We worked at our batteries during the day only, as a rule, returning to the regimental camp each night, leaving the batteries to be defended from any attempt of the enemy to occupy them by the heavy and light guns of direct fire, and by the infantry force that was marched up the island each night and ensconced in the bomb proofs of Wagner and Gregg. But such an attack never came, the Confederates contenting themselves with long range demonstrations, though frequently indulging in a heavy night shelling of our works, as if to cover a landing.
At these times the air would be full of artillery pyrotechnics, the flaring of bursting shells, and the sparkling arcs of mortar shells with their flaming fuses, described by an old writer as appearing in the night to be "fiery meteors with flaming tails, most beautifully brilliant." A fine exhibition for those out of range.
In December, reenlistments began from among the original men of the regiment, though they had a year yet to serve, proving to us that the government had settled down into the conviction that the war was far from being near its end. Many of D put their names on the reenlistment roll.
Later on, the 23d of January, 1864, D, with B, entered Fort Wagner as part of its garrison. It was really a sort of going into winter quarters—without the winter—for you could lie out of doors, under one blanket, in the nights of December and January, and sleep as comfortably as a soldier need to.
The siege of Charleston was really abandoned by now, and the troops that had been engaged in it were only held in hand until the time should come for them to go to Virginia to engage in graver operations.
Though regularly trained to use the thirty-two and the one-hundred pound Parrot guns Wagner was mainly armed with, we did not fire them often now except for range practice, or to send a shell now and then shrieking into Charleston. We usually aimed at the tall white steeple of St. Michael's Church, the most prominent object in the foreground of the city, and a most useful one to the Confederates, for a bright light kept burning at night from this steeple served as a guide to blockade runners. Getting the light within a certain range of one on Sumter and they could keep the channel and glide safely into the harbor. Not always, though. Early one foggy morning, that of February 2d, just after daybreak, a sentry called the attention of the sergeant of the guard to a patch of harder color in the soft atmospheric gray of the fog bank that lay between us and Sullivan's Island. A hasty inspection and a sudden lift of the fog showed us that there was a blockade runner fast ashore under Moultrie.
The alarm was quickly given, and in a few minutes a hundred-pound shell was whirling through the fog at the grounded blockade runner, the powerful impact of the shell serving to lift the fog enough to show us the lead colored vessel, with hundreds of men swarming in and out of it, engaged in a desperate attempt to unload freight before the Yankees should discover her presence. There was a wild scattering at the sound of the coming shell, the runner was left to serve us as a target, and we sent shell after shell into her until she was but a wreck.
Our Confederate friends would still favor us with a serenade of shot and shell in spite of our peaceful demeanor. And once or twice they did this so vigorously as to cause the commanding general to think they were really on the point of attacking us with infantry. Beauregard says that he made one of these night bombardments to give our commander just that idea to cover his own withdrawal of troops to Florida to General Finegan, about the time the battle of Olustee was fought in that state. Regiments of our troops would then come to Wagner to stand at the parapets all night, while we artillerymen worked the guns to keep down the enemy's fire. It was in one of these bombardments, that of Christmas night, that Private Laffin, of D, was so badly wounded, a piece of shell striking the bayonets of some stacked rifles, one of the pieces of shattered steel penetrating a leg.
This night our gunners paid particular attention to Charleston, I remember, throwing shells into that city until a large fire broke out in it, and then throwing shells at the glare of the fire. The men fighting the fire in the city, largely colored non-combatants probably, would succeed in getting the flames somewhat under control. We could see them lower and lessen, then they would suddenly flare up bright and red again, telling us that the screech of one of our going shells had driven the fire fighters to cover.
A "cruel war" it was, especially to non-combatants that circumstances of situation or greed placed in dangerous positions. Just think of the terror the enterprising sutler must have been in who had pitched a big tent outside of Fort Wagner that none of our boys having money need go without such delicacies as pickled pig's feet, canned condensed milk, ginger cakes, strong butter and slabby skim milk cheese, just think of the terror he must have been in when he would leave all these precious goods to destruction for the sake of his unexpectedly endangered person.