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"If, in addition to all this, we suppose her to be furnished, according to Mr Fulton's intention, with hundred-pound columbiads, two suspended from each bow, so as to discharge a ball of that size into an enemy's ship ten or twelve feet below her water-line, it must be allowed that she has the appearance, at least, of being the most formidable engine for warfare that human ingenuity has contrived."
These men, and these women also, pray for the South if they be pious, give their money to the South if they be generous, work for the South if they be industrious, fight for the South if they be young, and talk for the South morning, noon, and night, in spite of General Dix and his columbiads on Federal Hill.
Women trembled at the salutes which were fired in honor of the secession of other States, fearing lest the struggle had commenced and the dearly-loved son or brother in volunteer uniform was already under the storm of the columbiads.
And now McCrea was grasping and wringing his hand, with a "Welcome to the old regiment, Geordie," and blue-eyed "Bud" was dancing rapturously about until the doctor sternly bade him cease. "Is that the way you think they behave at Columbia, sir?" having never seen the behavior of Columbiads, or other collegians, at a ball match or boat-race or any public occasion of undergraduate rejoicing.
In the mean time Lieutenant Jefferson C. Davis, of my company, who had been detailed to command the rear guard, aimed the guns, which were already loaded, to bear upon the passage to Fort Sumter, and Captain Foster and Assistant-surgeon Crawford, with two sergeants and three privates, remained with him, and took post at five columbiads, in readiness to carry out Major Anderson's design, which was to sink the guard-boats, should they attempt to fire into us or run us down while en route.
A paper was shown, entitled the "Volunteer's Friend," started by the girls of the high school, and I was asked to help the girls with it. I positively declined. To-day I was pressed into service to make red flannel cartridge-bags for ten-inch columbiads. I basted while Mrs.
Just before the head of the column came near the creek, the movement was perceived by the Confederates, who immediately opened on the negroes a sharp fire of musketry from the rifle-pits on the detached bluff; at the same moment the field guns opened with shell and shrapnel from the ridge behind, and as the men struggled on through the creek and up the farther bank they became exposed to the enfilade fire of the columbiads.
He had heard of gun-boats and mortar-boats, of forts built upon the river, of Columbiads, Dahlgrens, and Parrotts, of all the pomps and circumstance of glorious war, and entertained an idea that Cairo was the nucleus or pivot of all really strategetic movements in this terrible national struggle.
I confess that to me, having had no military education, the matter appeared in a different light, and I could not work up my enthusiasm to a pitch which would have been suitable to the general's courtesy. That hill, on which many of the poor of Baltimore had lived, was desecrated in my eyes by those columbiads.
To-day I was pressed into service to make red flannel cartridge-bags for ten-inch columbiads. I basted while Mrs. S. sewed, and I felt ashamed to think that I had not the moral courage to say, "I don't approve of your war and won't help you, particularly in the murderous part of it." May 27. This has been a scenic Sabbath.
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