At the time I speak of the whole of the western beach was in the hands of the enemy, Battery Wagner having succumbed after one of the most gallant defences on record.

While it remained in the hands of the Southerners it assisted Fort Sumter, inasmuch as from its position it kept the enemy at a distance, but after its capture, or rather destruction, the latter fort was exposed to a tremendous fire from ships and batteries, and its solid front was terribly crumbled.
Surrounded, however, with water as it was, it would have been most difficult to take by assault; and from what I could learn, certain destruction would have met any body of men who had attempted it latterly.

There it stood, sulkily firing a shot or shell now and then, more out of defiance than anything else.

The blockading, or rather bombarding, squadron was lying pretty near to it on the western side of the entrance to the harbour; but on the east side, formidable batteries belonging to the Southerners kept them at a respectable distance.
Blockade-running into Charleston was quite at an end at the time I am writing about.

Not that I think the cruisers could have kept vessels from getting in, but for the reason that the harbour was a perfect network of torpedoes and infernal machines (the passage through which was only known to a few persons), placed by the Southerners to prevent the Northern fleet from approaching the city.
Having had a good look at the positions of the attacking and defending parties, I went down from the tower and paid a visit to a battery where two Blakely guns of heavy calibre, that had lately been run through the blockade in the well-known 'Sumter' (now the 'Gibraltar'), were mounted.
These guns threw a shot of 720 lbs.