Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents., Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

New York, May 6.--A flour merchant of this city, who has just returned from Charleston, states that he was impressed into the rebel service, and was in Fort Moultrie during the whole battle. He confirms previous reports of the destructive effect of Major Anderson's fire, and adds:--

The very first shot from Fort Sumter came booming into one of the port-holes near which I was stationed, dismounted the gun, and shivered the carriage into thousands of splinters. These splinters were scattered with terrible force throughout the fort, killing thirty-three men instantly, and wounding many more. This was the most destructive single shot we received, but throughout the entire cannonading the havoc in Moultrie was terrible. The dead and dying lay about us in every direction, and were trampled under foot by the soldiers in their arduous labors. We had not surgeons enough to attend to them all, and the groans of the dying and their piteous cries for help were distressing in the extreme. When Sumter finally capitulated, without losing a [79] man, thank God, the relatives of our dead and wounded hastened to Moultrie to learn their fate. Mothers came asking for their sons, sisters for brothers, sons for fathers, and all were told that all were well — that none were killed, but that confusion prevailed, and the soldiers could not be seen.

That night the bodies of the dead were boxed up and conveyed on shore, where they were buried in trenches in the negro burying-ground. One hundred and sixty bodies were conveyed to the burial-place on a small schooner, and the others by various other conveyances. On the following day, when relatives inquired for those who were dead, they were told that they had been sent away to other points to recruit their energies. Every possible means were resorted to, to keep the truth from being known. I myself counted over two hundred dead bodies in Moultrie, and know that there were others which I did not see. I have no means of knowing the extent of the slaughter at the other fortifications, but heard, incidentally, that it was serious, although not so great as at Moultrie. I was told that one shot at Stevens's Battery dismounted a cannon and killed several persons.--N. Y. Evening Post, May 6.