Personal Experiences.-Concealed in a Cypress Swamp.-The Union Guns.-Wheeler at Waynesboro.-The Enemy's Attack on Atkins. -Repulse.-Kilpatrick Charges the Barricades, Everything Swept before Them.-Valor of Union Soldiers.-Wheeler in Disordered The Hostile Country of the Carolinas.-Sherman's Five Hundred Mile March. The Country Desolated.-A Carnival of fire.-Arrival at Bentonville.-Johnston Encountered.-Battle of Bentonville.-The Enemy Repulsed.-Bravery of Slocum's Men.-Sherman's Army Grant and Sherman in Consultation.-The End Drawing Near.- Grand Combination of Movements.-Sheridan En route for Five Forks.-Importance of Holding Five Forks.-The March Through the Rain.-Engagement on the White Oak Road.-The Union Ranks Victorious.-The Sunday Fight.-Grant Takes Advantage of His Victory.-Captured Prisoners.-Davis Flying from Rich- CHAPTER I. FORT SUMTER. First Causes.-United States Property Seized.-Uprising of the North. -The Little Band at the Nation's Outpost.-From Moultrie to Sumter.-The Landing at Night.-Moultrie in Flames.-Star of the West.-No Help Yet.-Alone to Defend the Old Flag.-Starvation Ahead.-Communications Cut Off.-No Surrender.-The Bombardment. Terrific Cannonading.-The Barracks on Fire.-Not a Biscuit Left.-Out of Ammunition.-Wigfall and his White Flag.Sumter Surrenders on its Own Terms.-The Defeat a Glorious Victory. R years the irrepressible conflict between slavery FOR 6 and freedom had been proclaimed by the wise and disbelieved by the unthinking. For years the storm cloud, which in 1861 broke over the nation's head, had been slowly gathering with ever accumulating wrath. Some near-sighted but well-intentioned people supposed that the lightning could be extracted from the threatening cloud by sending up the Compromise' kite, with its hempen string of Mason and Dixon's Line,' but the guns of Sumter undeceived them. Those guns awoke the nation from its fancied repose and echoed, not only over Charleston Harbor, but along the Atlantic coast and through the entire North. With a grand and unanimous uprising not paralleled in history, the men of the free North flocked (21) around the nation's standard and offered their lives and fortunes in its defence. The people, before dormant, awoke suddenly to find that they had been sleeping on the edge of a crater whose boiling lava of injustice and slavery threatened to engulf them. At the nation's outpost, in Charleston Harbor, alone with his little band, Major Robert Anderson awaited, behind the embrasures of Fort Sumter, the first attack of the insurgents. "The property of the General Government south of the Potomac, with the exception of Fortress Monroe, Fort Sumter, Fort Pickens, and the Tortugas, had been successively seized by the authorities of the states within which they were situated." "The three forts that then defended Charleston Harbor were Fort Moultrie, of Revolutionary fame, on Sullivan's Island; Castle Pinckney, near the city; and Fort Sumter, a new structure on an island in the channel, commanding all the approaches to the city. It had been erected by the Federal Government at considerable cost, and was not yet so far complete as to receive a garrison. The place was calculated for one hundred and forty-six guns and a war garrison of six hundred and fifty men. The only force that the Federal Government had for these three forts was a single company of artillery in Fort Moultrie, under command of Major Anderson." In December, 1860, his garrison, occupying Fort Moultrie, found it dif cult to strengthen, and as the authorities at Charleston grew hourly more threatening, Major Anderson, on his own responsibility, abandoned the place for Fort Sumter, where at ten o'clock on the night of the twenty-sixth his force disembarked from row boats. "A few men were left at Moultrie under Captain Foster to cut down the flag-staff, spike the guns, burn the carriages and dismantle the place." As the flames went up from Moultrie, Charleston saw what had happened and great excitement spread to that city and throughout the country. The action of Major Anderson was lauded at the North and denounced at the South. But his new position at Fort Sumter was of doubtful advantage. He could not be surprised here as at Moultrie, but his communications were cut off and there was a prospect ahead of being starved out, unless help arrived. Help was sent by our Government, but the vigilant Charleston authorities, ever on the alert, prevented the landing of supplies and reënforcements. Fort Moultrie was repaired and garrisoned by the insurgents, and on Sullivan and Morris Islands new batteries were built. Troops were tendered to the Governor of South Carolina by three of the slave-holding states, and the palmetto flag waved over the post-office and Custom House at Charleston. The streets of that city were patrolled by the military; the telegraph was under censorship and the efforts of the authorities were directed toward getting possession of Sumter. Major Anderson and his hero band worked steadily on, strengthening the Fort as best they could. Around them, battery after battery arose, each one cutting off more surely their hope of succor. Their stock of food rapidly lessened, despite its most economic distribution. |