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A terrible explosion followed, by which the city was shaken to its foundations.
The building was converted, in an instant, into an immense volume of fire, smoke, and fragments, shooting high in air. Full two hundred persons were destroyed.
At least one hundred and fifty dead bodies were
taken from the ruins of the depot, from which point the fire spread rapidly through the adjoining buildings; and, before the flames were subdued, four squares, embracing an area bounded by Chapel, Alexander, and Washington Streets, were consumed.
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Breech of the Blakely gun. |
That night, the last of
Hardee's troops left ruined
Charleston.
They had made the destruction of property as complete as possible.
Cotton warehouses, arsenals, quartermaster's stores, railroad bridges, two iron-clad steamers, and some vessels in the ship-yard, were destroyed.
Many of the cannon about the city were temporarily disabled; and a 600-pounder Blakely gun, stationed at a huge mound which had been thrown up at the angle of
East Bay and South Battery, for the purposes of a magazine and battery, was exploded that it might not fall into the hands of the Nationals.
The shock of that explosion nearly ruined a fine mansion opposite.
The remains of the great gun were at
Adger's wharf when the writer sketched them,
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The Union Generals> |
