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to leave it. An open space of a mile, directly in range of the National guns, lay between the fort and a thick wood to which they must go for shelter.
Across this they ran, each man for himself, divested of every thing that might make him a laggard.
Each of the wounded was placed in a blanket and borne away by four men, but the dead were left.
The garrison, with their commander, ran six miles across the island, to Seabrook, where they embarked for Savannah.
So too at Fort Beauregard the retreat had been hasty.
General Drayton had vainly endeavored to send over re-enforcements to the little garrison there, that fought bravely and well.
Seeing danger of being cut off from retreat, Colonel Dunovant ordered them to flee while there was a chance for safety.
Leaving an infernal machine in Fort Beauregard for a murderous purpose,1 and a note for Commodore Dupont2 Captain Elliott and his command retreated with the rest of the troops, first to St. Helen's, then to Port Royal Island, and then to the plan of Fort Beauregard.
main, with all possible haste, for the Charleston and Savannah Railway.
The loss on board the fleet during the action was very slight.3 Dupont reported it at thirty-one, of whom eight were killed.
The Confederate officers reported their loss in both forts at fifty, of whom ten were killed in Fort Walker, but none in Fort Beauregard.
On the evening succeeding the battle, a procession of seventeen boats, from the Wabash, conducted the remains of the dead to their burial-place on Hilton Head, near Pope's mansion,
1 The fair fame of Captain (afterwards General) Elliott as a humane man and honorable soldier received an unerasable blemish by an act at this time perfectly consistent with the fiendish spirit of the conspirators, but not at all so with what common report says was his own. He left the Confederate flag flying, and its halliards so connected with a percussion-cap apparatus, that when the victors should enter the fort and attempt to pull down the ensign of treason, a mine of gunpowder beneath would be exploded. Fortunately, the arrangement was so defective that no life was lost by a partial explosion that occurred.
2 The following is a copy of Elliott's note to Dupont:--
The Latin quotation in the above is a line from Virgil's aenead, in which Dido, remembering her own misfortunes, pities the errors of aeneas. It says, “Not unacquainted with misfortune, I have learned to succor the distresses of others.” I am indebted to the Rev. John Woart (who was chaplain at the U. S. General Hospital at Hilton Head when I visited that post in April, 1866) for a copy of Elliott's note, taken from the original by Captain Law, of the New Hampshire, then in that harbor. The humane injunction of Elliott was in a spirit directly opposed to his act in the matter of the infernal machine. He doubtless acted under the orders of his superiors. Captain Elliott became a brigadier-general, and commanded Fort Sumter during a greater portion of the siege of that fortress. He was blown up by the explosion of the mine at Petersburg, when one of his arms was broken. He died at Aiken, South Carolina, in March, 1866.
3 The vessels engaged were all more or less injured by the Confederate cannon. The Wabash was struck thirty-four times. Its mainmast was injured beyond hope of repair, its rigging was cut, and it was made to leak badly.
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