Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1903-04-04
copyright, 1903, by c.. L. Kilmer.]

satOn harbor made the first attempt to
sentiment played no part in squirting
Admiral Dupont to make the attack.
While the officers and sailors of the
fleet were stimulated by latent de-
<sire to see the old flag floating once
more from the staff where it had been
humiliated April Il, 1861, that was not
the end in view.
Sumter was the key to Charleston
@harbor, and Charleston, in spite of the
Federal blockade, was the chief entire
spOt for the importation of foreign
arms, munitions of war and many ne
cessities of life in the south. TO reduce
Sumter would be to reduce Charleston,
and to wipe that from the list of block
~ade running ports would come as
knife thrust into the vitals of the
Confederacy.
Briefly the delay in attacking Sumter
was the invention Of the ironclad. The
victory of the little Monitor over the
Merrimac in March, 1862, made every
sailor envious of the armored ship. Big
guns will batter down concrete para
pets if they get near enough, but wood
en- floating batteries We're useless ma
chimes to venture into the circle of fire
which the Confederates could pour
upon an attacking feet from Sumter
and the chain Of land batteries around
the harbor. The attacking guns must
be protected by iron walls, and Du-
pont waited for an ironclad feet to
make the fiji st dash at Sumter.
Nine new ironclads were on the scene
some time before the attack. In order
to test the new ships Dupont sent the
: Montauk, duplicate Of the original
monitor and commanded by her cap
tain, John l.. Worden, to batter the
mud walls of Fort AlcAllister, on the
Georgia coast. The fort was not
harmed in the encounter, but the Mon
tauk lived for hours under rain of
shots which barely dented her arnor.
Seven of the new ironclads were mon
1tors, each carrying one eleven inch and
one fifteen inch gun in single turret.
These We're besides the Montauk the
Weeha vixen, Captain John Rodgers,
who had fought the wooden ship Gale
na so gallantly under the guns of Dru-
rvs bluff, in James river the year be-
fore; the Passaic, Captain Percival
Drayton, one of the heroes of the fight
against forts at Hilton Head; the Cat"
kill, Commander G. VI. Rodgers: the
Nantucket. Commander D. Mcneil
Fairfax, and the Nahant, Commander
J. A. Downes. In the fleet also We're
two experiments in ironclads, the most
christeued with the synonym Of the
celebrated frigate Constitution. The
New Ironsides was all armored battle
ship, something after the pattern of
the Aerrimac, except that she was not
armed with ram, and her roof was
rf1at instead of sloping. She carried two
$50 FOUNDER pivot rifles and fourteen
eleven inch guns in broadside. The 9TH
er experiment, the Keokuk, Commander
A. c. Rhind, was double turret moni-
tor of extra length and width.
In the harbor the fleet was to run
<amuck in channel planted with rope
and pile Instructions as well as torpe-
does and face the fire of sixty-nine
guns which from batteries in front, to
the right and to the left swept the sea.
Dupont's orders to the ship command
ers were to pay no attention to any
battery except Fort. Sumter and to con-
centrate the fire upon the center en-
brasure of that work. The walls of the
zfort rose forty-fve feet above high
water. They were built of the bes+
carolina gray brick laid with mortar
concrete Of pounded oyster shells and
cement and a still firmer concrete used
Tor the embrasures, which would get
the hardest blows in fight.
Dupont proposed to head the line
with 1ronsides as his flagship, but his
captains persuaded him to take the
The batteries at the entrance to the
channel paid no attention to the fleet
as it passed silently on, steering for
Sumter, but when the Weehawken
came within range of Fort Moultrie
the Confederate and Palmetto flags
were flung to the breeze and salute
OF thirteen guns announced the open
reer, her war upon the OLD flag. Fort
Moultrie fired the first shot, which tho
Weehawken answered. Then Sumter,
Batteries Bee and Beauregard, Cum
'ming's Point and Battery Wagner
opened fire. For wonder the Confed-
crate commander in Charleston at the
Itime was Beauregard, the original con-
,Queror of Sumter, and so the same
brain that had directed the fire of
:Moultrie and the batteries upon Major
Anderson's Garrison in April, 1861, now
directed the bombardment poured upon
the Federal feet having Sumter for
target.
The first adventures came to the
monitor Weehawken. Rodgers ran his
ship close up to the rope Instructions
between Sumter and Moultrie and got
TN the first Federal shot, Finding his
ship in danger of being shared by the
constructions, the captain turned her
about, fighting from the stern. AS the
vessel turned q tOrne6O exnlOt1o6 11n6or