de ought to be stopped, except for Government stores
and articles necessary for the public welfare.

After we had landed, Captain Feilden took me on board one of the new
ironclads which are being built, and which are supposed to be a great
improvement upon the Chicora and Palmetto State; these are already
afloat, and did good service last February by issuing suddenly forth,
and driving away the whole blockading squadron for one day. Last night
these two active little vessels were out to look after some blockaders
which were supposed to have ventured inside the bar.

At 5 P.M. I dined with General and Mrs Ripley. The dinner was a very
sumptuous one, for a "blockade" dinner, as General Ripley called it. The
other guests were General Jordan, Chief of the Staff to Beauregard;
General Davis, Mr Nutt, and Colonel Rhett of Fort Sumter. The latter
told me, that if the ironclads had come any closer than they did, he
should have dosed them with flat-headed bolts out of the smooth-bore
guns, which, he thinks, could travel accurately enough for 500 or 600
yards.

Mrs H---- asked me to an evening party, but the extreme badness of my
clothes compelled me to decline the invitation.

[46] As Fort Sumter must be in a very different state now to what it was
when I saw it, I think there can be no harm in describing the fort as it
then stood.--Nov. 1863.

* * * * *

_10th June_ (Wednesday).--I dined with Mr and Mrs H---- this afternoon,
and after dinner they drove me to the Battery, which is the popular
promenade. A great many well-dressed people and a few carriages were
there, but the H----s say it is nothing to what it was. Most of the
horses and carriages have been sent out of Charleston since the last
attack. Mrs H---- told me all the ladies began to move out of Charleston
on the morning after the repulse of the Monitors, the impression being
that the serious attack was about to begin. I talked to her about the
smart costumes of the negro women on Sundays; she said the only
difference between them and their mistresses is, that a mulatto woman is
not allowed to wear a veil.

* * * * *

_11th June_ (Thursday).--General Ripley took me in his boat to Morris
Island. We passed Fort Sumter on our left, and got aground for five
minutes in its immediate neighbourhood; then bearing off towards the
right, we passed Fort Cummins Point, and (after entering a narrow creek)
Fort