No, I did not intend to say it was city or state property, but it was arms allocated for local defense and its users were to be the local militias not the U.S. Army. Anderson's men already had their allotment and their arms came from a totally different system. Anderson and Gardner did not have the authority to distribute the Charleston Armory arms to civilians, even if the arms were U.S. Federal property. Those arms were there for the local and state authorities to use as part of a federal program to equip the states with weapons. That is why the supply officer, a member of the U.S. Army who answered to a different command, was so upset when the arms were removed from the arsenal. He was responsible for the inventory and knew that to distribute those arms outside regulations he could be charged with negligence of his duties.

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David Upton