USS Brooklyn.

This is coolbert:

Still yet again thanks to Freeper an extract from the New York Times archives of 1861. 

"IMPORTANT FROM WASHINGTON: Reinforcement of Fort Sumter by the Brooklyn; EFFECTS OF SECESSION IN FLORIDA; Editorial-Fort Sumter Reinforced! (2/4/1861)"

New York Times archives – Times Machine ^ | 2/4/1861

"WASHINGTON, Sunday, Feb. 3. I have information which, though not official, leaves very little doubt on my mind that Fort Sumter has actually been reinforced, in spite of the vigilance of the Charleston volunteers. I think it will turn out that the steamer Brooklyn [USS] took some three hundred soldiers and ten or twelve officers to the entrance of Charleston harbor, and that in the night time they rowed in small boats, with muffled oars, past the batteries on Morris Island and Fort Moultrie, and are now inside of Fort Sumter."

The "Charleston volunteers" as deemed students of what has become known as the Citadel. Military academy cadets manning the coastal artillery that previously had fired on the Star of the East supply ship. Fort Sumter besieged, in peril.

coolbert.