DEFENGE OF FORT. WAGNER.

MORRIS ISLAND, 8 JULY, 1863.

By E. K. BRYAN, Apsurant, anp E. H. MEADOWS, Serezant Co. K.
Tuirty-First N. C. REGIMENT.

The following sketch has been prepared largely from report
of Major Robert C. Gilchrist, together with the personal rec-
ollection of the writers, who were participants.

BATTERY WAGNER, S. C.

Skirting along ship channel, the main entrance into
Charleston harbor, and commanding the only approach for
large vessels to the city, is Morris Island, forever prominent
in the history of the United States for being the site of the
battery that fired the first shot in the war between the States ;
still later for giving to the world its first lesson in iron-clad

armor, and more than all, for being the theatre of a defence
of an earthwork more stubborn and grave, of a siege as mem-
orable and bombardments the most formidable in the annals
of war.

This island is three and three-fourth miles long, and varies
in width from twenty-five to one thousand yards.

At its northern extremity it is flat, and with the exception
of a low line of sand hills is only two feet above high tide.

At the northern extremity (Cumming’s Point) was situated
Battery Gregg. The marsh on the west, at a point about three-
fourths of a mile from Gregg encroached upon the sea face of
the island leaving a narrow strip of 250 yards. At this
point was located the famed Fort Wagner. The island is
composed of quartz sand, which has no cohesion and weighs
when dry 86 pounds per cubic foot. To its power in resisting
the penetration of shot and when displaced of falling back
again to the very spot it had occupied, is due the comparative
invulnerability of the works erected on the island, advanta-
geous alike to its defenders and assailants. It is distant from

di