January 28, 1861, The Charleston Mercury
(From the Washington Correspondent of the Baltimore Exchange.)
I have been permitted to peruse a very interesting letter from Lieutenant DOUBLEDAY, of Fort Sumter, received last night, in which he says:
“While the leaders are becoming more pacific the mob is becoming more outrageous and ungovernable. I hear they are loud in threats about me. They say there may be some excuse for other officers, as they are supposed to be Southern men performing a duty disagreeable to them, but I am an open Republican and enemy. Some influential Southern men have written to Governor Pickens that this refusal to allow us to hold any communication with the city, and his interference with our mails, has made South Carolina enemies in many Southern States, and he has been urged to relax his severity. We have been living on our rations and a few vegetables laid in for Capt. Foster’s workmen, who went away; and yet the MERCURY has the impudence to say we are fed by them. We have received no supplies of any kind from Charleston, with the single trifling exception of a box of candles smuggled in. If Major Anderson is allowed the privilege of contracting for fresh meats, as is done everywhere in the army, he will exercise it, but if it is proposed as a present for South Carolina, he will not receive it. The country people who never saw a gun or a fort, who have no education, and own little property, are raving mad to attack us.
“We may be too incredulous, but feel no apprehension, and don’t believe the fort can be taken. Day before yesterday the Carolinians landed two or three mortars on Cummings Point, on the nearest point of land for attacking the fort. There is not a particle of truth in the story of a mutiny. It was started in Charleston to induce the Government to surrender this place. There has been no prisoners in the guard house for a long time. The men are behaving admirably, are in good spirits, full of fun, and spoiling for a fight. As for surrendering, under any circumstances, they never dreamed of it. You need pay no attention to any thing you see in the Charleston papers in reference to our affairs. If you reflect that when a boat comes with a white flag from Charleston, that none of our men are allowed to communicate with it, you will readily see that all their stories about us are mere inventions. The men bear their privations and severe guard duty very cheerfully. They miss their tobacco more than any thing else.
“P.S. – Two steamboats were on the watch over us all night, one in the direction of the bar and the other towards Charleston.”
This is the substance of the letter which is dated the evening of the 20th. It gives a closer insight into matter concerning which there have been many contradictory statements.