SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF FORT PULASKI.
1
were made out of copper from the metallic cases in which the desiccated vegetables are received.Columbiad shells were strapped with strips of old tents, rough blocks being used for sabots. Alarge party was kept working day and night, during the bombardment, making 10-inchColumbiad cartridge-bags, and wooden fuse-plugs for 10-inch mortars, in which paper fuseswere used.”
The men engaged in making the fnse-plugs were mostly ConnecticutYankees , and it was interesting to observe, in the expression of supreme con-tent that settled upon their countenances, the manifest relief afforded by thechange from the day and night toil of moving and mounting guns to the con-genial employment of whittling. J Once, in passing, Lieutenant Porter askedhow they were getting along. “Thank ye, Leftenaut; we’re undergoin’a consid’able degree o’ comfort.”
General orders were issued on the afternoon of the 9th, prescribing foreach battery its point of attack, the rate of tiring, and the charges andelevation of the pieces. The mortars were to drop their shells over andwithiu the faces of the work; the fire of the guns should be directed partlyagainst the barbette guns of the fort, and to take the gorge and northwalls in inverse, but mainly upon the pan-coupe joining the south andsouth-east faces, with the double view of opening a practicable breach forassault and of exposing to a reverse fire the magazine in the oppositeangle. With one or two exceptions, it was not found necessary to changethese orders during the whole course of the bombardment. One officer,a German, commanding a battery, so far failed to imbibe the spirit of theorder, that when the moment for opening fire came, he mounted the para-pet on the flank of his battery, drew his sword with a melodramatic clashand flourish, and let off all his guns in one volley. The effect was griev-ously marred by the fact that in his enthusiasm he had overlooked instruc-tions which he had personally received, to open embrasures through thesand ridge forming his parapet as the last thing before firing. Naturallythe shot, glancing from the slope, took any direction but the one intended,part of them landing as far from the fort as they were when they left thepieces. The same officer, by the way, afterward expressed the hope thatthe methods pursued in the siege of Fort Pulaski would not become knownin military circles in Europe , lest, being in violation of all the ruleslaid down in the books, they should bring discredit upon American militaryengineering.
Just after sunrise on the morning of the 10th, Major-General David Hunter ,commanding the department (of the South), sent a flag under LieutenantJames H. Wilson to the fort, with a summons to surrender. Colonel Olm-
j) “At the 10-inch mortar battery, fuse-plugs werestill wanting, and the ordnance officer [HoracePorter ] was in despair. He had brought out aspecimen of one prepared for another piece, inhopes it might serve. . . . Here were these four.pieces, at this most advanced position, renderedentirely useless. Not one could be fired. Finally,a happy thought struck him: there was a Yankeeregiment on the island; all Yankees are whittlers ;
if this regiment could be turned out to-night, theymight whittle enough fuse-plugs before morningto fire a thousand rounds. So we put spurs to ourhorses, and rode (in the darkness) . . . back to
camp. The 6th Connecticut was ordered out towhittle, and did whittle to advantage, providing allthe plugs that were used in Battery Totten on thetwo succeeding days.” [Correspondence of the“New York Times .”] — Editors.