—A variety of plans for capturing Fort Sumter have been devised, but as yet none have been put in practice. One man thought it might be taken by floating down to the fort rafts piled with burning tar-barrels, thus attempting to smoke the American troops out as you would smoke a rabbit out of a hollow. Another was for filling bombs with prussic acid and giving each of the United States soldiers a smell. Still another supposed that the fort might be taken without bloodshed by offering to each soldier ten dollars and a speaking to. And still another thought that by erecting a barricade of cotton bales, and arming it with cannon, a floating battery might be made, which, with the aid of Forts Moultrie and Johnson, and Castle Pinckney, together with redoubts thrown up on Morris’ and Jones’ Islands, and with further assistance of an armed fleet, an attack might be made on the fort, and at some convenient point a party of sharpshooters might be stationed, who would pick off the garrison, man by man, thus giving an opportunity to a party of infantry to scale the walls of the fort. Such a storming, however, could only be accomplished by an immense sacrifice of life; and the only practicable mode of taking the fort would seem to be by a protracted siege, and by the unchristian mode of starving them.—South Carolinian.
—Major Anderson’s course was sustained in the House of Representatives to-day, by the following resolution, offered by Mr. Adrian, of New Jersey:
Resolved, That we fully approve the bold and patriotic act of Major Anderson in withdrawing from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, and the determination of the President to maintain that fearless officer in his present condition; and we will support the President in all constitutional measures to enforce the laws and preserve the Union.
—To-day the arrest of Senators Toombs and Wigfall, on the charges of treason, for sending dispatches to the South recommending the seizure of the forts, was spoken of in the Cabinet “jocularly.”
—The Alabama Convention organized at Montgomery, William M. Brooks in the chair. —Times, Jan. 8.
—The Mississippi Convention organized at Jacksonville, A. J. Barry, of Lowndes, in the chair. It was resolved that a committee of fifteen be appointed by the president, with instructions to prepare and report, as speedily as possible, an ordinance of secession, providing for the immediate withdrawal of Mississippi from the Federal Union, with a view of establishing a new Confederacy, to be composed of the seceding States.—Mobile Advertiser.
—The Governor of Virginia, in a message to the Legislature, in special session, condemns the hasty action of South Carolina, but opposes and says that “he will regard the attempt of the Federal troops to pass across Virginia for the purpose of coercing a Southern State, as an act of invasion which must be repelled.”—Times, Jan. 8.
