Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE NEW ATTEMPT UPON FORT SUMTER AND CHARLESTON.-GEN. GILLMORE'S COMMAND.-HIS PLAN OF OPERATIONS.-WHAT WAS PROPOSED BY THE REDUCTION OF THE WORKS ON MORRIS ISLAND.-A BASE OF OPERATIONS ON FOLLY ISLAND.-HOW GEN. BEAUREGARD WAS BLINDED AND DECEIVED.-FORTY-SEVEN GUNS OF THE ENEMY UNMASKED.—THE ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.-GALLANTRY OF A CONNECTICUT REGIMENT.-THE ASSAULT REPULSED. -GEN. BEAUREGARD'S PLANS.-HIS OBJECT IN HOLDING MORRIS ISLAND.-SECOND ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER IN CONJUNCTION WITH DAHLGREN'S FLEET.-THE BOMBARDMENT OF FORT WAGNER.-PROFOUND AND SIGNIFICANT SILENCE OF THE GARRISON.-ADVANCE OF THE STORMING COLUMN.-ITS REPULSE.-TERRIBLE SCENES OF CARNAGE.-SIEGE OPERATIONS. APPEALS TO THE SOUTH CAROLINA PLANTERS, AND THEIR INDIFFERENCE.—GILLMORE PREPARES TO BOMBARD AND DESTROY CHARLESTON.-" THE GREEK FIRE."—" THE SWAMP ANGEL."-GILLMORE'S NOTICE OF BOMBARDMENT.-SHARP AND MEMORABLE REPLY OF GEN. BEAUREGARD.-COWARDLY REJOICINGS IN THE NORTH.-THE BOMBARDMENT A FAILURE.—ATTEMPTED DEMOLITION OF FORT SUMTER.-HOW FAR THE FORT WAS INJURED BY THE BOMBARDMENT.-GILLMORE ANNOUNCES ITS REDUCTION.-THE ANNOUNCEMENT FALSE AND ABSURD.-PROGRESS OF THE SIEGE OPERATIONS AGAINST FORT WAGNER.-A TERRIFIC FIRE OPENED UPON IT.-SURPASSING GRANDEUR OF THE SCENE.-GILLMORE PLANS ANOTHER ASSAULT UPON THE FORT.-THE CONFEDERATES EVACUATE IT AND MORRIS ISLAND. WHAT GEN. BEAUREGARD ACCOMPLISHED BY THE RETENTION OF MORRIS ISLAND FOR TWO MONTHS.-THE ISLAND NOT THE KEY TO CHARLESTON.-ADMIRAL DAHLGREN REFUSES TO ASCEND THE HARBOUR WITH HIS IRON-CLADS.-HE SUMMONS FORT SUMTER TO SURRENDER.-BEAUREGARD'S REPLY.-A BOAT-ATTACK ON THE FORT.-ITS DISASTROUS REPULSE.—THE ENEMY'S OPERATIONS AGAINST CHARLESTON DEGENERATE INTO A CHRONIO AND FRUITLESS BOMBARDMENT.-DISAPPOINTMENT IN THE NORTH.

THE most remarkable military event of the midsummer of 1863 was the successful defence of Charleston against a most imposing demonstration of the enemy's power by land and by sea. We have seen how unsuccessful was the naval attack upon this city in April, 1863. It was not long, however, before another attempt was planned upon Fort Sumter and Charleston, the steps of which were the military occupation of Morris Island and the establishment of batteries on that island to assist in the reduction of Fort Sumter. The establishment of these batteries and the reduction of the Confederate works-Fort Wagner and Battery Gregg-was a matter of

great engineering skill, and Gen. Q. A. Gillmore was selected to command the land forces of the enemy engaged in these operations. Morris Island was on the south side of the entrance to the harbour, about three and a half miles in length, low, narrow, and sandy, and separated from the mainland adjacent to it by soft, deep, and impracticable marshes. Its capture, although principally designed to open a way to the enemy's iron-clads, would also serve the purpose of making the blockade of Charleston harbour more thorough and complete, by allowing a portion or all of the blockading fleet to lie inside the bar. But the most important object, as we have indicated, was to secure a position whence it was hoped Fort Sumter might be demolished, and the co-operation of a heavy artillery fire extended to the fleet, when it was ready to move in, run by the batteries on James and Sullivan's Islands, and reach the city.

Gen. Gillmore assumed command on the 12th June, and at once proposed to commence a base of operations on Folly Island. This island, the south end of which controlled the waters of Stone Harbour and Inlet and the water approaches from James Island, had been occupied in force by the enemy since the 7th April. But Gen. Beauregard appears to have had no idea of what was going on there; he never made a reconnoisance of the enemy's outposts on the island; and he was bitterly accused in the Richmond Sentinel, the organ of President Davis' administration, for a want of vigilance, which had permitted the enemy, unknown to him, to construct a base of operations actually within speaking distance of his pickets. It is true that the enemy threw up earthworks and mounted heavy guns on Folly Island under a screen of thick undergrowth; but it is certainly to the last degree surprising that he should have succeeded in secretly placing in battery forty-seven pieces of artillery so near to the Confederate lines that a loud word might have revealed the work, and exposed moreover to a flank and reverse view from their tall observatories on James Island. Indeed there was a circumstance yet more curious. A blockade runner had been chased ashore just south of the entrance to Lighthouse Inlet, and it actually occurred that the vessel was wrecked by Confederate soldiers within pistol range of the enemy's battery on Folly Island, without their being in the least aware of such a grim neighbour.

This battery was ready to open fire on the 6th July. A plan of attack upon Morris Island was now deliberately formed, one part of which was a strong demonstration of Gen. Terry's division, some four thousand infantry, on James Island so as to draw off a portion of the Confederate force on Morris Island. While this demonstration was taking place, two thousand men of Gen. Strong's brigade were to embark in small boats in Folly River, effect a landing on Morris Island, and, at a given signal, attempt tc carry Fort Wagner by assault. The batteries on the north end of Folly

ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

431

Island were also ordered to be unmasked, by opening out the embrasures and cutting away the brushwood in front of them.

At daybreak of the 10th July, forty launches containing Strong's assaulting column crept up Folly River with muffled oar-locks; the ironclad fleet crossed the bar, and took up its position in the main ship-channel off Morris Island; two hundred axemen suddenly sprung from behind the batteries on Folly Island, and felled the trees which hid them from view; embrasure after embrasure was laid bare; and at five o'clock the first gun was heard from the suddenly revealed battery, and the dense white smoke which rose above the tall pines marked the new line of conflict. Meanwhile the assaulting column had landed; the Confederate lines were drawn within eight hundred yards of Fort Wagner; and offensive operations were suspended for the day.

An assault on Fort Wagner was ordered at five o'clock the next morning. The Seventh Connecticut Regiment was to take the lead, followed by the Seventy-Sixth Pennsylvania and Ninth Maine. Gen. Strong, who led the assaulting column, gave a Cromwellian order: "Aim low, and put your trust in God!" The Connecticut soldiers took the double-quick, and with a cheer rushed for the works. Before they reached the outer works, they got a terrible fire from the Confederate rifles, and the fort opened with three 8-inch howitzers, heavily charged with grape and canister. The men went over the outer works with an extraordinary courage, that must be recorded to their honour, and were advancing to the crest of the parapet, when it was discovered that the regiments which were to support them had staggered back and lost their distance. The Connecticut regiment was left to effect its retreat through a sheet of fire. Nearly one half of them were killed or wounded. But the loss of the Confederates was quite as large. Gen. Beauregard estimated his losses in opposing the landing of the enemy at three hundred killed and wounded, including sixteen officers. The attack was undoubtedly a surprise to him, as he had persisted in the belief that the demonstration against Charleston would be made by the old route-James Island-and accordingly had almost stripped Morris Island of his artillerymen and infantry, to meet the advance of Terry.

But although the assault on Fort Wagner was repulsed, the remissness of Gen. Beauregard with respect to the battery on Folly Island was to cost dear enough. It compelled the evacuation of all the fortified positions of the Confederates on the south end of Morris Island; in fact, surrendered all the island except about one mile on the north end, which included Fort Wagner and Fort Gregg on Cumming's Point; and virtually made the reduction of these works but a question of time. It was very clear that the enemy, having once obtained a foothold on Morris Island, would even tually compel an evacuation by the operations of siege, and that it was im

possible to defend forever a small island cut off from communication by an enormous fleet. It only remained for Gen. Beauregard to repair as far as possible the errour he had already committed, and to find some compensation for what had already occurred. And well did he do this secondary duty. Admitting the impracticability of defending Morris Island after the position of the enemy on it was fully established and covered by the ironclads, Gen. Beauregard yet appreciated the opportunity of holding the island long enough to replace Sumter by interiour positions, and saw clearly that every day of defence by Wagner was vital to that of Charleston. For two months this policy was successful.

Gen. Gillmore was not content with his first essay to take Fort Wagner He held a conference with Admiral Dahlgren, commanding the fleet, and determined to attempt, with the combined fire of the land batteries and the gunboats, to dismount the principal guns of the work, and either drive the Confederates from it, or open the way to a successful assault. Batteries were accordingly established, and were ready to open fire on the 18th July, when the enemy's fleet, consisting of four Monitors, the Ironsides, a frigate, and four gunboats, some of which threw shell from mortars, closed in opposite Fort Wagner.

About noon the enemy's vessels commenced hurling their heaviest shot and shell around, upon, and within Fort Wagner, and, with intervals of but a very few minutes, continued this terrible fire, until one hour after the sun had gone down. Vast clouds of sand, mud, and timber were sent high up into the air. Forty-eight hours the Monitors and the Ironsides had kept up a continuous fire, and Fort Wagner had not surrendered. For eight hours, fifty-four guns from the land batteries had hurled their shot and shell within her walls, and still she flaunted the battle-flag of the Confederacy in the face of the enemy. Once during the day the flag was shot down. Immediately it was run up about ten feet above the parapet, a little cluster of men rallied around it, waved their hats, and then disappeared, and were not again seen during the day. There was no other sign of human life about the fort. It appeared as if the garrison was dead or conquered. "But," said a Federal officer, who watched the scene, "there were a few later developments that proved their opinion was the correct one who said this profound silence on the rebel side was significant, not of defeat and disaster, but of ultimate success in repulsing our assault; that they were keeping themselves under cover until they could look into the eyes of our men, and send bullets through their heads, and would then swarm by thousands with every conceivable deadly missile in their hands, and drive us in confusion and with terrible slaughter back to our en trenchments."

Gillmore had selected the time of twilight for the storming party to move to the attack, in order that it might not be distinctly seen from the

SECOND ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER.

433

James Island and Sullivan's Island batteries, and from Fort Sumter. But this time there was to be no surprise. As the bombardment relaxed, it was known at Fort Wagner that such a demonstration on the part of the enemy was not without its object; and every man was ordered by Gen. Taliaferro, who commanded the fort, to the parapet to prepare for the expected assault of the enemy.

At dusk the assaulting column was formed on the beach. A regiment of negro soldiers, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, was, for peculiar reasons, put in the extreme advance. There were eleven regiments in solid column As the head of it debouched from the first parallel, a tremendous fire from the barbette guns on Fort Sumter, from the batteries on Cumming's Point, and from all the guns on Fort Wagner, opened upon it. The guns from Wagner swept the beach, and those from Sumter and Cumming's Point enfiladed it on the left. Still the column staggered on within eighty yards of the fort. And now a compact and most destructive musketry fire was poured upon it from the parapet, along which gleamed a fringe of fire. In five minutes the first line of the enemy had been shot, bayoneted, or were in full retreat. The First Brigade, under the lead of Gen. Strong, failed to take the fort. The Second recoiled; and the few troops that had clambered to the parapet, now found the most desperate task to effect a retreat. It was a night black with tempest. Even if they surrendered, the shell of Sumter were thickly falling around them in the darkness, and, as prisoners, they could not be safe until victory, decisive and unquestioned, rested with one or the other belligerent. It was a retreat of untold horrours. Men rolled in the ditch, or dragged their bloody bodies through the sand-hills, on their hands and knees. About midnight there was silence at last; the battle was over; the ocean beach was crowded with the dead, the dying, and the wounded. The loss of the enemy was severe -fifteen hundred and, fifty killed and wounded, according to his own statement, which must have been below the truth, as the Confederates buried six hundred of his dead left on the field. Their own loss was not more than one hundred in killed and wounded.

After this second successful defence of Fort Wagner the remainder of the month of July, and the early part of August, were employed by the enemy in erecting siege-works, and mounting heavy siege-guns, preparatory to the bombardment of Fort Sumter, as it was found that Fort Wagner did not interfere with the engineer corps at work. Meanwhile Gen. Beauregard and the Mayor of Charleston issued another urgent appeal to the sanded proprietors and others to send in their negroes to work on the fortifications; and the Governor of the State made an even stronger appeal. There was, however, much indifference shown in promptly responding; and though an act of the Legislature had been passed involving a penalty on refusal, many of the planters preferred paying it to allowing their negroes to be so employed.

« PreviousContinue »