And well we deemed that she, the dear first-born,
Might early fade, like flowers that earth bestrew
With all their cherished beauty, leaving naught
But faded leaves where once their forms were sought.
She smiled upon us, and her spirit fled
To taste the pleasures of that fairer land,
Where angels ever dwell – she is not dead;
But there with them her beauteous form doth stand,
Arrayed in flowing light, before the throne
Of Him whose name is Love – the Holy One.
She was our choicest bud, our precious flower;
But now she blooms in that celestial place,
Where naught can spoil the pleasure of an hour,
Nor from its beauty one bright line efface —
Where all is one perpetual scene of bliss,
Unmixed with sin; all perfect happiness.
The darling then is safe, secure from ill;
Why should we mourn that she hath left this earth,
When in that brighter land she bloometh still,
A flower more perfect, of celestial birth?
Let us submit, and own His righteous care
Who doeth well; striving to meet her there.
BATTLE OF FORT MOULTRIE. 1
BY CHARLES J. PETERSON
When the news of the battle of Lexington reached Charleston, South Carolina rose in commotion. The provincial Congress, which had adjourned, immediately re-assembled. Two regiments of foot and one of horse were ordered to be raised; measures were taken to procure powder; and every preparation made for the war which was now seen to be inevitable. A danger of a vital character speedily threatened the colony. This was its invasion by the British; a project which had long been entertained by the royal generals. To provide in time for defeating it, Congress had dispatched General Lee to the South. It was not until the beginning of the summer of 1776, however, that the enemy's armament set sail from New York, consisting of a large fleet of transports with a competent land force, commanded by Sir Henry Clinton, and attended by a squadron of nine men-of-war, led by Sir Peter Parker. On the arrival of this expedition off the coast, all was terror and confusion among the South Carolinians. Energetic measures were, however, adopted to repel the attack.
To defend their capital the inhabitants constructed on Sullivan's Island, near the entrance of their harbor, and about four miles from the city, a rude fort of palmetto logs, the command of which was given to Col. Moultrie. Never, perhaps, was a more inartificial defence relied on in so great an emergency. The form of the fort was square, with a bastion at each angle; it was built of logs based on each other in parallel rows, at a distance of sixteen feet. Other logs were bound together at frequent intervals with timber dove-tailed and bolted into them. The spaces between were filled up with sand. The merlons were faced with palmetto logs. All the industry of the Carolinians, however, was insufficient to complete the fort in time; and when the British fleet entered the harbor, the defences were little more than a single front facing the water. The whole force of Col. Moultrie was four hundred and thirty-five, rank and file; his armament consisted of nine French twenty-sixes, fourteen English eighteens, nine twelve and seven nine pounders. Finding the fort could be easily enfiladed, Gen. Lee advised abandoning it; but the governor refused, telling Moultrie to keep his post, until he himself ordered the retreat. Moultrie, on his part, required no urging to adopt this more heroic course. A spectator happening to say, that in half an hour the enemy would knock the fort to pieces. "Then," replied Moultrie, undauntedly, "we will lie behind the ruins, and prevent their men from landing." Lee with many fears left the island, and repairing to his camp on the main land, prepared to cover the retreat of the garrison, which he considered inevitable.
There was, perhaps, more of bravado than of sound military policy in attacking this fort at all, since the English fleet might easily have run the gauntlet of it, as was done a few years later. But Fort Moultrie was destined to be to the navy what Bunker Hill had been to the army. It was in consequence of excess of scorn for his enemy, that Sir Peter Parker, disdaining to leave such a place in his rear, resolved on its total demolition. He had no doubt but that, in an hour at the utmost, he could make the unpracticed Carolinians glad to sue for peace on any terms. Accordingly on the 28th of June, 1776, he entered the harbor, in all the parade of his proud ships, nine in number, and drawing up abreast the fort, let go his anchors with springs upon his cables, and began a furious cannonade. Meanwhile terror reigned in Charleston. As the sound of the first gun went booming over the waters toward the town, the trembling inhabitants who had been crowding the wharves and lining the house-tops since early morning, turned pale with ominous forebodings. Nor were the feelings of the defenders of the fort less anxious. Looking off, over the low island intervening between them and the city, they could see the gleaming walls of their distant homes; and their imaginations conjured up the picture of those dear habitations given to the flames, as another Charlestown had been, a twelve-month before, and the still dearer wives that inhabited them, cast houseless upon the world. As they turned from this spectacle, and watched the haughty approach of the enemy, at every motion betraying confidence of success, their eyes kindled with indignant feelings, and they silently swore to make good the words of their leader, by perishing, if need were, under the ruins of the fort.
One by one the British men-of-war gallantly approached the stations assigned them, Sir Peter Parker, in the Bristol, leading the van. The Experiment, another fifty gun ship, came close after, and both dropped their anchors in succession directly abreast the fort. The other frigates followed, and ranged themselves as supports. The remaining vessels were still working up to their stations, when the first gun was fired, and instantly the battle begun. The quantity of powder on the island being small, five thousand pounds in all, there was an absolute necessity that there should be no waste. Accordingly, the field-officers pointed the pieces in person, and the words "look to the commodore – look to the two-deckers!" passed along the line. The conflict soon grew terrific. The balls whistled above the heads of the defenders, and bombs fell thick and fast within the fort; yet, in the excitement of the moment, the men seemed totally unconscious of danger. Occasionally a shot from one of their cannon, striking the hull of the flag-ship, would send the splinters flying into the air; and then a loud huzza would burst from those who worked the guns; but, except in instances like this, the patriots fought in stern and solemn silence. Once, when it was seen that the three men-of-war working up to join the conflict, had become entangled among the shoals, and would not probably be enabled to join in the fight, a general and prolonged cheer went down the line, and taken up a second and third time, rose, like an exulting strain, over all the uproar of the strife.
The incessant cannonade soon darkened the prospect, the smoke lying packed along the surface of the water; while a thousand fiery tongues, as from some hundred-headed monster, shot out incessantly, and licking the air a moment, were gone forever. Occasionally this thick, cloudy veil concealed all but the spars of the enemy from sight, and then the tall masts seemed rising, by some potent spell, out of nothing; occasionally the terrific explosions would rend and tear asunder the curtain, and, for an instant, the black hulls would loom out threateningly, and then disappear. The roar of three hundred guns shook the island and fort unremittingly: the water that washed the sand-beach, gasped with a quick ebb and flow, under the concussions. Higher and higher, the sun mounted to the zenith, yet still the battle continued. The heat was excessive; but casting aside their coats, the men breathed themselves a minute, and returned to the fight. The city was now hidden from view, by low banks of smoke, which extending right and left along the water, bounded the horizon on two sides. Yet the defenders of the fort still thought of the thousands anxiously watching them from Charleston, or of the wives and mothers, trembling at every explosion for the lives of those they loved. One of their number soon fell mortally wounded. Gasping and