Shells burst in the fort, plunging through the wooden barracks and officers' quarters. Solid shot from Morris Island were hurled point-blank against the walls. All day the batteries flamed, and Sumter leisurely replied.
Defence of Fort Sumter.
When darkness came on Sumter closed its port-holes and rested, but the Rebels, like spirits of evil, were at work through the night.
The second day dawned, and all the cannon were roaring again. The barracks were on fire, the smoke curling into the casemates, the hot stifling air reaching the gunners, who, wrapping themselves in wet cloths, and covering their faces, crept along the passages, rolling casks of powder into the sea. What delight on shore to see the flames mount above the walls! With what energy Moultrie, Pinckney, and Morris Island and the floating battery redoubled their fire. All but three of Anderson's cartridges were gone. The flagstaff was shot away. "The flag is down!" is the cry within the fort. Up into the storm, where the shot and shell are falling, walks Lieutenant Hall, planting the flag upon the parapet, where it waves till Wigfall appears at a port-hole. Then the parley,—the surrender,—and Charleston was excited as never before or since. Men and women on the house-tops, and gathered in church-steeples; business at a stand still, champagne flowing like water, costliest wines quaffed at the expense of merchants of New York; bells ringing, guns firing, ladies waving their handkerchiefs,—the city all aglow with bonfires in the evening; crowds surging through the streets, or drinking whiskey in the bar-rooms: Beauregard the Napoleon of the new era. Governor Pickens addressed the mob from the balcony of the Charleston Hotel:—
"It is a glorious and exultant occasion. Fellow-citizens, I clearly saw that the day was coming when we would triumph beyond the power of man to put us down. Thank God the day has come,—thank God the war is open, and we will conquer or perish! We have defeated their twenty millions, and we have made the proud flag of the stars and stripes, that never was lowered before to any nation on this earth,—we have lowered it in humility before the glorious little State of South Carolina!"[90]
Intoxicated with wine and whiskey, delirious with success, insane with Secession, the jubilant crowd cheer and drink, and shout again, bidding defiance to the government, and cursing the Yankees.
Four years pass, and Sumter is repossessed by the troops of the Union. How cheering the sight to behold once more the crimson folds and fadeless stars of our country's flag waving in the sunlight over the crumbled walls!
Early in the morning we entered the harbor,—General Gillmore and staff, General Webster, chief of General Sherman's staff, with several gentlemen and ladies from Port Royal. The blockading fleet and the monitors were steaming in, their long watch through the sweltering days of summer and the stormy nights of winter at an end. They were feeling their way up the channel searching for torpedoes.