nship, and drinks, and cigars,
and other military matters. Now and then an awkwardly folded blanket was
taken from the shoulders which it disgraced, refolded, packed carefully
in its covering of India-rubber, and strapped once more in its place,
two or three generally assisting in the operation. Presently a firing at
marks from the upper deck commenced. The favorite target was a conical
floating buoy, showing red on the sunlit surface of the harbor, some
four hundred yards away. With a crack and a hoarse whiz the minie-balls
flew towards it, splashing up the water where they first struck and then
taking two or three tremendous skips before they sank. A militiaman from
New York city, who was one of my fellow-passengers, told me that he
"never saw such good shooting." It seemed to me that every sixth ball
either hit the buoy full, or touched water but a few yards this side of
it, while not more than one in a dozen went wild.

"It is good for a thousand yards," said a volunteer, slapping his
bright, new piece, proudly.

A favorite subject of argument appeared to be whether Fort Sumter ought
to be attacked immediately or not. A lieutenant standing near me talked
long and earnestly regarding this matter with a civilian friend,
breaking out at last in a loud tone,--

"Why, good Heaven, Jim! do you want that place to go peaceably into the
hands of Lincoln?"

"No, Fred, I do not. But I tell you, Fred, when that fort is attacked,
it will be the bloodiest day,--the bloodiest day!--the bloodiest----!!"

And here, unable to express himself in words, Jim flung his arms wildly
about, ground his tobacco with excitement, spit on all sides, and walked
away, shaking his head, I thought, in real grief of spirit.

We passed close to Fort Pinckney, our volunteers exchanging hurrahs with
the garrison. It is a round, two-storied, yellow little fortification,
standing at one end of a green marsh known as Shute's Folly Island.
What it was put there for no one knows: it is too close to the city to
protect it; too much out of the harbor to command that. Perhaps it might
keep reinforcements for Anderson from coming down the Ashley, just as
the guns on the Battery were supposed to be intended to deter them from
descending the Cooper.

On the wharf of the ferry three drunken volunteers, the first that I had
seen in that condition, brushed against me. The nearest one, a handsome
young fellow of six feet two, half turned to stare back at me wit