Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/176

 170 Southern Historical Society Papers.

with this detail and a few more men of other commands, was directed by Colonel Keitt to light a slow match communicating with the magazine, in which was a quantity of powder, and so timed that it would be blown up after he and the men with him had reached Cum- mins Point. The last firing was done by Captain Huguenin and his detachment after we left the fort. The journey to Cummins Point was a perilous trip. Shells were falling and bursting all around and over us. We kept in the shadow cast by the fort, which extended nearly to Cummins Point. The calcium light of the enemy lighted up the fort as brilliantly as on the previous night.

The sailors of the Confederate ironclad gunboats rowed the boats upon which we embarked, and we were carried to steamers in waiting just below Fort Sumter. An officer of the navy commanded each of the small boats. The skill of the oarsmen was surprising. The boats kept abreast, with the length of an oar from the gunwale to the end of the blade separating them. The oars, thus interlocked, never touched or interfered with each other. The bombardment of Wagner by the enemy was still going on after we reached the steamers. It had not then been discovered that the work had been evacuated. The boats returned for Huguenin and his party, but before they came back we heard firing of small arms in the direction of Cummins Point, and great fears were entertained that the brave captain and his detachment had been overtaken. In a few minutes, however, he and the officers left with him and nearly all of the men arrived. The boats which had returned from the steamers to Cummins Point for Huguenin's party were overhauled by the Federal picket-boats as they (the Federals) came out of the creeks and were making their nightly rounds. We lost fifty-seven prisoners, a few of them naval officers and the rest sailors and soldiers. Six of the men of Com- pany I were among the missing. One sailor jumped out of one of the boats and swam to Fort Sumter. Sending so many boats back for so small a number of men was the only mistake made during the evacuation and retreat. I never heard to whose oversight the error was attributable. We reached Fort Johnson and disembarked in safety. As soon as the news was communicated to our batteries that the evacuation of Morris Island had been accomplished, they and the gunboats in the harbor opened with all their guns on that island. Three rockets were sent up, which was the pre-arranged signal for opening fire. I went to the quarters of Colonel R. F. Graham, of the Twenty-first South Carolina volunters, near Fort Johnson, where I was entertained till the next morning. .