Page images
PDF
EPUB

FORTS AT CHARLESTON.

tected, as it looks toward the land, and the work had been mainly intended as a defence against attack from the sea.

141

guns of Fort Sumter was estimated at three miles, which placed the city of Charleston beyond reach of its fire.

Six hundred men would have been required fully to garrison the fort and work the guns; but Major Anderson could only muster one hundred and nine, of whom thirty were laborers, and fifteen composed the band.

The enemy had diligently improved every moment in strengthening the Federal forts they had taken possession of, and in adding new works, under the skilful direction of General Beauregard, once esteemed as among the ablest offi

Although it was originally designed to have armed the fort with one hundred and forty cannon of various calibres, there were but seventy-five in position when the enemy opened fire. Of these, eleven were Paixhans, and a number, thirty-two pounders, four of which were en barbette, and uncovered, and being on pivots could be made to take a wide range. Fort Moultrie was within command of nine of the Paixhans, and the two others pointed toward Castle Pinckney, too far distant, how-cers of engineers in the United States. ever, to be within range. Most of the large columbiads in the fort were not yet mounted. The magazines were well supplied with ammunition, sufficient it was thought for a year, and artificial wells had been constructed capable of holding a supply of water for the same period.

service.

Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, had been repaired, its dismantled guns unspiked and mounted again, and the lateral spaces between the cannon protected by sand-bags, to secure them against a flank fire. Though a weak work, in comparison with Fort Sumter, its walls, built of brick, capped with stone and filled in with earth, presented a solid enclosure of nearly sixteen feet in thickness. Its original armament

The distance from Fort Sumter to Charleston is three miles and three eighths of a mile. Together with Fort Moultrie, which had been abandoned by Anderson, Sumter was surrounded by Cumming's Point and Fort Johnson, where strong works had been constructed and mounted, and a floating s.w. Crawford. Ass't Surgeon.. Medical Staff.. March 10, 1851 Penn.

The garrison was thus composed :

Officers.

Rank.

R. Anderson ..Major

A. Doubleday.. Captain.
T. Seymour....Captain

Original Entry
into Service.

Born in

Regiment or Corps.
.1st Artillery.. July 1, 1825....Ky.

1st Artillery ...July 1, 1842.... N. Y. 1st Artillery...July 1, 1846.... Vt.

battery. From Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter is distant one and one-eighth T. Talbot..... 1st Lieut.. ... 1st Artillery .May 22, 1847... D. C.

of a mile; from Cumming's Point threefourths of a mile; from Fort Johnson one and one fourth of a mile; while the floating battery had been anchored about a half a mile on the weak side of Sumter. The greatest range of the

Jeff. C. Davis.. 1st Lieut... ...1st Artillery ...June 17, 1848.. Ind.
J. N. Hall. ...2d Lieut.......
J. G. Foster....Captain

.1st Artillery...July 1, 1849 ...N. Y.
.Engineers.....July 1, 1846 ...N. H.
G. W. Snyder.. 1st Lieut.. . Engineers.
R. K. Meade...2d Lieut....... .Engineers

Officers
Band
Artillerists
Laborers...

Total

..July 1, 1856....N. Y
.July 1, 1857.... Va.

9

15

55

80

109

was composed of eleven guns of heavy calibre and several powerful mortars.

On Cumming's Point the enemy had erected a battery made of thick logs of yellow pine. This was covered with a slanting roof of the same material which had been rendered ball-proof by railroad iron dovetailed and riveted together. The port-holes were supplied with iron shutters, which opened as the guns were thrust out to fire, and fell as they recoiled after a shot, and thus shut in the artillerists within an iron-bound and impenetrable cover. This novel battery was mounted with three columbiads, which bore directly on the southern and weakest side of Fort Sumter.

floating hospital, to provide for the ordinary emergencies of war.

At Fort Johnson-so called from its being the site of an old work no longer existing-on James' Island, two long batteries were erected of sand, and mounted with heavy cannon and mortars. Other temporary structures were raised, some of palmetto logs, and others of earth and sand, on Morris and Stono islands, Hadril's Point, and other parts of the harbor, which bore on its approaches, or upon Fort Sumter.

A large force, said to have amounted to over seven thousand men, had been mustered to the defence of Charleston. Four thousand of these were manning the works in the harbor, while the rest were held in reserve on Sullivan and Morris islands and in Charleston, to be ready to repel any attack by land.

The city itself was immediately de

The most curious, and not the least effective, perhaps, of the enemy's works, was the floating battery, which in the course of its construction had given rise to much speculation and not a little ridicule. This, too, was constructed offended by the fort at Castle Pinckney, heavy pine logs and faced with a double and cannon on the Battery in front of layer of railroad iron. It was about a Charleston. These, however, could only hundred feet in length and twenty-five be of service in case the above works in width. Its face presented an angle had failed to keep out any intruder. horizontally disposed, formed by its re- Castle Pinckney is situated at the southtreating roof and the front wall inclining ern extremity of Shute's Folly Island. backward as it descended to the water. Its armament consists of some thirtyIt was mounted with four guns of the two pounders, columbiads, and mortars, heaviest calibre, which were said to re- amounting in all to about twenty-five quire sixty men to work them. A mag- pieces. A mag- pieces. Its walls are six feet in thickazine for ammunition was built in the ness, and are pierced for one row of hold, below the water-line, and lined guns, while there is another en barbette. with sand-bags, laid seven feet thick, not The work is small, and of little importonly to protect it from shot, but to act ance in an attack from the sea. All the as ballast necessary to counterpoise the old defences had been greatly improved, heavy armament above. To the stern and new ones constructed, by the skilful of this strange structure was attached a engineering of General Beauregard, the

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small]

Entered according to act of Congress D.1863 by Virtue, Vorston & C on the clerks off of the devict court of the United States for the southern disimet PNY

LIFE OF BEAUREGARD.

officer who had been sent by the government of the Confederate States to take command at Charleston.

Peter Gustavus Toutant Beauregard had already, while in the service of the United States, won a distinguished reputation as an engineer. He was born on his father's plantation, near New Orleaus. The family name is said to be Toutant, and that of the estate Beauregard, which, by a curious accident, was originally attached to the patronymic, and assumed by the present bearer, in this wise: The youth, when admitted a cadet at West Point, was presented as Toutant de Beauregard, signifying merely that he was a Toutant of the plantation of Beauregard, and thus entered upon the records of the institution. This, however, was supposed to be his surname, and he was so called. Not averse, probably, to the dignified sounding of the appellation, the youth did not care to correct the error, and subsequently assumed the name of Beauregard as his own.

His father was a wealthy creole, with extensive estates in Louisiana, and a descendant of a reputable French family. His mother's name was Reggio, for whom has been claimed a descent from the Italian ducal house of the Reggios of Italy. In 1834, young Beauregard entered the military academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1838, ranking the second of a class of fortyfive cadets. On his graduation, he received the commission of a second lieutenant in the First Regiment of Artillery, but in a week after was transferred to

143

the Corps of Engineers. In June, 1839, he was promoted a first lieutenant, and was serving in this grade when the war with Mexico broke out. He accompanied the army to Vera Cruz, and continued with it during its career of conquest to the capital of Mexico.

At the very first moment he gave indications of that surety of eye, precision of foresight, and carefulness of judgment which are his distinguishing qualities. Before Vera Cruz, he was sent out af the head of a party of sappers and miners to dig and prepare a trench, in accordance with the directions of his colonel. Upon examining the ground, however, he appeared to find serious obstacles to the proposed plan. To assure himself, he climbed a tree, and with the aid of his glass took a careful survey, which resulted in confirming the objections to his colonel's plan. He discovered that the trench, if made as proposed, would be enfiladed by the enemy's guns. emy's guns. It was a difficult position for a young subaltern thus to find himself at variance with the judgment of his superior. He, however, did not hesitate, but returned to his colonel without having turned a sod. The officer, surprised to see him so soon, asked if he had done the work already. Beauregard replied that he had not touched it, and gave his reasons. The colonel was still more startled by the presumption of the youthful subaltern who had ventured to dispute the judgment of his superior, instead of submissively obeying his orders. He accordingly, with the characteristic presumptuousness of the

« PreviousContinue »