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of powder, but few cartridges made up. They had no scales for weighing powder, and only six needles for sewing cartridge-bags.
They had no instruments for sighting the guns; and other deficiencies was numerous.
The wood-work of the barracks and officers' quarters was exposed to ignition by the bursting bomb-shells, every moment.
The garrison was composed of only about eighty men; the insurgents numbered several thousands.
The odds were fearful, but, leaning trustfully on the arm of the Almighty, the commander determined to resist.
At seven o'clock in the morning, he ordered a reply to the attack.
The first gun was fired from the battery at the right gorge angle, at the Stevens Battery on
Morris Island, by
Captain (afterward
Major-General)
Abner Doubleday.
A fire from the fort upon all of the principal attacking batteries immediately followed; and for four hours the contest was kept up so steadily and vigorously on the part of
Fort Sumter, that the insurgents suspected that it had been stealthily re-enforced during the night.
The first solid shot from Fort Sumter, hurled at Fort Moultrie, was fired by Surgeon (afterward Major-General) S. W. Crawford.
It lodged in the sand-bags, and was carried by a special reporter of the Charleston Mercury to the office of that journal.
It was a 32-pound shot, and was soon afterward forwarded by Beauregard, it is said, to Marshal Kane, of Baltimore, who appears as a worthy recipient of the gift from such hands.
The writer saw that shot at the police Headquarters in the old City Hall on Holliday Street, in Baltimore, when he visited that building in December, 1864, where it was carefully preserved, with the original presentation label upon it, namely, “To George P. Kane, Marshal of Police, Baltimore, from Fort Sumter.”
Anderson's order for the men to remain in the bomb-proofs could not restrain them when the firing commenced.
The whole garrison, officers and men, were filled with the highest
excitement and enthusiasm by the events of the morning, and the first relief had been at work but a few minutes when the other two joined in the task.
Hence it was that the fort was enabled to assail all of the principal insurgent batteries at the same time.
The surgeon (
Crawford), musicians, engineers, and workmen, inspired by example, fell in and toiled vigorously with the soldiers.
There were no idle hands.
Yet after four hours of hard and skillful labor, it was evident that
Fort Sumter could not seriously injure the works opposed to it. One of
Fort Moultrie's guns had been silenced for a while; its embrasures were injured, its barracks were riddled, and three holes were torn in its flag.
A shot had penetrated the Floating Battery; but the iron-plated battery (Stevens) on
Cummings's Point was absolutely invulnerable.
It was uninjured at the end of the engagement, though frequently hit by heavy shot.
In the mean time, the firing of the assailants was becoming more accurate and effective.
At first, many of their shot actually missed Fort Sumter, and those that struck it were so scattering that there seemed no chance for breaching the walls.
But the firing became more and more concentrated, and began to tell fearfully upon the walls and the parapets.
Some of the
