ment from the Chatham Artillery at all times, however, constituting a portion of the garrison. Thus each citizen soldier was required to perform his quantum of military service, and had still the opportunity of attending to his professional and domestic affairs. The pressure of actual war was not then upon the land, although the shadows of the gathering storm were daily growing larger and blacker.

It was a novel and interesting sight to observe men of position and of wealth, of ease and of leisure, willingly abandoning the allurements of home, and, filled with the patriotic resolve cheerfully to do every thing which might conduce to the general welfare in this the trying period of a young nation's primal agony, in coarse flannel shirts, with arms black and greasy to the shoulder, trundling wheel barrows, cleaning cannon, distributing ammunition, mounting, dismounting, and shifting guns, toiling for long consecutive hours in the performance of laborious dutiesat other times, in neat uniform, with zeal and alacrity acquiring the drill-and again, with equal cheerfulness performing guard duty upon the ramparts, whether the moon beamed brightly upon the placid tide, or the bleak northeast wind came howling with drenching showers from the cold Atlantic.

After the lapse of four years of privations, and struggles, and battles, and wounds, and exposures, and dangers, than which the history of wars the most gigantic in their proportions and the most hazardous in their enterprises furnishes none more remarkable, we may look back with a smile upon these early days of martial toil and training; but the remembrance of them is manly with patriotic ardor, and redolent of that devotion to country which has in all ages been ranked second only to obedience to God.

A large force of negroes, whose labor was freely contributed by their owners, was, at the earliest practicable moment, busily employed in cleaning out the moat and ditches of the fort (which had been to a very considerable depth filled by deposits from the tide), and in other heavy and necessary work upon Cockspur island.

While a detachment of the Artillery was thus constantly on duty at Pulaski, the members of the company in the city of Savannah were engaged, at stated hours, in the gun-room at Armory Hall, in making fuzes and in the preparation of such ordnance stores as were required not only by the field guns, but also, as far as practicable, for general use at the fort. It is a matter worthy of record, that for several months after the occupation of Pulaski, a large proportion of the fuzes issued to that fort, was manufactured by the Chatham Artillery; and it is an interesting fact, so carefully were they prepared, that they compared favorably with those obtained at later periods from the best Confederate arsenals.

Being the only thoroughly equipped artillery company at that time within the limits of Georgia, and there having existed for nearly three-quarters of a century a peculiar pride of organization which induced both officers and men in time of peace to familiarize themselves with at least the most important details connected with the drill and general economy of the Battery, and simple ordnance duties, it came to pass that at the inception of our revolution, through the exertions of this company, many valuable supplies were furnished which could not at the time be either elsewhere or immediately obtained.

To Capt. Claghorn, then commanding the company, especial credit is due for the energy, intelligence, and

patriotism with which he devoted his time, attention, and means to the company, its instruction and equipment, and to the performance of other duties most valuable to the state.

The activity of the gun room and of the yard at Armory Hall, during this period, will be long remembered.

The cartridge bags for the heavy guns at the fort, and for this Field Battery, were most of them furnished at the fair hands of the daughters of Savannah, who, from the very inception of our difficulties, freely contributed their smiles, their precious words of encouragement, their sacred prayers, and their actual labors to cheer and sustain the cause of truth and independence. The record of the patriotism, the heroic sufferings, the noble acts of the women of the Confederate revolution, is the brightest and the holiest in the annals of this world's history.

In the darkest hours of that protracted struggle how sublime their influence and example! The presence of their sympathy and of their aid, the potency of their prayers and of their sacrifices, the voice of their patriotism and of their devotion, the eloquence of their tears and of their smiles, were priceless in the inspiration they brought, and more effective than an army with banners.

"The maid who binds her warrior's sash,
And smiling, all her pain dissembles,
The while beneath the drooping lash
One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles;
Though heaven alone records that tear

And fame shall never know her story,
Her heart has shed a drop as dear
As ever dewed the field of glory.

The wife who girds her husband's sword,

Mid little ones who weep and wonder,
And bravely speaks the cheering word,

E'en though her heart be rent asunder;
Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear
The bolts of war around him rattle,
Has shed as sacred blood as e'er

Was poured upon the plain of battle.

The mother who conceals her grief

While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief,
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God

To know the pain that weighs upon her,
Sheds holy blood as e'er that God

Received on freedom's field of honor."

On the 18th of February Mr. Davis was inaugurated at Montgomery, Alabama, as president of the Confederacy; and on the 3d of March General Beauregard assumed the command at Charleston.

On the 7th of March the convention of Georgia, which had up to this time been holding its sessions at Milledgeville, assembled at Savannah, where communication with the country at large was more direct, and where the urgent wants and dangers of the coast could be more narrowly ascertained and provided for. Five days afterwards an invitation was extended to and accepted by the convention to visit and inspect Fort Pulaski. The record of that excursion has been preserved in the public journals of the day, and so favorably impressed were the governor and the members of the convention with the zeal, the good order,

the discipline, and the proficiency of the garrison, that the following resolutions were soon after adopted by that body:

Resolved: That the volunteer soldiers from the city of Savannah have exhibited their patriotism in the prompt, patient and efficient manner in which they have discharged their duty in garrisoning Fort Pulaski, and deserve the gratitude of their fellow citizens.

Resolved: That the thanks of the people of Georgia are hereby tendered to the various officers and their respective commands, who, in the hour of anticipated danger and invasion, promptly placed themselves under the command of the governor for the purpose of protecting and defending the honor and interest of the state.

Although by ordinance passed by the convention on the 20th of March, the control of all military operations in the state having reference to, or connection with questions between this state or any of the Confederate states of America and powers foreign to them, and the arms and munitions of war acquired from the United States, as well as the use and occupancy of all forts, arsenals, navy-yards, custom-houses, and other public sites, were solemnly transferred to the government of the Confederate States of America, some time elapsed before the Confederacy practically availed itself of the provisions of this transfer; and, during the interim, the burden of garrisoning the important post at Cockspur, and of supplying its deficiencies, devolved upon the chief magistrate of Georgia, who, with singular industry and ability, endeavored by every means at his command to respond to the repeated calls made upon the manhood and the resources of the state.