knew that General Strong needed assistance, and assumed the responsibility of advancing. After a disastrous delay, and without orders,' says General Seymour, he led his brigade on to assault the south-east angle through a destructive fire.”(') The brave young commander reached the ditch, crossed it, and mounted the parapet, followed by his men, to fall with a mortal wound. A portion of his brigade joined those already in the bastion, but in the darkness a portion of the troops fired a volley into Strong's brigade. In the attack General Seymour and General Strong were wounded, and every colonel was killed or wounded. Men fell by scores on the parapet, to roll back into the ditch, already piled with the fallen: some to be strangled in the water, others to die of suffocation in the sand. With howitzers pouring canister upon them; with a thousand Confederate muskets sending bullets into the huddled mass, the fearful carnage went on. Messengers were sent to General Stevenson, commanding the brigade in reserve, to advance, but he waited for orders from General Gillmore. When at last that brigade advanced it was only to meet the shattered remnants drifting back in disorder through the darkness. Not all, for still in the bastion were one hundred and forty men, all privates, belonging to different regiments, not a commissioned officer among them. How bravely they held out is narrated by the Confederate commander: "The party which had gained access by the salient next the sea could not escape. It was certain death to pass the line of concentrated fire which swept the face of the work, and they did not attempt it; but they would not surrender, and in despair kept up a continuous fire upon the main body in the fort. The Confederates called for volunteers to dislodge them --a summons which was promptly responded to by Major MacDonald, of the Fifty-first North Carolina, and by Captain Rion, of the Charleston Battalion, with the requisite number of men. Rion's company was selected, and the gallant Irishman, at the head of his company, dashed at the reckless and insane men who seemed to insist upon immolation. . . . Rion rushed at them, but he fell, shot outright, with several of his men, and the rest recoiled."(1) General Beauregard in Charleston had seen from his headquarters the flashing of the cannon and musketry, and had sent the Thirty - Second Georgia in a steamer to Morris Island. It was a large regiment, and came upon the run from Cumming's Point. Even with this fire added to that of the garrison, the few Union soldiers still held the bastion, till, seeing that no relief was possible, they gave up the struggle and surrendered, after maintaining their position four hours. Midnight. The sound of the conflict has died away. The Confederates, looking down into the ditch, behold by the lightning-flashes a ghastly scene. Fifteen hundred men have been killed or wounded, and those of the living who have not dragged themselves away are piled in a mass before them. No other spot on this Western continent has presented a like scene of horror or a more heroic struggle. Let us close our ears to the wails of the wounded and the groans of the dying. Let darkness hide the blood-red water in the moat, and let us hear, instead, in the early hours of Sunday morning, coming from that pile of dead and dying, the last words of one who has led a religious life, who, with both legs crushed and his life-blood flowing from ghastly wounds, sings once more the songs he has often sung in the prayer-meeting of the camp: "My heavenly home is bright and fair; I'm going home-I'm going home- So Captain Paxson, of the Forty-eighth New York, lays down his life for his country. Live on evermore, heroes of Wagner! Sunday morning dawns. The waves are rippling on the beach; the air is calm, after the midnight tempest of the sky. The guns of the monitors are silent, as are those of Sumter. Before we turn our faces away from the ghastly scene at the base of Wagner, let us linger while a white flag comes from General Gillmore, with a note requesting the body of Colonel Shaw. This the answer: "We will let him be buried with his niggers." It was not a reply prompted by the natural impulse of the Confederate commander's heart, but it was the brutality engendered by the spirit born of slavery. The body of Colonel Shaw was buried where he fell-the place which he himself most likely would have chosen. That which was intended as an insult will dignify and make glorious the service and sacrifice of his life-dying for the elevation of a despised race. He loved justice and liberty. His sympathies were with the poor and lowly and oppressed; he cast in his lot with them, and so his name will go down the ages. During the war there were many heroic scenes, but it may be questioned whether any contest, for determination, bravery, endurance, and sacrifice of life, surpassed that of Wagner. "It may be said," are the words of a Savannah paper, "that a more daring and gallant assault has not been made since the commencement of the war."(") This the commendation of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts by General Strong the next morning: "They did well and nobly; only the fall of Colonel Shaw prevented them from entering the fort. They moved up as gallantly as any troops could, and, with their enthusiasm, deserved a better fate."(") The advance of Sumner's corps up the slope of Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg was bravely done, resulting in frightful loss of life; equally brave, and more dramatic, was the Confederate advance across Codori's fields at Gettysburg; but neither at Fredericksburg nor at Gettysburg was there persistence and endurance greater than that in the bastion of Wagner. The winds and the waves have left but a shapeless mound where once it stood, but its bastion will remain evermore a landmark in history; for there the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, representing a despised race, manifested to the world the manhood of that race, and its right to citizenship under the flag of the republic, by giving their lives freely that the nation might live. When Sergeant Carney leaped the ditch, climbed the glacis, and planted the Stars and Stripes upon the parapet of Wagner, the whole African race advanced with him. across the deep moat which, through all the centuries, had separated it from the Anglo-Saxon. Prejudice and contumely disappeared in the clouds of that Saturday night's tempest, and with the dawn of Sunday morning came for them the beginning of a new era. NOTES TO CHAPTER XVI. (1) Palmer, "History of the Forty-eighth New York," p. 84. (3) Idem. (4) Charleston Mercury, July 20, 1863. (5) Emilio, "Fort Wagner," p. 6. (6) General Seymour's Report. (7) Emilio, "Fort Wagner," p. 7. (*) Palmer, "History of the Forty-eighth New York," p. 105. (9) Emilio, "Fort Wagner," p. 11. (10) Palmer, "History of the Forty-eighth New York," p. 105. (1) General Taliaferro, quoted ("History of the Forty-eighth New York," p. 107). (12) General Seymour's Report. (13) General Taliaferro, quoted, p. 107. (14) Palmer, "History of the Forty-eighth New York," p. 121. (15) Savannah Republican, August 16, 1863. (16) Harper's Weekly, August 15, 1863. THE CHAPTER XVII. OPERATIONS AGAINST WAGNER AND SUMTER. HE Confederate war-ship Florida, built in England in the early part of 1863, was off the coast of Brazil, capturing the merchant-vessels of the United States, one of which, the brig Clarence, instead of being burned, was put in command of Lieutenant Reed, with a crew from the Florida. A six-pounder howitzer was placed on board, and the Clarence sailed away to begin her work of destruction, capturing off Cape Hatteras the Whistling Wind, loaded with stores for the Union troops. at New Orleans. In a short time three other ships were captured and burned. The Alfred Partridge, with the crew of the captured vessel, was sent ashore at the mouth of Delaware Bay-which was the first information of what this Confederate sailing-vessel was doing. The next prize was the swift-sailing bark Tacony, which was so beautiful and swift that the howitzer was placed on board, and the Clarence set on fire. Up the New England coast sailed the Tacony, overhauling in quick succession fourteen vessels, all of which were destroyed. On June 25th the schooner Archer was captured, the howitzer transferred to her deck, and the Tacony given to the flames. As the sun the fishing The Confederate commander greatly desired to gain possession of a steamer, and learning from some fishermen that the revenue cutter Caleb Cushing was in Portland harbor, determined to capture her. was going down on the evening of the 27th the sailors on smacks off Cape Elizabeth saw a schooner sail into the harbor. The watch on the revenue-cutter paid no attention to the schooners that were coming and going. The twilight faded away, darkness settled over sea and land, when suddenly over the bulwarks of the Cushing leaped the Confederates, overpowering the watch pacing her deck, securing officers and crew. It was all done so quietly that no one in the harbor knew what had happened till, in the dim gray of the morning, when Captain Merriman, who had been ordered to Portland to take command of the Cushing, and who was on the steamer from Boston, saw the Cushing steaming out to sea. There was a commotion in Portland. Major Anderson, commanding Fort Preble, put his troops on board two steamers, citizens volunteered, and in a short time the steamers and three tug-boats were in pursuit. They sighted the Cushing and Archer, and by eleven o'clock were within cannon-shot. The Confederates opened fire, but the steamers steered straight on, whereupon Lieutenant Reed set the Cushing on fire and leaped, with his crew, into the small boats; but before night they were all prisoners inside of Fort Preble. The first vessel purchased by the Confederate agent in England, Captain Bullock, was the steamer Fingal, which at the beginning of the war reached Wilmington with a great amount of arms, ammunition, and supplies for the Confederate army. She had run into Savannah, but being unable to get out as a blockade runner, carpenters were set to work, and the vessel was changed into an iron-plated ram, renamed the Atlanta, and on the morning of June 17th appeared in Ossabaw Sound, carrying six guns. She was supposed to be a very strong and powerful vessel, and two monitors, the Weehawken and Nahant, were in the sound to meet her. The Atlanta had two 7-inch rifled pivot-guns, one fore and the other aft, the others on her sides, which were covered with four inches of iron bolted upon twenty-four inches of wood, the plating extending two feet below the water-line. One million dollars in gold had been expended upon her, and Lieutenant Webb, in command, intended, after finishing the monitors, to make his appearance among the blockaders off Charleston. In the early morning light of the 19th of June the Atlanta was discovered. The Weehawken slipped her cable and steamed towards her, followed by the Nahant. The Atlanta's rifled guns first awoke the echoes of the morning, firing three shots. Then came the roar of one of the Weehawken's cannon, sending a solid shot weighing four hundred and forty pounds, which tore through the iron plating and the twenty-four inches of solid timber, knocking down by the terrible concussion more than forty of the crew, killing or wounding many of them by the splinters. A second shot struck one of the iron shutters of a port, knocking it into fragments, killing or wounding seventeen men. The Atlanta had grounded, and was helpless. Three more shots came from the Weehawken, riddling the vessel, making terrible havoc among its crew. Fifteen minutes, and the contest was over. A white flag went up from the Confederate vessel in token of surrender, and the two steamboats, crowded with ladies and gentlemen who had come down from Savannah to see the monitors knocked to pieces, steamed back again with the mournful |