very annoying to the enemy, and the accuracy of their fire is mentioned more than once in his reports.

A most interesting feature in this summer’s operations was the development of the attacking power of movable torpedoes. Special interest attaches to a boat that was brought from Mobile, by railroad, and which was generally known, from its shape, as the “Cigar Boat.” Its history is linked with deeds of the loftiest heroism and devotion of self to the service of country. The story is familiar to all of us, yet I cannot refrain from repeating it.

This boat was one day made fast to the wharf at Fort Johnson, preparatory to an expedition against the fleet, and taking advantage of the opportunity, I examined it critically. It was built of boiler iron, about thirty feet in length, with a breadth of beam of four feet by a vertical depth of six feet, the figures being approximate only. Access to the interior was had by two man-holes in the upper part, covered by hinged caps, into which were let bull’s eyes of heavy glass, and through these the steersman looked in guiding the motions of the craft. The boat floated with these caps raised only a foot or so above the level of the water. The motive power was a propeller, to be worked by hand of the crew, cranks being provided in the shaft for that purpose. Upon each side of the exterior were horizontal vanes, or wings, that could be adjusted at any angle from the interior. When it was intended that the boat should go on an even keel, whether on the surface or under, these vanes were kept level. If it was desired to go below the water, say, for instance, at an angle of ten degrees, the vanes were fixed at that angle and the propeller worked. The resistance of the water against the vanes would then carry the boat under. A reversal of this method would bring it to the surface again. A tube of mercury was arranged to mark the depth of descent. It had been the design of the inventor to approach near to an enemy, then to submerge the boat and pass under the ship to be attacked, towing a floating torpedo to be exploded by means of electricity as soon as it touched the keel. Insufficient depth of water in the harbor prevented this manner of using the boat, however, and so she was rigged with a long spar at the bow, to which a torpedo was attached, to be fired by actual concussion with the object to be destroyed. This change necessarily made the boat more unwieldy, and probably had something to do with the tragic circumstances of her after history.

It will be remembered that she was sunk at the wharf at Port Johnson by the waves from a passing steamer, while a part of the crew were in her. Days elapsed before she could be raised. The dead were removed, and a second crew volunteered. They made repeated and successful experiments in the harbor, but finally they, too, went down and, from some unknown cause, failed to come up. Once more a long time passed before the boat was raised, and then the poor remains of the devoted crew were taken from her in an indescribable condition. Yet, still another set of men came forward and volunteered for the duty. Surely love of country and courage of the sublimest type never found better exponents than these. The expedition started, but did not return. That night the sloop-of-war, “Housatonic,” was reported as having been sunk by a torpedo in the lower harbor, but of the gallant men who had thus accomplished what they aimed to do, nothing definite was ever known until after the war, when divers, in endeavoring to raise the Housatonic, discovered the cigar boat with the bleached bones of her crew lying near the wreck of the noble ship that she had destroyed.

The line of rifle pits in front of Wagner had been gallantly held by our men during the siege, and had sorely troubled the besiegers. On the 21st of August an infantry force attempted the capture of these pits, without success. On the afternoon of the 26th, a heavy artillery fire was brought to bear upon them without dislodging the holders, but that night a dashing charge of the 24th Massachusetts Regiment gained the position, capturing most of the Confederates who held it, about seventy men. General Gillmore’s fifth and last parallel was at once established on the ground thus won, and before dawn on the 27th, under cover of the flying sap, the trenches were pushed about one hundred yards nearer to the fort.

Notwithstanding this success, General Gillmore, in his report, speaks of this period as “the dark and gloomy days of the siege,” and of the progress made as “discouragingly slow, and even painfully uncertain.”

The ground between his front and Wagner was thickly studded with torpedoes, his left flank was searched by the unremitting fire from our batteries on James Island. The head of the sap was slowly pushed forward under the ceaseless fire of howitzers and sharp-shooters from the entire front of the fort, while last, though not least, the besiegers had now reached a point where every onward step compelled them to dig through the bodies of their dead, who had been buried some weeks before.

“In the emergency,” General Gillmore availed himself of his superior resources in artillery, to keep down the active resistance of Wagner, and to this end every gun ashore and afloat was turned upon it. The final bombardment began at daybreak on the 5th of September and for forty-two hours continued with a severity and awful terror beyond the power of words to describe. That night, as witnessed from Fort Johnson, where the 1st Regiment were stationed, the scene was grand in the extreme. The lurid flushes of the guns, their unceasing roar, the shells from every description of tremendous artillery, that could be tracked through the air by flaming fuses; the mortar shell rising in stately curve and steady sweep, the Parrott shell darting like lightning in its mission of death, the missiles from the fleet booming along the water and bursting in Wagner with cruel accuracy, the glare of calcium lights, bringing out every detail of our works as in the noonday—all these filled the souls of Confederate spectators with awe, and found their painful antithesis in—the silence of Wagner. The end had come.

All through the 6th the bombardment continued, and that evening the sap had reached the counter scarp of the work, and only the ditch and parapet separated the combatants. The assault was ordered for nine o’clock on the morning of the 7th, but by midnight on the 6th the place was evacuated by the Confederates, the whole force being taken off the island in row boats. Some few of these boats were intercepted, but the garrison, as a garrison, was saved. The enemy at once occupied both Wagner and Gregg, and Morris Island, in its entirety, was in their possession.

So ended the siege of Battery Wagner, after a defense of fifty-seven days: a defense that may, without question, be said to have saved Charleston. The outwork was taken, but the inner citadel still proudly stood. Still from the ruins of Sumter, still from historic Moultrie, still from the “City by the Sea,” the Southern Cross fluttered in the breezes of the bay and bade defiance to the foe.

The evacuation so successfully accomplished, in the face of so many difficulties, under so terrible a fire, and with the enemy in such close proximity, has justly been considered a remarkable event and the crowning glory of the defense. That had been protracted to the latest moment, and when resistance was no longer possible, the brave garrison was saved to add fresh lustre to the Southern arms on many another field.

On the afternoon of the 8th of September, notice was received by the commanders of batteries within range of Sumter, that a boat attack would be made upon that fortification during the night, and they were ordered at a given signal to open with all their guns upon the point where the boats were expected. The signals of the enemy had again been