Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/52

 with a festive gloss. Muskets, cutlasses and pistols were stacked and heaped about. The powder-ways were open. The surgeons had their knives, pincers and saws displayed. Upon the whole, the flagship, though hardly replete with comfort, was attractive enough to one who could appreciate the stern pathos of preparation for battle.

I had been aboard about two hours when the signal to get under way was ordered to be made to all the ironclads outside of the bar. Simultaneously the drum and fife called all hands to quarters, and in a few minutes every man on board was at his post, and the ship ready to commence action at any moment. The general command of the ship was exercised by Commodore Thomas Turner and Lieutenant-Commander George E. Belknap. Lieutenant-Commander Barnes, commanding the gunboat Dawn, had also been detailed for special duty on this occasion. . ..

The crossing of the bar involved considerable risk from grounding, but all passed it safely, and were at anchor inside by ten o'clock. The Weehawken lagged somewhat behind, by having a raft from the Ericsson again fitted to her bow, but soon joined the rest. Charleston bar is a ridge-like elevation of the bottom of the sea, reaching from one end of the entrance of the harbor to the other. Large vessels can safely make the inside only through three openings in this, known as the Main Ship, Swash, and North Channels. The first runs to the south of the bar, almost parallel to Morris Island. The third to the north of the bar, along Sullivan's Island; and Swash Channel, between the two. The Main Ship Channel is commanded by the forts and batteries on Morris Island; the Swash and North Channels by those on Sullivan's. All three channels run into one directly in front of and at short range from Fort Sumter, whose guns, with those of the equidistant Fort Moultrie and Cumming's Point battery, thus defend the entrance to the harbor proper by a concentric fire. In addition to the mentioned works, there is said to be another heavy battery (Fort Bee) on Sullivan's Island, between the Moultrie House and the fort. It is presumed that the fire of nearly 150 guns converges at the described junction of the three channels.

The course of the ironclads was up the Main Ship Channel. It was expected that before coming under the fire of Sumter and Moultrie they would have to run, in a distance of three miles from the bar, the gauntlet of four works on the beach of Morris Island one at Lighthouse Inlet, another near Lawford Beacon, a third