Rambles about Portsmouth. Sketches of persons, localities, and incidents of two centuries: principally from tradition and unpublished documents. By Charles W. Brewster.

FORT CONSTITUTION. 183
There were a few, however, who accepted an invitation
of Col. Walbach to dine with him at the Fort,-among
them Dr. L. Spalding, Capt. Jacob Cutter, the officers of
the Fort, and a few others. The company were enjoying
the hospitalities of the Colonel in his quarters, and the
outside visitors were just collecting on the platform on the
northwest corner of the Fort, where a fiddler just arrived
had invited them to form a contra-dance. On the northeast
point of the Fort, two of the 24-pounders had been removed to make way for a brass 6-pounder from which it
was intended to fire salutes after dinner. Two ammunition
chests, containing about 350 pounds of powder, and one
containing balls, were placed on the side of the platform
near the house where the company were at dinner, and on
the platform were also seventeen cartridges of two pounds
each, for the salute. The company had been at the table
about three-quarters of an hour, when a tremendous explosion took place-the sides and ceiling of the room were
driven in, the tables upset, and everything on them shivered to atoms! The company were prostrated, and the
lady of Col. W. came running into the room, bloody from
slight injuries. None of the company were, however, materially injured. They ran out to witness the distressing
scene of men dead and alive, their clothes burning, and the
ground covered with fragments of timber and boards, scattered balls and pieces of iron on every side. The sides and
wainscot of the house were beaten in; balls were sent
through the windows, and five 24-pound balls were carried
beyond the house. One poor fellow was carried over the
roof of the house, and the upper half of his body lodged
on the opposite side near the window of the dining room;
the limb of another was driven through a thick door over
the dining room, leaving a hole in the door the shape of
the foot; parts of the other bodies were carried nearly a
hundred yards from the fatal spot. Of the killed were