famous little island where, nowadays, in their halo of thrilling
recollection, the walls of Sumter, rising sheer from the bosom of
the water, drowse idle. Close under the lee of Sumter, the
incoming steersman brings his ship about and chooses, probably,
the eastward of two huge tentacles of the sea between which lies
the city's long but narrow peninsula. To the steersman it shows a
skyline serrated by steeples, fronted by sea, flanked southward
by sea, backgrounded by an estuary, and looped about by a sickle
of wooded islands. This same scene, so far as city and nature
go, was beheld by the crowds that swarmed East Battery, a
flagstone marine parade along the seaward side of the boulevard
that faces Sumter; that filled the windows and even the
housetops; that watched the bombardment with the eagerness of an
audience in an amphitheater; that applauded every telling shot
with clapping of hands and waving of shawls and handkerchiefs.
The fort lay distant from them about three miles, but only some
fifteen hundred yards from Fort Johnston on one side and about a
mile from Fort Moultrie on the other. From both of these latter,
the cannon of those days were equal to the task of harassing
Sumter. Early in the morning of the 12th of April, though not
until broad day had come, did Anderson make reply. All that day,
at first under heavily rolling cloud and later through curiously
misty sunshine, the fire and counterfire continued. "The
enthusiasm and fearlessness of the spectators," says the
Charleston Mercury, "knew no bounds." Reckless observers even put
out in small boats and roamed about the harbor almost under the
guns of the fort. Outside the bar, vessels of the relieving
squadron were now visible, and to these Anderson signaled for
aid. They made an attempt to reach the fort, but only part of the
squadron had arrived; and the vessels necessary to raise the