I fondly hoped, near its solution.  Time and again had rumor fixed the period of that event; but as often were we disappointed.  Nor was the day now fixed; at least, if so, it was not communicated to me; but as the coming Friday of that week would be the anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumter, the natural inference was, that on the morning of that day, we should witness the opening of the long and anxiously-looked for engagement.

Sad rumors had come to our camp, that eighteen soldiers who had gone out skirmishing within the rebel lines, on Wilmington Island, had been captured, and were prisoners within the walls of Pulaski.  How far this event may have hastened the attack, we know not; but on Thursday, the tenth, instead of Friday, the eleventh, the bombardment began, and the thunder of our mortars shook the earth and rent the heavens with their roar.  Pulaski returned the fire with a promptness and energy that seemed to bid defiance to our batteries.  Throughout the whole day, the storm beat unceasingly upon the doomed fort, raining shot and shell like hail against its walls and upon its ramparts.  Solid steel-pointed shot, from columbiads and Parrotts, aimed with a precision that indicated not only great skill but a knowledge of the point of danger in the fort, perforated the walls and buried themselves in the thick and heavy masonry.  Once, twice, thrice, four times was the rebel flag shot away; but as often was it replaced.  At seven o’clock in the evening, the firing ceased, and there was a lull in the storm, only, however, to be renewed again at midnight, and kept up at regular intervals until sunrise, when the engagement increased in greater vigor than throughout the preceding day.

The morning was clear and beautiful, but not calm.  A stiff breeze came from the East, as if to bear the terrific reports of the cannonading to Savannah, whose distant spires and towers gleamed in the sun.  Our blockading fleet, with accompanying transports, lay at anchor in Tybee harbor.  Here and there a gunboat, firing occasional shots, could be seen moving about in Wilmington sound, while the Unadilla, Hale, and Western World occupied their positions in Wright and Mud rivers.  Tatnall’s fleet was no where to be seen, and all things in the direction of Savannah seemed as quiet as though that city was peacefully and securely reposing, as in other days, under the broad folds of the American Union.

It was a sad and woful day to the cities of the South, when her rebel princes renounced their allegiance to the government, and raised the traitor arm of rebellion against its authority.  Imagined evils, in connection with the Union, were then converted into real ones, and these have been augmented a thousand-fold in the severance from that Union.  When the South shall ’come to herself’—­if she ever does—­like the prodigal son, she will find her condition quite as pitiable, and in rags and wretchedness, she