Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/118

 108 Southern Historical Society Papers.

minds her of her past glory, was appointed on General Beauregard's staff on Thursday, bore dispatches to the general in command from Brigadier-General James Simons, in command of Morris Island, during the thickest of the fight, and in the face of a murderous fire from Fort Sumter. Colonel Roger A. Pryor, the eloquent young Virginian, in the execution of that dangerous commission, passed within speaking distance of the angry and hostile fortress.

" Despite the fierce and concentrated fire from Fort Sumter, the rival fortification on Sullivan's Island received but slight damage. Its merlons stood unmoved, and all this morning in as good a condi- tion as they were before their strength was tested by the rude shocks of the shot.

"The Floating Battery came out of the iron storm without losing a plate of its iron cover, or a splinter of its pine.

"A brisk fire was kept up by all the batteries until about 7 o'clock in the evening, after which hour the guns boomed at regular inter- vals of twenty minutes.

"All the batteries on Morris Island, bearing upon the channel, kept up a steady fire for some time at the dawn of day. It is reported that they threw their shot into the Harriet Lane, and that steamer, having advanced as far as the renowned Star of the West Battery, was crippled by a well-aimed shot, after which she deemed it prudent to give up the attempt, and turned her sharp bow to the sea.

"Stevens' Iron Battery played a conspicuous and important part in the brilliant and, as far as our men are concerned, bloodless con- flict, which has placed the i2th of April, 1861, among the memora- ble days. The calibre of its guns, its nearness to Fort Sumter, its perfect impenetrability, the coolness and skill of its gallant gunners, made this fortification one of the most formidable of Major Ander- son's terrible opponents. The effect of its Dahlgrensand sixty-four- pounders was distinctly visible at an early stage of the conflict. Clouds of mortar and brick dust rose from the southwestern walls of the fort, as the shot hissed on their errands of death. Shot after shot told with terrible effect upon the strong wall, and at about 3 o'clock Major Anderson ceased to return this murderous fire. In the course of the afternoon the joyful tidings that a breach had been effected in that portion of the fortifications was borne to the city.

' ' We dare not close this brief and hurried narrative of the first engagement between the United States and the Confederate States,