up from the wreck of the Keokuk; the sister
gun from the same wreck is at ----. The garrison consists of 350
enlisted soldiers under Colonel Rhett. They are called Confederate
States regulars, and certainly they saluted in a more soldierlike way
than the ordinary volunteers. A great proportion of them are foreigners.

Fort Sumter now shows but little signs of the battering it underwent
from the ironclads eight weeks ago. The two faces exposed to fire have
been patched up so that large pieces of masonry have a newer appearance
than the mass of the building. The guns have been removed from the
casemates on the eastern face, and the lower tier of casemates has been
filled up with earth to give extra strength, and prevent the balls from
coming right through into the interior of the work, which happened at
the last attack. There is consequently a deep hole in the parade inside
Fort Sumter, from which the earth had been taken to fill up these
casemates. The angles of Sumter are being strengthened outside by stone
buttresses. Some of the cheeks of the upper embrasures have been faced
with blocks of iron three feet long, eight inches thick, and twelve
inches wide. I saw the effect of a heavy shot on one of these blocks
which had been knocked right away, and had fallen in two pieces on the
rocks below, but it had certainly saved the embrasure from further
injury that time. I saw some solid fifteen-inch shot which had been
fired by the enemy: they weigh 425 lb. I was told that several
fifteen-inch shell had stuck in the walls and burst there, tearing away
great flakes of masonry, and making holes two feet deep at the extreme.
None of the ironclads would approach nearer than nine hundred yards, and
the Keokuk, which was the only one that came thus close, got out of
order in five minutes, and was completely disabled in a quarter of an
hour. She sank on the following morning. Solid ten-inch shot and
seven-inch flat-heads were used upon her. Ripley said he would give a
great deal for some more eleven-inch guns, but he can't get them except
by such chances as the Keokuk.

The fight only lasted two hours and twenty-five minutes. Fort Sumter
bore nearly the whole weight of the attack, assisted in a slight degree
by Moultrie. Only one man was killed, which was caused by the fall of
the flagstaff. The Confederates were unable to believe until some time
afterwards the real amount of the damage they had inflicted; nor did
they discover un