Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/270

 262 Southern Historical Society Papers.

lated by an air chamber. Passage ways penetrated the traverses in the interior of the work forming additional bomb-proofs for the reliefs for the guns.

The sea face for 100 yards from the northeast bastion was of the same massive character as the land face. A crescent battery built for four casemated guns joined this. It had been originally constructed of palmetto logs and tarred sand bags and sand revetted with sod; but the logs had decayed and it was converted into a hospital bomb- proof. In its rear a heavy curtain was thrown up to protect the chambers from fragments of shells. From this bomb-proof a series of batteries extended for three-quarters of a mile along the sea, con- nected by an infantry curtain. These batteries had heavy traverses, but were not more than ten or twelve feet high to the top of the par- apets and were built for richochet firing. On this line was a bomb- proof electric battery connected with a system of submarine tor- pedoes. Further along, where the channel ran close to the beach, inside the bar, a mound battery, sixty feet high was erected, with two heavy guns, which had a plunging fire on the channel; this was connected with the battery north of it by a light curtain. Following the line of the works it was over one mile from the mound to the redan at the angle of the sea and the land faces. From the mound for nearly a mile to the end of the point was a level sand plain, scarcely three feet above high tide, and much of it was submerged during gales. At the point was battery Buchanan with four guns, in the shape of an ellipse, commanding the Inlet, its two eleven-inch guns covering the approach by land.

It was constructed after a plan furnished me by Reddin Pittman, an accomplished young engineer officer from Edgecombe county, and, for its purpose, was perfect in design. I remember when he gave me the plan he had named it "Augusta Battery," after his sweetheart* but General Whiting wishing to compliment the gallant hero of Mo- bile, directed me to call it Battery Buchanan. When completed it was garrisoned by a detachment from the Confederate States Navy. An advanced redoubt with a twenty-four pounder was added after the repulse of Butler and Porter, Christmas, 1864. A wharf for large steamers was in close proximity to this work. Battery Buchanan was a citadel to which an overpowered garrison might retreat and with proper transportation might be carried off at night, and to which re- inforcements could be safely sent under the cover of darkness.