The storm has burst! and while we speak, more furious, wilder, higher,
Dart from the circling batteries a hundred tongues of fire;
The waves gleam red, the lurid vault of heaven seems rent above—
Fight on, O knightly gentlemen! for faith, and home, and love!
There's not, in all that line of flame, one soul that would not rise
To seize the victor's wreath of blood, though death must give the prize;
There's not, in all this anxious crowd that throngs the ancient town,
A maid who does not yearn for power to strike one foeman down!
The conflict deepens! ship by ship the proud Armada sweeps,
Where fierce from Sumter's raging breast the volleyed lightning leaps;
And ship by ship, raked, overborne, ere burned the sunset light,
Crawls in the gloom of baffled hate beyond the field of fight!
O glorious Empress of the Main! from out thy storied spires
Thou well mayst peal thy bells of joy, and light thy festal fires,—
Since Heaven this day hath striven for thee, hath nerved thy dauntless sons,
And thou in clear-eyed faith hast seen God's angels near the guns!
Paul Hamilton Hayne.
It was evident that the fleet by itself could accomplish nothing, and a land attack was therefore planned against Fort Wagner, a very strong work, fully garrisoned by veterans. It was stormed on the evening of July 18, 1863, the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts (colored), Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, leading. He was killed in the first assault and his regiment was decimated. The Confederates buried Shaw "in a pit under a heap of his niggers."
BURY THEM
(Wagner, July 18, 1863)
Bury the Dragon's Teeth!
Bury them deep and dark!
The incisors swart and stark,
The molars heavy and dark—
[And the one white Fang underneath]!
Bury the Hope Forlorn!
Never shudder to fling,
With its fellows dusky and worn,
The strong and beautiful thing
(Pallid ivory and pearl!)
Into the horrible Pit—
Hurry it in, and hurl
All the rest over it!