Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1903-01-11
An Artillery Fight Not on the.
. BiI1s-Wreck OF the Modern Greece.
ApeuueI
Charlotte. n. C. Observer

Avenged.
Charlotte. n. c., Observer.)
Tourists and excursionists to the pleas
ant seaside resorts below Wilmington
! come across the old hulk Of ship. set
Ting year by year deeper down into the
sands with a broken rib protruding here
and there. like the bones Of some old
castaway sea nastodon.
One pleasant starry night. in the late
spring or the early summer Of 1862, the
sentinels walking their beat on the para
+, pets Of Fort Fisher. and the soldiers off
DUTY, strolling about the campus, heard
| the dull boom of guns far out at sea- At
first the intervals were long and the dis
lance was great, but gradually the can
| nonading became frequent. with an In
crease In the volume Of sound, which
! told of the swift flight Of the pursued,
and the war dogs joining in the chase
! for all realized that a blockade runner
| was making perhaps a last plucky fight
| for life.
| Hour after hour the hunter bayed with
cruel tongue on the track Of the quarry;
! iurid flashes here and there as If along
a serried line. lit the low-lying CLOUDS
! above the tossing waves; and one FAM
| cied that, amid flash and smoke, could
| be discerned the masts and spars and
white sails Of scurrying ships At last,
! Just as the dawn marked with faint gray
| streaks the horizon of the east, hull af-
| ter hull, pierced with angry guns, doomed
gigantic and n1enacing from the gloom
and. well to the front, tossing the bill
| lows ike thistle in her wake. as the swll,
| horse spurns the sands on the race track,
+! a gallant vessel iail.ly flew head-on, for
/ the fort, as If it were "cry of refuge
set on hill Shot and shell whistled
| and screamed about her, and crashed over
| the classmates of Fort Fisher. ana
ploughed the waters Of the Cape Fear
beyond. On she came, and now her name
/ stood forth on the bow, as if she asked
welcome from the excited men lining
| the trenches of the fortress-'The Mod
| ern Greece"-and she was making her
| last run. for the purpose Of her comman-
| der was plain, to beach her under Fort
| Fishers protecting guns. that she might
! not grace an enelny's triumph. The
| crash was something fearful. but the
| Modern Greece was stout ship, and she
| landed well UP in shoal water, perhaps
| a mile distant.
/ In the course of an hour or two boats
| filed with details of men were sent off
! from Fort Fisher by Major John ].
| Hedrick to bring off the cargo, which
1 was very valuable pecuniarily and very
| useful to the Confederate States govern
eminent. The ship carried great stores
| of Shoes clothing, hospital supplies, fine
wines and liquors and canned goods,
which We're speedily piled on the shore
! by the working relays, while the artil-
!erists from the garrison working in the
| hold and on the decks. refreshed them
/! selves as laborers never did before with
/ generous potations of French brandy and
I old Madeira, besides managing to snug
/ gle to quarters many bottle for a
rainy day.
There was something else in the cargo
| OF the Modern Greece that aroused great
interest at Fort Fisher-a battery of
I Whitworth guns, a remarkably finely-f1n-
ished steel rifled misunderstanding piece Of
small calibre, carrying a long con1ical
| smell these guns We're rubbed up, mount
| ed and put in fine order for action-and
IN August Colonel William G. Lamb, who
/ had then taken command, bethought him
| of his neighbors.
! Not far away was situated Fort Gas.
we'll. primarily well-built, and a COM
plete tortihcahon from an engineers
| point of view, but with an armament so
woefully deficient that it was daily sub
jected TO the insults Of the blockadins
/ squadron, which forbore to knock it into
/ smithereens. because perhaps it was not
/ worth the ammunition, but occasionaiIy
! tossed round Shot at it and derisiyely
Haunted, in the pride and gay colors OF
the fleet, just beyond its inpotent range
About this time Lieutenant Thomas c.
Fuller, afterwards Confederate Congress
man and Judge Of Claims, was ordered
| to select two gun detachments from
STAIRS Artillery, and report to head
| quarters, where our mission was given
to US. We We're to be conveyed with two
WhitWorth guns to Fort CaSwell and
were to place them in position outside the
fort. protecting and concealing them by
| masked sandbatteries. which we were
charged to erect before daylight next
| morning And make those impudent
Yankee blockaders git up and git" were
Colonel Lambs final It Instructions
/ those instructions we. fully carried out
| Arrived at Fort caswell, we hauled the
| guns around to the open, and prepared
| to plant them about two hundred yards.
| in front OF and a little to the right OF
the breasr-works- We found that nature
| had more than half built our batteries
for US. two sand-dunes requiring only a
little heightening, piercing for portfolios
| ard masking with gallberry bushes and
other surrounding growth, rendering them
tnconspicuous objects even under#a ma g
nifying glass. By I o'clock in the morn
Ing our fortificati tons We're completed, ana
| we lay down in the trenches to rest The
| cook had prepared breakfast and dinner,
and brought the provisions down to the
guns. SO that the men need not show
themselves at al, during the following
day. &.
| We awoke to a warm. cloudless morn.
Ing, ate breakfast. smoked our cob pipes
and surveyed the field Of action. If my
memory serves me, there were five block
| aiding vessels lying OF the fort, al dis
WhitWorths were wonders; their range