The preparations completed, at sunset on December 26, the troops, who had equipped themselves in the twenty minutes allowed them, were silently marched out of Fort Moultrie and passed through the little village of Moultrieville, which lay between the fort and the point of embarkation. The march was fortunately made without observation, and the men took their places in rowboats which promptly started on their momentous voyage. After several narrow escapes from being stopped by the omnipresent guard boats, which were deceived into supposing the troop boats to contain only laborers in charge of officers, the party reached Fort Sumter. Here they found crowds of laborers, who were at work, at the Government's expense, preparing Sumter to be handed over to the Southern league. These men, most of them from Baltimore, were nearly all secessionists, and had already refused to man the fort as soldiers for its defence. They showed some opposition to the landing of the troops, but were promptly driven inside the fort at the point of the bayonet, and were presently shipped on board the supply schooners and sent ashore, where they communicated to the secession authorities the news of Major Anderson's clever ruse. The signal gun was fired from Sumter, the supplies were landed, and Fort Sumter was in the hands of the loyal men who were to immortalize their names by their heroic defence of it. [Illustration: MAJOR ANDERSON AND OFFICERS DEFENDING FORT SUMTER. Capt. T. Seymour. 1st Lieut. G. W. Snyder. 1st Lieut. J. C. Davis. 2d Lieut. R. K. Meade. 1st Lieut. T. Talbot. Capt. A. Doubleday. Major R. Anderson. Surg. S. W. Crawford. Capt. J. G. Foster.] [Illustration: GUSTAVUS V. FOX, Commanding the Relief Expedition to Fort Sumter; afterward Assistant Secretary of the Navy.]