The chap­ter titled “The Great Dark­ness” takes place on Fri­day, April 12, dur­ing a sig­nif­i­cant moment in the his­to­ry of Fort Sumter. At mid­day, Pri­vate Thomp­son of Fort Sumter observes a third steamship join­ing two oth­ers that have been present since dawn. This rais­es the hopes of the men sta­tioned at the fort, as they believed these ves­sels were part of an expe­di­tion to relieve them. How­ev­er, as time pass­es, the ships remain sta­tion­ary, lead­ing Thomp­son to antic­i­pate that they would wait until night­fall to make their move.

Con­fed­er­ate look­outs con­firm the pres­ence of these ships, iden­ti­fy­ing two as warships—the *Pawnee* and *Har­ri­et Lane*—and a third, the *Baltic*, which seems to car­ry row­boats for land­ing troops. As Ruf­fin, a Con­fed­er­ate offi­cer, sur­veys Fort Sumter’s con­di­tion, he notes some dam­age from artillery fire but finds no sig­nif­i­cant breach­es in the fort’s walls. Mean­while, the return fire from Sumter is inef­fec­tive, with most can­non­balls either miss­ing the tar­get or being deflect­ed by the Con­fed­er­ate Iron Bat­tery.

As night descends, anx­i­ety grips both sides, with Con­fed­er­ate sol­diers mock­ing the fed­er­al fleet’s inac­tion. The stormy weath­er adds to the ten­sion and vis­i­bil­i­ty issues while the shelling con­tin­ues inter­mit­tent­ly. Ruf­fin, unable to sleep, ven­tures out­side to observe the con­flict as the night unfolds, and at about 12:30 a.m., he is star­tled awake by gun­fire, prompt­ing him to fear a land­ing oper­a­tion by fed­er­al forces.

The nar­ra­tive then describes the chaos on the beach as a small boat with two pas­sen­gers lands, only to be con­front­ed by Con­fed­er­ate artillery fire. Con­fu­sion reigns as the occu­pants, who claim to be “friends” from the South­ern Con­fed­er­a­cy, are appre­hend­ed. They turn out to be dis­ori­ent­ed and intox­i­cat­ed men who had intend­ed to trans­port guards­men. As the chap­ter con­cludes, the ten­sion remains high with Sumter’s guns silent and Con­fed­er­ate artillery still fir­ing spo­rad­i­cal­ly, rein­forc­ing the omi­nous atmos­phere as the fort’s defend­ers wait for their relief or fur­ther con­flict.

The jux­ta­po­si­tion of the weary sol­diers at Fort Sumter and the stead­fast fed­er­al ships shroud­ed in dark­ness spins a nar­ra­tive of antic­i­pa­tion, con­fu­sion, and the loom­ing threat of war­fare .