The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-04-24

rebel defences. Already we can count
the guns on Fort Wagner (the work next
to Morris's Lighthouse, and Cummings
Point, and the windows of the houses OF
st. Vincent and Moultrieville. At 1925
the first signs of the afterward fatal diff
Guilty of steering the ship in a tideway
became manifest. The bow swung on the
port side, and it was necessary to stop her
engine to steady her course. In a few
minutes we were again in motion.
The first four Monitors had already pas
sed Fort Wagner, and we were now
abreast of it. We can look into the very
mouths of the guns, but they remain silent.
We know not what to make of it.
Ahead we steam anxiously awaiting the
reports of the first gun. At last about 3
O'Clock two flashes of fire burst from Fort
Moultrie, and two shots flew across the
bow of the Weehawken, the foremost
Monitor, that seemed to have approached
within less than half a mile. This fairly
opened the action.
The suspense did not last long. Six
bells had just struck, when dull sound
like that of sledge hammer upon an an
vii, was heard on the bow port side. 1t
was the hostile greeting of Fort Sumter,
now within one thousand and two hundred
yards of us. A second and third more
violent than the first, shook the sides of
the ship. Soon there were whizzing and
humming of rifled and round shot and
shell overhead. Still the successive dis
charges could be distinguished. The sew
eral reports had not yet been drowned, so
to speak, in a continuous roar.
But, bark! There is reverberation as
though Of numerous, simultaneous thunder
claps. Now fierce, increasing roar Vi
brating the air with violence that causes
even the solid mass of our ship to tremble.
A look through the open port ON the port
sides discloses the CAUSES of the furious
outburst. The first four Monitors had
reached the converting point of the pin of
Cummings Point battery, Fort Sumter
and Moultrie and Battery Bee; one after
the other had steadily steamed without
firing shot, to the verge Of the concen-
trating ranges. The enemy evidently re-
served their main fire for work at close
quarters; but when the Weehawken had
reached within six hundred yards of Fort
Sumter, long, broad, brilliant line of
flame suddenly formed fiery girt from
Cummings Point to Moultrieville, followed
instantaneously by immense volumes of
smoke and rain of projectiles that fairly
hid the turrets of our craft with countless
spouts of water thrown up by striking shot
and shell.
THE WOUNDED MONITORS.
The Keokuk had ninety shots in all :
nineteen on the water-line Twelve star
board, seven port y fifteen in the after
turret Give of them through; one Whit
worth steel pointed remained sticking in
the wall J twelve in the forward turret
(three of them through } twenty-five on
the sloping sides (ifteen starboard, ten
port J eight through sheeting on after tur-
ret; ten on smokestack, (seven through,
three glanced;) four through the boats,
two glanced off the deck one cut signal
staff; three or four went through the flag.
The New Ironsides was hit between six
ty and seventy times, but sustained no ma
terial damage. One of the shutters of
port five, port side, was knocked off, an
clSNCu luCll oHCIi lOuSCu III CuS UOW Dc-
tween the sides and the sand bags. A
shot passed through the smoke stack, and
her bulwarks were much shattered.
The Weehawken was struck fifty-nine
times. The turret was badly denied and
worked with difficulty. Many bolts in the
pilot house had been loosened and driven
through.
The Montauk was hit twenty times; the
Passaic fifty-eight times. The Nantucket
was struck fifty-one times, and had her
turret stopped twice by shot. The Cats
kill received about the same number of
shots. Both the latter had their decks al
most torn open by rifed bolts.
The Patapsco was hit between forty and
fifty times, and, besides the disabling of
her 20O-pounder Parrot, had her turret
much denied and pilot house weakened.
The Nahant was struck eighty times, and
had pilot house almost broken into pieces.
Four men were wounded, one MORALLY, in
it, from flying bolts.
Of ammunition, the different vessels fired:
Ironsides :. 8 rounds. Passaic -. 9 rounds