The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-12-27
e &
5 Christmas mCharIesfon :
SDuffng the Siege.



iured. In another instance a similar
missile entered a chamber and, pass
ing between the slate and bedclothes
Of a crib in which an infant was lying.
left the little creature unhurt, but lost
in the convolutions of it's bedding.
Another shell passed through a
chamber in which two young girls were
sleeping. The bed was struck and a
part of the mosquito bar torn away,
but, providentially, neither Of the
sleepers was hurt While the ffremen
were making every eXertion to Subdue
spreading flames caused by incehdiar-
ism, which broke out in one Of the
lower wards, the federals opened upon
the locality an increased fire OF shell.
One of the missiles, in its parabollc
descent, entered an engine Which
number of f1remen were working, and
which was surrounded by large
crowd of men. The mute friend of
their homes was blown to atoms the
men were dashed to the ground, and,
with the exception of q negro, who had
just taken the place of white man
and lost an arm, resulting afterWdrd in
his death, and very slight wound in
iicted on one or two Others none was
injured.
Notwithstanding these incidents. the
messengers of death brought desola-
ton and ruin to the inhabitants of the
city on that eventful day. The loss of
life was small. A kind providence
seemed to extend protecting wings over
the town, and under their shadow the
sisters of mercy went the rounds OF
heavenly charity, and the prattling
children went about the streets, I'M
conscious of the death missiles falling
around them. The ladies did not for
get their usual promenades, and when
a shell fell, the crowds gathered about
the Sullen monster or watched its frag
ments with a curiosity which was not
leSSened by their sense of danger. The
young girls and boys. as they heard
the whizzing and screeching, looked up
and cried, There it goes!" or Here
it comesl" with a superb feeling of
confidence in fate. When house was
struck, they examined the hole, meas
ured its dimensions, and even calcu-
lated the rate Of progress which their
enemies made in Smelling down their
ancient city.
DEATH AND DESOLATION.
Passing through the lower wards OF
the city at that time, one was struck
with the sad desolation. The elegant
mansions and familiar thoroughfares
once rejoicing in wealth and refine
ment, and the theatre of busy life-the
we'll known and fondly cherished
]
marks, where large assenblages were
wont to bow at holy affairs, and spa
cious halls that once blazed with light
and rang with festal songs-were ali
deserted, somber and cheerless; and
this was enhanced by the forbidding
aspect of that vast district Of the city
which was laid in ashes two years be
fore by the incendiaries' hands, and
which remained in unmolested ruins as
the monument of Charleston's long and
dreary pause in the grand march OF
improvement. Here was humiliation.
The battery, once the pride of Charles
ion, and the faYofite resort of those
who cared to enjoy walk with the
fresh sea breeze blowing in their faces
was then paced only by the sentinels in
I homespun. White Point garden, the
paradise of negro nurses and romping
children on baby-airing days, had be
! come a regimental camp ground; and
the Citadel Green" was then whitened
by day with the tents and lighted UP
by night with the camp fires of confed-
crate troops. Warehouses, banks
stores, dwellings,, hotels, churches and
newspaper offices did not escape but
were scenes of desolation and ruin. of
roofiess, doorless, windowless buildings,
crumbling walls, upheaved pavements
and Srass-grown streets-silent to all
sounds of business and voiceless only
to the woe-begone, poverty-stricken
haggard people who wandered UP and
down amid the ruins looking. to a iu-
bilant past, disappointed present, and
presumably hopeless future