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point of debarkation to its designated position in battery, was the tedious, arduous task of 250 men, all performed under the cover of darkness: the men being forbidden to speak; their movements being directed by a whistle. When a gun slipped, as it often would, off the planks and 'skids' supporting it, the utmost efforts were required to keep it from plunging straight down through the 12 feet of mud to the supporting clay, if no farther.

Thus were the remnant of February and the whole of March intently employed-Maj.-Gen. Hunter, who had just succeeded' to the command of the department, with Brig.-Gen. Benham as district commander, visiting the works on Tybee island, and finding nothing in them to improve.

At length, all was in readiness:10 36 10 to 13-inch mortars and heavy rifled guns being firmly planted in 11 batteries-the farthest two miles, the nearest less than a mile, from the doomed fort, with a dépôt and separate service magazine where they should be, and carefully considered April 9.

• March 31.

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orders given to regulate the firing. And now the fort was summoned in due form by Gen. Hunter-of course, to no purpose-whereupon, at 81 A. M., fire was deliberately opened, and kept up till dark—the mortars throwing very few of their shells within the fort; but the rifled guns chipping and tearing away its masonwork, until it became evident that, unless our batteries should be disabled, the fort would soon be a ruin. Five of the enemy's guns had already been silenced; while our widely scattered, low-lying, inconspicuous batteries had received no damage whatever.

During the ensuing night, four of our pieces were fired at intervals of 15 or 20 minutes each; and at sunrise" our batteries opened afresh; and now the breach, already visible, was steadily and rapidly enlarged: casemate after casemate being opened, in spite of a heavy and welldirected fire from the fort; until, at 2 P. M., a white flag was displayed from its walls, and the siege was ended. One only of our men had been killed, and no gun hit or otherwise 12 April 11.

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April 10.

damaged; the garrison had 10 of their 40 guns dismounted or other wise disabled, and several men wounded—one of them fatally. They were especially impelled to surrender by the fact that our guns were purposely trained on their magazine, which must soon have been pierced and exploded had our fire continued. The credit of this almost bloodless conquest is primarily due to Quincy A. Gillmore, who was at once General and Engineer; Gen. Viele, commanding under him the land forces, and Com'r John Rodgers their naval auxiliaries, who were employed only in transporting and landing the materiel. But the moral of this siege was the enormous addition made by rifling to the range and efficiency of guns. Our artillerists were as green as might be; and their gunnery-as evinced more especially by the mortar-firing-was nowise remarkable for excellence; but the penetration of a solid brick wall of seven feet thick at a distance of 1,650 yards by old 32s (now rifled) to a depth of 20 inches, and by old 42s to a depth of 26 inches, where the same guns, when smooth-bore, would have produced no effect whatever, was so unlooked-for by Gen. Gillmore that he afterward reported that, had he been aware at the outset of what this siege taught him, he might have curtailed his eight weeks of laborious preparation to one; rejecting altogether his heavy mortars and columbiads as unsuited to such service, and increasing, if that were desirable, the distance at which his nearer batteries were planted to 2,300 or even 2,500 yards.

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old vessels, picked up at various northern ports and taken down to our fleet blockading the entrance to Charleston harbor, being loaded with stone, were sunk across one of the channels. A tremendous uproar was raised against this procedure, mainly by British sympathizers with the Rebellion, who represented it as an effort permanently to choke and destroy the harbor. This accusation is absurd. What was intended was to render it more difficult for blockaderunners, navigated by Charleston pilots, to run out and in under the screen of fog or darkness; and this result was probably attained. No complaint has since been made of any actual injury thus inflicted on the peaceful commerce of Charleston: on the contrary, it has been plausibly asserted that the partial closing of one of the passes, through which the waters of Ashley and Cooper rivers find their way to the ocean, was calculated to deepen and improve those remaining.

Com. Dupont, in his steam frigate Wabash, with twenty other armed vessels, and six unarmed transports, conveying a brigade of volunteers, Gen. Wright, and a battalion of marines, Maj. Reynolds, setting out from Port Royal" swept down the coast to St. Andrew's and Cumberland sounds; taking unresisted possession of Fort Clinch on Amelia island, Fernandina, St. Mary's, Brunswick, Darien, St. Simon's island, Jacksonville," and St. Augustine; where Fort St. Mark-another of the old Federal coast defenses-was “rëpossessed" without bloodshed-Gen. Trapier, Rebel commander on this

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A considerable flotilla of worthless coast, having no force adequate to

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PENSACOLA AND JACKSONVILLE RETAKEN.

resisting such an expedition-Florida having ere this contributed nearly 10,000 men, out of a total white population of 80,000, to the Confederate armies fighting in other States. A considerable Union feeling was evinced at various points; a Union meeting held in Jacksonville (the most populous town in the State), and a Convention called to assemble there on the 10th of April to organize a Union State Government; but, on the 8th, Gen. Wright withdrew his forces from that place, sending an invitation to Gen. Trapier to come and reoccupy it. Of course, the projected Union Convention was no more; and those who had figured in the meeting or call whereby the movement was initiated were glad to save their necks by accompanying our departing forces. That settled, for years, the fortunes of Unionism in Florida. And, though Com. Dupont, on returning with his fleet to Port Royal, left a small force at each of the more defensible places he had so easily recovered to the Union, it is questionable that his expedition effected, on the whole, more good than harm for the national cause.

At Mosquito inlet, the farthest point visited by a detail from his squadron, a boat expedition, under Lt. T. A. Budd, of the Penguin, was fired on while returning from an excursion down Mosquito lagoon, Lt. Budd and 4 others killed, and several more wounded or captured. Thus closed unhappily an enterprise which was probably adequate to the complete recovery of Florida, though not able to hold it against the whole power of the Confederacy.

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Pensacola was evacuated by Brig.Gen. Thos. N. Jones, its Rebel commander; who burned every thing combustible in the Navy Yard, Forts McRae and Barrancas, the hospital, &c., &c., and retreated " inland with his command. The place was immediately occupied by Com. Porter, of the Harriet Lane, and by Gen. Arnold, commanding Fort Pickens.

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Another naval expedition from Port Royal," under Capt. Steedman, consisting of the gunboats Paul Jones and Cimarone, with three other steamboats, visited the Florida coast in the Autumn, shelling and silenc ing the Rebel batteries at the mouth of the St. John's.

Gen. Brannan, with a land force of 1,575 men, with a fleet of six gunboats under Capt. Steedman, repeated this visit somewhat later;20 expecting to encounter an obstinate resistance : but the Rebel works on St. John's bluff were evacuated-9 guns being abandoned-on his advancing to attack them; and he retook Jacksonville without resistance, but found it nearly deserted, and did not garrison it. The Rebel steamboat Gov. Milton was found up a creek and captured.

Gen. R. Saxton next dispatched,* on three transports, an expedition, composed of two negro regiments under Col. Thos. W. Higginson, 1st S. C. Volunteers, which went up to Jacksonville, captured it with little resistance, and held it as a recruiting station for colored volunteers. Two White regiments were soon afterward sent to rëenforce them; but hardly had these landed when a peremptory order came from Gen. Hunter for the withdrawal of 21 March 6, 1863. 22 March 10.

the entire force; and, as if this were not enough, several buildings were fired by our departing soldiers-of the 8th Maine, it was said, though that regiment laid it to the 6th Connecticut-while hundreds of inhabitants, who desired to leave with our forces, were put ashore after they had embarked, and left to meet the vengeance of the Rebels as they might. The beautiful old town was substantially destroyed; though our higher officers did their best to save it—a high wind fanning the flames, which swept all within their reach. The deserted inhabitants-many of them hearty Unionists--were left to famish among their ashes and ruins; though the few families who were brought away to Hilton Head were treated with considerate humanity. Pensacola was likewise abandoned 23 and burned-burned by the Rebels, it was asserted-but that would neither be reported nor believed within the lines of the Confederates --so that it may be fairly concluded that by this time whatever Unionism there had been in Florida--that is, among the Whites--was pretty thoroughly eradicated by those who were sent thither as upholders of the National cause.

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Beaufort to Charleston. No inhabitants were left on Edisto but negroes ; and the cotton which the departing Whites could not remove they had, for the most part, burned. The fall of Pulaski, soon afterward, gave us extension and security on the other flank; and now Gen. Hunter and Com. Dupont proposed to extend our possession still farther toward the city by the reclamation of Wadmilaw and Johns islands, bringing us within cannon-shot of Charleston. To this end, various and careful reconnoissances were made, and soundings taken; ending with marking by buoys the channel of Stono river, separating Johns from James island; whereupon, our gunboats. Unadilla, Pembina, and Ottawa, crossed" the bar at its mouth and proceeded up that river: the Rebel earthworks along its banks being abandoned at their approach. Thus the gunboats made their way slowly, carefully, up to a point within range of the Rebel batteries guarding the junction of Stono with Wappoo creek, barely three miles from Charleston, whose spires and cupolas were plainly visible, over the intervening trees, from the mast-heads of our vessels.

But this bold advance of our gunboats, unsupported by infantry, was a blunder. These were too weak to effect any thing but give the enemy warning of what they must be prepared to meet. Nearly two weeks had thus been spent ere Gens. Hunter and Benham, with their soldiers, landed " on James island; and three more days elapsed ere Gen. Wright came up from Edisto with the residue of their forces. Such dis

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