Mortars Aimed at Fort Sumter

A mortar battery cut into the sand, its crews gathered around two squat pieces, an officer seated at the right and a lone figure standing watch on the crest above. Cooley's plate, one of two negatives he made of these mortars.

The title says what the guns were for, and Fort Sumter's own returns say what it felt like from the other end: through 1864 the fort counted the night's mortar shells in dozens — 'one hundred and fourteen mortar shells fired at fort last night, 19 missed' — and filed the arithmetic as routine. By the date of this photograph the shelling had stopped and the crews could stand still for a camera.