How goes the battle inside the fort? The men, stripped to the waist and with handkerchiefs bound round their heads, stand at the guns all that sweltering day, with the coolness and the courage of old soldiers. The supply of powder is scant. They take careful aim, fire slowly, and make almost every shot tell. The twenty-six-pound balls splinter the masts, and make sad havoc on the decks. Crash! crash! strike the enemy's cannon balls against the palmetto logs. The wood is soft and spongy, and the huge shot either bury themselves without making splinters, or else bound off like rubber balls.
Meanwhile, where was Sir Henry Clinton? For nearly three weeks he had been encamped with some two thousand men on the sand bar known as Long Island. The men had suffered fearfully from the heat, from lack of water, and from the mosquitoes.
During the bombardment of Fort Sullivan, Sir Henry marched his men down to the end of the sand island, but could not cross; for the water in the inlet proved to be seven feet deep even at low tide. Somebody had blundered about the ford. The redcoats, however, were paraded on the sandy shore while some armed boats made ready to cross the inlet. The grapeshot from two cannon, and the bullets of Colonel Thompson's riflemen, so raked the decks that the men could not stay at their posts. Memories of Bunker Hill, perhaps, made the British officers a trifle timid about crossing the inlet, and marching over the sandy shore, to attack intrenched sharpshooters. Thus it happened that Clinton and his men, through stupidity, were kept prisoners on the sand island, mere spectators of the thrilling scene. They had to content themselves with fighting mosquitoes, under the sweltering rays of a Southern sun.
| Defending the Palmetto Fort |
All this time, Sir Peter was doing his best to pound the fort down. The fort trembled and shook, but it stood. Moultrie and his men, with perfect coolness and with steady aim, made havoc of the war ships. Colonel Moultrie prepared grog by the pailful, which, with a negro as helper, he dipped out to the tired men at the guns.
"Take good aim, boys," he said, as he passed from gun to gun, "mind the big ships, and don't waste the powder."
The mainmast of the flagship Bristol was hit nine times, and the mizzenmast was struck by seven thirty-two-pound balls, and had to be cut away. In short, the flagship was pierced so many times that she would have sunk had not the wind been light and the water smooth. While the battle raged in all its fury, the carpenters worked like beavers to keep the vessel afloat.
At one time a cannon ball shot off one of the cables, and the ship swung round with the tide.