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front, were occupied by the officers of the garrison; others were used as hospitals, and were full of men suffering from measles of a mild type.
A few minutes' walk led us to the fort, which is an irregular pentagon, with the base line or curtain face inlands, and the other faces casemated and bearing on the approaches.
The curtain, which is simply crenellated, is covered by a Redan surrounded by a deep ditch, inside the parapet of which are granite platforms ready for the reception of guns.
The parapet is thick, and the scarp and counterscarp are faced with solid masonry.
A drawbridge affords access to the interior of the Redan, whence the gate of the fort is approached across a deep and broad moat, which is crossed by another drawbridge.
As the Commodore entered the Redan, the guns of the fort broke out into a long salute, and the band at the gate struck up almost as lively a welcome.
Inside the parade presented a scene of life and animation very unlike the silence of the city we had left.
Men were busy clearing out the casemates, rolling away stores and casks of ammunition and provisions, others were at work at the gin and shears, others building sand-bag traverses to guard the magazine doors, as though expecting an immediate attack.
Many officers were strolling under the shade of the open gallery at the side of the curtain which contained their quarters in the lofty bomb-proof casemates.
Some of them had seen service in Mexican or border warfare; some had travelled over Italian and Crimean battle-fields; others were West Point graduates of the regular army; others young planters, clerks, or civilians who had rushed with ardor into the first Georgian Regiment.
The garrison of the fort is 650 men, and fully that number were in and about the work, their tents being pitched inside the Redan or on the terreplein of the parapets.
The walls are exceedingly solid and well built of hard gray brick, strong as iron, upwards of six feet in thickness, the casemates and bomb-proofs being lofty, airy, and capacious as any I have ever seen, though there is not quite depth enough between the walls at the salient and the gun-carriages.
The work is intended for 128 guns, of which about one-fourth are mounted on the casemates.
They are long 32's with a few 42's and columbiads.
The armaments will be exceedingly heavy when all the guns are mounted, and they are fast getting the 10-inch columbiads into position en barbette. Every thing which could be required, except mortars, was in abundance — the platforms and gun-carriages are solid and well made, the embrasures of the casemates are admirably constructed, and the ventilation of the bomb-proof carefully provided for. There are three furnaces for heating red-hot shot.
Nor is discipline neglected, and the officers with whom I went round the works were as sharp in tone and manner to their men as Volunteers well could be, though the latter are enlisted for only three years by the State of Georgia.
An excellent lunch was spread in the casemated bomb-proof, which served as the Colonel's quarter, and before sunset the party were steaming towards Savannah through a tideway full of leaping sturgeon and porpoises, leaving the garrison intent oh the approach of a large ship, which had her sails aback off the bar and hoisted the Stars and Stripes, but which turned out to be nothing more formidable than a Liverpool cotton ship.
It will take some hard blows before Georgia is driven to let go her grip of Fort Pulaski.
The channel is very narrow and passes close to the guns of the fort.
The means of completing the armament have been furnished by the stores of Norfolk Navy Yard, where between 700 and 800 guns have fallen into the hands of the Confederates; and, if there are no columbiads among them, the Merrimac and other ships, which have been raised, as we hear, with guns uninjured, will yield up their Dahlgrens to turn their muzzles against their old masters.
May 2.--May day was so well kept yesterday that the exhausted editors cannot “bring out” their papers, and consequently there is no news; but there is, nevertheless, much to be said concerning “Our President's” Message, and there is a suddenness of admiration for pacific tendencies which can with difficulty be accounted for, unless the news from the North these last few days has something to do with it. Not a word now about an instant march on Washington!
no more threats to seize on Faneuil Hall!
The Georgians are by no means so keen as the Carolinians on their border — nay, they are not so belligerent to-day as they were a week ago. Mr. Jefferson Davis's Message is praised for its “moderation,” and for other qualities which were by no means in such favor while the Sumter fever was at its height.
Men look grave, and talk about the interference of England and France, which “cannot allow this thing to go on.”
But the change which has come over them is unmistakable, and the best men begin to look grave.
As for me, I must prepare to open my lines of retreat — my communications are in danger.
--London Times.
