on,--another attempt, "prompted more by
sentiment than military sagacity," to capture "the city in
which the secession had begun,"[133]--is the subject of the
next dozen extracts. The expedition failed to justify the
high hopes that accompanied it, yet one event in it has
attained undying fame.

When, in the first week of July, all the troops left Hilton
Head, Land's End, and Port Royal Island, the regiment
followed with the keenest interest by the writers of these
letters was the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts (colored),
Colonel Robert G. Shaw.

_July 10._ It was strange to be waked this morning by the incessant,
thundering roar of heavy guns. It was just at sunrise, and as I
gradually woke to the full realization of what it must be--though as
it mingled in my dreams, I was conscious that our masked batteries had
opened at last--it was very exciting to feel my bed shake under me
from such a cause. I could hear the people talking excitedly in the
yard. About seven o'clock the heavy firing ceased, and we hoped that
Morris Island was ours. C. went to the beach and reported a very heavy
cloud of smoke resting in the direction of "Town."

The following extract is a good specimen of the groundless
rumors, all with copious circumstantial evidence, that
infested the islands.

FROM H. W.

_July 11._ About ten o'clock came Juno's daughter Fanny from "Pope's"
to spend Sunday, bringing us the apparently reliable intelligence that
"Town taken." It seemed too much to believe, but her story was this:
her aunt, Juno's sister, and one of Dr. Whitredge's servants, is
washing at Hilton Head and was there yesterday, when a vessel came
from Charleston with the news and many people (prisoners, we infer),
and the first who came ashore were Mass' Alonso and Mass' John,
Whitredge, who said to her, "How d' ye!" She says that five boat-loads
put off to the Yankees and gave themselves up. "Mass' John know too
much to fight 'gainst de Yankee--him get college at de Nort'--him say
him got no nigger--him no gwine fight." It is preposterous to write
you all this. You will know everything with certainty before this
reaches you.

_July 12._ The good news was most welcome from Vicksburg and
Pennsylvania, and our attack on Morris Island was successful, if Town
was not taken; but Colonel Higginson's attempt to reach the railroad
was a failure,[134] and he was wounded, thought not, it is said,
badl