A great and exultant cheer went up from the massed thousands in
Charleston. A smile passed over Beauregard's swarthy face and he showed
his white teeth. Colonel Leonidas Talbot regarded the white flag with
feelings in which triumph and sadness were mingled strangely. But
the emotions of Harry and his comrades were, for the moment, those of
victory only.
Boats put out both from the fort and the shore. Discipline was relaxed
now, and Harry, St. Clair and Langdon went outside the battery. A light
breeze had sprung up, and it was very grateful to Harry, who for hours
had breathed the heavy odors of smoke and burned gunpowder. The smoke
itself, which had formed a vast cloud over harbor, forts and city, was now drifting out to sea, leaving all things etched sharply in the dazzling sunlight of a Southern spring day.
"Well, old Wait-and-See, you have waited, and you have seen," said
Langdon to Harry. "That white flag and those boats going out mean that
Sumter is ours. Everything is for the best and we win everywhere and
all the time."
Harry was silent. He was watching the boats. But the negotiations were
soon completed. Sumter, a mass of ruins, was given up, and the Star and
Bars, taking the place of the Stars and Stripes, gaily snapped defiance
to the whole North. "It begins to look well there," said Beauregard, gazing proudly at the new flag.
All the amenities were preserved between the captured garrison and their
captors. Anderson was sent to the Baltic, which still hovered outside, and the Union vessels disappeared on their way back to the North. Peace, but now the peace of triumph, settled again over Charleston, and throughout the South went the joyous tidings that Sumter had been taken. The great state of Virginia, Mother of Presidents, went out of the Union at last, and North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed her, but Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri still hung in the balance.
Lincoln had called for volunteers to put down a rebellion, but Harry
heard everywhere in Charleston that the Confederacy was now secure. The Southerners were rising by the thousands to defend it. The women, too, were full of zeal and enthusiasm and they urged the men to go to the front. With the full consent of the lower South the capital was to be moved from Montgomery to Richmond, the capital of Virginia, on the very border of the Confederacy, to look defiantly, as it were, across at Washington over a space which was to become the vast battlefield of America, although few then dreamed it. The progress of President Davis to the new capital, set in the very face of the foe, was to be one huge triumph of faith and loyalty.
Harry heard nothing in Charleston but joyful news. There was not a
single note of gloom. Europe, which must have its cotton, would favor
the success of the South. Women who had never worked before, sewed
night and day on clothing for the soldiers. Men gave freely and without
asking to the new government. An extraordinary wave of emotion swept
over the South, carrying everybody with it. Charleston shouted anew as
the newspapers announced the news of distinguished officers who had gone
out with the Southern States. There were the two Johnstons, the one of
Virginia and the other of Kentucky; Lee, Bragg, of Buena Vista fame; Longstreet, and many others, some already celebrated in the Mexican War, and others with a greater fame yet to make.
Harry heard it all and it was transfused into his own blood. Now a
letter came from his father. That obstinate faction in Kentucky still
held the state to the Union. Since Sumter had fallen and Charleston was
safe, he wished his son to rejoin him in Pendleton, whence they would
proceed together to Frankfort, and help the Southern party. His
personal account of the glowing deed that had been done in Charleston
harbor would help. He was sure that his old friend, General Beauregard, would release him for this important duty.
Harry's heart and judgment alike responded to the call. He took the
letter to General Beauregard, finding him at the Charleston Hotel with
Governor Pickens and officers of his staff, and stood aside while the
general read it. Beauregard at once wrote an order.