February 20, 1861.— Dear Brother—As a special messenger will leave here for Washington to-morrow I will ask him to carry some private letters, with his public ones, and let you know some little about Fort Pickens and the inhabitants thereof. I only wish it were not so much of a one-sided arrangement, as we need letters down here more than you fortunate people up North can. The papers come through sometimes, but letters never. It quite surprises me to see my name figuring so extensively in the newspapers. I have simply done my duty; but I suppose the doing it, under such a pressure of opposition, makes it appear creditable. The troops are leaving the opposite shore, disgusted at playing soldier, I suppose. They say there are only about three hundred remaining, and these are regulars, haying enlisted for one year. My messenger to the yard, this morning, said they were afraid we would attack them now. We could do so, and get possession again of everything in an hour, if we were only permitted to take such a course.
I have now mounted nearly all the guns—that is, all that are really necessary to enable this work to be defended by a force of five hundred men. We have worked like horses to accomplish this, but great tbings can be done by small means when one knows how. This small command has done more than Chase or Lomax could have done with their two thousand men, and they know it. Having seen our guns go up so rapidly, they swear we have bad reinforcements. In fact, the papers say, nothing else could be expected—that we nave smuggled in men from the vessels. It is true we could have done so, and they be none the wiser; but not a man has been added to this command from them. In fact, so particular are we, that not even an officer has come ashore, with the exception of Captain Vogdes, and he only once, when the vessels first came.
These Southern papers are publishing all sorts of false reports about me. One is that I was heard to say that if they had attacked the fort any time during the first fifteen days I would have surrendered it without firing a gun. Of course this is not true. My men stood at the guns every one of those days, and if they had come they would have learned the definition of one kind of grape.
The people on the opposite shore think we are in a much more defensible condition than when they first came. The moral effect of the guns on top is great. When the move was first made I worked most where they could not see me, and they thought but little was doing; but when my men were put to work on the barbette guns, and they saw them go up almost like magic, as they thought (they could scarcely move their own guns), they began to think troublous times were coming.— There are only, as I said before, about four hundred men at the barracks, Fort Barrancas and old McCrea—only enough to garrison them. They are very much afraid that some fine morning they will find the ships in the harbor, with the intelligence to them that they can leave within two hours, unless they prefer to be food for powder.
Colonel Chase and Captain Randolph are both in Montgomery, leaving Colonel Forney in command. He is a West Point graduate, and was engaged in putting up the batteries before that work was stopped.
Colonel Chase was putting up a battery near the light-house, and mounting eight inch columbiads on it. This battery would have raked our front, so I wrote protesting against its continuance at present, and also against the erection of all batteries bearing on the fort. Colonel Chase told the Secretary of War that if he would not land the troops in the Brooklyn, he, on his part, would not attack the fort, and would immediately discontinue all preparations for so doing. Of course this battery building was violating the agreement; and they have admitted it by not going on. They think I have no right to mount any more guns either, but that is all they know about it. There was no armistice on my side at all, except about the landing of the troops, and that was the Secretary’s. I am at perfect liberty to mount every gun in the fort if I choose, and to make each other defences as I can invent or copy. * * * * A. J. SLEMMER,
First Lieut. First Artillery, comdg. Fort Pickens.
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