New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1861-05-10
FORT SUMTER.

FORT SUMTER.
At length from G Charleston paper, The Mer-
eury Of May 9, three weeks after the attack
upon For. Sumter, we have detailed account
of that famous victory Of 10000 men over 100.
Late as it comes, it will be read with great in.
terest, as nothing has as yet occurred to over
shadow what The Mercury calls their " blOOdless
" victory" That it was, if such were the fact,
seems still more inexplicable after tue reading
of this statement. Against the single fort there
were piled without iDtermissOn certainly thirteen
batteries; there were thrown, according to our
computation, two thousand two hundred and
fifteen shots, making a solid weight Of about
eighty-nne thousand pounds, or forty tuns in
addition 10 this were also thrown about one
thousand shells thirty-twO shots from rined
cannon, and small quantity Of grape.
That all this tremendous cannOnade should
have killed nobody in Fort Sumter is not
strange, for behind those walls, sixty feet high
and twelve to fifteen feet thick, the men were
comparatively safe from everything except she'll,
and these it was not difficult TO avoid by escap-
ing toto the classmates But that such a weight
of metal should have been used and handled by
men who had no such Notifications to fight be-
hind, and that without the skllful and we'll
directed fire Of the enemy taking single life,
seems absolutely incredible. There was consider
ably more than one tun of iron to be handled
every hour-handed with skill, with care, aud
with celebrity. To this great manual labor was
added other work requiring not so much abso-
lutte strength Of muscle, but large number oil
additional hands for its manipulation. NOW,
the mere material force for all this must have
been very large; it is Prima Jdeie evident
that the number Of men engaged could have only
been counted by thousands. Yet nobody was hit
Ceilings were ripped up" "qnarters were rent
" and perforated IN every direction" roofing
was Knocked in;" " shot crashed into the
building [ at Fort Moultriel above and arouud;'
all these things are acknowledged as going on
where there were enough to handle aud fire more
than tun Of iron on hour, beside shell, grape
and rlfed shot, but nobody was hurt Major
ADdason fired as often as 100 men could in 80
hours, Into n crowd, and bit everything but the
men IL is no wonder the CharlestOnians would
not believe it, as The Mercury acknowledges.
No wonder that they believed rather the reports
of many killed, sometimes one number, some
tunes another, till it ia evident they are-or at
least were-as much puzzled by the conflicting
stories in Charleston as in New-YOrk.
But our evidence is, we think, even better
than theirs. In another column of to-days paper
we publish another statement from person who
arrived here only two days ago, who came to US
without knowing that anybody elsc had contra
dcted the story of nobody hurt" and tells us
a most straight forward story of what he saw 10
Charleston. This statement corroborates all that
have preceded il; and-what is It'll more import
ant aud curious-The Mercury confirms them oil.
IL will be remembered that one of our previous
informants had told US Of thirty being killed by
the first shot; Mr. Thompson reports that the
bulletin pulled down from The MeTeHrys bulletin
board early in the day, told the story; there
was such report The Mercury acknowledge; and
our last informant repeats the same story.
Again: our first Informant, the German soldier,
asserted the dead were buried in Potters Field;
Capt, CorsOn says they were hurled away by
boat; our Dresent informant saw these bodies
landed. We observe also another little pOiut.
The Mercury tells a story of Lieut.. Rhetts slave
passing through a fierce fire to reach bis master.
Mr. Thompson asserts that ea'ly in the day
Lieut.. Rhett was reported as dangerously
wounded; later he himself wrote that he was
wounded, but not dangerously; and later still he
writes that be was not wounded at all, but fell
over a gun-carriage. Thus it will be seen that
oil these stories hang together in precisely that
way which makes them Invaluable Us evidence.
That this enormous lie Of "nobody hurt" is re-
sorted TO is strong proof that the cause is so
desperate that IL cannot bear the truth