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THE SWAMP ANGEL.

[1863.

sailors from the fleet went to Fort Sumter in rowboats and attempted its capture. But they found it exceedingly difficult to climb up the ruined wall; most of their boats were knocked to pieces by the Confederate batteries, they met an unexpected fire of musketry and hand-grenades, and two hundred of them were disabled or captured.

While all this work was going on, General Gillmore thought to establish a battery near enough. to Charleston to subject the city itself to bombardment. A site was chosen on the western side of Morris Island, and the necessary orders were issued. But the ground was soft mud, sixteen feet deep, and it seemed an impossible task. The captain to whom it was assigned was told that he must not fail, but he might ask for whatever he needed; whereupon he made out a formal requisition for "a hundred men eighteen feet high," and other things in proportion. Piles were driven, a platform was laid upon them, and a parapet was built with bags of sand, fifteen thousand being required - all of which had to be done after dark, and occupied fourteen nights. Then, with great labor, an eight-inch rifled gun was dragged across the swamp and mounted on this platform. It was nearly five miles distant from Charleston, but being fired at a high elevation was able to reach the lower part of the city. The soldiers named this gun the "Swamp Angel." Late in August it was ready for work, and, after giving notice for the removal of non-combatants, General Gillmore opened fire. A few shells fell in the streets and produced great

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BOMBARDMENT OF CHARLESTON.

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consternation, but at the thirty-sixth discharge the Swamp Angel burst, and it was never replaced.

Gillmore had supposed that when Sumter was silenced the fleet would enter the harbor, but Admiral Dahlgren did not think it wise to risk his vessels among the torpedoes, especially as the batteries of the inner harbor had been greatly strengthened, and would still remain to be reduced if he had passed the obstructions in safety. As Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg were nearer the city by a mile than the Swamp Angel, Gillmore repaired them, turned their guns upon Charleston, and kept up a destructive bombardment for weeks.

As a protection to the city, under the plea that its bombardment was a violation of the rules of war, the Confederate authorities selected from their prisoners fifty officers and placed them in the district reached by the shells. Captain Willard Glazier, who was there, writes: "When the distant rumbling of the Swamp Angel was heard, and the cry Here it comes!' resounded through our prison-house, there was a general stir. Sleepers sprang to their feet, the gloomy forgot their sorrows, conversation was hushed, and all started to see where the messenger would fall. At night we traced along the sky a slight stream of fire, similar to the tail of a comet, and followed its course until whiz! whiz!' came the little pieces from our mighty two-hundred-pounder, scattering themselves all around." By placing an equal number of Confederate officers under fire, the Government compelled the removal of its own.

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CHAPTER XX.

THE CHATTANOOGA CAMPAIGN.

WHILE Grant's army was pounding at the gates of Vicksburg, those of Rosecrans and Bragg were watching each other at Murfreesboro, both commanders being unwilling to make any grand movement. General Grant and the Secretary of War wanted Rosecrans to advance upon Bragg, lest Bragg should reënforce Johnston, who was a constant menace in the rear of the army besieging Vicksburg. The only thing Grant feared was, that he might be attacked heavily by Johnston before he could capture the place. But Rosecrans refused to move, on the ground that it was against the principles of military science to fight two decisive battles at once, and that the surest method of holding back Bragg from reënforcing Johnston was by constantly standing ready to attack him, but not attacking. As it happened that Bragg was very much like Rosecrans, and was afraid to stir lest Rosecrans should go to Grant's assistance, the policy of quiet watchfulness proved successful so far at least as immediate results were concerned. Bragg did not reënforce Johnston, Johnston did not attack Grant; and besiegers and besieged were left, like two brawny champions of two great armies, to fight it out, dig it out, and starve

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MINOR ENGAGEMENTS.

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it out, till on the 4th of July the city fell. Whether it afterward fared as well with Rosecrans as it might if he had attacked Bragg when Grant and Stanton wanted him to, is another question.

But though the greater armies were quiescent, both sent out detachments to make destructive raids, and that season witnessed some of the most notable exploits of the guerilla bands that were operating in the West, all through the war, in aid of the Confederacy. Late in January, 1863, a Confederate force of cavalry and artillery, about four thousand men, under Wheeler and Forrest, was sent to capture Dover, contiguous to the site of Fort Donelson, in order to close the navigation of Cumberland River, by which Rosecrans received supplies. The place was held by six hundred men, under command of Colonel A. C. Harding, of the 83d Illinois regiment, who with the help of gunboats repelled two determined attempts to storm the works (February 3), and inflicted a loss. of seven hundred men, their own loss being one hundred and twenty-six.

Early in March a detachment of about twentyfive hundred National troops, under Colonels Coburn and Jordan, moving south of Franklin, Tenn., unexpectedly met a force of about ten thousand Confederates under Van Dorn, and the stubborn fight that ensued resulted in the surrounding and capture of Coburn's entire force, after nearly two hundred had been killed or wounded on each side. A few days later, Van Dorn was attacked and driven southward by a force under General

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MINOR ENGAGEMENTS.

Gordon Granger.

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Still later in the month a de

tachment of about fourteen hundred men under Colonel Hall went in pursuit of the guerilla band commanded by John Morgan, fought it near Milton, and defeated it, inflicting a loss of nearly four hundred men. Early in April, another detachment of National troops, commanded by General David S. Stanley, found Morgan's men at Snow Hill, and defeated and routed them so thoroughly that it was two weeks before the remnants of the band could be brought together again.

In that same month, Colonel A. D. Streight, with eighteen hundred men, was sent to make a raid around Bragg's army, cut his communications, and destroy supplies. This detachment was pursued by Forrest, who attacked the rearguard at Day's Gap, but was repelled, and lost ten guns and a considerable number of men. Streight kept on his way, with continual skirmishing, destroyed a depot of provisions at Gadsden, had another fight at Blount's Farm, in which he drove off Forrest again, and burned the Round Mountain Iron Works, which supplied shot and shell to the Confederates. But on the 3d of May he was confronted by so large a force that he was compelled to surrender, his men and horses being too jaded to attempt escape.

These are but examples of hundreds of engagements that took place during the War of Secession and are scarcely known to the general reader because their fame is overshadowed by the magnitude of the great battles. Had they occurred in

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