In ten minutes every one
was aware that the iron-clads which were to annihilate Charleston had
recoiled, beaten and wounded. My mate rejoiced greatly after his
saturnine fashion, and I--the fullness of listlessness being not
yet--felt a brief glow of satisfaction. Others were more demonstrative.
Loud came the paean of the warlike priest through our mural
speaking-trumpet; while the sturdy soldier on the left, after hearing
the news, and taking a trough-full of "old rye," expressed himself "good
for two months more of gaol." Some one at a lower window began to sing,
softly at first, the National Anthem of the South; then voice after
voice joined in, in spite of sentinels' warnings, till the full volume
of the defiant chorus rolled out, ringingly:
"Hurrah! hurrah! for Southern rights, hurrah!
One cheer more for the bonnie blue flag
That carries a Single Star."
On the whole, I think that Sunday evening passed more rapidly than any
that I can chronicle here.
The newspapers, for the next few days, were rather amusing. The
well-practiced Republican apologists exhausted their ingenuity in
endeavoring to explain away the reverse. It was an experiment--a
reconnaissance on a large scale--anything you please but a repulse. But
the facts hemmed them in remorselessly; at last, in their desperation,
they fell fiercely, not only on their Democratic opponents, but on each
other.
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