Storrs, Jr. Six deafening cheers were then given for the old flag replaced upon Sumter; and three times three for President Lincoln, General Robert Anderson, and the soldiers and sailors. And so the exercises at the fortress ended. It was fully six o'clock when all had returned to devastated Charleston. At sunset there was another grand salute from the fleet, and in the evening was witnessed the closing demonstration of the day. Nothing could be seen in the darkness until, as if by magic, at a signal from the flagship, the entire harbor for miles around was brilliantly illuminated. Every vessel and transport and monitor was ablaze with many-colored fires. Each mast and sail and rope was aglow with light. From every deck came the roar and glare of rockets, darting in quick procession to the sky, then turning and descending in showers of golden rain. Hundreds of lanterns, red, green, and white, suspended from the rigging, flashed out their starry signals over the bay, and were reflected in the waters beneath, while heavy clouds of smoke, tinged with golden radiance, rolled heavenward like ascending incense-a scene of rare enchantment. Another signal gun is heard. Every light instantly disappears. Every sound is hushed. Grim darkness again mantles the waters of the bay. The official celebration is a thing of the past, though never to be forgotten. Later that evening, at the grand military ball FORT SUMTER MEMORIAL given by General Hatch, at the Battery, General Anderson concluded some remarks he had been called upon to make, by introducing the toast, "Abraham Lincoln," with an eloquent tribute of respect and affection. Said he: "I beg you now, that you will join me in drinking the health of another man whom we all love to honor, the man who, when elected President of the United States, was compelled to reach the seat of government with an escort, but who now could travel all over our country with millions of hands and hearts to sustain him. I give you the good, the great, the honest man, Abraham Lincoln." How little dreamed the assembled guests, as the cheers twice repeated went round, that at that selfsame hour their honored President lay prostrate and dying in the National Capital from the bullet of an assassin! Tragic the whole of the circumstances of this memorable gathering at Sumter: The order from the President to celebrate the day; The fall of Richmond and Petersburg; The surrender of Lee, and the end of the Rebellion; The coming together of so many of those who had participated in the birth of the strife, at Sumter; The poetic justice of it all; And, when his work was finished and the nation re-united, the martyrdom of the Nation's Chief, who had so endeared himself to all by his patience, wisdom and sympathy under heart-rending trials, and whose most fitting epitaph is his memorable utterance just previous to the fall of Richmond: "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, and do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Tragic indeed was it all! And may the American nation, on the way to its manifest destiny-the very pinnacle of culture and well-being-ever reflect the beneficent spirit of Lincoln, and ever remember at what sacrifice of precious blood and treasure "Liberty and Union," the nation's epigraph of power and possibility, were maintained as symbolized by "replacing the flag upon Sumter." |