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captured the town, it had decided not to let it leave its hands for lack of efficient defense.
When reaching the port, the Louisianians, seeing the stars and stripes floating defiantly in mid-harbor, had eagerly hoped to be the advance guard to tempt a salutation of the hostile guns.
In this, fate worked center.
They remained until the post was reinforced by other troops; doing little but casting longing eyes to that wave-like line of battle which eluded them at
Fort Pickens.
Fighting was to be done later on in the form of fierce cannonading between
Fort Pickens in the harbor and Confederate
Barrancas on shore, in which fighting the pioneers from
Louisiana were to have no share.
1
Even before the first troops had left New Orleans, two telegrams had flashed between the war secretary at Montgomery and G. T. Beauregard, illustrious type of the Creole, at Charleston.
The telegram we give merely because it is a question of who, in the civil war, was first counted to have ‘won his spurs.’
Accept my congratulations.
You have won your spurs.
How many guns can you spare for
Pensacola?
To which General Beauregard, now watching the fleet instead of Fort Sumter, responded:
Fleet still outside.
Can spare no guns yet, but hope to do so soon.