But what I was really drawing attention to is if two men did not reenlist and one deserted in February 1861 HOW did they leave the Fort Sumter Island? February 1861 was in the middle of the Fort Sumter crisis. Where they free to come and go by boats as they pleased? I don't see those three men swimming away from the island to the mainland. Currents and cold weather at that time of year would have prevented that I would believe. So they had to have gotten off Fort Sumter Island by boat with the Confederates who supplied the Fort and delivered the mail during that time.