While Charleston stood at gaze and Anderson at bay the ferment of
secession was working fast in Florida, where another tiny
garrison was all the Union had to hold its own. This garrison,
under two loyal young lieutenants, Slemmer and Gilman, occupied
Barrancas Barracks in Pensacola Bay. Late at night on the eighth
of January (the day before the Star of the West was fired on at
Charleston) some twenty Secessionists came to seize the old
Spanish Fort San Carlos, where, up to that time, the powder had
been kept. This fort, though lying close beside the barracks, had
always been unoccupied; so the Secessionists looked forward to an
easy capture. But, to their dismay, an unexpected guard
challenged them, and, not getting the proper password in reply,
dispersed them with the first shots of the Civil War.

Commodore Armstrong sat idle at the Pensacola Navy Yard,
distracted between the Union and secession. On the ninth Slemmer
received orders from Winfield Scott, General-in-Chief at
Washington, to use all means in defense of Union property. Next
morning Slemmer and his fifty faithful men were landed on Santa
Rosa Island, just one mile across the bay, where the dilapidated
old Fort Pickens stood forlorn. Two days later the Commodore
surrendered the Navy Yard, the Stars and Stripes were lowered,
and everything ashore fell into the enemy's hands. There was no
flagstaff at Fort Pickens; but the Union colors were at once hung
out over the northwest bastion, in full view of the shore, while
the Supply and Wyandotte, the only naval vessels in the bay, and
both commanded by loyal men, mastheaded extra colors and stood
clear. Five days afterwards they had to sail for New York; and
Slemmer, whose total garrison had been raised to eighty by the
addition of thirty sailors, was left to hold Fort Pickens if he