Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/177

 The Defence of Battery Wagner.

and rapidly constructing and equipping his batteries designed to co- operate with the fleet in the bombardment which followed.

THE MONITORS.

While this work was in progress, the monitors of the fleet would daily leave their anchorage and engage in a desultory shelling of the fort. The huge projectiles, fired from their fifteen-inch guns, weigh- ing four hundred and forty pounds and visible at ever point of their trajectories, made it very uncomfortable for the garrison. They practiced firing ricochet shots, which would skip and bound upon the water, each impingement making sounds similar to the discharge of the gun itself. Indeed, until this curious phenomenon was noted the multiplication of detotations was regarded as separate discharges of different guns. Some of these enormous shells would roll into the fort, bury themselves in the earth, and, with deafening explosion, would make huge craters in the sand, lifting it in great columns, which, falling in showers like the scoriae and ashes from a volcanic eruption, would fill the eyes, ears, and clothing, mingling the dirt of the fort with the original dust from which we sprung. Some would burst in the air, others passing over the fort with a rush and roar, which has aptly been likened to the noise of an express train, would explode in the marsh beyond. Of course our guns replied, but they were so inferior in calibre compared to those of the monitors that they did little harm at such long range to the iron armor of their turrets, eleven inches in thickness.

THE ARMAMENT OF WAGNER

consisted of one ten-inch Columbiad, one thirty-two pound rifle, one forty-two pounder Carronade, two thirty-two pounder .Carronade, two navel shell guns, one eight-inch sea coast howitzer, four smooth bore thirty-two pounders, and one ten-inch sea coast mortar; in all thirteen guns, besides one light battery. Of these only the ten-inch Columbiad, which carried a projectile weighing one hundred and twenty-eight pounds, was of much effect against the monitors.

THE STAFF

of General Taliaferro consisted of W. T. Taliaferro, assistant adju- tant-general ; Lieutenants Henry C. Cunningham and Mazyck, ord-