inted shot turned and
polished to a hair in the lathes of English workshops, advancing
still, undergoing her first ordeal, a trial unparalleled in history.
For fifteen minutes she meets the ordeal alone."

Soon the other four monitors follow. Seventy guns a minute are
counted, followed by moments of calm, and scattering shots, but only
to break out again in a prolonged roar of thunder. In the lulls of the
strife, Carleton steadied his glass, and when the southwest breeze
swept away the smoke, he could see "increasing pock-marks and
discolorations upon the walls of the fort, as if there had been a
sudden breaking out of cutaneous disease."

We now know, from the Confederate officers then in Fort Sumter, that
the best artillery made in England, and the strongest powder
manufactured in the Confederacy, were used during this two and a half
hours of mutual hammering, until then unparalleled in the history of
the world. Near sunset, at 5.20 P. M., signals from the flag-ship were
read; the order was, "Retire."

The red sun sank behind the sand hills, and the silence was welcomed.
During the heavy cannonade,--like the Union soldiers who, obedient to
the hunter's instinct, stopped in the midst of a Wilderness battle to
shoot rabbits,--a Confederate gunner had trained his rifled cannon
upon the three non-combatant vessels, the _Bibb_, the _Ben Deford_,
and the _Nantasket_, which lay in the North Channel at a respectful
distance, but quite within easy range of Sullivan's Island. Having
fired a half a dozen shot which had fallen unnoticed, the gunner
demoralized the little squadron, and sent hundreds of interested
spectators running, jumping, and rolling below deck, by sending a
shot transversely across the _Nantasket_. It dropped in the sea about
a hundred yards from the bow of the _Ben Deford_. Another shot in
admirable line fell short. Shells from Cummings Point had also been
tried on the ships laden with civilians, but had failed to reach them.
However, the correspondents claim to have silenced the batteries,--by
getting out of the way; for in a few minutes the cables had been
hauled in, paddle-wheels set in motion, and distance increased from
the muzzles of the battery.

When the fleet returned, Carleton leaped on board of the slush deck of
the monitor _Catskill_, receiving hearty response from Captain George
Rodgers, who reported "All right, nobody hurt, ready for them again."
I afterwards saw all these monitors covered