The torch was applied early on the morning of the 18th. The citizens sprang to the fire-engines and succeeded in extinguishing the flames in several places; but in other parts of the city the fire had its own way, burning till there was nothing more to devour. On the wharf of the Savannah Railroad depot were several hundred bales of cotton and several thousand bushels of rice. On Lucas Street, in a shed, were twelve hundred bales of cotton. There were numerous other sheds all filled. Near by was the Lucas mill, containing thirty thousand bushels of rice, and Walker's warehouse, with a large amount of commissary stores, all of which were licked up by the fire so remorselessly kindled.
At the Northeastern Railroad depot there was an immense amount of cotton which was fired. The depot was full of commissary supplies and ammunition, powder in kegs, shells, and cartridges. The people rushed in to obtain the supplies. Several hundred men, women, and children were in the building when the flames reached the ammunition and the fearful explosion took place, lifting up the roof and bursting out the walls, and scattering bricks, timbers, tiles, beams, through the air; shells crashed through the panic-stricken crowd, followed by the shrieks and groans of the mangled victims lying helpless in the flames, burning to cinders in the all-devouring element. Nor was this all. At the wharves were the ironclads, burning, torn, rent, scattered over the water and land,—their shells and solid shot, iron braces, red-hot iron plates, falling in an infernal shower, firing the wharves, the buildings, and all that could burn.
There was more than this. Two magnificent Blakely guns—one at the battery, the other near the gas-works on Cooper River—were loaded to the muzzle and trains laid to burst them. The concussion shattered all the houses in the immediate vicinity.
The buildings near the Northeastern depot were swept away. All the houses embraced in the area of four squares disappeared. The new bridge leading to James Island was destroyed, the fire eating its way slowly from pier to pier through the day. The citizens did their utmost to stay the flames, but from sunrise to sunset on Saturday, all through Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday, the fire burned. How fearful this retribution for crime! Abandoned by those who had cajoled and deceived them, who had brought about their calamity, while swearing to defend them to the last, humbled, reduced from affluence to poverty, the people of Charleston were compelled to endure the indescribable agony of those days.
Colonel Bennett, commanding the Twenty-First United States Colored Troops on Morris Island, seeing signs of evacuation on Saturday morning, the 18th, hastened up the harbor in boats with his regiment, landing at the South Atlantic wharf.
"In the name of the United States government," was his note to the Mayor, "I demand the surrender of the city of which you are the executive officer. Until further orders, all citizens will remain in their houses."
The mayor, meanwhile, had despatched a deputation to Morris Island with formal intelligence of the evacuation.
"My command," wrote Colonel Bennett, "will render every possible assistance to your well-disposed citizens in extinguishing the flames."
The Twenty-First United States Colored Troops was made up of the old Third and Fourth South Carolina regiments, and many of them were formerly slaves in the city of Charleston. They were enlisted at a time when public sentiment was against them, in the winter of 1862-63. I was at Port Royal then, and they were employed in the quartermaster's department. They were sneered at and abused by officers and men belonging to white regiments; but Colonel Bennett continued steadfast in his determination, obtained arms after a long struggle, in which he was seconded by Colonel Littlefield, Inspector-General of colored troops in the department. Colonel Bennett had organized four companies of the Third and Colonel Littlefield four companies of the Fourth. The two commands were united and numbered as the Twenty-First United States Colored Troops. They went to Morris Island in 1863, took part in two or three engagements, and proved themselves good soldiers of the Union. It was their high privilege to be first in the city. The stone which the builders rejected once in the history of the world became the head stone of the corner; and in like manner the poor, despised, rejected African race, which had no rights, against whom the city of Charleston plotted iniquity and inaugurated treason, marched into the city to save it from destruction! Following the Twenty-First was a detachment of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts.
"Let him lie buried beneath his niggers!" Stung by the insult to the memory of their lamented commander and by the sneer at themselves, will they not now wreak their vengeance on the ill-fated city? It is their hour for retaliation. But they harbor in their hearts no malice or revenge. Conscious of their manhood, they are glad of another opportunity of showing it.