The following article is from the New York Times, dated April 3, 1862:

 

The Siege of Fort Pulaski

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          Although the course of the war has given the public a glimpse of almost every form of military and naval operation, our experiences have been hitherto deficient in one particular -- we have had until lately no systematic investment of a regular fort. The tidings from the Georgia coast supply this want. Fort Pulaski, one of the great National strongholds, commanding the passage by river to Savannah, is now beleaguered by the National force, and the public may soon have all the excitement of a siege.

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          This result has been prepared by a series of operations that have been in execution for some months, and which the outside world has been made acquainted with only by occasional outcroppings of information.

It may be remembered that, as long ago as last December, a naval reconnoissance was made from Port Royal, under command of Capt. DAVIS, which resulted in the exploration of a back channel by which Fort Pulaski could be isolated from Savannah. This important passage was immediately taken possession of by a naval force, as were also the neighboring islands and their water surroundings above and in the rear of the fort. Forthwith batteries were begun on Long Island, Oakley Island and Wilmington Island; other batteries were erected on Bird and Jones' Islands, which completely command the Savannah River; while the National gunboats took possession of the creeks and water-passages on the opposite side. Quietly, but very energetically, these operations were conducted, till the rebels in Fort Pulaski awoke one morning over a month ago, to find that they were completely isolated from Savannah, and invested on every side. To make their isolation still more perfect, the telegraphic wire between the fort and the city was also cut; and it was further reported that the water-supply of the troops in Pulaski was cut off. Under these circumstances, a small detachment of our army sat down to a deliberate siege, and in this interesting situation has been Fort Pulaski for over thirty days.

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          When the Pulaski rebels found out that they had been thus outwitted and caught in a trap, the first thing they did was to swear that the situation was the very thing that suited them. Accordingly, the Savannah and Richmond papers have for some time been loudly affirming that Pulaski was impregnable -- that the occupant force had provisions enough to last until the Millennium -- and that the taking of the fort might safely be relegated to the epoch of the Greek Kalends.

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          When the rebels swear a place is impregnable, depend on it its fall or surrender is imminent.

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          True to this oft-honored principle, these "impregnable" fellows have now, it seems, sent to the National commander a proposition of surrender. The out-look from their casemates in Pulaski suits them not. The ominously frowning series of batteries of rifled cannon and mortars that hedge them round and about are not comfortable objects for the rebel eye to rest upon. To be sure, Pulaski is "impregnable," but still they are not altogether unwilling to capitulate -- on conditions. If then, say they, Gen. SHERMAN will allow them to withdraw "with the honors of war," and permit them to betake themselves elsewhere, they will gracefully waive the respects of his mortars, and resign a fort which, though impregnable, they would not care to see defaced by any tentative efforts of rifled shell and shot.

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          It will pain all lovers of the high chivalries of war to learn that Gen. SHERMAN has declined the proposition! With a behavior as "ungenerous and unchivalrie" as that with which BUCKNER charged Gen. GRANT when he refused to come to terms at Fort Donelson, SHERMAN has demanded an "unconditional surrender," and sent back word that he would, on the first of April, open fire on the fort if they still refused to yield it. After spending three months in erecting his works, he has, it seems, no notion of having his labor for his pains on such terms. It is a way our Generals have, and we despair of satisfying the punctilious Southern military gentry on these delicate questions.

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          Whether the dwellers in Pulaski have resigned themselves to fate, to which even the flower of chivalry of the medieval days had at times to succumb, and have unconditionally capitulated, or whether they proved recalcitrant, and the National batteries have been compelled to open on them on Fool's Day, remains yet to be seen. There is some hope, however, that a deliverer -- say in a boat or a balloon -- may have appeared, stimulated by the offer of "thirty thousand dollars," which the Savannah rebels had held out to any one who would rescue their friends within the fated fort. Whatever may be the result of this bid, it is certainly a novel mode of enlisting heroic and patriotic enterprise, and makes one curious to know how much the three hundred got for guarding Thermopylae, and what pecuniary consideration stimulated ARNOLD WINKELRIED, under the shadow of the Swiss Alps, to gather into his side the sheaf of Austrian spears.

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          It will be seen that the situation at Fort Pulaski is quite an interesting one, and its investment recalls another Southern regular fort, not far distant from the present one, similarly invested just one year ago. Then, however, it was the exultant rebels investing Fort Sumter with seven thousand; now it is the dejected and fated rebels of Fort Pulaski to whem is commended the contents of the poisoned chalice they then forced the nation to drain.

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