At four-thirty—ten minutes later than Beauregard’s promised start of four-twenty, a delay that irked the general—the mortar at Fort Johnson fired the signal round. The shell rose in a high luminous arc, “the lit fuze trailing behind, showing a glimmering light, like the wings of a fire fly,” one witness reported. On Charleston’s Battery, anticipation grew. There was joy, and dread. People prayed. Captain Ferguson heard an occasional long “deep drawn sigh.”
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