Hess Earl J. Field Armies and Fortifications in the Civil War: The Eastern Campaigns, 1861-1864

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238 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

River

batteries

Harrison’s rear

defense line, 1863

Coles Run

Battery

Smith’s

Battery

W. P. Smith’s

line, 1862

Harrison’s line,

1862

Fort Harrison

Fort Gilmer

Gilmer’s extension

of Intermediate

Line, 1863

Mill Road

Battery (later

Fort Gregg)

Harrison’s line,

1862

Secondary Line,

1863

Chafﬁn’s Bluff Defenses, 1863 (based on maps in Dickinson, ‘‘Union and Confederate

Engineering Operations at Chafﬁn’s Bluff,’’ 17, 30, 66, RNB)

rose to a height of eight feet. A deep ditch and a banquette strengthened

the work, and a stockade covered its open rear. Gilmer added a culvert under

the parapet at the south end of the fort to drain water. Another work, ini-

tially called the Mill Road Battery but later designated Fort Gregg, was

constructed with positions for four guns.

∂π

Engineer William Elzey Harrison, who had laid out the ﬁrst line at Chaf-

ﬁn’s the preceding year, undertook the second major project. He started a

Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign 239

new line from the bank of the James River, upstream from Chafﬁn’s, to the

Coles Run Battery. It provided cover for the north side of the batteries at

the bluff, in effect enclosing those gun emplacements on all sides north

of the river.

∂∫

The third project reinforced Harrison’s original line, which stretched from

Osborne Pike to the northeast in a great bulge toward the approach of the

enemy. It involved the construction of a new line to the rear of the old,

stretching from Batteries No. 7, 8, and 9 toward Battery No. 2 at Osborne

Pike. It had three battery emplacements and was much shorter than the

stretch of the original line that fronted it. This Secondary Line of 1863 was on

ground as much as twelve feet higher than that of the original line. The guns

could therefore ﬁre over friendly troops in the front. At the left end of the

Secondary Line, Batteries No. 7, 8, and 9 were reconﬁgured into a single fort

and called Fort Harrison. It was a formidable work with four artillery plat-

forms and one large and ﬁve small traverses. Barracks were built behind the

fort to house the gunners and garrison. Work on the fort itself was done

relatively quickly, but the engineers did not have time to complete the prepa-

ration of the work. A year later, when Fort Harrison was attacked as part of

Grant’s Fifth Offensive at Petersburg, there was no stockade to its rear, and

the numerous trees that had been slashed in its front had not been crafted

into an abatis. Most of the Secondary Line was dug by Brig. Gen. Eppa

Hunton’s Virginia brigade of Pickett’s division, which replaced Wise’s Vir-

ginians when the latter were sent to Charleston in mid-September.

∂Ω

The Richmond authorities also turned their attention to strengthening

the defenses of key railroad bridges on lines leading into the capital. Those

across the North and South Anna rivers had been threatened during a Fed-

eral cavalry raid in late June as Lee was heading toward Pennsylvania. In

fact, the South Anna bridge had been captured after a ﬁght with defending

Confederate troops. The War Department wanted small, enclosed works at

these points, defensible by ‘‘a few companies’’ that could hold off enemy

horsemen and light artillery. Jeremy Gilmer provided detailed instructions

for the work near Belﬁeld, Virginia, where the Weldon Railroad crossed the

Meherrin River. It needed to be big enough for three companies, and he

insisted that one enclosed work was better than ‘‘extended lines of riﬂe pits’’

because a small force needed comprehensive protection. If the little work

was commanded by higher ground nearby, Gilmer wanted the engineer in

charge to raise the height of the parapet facing that threat. The little fort

should be as close to the bridge as possible but could be as far away as 500

yards if necessary.

∑≠

In addition to dispatching engineer ofﬁcers to take care of bridge de-

240 Gettysburg and Lee’s Pennsylvania Campaign

fenses, Walter Husted Stevens tackled the persistent problem of ﬁnding la-

borers to work on the Richmond defenses. The War Department waited as

long as feasible before pressing 5,340 slaves in late August, although harvest

season was by no means ended. With slave laborers slowly trickling in,

Stevens had to contend with the consequences of yet another call-up of

workers, this time from among the free black population of Virginia. He was

deluged with requests for exemptions and circulated rules for dealing with

this issue. His guidelines were authorized by Gilmer. About the only excep-

tion he allowed was for workers already employed by the government. A

proposal was made by a Virginia senator to use black convicts as laborers on

the Richmond defenses. Stevens was not enthusiastic about it, and Alfred L.

Rives thought it would drain available manpower to provide enough guards

to prevent escapes, so the proposal was rejected.

∑∞

By the beginning of 1864, it was time for the government to settle ac-

counts with slaveowners who claimed to have lost their bondsmen because

of working conditions at fortiﬁcations. Stevens estimated that 250 slaves

had died or had run away while working on the Richmond defenses. At an

average value of $2,000, that amounted to half a million dollars. Alfred L.

Rives estimated that 104 slaves had been lost while working on other de-

fenses in the state; he could only guess that the number lost outside Virginia

while working on various fortiﬁcation projects amounted to 1,200 slaves. In

total, 1,554 bondsmen were lost in the Confederacy because their masters

responded to the call for workers. Rives asked for a congressional appropria-

tion of $3,108,000 to cover the loss.

∑≤

Despite this enormous cost, the War Department and the Engineer Bu-

reau issued a new call for workers on February 17, 1864. Ofﬁcers were to

press free blacks ﬁrst, then slaves if needed. Stevens was willing to allow

substitutes for men who were employed in important civilian work, but he

refused to grant exemptions. These laborers were kept on the job throughout

the winter but needed to return to their civilian work by late April, especially

the slaves owned by planters. The Engineer Bureau sought permission to

press more free blacks as an alternative. It was a never-ending problem

because the huge fortiﬁcation system ringing the capital demanded endless

labor. Thousands of African Americans who had little personal interest in the

survival of the Confederacy were forced to support it, one shovel of dirt

at a time.

∑≥

11 : Charleston

ne week after the battle of Gettysburg, Federal troops

began a campaign against Charleston, South Carolina,

that would be the largest land attack on the defenses of

that important city. Not only was it a highly visible sym-

bol, the place where the ﬁrst shots were ﬁred in the

Civil War, but Charleston was an important port for blockade runners. The

operations against the city in the summer of 1863 involved extensive for-

tiﬁcations for both offensive and defensive purposes. In fact, Charleston was

one of the most heavily fortiﬁed cities in America. Confederate authorities

had sought to protect the place as soon as the Yankees had evacuated Fort

Sumter in April 1861, and Union commanders had pondered how best to

tackle this citadel of the South.

Various Federal ofﬁcers had proposed plans for operations against Charles-

ton for some time. Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sherman commanded the expedi-

tionary corps that cooperated with the navy in the capture of Port Royal in

November 1861. He passed on the recommendation of his chief engineer,

Capt. Quincy A. Gillmore, who proposed a plan for taking Charleston. Gill-

more advised seizing Morris Island and Sullivan’s Island, which ﬂanked the

throat of Charleston Harbor south and north. Gillmore then recommended

using riﬂed artillery to reduce Fort Sumter, which was located on a sandbar

near the middle of the throat. He also thought a similar strategy could be

employed against Fort Moultrie on the southern end of Sullivan’s Island and

Fort Johnson on the northern shore of James Island. This latter island com-

prised much of the land south of the harbor. Then Gillmore recommended

bombarding Charleston itself. Alternatively, Gillmore noted that the Federals

could advance up the Stono River, which constituted the western and south-

ern border of James Island. Once the island was in Union hands, the forts at

the entrance to the harbor would eventually fall like ripe apples. Gillmore

thought it would take 14,000 men, a dozen ﬁeld guns, and twenty siege guns

to take James Island. Sherman agreed with his engineer but thought more

resources were needed to accomplish either of the two plans. Almost the

same proposal was advanced a few weeks later by Lt. Col. Daniel P. Wood-

bury, aide-de-camp to John G. Barnard.

∞

242 Charleston

The Confederates had invested a great deal of time, energy, and resources

in preparing Charleston’s defenses. Col. Roswell S. Ripley took charge of the

project after the fall of Fort Sumter. A West Point graduate who had been

commissioned into the artillery, Ripley was a good engineer. He strength-

ened the masonry forts guarding the harbor, put sand against the sea face of

Moultrie, and erected earthworks around it. He protected James Island by

strengthening Fort Johnson and constructed batteries at the mouth of the

Stono River to block Federal ships. These works were sited on Coles’s Island,

and they not only protected the entrance to the Stono but also blocked the

approaches to Folly Island and Morris Island.

Fort Johnson was the oldest fortiﬁcation at Charleston. Its site was ﬁrst

fortiﬁed in 1704, and the current work was initially erected in 1780. That year

the British bypassed the harbor altogether, ascended the Stono River, and

compelled the surrender of Charleston by investing the city. Ripley exten-

sively renovated the fort, building a giant earthwork mounting ﬁfteen guns

and mortars with supporting infantry trenches.

The War Department created the Department of South Carolina, Georgia,

and Florida in November 1861, and Robert E. Lee was named its commander.

Port Royal fell to a combined Union force the day before he assumed com-

mand. This and other Federal strikes along the Atlantic coast convinced Lee

that he did not have enough resources to hold all points. He adopted a

strategy of concentrating his strength at key spots and planned to use the

railroad to shift men to threatened areas.

≤

Pemberton and the Defenses of Charleston

Maj. Gen. John C. Pemberton replaced Lee in March 1862. Born in Penn-

sylvania and with little experience in the ﬁeld, Pemberton had no engineer-

ing background and brought a weak staff to Charleston. He did not trust

Ripley, who eventually went to Virginia to command a brigade, and some-

times borrowed the state engineer of Georgia for consultation.

Pemberton essentially furthered Lee’s policy of consolidation. He aban-

doned the outlying defenses of the Stono River, including Coles’s Island, and

built new works farther up the river. This exposed Folly Island, Morris Island,

and the southern half of James Island to Union operations. It was a con-

troversial move that provoked criticism from Governor Francis W. Pickens.

Pemberton took a gloomy view of his prospects. ‘‘What under the old system

of warfare was our strength is now our weakness,’’ he complained. ‘‘The

many approaches by water and the recent proof of the practicability of their

gunboats passing our batteries have made the defense of this city a very

difﬁcult problem to solve.’’ He feared the Federals could bring so much

Charleston 243

power to bear on the harbor entrance that it was only a question of time

before they broke through the protecting ring of forts.

≥

Yet the works that Pemberton initiated proved to be strong. On the upper

reaches of the Stono River, Fort Pemberton took shape on James Island to

protect access to Elliot’s Cut, which led directly toward Charleston. The work

was an enclosed, ﬁve-sided fort mounting twenty-one guns. It had support-

ing infantry trenches, and the Stono was obstructed with tree limbs and

torpedoes. The fort was completed in the spring of 1862.

∂

To the northeast of Charleston, Pemberton constructed a line of infantry

and artillery works near Mount Pleasant in Christ Church Parish. It was

seven miles from town and spanned the higher ground between Copahee

Sound and the headwaters of Elliott’s Creek. Fort Palmetto anchored the

right ﬂank of this line. It was a circular parapet that was little more than

thirty-ﬁve yards in diameter, with two magazines inside. The land is very ﬂat

here, and the Mount Pleasant Line consisted of a simple trench and parapet.

The engineers tried to place the line on any slight rise of ground they could

ﬁnd; but it often lay on completely ﬂat terrain, and the small remnants seem

to indicate they were successful in keeping the line as straight as possible.

The woods were not cut far enough in front of the Mount Pleasant Line,

however, and Pemberton’s engineers failed to cut embrasures for the artil-

lery emplacements. Both defects were remedied more than two years later.

∑

The northwestern approach to Charleston was sealed before Pemberton’s

arrival, when ‘‘a range of low fortiﬁcations, running across the neck of land

from Cooper to Ashley Rivers,’’ was constructed soon after the fall of Sumter.

This line was two miles from the city. It had a ditch ten feet wide and a

parapet with ﬁfteen feet of relief. Southwest of Charleston were two lines of

works covering the Charleston and Savannah Railroad. The ﬁrst was two

miles beyond the railroad bridge over the Ashley River. It consisted of an

infantry trench reinforced with artillery redans, and its left rested on Wap-

poo Creek. The second line was six miles beyond the bridge and consisted of

a large redoubt near the railroad with a wet ditch in front. Several other

detached redoubts were constructed to the left of this one along the north

bank of Ashley River.

To the southeast of Charleston, James Island offered the easiest approach

for an attacking army. Pemberton’s works here consisted of two lines and two

concentrations of forward, detached works. One line covered the western

portion of the island between Wappoo Creek and James Island Creek. This

continuous line incorporated several small artillery redans and stretched for

a mile and a half. Another line of similar length stretched eastward from

James Island Creek to Lighthouse Creek. It consisted of six redoubts, ﬁve

244 Charleston

redans, and one lunette, all detached. East of Lighthouse Creek, low, marshy

islands stretched out to the sea. The two lines covered the higher ground that

made up two-thirds of James Island. Fort Pemberton essentially was a for-

ward work in front of the right wing of these two lines, and the works at

Secessionville were a forward post in front of the left wing.

∏

Criticism of Pemberton for inadequately fortifying Charleston was only

partly deserved. He made a serious mistake in abandoning the works guard-

ing the mouth of the Stono River. That forced him and his successors to build

more massive works closer to the city, which required a lot of labor and large

garrisons. Besides that mistake, Pemberton actually built on Ripley’s good

work to cover all possible approaches to the city.

Secessionville

In early April 1862 Maj. Gen. David Hunter replaced Thomas W. Sherman

as commander of what was called the Southern Expedition. Still based at

Port Royal, elements of the expeditionary corps reduced Fort Pulaski near

Savannah in mid-April by establishing riﬂed batteries near the work and

bombarding it.

Soon after, Brig. Gen. Henry Benham devised a plan to strike at Charles-

ton. Since Pemberton had abandoned the mouth of the Stono River, it was

possible for Union forces to gain access to the southern half of James Island.

Benham called for one division under Brig. Gen. Isaac Stevens to sail into

Stono Inlet and land on Sol Legare Island, which was connected to James

Island by two causeways. Another division under Brig. Gen. Horatio Wright

would land from Edisto Island to Johns Island, march over it, and cross the

Stono onto James Island. These toeholds would lead to further movement

toward the northern shore of the island overlooking the harbor.

The operation was successful at ﬁrst. The Federals started out on June 2,

1862, when Stevens landed on Sol Legare Island and Wright crossed the

water from Edisto Island and began to march across Johns Island. Some of

Stevens’s men skirmished with Confederate troops at one of the causeways

connecting Sol Legare to James on June 3. Nearly a week later, on June 9,

Wright crossed the Stono and encamped at Grimball’s Plantation on the

western edge of James Island. He built a fortiﬁed camp consisting of a line

of infantry trench and battery emplacements more than 1,200 yards long,

which was designed by Col. Edward W. Serrell of the 1st New York Engineers.

The Confederates sought to push troops close to this post to contain the

Yankees at Grimball’s Plantation. The resulting ﬁght on June 10 was an open

ﬁeld engagement fought outside the works and resulting in a Confederate

repulse. But this battle convinced Hunter to call off the operation. He or-

Charleston 245

dered Benham, who commanded the two divisions in the ﬁeld, to retain his

toehold on James Island. Benham far exceeded his orders and took the

offensive.

Hunter instructed Benham to do all that was necessary to secure his

camps, and Benham decided that taking the Tower Battery, about two miles

away, was necessary. He later wrote that the Confederates ﬁred heavily from

the fort as far as his picket lines and that they could use the work as a base to

harass his encampments. Under the guise of conducting a reconnaissance in

force, Benham made a major effort to take the battery on June 16. Laid out

by Col. Lewis M. Hatch near the village of Secessionville, and guarding a

road toward Charleston Harbor that ran along a narrow neck of land, the

Tower Battery was a strong fortiﬁcation that earned its name because of an

observation tower erected just to the rear. The work had four faces, and the

indented front faced the direction of approach from the southwest, render-

ing the conﬁguration of the fort a giant M. Its parapets, which ranged from

nine to sixteen feet high, mounted seven guns. The Tower Battery’s greater

strength lay in its location. Marshes swept up to the ditches of the work on

both ﬂanks, leaving a stretch of solid land only about 200 yards wide in its

front. A sandy, ﬂat cotton ﬁeld stretched before the battery. The rows of the

previous crop were still high, which made for some rough marching but

provided a modicum of cover if one lay ﬂat behind them. Moreover, a hedge

ran a couple of hundred yards from the fort and parallel to its front face. The

Tower Battery was a good work in a superb defensive position.

∫

Benham made his arrangements on the evening of June 15 and set out

early the next morning. Stevens’s division, some 3,500 men, would attack

frontally while Wright advanced along the solid ground north of the marsh

that ﬂanked the fort’s right wing. The most Wright could do was to occupy

any Confederate forces that might threaten Benham’s left and deliver long-

range musketry at the fort. In a last-minute conference Benham’s subordi-

nates advised not making the attack at all, but he was determined.

Ω

Despite his misgivings, Stevens took some care to organize his assault. He

told his men to advance quietly, each regiment immediately behind the

preceding one. It was still dark, and Stevens wanted surprise to be his chief

ally. The Federals captured an outlying picket post but were discovered by

the time they were within artillery range of the Tower Battery. The 8th

Michigan led the way with two of its companies a few yards ahead to act as a

forlorn hope. The regiment managed to climb the parapet at the angle where

the left face joined the front and shot down some of the gunners, but the 9th

South Carolina Battalion raced into the fort just in time to save the 100 Con-

federate gunners who were desperately trying to stop the Michigan troops.

246 Charleston

When the Federals were pushed off the parapet, most took shelter in the

ditch or retreated.

It proved impossible to bring up troops fast enough to help the 8th Michi-

gan exploit its brief hold on the parapet. Soggy ground, the severely re-

stricted approach, and inexperienced regimental commanders disrupted the

ﬂow of help. The left wing of the 7th Connecticut became bogged down in the

marsh to the north, and the unit halted well short of the fort. A third regi-

ment, the 28th Massachusetts, essentially duplicated the performance of the

7th Connecticut. Then the 79th New York conducted a spirited attack, by-

passed the two stalled regiments, and gained a tenuous hold on the parapet

exactly where the 8th Michigan had almost succeeded; but the 79th, too, was

pushed off the work because no support came up. Two more regiments tried,

but neither was able to lend timely aid to the 79th. The 100th Pennsylvania

made it as close as thirty yards from the fort, but the 46th New York halted

among the fragments of previous regiments that littered the cotton ﬁeld. By

5:30 a.m., only an hour after the start of the attack, the battle was over.

Wright failed to offer effective support. The 3rd New Hampshire advanced

to a point opposite the Tower Battery but remained separated from it by 150

yards of marsh. The regiment ﬁred on the fort and was blistered with return

ﬁre by Confederate infantry that had rushed into the work. In addition, more

Rebel infantry and artillery, positioned to the north of the 3rd New Hamp-

shire, opened ﬁre on the regiment. As the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery

advanced against this northern threat, the New Hampshire men pulled out,

and Wright beat a hasty retreat. Unaware of this, Stevens worked to reform

his shattered division behind the hedge in anticipation of a second charge

on the fort, but Benham lost his nerve and ordered everyone to return to

their camps.

∞≠

Col. Thomas G. Lamar of the 1st South Carolina Artillery commanded the

Confederates that day. He called up infantry support and directed the gun

crews as they opened ﬁre when the Federals were 700 yards away, personally

sighting an 8-inch Columbiad. All told, there were no more than 500 in-

fantrymen inside the Tower Battery during most of the battle, but an addi-

tional 1,000 came up near its end. They had only an hour’s sleep the night

before, having exhausted themselves in preparing the fort for action. Be-

cause of the colonel’s successful effort, the Tower Battery was renamed Fort

Lamar.

∞∞

Federal losses amounted to 685 men, while Lamar lost 204. Hunter ar-

rested Benham for exceeding his orders. For the next two weeks the Fed-

erals maintained their tenuous hold on James Island and Sol Legare Island.

Wright strengthened his defense at Grimball’s Plantation, adding emplace-

Charleston 247

ments for twenty-seven guns and building a detached work called Battery

Wright for nine guns. On the eastern end of Sol Legare Island, well within

range of Fort Lamar, a previously constructed work named Battery Stevens

was strengthened, and a new fort, Battery Williams, was built for four guns.

All of this labor came to nothing, however, for Hunter, distraught that higher

authorities could not send him reinforcements, abandoned James Island.

The evacuation began on July 1. Benham’s culpability for this disaster was

widely known, but political inﬂuence saved his career. He led the Volunteer

Engineer Brigade in the Army of the Potomac from 1863 to the end of the

war, but his command of that unique organization was undistinguished.

∞≤

The attack on Fort Lamar failed because Benham and Stevens inade-

quately scouted the terrain to determine what obstacles lay in the path of the

division, and Stevens could not move his regiments quickly enough across

the conﬁned battleﬁeld. The distance between each regiment increased as

obstacles slowed progress. As a result, the two units that gained the parapet

had no support to exploit their advantage. Lamar brought up Confederate

infantry in time to repel them. Finally, the work itself was a major factor in

Lamar’s victory. Its design and location could not have been more suited to

Rebel needs. Hazard Stevens, who served on his father’s division staff, be-

lieved the Federals lost at Secessionville because of ‘‘the strength of the

work[,] manned as it was by a resolute garrison, and the destructive ﬁre of

its heavy guns.’’

∞≥

The elder Stevens had planned to make good use of Capt. Alfred F. Sears’s

Company E, 1st New York Engineers. Assigned to follow the forlorn hope, the

two advanced companies of the 8th Michigan, Sears ordered his men to sling

their riﬂe muskets over their backs and armed them with tools to remove

obstructions. For some reason Stevens changed his mind and ordered the

company to the rear just before the assault began. Sears then helped the

artillery cut its way through hedges and other natural obstacles. He reported

that the slung muskets interfered with the men’s ability to work and sug-

gested that combat engineers be armed with pistols or sabers. ‘‘The sabers

would form a useful implement also in clearing entanglements, abatis, and

hedges,’’ he added. As it was, some of his men dropped their tools when they

thought at one point that they would be ordered to take part in the attack,

and he lost these implements that habitually were in short supply.

∞∂

Beauregard and the Defenses of Charleston

Pemberton tried to take credit for the victory at Secessionville by argu-

ing that his abandonment of the defenses at the mouth of the Stono River

lured the Federals into attacking James Island, but the Charleston public re-