SOME EXTRACTS FROM AN ACCOUNT OF A TRIP
TO CHARLESTON AND BACK
ON THE OCCASION OF THE RAISING OF THE FLAG
ON FORT SUMTER AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.
“Land, ho!”
When at last it was permitted us to raise this cry, we were indeed a happy company. We entered into the experience of Columbus and Cabot and Balboa. The pilot came on board. He told us, as the pilots always did, to come to anchor, and we obeyed him. And lying there on the still water, in the perfect air, there came another feeling than that of joy. The atmosphere grew heavy with deep thoughts and wonderful associations. Our hearts were softened and our eyes were dashed with sudden tears. In dark and lurid splendor, all the great events of four long, painful years rose up before us. And then again we hoisted anchor and steamed slowly up toward the city in the deepening twilight...................
The war ships, lying there like terrible grim monsters, manned their rigging as we passed, and cheered us lustily. But there was something in our throats forbidding us to answer them with equal heartiness.
Passing under the battered walls of Sumter, we sang with trembling voices, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” And to the left was Wagner and the ditch where Colonel Shaw was buried with his dark but trusty men.
It happened so, that God in His great mercy, permitted us to be bearers of great tidings to the city—news of the rebellion’s virtual end to this community which saw its mad beginning. Once shouted from our deck, it flew from wharf to wharf, from ship to ship, and was received with shouts of thankful joy. The night shut in over the accursed city as a band upon the wharf played the dear strain “America.” It was a time never to be forgotten, pregnant with thoughts that must remain unspoken. Before I tried to sleep I stepped ashore, and, just for a moment, standing there under the silent stars, thanked God that He had punished awful sin with awful retribution............
On Friday, just after ten o’clock, we started for the fort in the steamer “Golden Gate,” which the Government officials kindly placed at our disposal. About the fort the scene was at once beautiful and exciting. There were thirty ships and steamers in its immediate vicinity, and they blossomed all over with flags. And the little boats belonging to the war ships were shooting here and there and everywhere, obedient to the lusty strokes of their stout oarsmen, dressed for the occasion in their very best.
We were on shore by half past twelve o’clock, and wandering at will about the tattered mound that had once been Fort Sumter. Indeed they had made “Ossa like a wart.” It had no form or comeliness. It was a perfect heap.......... Anon came General Anderson and Mr. Beecher and the rest. The General’s speech was, for so great an hour, the very smallest possible affair. But when it came to raising the old flag he did hoist away like a good fellow, and it went up right handsomely. The people rose up as one man, and shouted their hurrahs as if they thought to wake the echoes from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf. And the band played “The Star Spangled Banner” just as if they meant it,—as they did of course. And then from ship and fort the cannon thundered away like mad.......... And when they ceased with their roar Mr. Beecher took it up and thundered, to good purpose, for an hour or more..........
Saturday saw William Lloyd Garrison preside over an assembly of two thousand colored people, if not more, in Zion Church, and noble words were spoken which these people did not fail to understand.........
From Charleston wharf to Hampton Roads our voyage was pleasant, and the weather very fine........... Going into Hampton Roads, on Tuesday, swiftly and silently over the still water, we saw a vessel with her colors at half mast. Not long after a pilot shouted to us across the waves, from a great distance, that the President was dead. Either we could not or we would not believe it.