The steamer Deer, built on the Clyde, a few hours from Nassau, with an assorted cargo,—a low, rakish, fast-running craft, with steam escaping from her pipes,—was lying under the guns of a monitor. She had worked her way in during the night. The crestfallen captain was chewing the cud of disappointment on the quarter-deck, looking gloomily seaward the while, and doubtless wishing himself in the harbor of Nassau. Two nights before the Syren had passed in. The wreck of a third blockade-runner was lying on the sands of Sullivan's Island, near Moultrie, which months before had been run ashore by the fleet. The tide was surging through the cabin windows. Barnacles had fastened upon the hull, and long tresses of green, dank seaweed hung trailing from the iron paddle-wheels. It was a satisfaction to know that the time was at hand when Englishmen at Nassau would have to shut up shop.
We glided along the shore of Morris Island, white with tents. What heroic valor on those sands,—the assault upon Wagner, the slow, persistent excavation of the trenches, the unremitting vigilance and energy, the endurance which had forced the evacuation of Morris Island,—the turning of the guns of Wagner upon Sumter, the planting of the "Swamp-Angel" battery,—the first shell sent streaming into the city, startling the inhabitants, and awaking the unpleasant conviction that the Yankees were at their doors! So memory ran over the historic events, as we swept up the channel.
The steamer could not approach near the landing, and we were taken to the fort in small boats. We reached the interior through a low, narrow passage.
The fort bore little resemblance to its former appearance, externally or internally. None of the original face of the wall was to be seen, except on the side towards Charleston and a portion of that facing Moultrie. From the harbor and from Wagner it appeared only a tumulus,—the débris of an old ruin. All the casemates, arches, pillars, and parapets were torn up and utterly demolished. The great guns which two years before kept the monitors at bay, which flamed and thundered awhile upon Wagner, were dismounted, broken, and partially buried beneath the mountain of brick, dust, concrete, sand, and mortar. After Dupont's attack, in April, 1863, a reinforcement of palmetto-logs was made on the harbor side, and against half of the wall facing Moultrie, and the lower casemates were filled with sand-bags; but when General Gillmore obtained possession of Wagner, his fire began to crumble the parapet. The Rebels endeavored to maintain its original height by gabions filled with sand, but this compelled a widening of the base inside by sand-bags, thousands of which were brought to the fort at night. Day after day, week after week, the pounding from Wagner was maintained so effectually that it was impossible to keep a gun in position on the side of Sumter fronting it, and the only guns remaining mounted were five or six on the side towards Moultrie, in the middle tier of casemates. Five howitzers were kept on the walls to repel an attack by small boats, the garrison keeping under cover, or seeking shelter whenever the lookout cried, "A shot!"
Cheveaux-de-frise of pointed sticks protected the fort from a scaling party. At the base outside was a barrier of interlaced wire, supported by iron posts. There was also a submerged network of wire and chains, kept in place by floating buoys.
I had the curiosity to make an inspection of the wall nearest Moultrie, to see what had been the effect of the fire of the ironclads in Dupont's attack. With my glass at that time I could see that the wall was badly honeycombed; a close inspection now proved that the fire was very damaging. There were seams in the masonry, and great gashes where the solid bolts crumbled the bricks to dust. It was evident that if the fire had been continued any considerable length of time the wall would have fallen. Its effect suggested the necessity of filling up the lower casemates.
An hour was passed in the fort, the band playing national airs, and the party inspecting the ruins and gathering relics.
Captain James of the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth, aide to General Gillmore, was wounded in the assault on Wagner. He gazed at the ruins with a satisfaction not unmixed with melancholy, for beneath the sands of Morris Island was lying his beloved commander, Colonel Shaw.
The Rebels had refused to give up his body. "Let him lie buried beneath his niggers," was their answer to the request. And there he lies beside the brave men who followed him to death and glory, having won an immortal name no less as the commander of the first negro regiment sent to the war than by his gentle bearing as a man and bravery as a soldier. His acceptance of the command of the despised men who gladly enlisted when called to the field required at the time a devotion to principle and a decision of character, to face the gibes and sneers flung at him by negro-haters in his rear, greater than the courage to meet the enemy at the front. But he nobly led the way, and silenced every carping tongue.
For four long years the cannon of Sumter had hurled defiance at the rights of man; but the contest now was ended. Eternal principles had prevailed against every effort of Rebel hate to crush them. The strong earthworks on Sullivan's and Johnson's islands, the batteries in the harbor, Castle Pinckney and Fort Ripley, and those in the city erected by slaves, were useless forever, except as monuments of folly and wickedness. As I stood there upon the ruins of Sumter, looking down into the crater, the past like a panorama was unrolled, exhibiting the mighty events which will forever make it memorable. The silent landing of Major Anderson at the postern gate, the midnight prayer and solemn consecration of the little band to defend the flag till the last, the long weeks of preparation by the Rebels, the Star of the West turning her bow seaward, the 12th of April, the barracks on fire, the supplies exhausted, the hopelessness of success, the surrender, and all that had followed, were vivid memories of the moment.