reach the third plank on the angles, and about fifteen feet from the ground, my barrow rolled off, and down came sand, barrow, and myself to the ground below.  I could have cried with shame and mortification, for my misfortune created much merriment for the good natured workers.  But it mortified me to death to think I was not man enough to fill a soldier’s place.  My good coworker and brother soldier exchanged the shovel for the barrow with me, and then began the first day’s work I had ever done of that kind.  Hour after hour passed, and I used the shovel with a will.  It looked as if night would never come.  At times I thought I would have to sink to the earth from pure exhaustion, but my pride and youthful patriotism, animated by the acts of others, urged me on.  Great blisters formed and bursted in my hand, beads of perspiration dripped from my brow, and towards night the blood began to show at the root of my fingers.  But I was not by myself; there were many others as tender as myself.  Young men with wealthy parents, school and college boys, clerks and men of leisure, some who had never done a lick of manual labor in their lives, and would not have used a spade or shovel for any consideration, would have scoffed at the idea of doing the laborious work of men, were now toiling away with the farmer boys, the overseers’ sons, the mechanics—­all with a will—­and filled with enthusiasm that nothing short of the most disinterested patriotism could have endured.  There were men in companies raised in Columbia, Charleston, and other towns, who were as ignorant and as much strangers to manual labor as though they had been infants, toiling away with pick and shovel with as much glee as if they had been reared upon the farm or had been laborers in a mine.

Over about midway in the harbor stood grim old Sumter, from whose parapets giant guns frowned down upon us; while around the battlements the sentinels walked to and fro upon their beats.  All this preparation and labor were to reduce the fort or prevent a reinforcement.  Supplies had been cut off, only so much allowed as was needed for the garrison’s daily consumption.  With drill every two hours, guard duty, and working details, the soldiers had little time for rest or reflection.  Bands of music enlivened the men while on drill, and cheered them while at work by martial and inspiring strains of “Lorena,” “The Prairie Flower,” “Dixie,” and other Southern airs.  Pickets walked the beach, every thirty paces, night and day; none were allowed to pass without a countersign or a permit.  During the day small fishing smacks, their white sails bobbing up and down over the waves, dotted the bay; some going out over the bar at night with rockets and signals to watch for strangers coming from the seaward.  Days and nights passed without cessation of active operations—­all waiting anxiously the orders from Montgomery to reduce the fort.