April 11, 1862

April 11, 1862:  Ft. Pulaski, Day 2 – The bombardment of the previous day has blown a large breach in he southwestern corner of the fort.  The shelling continues, and although the Confederate gunners give back accurate fire, the breach in the wall will soon allow Federal shells to land on the poorly-sited magazine, with over 40,000 barrels of powder there.  As the Union forces begin to prepare boats for an assault, Col. Oolmstead surrenders the fort to Gen. Gillmore.  Savannah is now closed off to blockade running.  Union Victory. 

---In the Shenandoah Valley, Stonewall Jackson brings in the division of Gen. Richard Ewell to add to his Army of the Shenandoah, near Mt. Jackson, Virginia.

---In London, Henry Adams, son of the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Charles Francis Adams, Sr., writes to his  brother Charles, Jr., an officer in the U.S. Cavalry about the reactions among the British to recent events in the American war.  He also offers some marvelously prescient predictions about the future:

I have no doubt that if I were to stay here another year, I should become extremely fond of the place and the life. There is, too, a certain grim satisfaction in the idea that this people who have worn and irritated and exasperated us for months, and among whom we have lived nearly a year of what was, till lately, a slow torture, should now be innocently dancing and smiling on the volcano, utterly unconscious of the extent of hatred and the greediness for revenge that they’ve raised. When the storm does finally burst on them, they will have one of their panics and be as astonished as if they ‘d never heard of anything but brotherly love and affection between the two nations. . . . Only a fortnight ago they discovered that their whole wooden navy was useless; rather a weakness than a strength. Yesterday it was formally announced and acknowledged by Government, people and press, that the Warrior and their other new iron ships, are no better than wood, nor can any shot-proof sea-going vessel be made. . . .

     To me, they seem to be bewildered by all this. I don’t think as yet they have dared to look their position in the face. People begin to talk vaguely about the end of war and eternal peace, just as though human nature was changed by the fact that Great Britain’s sea-power is knocked in the head. But for my private part, I think I see a thing or two. And one of these things is that the military power of France is nearly doubled by having the seas free; and that our good country the United States is left to a career that is positively unlimited except by the powers of the imagination. And for England there is still greatness and safety, if she will draw her colonies around her, and turn her hegemony into a Confederation of British nations.

---In a Seneca County newspaper is reported this story about the Federals troops in front of  Yorktwn, Virginia, where they and the Rebels on the picket lines would taunt one anothers, quoted from the letter of a 1^st Lieut. Robert H. Brett:

The rebel battery had been silenced the day before but they favored us with an occasional shell. One struck a limber within six rods of my 2d platoon, and all of the cartridges attached to the shells in the limber exploded, blowing it to atoms. It contained forty-five shells and most of the fuzes were ignited, but some one with a good deal of presence of mind, after the first one exploded caught up a bucket of water which the gunner had used to wet his swab in, and threw on them, and prevented further disaster. This was a fortunate escape, as the gunners as well as our boys had time to throw themselves upon their faces and not a man was injured. the rebels jumped upon the parapet, yelled and danced at the prospect, undoubtedly, of a great extermination of the Yankees. They soon changed their tune, however, for Capt. Ayres sent four shells, one after another, among them, which seemed to settle their tea for that day.