From H. W.
May 28. Mr. Williams brought word that Hunter has issued an order to all civilians to enter the army or leave the Department! Twenty days’ notice. You need not be afraid of C.’s enlisting here; he wouldn’t do it “first.” I don’t think many of the superintendents would now like to serve under Hunter. He imprisoned two of them upon the evidence of their people without inquiring into the matter, and ignored Saxton in the most insulting manner. Mr. Hammond was released by a court-martial with honor.
May 30. In the evening came a note from R. saying that there was no danger from the draft for the superintendents, but they would probably have to get exemption-papers.
June 20. C. came home after church Sunday with the information that General Gillmore had given out that he should carry out Hunter’s orders, but that he took the liberty of believing a white man as well as a negro!
June 24. We hear but little about the new General. He is General Saxton’s junior in rank, but a fine engineer, so it is supposed he was sent to conduct the siege of Charleston.
The siege of Charleston,—another attempt, “prompted more by sentiment than military sagacity,” to capture “the city in which the secession had begun,”133—is the subject of the next dozen extracts. The expedition failed to justify the high hopes that accompanied it, yet one event in it has attained undying fame.
When, in the first week of July, all the troops left Hilton Head, Land’s End, and Port Royal Island, the regiment followed with the keenest interest by the writers of these letters was the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts (colored), Colonel Robert G. Shaw.
July 10. It was strange to be waked this morning by the incessant, thundering roar of heavy guns. It was just at sunrise, and as I gradually woke to the full realization of what it must be—though as it mingled in my dreams, I was conscious that our masked batteries had opened at last—it was very exciting to feel my bed shake under me from such a cause. I could hear the people talking excitedly in the yard. About seven o’clock the heavy firing ceased, and we hoped that Morris Island was ours. C. went to the beach and reported a very heavy cloud of smoke resting in the direction of “Town.”
The following extract is a good specimen of the groundless rumors, all with copious circumstantial evidence, that infested the islands.