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SIBLEY'S AND CONNOR'S INDIAN CAMPAIGNS.

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a great drouth then prevailing on

sentenced to be hanged; but Presi- | expeditions suffered terribly for water dent Lincoln deferred their execution, and most of them were ultimately set at liberty.

the plains.

Far West, Brig.-Gen. P. E. Connor, Next summer-Gen. Pope being 1st California volunteers, commandin command of this department-ing in Utah, on hearing" of Indian the irregular frontier line of settle- depredations by the Shoshonees on ments in the north-west was picketed Bear river, western Idaho, marched by about 2,000 men; while Gen. thither (140 miles) through deep WinSibley moved westward from Fort ter snows, wherein 75 of his men Snelling in June, with some 2,500 were disabled by frozen feet, and, infantry; Gen. Sully, with a body of with the residue, attacked" 300 savcavalry being sent up the Missouri ages in their stronghold, killing 224; on boats to cooperate. The two his own loss being 12 killed and 49 commands did not unite; but Sibley wounded. Four months later, Gen. found and fought" some of the hos- Connor, with most of his force, tratile savages at Missouri Couteau, Big versed the region westward of the mound, Dead Buffalo lake, and Stony Rocky mountains so far north as old lake; killing or wounding some 130 Fort Hall on Snake.river, but found of them; while Sully encountered" no enemy to combat. a band at Whitestone hill, routing them with heavy loss, and taking 156 prisoners. The remnant fled across the Missouri and evaded pursuit. This was the virtual close of the Sioux war. Our men on these

These Indian hostilities, though inglorious and most unprofitable, subtracted considerably from our military strength, and added largely to our exhausting outlays during the trying year 1863.

XX.

THE CAROLINAS, GEORGIA, FLORIDA-1862-'63.

THE Savannah river having, with its largest affluent, the Tugaloo, formed the boundary between South Carolina and Georgia from their northern verge, after a generally south-east course of some 300 miles, passing, at the head of ship navigation, near its mouth, its namesake city, which is the commercial emporium of Georgia, winds its sluggish way to the Atlantic through a clus"9 Sept. 3.

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July 25-29, 1863.

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ter of mud-formed, often sand-fringed sea islands, matted over with a thin crust of grass-roots, covering a jellylike mud several feet deep, resting uneasily on a bed of light, semi-liquid clay. FORT PULASKI, on Cockspur island (a mile long by half as wide), was a carefully constructed brick National fortress 25 feet above ground by 7 thick, completely commanding not only the main channel of the

5 January, 1863.

1 Jan. 29.

Savannah, but all other inlets practicable for sea-going vessels to the city and the firm land above. Having early fallen an easy prey to the devotees of Secession, it was held by a garrison of 385 men, Col. C. H. Olmstead, 1st Georgia; its 40 heavy guns barring access to the river by our vessels, and affording shelter and protection to blockade-runners and Rebel corsairs.

to place a battery, barring all daylight access to the beleaguered fort from above. To this point, mortars, weighing 8 tuns each, were brought through New and Wright rivers (each of them a sluggish tide-course between rush-covered islets of semiliquid mud); being patiently tugged across Jones island on a movable causeway of planks laid on polesthose behind the moving gun being taken up and placed in its front;' and thus the guns were toilsomely drag

Very soon after our recovery of Port Royal and the adjacent seaislands, Gen. T. W. Sherman direct-ged across and placed in battery on ed' Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore to re- strong timber platforms, constructed connoiter this ugly impediment, and by night behind an artfully contrived report on the feasibility of overcom- screen of bushes and reeds to reing it. Gillmore obeyed; and re- ceive them. Just as the batteries ported' that the fort might be re- were completed, the Rebel steamboat duced by batteries of mortars and Ida passed down from Savannah to rifled guns planted on Big Tybee Pulaski, and the recoil of our guns island, south-east of it, across the fired at her sent all but one of them narrower southern channel of the off the platforms; which had thereSavannah, as also from Venus point, upon to be enlarged and improved. on Jones island, over two miles from Soon, another battery was established Cockspur, in the opposite direction: on Bird island, a little nearer Cockand submitted his plan; which was spur: and next, vessels having ar sent to Washington, returned ap- rived in Tybee roads with heavy proved, and the requisite ordnance guns and munitions, the 7th Conn., and other enginery ultimately for- 46th New York, and some detached warded or collected. Meantime, the companies, were employed in land46th New York, Col. R. Rosa, was ing these on Big Tybee, constructsent to occupy Big Tybee, and a ing batteries and magazines, making detachment directed quietly to clear roads of poles and plank, &c., &c. out the Rebel obstructions in "Wall's Nearly all this work had to be done cut," an artificial channel connecting by night, within range of Pulaski's New and Wright rivers, north of guns-the outline presented to the Cockspur, and completing an inland enemy by the low bushes skirting water passage from Savannah to the river being skillfully and graduCharleston. After some sharp fight- ally altered, night after night, so as ing and four nights' hard work, this to afford to the garrison no indicawas achieved; and, after some far- tion of the menacing work going on ther delay, Venus point, on Jones behind its friendly shelter. island, north-west of the coveted fortress, was selected' as a point whereon 'See Vol. I., p. 605. Nov. 29, '61. 'Dec. 1..'In Dec. Jan. 14, '62. Jan. 28. Fob. 10-11. Feb. 21.

The moving of each gun over the quaking, treacherous bog, from its

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point of debarkation to its designated position in battery, was the tedious, arduous task of 250 men, all performed under the cover of darkness: the men being forbidden to speak; their movements being directed by a whistle. When a gun slipped, as it often would, off the planks and 'skids' supporting it, the utmost efforts were required to keep it from plunging straight down through the 12 feet of mud to the supporting clay, if no farther.

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orders given to regulate the firing. And now the fort was summoned " in due form by Gen. Hunter-of course, to no purpose-whereupon, at 81 A. M., fire was deliberately opened, and kept up till dark-the mortars throwing very few of their shells within the fort; but the rifled guns chipping and tearing away its masonwork, until it became evident that, unless our batteries should be disabled, the fort would soon be a ruin. Five of the enemy's guns had already been silenced; while our widely scattered, low-lying, inconspicuous batteries had received no damage whatever.

Thus were the remnant of February and the whole of March intently employed-Maj.-Gen. Hunter, who had just succeeded to the command of the department, with Brig.-Gen. During the ensuing night, four of Benham as district commander, vis- our pieces were fired at intervals of iting the works on Tybee island, 15 or 20 minutes each; and at sunand finding nothing in them to im-rise" our batteries opened afresh ; prove.

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and now the breach, already visible,
was steadily and rapidly enlarged:
casemate after casemate being open-
ed, in spite of a heavy and well-
directed fire from the fort; until, at
2 P. M., a white flag was displayed
from its walls, and the siege was end-
ed. One only of our men had been
killed, and no gun hit or otherwise
"April 10,
"April 11.

damaged; the garrison had 10 of their 40 guns dismounted or other wise disabled, and several men wounded-one of them fatally. They were especially impelled to surrender by the fact that our guns were purposely trained on their magazine, which must soon have been pierced and exploded had our fire continued. The credit of this almost bloodless conquest is primarily due to Quincy A. Gillmore, who was at once General and Engineer; Gen. Viele, commanding under him the land forces, and Com'r John Rodgers their naval auxiliaries, who were employed only in transporting and landing the materiel. But the moral of this siege was the enormous addition made by rifling to the range and efficiency of guns. Our artillerists were as green as might be; and their gunnery-as evinced more especially by the mortar-firing-was nowise remarkable for excellence; but the penetration of a solid brick wall of seven feet thick at a distance of 1,650 yards by old 32s (now rifled) to a depth of 20 inches, and by old 42s to a depth of 26 inches, where the same guns, when smooth-bore, would have produced no effect whatever, was so unlooked-for by Gen. Gillmore that he afterward reported that, had he been aware at the outset of what this siege taught him, he might have curtailed his eight weeks of laborious preparation to one; rejecting altogether his heavy mortars and columbiads as unsuited to such service, and increasing, if that were desirable, the distance at which his nearer batteries were planted to 2,300 or even 2,500 yards.

old vessels, picked up at various northern ports and taken down to our fleet blockading the entrance to Charleston harbor, being loaded with stone, were sunk" across one of the channels. A tremendous uproar was raised against this procedure, mainly by British sympathizers with the Rebellion, who represented it as an effort permanently to choke and destroy the harbor. This accusation is absurd. What was intended was to render it more difficult for blockaderunners, navigated by Charleston pilots, to run out and in under the screen of fog or darkness; and this result was probably attained. No complaint has since been made of any actual injury thus inflicted on the peaceful commerce of Charleston: on the contrary, it has been plausibly asserted that the partial closing of one of the passes, through which the waters of Ashley and Cooper rivers find their way to the ocean, was calculated to deepen and improve those remaining.

Com. Dupont, in his steam frigate Wabash, with twenty other armed vessels, and six unarmed transports, conveying a brigade of volunteers, Gen. Wright, and a battalion of marines, Maj. Reynolds, setting out from Port Royal" swept down the coast to St. Andrew's and Cumberland sounds; taking unresisted possession of Fort Clinch on Amelia island, Fernandina, St. Mary's, Brunswick," Darien," St. Simon's island, Jacksonville," and St. Augustine; where Fort St. Mark-another of the old Federal coast defenses-was “rëpossessed" without bloodshed-Gen. Trapier, Rebel commander on this

A.considerable flotilla of worthless coast, having no force adequate to

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PENSACOLA AND JACKSONVILLE RETAKEN.

resisting such an expedition-Florida having ere this contributed nearly 10,000 men, out of a total white population of 80,000, to the Confederate armies fighting in other States. A considerable Union feeling was evinced at various points; a Union meeting held in Jacksonville (the most populous town in the State), and a Convention called to assemble there on the 10th of April to organize a Union State Government; but, on the 8th, Gen. Wright withdrew his forces from that place, sending an invitation to Gen. Trapier to come and reoccupy it. Of course, the projected Union Convention was no more; and those who had figured in the meeting or call whereby the movement was initiated were glad to save their necks by accompanying our departing forces. That settled, for years, the fortunes of Unionism in Florida. And, though Com. Dupont, on returning with his fleet to Port Royal, left a small force at each of the more defensible places he had so easily recovered to the Union, it is questionable that his expedition effected, on the whole, more good than harm for the national cause.

At Mosquito inlet, the farthest point visited by a detail from his squadron, a boat expedition, under Lt. T. A. Budd, of the Penguin, was fired on while returning from an excursion down Mosquito lagoon, Lt. Budd and 4 others killed, and several more wounded or captured. Thus closed unhappily an enterprise which was probably adequate to the complete recovery of Florida, though not able to hold it against the whole power of the Confederacy.

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Pensacola was evacuated by Brig.Gen. Thos. N. Jones, its Rebel commander; who burned every thing combustible in the Navy Yard, Forts McRae and Barrancas, the hospital, &c., &c., and retreated" inland with his command. The place was immediately occupied by Com. Porter, of the Harriet Lane, and by Gen. Arnold, commanding Fort Pickens.

Another naval expedition from Port Royal," under Capt. Steedman, consisting of the gunboats Paul Jones and Cimarone, with three other steamboats, visited the Florida coast in the Autumn, shelling and silencing the Rebel batteries at the mouth of the St. John's.

Gen. Brannan, with a land force of 1,575 men, with a fleet of six gunboats under Capt. Steedman, repeated this visit somewhat later;" expecting to encounter an obstinate resistance: but the Rebel works on St. John's bluff were evacuated-9 guns being abandoned-on his advancing to attack them; and he retook Jacksonville without resistance, but found it nearly deserted, and did not garrison it. The Rebel steamboat Gov Milton was found up a creek and captured.

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Gen. R. Saxton next dispatched," on three transports, an expedition, composed of two negro regiments under Col. Thos. W. Higginson, 1st S. C. Volunteers, which went up to Jacksonville, captured it with little resistance, and held it as a recruiting station for colored volunteers. Two White regiments were soon afterward sent to rëenforce them; but hardly had these landed when a peremptory order came from Gen. Hunter for the withdrawal of 21 March 6, 1863. March 10.

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