Having letters of introduction to some of General Beauregard’s staff, I made my way to headquarters, where I met with the greatest courtesy and kindness.  An orderly was sent with me to show me the top of the tower, a position that commanded a famous view of the besieging army, the blockading squadron, and all the defences of the place.  A battery had just been placed by the enemy (consisting of five Parrot guns of heavy calibre) five miles from the town, and that day had opened fire for the first time.  At that enormous range the shell occasionally burst over or fell into the city, doing, however, little damage.  The elevation of the guns must have been unusually great.  I am told that every one of them burst after a week’s, or thereabouts, firing.  Poor Fort Sumter was nearly silenced after many months’ hammering, but its brave defenders remained in it to the last, and it was not till a few days before Charleston was abandoned that they gave it up.  At the time I speak of the whole of the western beach was in the hands of the enemy, Battery Wagner having succumbed after one of the most gallant defences on record.  While it remained in the hands of the Southerners it assisted Fort Sumter, inasmuch as from its position it kept the enemy at a distance, but after its capture, or rather destruction, the latter fort was exposed to a tremendous fire from ships and batteries, and its solid front was terribly crumbled.

Surrounded, however, with water as it was, it would have been most difficult to take by assault; and from what I could learn, certain destruction would have met any body of men who had attempted it latterly.  There it stood, sulkily firing a shot or shell now and then, more out of defiance than anything else.  The blockading, or rather bombarding, squadron was lying pretty near to it on the western side of the entrance to the harbour; but on the east side, formidable batteries belonging to the Southerners kept them at a respectable distance.  Blockade-running into Charleston was quite at an end at the time I am writing about.  Not that I think the cruisers could have kept vessels from getting in, but for the reason that the harbour was a perfect network of torpedoes and infernal machines (the passage through which was only known to a few persons), placed by the Southerners to prevent the Northern fleet from approaching the city.

Having had a good look at the positions of the attacking and defending parties, I went down from the tower and paid a visit to a battery where two Blakely guns of heavy calibre, that had lately been run through the blockade in the well-known ‘Sumter’ (now the ’Gibraltar’), were mounted.  These guns threw a shot of 720 lbs. weight, and were certainly masterpieces of design and execution.  Unhappily, proper instructions for loading had not accompanied them from England, and on the occasion of the first round being fired from one of them, the gun not being properly loaded, cracked at the breech,