THE "SWAMP ANGEL."
BY WILLIAM S. STRYGER, BREVET LIEUTENANT-COLONEL, U. S. V., A. D. C. TO GENERAL GILLMORE.

THE "SWAMP ANGEL" IN POSITION.

The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter marked the beginning, and the second and third bombardments by the Union guns the middle period of the civil war. Morris Island and Folly Island, two low sand-reefs, constitute the southerly bounds of the outer harbor of the city of Charleston. Morris Island, which is nearly four miles long, contains about four hundred acres of sand dunes and salt marshes ; the portion of the island lying toward James Island being formed almost entirely of very soft morasses, and traversed by deep bayous and crooked creeks in every direction.

The Union troops under Major-General Quincy A. Gillmore, the Tenth Army Corps, in the early morning of July 10th, 1863, crossed Light-house Inlet from Folly Island and captured a large portion of Morris Island. [See p. 58.] The Confederate forces still held Cumming's Point Battery and Battery Wagner on that part of Morris Island nearest to Fort Sumter and to Charleston. On the 13th day of July, 1863, General Gillmore directed Lieutenant Peter S. Michie, United States Corps of Engineers,-now Colonel Michie, a professor in the Military Academy at West Point,-to make an examination of the marshes on the left of our position toward Charleston and ascertain if it were possible to construct a battery from which to fire into that city. In compliance with this order he spent smination of the swamp district of Morris Island, and then reported the result of his investigations to the commanding general.

On the morning of July 16th General Gillmore, while at breakfast, told Colonel Edward W. Serrell, Volunteer Engineers;-now General Serrell, the distinguished civil engineer of New York City,- of the great desirability of securing a position from which fire could be opened upon the city of Charleston, and directed him to inquire into the matter. As soon as breakfast was finished, Colonel Serrell and Lieutenant Nathan M. Edwards, of his own command, started across the marsh, carrying a fourteen-foot plank between them. When the mud would not bear them they sat on the plank and pushed it forward between their legs. When, again, the soil appeared stiffer, they carried the plank until they reached the soft mud once more. And so the first examination was made in open view of three Confederate forts and twelve batteries, and on a day of most intense heat.

However, a spot was found where the mud seemed of slight depth and where the city of Charleston could be distinctly seen. A position was selected by Colonel Serrell, as he says in his official report, " at a point bearing from the south-westerly end of the hard ground a course by magnetic compass north 40° west, to a point from which the bearing to Fort Sumter is north 12° east, and to the old beacon-light south 86° east." This place was about 7900 yards from Charleston. In the evening Colonel Serrell reported to General Gillmore that he believed a battery could be constructed at a place which he indicated on the map, and suggested that it bo made of sand-bags with a platform of grillage. He thought a gun weighing not over 10,000 pounds could be placed on skids having a bearing of 100 square feet and taken across the marsh, in the same manner in which Bonaparte took his field-pieces over the Alps on the snow. He estimated that 2300 men could carry in one night, filled sand-bags sufficient in number to make the battery ; that 60 soldiers could carry the platform; that 450 men could put the gun into the battery, and 35 men could carry the magazine.

For several days after the report was prepared careful examinations were made by Colonel Serrell,