Ten thousand troops confronting about three score half starved but brave soldiers under the heroic Anderson. What remarkable chivalry is here! The garrison may be starved out — but this will be but the first scene of the first act of a drama which bids fair to become immortal.
Original passage & context
"Ten thousand troops, completely armed with diabolical enginery, deliberately and in cold blood prepared for months past, with all the skill that could be commanded, confronting about three score half starved but brave soldiers under the heroic Anderson. What remarkable chivalry is here! [...] The gallant little garrison may be starved out, they may see the walls of Sumpter reduced to dust by the iron balls and shells of infernal machines [...] but this will be but the first scene of the first act of a drama, which bids fair to become immortal."
The same news, read the opposite way from se-051: an unprovoked attack on a starving garrison, and the beginning rather than the end of the matter. The source spells the fort "Sumpter" throughout — a common period variant, left as printed. Three passages joined with [...].
Read it in the original — Newark Daily Advertiser, Apr 13, 1861 ↗