know that sharpened stakes were driven into the sand for chevaux-defrise-that planks with iron spikes were laid along the glacis of the fort. Not knowing how strong it was, he selected only three regiments to assault it. The sun was rising on the morning of the 11th when the Seventh Connecticut, followed by the Ninth Maine and the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, went upon the double-quick across the sand, driving in the Confederate pickets. They reached the ditch, firing no volley, but charging with the bayonet up the slope of the work, only to be cut to pieces and driven back, with a loss of more than three hundred, while the Confederate loss was scarcely a dozen. It was a blind assault, attempted without knowledge of the strength of the fort or the garrison within it-on that morning exceeding twelve hundred.

On the 16th General Terry made an assault upon the works on James Island, but was repulsed, and General Gillmore ordered him to join General Strong on Morris Island. An arrangement was made with the fleet for a combined bombardment of Wagner, to dismount its guns and demoralize the garrison.

It was nearly eight o'clock on the morning of July 18th when the monitors, the New Ironsides, and several gunboats steamed slowly up the channel and opened fire. The vessels moved in a circle, thus lessening the chances of being injured. The land batteries and mortars opened at the same time. The thunder of the cannonade was heard at Edgefield, one hundred and thirty miles distant. At noon the monitors ceased firing that the men might rest. Inside the iron turrets the heat on that midsummer day, from the sun and the firing, was very exhausting; but after an hour's rest the men sprang once more to the guns. Upon the housetops and in the belfries of the churches were the people of Charlestonmen and women-watching the distant spectacle. This the scene as pictured by one of the citizens:

"Gray old Sumter lay like a half-aroused monster midway the scene, only occasionally speaking his part in the angry dialogue. Far in the distance lay the blockaders, taking no part in the fray. To the right, on Cumming's Point, was a little mound of earth, and every now and then we could see a band of artillerists around the guns, a volume of smoke, and far to the right exploding in the vicinity of the enemy's batteries its wellaimed shells. Still to the right of this was Wagner, clustered above which, now bursting high in air, now striking the sides of the work, and now plunging through the sand on the beach and throwing up a pillar of earth, or dashing into the marsh and ricochetting across the water, could be seen the quickly succeeding shells and round-shot of the enemy's guns abreast

of Wagner. Still farther to the right, but concealed from view by the trees on James Island, were the land batteries of the enemy, whose location we only knew by the heavy puffs of smoke that shot suddenly into the air, then drifted away."()

General Gillmore, General Seymour, and General Strong, all three believed that the fort could be successfully assaulted; that the bombardment had demoralized the Confederates, and probably dismounted most of the cannon. Colonel Putnam did not think so, but that the Confederates had been protected in their bomb-proof shelter; that to make the attack at night, as proposed, would end in disaster. In the dark

ness the troops would become confused by the obstacles they would encounter and the fire that would be poured upon them, and they would not be able to distinguish friend from foe. The weight of opinion was against him. "We are going into Wagner like a flock of sheep," he said.(") Who should lead? What regiment should be selected first to meet the fiery storm? There were three brigades-General Strong's, General Stevenson's, and Colonel Putnam's-thirteen regiments. General Strong's brigade was composed of the Sixth Connecticut, Forty-eighth New York, Third New Hampshire, Ninth Maine, and Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania. It was at the head of the column on the sea-beach. Behind it stood Putnam's brigade the Seventh New Hampshire, One Hundredth New York, Sixty-second and Sixty-seventh Ohio. Stevenson's brigade was to be held

in reserve. It was past six o'clock. The mortars and the frigate New Ironsides were still sending their shells into the fort. The soldiers saw a long column of men marching across the sand-hills from the west, with the Stars and Stripes flying above them, and the white flag of the State of Massachusetts, with its seal of an Indian and an out-stretched arm grasping a sword, bearing the legend, "Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem" -seeking calm peace by the sword.

It was the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, a regiment of colored soldiers recruited in Boston, commanded by Col. Robert G. Shaw, who had been