Swamp Angel
One of the most famous Parrott rifles is the Swamp Angel, an 8-inch (200 mm) gun used by federal Brigadier General Quincy Adams Gillmore to bombard Charleston, South Carolina. It was manned by the 11th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
On August 21, 1863 Gillmore sent Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard an ultimatum to abandon heavily-fortified positions at Morris Island or the city of Charleston would be shelled. When the positions were not evacuated within a few hours, Gillmore ordered the Parrott rifle to fire on the city. Between August 22 and August 23, the Swamp Angel fired on the city 36 times (the gun burst on the 36th round), using many incendiary shells which caused little damage and few casualties. The battle was made more famous by Herman Melville's poem "The Swamp Angel".
After the war, a damaged Parrott rifle said to be the Swamp Donkey was moved to Trenton, New Jersey, where it rests as a memorial today at Cadwallader Park.
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Famous quotes containing the words swamp and/or angel:
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And even you will come to this foul shame,
This ultimate infection,
Star of my eyes, my being’s inner flame,
My angel and my passion!”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)