Through the whole afternoon there had been a tremendous cannonading of the fort from the gunboats and the land forces: the smooth, regular engineer lines were broken, and the fresh-sodded embankments torn and roughened by the unceasing rain of shot and shell.
About six o'clock there came moving up the island, over the burning sands and under the burning sky, a stalwart, splendid-appearing set of men, who looked equal to any daring, and capable of any heroism; men whom nothing could daunt and few things subdue. Now, weary, travel-stained, with the mire and the rain of a two days' tramp; weakened by the incessant strain and lack of food, having taken nothing for forty-eight hours save some crackers and cold coffee; with gaps in their ranks made by the death of comrades who had fallen in battle but a little time before,—under all these disadvantages, it was plain to be seen of what stuff these men were made, and for what work they were ready.
As this regiment, the famous Fifty-fourth, came up the island to take its place at the head of the storming party in the assault on Wagner, it was cheered from all sides by the white soldiers, who recognized and honored the heroism which it had already shown, and of which it was soon to give such new and sublime proof.
The evening, or rather the afternoon, was a lurid and sultry one. Great masses of clouds, heavy and black, were piled in the western sky, fringed here and there by an angry red, and torn by vivid streams of lightning. Not a breath of wind shook the leaves or stirred the high, rank grass by the water-side; a portentous and awful stillness filled the air,—the stillness felt by nature before a devastating storm. Quiet, with the like awful and portentous calm, the black regiment, headed by its young, fair-haired, knightly colonel, marched to its destined place and action.
When within about six hundred yards of the fort it was halted at the head of the regiments already stationed, and the line of battle formed. The prospect was such as might daunt the courage of old and well-tried veterans, but these soldiers of a few weeks seemed but impatient to take the odds, and to make light of impossibilities. A slightly rising ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held by a desperate and invincible foe.
Here the men were addressed in a few brief and burning words by their heroic commander. Here they were besought to glorify their whole race by the lustre of their deeds; here their faces shone with a look which said, "Though men, we are ready to do deeds, to achieve triumphs, worthy the gods!" here the word of command was given:—
"We are ordered and expected to take Battery Wagner at the point of the bayonet. Are you ready?"
"Ay, ay, sir! ready!" was the answer.
And the order went pealing down the line, "Ready! Close ranks! Charge bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"—and away they went, under a scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the fort, when the storm of death broke upon them. Every gun belched forth its great shot and shell; every rifle whizzed out its sharp-singing, death-freighted messenger. The men wavered not for an instant;—forward,—forward they went; plunged into the ditch; waded through the deep water, no longer of muddy hue, but stained crimson with their blood; and commenced to climb the parapet. The foremost line fell, and then the next, and the next. The ground was strewn with the wrecks of humanity, scattered prostrate, silent, where they fell,—or rolling under the very feet of the living comrades who swept onward to fill their places. On, over the piled-up mounds of dead and dying, of wounded and slain, to the mouth of the battery; seizing the guns; bayoneting the gunners at their posts; planting their flag and struggling around it; their leader on the walls, sword in hand, his blue eyes blazing, his fair face aflame, his clear voice calling out, "Forward, my brave boys!"—then plunging into the hell of battle before him. Forward it was. They followed him, gathered about him, gained an angle of the fort, and fought where he fell, around his prostrate body, over his peaceful heart,—shielding its dead silence by their living, pulsating ones,—till they, too, were stricken down; then hacked, hewn, battered, mangled, heroic, yet overcome, the remnant was beaten back.
Ably sustained by their supporters, Anglo-African and Anglo-Saxon vied together to carry off the palm of courage and glory. All the world knows the last fought with heroism sublime: all the world forgets this and them in contemplating the deeds and the death of their compatriots. Said Napoleon at Austerlitz to a young Russian officer, overwhelmed with shame at yielding his sword, "Young man, be consoled: those who are conquered by my soldiers may still have titles to glory." To say that on that memorable night the last were surpassed by the first is still to leave ample margin on which to write in glowing characters the record of their deeds.