1 Bucks
County Intelligencer, Fort Sumter Attack Ready
August 30, 1961 Page
B-EIGHT Col. 6 1
Fort
Sumter
Attack
Ready
The
enemy knew what to ex-
pect. The proposed attack on Fort
Sumter had been well
advertised.
No expedition of the war had
been more talked about in ad-
vance.
And during the month that
union soldiers were preparing
for
the attack, the enemy was
strengthening its position.
The
troops embarked in early
April. The strength: Four war-
ships and 1,980 men.
“The
104th was on the Catawba
again,” Davis recalled. “The
steam propeller United States
was
designated as flagship of the
di-
vision.”
Ten
days’ rations in bulk were
put on each vessel.
Sealed
Orders
“I
received sealed orders from
a staff officer, but there was
no
necessity for this pretended
se-
crecy,” said Davis. “Our destina-
tion was well known to every-
body.”
The
morning of April 5 dawned
bright and clear. The four vessels
tossed lazily on the open sea,
moving out slowly into deep
wa-
ters.
Dangerous
waves boiled at the
iron sides of the Catawba.
“We
were moving toward Folly
Island,” Davis noted. “Folly Is-
land—it was well-named.”
The
respite at St. Helena Is-
land had been brief, according
to
Davis.
“We
knew we would sail shortly
after we arrived there,” he
said.
“One by one, the iron-clads
left
the harbor and proceeded to
Stono
inlet, where the naval force
was
to rendezvous.
“We
sailed in early April to
join the others.”
The ironsides anchored about
one thousand yards from Ft.
Sum-
ter.
Mightiest
Armada
“In
point of strength,” Davis
explained, “this was the
mightiest
Armada the sea had ever borne
on its surface.
“These
few mailed ships could
have vanquished in combat the
proudest wooden navy the world
had ever seen.”
The
rim of the harbor near the
fort bristled with rebel
cannons.
They
began to hammer in mid-
afternoon.
April
7, 1863:
The
shells made the water foam
around the iron-clad pygmy
ves-
sels. The ships stood the onslaught
for two hours, then had to
retire
to their anchorage a few miles
out at sea.
About
dark, they moved in
closer to the harbor.
They
fired more than one hun-
dred shots at Ft. Sumter. Turrets
of the vessels were riddled
like
sieves.
“In
going in, one of the iron-
clads struck a torpedo,” Davis
said, “but it did no damage. The
destruction done to our ships,
ex-
cept the Keokuk, was not
serious.
“The
keokuk was pierced
through and sunk in her
anchor-
age abreast of the
island. It was
a tragic sight.”
Like
A Curse
It
was nightfall when the order
to abandon the harbor came al-
most like a curse from the
flag
ship.”
“The
withdrawal of the fleet
from before Sumter was an
aban-
donment of the famous attack
which had been noised through
our country for months,” Davis
observed.
He
dwelt a moment on that
thought.
“It
was not really accepting
defeat,” he muttered. “We had
done the best we could.”
The
words stuck in his throat
and he wept softly.
Camp
Beaufort was on a village
green and within a hundred
yards
of a river bank. It was a healthy
location and new tents were
drawn
soon after the arrival of the
104th
Regiment.
The
Soldiers rested here. The
Regiment licked its
wounds. The
men took great pains to
ornament
the camp and make it
attractive.
Some
companies erected a neat
railing along the street; and
laid
brick walls up to the
tent-door.
Others enclosed a little yard
in
front of their respective
tents, to
separate their domain from
their
neighbors.
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