December 3d, Anderson placed Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis with thirty men in Castle Pinckney, and began work there. Action upon a request for arms for the workmen at Sumter and Pinckney was deferred by the War Department “for the present,” but Captain Foster going to the arsenal, December 17th, for two gins for hoisting, “to the transmission of which there was no objection,” arranged with the store-keeper that the old order of the Ordnance Department of November 1st, for forty muskets, should be complied with, which was done. “Intense excitement” as usual was reported the next day to have occurred; there was the reiteration of great danger of “violent demonstration” from a military official of the state who called upon Foster, and who stated that Colonel Huger had informed the governor that no arms should be removed. Foster declined to return the arms, stating that he knew nothing of Huger’s pledge, but was willing to refer the matter to Washington. Trescot was informed by telegraph that “not a moment’s time should be lost.” The Secretary of War was aroused in the depths of the night, and the result was a telegraphic order from Floyd himself to “return [the arms] instantly.”[158] The go-between Assistant Secretary of State, so busily engaged with affairs not his own, received from the aide-de-camp of Governor Pickens the telegram: “The Governor says he is glad of your despatch, for otherwise there would have been imminent danger. Earnestly urge that there be no transfer of troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter and inform Secretary of War.”[159] Captain Foster, explaining to the War Department, December 20, 1860, says, “when in town to see General Schnierle and allay any excitement relative to the muskets, I found to my surprise that there was no excitement except with a very few who had been active in the matter, and the majority of the gentlemen whom I met had not even heard of it.”[160]