Chapter VI. Sumter

The Guns of Bull Run

by Joseph A. Altsheler

Harry saw an increase of energy after the arrival of Beauregard.
There were fresh rumors about the great fleet the North was going to
send down for the relief of Sumter. Major Anderson, the commander in
the fort, steadily refused all demands for surrender. It was said
freely that the Northern States did not intend to let their Southern
sisters go in peace. The Mercury, with all the power and fire of the
Rhett family behind it, thundered continually for action. Sumter
with its guns menacing the city should not be allowed to remain under
the hostile flag.

It seemed to Harry afterward that he was in a sort of fever, not
a fever that parched and burned, but a fever that made his pulse leap
faster, and his heart long for the thrill of conflict. Often he sat
with St. Clair and Langdon on their earthworks, and looked at
Sumter.

"I wonder when the word will come for us to turn these big guns
loose?" Langdon said one day, as he looked at the cannon. "Seems to
me we ought to take Sumter before that fleet comes."

"But wouldn't it be better for them to make the first hostile
movement, Happy?" asked Harry. "Then we'd put them in the wrong."

"What difference does it make if we should happen to fight them,
anyhow? The question who began it we'd settle afterwards on
victorious fields. Oh, we're bound to win, Harry! We can't help it.
If there's any war, I expect inside of a year to sleep with my boots
on in the President's bed in the White House, and then I'd go on to
Philadelphia and New York and Boston and show myself as a fair
specimen of the unconquerable Southern soldier."

"Happy," said Harry, in a rebuking tone, "you're the most
terrific chatterer I ever heard. Before you've done anything
whatever, you talk about having done it all."

"And they call us Charlestonians fiery boasters," said St.
Clair. "Why, there's nobody in all Charleston who's half a match for
this sea islander, Happy Tom Langdon."

Charleston received Lincoln's threat and gave it back. Many
were glad that he had made the issue. The enthusiasm swelled yet
further, when they heard that the Confederate envoys at Washington,
treating for a peaceful separation, had left the capital at once when
Lincoln had sent his message that Sumter would be relieved.

"It looks more like war now," said Langdon, with satisfaction,
"and I may make my victorious march into the North after all."

Harry said nothing. As events marched forward on swift foot, he
felt more intensely their gravity. For every month that had passed
since he put the Tacitus in his desk at Pendleton Academy, the boy
had grown a year in mind and thought. So, that rumor about the
relieving fleet had come true and they might look for it in
Charleston in two or three days.

Harry had his place in one of the batteries nearest Sumter, and
he often went with Colonel Talbot on tours of inspection and once or
twice he was in General Beauregard's own party. The fact that his
father had been a graduate of West Point and for years an officer,
was of the greatest service to him. In the little army of the United
States before the Civil War, the officers constituted a family.
Everybody knew who everybody else was, and those of the same age had
been at West Point together. General Beauregard and Colonel Kenton
had met often, and the Southern commander became very partial to the
Colonel's son.

Harry was present when Beauregard, some of his more important
officers and the civil authorities of Charleston, conferred after
Lincoln's warning message came.

"If Lincoln's fleet tries to force the harbor," said Rhett, "we
must fire upon it. Sumter should be ours, and if Lincoln succeeds in
revictualling the fort it will be a great blow to our prestige. It
will hurt the whole South. What do you think, General?"

"I think as you do, Mr. Rhett," replied Toutant Beauregard.
"But have no fear, gentlemen. No fleet that Lincoln may send can
reach Sumter. Our batteries are able to blow out of the water every
vessel that flies the Northern flag."

"We must reduce Sumter itself before the fleet comes," said
Jamison, of Barnwell.

Beauregard smiled slightly.

"We can do that, too," he said, "and I am glad to see that you
gentlemen are for action. The fleet, I am accurately informed,
consists of the warship Baltic, three sloops of war and two tenders.
The Baltic, with Fox, the assistant secretary of the Northern Navy,
on board, left New York two days ago. The other vessels started
earlier, and we may expect the whole fleet in a day."

"Then," said Rhett, "we must send to Sumter another and a final
demand for its surrender."

They were all agreed, and Beauregard chose his messengers,
putting Harry among the number. Hoisting a white flag, they entered
a large boat and were rowed by powerful oarsmen toward Sumter.
Harry, looking back, saw the whole front of the harbor lined with
people. Even at the distance it looked like a holiday crowd. He saw
hundreds of women and girls in white and pink dresses, and there were
roses of the same colors in hats and bonnets. Great parasols of
every shade threw back the brilliant sunlight. It was still a
holiday spectacle, a pageant, and many of the light hearts along the
sea wall could not realize that it might yet be something far
more.

Anderson, the commander of Sumter, appeared upon the esplanade
to meet the boat coming with the white flag. Harry watched him
closely. He saw a face worn, but set hard and firm, and a figure
upright and steady. The Southerners tied their boat to the wall and
climbed upon the esplanade.

"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked Anderson.

"We have come with our final demand for your surrender," replied
the chief Southern officer. "If you do not yield we fire upon
you."

Anderson shrugged his shoulders.

"I hear that a fleet from New York is coming to my relief."

"It will never be able to force a passage into the harbor."

"That may or may not be, but in any event, gentlemen, I tell you
that the flag will not come down. If you fire, we fire back."

He spoke with no quiver in his voice, although his supply of
ammunition was low, and the fort had a food supply for only four
days.

"Then it is scarcely worth while for us to talk longer."

"No, it would be a waste of time by both of us." The
Southerners turned back to their boat. Harry was the last and
Anderson said to him in a low tone:

"I am sorry to see your father's son here."

"I am where he would wish me to be," replied the boy stiffly.

"Even so, I hope you will come to no harm," said Anderson in a
generous tone.

After such a noble rejoinder Harry's heart softened instantly,
and he returned the wish. Then he followed the others into the boat,
and they pulled back to the mainland.

The crowd surmised from the quick return of the boat the nature
of the answer that it brought. It seemed to feel one gigantic throb
of passion, and perhaps of relief also, that the issue was made after
so many weeks of waiting. Yet the holiday aspect disappeared, as if
a cloud had passed suddenly before the sun.

Harry noted the shadow even before he landed. The people had
become silent, and faces that had laughed turned grave. As they set
foot upon the mainland, they told their news freely, and then the
crowd dispersed almost in silence. It was the first time that Harry
had seen Charleston, gay and light of heart, in the shadow, but he
was sure that it could not last long. His errand over, he returned
to his own battery and told Langdon and St. Clair of everything that
had happened.

"It's all for the best," said Langdon cheerfully. "Sumter will
be ours in another day."

"Wait and see, Happy," said Harry.

"All right, old Wait-and-See, I will," returned Langdon.

Harry tried to suppress, or at least conceal his intense
excitement. The whole city was in the same state. The batteries were
filled with men of wealth and position, serving as mere volunteer
privates. The wives and daughters of many of them were at the
Charleston Hotel or the Mills House, or at such inns as that kept by
Madame Delaunay. Governor Pickens and his wife were at the
Charleston Hotel, and with them were chief officers of the city and
state. Nearly everybody knew that something was going to happen, but
few knew when it would happen.

Harry noticed a tightening of discipline at their battery. The
orders were sharp and they had to be obeyed. Nothing was wasted in
politeness. Visitors were no longer allowed to gratify curiosity.
Women and girls in their white or pink dresses were not permitted to
come near and smile at their husbands or brothers or sweethearts in
the trenches. The ammunition was stacked neatly behind the guns, and
every man was compelled to be ready at an instant's notice.

"Looks like business," Langdon whispered joyfully to his
comrades. "I'm hoping that fleet will come just as soon as it
can."

"Happy, you sanguinary wretch," Harry whispered back, "I'm
thinking the fleet will come soon enough for you and all the rest of
us."

The afternoon faded. The sun sank in the hills behind them, and
dusk came over city and harbor. But Harry, from the battery, could
still see the black bulk of Sumter, and above it the gleaming red and
blue of a flag.

Coffee and food were served to his comrades and himself in the
battery, and then they remained by their guns waiting. The night
deepened. Harry could yet see the flash of waters and the dim bulk of
Sumter, but the flag itself was no longer visible. No sound came
from the city. The silence there seemed singular and heavy.

The boy felt the night and the waiting. Even Happy Tom ceased
to be light and frivolous. The three had nothing to do and they sat
together, always looking toward the sea where the smoke of the
relieving fleet might appear. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major
Hector St. Hilaire passed together on a tour of inspection. They
gave approving looks to the three trim youths, with the frank open
faces, but said nothing and went on. Harry heard their footsteps for
a moment or two, and then the oppressive silence came again.

The same stillness endured for a long time, so long that the
three began to believe nothing would happen. Despite himself, Harry
began to nod and he was forced to bring himself back to earth with a
jerk. Then he stretched a little and peered over the earthwork. It
was brighter now. A fine moon rode high, and the sea was dusted with
starshine. The bulk of Sumter, black no longer, was coated with
silver.

"Looks peaceful enough," whispered Langdon. "The ships have
heard that you and St. Clair and I are here waiting for them and have
turned back."

Harry made no answer. This waiting in the silence and the night
made his blood quiver just a little. He was about to turn back when
he saw a sudden flash of fire from another point further up. It was
followed by a heavy crash that echoed and re-echoed over the still
sea and city. Harry's heart leaped, but his body stiffened to
attention. Tom and St. Clair by his side pressed against the
earthwork.

"What is it?" they whispered.

"The moonlight is good," replied Harry, "but I don't see any
ship. It must be a signal of some kind."

"Hush!" said Langdon, "there it goes again!"

Another cannon thundered, and the echoes, as before, came back
from sea and shore, followed, as the echoes died, by that strange,
heavy silence. But, straining their eyes to the utmost, the three
boys could see nothing on the sea. It swayed gently like a vast mass
of molten silver in the starshine, and lapped softly against the
shore. The report of a third heavy gun came, and then the reports of
several more. After that the silence was complete. It had seemed to
Harry, his brain surcharged with excitement, like the tolling of
great bells. Langdon and St. Clair whispered together, but he said
nothing.

It was permitted to the three to lie down in their blankets in
the earthwork and sleep, but they did not think of trying it. They
wished to know the meaning of those cannon shots and they waited,
tense with excitement. It was nearly midnight when Colonel Leonidas
Talbot came.

"We have learned that the Northern vessels will appear before
Charleston tomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all
our people to be ready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the
morning. Now you three boys must go to sleep. We shall need
tomorrow soldiers who are fresh and strong, not those who are worn
and weak from loss of sleep."

They tried it and found it easier now because they knew the
mystery of the shots. Harry became conscious that the night was
crisp and cold, and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back
against an inner wall of the earthwork. The blood, the result of his
tension and excitement, pounded in his ears for some time, but, at
last, his pulses became quiet, and his heavy eyes closed.

He was awakened at the first shoot of dawn by Colonel Leonidas
Talbot.

"Up, boys!" he said, "snatch a bite of food and a drink of
coffee, and make yourselves as neat as possible. General Beauregard
is coming to this very battery."

His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the
lightning speed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted
along the sea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest.
Heavy waves rolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult passes
that led into the bay.

"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas
Talbot murmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the passes in the
face of our guns."

The pale light widened. Sumter was black and threatening again,
and the flag waved there before it.

General Beauregard, his staff and a body of civilians arrived,
and almost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians
an old man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white.
Despite his years, his face was as keen and eager as that of any
boy.

"Who is he?" Harry whispered to St. Clair, who knew
everybody.

"His name's Ruffin, but he's not a South Carolinian. He's a
Virginian, but he has come to join us, and he's heart and soul with
us. He's ready to fight at the drop of a hat."

Harry--their battery stood on Coming's Point--glanced toward the
city and uttered a low cry of surprise.

"Look!" he said to his friends, "all Charleston is here."

"Yes, and a lot more of South Carolina, too," said St. Clair.

The people, learning the meaning of those signal guns in the
night, were packed in every open space, and the very roofs were black
with them. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were
looking on, but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great
mass. Harry knew that every heart in the fifty thousand beat, like
his own, with strained expectancy.

A great gun in the battery was trained upon Sumter, and the
gunner stood ready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long
white hair and the keen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General
Beauregard to allow him the honor of firing the first shot. The
General consented at once, and the old man pulled the lanyard.

There was a terrific crash that almost deafened Harry, a gush of
flame, followed by smoke, and a shell, screaming in a curve, dropped
upon Sumter. For a few moments no one spoke, and Harry could hear the
blood pounding in his ears. In a sudden flash of insight he saw a
long and terrible road that they must tread. But neither he nor any
other present realized to the full what had happened. The first real
shot in the mightiest war of history had been fired, and the years of
promises, kept or broken, of mutual jealousies and mutual abuse had
ended at the cannon's mouth.

The silence was broken by a shout like the roar of a storm, that
came from the people in the town. A puff of smoke rose from Sumter
and the fort sent its answering shot, but it struck no enemy and
again the shout came from the town, now a cry of derision.

Then all the batteries in the wide curve about Sumter leaped
into fiery life. Cannon after cannon poured shot and shell against
the black walls. The fort was ringed with fire. It seemed to Harry
that the earth rocked. He tried to speak to his comrades, but he
could not hear his own voice. He thought he was about to be deafened
for his whole life, but Langdon handed him pieces of cotton which he
quickly stuffed in his ears. Langdon and St. Clair had already taken
the precaution. Happy Tom had proved himself the most forethoughtful
of them all. And yet Langdon, careless and easy, was aflame with the
fire of battle. It seemed to Harry that he thought little of
consequences.

"Listen to it!" he shouted in excited tones to Harry and St.
Clair. "Hark to the thudding of the great guns! It's war, the
greatest of all games!"

Harry felt an intense excitement also. These were his people.
He was of their bone and sinew, and he was with them, heart and soul.
He did his part at the guns, and, although his excitement grew, he
said nothing. He saw that the return fire from the fort was far
inferior to that of the South Carolinians, and that it was doing no
damage.

"Using their light guns only," he heard Colonel Talbot say
during a momentary lull. "They must be short of ammunition."

The morning wore slowly on. From every battery along the
mainland and on the islands, the storm of projectiles yet beat upon
Sumter, and, at intervals, the fort replied, still using the light
guns. Once Harry heard the whistle of a shell over his head, and he
ducked automatically, while the others laughed. Another time, a
solid shot sent the dirt flying in all their faces, stinging like
driven sand, but that was the nearest any missile ever came to
them.

Beauregard, after a while, gave an order for the firing to
cease, and the city and harbor rose again, clear and distinct, in the
pale sunlight. The great crowd of people was still there, all
watching and waiting, The fort was battered and torn, but above it
still hung the defiant flag, and there was no offer of surrender.

"Look! Look!" Langdon cried suddenly, reckless of all
discipline, as he pointed a forefinger toward the sea.

Harry saw a column of smoke rising, and defining itself clearly
against the pale blue sky.

"The Yankee fleet!" cried one of the officers, as he put his
glasses to his eyes.

General Beauregard, General Ripley, and officers in every other
battery, also were watching that new column of smoke through glasses.
The dark spire in truth rose from the Baltic, the chief ship of the
Union, having on board the energetic Fox himself, and two hundred
soldiers. But chance and the elements seemed to have conspired
against the secretary. One of his strongest ships had gone to the
relief of another fort further south, others had been scattered by a
storm, and the Baltic had only two sister vessels as she approached,
over a rolling gray sea, the fiery volcano that was once the peaceful
harbor of Charleston.

Harry saw the first column of smoke increase to three, and they
knew then that the number of the Union vessels was far less than had
been expected.

"Will they undertake to force the harbor and reach Sumter?" he
asked of Colonel Talbot, who was then in the battery.

"If they do," replied the Colonel, "it will be a case of the
most reckless folly. They would be sunk in short order, as they come
right into the teeth of our guns. The sea itself, is against them.
The waves are rolling worse than ever."

Colonel Talbot knew what he was saying. Vainly the men in
Sumter looked for relief by sea. They, too, had seen the three ships
off the harbor, and they knew whence they came and for what purpose.
But they had reached the end of their journey, and had fallen short
with the object of it in sight. They were compelled to swing back
and forth, while they watched the circle of batteries pour a
continuous fire upon the crumbling fort.

After the Southern officers had taken a long look at the Union
ships, and had seen that they could do nothing, the fire on Sumter
was renewed with increased volume. It lasted all through the day and
the vast crowd of spectators did not diminish in numbers. Many of
the wealthier were in carriages. If one went away for food or
refreshment another took his place.

When the wind at times lifted the smoke, Harry saw that the
wooden buildings standing on the esplanade of the fort were burning
fiercely, set on fire by the bursting shells. The iron cisterns,
too, although he did not know it until later, were smashed, and
columns of smoke from the flaming buildings were pouring into the
fort, threatening its defenders with destruction.

Night came on, and most of the people, lining the harbor, were
compelled to go to their homes, but the fire of the Southern
batteries continued, always converging upon the scarred and blackened
walls of Sumter, from which came an occasional shot in return. Harry
had now grown used to this incessant, rolling crash. He could hear
his comrades speak, their voices coming in an under note, and now and
then they discussed the result. They agreed that Sumter was bound to
fall. The Union fleet could bring it no relief, and such a
continuous rain of balls and shells must eventually pound it to
pieces.

They ate and drank after dark. They had food in abundance and
delicacies of many kinds from which to choose. Charleston poured
forth its plenty for its heroes, and in those days of fresh young
enthusiasm there was no lack of anything.

"The Yankees hold out well," said Langdon, "but I'm willing to
bet a hundred to one that nobody sleeps in that fort tonight. You
can't see the smoke of the ships any more. I suppose that for safety
in the night they've had to go further out to sea. I'm glad I'm not
on one of them, rolling and tumbling in those high waves. Well,
everything is for the best, and if Sumter doesn't fall into our laps
tonight she'll fall tomorrow, and if she doesn't fall tomorrow she'll
fall the next day. What do you say to that, old Wait-and-See?"

"Wait and see," replied Harry so naturally that the others
laughed.

The bombardment went on all through the night. Harry
continually breathed smoke and the odor of burned gunpowder, which
seemed to keep his nerves keyed to a great pitch, and to maintain the
heat of his blood. Yet, after a while, he lay down, when his turn at
the guns ceased, and slept through sheer exhaustion. His eyes closed
to the thunder of cannon and they awoke at dawn to the same heavy
thudding.

The fire had not ceased at any time in the course of the night,
and Sumter looked like a ruin, but the flag still floated over it.
St. Clair and Langdon were awakened a few minutes later, and they
also stood up, rubbed their eyes, stared at the fort and listened to
the firing. Harry laughed at their appearance.

"You fellows are certainly grimy," he said. "You look as if you
hadn't seen water for a month."

"We can't see ourselves, old Wait-and-See," retorted Langdon,
"but I guess we're beauties alongside of you. If I didn't have the
honor of your acquaintance, I wouldn't know whether you came from the
Indian Territory, Ashantee or the Cannibal Islands."

"And the music goes merrily on," said St. Clair. "I went to
sleep with the cannon firing, and I wake up with them still at it. I
suppose a fellow will get used to it after a while."

"You can get used to anything," said an officer who heard them.
"Now, you boys eat your breakfasts. Your turn at the guns will come
again soon."

They took breakfast willingly, although they found a strong
flavor of smoke, sand, and burned gunpowder in everything they ate
and drank. Then they went to their guns, but, when a few more shots
were fired, a trumpet blew a signal, and it was echoed from battery
to battery. Every cannon ceased, and, in the silence and under the
lifting smoke, Harry saw a white flag going up on the fort.

Sumter was about to yield.