the fort. The smaller men-of-war
take their positions in a second line, in the rear. Fast and furious,
more than one hundred and fifty cannon bang away at the little
inclosure.

But, even from the first, things did not turn out as the British
expected. After firing some fifty shells, which buried themselves in
the loose sand and did not explode, the bomb vessel broke down.

About noon, the flagship signaled to three of the men-of-war, "Move
down and take position southwest of the fort."

Once there, the platforms inside the fort could be raked from end to
end. As good fortune would have it, two of these vessels, in
attempting to carry out their orders, ran afoul of each other, and
all three stuck fast on the shoal on which is now the famed Fort
Sumter.

How goes the battle inside the fort? The men, stripped to the waist
and with handkerchiefs bound round their heads, stand at the guns all
that sweltering day, with the coolness and the courage of old
soldiers. The supply of powder is scant. They take careful aim, fire
slowly, and make almost every shot tell. The twenty-six-pound balls
{44} splinter the masts, and make sad havoc on the decks. Crash!
crash! strike the enemy's cannon balls against the palmetto logs. The
wood is soft and spongy, and the huge shot either bury themselves
without making splinters, or else bound off like rubber balls.

Meanwhile, where was Sir Henry Clinton? For nearly three weeks he had
been encamped with some two thousand men on the sand bar known as
Long Island. The men had suffered fearfully from the heat, from lack
of water, and from the mosquitoes.

During the bombardment of Fort Sullivan, Sir Henry marched his men
down to the end of the sand island, but could not cross; for the
water in the inlet proved to be seven feet deep even at low tide.
Somebody had blundered about the ford. The redcoats, however, were
paraded on the sandy shore while some armed boats made ready to cross
the inlet. The grapeshot from two cannon, and the bullets of Colonel
Thompson's riflemen, so raked the decks that the men could not stay
at their posts. Memories of Bunker Hill, perhaps, made the British
officers a trifle timid about crossing the inlet, and marching over
the sandy shore, to attack intrenched sharpshooters. Thus it happened
that Clinton and his men, through stupidity, were kept prisoners on
the sand island, mere spectators of the thrilling scene. They had to
content themselves with fighting