Anderson went in the leading boat. Lieutenant Meade, the engineer in charge of the works at Castle Pinckney, had charge of the second, and Captain Doubleday of the third. When half-way across, Doubleday’s boat came unexpectedly in the path of one of the patrol boats, the _General Clinch_, which was towing a schooner to sea. The men were ordered to take off their coats and cover their muskets. The steamer stopped, but in the twilight, and with the resemblance of the boat and its load of men to the usual parties of workmen, suspicion was not aroused, and the steamer resumed her way without questioning. She had been anxiously watched from Moultrie, and had she interfered would have been fired upon by a thirty-two-pounder, two of which had been loaded with that intent. Captain Foster, with Assistant Surgeon Crawford, a Mr. Moall, four non-commissioned officers, and seven privates, had been left at Moultrie to spike the guns, burn the gun-carriages, and hew down the flag-staff.[167] On reaching Sumter, the workmen, some hundred and fifty, swarmed to the wharf, some feebly cheering, many angrily demanding the reason for the presence of the soldiers; many of the workmen wore the secession cockade; the malecontents (a number of whom shortly returned to Charleston) quickly gave way before the bayonets of Doubleday’s men, who at once occupied the main entrance and guard-room; sentries were posted and the fort was under military control. Boats were now sent back for Captain Seymour’s company, which arrived without interference, and the whole force, except the few detailed to remain at Moultrie, was in Sumter before eight o’clock, at which hour Anderson wrote the Adjutant-General, reporting that he had “just completed, by the blessing of God, the removal to this fort of all my garrison.... The step which I have taken was, in my opinion, necessary to prevent the effusion of blood.”[168] On the firing of the signal-guns at Moultrie, Lieutenant Hall left the west side of the bay with the two lighters carrying the men’s families and stores, and reached Sumter under sail.