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CAPTURE OF THE ATLANTA.

311

nearly a hundred times. Shots passed through

both of her turrets, and there were nineteen holes in her hull. That evening she sank in an inlet. Most of the other vessels were injured, and some of the monitors were unable to revolve their turrets because of the bending of the plates.

Du Pont's defeat was offset two months later, when the Confederate iron-clad "Atlanta" started

out on her first cruise. She was originally an English blockade-runner, and as she was unable to get out of the port of Savannah after the fall of Fort Pulaski, the Confederates conceived the idea of iron-plating her after the fashion of the "Merrimac," and sending her out to sink the monitors and raise the blockade of Charleston. It was said. that the ladies of Savannah contributed their jewelry to pay the expenses; and after fourteen months of hard labor she was ready for action. But Du Pont had heard the story, and sent two monitors to watch her. On the 17th of June, early in the morning, she dropped down the channel, followed by two steamers loaded with citizens, including many ladies, who anticipated a great deal of pleasure in seeing their powerful iron-clad sink the monitors. These came up to meet her, the " Weehawken," Captain Rodgers, Rodgers, taking the lead. Rodgers fired just five shots, from his enormous eleven-inch and fifteen-inch guns. One struck the shutter of a porthole and broke it, another knocked off the "Atlanta's" pilot-house, another struck the edge of the deck and opened the seams between the plates, and another penetrated the iron armor,

312

GILLMORE'S SIEGE.

[1863.

splintered the heavy wooden backing, and disabled forty men. Thereupon the "Atlanta" hung out a white flag and surrendered, while the pleasureseekers hastened back to Savannah. It is said that the vessel might have been handled better if she had not run aground. She was carrying an immense torpedo at the end of a boom thirty feet long, which projected from her bow under water. She was found to be provisioned for a long cruise, and was taken to Philadelphia and exhibited there as a curiosity.

The city of Charleston, between its two rivers, with its well-fortified harbor, bordered by miles of swampy land, was exceedingly difficult for an enemy to reach. General Quincy A. Gillmore, being sent with a large force to take it, chose the approach by way of Folly and Morris islands, where the monitors could assist him. Hidden by a fringe of trees, he first erected powerful batteries on Folly Island. On the northernmost point of Morris Island (Cummings Point) was the Confederate battery Gregg, the one that had done most damage to Sumter at the opening of the war. South of this was Fort Wagner, and still farther south were other works. On the morning of July 10th, Gillmore suddenly cut down the trees in his front and opened fire upon the most southerly works on Morris Island, while at the same time the fleet commanded by Admiral Dahlgren, who had succeeded Du Pont, bombarded Fort Wagner. Under cover of this fire, troops were landed, and the earthworks were quickly taken.

1863.]

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

313

The day being terribly hot, the advance on Fort Wagner was postponed till the next morning, and then it was a failure. A week later a determined assault was made

with a force of six

thousand men, the advance being led

by the first regiment of colored troops (the 54th Massachusetts) that had been raised under the authorization that accompanied the Emancipation Proclamation. They marched out under a concentrated fire from all the Confederate batteries, then met sheets of musketry fire that blazed out from Wagner, then crossed the ditch waist-deep in wat

er, while hand-gre

nades were thrown from the parapet to explode among them, and even climbed up to the rampart. But here the surviving remnant met a stout resistance and were hurled back. General Strong, Colonel Chatfield, Colonel Putnam, and Robert

314

THE PARALLELS.

[1863.

G. Shaw, the young commander of the black regiment, were all killed, and a total loss was sustained of fifteen hundred men, while the Confederates lost but about one hundred.

In burying the dead, the Confederates threw the body of Colonel Shaw into the bottom of a trench, and heaped upon it the bodies of black soldiers, whose valor, no less than their color, had produced an uncontrollable frenzy in the Confederate mind. When it was inquired for, under flag of truce, word was sent back: "We have buried him with his niggers." Those who thus tried to cast contempt upon the boyish colonel were apparently not aware that he was braver than any of his foes. In advancing along that narrow strip of land, every foot of which was swept by a deadly fire, crossing the ditch, and mounting the parapet, Colonel Shaw exhibited a physical courage that it was impossible to surpass; while in organizing and leading men of the despised race that was now struggling toward liberty, he showed a moral courage such as the rebels neither shared nor comprehended.

General Gillmore now resorted to regular approaches for the reduction of Fort Wagner. The first parallel was soon opened, and siege guns mounted, and the work was pushed as rapidly as the unfavorable nature of the ground would admit. By the 23d of July a second parallel was established, from which fire was opened upon Fort Sumter, two miles distant, and upon the intervening earthworks. As the task proceeded the difficulty increased, for the strip of land grew narrower

1863.]

CAPTURE OF FORT WAGNER.

315

as Fort Wagner was approached, and the men in the trenches were subjected to cross-fire from a battery on James Island, as well as from sharpshooters and from the fort itself. A dozen breaching batteries of enormous rifled guns were established, most of the work being done at night, and on the 17th of August all of them opened fire. The shot and shell were directed mainly against Fort Sumter, and in the course of a week its barbette guns were dismounted, its walls were knocked into a shapeless mass of ruins, and its value as anything but a rude shelter for infantry was gone.

The parallels were still pushed forward toward Wagner, partly through ground so low that high tides washed over it, and finally where mines of torpedoes had been planted. When they had arrived so near that it was impossible for the men to work under ordinary circumstances, the fort was subjected to a bombardment with shells fired from mortars and dropping into it almost vertically, while the great rifled guns were trained upon its bomb-proof at short range, and the iron-clad frigate 'New Ironsides" came close in shore and added her quota in the shape of eleven-inch shells fired from eight broadside guns. Powerful calcium lights had been prepared, so that there was no night there, and the bombardment went on incessantly. At the end of two days, three columns of infantry were ready to storm the work, when it was discovered that the Confederates had suddenly abandoned it. Battery Gregg, on Cummings Point, was also evacuated. The next night a few hundred