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[64] of Subsistence, through Captain John M. Otey, A. A. G., showed ‘that the aggregate, present and absent, of the troops in the State of South Carolina was 25,000.’ Major Guerin was directed to make his estimates accordingly, ‘adding fifty per cent. for emergencies, and 3000 negroes.’1 It was to guard against the apprehended result of such numerical weakness that General Beauregard had demanded additional State troops of Governor Bonham, who declined to accede to his request, on the ground that, should he do so, the planting interests of the State might be materially damaged. In his reply to the Governor, General Beauregard said he ‘was alive to the sacrifices and hardships which a call on the militia would entail,’ but considered that the occasion justified him in requiring the presence of ‘every arms-bearing man’ the State could raise. His letter ended thus:
In other words, my command is much smaller than the force under General Lee, a year ago, in this State, when the hostile force at Port Royal was not more than half the one now concentrated in that vicinity.

‘With what resources I have I shall make the best battle I can, conscious that I have done all I could to enlarge those resources in all practicable ways.’

In order to prevent night reconnoissances on Morris and Sullivan's islands, General Beauregard now ordered the Commander of the First Military District to patrol the beaches of those two islands with cavalry, to be sent for that purpose from the mainland, and to see to it that Morris Island, which he thought was the more exposed to hostile incursions, should be specially guarded in that way.2 And, with the fixed determination to give no respite to the enemy, wherever he could be attacked with apparent hope of success, he assigned Lieutenant-Colonel Yates to the command of another expedition against Federal steamers which were attempting to do in Winyaw Bay what the Isaac Smith had previously done in the Stono. General Beauregard was also very anxious to try there the merit of Captain Lee's torpedo-boats, which he was having prepared for that purpose.

The more threatening the movements of the enemy appeared, the more active were General Beauregard's preparations to meet his attack. On the 23d he instructed the Commander of the First Military District, first, to confer with Commodore Ingraham in

1 See letter, in Appendix.

2 See Appendix.

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G. T. Beauregard (5)
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