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| December 18, 1860 - Captain John Foster to Captain F.C. Humphreys
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 Click for full-sized scanned image Union Correspondence, etc.
FORT MOULTRIE, December 18, 1860.
F.C. HUMPHREYS, Esq.,
Military Storekeeper, Charleston Arsenal:
DEAR SIR: I have received your note of this date, begging me to return to the arsenal the forty musket which I obtained yesterday (in accordance with an order from the Ordnance Department, issued some time since), because of a threatened violent demonstration on the part of some persons of Charleston. you state that Colonel Huger, of the Ordnance (as General Schnierle asserts to you), assured the governor that no arms should be removed form the arsenal, and that as the above assurance of Colonel Huger was made subsequent to the receipt of the order for the issue of these muskets to me, you have pledge you word that they shall be returned to the arsenal to-morrow. If Colonel Huger made this pledge to the governor of this State, I presume he must have acted by the authority of the Government; but of this I have no direct knowledge. All I know is that an order was given to issue forty muskets to me, that I actually required them to protect the property of the Government against a mob, and that I have them in my possession. To give them back now, without proper authority, would subject me to blame if any loss should occur which might be prevented by keeping them. I am willing to refer the matter to Washington. I am sorry to be obliged to disappoint you and will call to assure you so to-morrow at 12 o'clock, a which time I shall be happy to meet General Schnierle, if he is disposed to see me.
Very truly, yours,
J.G. FOSTER,
Captain of Engineers.
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