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were in the ranks of the battalion, and then a guard around the Fort.
Next to Manny's battery comes one of six small carronades, the flanking guns which had been removed from the counterscarp-galleries, arranged as mortars, to throw grape, canister, and small shell.
Their slide-carriages were depressed at the rear and rigged with small pulleys, and poor apologies of wooden traverses had been made; but the battery reflected little credit upon the officers who organized it. The slope in front of these guns were well ploughed and dug by our projectiles.
The scarp-wall on this face was scarred in twenty-seven places by Capt. Morris's shot, some of the wounds being very deep and wide.
At the south-east angle a shell had burst, dug a pit five feet deep, torn away a great piece of the revetment, and splintered the carriage of the gun next adjoining.
The marks of six Parrott shots were to be seen on the angle of the escarp.
In Pool's battery, at the south angle, a most remarkable effect of one of these shots was shown me. The bolt had perforated the crossbar of the heavy barbette-carriage of the eight-inch columbiad, broken the elevating screw, killed the gunner, and disabled the piece; then passing to the ten-inch gun, it dismounted it, killed two men, and wounded three more; then striking the brick revetment, it glanced to the next gun, which it disabled, and wounded Capt. Pool's son, who was acting as captain of the gun, after which it fell into the ditch.
The concussion prostrated every man at the three guns.
These facts I learned from Capt. Pool himself, whose veracity cannot be questioned.
On the eastern face, the fifth gun was dismounted by a shot which glanced from the opposite slope, broke the carriage into pieces, and threw the gun over on its side.
On the south-east face the number of shell-holes was large, and the carriages of the first and third guns were somewhat splintered.
On the north-east face a shell had burst beneath the first gun, close to the brick-work of the traverse, but neither the gun itself was dismounted nor the carriage injured in any way. The next gun was dismounted, and the next but one beyond it. A Parrott shot had struck the corner of the counterscarp-wall and knocked out nearly a cart-load of bricks and mortar.
On the upper terreplein the same scene of destruction presented itself.
On the east side the revetment was badly shattered and the ground torn up. On the west side a shell which burst on the parapet tore up the ground beneath the first gun from the flag-staff and shattered the traverse.
Another bursting at the second gun, wounded three men and covered their comrades with rubbish; between this and the next gun two shots had ploughed through the crest and glanced over to the opposite side of the work.
At the south-west angle a shell which exploded beside a thirty-two-pounder tore a man into pieces.
One of his comrades who related to me the circumstance, says he saw the shell coming and crouched behind the revetment.
The shell burst almost in his lap, certainly it was not four feet from his knees, but by one of those curious chances of war, the fragments flew over his head, and he escaped injury.
On the south-west face the third gun was dismounted by a shot which passed through the two uprights of the carriage-frame.
On the north-east face the second gun was dismounted, one wheel being completely shattered, and the frame itself partly so. The revetment was badly broken at the angle, and the low chimney of one of the casemates was lifted off bodily and lay on the grass.
On the south-east face both the second and third guns were dismounted, one side of the carriage of the third being completely demolished.
Sketches of this catastrophe were made by the artists of the two illustrated papers represented in the division.
The same shot which did this damage had struck the brick traverse and glanced, breaking the granite cap, peeling off the iron traverse-slide and throwing it up on the ramparts.
The carriage of one other gun on this face was disabled by a shot, and the rampart was ploughed up in numerous places.
This completes the circuit of the work.
Officers, who were at the trouble of counting the marks of shot and shell on the work, state that there are five hundred and sixty--more than one half of the whole number, eleven hundred, which were fired from the three batteries.
It is true that the range was short, but this detracts nothing from the credit which is due to Capt. Morris, Lieut. Flagler, and Lieut. Prouty, for their practice.
If, in a bombardment of only eleven hours, seventeen guns could be disabled, eight men killed, twenty wounded, and so much injury done to a fort which was protected from breaching by its glacis, what might not have been accomplished in the same length of time that Gen. Gilmore's guns and mortars were playing upon Fort Pulaski?
Although one is a stone castle and the other an earth-sheltered work, a comparison between the nature and results of the two sieges would not be unfair.
Thirty-six pieces of ordnance bore upon Pulaski-twelve heavy thirteen-inch mortars, four ten-inch mortars, six ten-inch columbiads, four eight-inch columbiads, five thirty-pounder Parrotts, two forty-two-pounder rifled James, two thirty-two-pounder rifled James, and one twenty-four-pounder James!
The three batteries which fought Macon — for the gunboats and barges cannot fairly be taken into the account-mounted eleven pieces, all told; and yet the most brilliant success was achieved in one third the time, and at the expense of only one man killed and two wounded!
There were found in the Fort twenty thousand pounds of powder, with shot and shell in proportion; a large supply of provisions, and abundance of water.
The garrison is estimated by the Adjutant at four hundred and forty men, exclusive of officers; but at the time when I questioned him he did not have the company reports in his possession, and could not give the exact figures.
Two companies were armed with Mississippi rifles, the range and accuracy of which
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