History of Pennsylvania volunteers, 1861-5; prepared in compliance with acts of the legislature, by Samuel P. Bates.

1863 REDUCTION OF FORT WAGNER. 57
were four thousand yards from Sumter. In the second parallel three thousand
four hundred yards distant, were two two-hundred-pounder Parrotts, and five
one-hundred-pounders. In the left battery, four thousand two hundred and
thirty-five yards distant, were one three-hundred-pounder, two two-hundredpounder, and four one-hundred-pounder, and four twenty-pounder Parrotts.
" On the 18th of August these batteries opened. In a short time the boys
of the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery got therange. Every puff of smoke
from these ungainly piles of sand, over which these Parrotts loomed long and
black, was followed by a little cloud from Sumter. These great bolts went
hissing quietly, but unerringly into the sides of this old fort, across the miles
of intervening swamp and water. At the end of the first day Sumter had the
appearance of a bad case of small pox. The next day gaps began to appear in
her parapet, and by the 25th it was a shapeless pile of brick-dust, and as a Fort
was demolished; but remained a garrison for infantry for more than a year.
"All arms of the service were engaged in this work. By turns each was
engineer, artillerist, and infantry. Operations were suspended during the day,
for now, everybody was under the musketry fire of Wagner, at will. At dusk
the eight hundred and forty guards of the trenches were marched out, and the
relief was marched in. The men filed up the low, imperfect covered ways, sa.
luted by an infernal fire from all directions. The process involved great vigilance, and more dodging than always comported with dignity. The guards once
fairly posted, became quiet, and the busy workers behind them took up their
chorus of industry. Here a couple hundred of men were dragging by long lines
a three-hundred-pounder Parrott on its gin with wheels ten feet in diameter, to
its sandy bed in front; there was a squad of busy men with shovels-here a
party filling sand-bags-there a detail with their fascines and gabions, repairing
yesterday's damage, or framing a new embrasure-here were the artillerists carrying their mortar, their solid shots and cartridges to the outermost zig-zagand there was the telegraph operator with his instrument well in advance, and
Professor Grant pouring his powerful calcium light on the ragged eminences
of Fort Wagner. Beating time to the tides, alongside, rode a glorious fleet of
iron-clads and men-of-war.
" Over all this diversity oflabor were constantly exploding, at nightthe shells
of the enemy.' Cover-Johnson!' would be called from our look-out. There
is a flash away across the harbor-in ten or fifteen seconds comes a reportaway up in air is seen a small iunsteady twinkle-presently it'whistles' and'wobbles,' and roars like a coming storm-down, down on the heads of men
crouching behind their mounds of sand-lower, and lower still-and now in
very imminent proximity, it winds up with a' bang,' and the villanous whir-r-r
of half a hundred pieces humming into the marshes, or mayhap into the living
muscles of its poor victims. Then the' Bull of the Woods' would open its pyrotechny-and'Bee' and 4 Beauregard,' the' Peanut' and' Haskill —and so the
thing was kept up until tired, and weary, and mangled, the detail went out of
the trenches at dawn. This kind of duty continued for forty days, recurring to
each man once in two days. At last the fifth parallel is pushed to within a
hundred yards of Wagner. Early on the morning of September 5th the work
is done, and everything is ready for a final test of the effect of shell on a sand
fort. A hundred guns open with their great throats on Wagner, from sea and
land. For forty hours its sand boils as a great caldron; its sand-bags, guns,