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refusal, the Ironsides and five monitors came up the channel and opened fire upon Sumter and the Sullivan's island batteries.
At Battery Beauregard, Lieut. E. A. Erwin, First regulars, was killed.
On the 8th, the fight with the ironclads was renewed, and one shell did fatal work in Fort Moultrie, disabling an 8-inch columbiad, exploding a magazine, and killing 16 and wounding 12 men of Capt. R. Press Smith's company of the First regulars.
Besides these casualties from the explosion there were others, including Capt. G. A. Wardlow and Lieut. D. B. De Saussure, wounded.
About 1 o'clock on the morning of the 9th, an attempt was made by the Federals to land a force at the foot of the ruins of Sumter and carry the position by storm.
Major Elliott waited until the thirty or forty barges of the enemy were within a few yards of the southern and eastern faces, when he greeted them with a rattling fire of musketry, while hand-grenades and fragments of the ruins were thrown over on the advancing foe, completely demoralizing him. At the same time the gunboat Chicora, Fort Moultrie, the Sullivan's island batteries and Fort Johnson, warned by signal, swept the skirts of the ruins and the water round about with a fire that nothing could survive.
Elliott captured 5 boats, 5 stand of colors, 12 officers and 109 men. Among the colors captured was a worn garrison flag, which, it was believed, was the flag lowered in 1861 by Maj. Robert Anderson, and hoped to be hoisted again by this storming party.
On the night of August 20th, Capt. J. Carlin, commanding a torpedo ram, with a guard on board under Lieut. E. S. Fickling, made an attempt to explode a torpedo against the New Ironsides.
As he ranged up alongside, Carlin was hailed, and to the demand for the name of his craft, he replied, ‘The steamer Live Yankee.’
The ironclad was swinging to the ebb, so that it was impossible to do the work undertaken, and Carlin's only hope was of escape.
In this he was successful,
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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