Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/174

 164 Southern Historical Society Papers.

used on the ramparts, and for torpedoes to be placed in the anchor- age whither the fleet was certain to return. None could be obtained. Part of his veteran artillerists were actually withdrawn, and new troops sent in without experience.

His personal unselfishness was so great, his skill so eminent, his bravery so cool and calm, his kindness to all so unvaried, that his troops loved him in the words of Major Sloan, his Chief of Ord- nance, they "almost worshipped him!"

In the midst of the whirling shells, he scarcely removed his pipe from his mouth, as he stood upon the open rampart spattered from the bursting shells. Lieutenant Hunter, of the 36th, writes to the speaker:

" I saw him stand with folded arms, smiling upon a four hundred pound shell, as it stood smoking and spinning like a billiard ball on the sand, not twenty feet away, until it burst, and then move quietly away. I saw him fifty times a day I saw him fight, and saw him pray, and he was all that a general should be in battle. He was the best equipped man in the Confederate States to defend the port of Wilmington, and his relief by Bragg brought gloom over the entire command."

Time fails me to relate the details of the great battle of the i3th, i4th and i5th of January. The fleet arrived the night of the i2th, and early next day began the rain of projectiles, increasing in fury at times to 160 per minute, and directed by converging fire to the destruction of the guns on the land force of Fisher, and the pound- ing of the northeast salient to a shapeless ruin.

Again General Whiting came to the fort, on the first day's bom- bardment, and upon his entrance he said to Lamb:

' ' I have come to share your fate, my boy. You are to be sacri- ficed. The last thing I heard General Bragg say, was to point out a line to fall back upon, when Fisher fell."

The firing never ceased all day and all night long the n-inch and 15-inch fiery globes rolled along the parapet; the palisades were cut to pieces, the wires to the mines were ploughed up in the deep sands. An English officer who had been present at Sebastopol, declared it was but child play to this terrific shaking of earth and sea, by a fleet whose broadside could throw 44,000 pounds of iron at a single dis- charge.

The men fought on their quarters having been burned, with