April 6, 1863, The Charleston Mercury
The long delayed hour seems at last to have arrived. The attack on our city, threatened for more than a year, is now imminent. Whatever careful preparation, unlimited resources, all the instruments and agents of modern warfare, undisguised hate and the bitterest feelings of revenge can suggest, have been arrayed against the ‘Nest of the Rebellion,’ for the avowed purpose of wiping out the insult to their flag, which the fall of Fort Sumter, on the thirteenth of April, 1861, nearly two years ago, inflicted on the Yankee nation. Charleston is the heart, as she was the head and front, of the offence. Through her closely blockaded port a hundred vessels are bearing to the hands of our young Confederacy the means and materiel of war. To effect the absolute destruction, therefore, of this port and emporium of trade, and at the same time to glut their fiendish malice on the metropolis of the State of South Carolina, is the dearest wish of our inhuman foe. With God’s aid, their cherished desire shall not be gratified. With the loftiest hope, the sternest courage, and the unconquerable resole never to submit or yield, we go forth to the struggle, conscious of, and we trust equal to, the great duties which lie before us. , by the mass, our hearts are […..] in the trim!’