24

THE CONFEDERATE DEFENSE OF FORT SUMTER

mm

wZj&AK6s!Z“uf

'UmWbM

Y>~

» i 1

CAPTAIN THOMAS A. IIUGUENIN IN THE HEADQUARTERS-ROOM, FOliT SUMTER, DECEMBER 7, 1864.

FROM A WAR-TIME SKETCH.

Admiral Pu Pont’s attack with nine iron-clad ves-sels was repulsed, continued until September ofthe same year, when the fort, silenced by Major-General Gillmore’s breaching batteries, had no fur-ther use for artillerists, and was thenceforth de-fended mostly by infantry. One or two companiesof artillerists would serve their turns of duty, butthe new garrison was made up of detachments frominfantry regiments of Georgia, North Carolina , andSouth Carolina , relieving one another every fort-night.

The walls of the fort rose, on all its five sides,to a height of forty feet above high-water in theharbor; but they varied in material and thickness.The materials used were the best Carolina graybrick, laid with mortar, a concrete of pounded oys-ter-shells and cement, and another and harder sortof concrete known as biton, and used only for theembrasures.

The scarp wall was five feet in thickness, but asit was backed by the piers and arches of the case-mates, “ the walls of Port Sumter,” as they arepopularly called, varied from five to ten feet inthickness.

The damage done to Fort Sumter by Du Pont ’snaval attack was severe in a few places. [See p.19.] The combined effect of two shells, 11-incliand 15-inch, respectively, striking near together onthe outer eastern wall, or sea-front, was to make acomplete breach on the interior of the upper case-mates, and to show a crater six feet in height andeight feet in width, on the exterior of the wall. Inanother place the parapet was loosened for twenty-five feet of its length, some of the bricks fallingout and exposing the gun-carriage behind it.

The magazines of the fort naturally gave the de-fenders special concern. There were four, situatedat the extremities of the gorge, nearest to MorrisIsland, and in pairs, one over the other. The stone-work built for their protection externally had beencarried up only to the tops of the lower magazines.All were used in the naval fight of April 7th, fortheywere not then so imperiled by a naval fire as laterwhen tho eastern wall became reduced in height,and the monitors could look into the arches of thewestern casemates. Before Gillmore’sguns opened,on the 17th of August, his operations on MorrisIsland caused the upper magazines to be abandonedand partly filled with sand to protect the lowerones. Only tho eastern magazine then becameendangered by his fire, and that so gradually as toallow ample time for tho removal of its contents. Itwas my duty to examine and report the conditionof these magazines almost hourly, and I well re-member how, by tho aid of a little bull’s-eye lan-tern hanging from my finger, and casting fantasticshadows on tho piled-up kegs of cannon powder,I would enter the chamber, apply my ear close tothe surface of the massive wall, and await thecoming of tho next rifle-shell, to hoar how muchmore it shook the fort than tho last, and to esti-mate its gain of penetration. Then, at night,when tho firing slackened, I would take a rod andtape-line and inspect the damage from the outside.The time came at length when it appeared prudentto removo the 11,000 pounds of powder from theeastern lower magazine, but it was never breached,and was even used as a store-room to the last.

Tho western magazine was less exposed to thedirect fire from Morris Island; and on only two