Fort Moultrie, S. C,
December 19, 1860.
My Dear Friend,
A word or two about my position, and so on. As soon as I had
time to inspect my position and ascertain the feeling and temper of the people
here, I found that to enable me to comply with my orders to defend this fort,
it was absolutely necessary that more troops and ordnance stores must be sent.
And I recommended that they should be sent at once. The Government has, as you
see it stated, declined for prudential reasons to send them, and I must now do
the best I can. This fort is a very weak one in its capacity of being defended;
it is surrounded by houses that I cannot burn or destroy until I am certain
that I am to be attacked, and I shall not be certain of it until the South
Carolinians are in possession; but I have so little ammunition that I cannot
waste it in destroying houses. And again, within 160 yards from the walls are
piles of sand-hills, some of them higher than our fort, which will give the
best and safest shelter for sharpshooters, who may pick off in a short time our
band of sixty men — all we have.
SOURCE: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 70
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