CHAPTER VI
SUMTER
Harry saw an increase of energy after the arrival of Beauregard.There were fresh rumors about the great fleet the North was going tosend down for the relief of Sumter. Major Anderson, the commander inthe fort, steadily refused all demands for surrender. It was saidfreely that the Northern States did not intend to let their Southernsisters go in peace. The Mercury, with all the power and fire of theRhett family behind it, thundered continually for action. Sumter withits guns menacing the city should not be allowed to remain under thehostile flag.
It seemed to Harry afterward that he was in a sort of fever, not a feverthat parched and burned, but a fever that made his pulse leap faster,and his heart long for the thrill of conflict. Often he sat withSt. 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 oughtto 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'sbed in the White House, and then I'd go on to Philadelphia and New Yorkand Boston and show myself as a fair specimen of the unconquerableSouthern soldier."
"Happy," said Harry, in a rebuking tone, "you're the most terrificchatterer I ever heard. Before you've done anything whatever, you talkabout 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 seaislander, Happy Tom Langdon."
Charleston received Lincoln's threat and gave it back. Many were gladthat he had made the issue. The enthusiasm swelled yet further, whenthey heard that the Confederate envoys at Washington, treating for apeaceful separation, had left the capital at once when Lincoln had senthis message that Sumter would be relieved.
"It looks more like war now," said Langdon, with satisfaction, "and Imay make my victorious march into the North after all."
Harry said nothing. As events marched forward on swift foot, he feltmore intensely their gravity. For every month that had passed since heput the Tacitus in his desk at Pendleton Academy, the boy had grown ayear in mind and thought. So, that rumor about the relieving fleet hadcome 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 oftenwent with Colonel Talbot on tours of inspection and once or twice he wasin General Beauregard's own party. The fact that his father had beena graduate of West Point and for years an officer, was of the greatestservice to him. In the little army of the United States before theCivil War, the officers constituted a family. Everybody knew whoeverybody else was, and those of the same age had been at West Pointtogether. General Beauregard and Colonel Kenton had met often, and theSouthern commander became very partial to the Colonel's son.
Harry was present when Beauregard, some of his more important officersand the civil authorities of Charleston, conferred after Lincoln'swarning message came.
"If Lincoln's fleet tries to force the harbor," said Rhett, "we mustfire upon it. Sumter should be ours, and if Lincoln succeeds inrevictualling 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 haveno fear, gentlemen. No fleet that Lincoln may send can reach Sumter.Our batteries are able to blow out of the water every vessel that fliesthe 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 gentlemenare for action. The fleet, I am accurately informed, consists of thewarship 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 wemay expect the whole fleet in a day."
"Then," said Rhett, "we must send to Sumter another and a final demandfor its surrender."
They were all agreed, and Beauregard chose his messengers, putting Harryamong the number. Hoisting a white flag, they entered a large boat andwere rowed by powerful oarsmen toward Sumter. Harry, looking back,saw the whole front of the harbor lined with people. Even at thedistance it looked like a holiday crowd. He saw hundreds of women andgirls in white and pink dresses, and there were roses of the same colorsin hats and bonnets. Great parasols of every shade threw back thebrilliant sunlight. It was still a holiday spectacle, a pageant,and many of the light hearts along the sea wall could not realize thatit might yet be something far more.
Anderson, the commander of Sumter, appeared upon the esplanade tomeet 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 andsteady. The Southerners tied their boat to the wall and climbed uponthe esplanade.
"What do you want, gentlemen?" asked Anderson.
"We have come with our final demand for your surrender," replied thechief 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 thatthe flag will not come down. If you fire, we fire back."
He spoke with no quiver in his voice, although his supply of ammunitionwas 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 turnedback to their boat. Harry was the last and Anderson said to him in alow 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 generoustone.
After such a noble rejoinder Harry's heart softened instantly, and hereturned the wish. Then he followed the others into the boat, and theypulled back to the mainland.
The crowd surmised from the quick return of the boat the nature of theanswer 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 weeksof waiting. Yet the holiday aspect disappeared, as if a cloud hadpassed suddenly before the sun.
Harry noted the shadow even before he landed. The people had becomesilent, and faces that had laughed turned grave. As they set foot uponthe mainland, they told their news freely, and then the crowd dispersedalmost 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 notlast long. His errand over, he returned to his own battery and toldLangdon and St. Clair of everything that had happened.
"It's all for the best," said Langdon cheerfully. "Sumter will be oursin 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 withmen of wealth and position, serving as mere volunteer privates. Thewives and daughters of many of them were at the Charleston Hotel or theMills House, or at such inns as that kept by Madame Delaunay. GovernorPickens and his wife were at the Charleston Hotel, and with them werechief officers of the city and state. Nearly everybody knew thatsomething was going to happen, but few knew when it would happen.
Harry noticed a tightening of disci
pline at their battery. The orderswere sharp and they had to be obeyed. Nothing was wasted in politeness.Visitors were no longer allowed to gratify curiosity. Women and girlsin their white or pink dresses were not permitted to come near and smileat their husbands or brothers or sweethearts in the trenches. Theammunition was stacked neatly behind the guns, and every man wascompelled 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 thefleet will come soon enough for you and all the rest of us."
The afternoon faded. The sun sank in the hills behind them, and duskcame over city and harbor. But Harry, from the battery, could still seethe black bulk of Sumter, and above it the gleaming red and blue of aflag.
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 belight and frivolous. The three had nothing to do and they sat together,always looking toward the sea where the smoke of the relieving fleetmight appear. Colonel Leonidas Talbot and Major Hector St. Hilairepassed together on a tour of inspection. They gave approving looks tothe three trim youths, with the frank open faces, but said nothing andwent on. Harry heard their footsteps for a moment or two, and then theoppressive silence came again.
The same stillness endured for a long time, so long that the three beganto believe nothing would happen. Despite himself, Harry began to nodand he was forced to bring himself back to earth with a jerk. Then hestretched a little and peered over the earthwork. It was brighter now.A fine moon rode high, and the sea was dusted with starshine. The bulkof Sumter, black no longer, was coated with silver.
"Looks peaceful enough," whispered Langdon. "The ships have heard thatyou 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 madehis blood quiver just a little. He was about to turn back when he saw asudden flash of fire from another point further up. It was followed bya heavy crash that echoed and re-echoed over the still sea and city.Harry's heart leaped, but his body stiffened to attention. Tom andSt. 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 seaand shore, followed, as the echoes died, by that strange, heavy silence.But, straining their eyes to the utmost, the three boys could seenothing on the sea. It swayed gently like a vast mass of molten silverin the starshine, and lapped softly against the shore. The report of athird heavy gun came, and then the reports of several more. After thatthe silence was complete. It had seemed to Harry, his brain surchargedwith excitement, like the tolling of great bells. Langdon and St. Clairwhispered together, but he said nothing.
It was permitted to the three to lie down in their blankets in theearthwork and sleep, but they did not think of trying it. They wishedto know the meaning of those cannon shots and they waited, tense withexcitement. It was nearly midnight when Colonel Leonidas Talbot came.
"We have learned that the Northern vessels will appear before Charlestontomorrow," he said, "and the shots were a signal to all our people to beready. The attack on Sumter will begin in the morning. Now you threeboys must go to sleep. We shall need tomorrow soldiers who are freshand 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 ofthe shots. Harry became conscious that the night was crisp and cold,and, wrapped in his blanket, he lay with his back against an inner wallof 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 comingto this very battery."
His voice was quick and sharp, and the boys obeyed with the lightningspeed of youth. It was a pale dawn. Gray clouds drifted along thesea's far rim, and a sharp wind came out of the Northwest. Heavy wavesrolled into the mouths of the narrow and difficult passes that led intothe bay.
"The Lord Himself fights for us," Harry heard Colonel Leonidas Talbotmurmur. "No ships on such a sea would dare the passes in the face ofour 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, andalmost overflowed the battery. Harry noticed among the civilians anold man, seventy-five at least, with long hair, snow white. Despitehis 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 readyto fight at the drop of a hat."
Harry--their battery stood on Coming's Point--glanced toward the cityand 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 withthem. Forty or fifty thousand, men, women and children, were looking on,but nothing more than a murmur ran through the great mass. Harry knewthat every heart in the fifty thousand beat, like his own, with strainedexpectancy.
A great gun in the battery was trained upon Sumter, and the gunner stoodready at the lanyard, but the old man with the long white hair and thekeen, eager face, stepping forward, begged General Beauregard to allowhim 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 uponSumter. For a few moments no one spoke, and Harry could hear the bloodpounding in his ears. In a sudden flash of insight he saw a long andterrible road that they must tread. But neither he nor any otherpresent realized to the full what had happened. The first real shot inthe mightiest war of history had been fired, and the years of promises,kept or broken, of mutual jealousies and mutual abuse had ended at thecannon's mouth.
The silence was broken by a shout like the roar of a storm, that camefrom the people in the town. A puff of smoke rose from Sumter and thefort sent its answering shot, but it struck no enemy and again the shoutcame from the town, now a cry of derision.
Then all the batteries in the wide curve about Sumter leaped into fierylife. Cannon after cannon poured shot and shell against the blackwalls. The fort was ringed with fire. It seemed to Harry that theearth rocked. He tried to speak to his comrades, but he could not hearhis own voice. He thought he was about to be deafened for his wholelife, but Langdon handed him pieces of cotton which he quickly stuffedin 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 allgames!"
Harry felt an intense excitement also. These were his people. He wasof their bone a
nd sinew, and he was with them, heart and soul. Hedid his part at the guns, and, although his excitement grew, he saidnothing. He saw that the return fire from the fort was far inferiorto that of the South Carolinians, and that it was doing no damage.
"Using their light guns only," he heard Colonel Talbot say during amomentary lull. "They must be short of ammunition."
The morning wore slowly on. From every battery along the mainland andon the islands, the storm of projectiles yet beat upon Sumter, and,at intervals, the fort replied, still using the light guns. Once Harryheard the whistle of a shell over his head, and he ducked automatically,while the others laughed. Another time, a solid shot sent the dirtflying in all their faces, stinging like driven sand, but that was thenearest 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 palesunlight. The great crowd of people was still there, all watching andwaiting, The fort was battered and torn, but above it still hung thedefiant 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 againstthe pale blue sky.
"The Yankee fleet!" cried one of the officers, as he put his glasses tohis eyes.
General Beauregard, General Ripley, and officers in every other battery,also were watching that new column of smoke through glasses. The darkspire 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 thesecretary. One of his strongest ships had gone to the relief of anotherfort further south, others had been scattered by a storm, and the Baltichad 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 knewthen that the number of the Union vessels was far less than had beenexpected.
"Will they undertake to force the harbor and reach Sumter?" he asked ofColonel Talbot, who was then in the battery.
"If they do," replied the Colonel, "it will be a case of the mostreckless folly. They would be sunk in short order, as they come rightinto the teeth of our guns. The sea itself, is against them. The wavesare rolling worse than ever."
Colonel Talbot knew what he was saying. Vainly the men in Sumter lookedfor 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 hadreached the end of their journey, and had fallen short with the objectof it in sight. They were compelled to swing back and forth, whilethey watched the circle of batteries pour a continuous fire upon thecrumbling 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 renewedwith increased volume. It lasted all through the day and the vast crowdof spectators did not diminish in numbers. Many of the wealthier werein carriages. If one went away for food or refreshment another took hisplace.
When the wind at times lifted the smoke, Harry saw that the woodenbuildings standing on the esplanade of the fort were burning fiercely,set on fire by the bursting shells. The iron cisterns, too, although hedid not know it until later, were smashed, and columns of smoke from theflaming buildings were pouring into the fort, threatening its defenderswith destruction.
Night came on, and most of the people, lining the harbor, were compelledto 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 usedto this incessant, rolling crash. He could hear his comrades speak,their voices coming in an under note, and now and then they discussedthe result. They agreed that Sumter was bound to fall. The Union fleetcould bring it no relief, and such a continuous rain of balls and shellsmust eventually pound it to pieces.
They ate and drank after dark. They had food in abundance anddelicacies of many kinds from which to choose. Charleston poured forthits plenty for its heroes, and in those days of fresh young enthusiasmthere was no lack of anything.
"The Yankees hold out well," said Langdon, "but I'm willing to bet ahundred to one that nobody sleeps in that fort tonight. You can't seethe smoke of the ships any more. I suppose that for safety in the nightthey'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 thebest, and if Sumter doesn't fall into our laps tonight she'll falltomorrow, 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 continuallybreathed smoke and the odor of burned gunpowder, which seemed to keephis nerves keyed to a great pitch, and to maintain the heat of hisblood. Yet, after a while, he lay down, when his turn at the gunsceased, and slept through sheer exhaustion. His eyes closed to thethunder 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, andSumter looked like a ruin, but the flag still floated over it.St. Clair and Langdon were awakened a few minutes later, and theyalso stood up, rubbed their eyes, stared at the fort and listenedto the firing. Harry laughed at their appearance.
"You fellows are certainly grimy," he said. "You look as if you hadn'tseen water for a month."
"We can't see ourselves, old Wait-and-See," retorted Langdon, "but Iguess we're beauties alongside of you. If I didn't have the honor ofyour acquaintance, I wouldn't know whether you came from the IndianTerritory, Ashantee or the Cannibal Islands."
"And the music goes merrily on," said St. Clair. "I went to sleep withthe cannon firing, and I wake up with them still at it. I suppose afellow 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 againsoon."
They took breakfast willingly, although they found a strong flavor ofsmoke, 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.
The Guns of Bull Run: A Story of the Civil War's Eve Page 7