Letters from Fort Humter. 137
guard to receive the prisoners and their arms. Thus was concealed the fact that the fort was empty. The report of the guns bombarding the fort had been heard, and soon after the close of the battle re- enforcements arrived, which relieved the little garrison from its em- barrassment.
Official reports of officers in the assaulting column, as published in the " Rebellion Record," vol. vii., page 425, et seg., refer to another fort, and steamers in the river, co-operating in the defence of Fort Grigsby. The success of the single company which garrisoned the earthwork is without parallel in ancient or modern war. It was mar- velous ; but it is incredible — more than marvelous — that another garrison in another fort, with cruising steamers, aided in checking the advance of the enemy, yet silently permitted the forty-two men and two officers of Fort Grigsby to receive all the credit for the victory which was won. If this be supposable, how is it possible that Cap- tain Odium, Commander Smith, General Magruder, and Lieutenant Dowling, who had been advised to abandon the work, and had con- sulted their men as to their willingness to defend it, should nowhere have mentioned the putative fort and co-operating steamers ?
The names of the forty-four must go down to posterity unshorn of the honor which their contemporaries admiringly accorded.
Letters from Fort Sumter in 1862 and 1863.
By Lieut. Iredell Jones, First Regiment S. C. Regulars.
No. 2.
Fort Sumter, July 20, 1S63.
My Dear Father, — ■ * * Since my last to mother much of interest has transpired, and all before my eyes. I have seen a despe- rate battle fought, preceded, as it was, by one of the most furious bombardments of the war. About 9 o'clock on Saturday morning, the five monitors, the Ironsides, and five gunboats moved up in front of Wagner and immediately opened a most terrific shelling, and they had not fired long before the enemy's batteries (two in number) joined in, and all together poured forth their missiles of death for ten long hours on our little fort, containing only one gun with which we were able to reply. The rest of the guns in the fort are of light cal- ibre and useful only against an assaulting party. Our men look refuge in their bomb-proofs, and, having sustained only a few casu-
