Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1865-03-17
GHARLEsTON-THE EFFECTS or our GuNs-THE
PEOPLE.
Correspondence Of the Boston Journal
CrIa rsrnx- ThnrSdau Feb IL

CHARLESTON, Thursday, Feb. IA.
About thirteen thousand shells have been
thrown int o the town nearly thousand shell;
a month. Some were filed with the prepara
tion know as "Greek fire, others with incend;-
airy fuses, others with powder only.
The shells were fred at a great elevatioH
and we're therefore pluDging shots-striking q
house on the roof and passing down from the
attic to the chambers, lower stories, ground
floor and basement. Some exploded 10 the
attics. some 10 the cellars, some in the cham
bers, others in the walls The effect has been
a complete riddling OF the houses. Brick
walls have been blown into million of frag-
ments, roofs have been torn to pieces-rafters
beams, braces, scantlings have been broken
and splintered into jack straws. Churches
hotels, stores dwellings, public buildings, all
have been shattered. There are great holes in
the ground where carloads of earth have been
excavated in twinkling.
We visited the old Office of the Mercury 10
Broad street. A messenger sent by the
Marsh Angel" had preceded US, entering the
roof, passing into the chimney, and exploding
within, dumping several cart loads of brick
bats. mortar and SCOT into the editorial room
where secession had its incubation. The lead,
ing rebellious spirits once sat there 10 their arm
chairs and enthroned King Cotton. and de-
manded homage to his majesty, from all ma
tions. The first shell sent the Mercury up
town TO a safer locality, but when Sherman
began bis march into the interior the Mercury
Hed into the country to Cheraw, it is said, right
spfo fiHo of
The Courier Office, in Bay street, had not
escaped damage. A shell entered through
the roof, went tearing down through the floors,
ripping up the boards, breaking the timbers,
iarring the plaster from the walls, exploding
in the second story, rattling all the tiles from
the roof, bursting out the windows, smashing
the imposing stone, opening the whole build
ing to the sunlight. Another shell had dash
ed the sidewalk to pieces and blown passage
into the cellar, wide enough to admit a six
horse wagon. Near the Courier Office was
the Union Bank, Farmers and Exchange
Bank, and the Charleston Bank. They were
costly buildings, fitted up with marble mantes,
floors ofterra-eotta tiles, counters elaborate in
carved work, and with gorgeous frescoing on
the walls. There, five years ago, the mer-
chants Of the city, the planters of the country,
the slave traders, assembled on exchange, talk
ed treason, and INDUCED in extravagant day
dreams of the future glory of Charleston.
The rooms are silent BOW. The oaken
doors splintered, the frescoing washing from
the walls by the rains which drip from the
shattered roof, the desks are kindling wood,
the highly wrought cornice-Work has dropped
from the ceiling to the ground, the tiles are
plowed up, the marble mantels shivered, the
beautiful pIate-glsss of the windows, lies 10
million fragments upon the hoer. In short
the banks have broke
Passing from the banks TO the hotel found
a like scene OF destruction. The door of the
Mills House was open. The windows had
lost their glazing and were boarded up, Six
teen shots have struck the building. The
rooms where secession had been rampant in
the beginning, where bottles of wine had been
drunk over the fall of Sumter, echoed only to
our footstep. The Charleston Hotel has sever
al great holes in the walls.
The churches have not escaped. st.
Michael's, the Oldest of all, has been repeated
ly struck. The pavement is thick with broken
glass which has been ratified from the windows
by the explosion of the shells. All the
churches in the lower portion of the city are
wrecks. The preachers were early imbued
with the spirit of revolt, Episcopalian, Presby-
terian and Baptist-all preached secession.
Warehouses, stores, dwellings, alike are
shaken to pieces. The family residences over
looking the Bay or Battery, as it was called,
are windowless, some even without doors
The elaborate centre pieces of stucco-work in
the drawing rooms, have crumbled; the mar
bic mantes are defaced; bedrooms are filled
with bricks, the white marble steps and ma
hogany balusters are shattered.
1t is an indescribable scene of desolation
and ruin, of roofess, doorless, windowless
houses, crumbling walls, upheaved pavements,
and grass-grown streets-silent to all sounds
of business, and voiceless only to the woe-be-
gone, poverty stricken people, who wander up
and down amid the ruins looking to jubilaDt
past, disappointed present, and a hopeless
future. They are in rags, and their boots are
out at the toes, their shoes down at the heels.
There is no longer manifestation of AFRO
gance, lordly insolence and conscious superiori-
ty over the Yankees on the part of the whites.