Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/166

 160 Southern Historical Society Papers.

the danger of a slightly premature explosion was great, when it is remembered that Moultrie was nearly two miles away. Besides this danger, and the danger from the enemy's shot and shell, the trenches were now so near that pieces from our own mortar shells occasionally came back into the salient.

September ^th t Saturday. The last parallel of the enemy was now completed, and their guns and mortars behind it ready for action. In the bombardment of to-day shot and shell from seventeen siege and Cohorn mortars, and thirteen 100, 200, and 3OO-pound Parrott guns, all in the enemy's land batteries, were incessantly poured into the fort. These, with the fire of the 15-inch guns of the monitors, and the sixteen n-inch broadside and 2oo-pound Parrott bow and stern guns of the Ironsides, added to the thunders of Moultrie, Johnson, and the batteries on James and Sullivan's Islands, made an artillery fight the fury and grandeur of which can hardly be conceived. It is beyond my powers of description, surpassing the most highly-colored ac- counts which I have ever heard. No words in the English language can exaggerate it. The mortar shells of the enemy, which could be seen throughout their entire flight, fell so fast that they could not be counted. The Parrott guns were so near that the explosion of their shells in the fort drowned the report of the guns. Many men were killed and wounded ; some of them, without being struck, rendered for a while completely insensible by concussion. All of our guns in the fort were silenced. It was impossible for the artillerists to work them under such a fire. When directed to any one spot, as it was whenever our artillery opened, it became impossible for anything to live, and the working of the guns was, therefore, out of the question. It was impossible to stand even for a few minutes on any part of terre- plein or parade of the fort, without being covered with sand thrown up by the bursting shells. The hats of the soldiers got as much as the rims would hold. Men could be seen ducking their heads and instinctively leaning in the direction from which the enemy's shot were coming, as in a hail storm. We kept about one-fourth of the in- fantry behind the parapet, without any other protection. The suf- fering of the men in the bomb-proofs from heat and want of water was terrible. The supply of water brought from the city was very inadequate. That got from the wells on the island was horrible. Extreme thirst alone drove the men to drinking it, and it was almost as much as a man's life was worth to visit a well for the purpose of getting it.

A great many sights, too horrible to relate, which will remain in