Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/183

 The Defence of Battery Wagner.

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beneath the starry cross of Dixie which will cease to love and honor it. It waived its conquering folds in the smoke of battle at Manassas and Shiloh. It stirred the souls of men with thrilling power in the wild assault upon Cemetery Hill. It floated triumphant amid the roar of cannon at Spottsylvania's bloody salient, and was borne resistless at the head of conquering hosts upon an hundred bloody fields. Though furled forever and no longer existing as an emblem of a brave and heroic people, still we salute thee with love and reverence, oh! phantom banner of that great army underground, which died beneath thy crimson cross.

" For though conquered, we adore it, Love the cold dead hands that bore it."

But I return to the raging battle at Wagner. All day did the furious bombardment continue without intermission. The long mid- summer day seemed endless, and the fierce July sun seemed com- manded by another Joshua to stand still would it never set? The wooden tenements in the fort were literally torn into splinters, and the ground bore little trace of where they stood. The fort itself was pounded into an almost shapeless mass ; the parapet, traverses, scarp and counter scarp were well nigh obliterated, and the ditch was filled with sand. The covering of the bomb-proof had, to a large extent, been torn away, and now the magazine, containing a large quantity of powder, was in imminent danger of being breached by the heavy projectiles hurled incessantly against it, and the im- mense shells from the Cohorn mortars which, thrown to an incredible altitude, would descend with terrific force now almost upon the yield- ing and dislocated timbers. The magazine once pierced, Wagner would have been blown to atoms, with not a man surviving to tell the story of its demolition. The reports constantly made to the com- manding officer by the ordnance sergeant in charge justified the gravest fears of such a catastrophe. Once, after a report of its con- dition had been made, this stern old veteran, addressing a member of his staff sitting beside him, quietly asked him if he was a married man. Upon being answered in the affirmative, he shrugged his shoulders and said with a grim smile, "I'm sorry, sir, for we shall soon be blown into the marsh." Indeed, this result was but the question of a little time, when suddenly, to the infinite relief of the harassed and weary garrison, the blazing circle of the enemy's fleet and batteries ceased to glow with flame. In the language of General