At first the fort and the batteries and Moultrie seem to redouble their efforts in increasing the fire, but after an hour there is a perceptible diminution of the discharges from the fort. After each shot from the ironclads, clouds of dust can be discerned rising above the fort and mingling with the smoke. Steadying my glass in the lulls of the strife, watching where the southwest breeze whiffs away the smoke, I can see increasing pock-marks and discolorations upon the walls, as if there had been a sudden breaking out of cutaneous disease.
The flag-ship, drawing seventeen feet of water, was obliged to move cautiously, feeling her way up the channel. Just as she came within range of Moultrie her keel touched bottom on the east side of the channel; fearing that she would run aground the anchor was let go. Finding the vessel was clear, the Admiral again moved on, signalling the left wing to press forward to the aid of the four already engaged. The Ironsides kept the main channel, which brought her within about one thousand yards of Moultrie and Sumter. She fired four guns at Moultrie, and received in return a heavy fire. Again she touched bottom, and then turned her bow across the channel toward Sumter, firing two guns at Cummings Point. After this weak and ineffectual effort, the tide rapidly ebbing the while, she again got clear, but gave up the attempt to advance. The Catskill, Nantucket, Nahant, and Keokuk pressed up with all possible speed to aid the four which were receiving a tremendous hammering.
See them sweep past the convergent points and radial lines! See the bubbling of the water,—the straight columns thrown up in the sunlight,—the flashes, the furrows along the waves, as if a plough driven with lightning speed were turning up the water! They are all close up to Sumter, within four or five hundred yards. Behind them are Moultrie and Fort Ripley, and Fort Beauregard, flashing, smoking, bellowing; in front is Sumter, and in the background are Fort Wagner and Cummings Point. Across the shallow waters is Fort Johnson; still farther off to the right is Castle Pinckney, too far away to do damage. From all sides the balls fall around the fleet. Calmly and deliberately the fire is returned,—with a deliberation which must have commanded the admiration of the enemy.
The Keokuk presented a fair mark with her sloping sides and double turrets. Her commander, Captain Rhind, although not having entire confidence in her invulnerability, was determined to come to close quarters. She was not to be outdone by the ironclads who had led the advance. Swifter than they, drawing less water, she made haste to get up with the Weehawken. The guns which had been trained upon the others were brought to bear upon her. Where she sailed the fire was fiercest. Her plating was but pine wood to the steel projectiles, flying with almost the swiftness of a minnie bullet. Shot which glanced harmlessly from the others penetrated her angled sides. Her after turret was pierced in a twinkling, and a two-hundred pound projectile dropped inside. A heavy shot crashed into the surgeon's dispensary, and mixed emetics, cathartics, pills and powders not according to prescriptions. The enemy noticed the effect of his shot and increased his fire. Captain Rhind was not easily daunted. He opened his forward turret and gave three shots in return for the three or four hundred rained around him. The sea with every passing wave swept through the shot-holes, and he was forced to retire or go to the bottom with all on board.
The tide was ebbing fast, and the signal for retiring was displayed by the flag-ship. It was raised, seemingly, at an inopportune moment, for the fire of the fort had sensibly diminished, while that from the ironclads was steady and true. It was past five o'clock, almost sunset, when the fleet came back. Never had there been such a hammering of iron and smashing of masonry as during two and a half hours of that afternoon. The gunboat Bibb, the Ben Deford, and the Nantasket had taken position in the North Channel at a respectful distance off Sullivan's Island. A mile or two east of Moultrie is Beach Inlet, where a powerful battery had been erected. While intently gazing on the contest, the correspondents and all hands on the other steamers were startled by hearing the whiff and whiz of a rifle projectile, which came diagonally across the Nantasket, across the bow of the Ben Deford, falling into the sea about one hundred yards ahead. There was a laughable cuddling down and scampering for the coal-bunkers, the engine-room, and between decks. There was an immediate hauling in of cables and motion of paddle-wheels. A second shot in admirable line fell short. We being at anchor and within range, the Rebel gunner had made nice calculations. He had already fired a half-dozen shots, which had fallen far ahead unnoticed. Cummings Point also tried to reach us with shells, but failed. One of the correspondents claimed that the press completely silenced a battery—by getting out of the way!
Steaming into the retiring fleet we ran alongside the Keokuk. A glance at her sides showed how terrible the fire had been. Her smoke-stack, turrets, sides,—all were scarred, gashed, pierced through and through. An inspection revealed ninety-four short-marks. There were none below the water-line, but each wave swept through the holes on the sides. Her pumps were going and she was kept free. Only three of her officers and crew were wounded, although she had been so badly perforated.
"All right, nobody hurt, ready for them again," was the hearty response of Captain George Rodgers, of the Catskill, as I stepped upon the slushed deck of that vessel and grasped the hand of her wide-awake commander. The Catskill had received about thirty shots. One two-hundred-pounder, thrown evidently from a barbette gun, had fallen with tremendous force upon the deck, bending, but not breaking or penetrating the iron. On the sides, on the turret, and on the pilot-house were indentations like saucers, but there was no sign of serious damage.
The Nahant came down to her anchorage with a gashed smoke-stack. Going on board, we found that eleven of her officers and crew had received contusions from the flying of bolt-heads in the turret. One shot had jammed the lower ridge of her turret, interfering with its revolution. She had been struck forty times, but—aside from the loss of a few bolt-heads, a diminished draft to her chimney, and the slight jam upon the turret—her armor was intact.
The other monitors had each a few bolts started. Four gun-carriages needed repairs,—injured not by the enemy's shot, but by their own recoil. One shot had ripped up the plating of the Patapsco and pierced the wood-work beneath. This was the only shot, out of the twenty-five hundred or three thousand supposed to have been fired from the forts which penetrated the monitors!
The Weehawken had received three heavy shot upon her side, the indentations close together. The plates were badly bent, but the shot had fallen as harmlessly as pebbles upon the side of a barn.