December 4, 1860 
I am elected Commander of the South Carolina First Regiment of 
Rifles.

20 December 1860 
Today my unit was seen for the first time. We had a regimental 
parade. During the exercise I received and read the ordinance 
of secession aloud.

26 December 1860 
Major Robert Anderson, commanding the union forces in Charleston 
harbor, withdrew his small force from the unfinished Fort Moultrie 
to Fort Sumter, the most defensible of the various posts scattered 
about the harbor, spinking the guns and burning the gun carriages 
at Moultrie.

This is the first federal act that could be interpreted as overtly 
hostile in intent, and it seemed to all of us an act of bad faith.