Here at Charleston we were on historic ground. Just a few miles to the east of us Colonel Moultrie defended a palmetto fort manned by five hundred brave and loyal South Carolinans, against the combined land and naval forces of Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir Peter Parker, on the 28th of June 1776, and with his twenty-six cannons compelled the fleet to retire. There upon the palmetto bastion of old Fort Moultrie, the brave young Sergeant Jasper supported the Stars and Stripes under a terrible fire, and earned for himself an undying fame. Here and in this vicinity, Moultrie, Pickens, Pinckney, Lee, Green, Lincoln and Marion earned a reputation which will last as long as American history shall endure. But, alas, here too, is material for a history which does not reflect much credit on the descendants of those brave and loyal men. South Carolina was the first State to adopt an ordinance of Secession, Nov 20th, 1860. Here in Charleston Harbor, on the 9th of January 1861, the descendants of those revolutionary heroes, from the embrazures of fort Moultrie, and Castle Pinckney, fired upon the Star of the West, a United States vessel sent with supplies for the brave Anderson, who was cooped up within the walls of Fort Sumter. From these same forts, on the 12th of April, was fired the guns which compelled the surrender of Fort Sumter, and was the beginning of hostilities in the War of the Rebellion. And all this trouble had grown out of a political doctrine promulgated by an eminent South Carolinan, John C. Calhoun. But with all their bad reputation as Secessionists, the South Carolinans treated us with more kindness than did the citizens of any other States. I never heard a tantalizing or insulting word given by a South Carolina citizen or soldier to a prisoner. In the matter of low meanness, the Georgia Crackers and Clay Eaters earned the blue ribbon. On the 1st of October the detachment to which I belonged, was marched to the cars, and we were sent to Florence, one hundred miles north of Charleston on the road to Columbia. On our route, we had passed over ground made sacred by Revolutionary struggles. At Monk’s Corners, the 14th of April 1780, a British force defeated an American force. In the swamps of the Santee and Pedee Rivers General Francis Marion hid his men, and from them he made his fierce raids upon tories and British. Marion is called a “partisan leader,” in the old histories, but I suspect that in this year of grace, he would be called a “Bushwacker,” or “Guerrilla” leader. It makes a good deal of difference which side men are fighting on, about the name they are called. We arrived at the Florence Stockade in the afternoon and were marched in and assigned our position in the northeast corner, the entrance being on the west side.