ll do more for the cause of
Secession, in Virginia, than volumes of stump speeches."

"Soon," says Greeley in his History, "the thunder of fifty heavy
breaching cannon, in one grand volley, followed by the crashing and
crumbling of brick, stone, and mortar around and above them, apprized
the little garrison that their stay must necessarily be short."

Says an eye-witness of the bombardment: "Shells burst with the greatest
rapidity in every portion of the work, hurling the loose brick and stone
in all directions, breaking the windows and setting fire to whatever
woodwork they burst against. * * * The firing from the batteries on
Cumming's Point was scattered over the whole of the gorge or rear of the
Fort, till it looked like a sieve. The explosion of shells, and the
quantity of deadly missiles that were hurled in every direction and at
every instant of time, made it almost certain death to go out of the
lower tier of casemates, and also made the working of the barbette or
upper (uncovered) guns, which contained all our heaviest metal, and by
which alone we could throw shells, quite impossible.

"During the first day there was hardly an instant of time that there was
a cessation of the whizzing of balls, which were sometimes coming half a
dozen at once. There was not a portion of the work which was not taken
in reverse from mortars. * * * During Friday, the officers' barracks
were three times set on fire by the shells and three times put out under
the most galling and destructive cannonade.

"For the fourth time, the barracks were set on fire early on Saturday
morning, and attempts were made to extinguish the flames; but it was
soon discovered that red-hot shot were being thrown into the Fort with
fearful rapidity, and it became evident that it would be impossible to
put out the conflagration. The whole garrison was then set to work, or
as many as could be spared, to remove the powder from the magazines,
which was desperate work, rolling barrels of powder through the fire. *
* * After the barracks were well on fire, the batteries directed upon
Fort Sumter increased their cannonading to a rapidity greater than had
been attained before."

"About this time, the shells and ammunition in the upper
service-magazines exploded, scattering the tower and upper portions of
the building in every direction. The crash of the beams, the roar of
the flames, and the shower of fragments of the Fort, with the blackness
of th