February 28, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
Charleston or Savannah, or both, are now awaiting, breathless, the onslaught of the greatest war fleet ever seen in our hemisphere. The crisis is upon them. Many a beating heart longs and burns to be with the envied defenders of those cities, under command of the heroic and devoted Beauregard, this day. Many a Confederate soldier would make a present of ten years of dull existence in exchange for […..] crowded hour of glorious life’ under our flag upon those forts and batteries, and under the eye of such a chief.
Charleston has envied Richmond; Savannah has been kept from her sleep by the fame of Vicksburg. Their garrisons, lying idly in their quarters, have pined that they were not sharers in the passage of arms at Fredericksburg, when the Georgian Lawton stood the battle brunt with his brigade, and Maxey Gregg poured out the last drop of his noble blood for the independence of South Carolina! At last those slighted cities have their turn; those injured soldiers receive attention. Do not their hearts leap up at the summons to the battle? Will they not make the names of Charleston and Savannah names of terror to the craven Yankee heart from this day to the ending of the world?
We know not accurately what number of iron clad ships the enemy have got in their armada; but they will have no use for anything short of iron clads in face of our forts. Charleston and Savannah have both had time for preparation. They have both long known that they were coveted objects of the foe. Charleston, above all, that first, in that hour of Fate, struck down the felon flag of the Yankees, and rang, through the throat of cannon, the death knell of a foul and rotten Union – Charleston is the choicest morsel to glut the dearest vengeance of the Puritan heart. May God fight for the gallant city! A smashing defeat of the armada in those waters now, would almost – we think – make the affectionate soul of the gentle Northwest turn a little more to thoughts of peace. Every ship of the […..] sunk, will give rise to a constitutional scruple in the Democratic conscience. The disgrace of their striped rag will make them feel that our friendship must be cultivated, and that their own war debt is a thing to be repudiated. Diplomatize for us, then, ye bullets of Sumter! Soothe our great Northwest for us, ye batteries of Beauregard!
RICHMOND ENQUIRER.