On Morris island, Gen. James Simons was commanding, with Lieut.-Col. W. G. De Saussure for his artillery chief, and Maj. W. H. C. Whiting for chief of staff. The infantry supports on the island were the regiments of Cols. John Cunningham, Seventeenth South Carolina militia, and Maxcy Gregg, Johnson Hagood and J. B. Kershaw, of the South Carolina volunteers. The artillery was in position bearing on Ship channel, and at Cummings point, bearing on Sumter. The fleet making no attempt to come in, the channel batteries took no part in the bombardment of Sumter.
On Cummings point, six 10-inch mortars and six guns were placed. To the command and direction of these guns, Maj. P. F. Stevens was specially assigned. One of the batteries on the point was of unique structure, hitherto unknown in war. Three 8-inch columbiads were put in battery under a roofing of heavy timbers, laid at an angle of forty degrees, and covered with railroad T iron. Portholes were cut and these protected by heavy iron shutters, raised and lowered from the inside of the battery. This battery was devised and built by Col. Clement H. Stevens, of Charleston, afterward a brigadier-general and mortally wounded in front of Atlanta, July 20, 1864, leading his brigade. "Stevens' iron battery," as it was called, was "the first ironclad fortification ever erected," and initiated the present system of armor-plated vessels. The three mortars in battery at Fort Johnson were commanded by Capt. G. S. James. The batteries above referred to, including Fort Moultrie, contained fifteen 10-inch mortars and twenty-six guns of heavy caliber.
For thirty-four hours they assaulted Sumter with an unceasing bombardment, before its gallant defenders consented to give it up, and not then until the condition of the fort made it impossible to continue the defense. Fort Moultrie alone fired 2,490 shot and shell. Gen. S. W. Crawford, in his accurate and admirable book, previously quoted, thus describes the condition of Sumter when Anderson agreed to its surrender:
It was a scene of ruin and destruction. The quarters and barracks were in ruins. The main gates and the planking of the windows on the gorge were gone; the magazines closed and surrounded by smouldering flames and burning ashes; the provisions exhausted; much of the engineering work destroyed; and with only four barrels of powder available. The command had yielded to the inevitable. The effect of the direct shot had been to indent the walls, where the marks could be counted by hundreds, while the shells, well directed, had crushed the quarters, and, in connection with hot shot, setting them on fire, had destroyed the barracks and quarters down to the gun casemates, while the enfilading fire had prevented the service of the barbette guns, some of them comprising the most important battery in the work. The breaching fire from the columbiads and the rifle gun at Cummings point upon the right gorge angle, had progressed sensibly and must have eventually succeeded if continued, but as yet no guns had been disabled or injured at that point. The effect of the fire upon the parapet was pronounced. The gorge, the right face and flank as well as the left face, were all taken in reverse, and a destructive fire maintained until the end, while the gun carriages on the barbette of the gorge were destroyed in the fire of the blazing quarters.
The spirit and language of General Beauregard in communicating with Major Anderson, and the replies of the latter, were alike honorable to those distinguished soldiers. The writer, who was on duty on Sullivan's island, as major of Pettigrew's regiment of rifles, recalls vividly the sense of admiration felt for Major Anderson and his faithful little command throughout the attack, and at the surrender of the fort. "While the barracks in Fort Sumter were in a blaze," wrote General Beauregard to the secretary of war at Montgomery, "and the interior of the work appeared untenable from the heat and from the fire of our batteries (at about which period I sent three of my aides to offer assistance), whenever the guns of Fort Sumter would fire upon Moultrie, the men occupying the Cummings point batteries (Palmetto Guard, Captain Cuthbert) at each shot would cheer Anderson for his gallantry, although themselves still firing upon him; and when on the 15th instant he left the harbor on the steamer Isabel, the soldiers of the batteries lined the beach, silent and uncovered, while Anderson and his command passed before them."
Thus closed the memorable and momentous attack upon Fort Sumter by the forces of South Carolina, and thus began the war which lasted until April, 1865, when the Southern Confederacy, as completely ruined and exhausted by fire and sword as Fort Sumter in April, 1861, gave up the hopeless contest and reluctantly accepted the inevitable.
The following is believed to be a correct list of the officers who commanded batteries, or directed, particularly, the firing of the guns, with the commands serving the same:
On Cummings point: (1) Iron battery—three 8-inch columbiads, manned by detachments of Palmetto Guard, Capt. George B. Cuthbert directing, assisted by Lieut. G. L. Buist. (2) Point battery—mortars, by Lieut. N. Armstrong, assisted by Lieut. R. Holmes; 42-pounders, Lieut. T. S. Brownfield; rifle gun, directed by Capt. J. P. Thomas, who, with Lieutenant Armstrong, was an officer of the South Carolina military academy. Iron battery and Point battery both manned by Palmetto Guard. (3) Trapier battery—three 10-inch mortars, by Capt. J. Gadsden King and Lieuts. W. D. H. Kirkwood and Edward L. Parker; Corp. McMillan King, Jr., and Privates J. S. and Robert Murdock, pointing the mortars; a detachment of Marion artillery manning the battery, assisted by a detachment of the Sumter Guards, Capt. John Russell.
On Sullivan's island: (1) Fort Moultrie—Capt. W. R. Calhoun, Lieutenants Wagner, Rhett, Preston, Sitgreaves, Mitchell, Parker, Blake (acting engineer). (2) mortars—Capt. William Butler and Lieutenants Huguenin, Mowry, Blocker, Billings and Rice. (3) Mortars—Lieutenants Flemming and Blanding. (4) Enfilade—Captain Hallonquist and Lieutenants Valentine and Burnet. (5) Floating battery—Lieutenants Yates and Frank Harleston. (6) Dahlgren battery—Captain Hamilton.
On Mount Pleasant: (1) Mortars—Captain Martin and Lieuts. F. H. Robertson and G. W. Reynolds.