signs; but if they did business, it was with closed doors and barred shutters.  After we had paid a newsboy five cents for the “Mercury,” and five more for the “Courier,” we were at the end of our possibilities in the way of extravagance.  At half-past one arrived the ferry-boat with a few passengers, mostly volunteers, and a deck-load of military stores, among which I noticed Boston biscuit and several dozen new knapsacks.  Then, from the other side, came the “dam’ nigger,” that is to say, the drummer of the new shoes, beating his sheepskin at the head of about fifty men of the Washington Artillery, who were on their way back to town from Fort Moultrie.  They were fine-looking young fellows, mostly above the middle size of Northerners, with spirited and often aristocratic faces, but somewhat more devil-may-care in expression than we are accustomed to see in New England.  They poured down the gangway, trailed arms, ascended the promenade-deck, ordered arms, grounded arms, and broke line.  The drill struck me as middling, which may be owing to the fact that the company has lately increased to about two hundred members, thus diluting the old organization with a large number of new recruits.  Military service at the South is a patrician exercise, much favored by men of “good family,” more especially at this time, when it signifies real danger and glory.

Our rajpoots having entered the boat, we of lower caste were permitted to follow.  At two o’clock we were steaming over the yellow waters of the harbor.  The volunteers, like everybody else in Charleston, discussed Secession and Fort Sumter, considering the former as an accomplished fact, and the latter as a fact of the kind called stubborn.  They talked uniform, too, and equipments, and marksmanship, and drinks, and cigars, and other military matters.