Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1863-09-24
THE LATE sroRMINa OF fonr sUMTER.
DETAILS OF THE AFFAIR
Correspondence Of As N.,o YORK Times
On BOARD THE IRoNsIDEs,


OB Fort Moaltris, September ii, 1863
The naval expedition which started out last Tuesday
night for the purpose of occupying Sumter and which
failed in SO doing, consisted of three hundred and fifty
men, formed into five divisions each division having an
of boats The entire expedition was com.
manded by Capt T. II. Stevens, accompanied by Lieut.
NJ Forrest who served aid. The annexed table will
show the force and commanders of each division:
First division, Lieut. Com Williams, sixty men.
Second division, Lieut.. Com Reamy, eighty 1--WE men.
Thi division, Lieut. Com. Preston, seventy men.
Fourth division, Lieut. Com. Hggbsoo, eighty men
Fifth division Capt. MeCawley, ffty-four men.
The boats left the flagship Philadelphia 1t $40 p. n,
under tow Of the steamer Daod and proceeded on their
way toward Sumter, stopping the route the Monitors
Lehgh and Montauk to give those vessels instructions to
move up and cover the small boats.
When within eight hundred yards of Sumter the line
which held the boats to the Daadi was cut Of and the
worked with the This was at twelve o'clock
The night extremely dark being quite impossible to
distinguish an object three yards in advance
1t arranged that the division under Lieut. HgRin
should 60 round to the north side Of the fort aud make
ieint, while the marines under Capt NcCawley wore
to advance within hundred and fifty yards and frs
their muskets at the enemy the parapet The other
division to scale the fort the gorge side where
wide breach had been effected during The first week Of the
siege.
When the boats containing the party II scale the fort
had arrived to within thirty yards of Sun ter sentry on
the parape evidently attracted by the I'D produced by
the falling oars, fred shot for signal The men
in the boats, however, did not heed the alarm gun
but pushed forward with all speed They arrived to with
10 fifteen yards of the fort before any heavy firing had been
opened on them. AT that point the enemy gave them
musket voley from the parapet, and also commenced
throwing bricks and missiles of IRON Onward pushed
the boats through tremendous fire of heavy artillery
which had by this time been opened from Johnson Mou
tre Ripley and dozen other works on James and Sui.
llvans Islands.
Two hundred of the succeeded in landing on pile
of dbrs but the gorge steep and the earth 20
loose that they could not in face of the opposition from
above, get any further Lieut. Preston who was in the
van did succeed in mounting the parapet but he inn
mediatey seized and held prisoner. The position OF
the at the base of the fort any thing but pleasant
The enemy, numbering about two hundred men, were Sta
toned the paapet above in the works and corners
formed by the masonry which had been torn down. from
which points they threw shot, SHE'LL bricks hand grenades
and every other conceivable missile near at hand Not
content with throwing single hand grenad-s, they filed
buckets and empted them the heads of those below
The rebel forts in the time, doing their best
in the way of sending long grape and canister 20
that it found absolutely necessary to give the order
re;usA.
The boats from which the men had disembarked were
nearly all swamred Two of them struck by shell
and sunk The larger portion of the that had landed
were captured few only killed or wounded. The
number of casualties is put down at lO0 Those that
NAMED of the expedition returned to the flagship at A.
M. Wednesday morning.
That the enterprise was failure can only be accounted
for from the fact Of the rebels being too strongly posted
They had the north side of the fort two steamers car
ryng two or three howzss each which they used with
considerable effect the boats that approached that
direction The steamers doubtless brought down REIN
orcements who concealed somewhere 10 the fort
waiting opportunity to make themselves useful What
our men had to fear mostly the shots from the
rounding batteries which fell into and around the fort with
great rapidly or the rebels in the fort were quite
as much exposed to danger as own men.
The prisoners including the officers are still within the
FORT flag of truce sent out yesterday brought the intel
lgence from Lieut. Preston that he and his feow-oaice
were we'll treated and comfortable the circumstances
would admit Beauregard took the opportunity sending
the threatening message to Admiral Dahlgren that he
would place the prisoners parapet of Sumter il tho
navy made it an object of fire. Admiral Dahgren replied
with as much dignity the nature of the case would JUS
fy that II he Beauregard should to tuch hea
henish mode of procedure then he might look the Same
hour for rebel prisoners tied the outer surface of the
Monitors turres 1t is thought the of the Admiral
will do much toward bringing Beaursgard to sense of the
common rules of civilized warfare
The navy has not eng ged the rebel works since Tues
day night The firing has been confined to few rounds
fired from johnson and Moute 10 the captured forts
Wagner and Gregg What will be done next 10 the pro-
gress Of the siege time will determine. For the present
every thing Is at standsti 1t cannot remain 20 long
however without giving the rebels immense advantage
1t to be hoped this fact will be thoroughly considered by
the proper authorities
CASUALTIES OF THE ATTACK.
The Navy Department has received q report of the
casualties incurred by this attack on Fort Sumter The
following is summary
OF the Ironsides one was taken prisoner viz Ensign
b. III. Porter
Of the Powhatan killed. three wounded and thirty
three missing including marines
or the Housatonic, seventeen missing including Lieut.
Edwin L. Brewer and Third Assistant Engineer J M.
Harmany.
OF the Wissahckon ter missing. Lieut.. Commander
Williams and Acting Ensign 4. G.. Dayton ex-ofcer Of
this vessel are alec reported missing
or tba Soduna, wounded and nine missing.
OF the Marine Battalion, wounded and thirty miss