The ministers of her churches were foremost in abetting the Rebellion. Church and State, merchant and planter, all from high to low of the white population, brought themselves to believe that their influence was world-wide, through King Cotton and his prime minister, African Slavery. Hence the arrogance, fierce intolerance, and mad hate which had their only prototypes in the Rebellion of the Devil and his angels against Beneficent Goodness.
The siege of Charleston was commenced on the 21st of August, 1863, by the opening of the "Swamp-Angel" battery. On the 7th of September Fort Wagner was taken, and other guns were trained upon the city, compelling the evacuation of the lower half. For fourteen months it had been continued; not a furious bombardment, but a slow, steady fire from day to day. About thirteen thousand shells had been thrown into the town,—nearly a thousand a month.
They were fired at a great elevation, and were plunging shots,—striking houses on the roof and passing down from attic to basement, exploding in the chambers, cellars, or in the walls. The effect was a complete riddling of the houses. Brick walls were blown into millions of fragments, roofs were torn to pieces; rafters, beams, braces, scantlings, were splintered into jack-straws. Churches, hotels, stores, dwellings, public buildings, and stables, all were shattered. There were great holes in the ground, where cart-loads of earth had been excavated in a twinkling.
In 1860 the population of the city was 48,509,—26,969 whites, 17,655 slaves, and 3,885 free colored. The first flight from the city was in December, 1861, when Port Royal fell into the hands of Dupont; but when it was found that the opportunity afforded at that time for an advance inland was not improved, most of those who had moved away returned. The attack of Dupont upon Sumter sent some flying again; but not till the messengers of the "Swamp Angel" dropped among them did the inhabitants think seriously of leaving. Some went to Augusta, others to Columbia, others to Cheraw. Many wealthy men bought homes in the country. The upper part of the city was crowded. Men of fortune who had lived in princely style were compelled to put up with one room. Desolation had been coming on apace. The city grew old rapidly, and had become the completest ruin on the continent. There were from ten to fifteen thousand people still remaining in it, two thirds of whom were colored.
When Sherman flanked Orangeburg, Hardee, who commanded the Rebels in Charleston, saw that he must evacuate the place. There was no alternative; he must give up Sumter, Moultrie, and the proud old city to the Yankees. It was bitter as death! A few of the heavy guns were sent off to North Carolina, all the trains which could be run on the railroad were loaded with ammunition and commissary supplies, the guns in the forts were spiked, and the troops withdrawn.
The inhabitants had been assured that the place should be defended to the last; and in the Courier office we found the following sentence in type, which had been set up not twenty-four hours before the evacuation: "There are no indications that our authorities have the first intention of abandoning Charleston, as I have ascertained from careful inquiry!" Duplicity to the end.
The Rebellion was inaugurated through deception, and had been sustained by an utter disregard of truth.
Friday and Saturday were terrible days. Carts, carriages, wagons, horses, mules, all were brought into use. The railroad trains were crowded. Men, women, and children fled, terror-stricken, broken-hearted, humbled in spirit, from their homes. How different from the 12th of April, 1861, when they stood upon the esplanade of the battery, sat upon the house-tops, clustered in the steeples, looking seaward, shouting and waving their handkerchiefs as the clouds of smoke and forked flames rolled up from Sumter!
"God don't pay at the end of every week, but he pays at last, my Lord Cardinal," said Anne of Austria.
General Hardee remained in the city till Friday night, the 17th instant, when he retired with the army, leaving a detachment of cavalry to destroy what he could not remove. Every building and shed in which cotton had been stored was fired on Saturday morning. The ironclads "Palmetto State," "Chicora," and "Charleston" were also given to the flames. They lay at the wharves, and had each large quantities of powder and shell on board. General Hardee knew that the explosions of the magazines would send a storm of fire upon the city. He knew it would endanger the lives of thousands; but what cared he? Governor McGrath called upon the people to destroy their houses. The newspapers pointed to Moscow as a sublime instance of heroic devotion. Human life, the wailing of infants, the feebleness of old age, weighed nothing with Hampton, Hardee, McGrath, General Lee, or Jeff Davis.