Robert Underwood Johnson, Clarence Clough Buell, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: The Opening Battles. Volume 1.

Although the full armament of Sumter was not on hand, there were many more guns than places to put them. This resulted from the fact that no guns were mounted on the second tier, and because many embrasures on the first tier were bricked up. There were four unplaced eight-inch columbiads after the fort had been satisfactorily garnished with guns. But we were entirely without mortars. Perhaps this serious defect in our armament, and perhaps our success with the ten-inch gun mounted as a mortar, induced Major Anderson to mount his extra eight-inch guns in that way. Morris Island, twelve hundred yards away, was the nearest terra firma to Fort Sumter, and there the enemy would plant his most important batteries. The more searching and severe the fire that could be brought to bear upon that island, therefore, the better. So the four extra columbiads were mounted as mortars to fire in that direction. We had no carriages for the guns and no platforms. So a trench was dug in the parade at right angles to the proposed line of fire. A heavy timber was then embedded in the sand at the bottom of the trench, and another on the Morris Island side of it, in such a way that a gun resting on the one and leaning on the other would be supported at an angle of forty-five degrees. The guns were then placed in notches at equal intervals along the trench. We had no opportunity to try this novel mortar battery, but everybody was satisfied that it could have done good service.

It was expected that the walls of Fort Sumter would be able to withstand the guns which we knew the enemy possessed, but we did not anticipate importations from abroad. During the bombardment a Whitworth gun of small caliber, just received from England, was mounted in one of the Morris Island batteries, and in a few rounds demonstrated its ability to breach the work. Fortunately its supply of ammunition was limited, and the fire stopped short of an actual breach. But a few hours more of that Whitworth 12-pounder would have knocked a hole in our defenses.

A breach was not dreaded by the garrison, for, weak as it was, it could have given a good account of itself defending a breach. The greatest danger was a simultaneous attack on all sides. Sixty-four men could not be made very