But to the desultory operations on Fort Wagner a remarkable episode was to take place. Gen. Gillmore flattered himself that he had discovered the precise point where to establish a battery from which he would be able to batter down the forts in the harbour and even the city of Charleston. It was said that he had at his disposal pieces whose range and effects surpassed all conception; and Northern newspapers were filled with the story of a new discovery called "the Greek Fire," which was to be poured upon Charleston, and consume "the cradle of secession." The prospect of what such devilish agents of destruction might accomplish was pleasing to many of the Northern people; it was announced that Gillmore was experimenting in liquid fire, that he had made a new style of bombs, and many other pyrotechnic inventions, and that he might soon be expected to "roll his fire-shells through the streets of Charleston."

The point whence such work was to be accomplished, and where Gillmore thought to discover the vitals of Charleston, was nearly midway between Morris and James Islands, seven thousand yards distant from the lower end of Charleston city. Here, on the marsh-mud-where a crab might crawl, but where a man would sink in a few minutes to the depth. of twenty-five feet-there was prepared a plan of a battery for one 8-inch Parrott rifle (300-pounder). It was a singular achievement of labour and skill. The work had to be done under cover of darkness, and it was necessary to hide the pieces of wood during the day with grass and sea-weed. In the night-time piles were driven in the mud-shoa, which separated the two islands; fifteen thousand bags of sand, about one hundred and ten pounds each, were brought in the vessels to make a terre-plein and a parapet. The work was executed in fourteen nights, from the 2d till the 18th of August. After breaking, by its great weight, several trucks, the monster gun was finally hauled up, and placed in position, and Charleston, four miles and a half away, little dreamed that the "Swamp Angel" *—

*The following effusion of a Northern writer gives an explanation of this name, in which blasphemy and devilish hate are united. The poetry reads like the exultation of a fiend.

The "Swamp Angel" hears the traitor boasting of security, and sends forth its dreadful warning that "nowhere in these United States are traitors safe from the avenging wrath of the Re public."

"Flaunting, and boasting, and brisk, and gay,

The streets of the city shine to-day.

Forts without, our army within,

To think of surrender were deadly sin;

For the foe far over the wave abide,

And no guns can reach o'er the flowing tide.

They can't? Through the air, with a rush and a yell,

Come the screech and the roar of the howling shell;

And the populous city is still alive

With the bees that are leaving the ancient hive;

And the market-places are waste and bare,

And the smoke hangs thick in the poisoned air;

And the ruins alone shall remain to tell

Where the hymn of destruction was sung by the shell."

GILLMORE'S ATTEMPT TO FIRE CHARLESTON.

435

as this new agent of destruction was called-was looking into her

streets.

On the 21st August, Gen. Gillmore addressed to Gen. Beauregard a demand for the evacuation of Morris Island and Fort Sumter, and threatening, if not complied with, "in less than four hours, a fire would be opened on the city of Charleston, from batteries already established within easy and effective reach of the heart of the city."

The reply of Gen. Beauregard was memorable. He wrote, in a letter ad dressed to Gillmore: "It would appear, sir, that despairing of reducing these works, you now resort to the novel means of turning your guns against the old men, the women and children, and the hospitals of a sleeping city; an act of inexcusable barbarity, from your own confessed point of view, inasinuch as you allege that the complete demolition of Fort Sumter within a few hours by your guns seems to you a matter of certainty; and your omission to attach your signature to such a grave paper, must show the recklessness of the course upon which you have adventured, while the fact that you knowingly fixed a limit for receiving an answer to your demand, which made it almost beyond the possibility of receiving any reply within that time, and that you actually did open fire and threw a number of the most destructive missiles ever used in war into the midst of a city taken unawares, and filled with sleeping women and children, will give you a bad eminence in history-even in the history of this war."

If the enemy's execution had equalled his desire, there is no doubt that the city of Charleston would have been reduced to ruins and ashes; women and children murdered indiscriminately; and an outrage committed that would have shocked the sensibilities of the world. But happily Gen. Gillmore was not able to do what he threatened, and what that cowardly hate in the North, whose invocation against the South was, "Kill all the inhabitants," waited for him to accomplish. The attempted bombardment of Charleston was a failure. Some few missiles from the Federal batteries on Morris Island reached the city. Twelve 8-inch shells fell in the streets; several flew in the direction of St. Michael's steeple; but fortunately no one was injured. The "Swamp Angel" fired only a few shots. At the thirty-sixth discharge the piece burst, blowing out the entire breech in rear of the vent. No guns were placed in the Marsh Battery after this; the "Greek Fire" proved a humbug; and firing upon the city was not resumed until after all of Morris Island came into the enemy's possession.

The formidable strength of Fort Wagner, as developed in the unsuccessful assault of the 18th July, induced Gen. Gillmore to modify his plan of operations, and while pressing the siege of Fort Wagner by regular approaches, to turn his fire over the heads of both this work and Fort Gregg upon the walls of Sumter. It was thus determined to attempt the demolition of Fort Sumter from ground already in the enemy's possession, so that

the iron-clad fleet could, with as little delay as possible, enter upon the ex ecution of their part of the joint programme. The early elimination of this famous fort from the conflict, considered simply as auxiliary to the reduction of Fort Wagner, was greatly to be desired, and elaborate arrangements were at once commenced to place the breaching guns in position.

On the 18th August, Gillmore opened heavily against the east face cf Fort Sumter from his land batteries enfilading it. The cannonade was continued throughout the day, nine hundred and forty-three shots being tired. The effect was to batter the eastern face heavily, doing considerable damage, and to disable one ten-inch gun and a rifled forty-two pounder. On the 22d the enemy threw six hundred and four shots at the fort, disabling some of the barbette guns, demolishing the arches of the northwest face, and scaling the eastern face severely. The next day the fire from the enemy's land batteries was kept up on Sumter, disabling the only ten-inch columbiad that remained, and the three rifled forty-twopounders in the northern salient of the second tier. The eastern face was badly scaled, and the parapet seriously injured.

On the 24th August Gen. Gillmore reported to Washington "the practical demolition of Fort Sumter as the result of our seven days' bombardment of that work." The assertion was insolent and absurd. Fort Sumter had, indeed, been severely injured; but it was in one respect stronger than ever; for the battering down of the upper walls had rendered the casemated base impregnable, and the immense volume of stone and debris which protected it, was not at all affected by the enemy's artillery. Although apparently a heap of ruins, it still afforded shelter to the Confederate heroes, who raised the standard of the South each time it was beaten down; and it was still protected by the batteries of Fort Wagner, which the Federals had vainly endeavoured to carry by assault. Gen. Gillmore must, at all hazard, overcome this obstacle. He opened the trenches by means of the rolling sap, making work enough for a company of miners. Five parallels were established in succession, and two batteries were constructed, with bandages, under fire of James and Sullivan's Islands. From this moment Fort Wagner received more fire than she could return; solid shot and shells fell right and left; no living soul could remain upon the parapets; everything was shattered in pieces; the arches of the casemates commenced to crumble in, and to crush the defenders who had sought refuge there.

For two days and nights the fort had been subjected to the most terrific fire that any earthwork had undergone in all the annals of warfare. All the light mortars of the enemy were moved to the front, and placed in battery; the rifled guns were trained upon the fort; and powerful calcium lights aided the night work of the cannoniers and sharpshooters and blinded the Confederates. It was a scene of surpassing grandeur. The

FEDERAL OCCUPATION OF MORRIS ISLAND.

437 calcium lights turned night into day, and brought the minutest details of the fort into sharp relief. For forty-two consecutive hours, seventeen siege and coehorn mortars unceasingly dropped their shells into the work while thirteen heavy Parrott rifles-100, 200, and 300-pounders-pounded away at short though regular intervals. Peal on peal of artillery rolled over the waters; a semi-circle of the horizon was lit up; an autumnal moon hung in the misty sky; and ear and eye were alike appealed to with emotions of sublimity and grandeur. The shock of the rapid discharges trembled through the city, calling hundreds of citizens to the battery, wharves, steeples, and various look-outs, where, with an interest never felt before, they gazed on a contest that might decide the fate of Charles. ton itself.

On the night of the 6th September, Gen. Gillmore ordered an assault on Fort Wagner at the hour of low tide on the following morning. The assault was to be made in three columns. About midnight a deserter reported to him that the Confederates were evacuating the island. The work of evacuation had commenced at nine o'clock that night, and was already concluded. All the garrison had got off upon the Chicora, an iron-clad gunboat of the Confederates, and fourteen barges. Fort Gregg had been equally abandoned. Morris Island was thus the prize of the enemy, who now possessed themselves of Cumming's Point, from which they could plainly see Charleston at a distance of four miles.

The Northern public at once jumped to the conclusion that Gillmore had the key of Charleston, and had at last opened the gate to the Monitors and iron-clads, which, at leisure, might ascend the harbour. Gillmore himself insisted that he had done his part of the work; that " Fort Sumter was a shapeless and harmless mass of ruins;" and he indicated that it only remained for Admiral Dahlgren, with his fleet, to enter upon the scene, and accomplish the reduction of Charleston. But from this view the Federal admiral dissented; he indicated that Gen. Beauregard had accomplished a new object by his long retention of Morris Island; that, in fact, he had replaced Sumter by an interiour position, had obtained time to convert Fort Johnson from a forlorn old fort into a powerful earthwork, and had given another illustration of that new system of defence practised at Comorn and Sebastapol, where, instead of being any one key to a plan of fortification, there was the necessity of a siege for every battery, in which the besiegers were always exposed to the fire of others. He was unwilling, too, to risk the destructive defences and infernal machines with which the passes were blockaded. The Confederates had given out that by no possibility could one of the gunboats escape these, and Dahlgren's squadron of iron-clads and Monitors did not dare venture far up the harbour past Fort Ripley and within range of the immediate defences of the city. Gillmore claimed that he had reduced Fort Sumter; but the Confed

erate flag still floated over it. It had been held through the siege and can nonade by the First South Carolina Artillery, under Col. Alfred Rhett, until its armament had been disabled; and the services of the artillerymen being elsewhere required, Gen. Beauregard determined that it should be held by infantry. On the night of the 4th September, the Charleston Battalion, under Maj. Blake, relieved the garrison; Maj. Stephen Elliot relieving Col. Rhett in command of the post. On the 7th of September, Admiral Dahlgren, determined to test Gillmore's assertion that Sumter was a "harmless mass of ruins," summoned the fort to surrender. Gen. Beauregard telegraphed to Maj. Elliot to reply to Dahlgren that he could have Fort Sumter when he took it and held it, and that in the mean time such demands were puerile and unbecoming.

In the evening of the 7th September, the iron-clads and Monitors approached Fort Sumter closer than usual, and opened a hot fire against it. In the night of the 9th September thirty of the launches of the enemy attacked Fort Sumter. Preparations had been made for the event. At a concerted signal, all the batteries bearing on Sumter assisted by one gunboat and a ram, were thrown open. The enemy was repulsed, leaving in our hands one hundred and thirteen prisoners, including thirteen officers. There were also taken four boats and three colours, and the original flag of Fort Sumter, which Maj. Anderson was compelled to lower in 1861, and which Dahlgren had hoped to replace.

After this repulse of the Federals in their last attack upon Fort Sumter, but little more was done during the year by the enemy, except bombarding the forts and shelling Charleston at intervals during day and night, until this became so customary that it no longer excited dismay or was an occasion of alarm to even women and children. The city was intact and safe; Gillmore had expended many thousand lives and thrown shell enough to build several iron-clads to obtain a position that proved worthless; Admiral Dahlgren feared the destruction of a fleet which had cost so much sacrifice, and refused to ascend the harbour; and the demonstration upon Charleston degenerated into the desultory record of a fruitless bombardment. The Northern public appeared to sicken of the experiment of Parrott guns and monster artillery, and read with disgust the daily bulletins of how many hundred useless shots had been fired, and of how much ammunition had been grandly expended in a great noise to little purpose. "How many times," asked an indignant Philadelphia paper, "has Fort Sumter been taken? How many times has Charleston been burned? How often have the people been on the eve of starvation and surrender? How many times has the famous Greek Fire poured the rain of Sodom and the flames of hell upon the secession city? We cannot keep the count --but those can who rang the bells and put out the flags, and invoked tho imprecations, and rejoiced at the story of conflagration and ruin."