While I and several other officers were eating breakfast at one of the hotels, a great noise was heard in the upper portion of the building, giving quite a shock to all.  Someone asked the colored waiter, “What was that noise?” “Only a shell bursting in one of the upper rooms,” was the reply.

Women and children walked leisurely to market or about their daily vocations, the shells roaring overhead, with no more excitement or concern than had it only been a fourth of July celebration.

Even the negroes, usually so timid and excitable, paid but momentary attention to the dangers.

[Illustration:  Lieut.  Col.  F.S.  Lewie, Co.  H, 8th S.C.  Regiment.]

[Illustration:  Capt.  Duncan McIntyre, 15th S.C.  Regiment.]

[Illustration:  Robert W. Shand, Private 2d S.C.  Regiment.]

[Illustration:  D.H.  Crawford, First Sargeant and afterwards Lieut. 2d S.C.  Regiment.]

The Confederates had abandoned the greater part of Morris’ Island, and great batteries had been erected on it by General Gillmore, with the avowed purpose of burning the city.  Some weeks before this he had erected a battery in the marshes of the island and a special gun cast that could throw shells five miles, the greatest range of a cannon in that day.  The gun was named the “Swamp Angel” and much was expected of it, but it did no other execution than the killing of a few civilians and destroying a few dwellings.  The citizens were too brave and patriotic to desert their homes as long as a soldier remained on the islands or in the forts.  The gallant defenders of Sumter, after a month of the most terrific connonading the world had ever seen, were still at their guns, while the fort itself was one mass of ruins, the whole now being a huge pile of stone, brick, and masonry.  Fort Moultrie, made famous by its heroic defense of Charleston in the days of the Revolution, and by Jasper leaping the sides of the fort and replacing the flag over its ramparts, still floated the stars and bars from its battlements.  All around the water front of Charleston bristled great guns, with ready and willing hands to man them.  These “worthy sons of noble sires,” who had, by their unflinching courage, sent back the British fleet, sinking and colors lowered, were now ready to emulate their daring example—­either to send the fleet of Gillmore to the bottom, or die at their post.  No wonder the people of South Carolina felt so secure and determined when such soldiers defended her borders.

The city guards patrolled the streets of Charleston to prevent the soldiers from leaving their camps without permits, and between these two branches of the service a bitter feud always existed.  The first night we were in the city some of the soldiers, on the Verbal permission of their Captains, were taking in the city.  Leaving their arms at camp, they were caught “hors de combat,” as it were, and locked up in the city guardhouse over night.  The next morning I