Doubleday longed to fire a shell in their direction, but the only weapons at Sumter capable of reaching the city—the improvised mortars on the parade—were too exposed to be used safely amid the rain of shells being lobbed into the fort by Confederate mortars. “The scene at this time was really terrific,” Doubleday wrote. “The roaring and crackling of the flames, the dense masses of whirling smoke, the bursting of the enemy’s shells, and our own which were exploding in the burning rooms, the crashing of the shot, and the sound of masonry falling in every direction, made the fort a pandemonium.”
Use in video series.
