From the Springfield (Mass.) Republican.
The following letter from John L. Barnes [Editor’s Note: actually John Sanford Barnes, not L.], an officer on the flag ship Wabash of the great naval expedition, to his friends in this city, will be read with interest by his numerous friends at home:
United States Ship Wabash,
Port Royal, Monday, Nov. 11.
You have already heard of our glorious success here and the complete discomfiture of the chivalry of the state which has mainly brought about our present difficulties. The expedition was swarming with reporters, and their accounts will give you full particulars. It is as you may well imagine, nothing but work—work from early morning until late at night, and sometimes all night. I have hardly time to write you more than that I am well, and thankful for the protection of Almighty God, thrown around us during the battle.
The forts were both formidable, and according to all previous calculations, perfectly able to beat off and sink a fleet more powerful than ours. By the hundreds of letters found scattered about, we learn that the enemy had no doubt of being able to sink us as we passed, with all ease. It is curious to read some of these letters, written after our arrival, but before the fight, but which wanting means of transportation, failed to reach their destination.
Our gunboats have penetrated every where, the numerous inlets and bayous giving us complete command of all the country immediately surrounding us. At Beaufort, a beautiful city of about five thousand inhabitants, no white person is to be found, the place being occupied solely by negroes, who have flocked in by thousands, and have, and are, pillaging and destroying. It is a curious, and sad sight. Elegant furniture turned out into the street, negroes playing on grand pianos in the street—ruin and desolation everywhere. We are securing cotton, and making preparations to advance and occupy Beaufort. Expeditions are fitting out for all the adjacent parts of the state. I am to go to-morrow in charge of a party. We should have gone to-day but for a dense fog.
Our troops are comfortably situated on shore, and are delighted at the pleasant quarters the navy have won for them. The enemy are mustering in great numbers, so the negroes say, and will, undoubtedly, try to arrest our progress. Unless the government immediately sends us an army of fifty thousand men, they will soon be able to draw lines about us. Now they are panic-stricken, and know not what to expect or where to look for us. By the negroes, we learn that all the women and children are leaving Charleston and Savannah, and that we are expected there. I think were our generals and men sufficiently experienced to drive forward, we might take either city. But as all are green troops, we must await their usual slow movements.
The action was of about five hours duration. It was fierce, and well fought on both sides. Several times the shot and shell rained about us, the whistling and explosions being bewildering. Hatteras was child’s play to it. I cannot now imagine such a fire and so little injury. Forty-three guns of the heaviest caliber, many of them rifled cannon of a heavier description than I have ever before seen, throwing shot weighing one hundred and twenty pounds constantly discharged at this great target incessantly for five hours, and yet we were struck but thirty-six times, and had but one man killed and five wounded! The causes of this are supposed to be as follows:— 1st, we engaged at extremely short range, at no time greater than eight hundred yards, and most of the time five hundred and fifty yards, using five second fuses. Their elevations were of a greater distance, never imagining that we would dare come in so close if there was water enough, which was doubtful. 2d, the sand thrown about by the bursting of our shells blinded and bewildered them continually filled the bores of their guns and rendered them dangerous to fire until cleared. 3d, their fuses were bad. 4th, our fire was so terrific that the raw troops lost their balance and became panic stricken.
The destruction done by our fire is perfectly indescribable. The fort is torn and dismantled, guns thrown about like baubles, carriages split and torn to shreds. I was the first to occupy the fort, and planted our flag. Capt. Rogers, with a flag of truce, had preceded me a few moments, and hoisted over the hospital, our stars and stripes. With my battalion of blue jackets, I then took possession of the fort, threw out pickets and stationed sentinels on the parapet,—then with a detachment went about and collected the dead which lay around, taking one half-scared wretch prisoner. One place was pointed out where twenty had been buried already. I found and buried seven poor mangled corpses, about thirty more have been found since and buried by the array people ashore. They lie around in barns and ditches, and in the fields The surgeon-in-chief was found near the shell room, inside the fort, killed by a shell which instantly buried him in the sand thrown up by its explosion. He was still seated on his camp stool, with bandages and a box
of instruments in his hand.
The enemy fled like—well, worse than our men at Bull Run. As we ranged up, closely followed by the Susquehannah, to engage the last time, at a closer distance yet, I saw them flying like chaff out of the fort, and scattering in all directions. They took nothing with them, and threw off what little they had on which could at all impede their progress. Officers threw aside their swords and pistols, sashes and belts (and, by the same token, I have two very handsome swords which I picked up on the ground,) men their guns, knapsacks and accoutrements. They left dinners half cooked and half eaten. If ever a rebel says “Bull Run,” say “Port Royal.”
Our men behaved as sailors always do, with the coolest courage and indifference to danger. Our gun-deck, where my division is, was a sight. Men stripped to the waist, blackened with powder, smoke and perspiration, toiling and heaving at our ponderous guns, the smoke drifting and driving through the port holes and up the hatches. Dante himself could not describe an Inferno like it. The army officers on the transports below, say that our practice was perfect and fearful. Gen. Sherman, an old artillery officer, who had expressed himself that we could not take the forts, says that in accuracy and rapidity of fire, our ships exceeded his wildest imagination. We fired twenty-six broadsides in twenty minutes, and every shot told. The loss of the fleet was only eight or ton killed, and twenty-seven wounded. I can scarcely believe it now.
I enclose you a very little South Carolina money. Don’t spend it ! When a state is so far gone as to issue notes for sums from five cents to fifty cents, they had better be wiped out. This money was taken from the pockets of a poor wretch whose life is forfeited to his cause.
Lamoille Newsdealer, Hyde Park, VT