This 300-pounder rifle was directed against Fort Sumter and Battery Wagner. The length of bore of the gun before it burst was 136 inches. It weighed 26,000 pounds. It fired a projectile weighing 250 pounds, with a maximum charge of powder of 25 pounds. The gun was fractured at the twenty-seventh round by a shell bursting in the muzzle, blowing off about 20 inches of the barrel. After the bursting the gun was "chipped" back beyond the termination of the fracture and afterwards fired 371 rounds with as good results as before the injury. At the end of that time the muzzle began to crack again, rendering the gun entirely useless. [Illustration: TWO PARROTTS IN BATTERY STEVENS COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.] Battery Stevens lay just east of Battery Strong. It was begun July 27, 1863. Most of the work was done at night, for the fire from the adjacent Confederate forts rendered work in daylight dangerous. By August 17th, most of the guns were in position, and two days later the whole series of batteries "on the left," as they were designated, were pounding away at Fort Sumter. [Illustration: IN CHARLESTON AFTER THE BOMBARDMENT COPYRIGHT, 1911, PATRIOT PUB. CO.] So long as the Confederate flag flew over the ramparts of Sumter, Charleston remained the one stronghold of the South that was firmly held. That flag was never struck. It was lowered for an evacuation, not a surrender. The story of Charleston's determined resistance did not end in triumph for the South, but it did leave behind it a sunset glory, in which the valor and dash of the Federal attack is paralleled by the heroism and self-sacrifice of the Confederate defense, in spite of wreck and ruin. [Illustration: SCENE OF THE NIGHT ATTACK ON SUMTER, SEPTEMBER 8, 1863]