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