Often he sat with St.Clair and Langdon on their earthworks, and looked at Sumter.
"I wonder when the word will come for us to turn these big guns loose ?" Langdon said one day, as he looked at the cannon.

"Seems to me we ought to take Sumter before that fleet comes." "But wouldn't it be better for them to make the first hostile movement, Happy ?" asked Harry.

"Then we'd put them in the wrong." "What difference does it make if we should happen to fight them, anyhow?
The question who began it we'd settle afterwards on victorious fields.
Oh, we're bound to win, Harry! We can't help it.

If there's any war, I expect inside of a year to sleep with my boots on in the President's bed in the White House, and then I'd go on to Philadelphia and New York and Boston and show myself as a fair specimen of the unconquerable Southern soldier." "Happy," said Harry, in a rebuking tone, "you're the most terrific chatterer I ever heard.

Before you've done anything whatever, you talk about having done it all." "And they call us Charlestonians fiery boasters," said St.Clair.
"Why, there's nobody in all Charleston who's half a match for this sea islander, Happy Tom Langdon." Charleston received Lincoln's threat and gave it back.