Beauregard’s final ultimatum, which three Confederate officers, including James Chesnut, had just delivered. The Confederate batteries would begin firing at four-twenty a.m., Anderson said; he told Doubleday that he would not return fire until after sunrise. “As we had no lights,” Doubleday wrote, “we could in fact do nothing before that time, except to wander around in the darkness, and fire without an accurate view of the enemy’s works.”
