Great masses of clouds, heavy and black, were piled in the western sky, fringed here and there by an angry red, and torn by vivid streams of lightning.

Not a breath of wind shook the leaves or stirred the high, rank grass by the water-side; a portentous and awful stillness filled the air,--the stillness felt by nature before a devastating storm.
Quiet, with the like awful and portentous calm, the black regiment, headed by its young, fair-haired, knightly colonel, marched to its destined place and action.
When within about six hundred yards of the fort it was halted at the head of the regiments already stationed, and the line of battle formed.
The prospect was such as might daunt the courage of old and well-tried veterans, but these soldiers of a few weeks seemed but impatient to take the odds, and to make light of impossibilities.

A slightly rising ground, raked by a murderous fire, to within a little distance of the battery; a ditch holding three feet of water; a straight lift of parapet, thirty feet high; an impregnable position, held by a desperate and invincible foe.
Here the men were addressed in a few brief and burning words by their heroic commander.

Here they were besought to glorify their whole race by the lustre of their deeds; here their faces shone with a look which said, "Though men, we are ready to do deeds, to achieve triumphs, worthy the gods!" here the word of command was given:-- "We are ordered and expected to take Battery Wagner at the point of the bayonet.

Are you ready ?" "Ay, ay, sir! ready!" was the answer.
And the order went pealing down the line, "Ready! Close ranks! Charge bayonets! Forward! Double-quick, march!"-- and away they went, under a scattering fire, in one compact line till within one hundred feet of the fort, when the storm of death broke upon them.