Fort Sumter, S. C. April 8, 1861.
General Joseph G. Totten,
Chief Engineer U. S. Army, Washington, D. C:
General: The
increased activity and vigilance of the investing force, as reported yesterday,
still continues. Three large traverses are nearly completed on the front, from
battery Nos. 3 to 5, on Morris Island, and traverses are also being erected in
the interior of battery No. 5. Additions of sand-bags are being made to the
covering of the magazine, between Nos. 2 and 3, and to the left flank of No. 1,
where I think they are constructing a service magazine.
I am busily at work constructing splinter-proof shelters on
the terreplein. I obtain timber by taking the gun-carriages to pieces, and form
the covering of the 2-inch iron pieces for embrasures, as seen below. The
plates are spiked on, so as to be securely retained in their places, even if
struck by a shell, which I am confident it will turn.
Our supplies are entirely cut off from the city, and those
on hand are very limited.
The besieging forces worked all day yesterday, whenever the
intervals between the showers of rain would allow.
Very respectfully,
your obedient servant,
J. G. Foster, Captain Engineers.
P. S. — I received yesterday a letter from the Secretary of
War to Major Anderson, which, by mistake, had been enveloped to me. I handed it
to Major Anderson without reading.
Respectfully,
&c.,
J. G. Foster, Captain Engineers.
SOURCES: Samuel Wylie Crawford, The Genesis of the
Civil War: The Story of Sumter, 1860-1861, p. 385-6
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