Letter, 11 March 1861, of L[ewis] A[lfred] Wardlaw, a corporal in the “Abbeville Volunteers,” Co. D, Gregg’s First South Carolina Volunteers, was written from Charleston, S.C., to his father, Joseph James Wardlaw, and documents preparations on Sullivan’s Island for the impending assault on Fort Sumter.

Wardlaw relates that the “policy which the authorities are now pursuing is to starve [Robert] Anderson out” and surmises that “the Fort cannot be reinforced unless, by a land attack of 20 or 30 thousand men... very soon it will be given up or reinforced (the first probable the latter hardly possible.)” The letter concludes with a discussion of the officers in the company and the reasoning behind Wardlaw’s decision not to apply for the position of sergeant major.

After Wardlaw’s six months of service in the 1st South Carolina Volunteers expired, he joined Co. B of the 1st Regiment, South Carolina Rifles (Orr’s Rifles), eventually advancing to first sergeant before being severely wounded at Chancellorsville in May 1863.