But, as yet, Sumter made no reply. The artillery duel was not to be a matter of hours, and there was no hurry. Breakfast was served to officers and men, and was eaten amid a continual peppering of the fort with balls and shells from columbiads and mortars. After this refreshment the men were told off into firing parties, and the first detachment was marched to the casemates, where Capt. Abner Doubleday aimed the first gun fired on the Union side against the Southern Confederacy. It was fired appropriately against the Cummings Point battery which had begun the hostilities; and it struck its mark, but did no damage. The heaviest guns in Sumter being useless, the fort was at a disadvantage throughout the fight, from the lightness of its metal. Notwithstanding Major Anderson's orders that the barbette guns should be abandoned, Sergeant John Carmody, disappointed at the effects produced by the fire of the fort, stole out and fired, one after another, the heavy barbette battery guns. Roughly aimed, they did little mischief; but they scared the enemy, who brought all their weight to bear now on this battery. Captains Doubleday and Seymour directed the firing from Sumter, and were assisted by Lieut. J. C. Davis and Surgeon Crawford, who, having no sick in hospital, volunteered his active services, and hammered away on Fort Moultrie. By the middle of the morning the vessels of the relieving fleet, sent in pursuance of Lincoln's promise, were sighted outside the bar. Salutes were exchanged, but it was impossible for the vessels to enter the unknown, unmarked channel. This expedition was commanded by Capt. Gustavus V. Fox, afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who had fitted it out with the coöperation of patriotic civilians--G. W. Blunt, William H. Aspinwall, Russell Sturgis, and others. The vessels arriving on the morning of April 12th were the war ship _Pawnee_, under Commodore Rowan, and the transports _Baltic_ and _Harriet Lane_. The _Pocahontas_, Captain Gillis, arrived on the 13th. Knowing in advance the impossibility of entering the harbor with these vessels, a number of launches had been brought, with the intention of running in the reinforcements in these, under cover of night and protected by the guns of Sumter. Except for the delay of the _Pocahontas_, which carried the launches, this would have been attempted on the night of the 12th, when the garrison anxiously expected the new arrivals. Postponed until the 13th, it was then too late, as by that time Sumter had been surrendered. The expectation of these reinforcements, the fear of a night {16} assault by the enemy, and the difficulty of deciding whether any boats that might approach would contain friends to be welcomed or enemies to be repulsed, made the night of the 12th a most anxious one for the garrison. But neither friends nor enemies appeared, and after a breakfast of pork and water, on the morning of the 13th, a momentous day's fighting began.