Richmond Enquirer
April 20, 1861
There are some curious coincidences in South Carolina history, between past and present, which deserve remembrance. South Carolina was the first of the Colonies to declare an independent State Constitution in the days of the Revolution. South Carolina was the first State to secede from the late Confederacy and declare an independent Constitution. South Carolina was the first State in the Revolution of 1776 to beat the enemy. This was done in Charleston harbor. South Carolina was the first of the seceding States in 1861 to obtain a triumph over the Abolition invader and usurper, and again in Charleston harbor! All the fights in the Revolution in 1776—Lexington and Bunker Hill—were American defeats. That of Fort Moultrie was a victory! Fort Moultrie in 1776 set fire to the British vessels. The same fortress had a large part in firing Fort Sumter. South Carolina at the close of the Revolution, had been so liberal that she was the largest creditor State in the Confederacy at the end of the war. At the present moment her expenditures far exceed those of any one State in the Southern Confederacy, and this without including those large annual expenditures for ordnance and arms which she began in 1832, and which, perhaps, has found her, in the present conflict, better prepared for battle than any of her sister States.
There is one point of great importance, in which the coincidence utterly fails. In 1776, her people, half of whom were born in Great Britain, and had only recently come to this country, were nearly equally divided. Now, she stands erect, ready to meet the enemy, with united columns; her people all feeling and prepared as one man! In 1776, she could only bring, all told, about 12,000 men into the field; now she can bring 60,000.—And such men! a land fight would show; and, if our brave boys do not utterly drive the invaders into the sea, we shall be greatly disappointed in the souls and sinews that now keep guard over our islands. A more wanton invasion, more brutal, without right and reason, was never exhibited in history! And our boys are defending their homes, their firesides, their women and children, against a foe who has been slandering, reviling, and robbing us for more than thirty years! If we do not give a good account of these wretches now, it will be because they will be chary to offer us the opportunity. We have to revenge the wrongs of thirty years. And the brood of MOULTRIE, MARION, SUMTER and PICKENS, will furnish us with new coincidences!