Today in History:

690 Series III Volume I- Serial 122 - Union Letters, Orders, Reports

Page 690 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.

angle; a picket fence built around the fort bordering the ditch, and protected by a small glacis; merlons constructed on the whole of the east front; communications opened through the quarters; a bridge built connecting them with the guard-house, and the latter loopholed for musketry so as to serve for a citadel. Means were also furnished to transport Major Anderson's command, and such public property as could be removed before the occupation of Fort Moultrie by the rebels, to Fort Sumter. Before evacuating the fort the guns were spiked, the gun carriages on the front looking toward Fort Sumter burnt, and the flagstaff cut down. A considerable quantity of engineer implements and materials were unavoidably left in the fort.

Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, S. C., in charge of Brigadier General J. G. Foster, captain of Engineers, until April 14, 1861. - Vigorous operations were commenced on this fort in the month of August, 1860, with a view of placing it in a good defensive condition as soon as possible. The casemate arches supporting the second tier of guns were all turned; the granite flagging for the second tier was laid on the right face of the work; the floor laid and the iron stairways put up in the east barrack; the traverse circles of the first tier of guns reset; the bluestone flagging laid in all the gun rooms of the right and left faces of the first tier, and the construction of the embrasures of the second tier commenced at the time that the fort was occupied by Major Anderson's command on the 26th of December, 1860. The fears of an immediate attack and disloyal feelings induced the greater portion of the engineer employes to leave at this time, but those that remained (fifty-five in number, reduced toward the ennd of the investment to thirty-five), were made effective in preparing for a vigorous defense. The armament of the fort was mounted and supplied with maneuvering implements; machicoulis galleries, splinter-proof shutters, and traverses were constructed; the openings left for the embrasures of the second tier were filled with brick and stone and earth, and those in the gorge with stone and iron and lead concrete. Mines were established in the wharf and along the gorge; the parade was cleared, and communications opened to all parts of the fort and through the quarters. The fort was bombarded on the 12th and 13th of April by the rebels, and evacuated by Major Anderson's command on the 14th of april. During the bombardment the officers' quarters were set on fire by hot shot from the rebel batteries, and they, with the roofs of the barracks, were entirely consumed. The magazines were uninjured by the fire. The bombardment dismantled one gun, disabled two others, and ruined the stair towers and the masonry walls projecting above the parapet. No breach was effected in the walls, and the greatest penetration made by the successive shots was twenty-two inches. Nearly all the material that had been obtained to construct the embrasures of the second tier, to flag this tier, and the remainder of the first tier, and to finish the barracks, was used up in the preparations for defense. (See engineer journal of siege, appended to this report.*)

Castle Pinckney, Charleston Harbor, S. C., in charge of Brigadier General J. G. Foster, captain of Engineers, until December 27, 1860. - Some necessary repairs were commenced upon this work in December, 1860, but before these were completed the fort was seized by the troops of the State of South Carolina on the 27th of December. Lieutenant R. K. Meade, Corps of Engineers, who was in the immediate charge, was suffered to leave with the workmen, but all the public property in the fort was taken possession of, including the mess property and one month's provisions for the engineer force. The armament of the fort was all mounted,

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* For journal (here omitted) see Series I, Vol. I, p. 16.

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Page 690 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.