THE GARRISON OF FORT SUMTER.

321

command of Lieutenants Yates and Harleston; from Fort Moultrie, commanded by Colonel Ripley; from a powerful masked battery on Sullivan's Island, hidden by sand-hills and bushes, called the Dahlgren Battery,' under Lieutenant J. R. Hamilton; and from nearly all the rest of the semicircle of military works arrayed around Fort Sumter for its reduction. Full thirty heavy guns and mortars opened at once. Their fire was given with remarkable vigor, yet the assailed fort made no reply. The tempest of lightning, wind, and rain that had just been skurrying through the heavens, leaving behind it heavy clouds and a drizzling mist, and the angry storm of shot and shell, seemed to make no impression on that "Bastion of the Federal Union." For two hours and more, Fort Sumter seemed to the outside world as silent as the grave, bravely bearing the brunt of assault with wonderful fortitude or the stolidity of paralysis. This silence mortified the insurgents, for they longed for the glory of victory after resistance. A contemporary poet sang :

"The morn was cloudy, and dark, and gray,
When the first columbiad blazed away,
Showing that there was the devil to pay

With the braves on Morris Island;
They fired their cannon again and again,
Hoping that Major Anderson's men

Would answer back, but 'twas all in vain,
At first, on Morris Island."

3

It had been plainly seen by Anderson and his officers that the barbette and area guns could not be used, if all the batteries of the insurgents should open upon the fort at the same time. This was a fatal misfortune, for the barbette guns could have hurled heavy crushing shot upon the Floating Battery and the armored work on Cummings's Point. On the parade, in the fort, were five heavy columbiads, arranged for throwing shells. These, too, would have been effective, but they could not be manned with safety. For this reason, Anderson gave his orders for the men to remain in the bombproofs. He had men sufficient to work only nine guns well, and it was necessary to guard against casualties as effectually as possible.

At half-past six o'clock, the garrison were summoned to breakfast in the usual manner, and they ate as hearty a meal as their scanty supplies would allow, little disturbed by the terrible uproar around them. It was now broad daylight. The officers and men in Fort Sumter were arranged in three reliefs. The first was commanded by Captain Doubleday, the second by Surgeon Crawford, and the third by Lieutenant Snyder. Thus prepared they went to work, under the most trying disadvantages. They had plenty

1 This battery was composed of two heavy Dahlgren guns, which had been sent from the Tredegar Works at Richmond, and arrived at Charleston on the 28th of March. Five 10-inch mortars were put into the same battery with the Dahlgrens. On the same day, fifty thousand pounds of powder, sent from Pensacola, reached Charleston, and twenty thousand pounds from Wilmington, North Carolina. At that time neither Virginia nor North Carolina had passed ordinances of secession. See Charleston Mercury, April 13, 1861.

From The Battle of Morris Island: a “Cheerful Tragedy,” in Vanity Fair, April 27, 1861

3 Fort Sumter was armed at this time with fifty-three effective guns. Of these, twenty-seven were mounted en barbette, twenty-one were in the lower tier of casemates, and five were on the parade. The embrasures of the second tier of casemates had been filled with masonry. One of the guns on the parade was a 10-inch columbiad, arranged to throw shells into Charleston. (See page 130.) The others were 4-inch columnblads, to throw shells upon the Cummings's Point Battery. There were only seven hundred cartridges when the action commenced.-Engineer's Journal of the Bombardment of Fort Sumter: by Captain J. G. Foster.

VOL. I.-21

322

DEFENSE OF FORT SUMTER.

of powder, but few cartridges made up. They had no scales for weighing powder, and only six needles for sewing cartridge-bags. They had no instruments for sighting the guns; and other deficiencies was numerous. The wood-work of the barracks and officers' quarters was exposed to ignition by the bursting bomb-shells, every moment. The garrison was composed of only about eighty men; the insurgents numbered several thousands. The odds were fearful, but, leaning trustfully on the arm of the Almighty, the commander determined to resist. At seven o'clock in the morning, he ordered a reply to the attack. The first gun was fired from the battery at the right gorge angle, at the Stevens Battery on Morris Island, by Captain (afterward Major-General) Abner Doubleday. A fire from the fort upon all of the principal attacking batteries immediately followed; and for four hours the contest was kept up so steadily and vigorously on the part of Fort Sumter, that the insurgents suspected that it had been stealthily re-enforced during the night.

The first solid shot from Fort Sumter, hurled at Fort Moultrie, was fired by Surgeon (afterward Major-General) S. W. Crawford. It lodged in the sand-bags, and was carried by a special reporter of the Charleston Mercury to the office of that journal. It was a 32-pound shot, and was soon afterward forwarded by Beauregard, it is said, to Marshal Kane, of Baltimore, who appears as a worthy recipient of the gift from such hands. The writer saw that shot at the police head-quarters in the old City Hall on Holliday Street, in Baltimore, when he visited that building in December, 1864, where it was carefully preserved, with the original presentation label upon it, namely," To George P. Kane, Marshal of Police, Baltimore, from Fort Sumter."

Anderson's order for the men to remain in the bomb-proofs could not restrain them when the firing commenced. The whole garrison, officers and men, were filled with the highest excitement and enthusiasm by the events of

the morning, and the first relief had been at work but a few minutes when the other two joined in the task. Hence it was that the fort was enabled to assail all of the principal insurgent batteries at the same time. The surgeon (Crawford), musicians, engineers, and workmen, inspired by example, fell in and toiled vigorously with the soldiers. There were no idle hands. Yet after four hours of hard and skillful labor, it was evident that Fort Sumter could not seriously injure the works opposed to it. One of Fort Moultrie's guns had been silenced for a while; its embrasures were injured, its barracks were riddled, and three holes were torn in its flag. A shot had penetrated the Floating Battery; but the iron-plated battery (Stevens) on Cummings's Point was absolutely invulnerable. It was uninjured at the end of the engagement, though frequently hit by heavy shot.

In the mean time, the firing of the assailants was becoming more accurate and effective. At first, many of their shot actually missed Fort Sumter, and those that struck it were so scattering that there seemed no chance for breaching the walls. But the firing became more and more concentrated, and began to tell fearfully upon the walls and the parapets. Some of the

ATTEMPTED RELIEF OF FORT SUMTER.

323

barbette guns were dismounted or otherwise disabled,' and at length the fearful cry of Fire! was raised. The barracks were burning.

From the hour when the garrison had been made to expect relief, their eyes had been turned much and anxiously toward the sea. And now, when the tempest of war was beating furiously upon them, and not three days' supply of food was left, they looked out from the oceanward port-holes more anxiously than ever. At noon on that fearful day, Surgeon Crawford, who had volunteered to ascend to the parapet, amid the storm of missiles, to make

observations, reported, to the infinite delight of the garrison, that through the vail of the misty air he saw vessels bearing the dear old flag. They were a part of Fox's relief squadron, namely, the Pawnee, ten guns; the Harriet Lane, five guns, and the transport Baltic. They signaled greetings by dipping their flags. Sumter could not respond, for its ensign was entangled in the halliards, which had been cut by the enemy's shot, but it was still waving defiantly at about half-mast. The vessels could not cross the bar. The sinuous and shifting channels were always difficult, in fine weather;

1 Alluding to the firing from Fort Moultrie upon Fort Sumter, the Charleston Mercury of the 18th said :"Many of its shells dropped into that fort, and Lieutenant John Mitchell, the worthy son of that patriot sire who has so nobly vindicated the cause of the South, has the honor of dismounting two of its parapet guns by a single shot from one of the columbiads, which, at the time, he had the office of directing." The "patriot sire" here spoken of was John Mitchell, an Irish revolutionist, who was sent to Australia as a traitor to the British Government, was paroled, violated his parole, and escaped to the United States, the asylum for the oppressed. Here he pursued his vocation of newspaper editor, first in New York and then in the Slave-labor States, where he upheld Slavery as a righteous system, advocated the reopening of the horrible African Slave-trade, joined the conspirators, and, through the newspaper press of Richmond, Virginia, became one of the most malignant of the revilers of the Government whose protection he had songht and received. Lieutenant Mitchell afterward perished in Fort Sumter. A London correspondent of the New York Tribune, in a graphic account of this young man, says that he met him in Charleston in 1860, when he boasted of having assisted to murder an Abolitionist, by lynching."

2 This little picture is from a photograph taken by an operator in Charleston immediately after the evacuation of the fort. It shows the appearance, at that time, of the portion of the gorge of Fort Sumter nearest Cummings's Point, and the effect of the cannonade and bombardment from the iron-clad battery there.

324

TOIL AND SUFFERINGS IN FORT SUMTER.

now the buoys had been removed, ships laden with stones had been sunken therein, and a blinding storm was prevailing.

The battery on Cummings's Point became very formidable in the afterThe guns were rifled. A Blakely cannon, already mentioned, was

noon.

of cartridges began to fail, and before sunset all the guns were abandoned but six. These were worked continually, but not rapidly, until dark, when the port-holes were closed, and the little garrison was arranged for alternate repose, and work, and watching. Several men had been wounded, but not one was mortally hurt. So closed the first day of actual war between the servants of the OLIGARCHY and those of the PEOPLE.

The night of the 12th was dark and stormy, with high wind and tide. The telegraph was not yet silenced, and it had carried tidings of the fight all over the land before sunset. Thousands of anxious heads, hundreds of miles away from Sumter, were laid upon their pillows that night, and thousands of prayers went up to the Almighty for the salvation of the Republic. In Charleston and in its harbor there was but little sleep. All night long the mortars of the insurgents kept up a slow bombardment of the fort, sufficient to deprive the wearied garrison of all but intermittent slumbers. Anderson continually expected an attack from armed men in boats, and was prepared for their reception. He hoped to welcome other boats filled with friends and stores. He was disappointed in all his expectations. The naval commanders outside did, as we have observed, take measures to send in relief, but the storm kept them from performing their errand of mercy until it was too late.2

April 12, 1861.

The storm ceased before the dawn." Only a few vanishing clouds flecked the morning sky. The sun rose in splendor. Already the cannonade and bombardment had been renewed with increased vigor and additional terrors. Red-hot shot were hurled into the fort. One passed along the course of a water-pipe through the wall that masked the magazine for fixed ammunition. Fortunately, it did not penetrate the inner wall. By that shield the fiery demon was foiled. Four times

This is a view of the English rifled cannon that produced the chief destructive effects on Fort Sumter during the siege. Its projectiles are seen in front of its carriage.

2 See page 309.

on Friday the buildings in the fort had been set on fire, and each time the flames were extinguished. Now the barracks and officers' quarters were again and again ignited. They could not be saved, and no attempt to do so was made, for precious lives would have been imperiled by the act. Means for that purpose had been diminished. On the previous day, three of the iron cisterns over the hall-ways had been destroyed by the shots of the insurgents, by which the quarters below had been deluged and the flames checked, Now there was no resource of the kind. The garrison must be starved out within three days, and shelter would be no longer needed, so the buildings were abandoned to the flames. The safety of the magazine, and the salvation of sufficient powder to last until the 15th, became the absorbing care of the commander. Blankets and flannel shirts were used for making cartridges; and every hand within the fort was fully employed. On that morning the

INTERNAL APPEARANCE OF FORT SUMTER AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT.1

last parcel of rice had been cooked, and nothing was left for the garrison to eat but salt pork.

The flames spread, and the situation of the garrison became extremely distressing. The heat was almost intolerable. The fire approached the magazine, when its doors were closed and locked. In fearful eddies the glowing embers were scattered about the fort. The main gate took fire, and very soon the blackened sally-port was open to the besiegers. The powder brought out into the service magazine was so exposed to the flames, that ninety barrels of it were thrown into the sea by Lieutenant Snyder and Surgeon Crawford.

Out of Sumter immense volumes of smoke rose sluggishly on the still air.

This is from a photograph taken immediately after the evacuation of Fort Sumter. It is a view of that portion of the officers' quarters to the left of the gateway, and of that of the men's quarters nearest the powder-magazine, the entrance to which was at the junction of these two buildings. In front of this entrance are seen the ruins of a traverse. The gateway or sally-port is also seen, the doors of which were burned. In the foreground is seen the great lantern that was taken down from the top of the fort, where it was used as a beacon.