Year: 1863

tSub yesso'u"y ''"ss o"s vi az
count of terrific thunder storm, which
commenced early in the evening and
continued until morning, delaying the
work of the engineers and dampening
the ammunition, the action did not
open until half-past IL. At that hour
Admiral Dahlgren signaled that he was
ready, and in few moments the Mon
tauk (his fiagship), the Ironsides, the
Catskil, the Nantucket, the Weehaw.
ken and the patapsce moved into line
in the order in which l have named
them, and commenced hurling their
heaviest shot and shell around, upon
and within the fort, and, with intervals
of but very few minutes, continued
this terrible fire until one hour after the
sun had gone down. During all the
afternoon the iron fleet lay about one
mile off from the fort, but Just at the
close of the engagement, and but few
moments before the first assault was
made by Gen. Strong. the Admiral ran
the Mcntauk directly under the guns
of Fort Wagner, and, within $50 yards
fired round after round from his 15inch
gun, sending, as every shot struck, vast
clouds of sand, mud and timber high
up into the air, making one huge sand
heap of that portion of the fort facing
the sea, and dismounting two of the
heaviest guns.


Deserters and prisoners tell us that
Fort Wagner mounts thirteen rifled
guns of heavy calibre, but during all
this furious bombardment by land and
sea, she oondescended to reply with
but two; one upon the whole feet of
iron,clads, and one upon the entire line
of land batteries. She may possibly
have fired one shot to our one hundred,
but think even that number is large
estimate. There were no oasulties on
the Monitors or Ironsides, and but one
man killed and one slightly wounded
within the batteries. The firing was
almost entirely from our own side.
With the most powerful glass, but very
few men could be seen in the fort. At
halfpast TIVE, a shot from one of our
guns on the left, cut the halyards on
the Aagsaff, and brought the rebel flag
f1uttering to the ground.


In moment, almost before we had
begun to ask ourselves whether they
had really lowered their flag, and were
upon the point of surrsndering or not,
the old red battle flag, which the Army
of the Potomac has SO often had def
antly shaken in its face, was run up
about ten feet above the parapst. little
cluster of men rallied around it, cheered,
waved their hats, and then disappeared,
and were not again seen during the day.
Fort Sumter, the moment the rebel flag
came to the ground, sent a shot over
our heads to assure us that it had been
lowered by accident and by design.
In this shot she also desired us to dis
tinctly understand that before Fort
Wagner surrendered, she herself would
have to be consulted. With the excep-
tion of this little episode almost pro-
found silence, SO far as the rebel garri.
son themselves could maintain it, pre-
vailed within the fort. A heavy cloud
Of smoke and sand, occasioned by our
constantly exploding shell, hung over
the fort all the afternoon, and it was
only when the wind drifted.it away,
that we were able to see the amount OF
damage We have done. In few hours
what had been the smooth regular lines
of the engineer, and the beautiful sod
ded embankments, became rugged and
irregular heaps of sand, with great
gaps and chasms in all the sides of the
fort exposed to our fire. From my
point Of obstruction, wooden lookout,
fifty feet high, erected for Gen. Gill
more and staff upon a sand bill of
about the same hight, and situated a
short distance back Of the batteries, it
seemed as if no human being could live
beneath so terrible fire, whether pro
,eoted by bomb-proofs or not, and in
this opiuion was fully sustained by
nearly every person around me. There
seemed to be but one opinion, and that
was that we had sileneed nearly every
gun that the Is inch shells had driven
the rebel from the bomb proofs, and
that if there had been strong infantry
force in the rear of the fort, we had
made it impossible for them to remain
there, and had slaughtered them 10y
hundreds. But there were few later
Developments that proved their opinieR
,.s tho oor-sct one who said this nro