g several guns in Fort Moultrie, and one or more in
the Stevens battery.

When Seymour's three hours were up, I relieved him, and continued the
firing. As our balls bounded off the sloping iron rails like peas upon a
trencher, utterly failing to make any impression, and as the shot from
the Blakely gun came clear through our walls, Anderson directed that the
men should cease firing at that particular place. I regretted very much
that the upper tier of guns had been abandoned, as they were all loaded
and pointed, and were of very heavy calibre. A wild Irish soldier,
however, named John Carmody, slipped up on the parapet, and, without
orders, fired the pieces there, one after another, on his own account.
One of the ten-inch balls so aimed made quite an impression on the
Cummings Point battery; and if the fire could have been kept up, it
might possibly have knocked the iron-work to pieces.

After my detachment had abandoned the casemate opposite the Blakely gun,
to my great astonishment the battery I had left recommenced firing. I
could not imagine who could have taken our places. It seems that a group
of the Baltimore workmen had been watching our motions, and had thus
learned the duties of a cannoneer. In spite of their previous
determination not to take part in the fight, they could not resist the
fun of trying their hand at one of the guns. It was already accurately
pointed, and the ball struck the mark in the centre. The men attributed
it to their own skill, and when I entered they were fairly in
convulsions of laughter. One of them, in answer to my question, gasped
out, "I hit it square in the middle." After this first attempt, each of
them was desirous of trying his skill at aiming. The result was, that we
soon had them organized into a firing-party.

Finding one of my chests had been left in the officers' quarters, and
that it would probably be knocked to pieces by the shells, I asked the
mulatto, who still sat back against the wall, apparently asleep, to bear
a hand and help me bring it out. He opened his eyes, shook his head
dolefully, and said, "De major, he say, I muss not expose myself."

If I mistake not, Roswell S. Ripley, formerly a brevet major in our
army, fired the second or third shot to bring down the flag under which
he had served for so many years. Ripley was born in Ohio, appointed from
New York, and educated at the Military Academy. He had, therefore, even
on the Southern theory of State rights,