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Show 24 MASS ACRE timbcr.3 protecting the m~gazinc appeared to rise from the earth, and the next inslanl the drcacliul explosion overwhelmed t!1e1n, and the next found two hundred and seventy }Xtrcuts and childr,:m in the immediate presence of a holy God, making their appeal for rctributi, ·e justice upon the government who had murdered them, and the freemen of the north who sust: tincd such unutterable crim03. ·::- Many were crushed by the falling earth and the tim bers ; many were entirely buried in the ruins. Some were hoJTibly mangled by the fragm ents of timber and the explosion of chm·gcd shells that were in the ma"azine. Limbs were torn from the bodies to whicl; th:y had been attached. Mothers and babes lay beside each other, wrapped in tll:tt sleep \vhich knows no waking. The sun had set, :mel the twilight of evening was closing around them, when some sixty sailors, under the officer second in command, landed, and, without opposition, entered the Fort. The veteran sailors, ac customed to blood and carnage, were horror-stricken as they Yicwcd the scene before them. They were nceompunicd, however, by some twenty slaveholders, . • Tbnt is .tho numbct· offi t·ially rP.pOJ·tcd by the officer in comruaad '"ule E~ccutm.! dvc. of the 1 3Lh CongrE:s,, ' AT BLoUNT'S For~T . 25 all anxious for their prey. These paid little attention to the dead and dying, but anxiously seized upon the living, antl, fastening the fetters upon their limbs, hurricJ them from tlw Foti, and instantly comrncnccd their return towarcls the frontier of Georgia. Some fifteen persons in the Fort survived the terrible explosion, anJ they no\'.,· sleep in servile graves, or moan and weep in bondage. rrhc omccr in command of the party, with his men, returned to the Uonts :1s soon as tUc sla\·cholclcrs were fai rly in poss:?s.=>ion of their victims. ~rho sailors ap· penrod gloomy and thoughtful ns they returned to their vessel ~. The anchors were weighed, the &'lils unfurled, and both vefiScls hurried from the scene of butchm·y us rapidly as they were uulc. After the oii'tccrs hacl retired to their cabins, the rough-featured sailors gatherecl ucforc the most, and loud and bitter were the curses they uttered against slavery and against those officers of government who hacl then constrained them to murder women ancl helpless chilclrcn, merely for their Jove of liberty. But the dead remained unburied; and the next day the vultures were feeding upon the carcasses of young men and young women, whose hearts on the previous 2 |