The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-07-01
THE SWAMP ANGEL.
How It Was Put Into Position Be
fore Charleston-Its Opening
Salute.

Brooklyn Union.
"Did you boys ever hear the story
of how the Swamp-angel was put into
position before Charleston ?" asked 6
veteran of the engineers.
"I've read about it several times,
said one of the group.
swell, / never read an account OF
it vet that wasn't crooked" returned
the engineer. 81 was there myself
and know the whole inside of the
business, and I'll tell you just how il
was. Gen. Gilmore was in command
of the engineers at the siege OF
Charleston. One day in the mid
summer of 1863 he sent Capt. Michel,
now general at West Point, to see
whether there was any point on the
coast where guns could be placed to
attack Charleston. Michel reported
that the coast was all swamp for
three or four miles handwriting
but mud, water and slush forty or
fifty feet deep. He had gone half a
mile or so in a boat, making very
poor progress through the bulrushes,
and the stencil from the carcasses of
animals thrown into the swamp made
him sick. Gilmore was in bush hut
eating supper with Col. (now GeneraD
Terrell when he got NIichePs report.
He tnrned to Terrell and asked him
whether he thought it possible to get
guns posted in the swamp. Terrell
said he thought nothing was i'm
possible; he called Lieut.. Harold and
sent him to reconnoiter. Harold was
gone half the night and came back
very much bedraggled and tired. He
said it was impossible to get the guns
through, and impossible to mount
them even if they could be got
through. Using his utmost efforts he
had only been able to get between
two and three miles into the swamp.
Terrell said it had got to be done.
Harold asked how he was going to do
it, and said it would require men with
legs forty feet long to get through
that swamp. Well, the project of
posting guns in the swamp got abroad
in the camp, and the soldiers made
great fun about it. They said that
Doctors Dalrymple and Show, two of
the medical officers on, General
Gilmore's staff, were appointed
to splice the legs of our men to
get them to the required length.
Next morning Col. Terrell took
Lieut.. Edwards with him and started
to look at the swamp for himself
They got as long plank as there was
in the camp and waded into the
swamp, each holding one end of the
plank. The day was fearfully hot,
the work was terrible getting through
the rusbes and water plants and thick,
shiny slush, and the smell of the
swamp was sickening, but they per.
severd, working slowly out till they
came to a creek. Here they were
stopped for time, as it had con-
siderable current and was deep, but
after a while they got the plank ft-
ted so that one held it while the other |
crawled over and held it still in his
turn. Then, with inf mite labor, they |
went on a mile flu -ther towards Charles
ton. Finally they got to the waters
edge, four AM a half miles from
Charleston. Here the ground was
more solid. There were oysters shelIs
and wrinkles and spiral aureoles.
They took bearing to the steeple of
St. MichaePs Church in Charleston
and another bearing to Fort Moultrie
and another to Fort johnson, and
so located their own position in the
swamp. Then they worked down
the edge of the open water to Block
Island, and so returned, terribly play
ed out an dirty but full of hope.
Col. Terrell told Gen. Gilmore that
he thought it possible to get guns into
such position in the swamp that they
might lombard Charleston, and that
night submitted plan for establish
ing the wished-for battery. In this
plan he estimated that it would re
quire 5000 days work to put just
one gun into position Eve reckoned by
the days work of one man then
5000 days work of one man, or one
days work of 5000 mem. This gun
was to be of extraordinary power, and
was to rest on platform composed
of three thicknesses of 3-inch yellow
pine plank, two of the layers of plank
crossing while the other traversed
them diagonally; all were to be
strongly spiked together, and under
meath them were loads of brush and
sand bags. Sheet piling consisting
of heavy planks with sharp points
driven twenty feet into the mud so
that the top came flush with the plat
form that was to surround II this