Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1884-09-04

just one gun into position I'VE reckoned
Dy the days work OF one man then
5000 days word of one man, or one DAVIS
work of 5000 mem.
This gun was to be of extraordinary
power, and was to rest on q platform
composed of three thieknesses of three
inch yellow pine plank, two fthe LAYERS
of plank crossing while the other travers-
ed them diagonally; all were to be strong
ly spiked together, and under them were
loads of brush and sand bags. Sheet pill
ing, consisting Of heavy planks with
sharp points driven twenty feet into the
mud so that the top came flash with the
platform that was to surround it; this
again was TO be strongly spiked, and that
completed the inner platform. All around
this immense quantities of brush were
to be thrown into the swamp, and on
the top of this brush a grillage of logs.
sand bags were TO be piled till they sank
1t considerably, in spite Of the brush. AS
1t sank 1t was forced up by the platform in
the cente. Well the plan was submit
ted and approved and men were detailed
right away to put 1t in execution. Mean
while everybody was laughing at the
engineers, and the Charleston papers cot
wind Of the project and made great sport
Of it. One Of the comic papers had a
very funny cartoon about an old negro
carrying the swamp angels compliments
to General Beauregard, in Charleston.
Another paper would have it that the
Yankees were going to drain the swamp,
which Of course was impossible as it was
fed direct from the Atlantic Ocean;
another that we had discovered some
another paper again insisted that we
were going to dixie the swamp across;
another that we'd sent North people to
bring down bridge structure; another
that we had discovered something Won
derful in pueumatics, and still another
that we were going to use.
A BALLOON BATTERY.
Well, the engineers went ahead IN spite
Of all the laughing. They built bridge
to the point of swamp where Colonel
Serreu and Lieutenant Harold had sur
Yeyed, and soldiers carried out the plank
and logs and 10000 bags of sand and the
battery was built. The work was most
" done at night, and the hardest job Of
all was to drive the sheet pilling. Many
men were killed at the work, for the rebs
shelled us; but it was all done at last.
We had put a sham fort little distance
down the coast, Just a simple mass Of
leafy bOughs. 1t bothered the life out of
the rebs; they couldn't make out what
was going on behind it and shelled it IN
cessantly. Well, when we had got the
swamp fort all ready we built a fat
bOttOmed scOW, put q seven-inch rit1ed
Parrot on her, waited till high water
came, hOated her through, and got the
gun into position. We couldn't get ele-
vatiOn enough on it at first though, and
had to cut away the rear carriage; that
fixed things to a nicely. Oh, wasn't that
gun a daisy-neVer a cannon before or
since had such a range. You can guess
how nicely we had 1t trained when / tell
you that Lieut.. Nathan Edwards and
Col. Serrell laid the line Offre, calculating
to put a shell into the rebel headquarters
five and a half miles of, and they only
missed their mark by few feet, Smash
ed right through the house next door
that shell did, and Capt. Macbeth, who
was then on Beauregard's staff, after
wards told me that he was sitting at his
desk when the thing occurred. An old
negro came running IN to him IN a great
state of excitement saying: Nasal
MassO dar's q Yankee shell come an
made q hole in de street big huff ter put
der omnibus in A Lieutenant in Col.
PIeasanton's regiment fired that shot.
I tell you it woke the Charleston folks
up, and Meerscham and Johnson and
the other forts fired whole mines Of met
al at US, but it was all no good. We could
fix up in the night all they could knock
down in the day, for their shot would 90
into the sand bags and do no harm; and
besides, we had a reserve platform Of
sand bags behind the battery. The gun
was fired nineteen times that first night,
and did great execution, but the panic it
caused was even greater than the execu-
ton it did, for Charleston had imagined
that it could not be attacked on thisside,
and consequently had prepared no de-
fences. General Gilmore some days be-
fore we opened fire had sent a flag of
truce to Beauregard, telling him that he
proposed to open fire on Charleston, and
warning all nOn-COmbatants to retire,
but Beauregard said it was impossible to
lombard the city without a fleet Next
morning, after the swamp angels salute,
Beauregard sent a steamship with flag
Of truce to US. His communication argued
that it was wrong, unfair and altogether
against military precedent to attack him
in rear of his works. Gilmore replied
that it was both right and fair, and that
as far as precedents went he was making
them, and so the truce ended, and the
fight between the swamp angel and the
forts continued, with the advantage
largely on the angels side, for it had so
much the longer range and so much the
larger mark. 1t knocked the whole low
er part Of the city to pieces"
A Chief Justice on Friday.
Pittsburg Dispatch.
At the thirteenth dinner Of the Thir-
Loo