The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1906-05-31

There are several men in Chicago
said the Captain" who had a personal
acquaintance with the Swamp Angel
in front of Charleston in the summer
of 1863. When General Gillmore's
division, $4,000 strong, effected a lodg
ment on Morris island, and, after an
assault on Fort Wagner. began the
construction of siege works, the boys
believed that General Gilmore and
Colonel E. w. Serrell, his chief engi-
neer (who died in New York few
days ago., sat up nights to find some
thing for them to do. At all events,
the General and his staff seemed very
busy in making plans that gave the
men lots of work.
They knew when Gilmore sent
Lieutenant Peter s. Niche, of the
United States engineers to examine the
marsh or swamp. They heard good
deal about what he said of placing
batteries in that swamp, but they did
not believe that any batteries could
be placed there. They knew when
Colonel Serrell and Lieutenant Nathan
NJ Edwards started across the swamp
on a prospecting expedition, and they
rejoiced greatly at the mishaps of
the two busybodies, as they called
them. Serrell and Edwards carried
with them a fourteen foot plank, and
when the mud or ooze in the swamp
would Do1 bear them, they sat on the
plank and pushed it forward between
their legs. Then, where the ground
was more solid, they picked up the
muddy plank and carried it until they
began to go down in the Ooze again. ,
They went down good many
times, but all the time they kept going
forward. All their maneuvers We're
observable by both armies and our
own men hooted and cheered and
laughed over the mishaps and adven-
lures of the two plucky men. They
were as dirty a looking couple when
they returned to solid ground as any
of us had ever seen, but they reported
that they had found what they were
sent out to find, and that was a site
for battery. -
1T became noised about that Col
onel Serrell had found one spot In
the marsh where mud was not more
than fifteen or twenty feet deep and
that he had reported to General Gill
more that he could build battery at
that point from which shot and shell
could be hurled into Charleston. His
first plan involved the construction OF
a trestle work road and the employ
merh of 1900 men to carry to the point
lin one night sand bags enough to make
an island on which could be placed a
heavy siege gun which was to be
dragged across causeway after the
manner of Napoleon. The boys took
the whole question under Amusement.
The idea of 1900 men carry sand bags
all night they regarded as a great
joke. In fact, they looked upon the
whole scheme as joke.
"At one camp fire a requisition on
Colonel Serrell was made out Tor
twenty men, eighteen feet long, to do
duty In fifteen feet of mud. Ii the
gossip about the camp fires meant any
thing at all, 1t meant that the men of
General Gillmores army thought the
General and his chief engineer were
crazy. But when 1t was made clear
| to them that the point was chosen to
throw shot and shell into Charleston
itself, they were eager to proceed with
the work as the General and his staff.
| 'The site was chosen about the mid
die of July. About the first Of August
| the plan was matured, and work was
begun ON the trestIe road. This was
two and one-half mile long, and was
completed in about week. Then 49,.
600 sand bags, containing over 800 tons
of sand, were carried by those devoted
men to the point fixed upon for the
swamp battery. On the 18th of Au-
gust the island. or battery, was ready
for the gun, and 800 pound Parrott
gun was put into position.
| .All these operations, it must be re-
membered, were observable by the en-.
envy, and several of the rebel forts
turned all their guns on what they
supposed was the real swamp battery,
but which, I'm fact, was a structure put
mo to draw their fire. Meantime, the
men kept at work behind the sand
bags on the real battery, and at 80
a. m. August %, the big PARROT gun
opened fire on Charleston, putting six
teen shells, constructed under the direct
personal supervision Of Colonel Par
rott himself, into Charleston. The next
day. August %. twenty shells were
thrown into the city, but at the thirty
sixth discharge OF the Swamp Angel
the breech of the gun blew out of its
| Jacket and the gun itself was thrown
| forward on the parapet.
| "For days and days the rebel artil.
lerists, believing the gun was thrown
| forward to fire on Charleston, bonn
barded 1t, but they effected no injury
and did not kill man In the fort. A
month later ten inch Howitzers were
placed in the swamp fort FOR the bonn
bardment of Charleston and Fort
Sumpter. The Swamp Angel itself was
sold for old iron and sent to Trenton,
| Il. J. There, however, it was identi-
fed, rescued from the scrap pile, given
a new jacket, and set upon gran
lite monument, where 1t still remains.
1.-The work of the Swamp Angel was
not in what it accomplished itself, but
in the demonstration that battery
could be built in swamp within
range of Charleston, and that the city
was practically at the mercy. of Gen.
| eral Gillmore's batteries. The men of
hat division, coming mainly from New
| ngland, New York and Ohio, took
| special pride in the Swamp Angel, and
to this day they regard the building of
that battery in twenty feet of mud as
<bc .x,.oaf oxplaifo Of tho -