It will be remembered that at about the time that the secession movement began, many of the property owners in Charleston, as in other Southern cities, who had been in the habit of insuring against fire in the Northern insurance companies, withdrew their risks from these offices with much insolence and parade, and transferred them to local organizations. Most of the latter have suspended while all tho others now are bankrupted, so that utter ruin must fall on those whose property has by this calamity been destroyed.
Criminal and unhappy Charleston! With the stone fleet sunk in her harbor, and a powerful and incensed enemy at her gate—with the fiend dancing in her deserted streets, and the knife of the slave at the throats of those of her people who yet remain with the blight and ruin that has fallen upon all their interests, and the hatred and contempt borne for her by the whole country, Charleston is now the most wretched of cities.
Muscatine Weekly Journal, Muscatine, IA