that an attack was to be made somewhere to-night, and also that it would not be safe for me to go to town again for some time.

Returning, I brought my family to Fort Sumter, as all guard was with-drawn. At about 4 o'clock a steamer landed an armed force at Castle Pinckney, and effecting an entrance by scaling the walls with ladders, took forcible possession of the work. Lieutenant Meade was suffered to withdraw to this fort.

Soon after dark two steamers landed an armed force at Fort Moultrie, and took forcible possession of that work. While in town the Palmetto flag was hoisted on the custom-house and saluted. Two companies were ordered to surround the arsenal. The movement of Major Anderson was made upon a firm conviction that an attack would be made, and that Fort Sumter would be seized first. In haste.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. G. FOSTER,

Captain of Engineers.

[Indorsement.]

DECEMBER 31, 186O

Read the within to Lieutenant-General Scott this morning.

H. G. W.

WASHINGTON, December 28, 1860.

The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

SIR: We have the honor to transmit to you a copy of the full powers from the Convention of the People of South Carolina, under which we are "authorized and empowered to treat with the Government of the United States for the delivery of the forts, magazines, light houses, and other real estate with their appurtenances, within the limits of South Carolina; and also for an apportionment of the public debt and a division of all other property held by the Government of the United States as agent of the confederated States, of which South Carolina was recently a member; and, generally, to negotiate as to all other measures and arrangements proper to be made and adopted in the existing relations of the parties, and for the continuance of peace and amity between this Commonwealth and the Government at Washington."

In the execution of this trust it is our duty to furnish you, as we now do, with an official copy of the ordinance of secession, by which the State of South Carolina has resumed the powers she delegated to the Government of the United States, and has declared her perfect sovereignty and independence.

It would also have been our duty to have informed you that were ready to negotiate with you upon all such questions as are necessarily raised by the adoption of this ordinance, and that we were prepared to enter upon this negotiation with the earnest desire to avoid all unnecessary and hostile collision, and so to inaugurate our new relations as to secure mutual respect, general advantage, and a future of good will and harmony, beneficial to all the parties concerned. But the events of the last twenty-four hours render such an assurance impossible. We came here, the representatives of an authority which could at any time within the past sixty days have taken possession of the forts in Charleston Harbor, but which, upon pledges given in a manner that we cannot doubt, determined to trust to your honor rather than to its own power. Since our arrival an officer of the United States acting, as we are as-