Historical Romance of the American Negro. Fowler Charles Henry
fight like white men, and thus render effective service in the war. And such men were the colored troops that had been well drilled and sent down from Massachusetts to South Carolina, and who lent a hand in the investment of Charleston. It was on the 18th of July, 1863, when a general bombardment of both land and sea forces at once made a high-handed attempt to carry Fort Wagner – a rebel fort which lay on the narrowest part of a mere strip of sandy land called Morris Island, washed by the ocean on one side, and approachable by low, swampy marshes in the rear. The entire morning and middle of the day had been spent in bombarding the place till at last the extemporized fort, composed of timber, and stone, and sand, seemed to have crumbled away; for, as the day wore away, the rebels ceased entirely to reply to the land and sea forces, and the Federal troops were under the impression that the place was abandoned altogether, or at least destroyed past all hope of remedy for the present. The Union forces clamored loudly for an advance upon the fort, and to occupy the place once for all. After some hesitation the commanders assented to their wishes, and it was decided to advance just as the darkness of the night was setting in on that long July day. Alas, alas! It was a fatal resolution, for the rebels had been busy all the afternoon and early night making swift preparations to give our men a terrible reception. By the time that darkness had fully set in, Fort Wagner was almost as good as ever, although it had such a terrible knocking about all the early hours of the day. The Southern engineers were so clever, and their men had wrought with such a will, that it needed the bravest of the brave to fight with them; but as far as that was concerned we were all about even-handed when we had a fair field. Four thousand men, therefore, advanced along the sands of Morris Island with the intention of investing and clearing out the fort of its defenders, if there were any of them there. The colored Massachusetts troops led the way, and so they all advanced along the sands – the white sands that had but lately been washed by the ocean. Everything was as still as a stone till they came to a ditch, when a fearful tempest of shot from the cannon and musket assailed them, and the assailants were mowed down like grass before the scythe. Still our troops bravely advanced across the ditch, climbed up the bank, and pushed forward right into the fort, slaughtering the gunners and clearing a path before them. But all this time our brave men were being mowed down in rows. Many jumped into the fort and had to surrender there, because, indeed, they could neither advance nor retreat, being caught in a perfect trap. Thus we lost about half our men in killed, wounded and prisoners, and had to retreat in the best way we were able. It was a dreadful defeat that the Union forces sustained; but the colored troops had the honor of leading all the rest, and the foolish idea that colored men would not fight received another complete quietus, and their bravery was published in all the papers from one end of the Union to the other.
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