could.

He had already been summoned to surrender by Colonel Chase and
Captain Farrand, who had left the United States Army and Navy for
the service of the South. Chase, like many another Southern
officer, was stirred to his inmost depths by his own change of
allegiance. "I have come," he said, "to ask of you young
officers, officers of the same army in which I have spent the
best and happiest years of my life, the surrender of this fort;
and fearing that I might not be able to say it as I ought, and
also to have it in proper form, I have put it in writing and will
read it." He then began to read. But his eyes filled with tears,
and, stamping his foot, he said: "I can't read it. Here, Farrand,
you read it." Farrand, however, pleading that his eyes were weak,
handed the paper to the younger Union officer, saying, "Here,
Gilman, you have good eyes, please read it." Slemmer refused to
surrender and held out till reinforced in April, by which time
the war had begun in earnest. Fort Pickens was never taken. On
the contrary, it supported the bombardment of the Confederate
longshore positions the next New Year (1869.) and witnessed the
burning and evacuation of Pensacola the following ninth of May.

While Charleston and Pensacola were fanning the flames of
secession the wildfire was running round the Gulf, catching well
throughout Louisiana, where the Governor ordered the state
militia to seize every place belonging to the Union, and striking
inland till it reached the farthest army posts in Texas. In all
Louisiana the Union Government had only forty men. These occupied
the Arsenal at Baton Rouge under Major Haskins. Haskins was
loyal. But when five hundred state militiamen surrounded him, and