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

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248 Charleston

mained dissatisﬁed with their Northern-born commander. He did not have

the personality to inspire conﬁdence, appeared indecisive as well as inatten-

tive to the public mood, and was inept in handling politicians. President

Davis replaced him with his opposite in every way, G. T. Beauregard, on Au-

gust 29, 1862.

Beauregard was not satisﬁed with Pemberton’s work. The system of outer

defenses that he had partially devised in 1861, with Ripley’s help, had been

abandoned, and the newer works Pemberton had started closer to the city

demanded much labor and armament to complete. Beauregard found many

faults with the placement and design of Pemberton’s fortiﬁcations. The

works on James Island were ‘‘not very properly arranged and located,’’ he

thought.

His subordinates also found fault. Wilmot G. De Saussure, the state’s

adjutant and inspector general, considered the James Island ﬁeldworks ‘‘lit-

tle more than heavy breastworks, which may give conﬁdence to raw troops,

but as they cover a great extent, and run through a country nearly the whole

of which is a natural road, masses may be thrown upon any particular point,

and the works are not strong enough to resist such an attack.’’ Brig. Gen.

States Right Gist wanted to reinforce the line of detached works between

James Island Creek and Lighthouse Creek by ﬁlling in the empty spaces with

infantry trenches. Gist also wanted to thicken the parapets of the continuous

line between James Island Creek and Wappoo Creek, as the work had eroded

considerably.

The line between the Cooper and Ashley rivers northwest of Charleston

had a strong proﬁle and was ‘‘elaborately constructed, but badly located, . . .

not being well adapted to the ground,’’ wrote Beauregard. Woods in front

partially commanded them, and the line could be enﬁladed by gunboats in

either river. ‘‘Adaption of ‘means to an end’ has not always been consulted

in the works around this city,’’ he concluded. ‘‘Much unnecessary work has

been bestowed upon many of them.’’ Moreover, there were far too few re-

sources; a mere 6,500 infantrymen and 1,700 artillerymen were all he had,

while both Pemberton and Beauregard thought the department needed more

than 43,000 men.

Roswell Ripley returned from duty in Virginia to help Beauregard, and Lt.

Col. David B. Harris was also available. On Beauregard’s staff since First

Manassas, the Virginia-born Harris was his chief engineer. The Creole gen-

eral also appointed Capt. William H. Echols as chief engineer of South Caro-

lina and Capt. John McCrady as chief engineer of Georgia.

∞∑

Beauregard felt that his weakest sector was James Island. Because of

Pemberton’s abandonment of Coles’s Island and his slow construction of new

Charleston 249

Charleston and

Savannah Railroad

Pemberton’s line of artillery

and infantry works

John’s

Island

James

Island

Coles’s

Island

Folly

Island

Morris

Island

Sullivan’s Island

Charleston

Mount Pleasant

Secessionville

Christ Church

Dill’s House

Grimball’s Plantation

Fort

Palmetto

Fort Marshall

Fort Moultrie

Battery Gregg

Fort Sumter

Castle

Pinckney

Battery

Wagner

Fort Lamar

Manigault’s

line

Beauregard’s new line

Battery Pringle

Fort

Johnson

Fort Pemberton

Line of infantry trench

Pemberton’s Mount

Pleasant line, infantry

and artillery works

Beauregard’s line

of five detached

batteries

Pemberton’s line

of detached works

Line of detached

redoubts

Line of redans and

infantry trench

Copahee Sound

Elliott’s

Creek

James Island

Creek

Wappoo

Creek

Elliott’s Cut

Stono

River

Stono Inlet

Lighthouse

Inlet

Lighthouse

Creek

Charleston Defenses, 1863

works in the area, the island was poorly defended and too large for the

available manpower. Ripley was convinced that maintaining the defenses at

the mouth of the Stono would have been the most economical plan for

defending the island.

Beauregard considered strengthening Pemberton’s lines on James Island.

Captain Echols worked up estimates of time and labor needed to build two

new redans, extend one battery, and raze more than 200 yards of existing

250 Charleston

earthwork on the line of detached works from James Island Creek to Light-

house Creek. It would have involved employing 100 black laborers for four-

teen and a half days to move 7,384 cubic yards of dirt. The proposed changes

to the continuous line of works between Wappoo Creek and James Island

Creek involved creating three new redans with a total of 25,395 cubic yards

of earth. One hundred blacks would be needed for ﬁfty-one days. Echols did

not calculate the time and labor needed to revet and sod the parapet or build

gun platforms.

Beauregard hesitated to invest so much effort on a defective line, but he

strengthened the harbor defenses of Charleston. Harris was primarily re-

sponsible for reinforcing the walls of Sumter and Moultrie and obstructing

the entrance to the harbor. He also placed torpedoes in every navigable

stream that gave access to the harbor.

The work was hampered by a shortage of labor. Beauregard and his subor-

dinates constantly complained that the soldiers did not have their hearts in

heavy work. Langdon Cheves thought the problem was that ‘‘neither ofﬁcer

nor men were taught . . . by their superiors to regard this work as an impor-

tant part of their duty.’’ Beauregard had seen this problem before First Ma-

nassas. ‘‘Our Southern soldiers object most strenuously to work with spades

and shovels,’’ he explained to Governor Francis Pickens. ‘‘They will do it in

very pressing emergencies, but on ordinary occasions do more grumbling

than work; they prefer decidedly to ﬁght.’’ The commander suggested orga-

nizing a company of 100 black laborers for every two regiments, but the

Confederate use of slave labor around Charleston was characterized by prob-

lems. Ofﬁcers reported illness and chronic shortages of shelter, ﬁrewood,

bedding, and food among the black workers. Soldiers provided the most

efﬁcient labor supply for work on fortiﬁcations, but the number of troops

available had to be large enough so that they were not overworked. It also

helped a great deal if there was some imminent threat or the immediate

prospect of a battle to spur the soldiers to greater exertion.

∞∏

Throughout the last half of 1862 and the ﬁrst half of 1863, the Federals

made no serious move against Charleston. Hunter was content with the

status quo and downplayed the suggestions of every subordinate who of-

fered ideas for an offensive. As the navy made plans to attack the harbor

defenses, Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour proposed establishing batteries on

Morris Island to breach Sumter’s walls, but Hunter ignored him. Maj. Gen.

John G. Foster came up with a similar plan, but Hunter transferred him due

to a conﬂict over other matters. The result was that the army did virtually

nothing when the navy attacked. A ﬂeet of seagoing ironclads steamed up to

Sumter on April 7, 1863, and bombarded the masonry fort. Exaggerated

Charleston 251

Northern faith in the power of these new weapons was shattered. The iron-

clads lacked the ﬁrepower to overcome the armament of Charleston’s harbor

forts. Battered, they retreated without doing any appreciable harm.

Hunter allowed Seymour to land a brigade on Folly Island during the navy

attack but refused to let this force do anything more. It continued to main-

tain a toehold on the outlying islands near the entrance to Charleston Har-

bor. Pemberton’s abandonment of Coles’s Island allowed Seymour this lati-

tude. Little stood in the way of a Union landing on the southern end of

Morris Island, which was just a few hundred yards north of Folly.

∞π

Gillmore’s Operations on Morris Island

The repulse of the ironclads created a lot of bad publicity in the North,

which motivated the Lincoln administration to renew efforts to strike at

Charleston. Hunter was replaced by Brig. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, who had

recently led an infantry division in Kentucky but had not yet commanded

infantry in battle. He had graduated at the top of his West Point class in 1849

and had worked on the nation’s coastal forts as an ofﬁcer in the Corps of

Engineers.

∞∫

Federal authorities called Gillmore to Washington in late May 1863 and

asked him if he could neutralize Sumter to let the ﬂeet steam into the harbor.

Gillmore answered in the afﬁrmative. He proposed landing on the southern

end of Morris Island, capturing the two forts at the center and the north end

of the island, and reducing Sumter by long-range ﬁre. Rear Admiral Samuel

F. Du Pont, the leader of the April 7 attack, would command supporting

naval vessels.

Gillmore took charge of the Department of the South on June 12, 1863. His

command consisted of eleven occupied posts along a strip of seacoast in

South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He abandoned some of the less impor-

tant posts and shifted resources around to organize a force of 11,000 infan-

try, 350 artillerymen, and 400 engineer troops to attack Morris Island. The

latter came from the 1st New York Engineers. Gillmore also had four newly

raised black regiments. The force assigned to the Morris Island operation

was half of the available manpower in his department. Beauregard had only

650 infantrymen and 350 artillerymen on Morris Island and 2,000 infantry-

men, 3,800 artillerymen, and 550 cavalrymen deployed at various points on

James Island.

∞Ω

The Federals would employ fortiﬁcations at nearly every opportunity.

Engineer troops broke ground for the construction of emplacements on the

north end of Folly Island on the night of June 17; they ﬁnished works for

thirty-two guns and ﬁfteen mortars by June 26. Confederate pickets were

252 Charleston

stationed on the other side of Lighthouse Inlet, which separated the engi-

neers from Morris Island, but the sound of the surf drowned out most of the

construction noise. The Federals covered their progress with trees and brush

during the day and even sprinkled dry sand over the newly turned, wetter

sand. The parapets of these batteries were twenty feet thick and eight feet

high. To lessen the work of cutting planks, the men built embrasures and

sturdy platforms large enough to serve two guns each. Heavy pine logs

roughly hewn on one side served as sleepers. It was necessary to provide a

ﬁrm foundation for the platforms because of the wet sand underneath the

surface. The Engineer Department in Washington, D.C., shipped thousands

of sandbags to revet the parapets and traverses. Gabions reinforced with

hoop iron and fascines wrapped with hides were used to revet the embra-

sures. The sand was particularly ﬁne at one battery site, and the engineers

had to use palmetto logs to revet the parapet up to two and a half feet high.

The Federals also built bombproofs by leaning heavy logs against the parapet

and covering them with two feet of sand.

≤≠

All this labor was done to provide artillery support for the landing on

Morris Island. While the works were under construction, Gillmore shipped

Brig. Gen. Alfred H. Terry’s division and Brig. Gen. George C. Strong’s bri-

gade to Folly Island under cover of darkness. Terry moved his division onto

James Island as a diversion on July 8. His division skirmished with the

Confederates and effectively drew their attention away from Morris Island.

Meanwhile Strong, covered by the massive ﬁre of Gillmore’s batteries and

four ironclads, landed on the southern end of Morris on July 10. The infantry

boarded boats the night before and waited behind marsh grass in Lighthouse

Inlet. They tied white ribbons on their left arm so they could be easily identi-

ﬁed. After a two-hour bombardment the next morning, Strong’s men landed

and easily captured the Rebel works, which consisted of eleven detached,

one-gun batteries with no supporting infantry works nearby. The Federals

occupied three-fourths of the island and were within musket range of Bat-

tery Wagner by 9:00 a.m. Gillmore decided the heat and the confusion of his

landing were too great to allow an immediate attack on the work.

≤∞

The Confederates were not taken by surprise. Pickets had heard the sound

of chopping on Folly Island during the night of July 8, but they could not see

anything in the daytime. When the move occurred, Beauregard realized he

did not have enough strength on Morris Island to repel Strong’s brigade, so

he evacuated the batteries on the south end of the island and relied on the

two forts on the upper half. For the same reason, he could not shift troops

from Morris to James Island to meet Terry’s threat, nor could he move the

troops on James to Morris. Beauregard continued to view James Island as

Charleston 253

the most vulnerable sector of his defense. Morris Island was comparatively

isolated and a threat only to the safety of Fort Sumter if it was in Union

hands. If James Island were occupied, it could lead to the fall of Charleston.

The Rebels planted more torpedoes in front of Wagner and rushed reinforce-

ments to the battery.

≤≤

The fort and its companion, Battery Gregg, had been built long before.

Gregg was constructed soon after the abandonment of Coles’s Island in 1862.

It protected the wharf on the north end of Morris, which was the only link

the island had with Charleston. After the battle of Secessionville, Pemberton

ordered the construction of a larger work at the narrowest point of the island

to protect Gregg from a northward attack. Capt. Langdon Cheves and Capt.

Francis D. Lee, who had worked on Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard at Port

Royal, designed it. Initially called the Neck Battery, it was started in the

summer of 1862 about 1,200 yards south of Fort Gregg as an emplacement

for artillery, with guns sited to ﬁre down the length of the island. The Con-

federates renamed it Battery Wagner in November 1862 to memorialize Lt.

Col. Thomas M. Wagner of the 1st South Carolina Artillery, who had been

killed in the explosion of a gun at the work the previous July.

≤≥

When Beauregard inspected the work in the fall of 1862, he ordered it

converted into a fort with infantry ﬁring positions as well as artillery. The

rear was closed by a parapet, and a battery of three heavy guns was built to

ﬁre at shipping. He added traverses between the gun emplacements on the

land face and erected a large bombproof in the angle of the work. As an

additional support, Beauregard ordered the construction of detached one-

gun batteries on the south end of Morris Island in March 1863; these posi-

tions had been abandoned when Gillmore landed on Morris Island.

≤∂

By the time the Federals came within reach, Battery Wagner was impres-

sive. The sea face measured 210 feet along the interior crest. The bombproof,

20 by 20 feet in dimension, was positioned as a traverse protecting the three

guns on the sea face from ﬁre by land-based artillery. A second bombproof

was parallel to the sea face and measured 30 feet by 130 feet. It could hold

900 men if they were willing to stand ‘‘elbow to elbow and face to back.’’

One-third of this large bombproof was used by the medical personnel as a

hospital. The land face was 600 feet long with reentering angles and em-

placements for ﬁve guns. Heavy traverses protected each one. An extension

of the left ﬂank, forming yet another angle in the work, stretched out to the

high-tide mark of the beach. It was embrasured for two ﬁeld guns that could

sweep the front of the sea face. On the right a short, 300-foot-long retrench-

ment protected the ﬂank. The deep ditch in front of the work could be ﬁlled

with salt water from Vincent’s Creek at high tide and retained by sluice gates.

254 Charleston

The parapets were 15 feet high and 12 to 14 feet thick at the top. Battery

Wagner mounted a 10-inch Columbiad and two 32-pounders on the sea face,

with ﬁeld guns and 32-pounders in the other emplacements.

≤∑

Morris Island was an inhospitable place to conduct operations. A low-

lying barrier island, it ranged from 1,000 yards at the southern end to only 25

yards wide just south of Battery Wagner. The sand hills rose to no more than

36 feet above the high-water mark in the south, and to only 2 feet above it

just south of the fort. The sea was a constant enemy. Spring tides often

washed across the narrow neck south of Wagner, and Gillmore noted that

they ate away one foot of the island every day during the campaign. To the

west, a stratum of muck made up the salt marsh that separated Morris Island

from James Island, and Gillmore noticed that this mud was often exposed

between the high-tide and low-tide marks on the beach. ‘‘The island, in fact,

is simply an irregular mass of sand, which, by the continual action of wind

and sea (particularly the former), has been accumulated upon the bosom of

the marsh.’’ There was essentially no dirt on the island, only ‘‘a ﬁne and

almost white quartz sand.’’

≤∏

Gillmore attacked on July 11, hoping to avoid a protracted campaign on

the island. The move was hastily planned and poorly coordinated. Four

companies of the 7th Connecticut led, followed by the 76th Pennsylvania and

9th Maine, all of Strong’s brigade. The push started at dawn from a distance

of 500 yards. A thin line of 150 Rebels stationed in a forward position, a

shallow trench on top of a slight rise of sand about 300 yards in front of the

battery, ﬁred a volley before retiring to the work. The Connecticut troops

broke into a run and got into the ditch before the Rebel artillery opened up;

several managed to cross the parapet and bayonet two Confederate gunners.

The rest remained on top and on the exterior slope of the parapet or in the

ditch, which had one foot of water in it, waiting for the 76th Pennsylvania to

come up. That regiment had drifted some 200 yards behind the Connecticut

unit. It was further delayed when the men dropped to the ground as the

Rebel artillery opened ﬁre. The Pennsylvanians screwed up their courage

and rushed forward; some managed to make it to the ditch, but the rest

retreated. Pelted with hand grenades from the interior slope of the parapet

and harassed by ﬂank ﬁre because the reentering angles of the land face

allowed the defenders to enﬁlade them, the Connecticut soldiers ﬁnally gave

up their toehold on the battery. They suffered from Rebel ﬁre all the way

back. Only 88 of the 191 men in the four companies of the 7th Connecticut

survived the attack.

≤π

Three Union regiments were used in the assault, which cost Gillmore 339

casualties. It had been an opportunistic move, made without artillery sup-

Charleston 255

port, to catch the Rebels by surprise. The major problem was coordination.

The narrow approach to Wagner meant that only one regiment at a time

could throw itself at the work; all supporting units had to follow. There was

ample opportunity for those units to be delayed by a number of factors. The

Connecticut companies needed help from the 76th Pennsylvania as soon as

they reached the ditch; but ten or more minutes probably transpired before

the vanguard of the Pennsylvania unit got there, and most of the regiment

never made it that far. Col. Robert F. Graham of the 21st South Carolina com-

manded Wagner that day. He had 1,190 men in the fort. The 18th Georgia

Battalion fought off the few members of the 7th Connecticut who mounted

the land face. Graham lost 12 men that day.

≤∫

Gillmore was determined to try a second assault with substantial artillery

preparation and more men. He constructed four batteries on Morris Island

and named himself chief engineer to oversee the work. Forty-one guns were

mounted on July 15. Gillmore planned to attack the next day, but a series

of heavy rainstorms hit the area. The batteries were ﬂooded, and a lot of

powder was spoiled, forcing the Federals to delay their attack two days.

≤Ω

Meanwhile, Beauregard had his hands full. He was forced to send rein-

forcements arriving at Charleston to James Island, for Terry’s division re-

mained there as a serious threat. These reinforcements, under Brig. Gen.

Johnson Hagood, took the offensive and forced Terry to evacuate James

Island by July 17. Beauregard held a conference to determine the feasibility

of taking the offensive on Morris Island, but the participants concluded it

would not work. The Union ﬂeet covered the whole island with its ﬁre, and

the thin line of boats connecting the wharf at Battery Gregg with downtown

Charleston could not ship large numbers of troops quickly enough to over-

come Gillmore’s strength. The Confederates resigned themselves to a grim

defensive strategy on Morris to buy time for Sumter.

≥≠

When Gillmore opened his bombardment on July 18, Battery Wagner

was manned by 1,620 men. In addition to the ﬁre from his land batteries,

Gillmore had the support of ﬁve monitors, the USS New Ironsides, a large

wooden frigate, and six mortar boats. Altogether, some 9,000 rounds were

pumped into the fort during nearly twelve hours of shelling. The Confeder-

ates lost no more than four killed and fourteen wounded in this hail of iron

because most of the garrison remained in the bombproofs; only the Charles-

ton Battalion stood ﬁre at their stations. The units sheltering in the bomb-

proofs were assigned sectors of the parapet so there would be no confusion

when it came time to rush to their posts. The Charleston Battalion was on the

right wing of the land face, the 51st North Carolina was in the middle, and

the 31st North Carolina was on the left, holding the crucial angle. The guns

256 Charleston

were manned by two companies of the 1st South Carolina Heavy Artillery

and Company B and Company K of the 63rd Georgia, acting as artillerists.

Some members of the 51st North Carolina, which had served in Wagner for

the preceding six days and had gotten little sleep, fainted from heat exhaus-

tion in the crowded bombproofs. The parapets were hardly damaged by the

Union bombardment, but the roof of the magazine began to deteriorate.

Fortunately for the Rebels, the shelling stopped about dusk before this prob-

lem became critical.

≥∞

The attack, scheduled for dusk, was a duplicate of the failed assault seven

days earlier, although on a larger scale. Strong’s brigade led the attack sup-

ported by Col. Haldimand S. Putnam’s brigade. Strong’s advance unit was

the 54th Massachusetts, which had been raised from among the free black

population of the North. It was deployed in two lines so as to negotiate the

narrow deﬁle. Even so, the regimental formation extended so far down the

beach that some men had to wade in the surf and others had to drop back

and wait until the formation passed by. The Massachusetts men ran to the

fort in the dusk; many climbed the parapet of the land face, while others

tried to climb the sea face. The 51st North Carolina ﬁred at point-blank range

as the Federals struggled up the sand slope. They hung on for nearly an hour

as their commander, Col. Robert G. Shaw, was killed.

≥≤

The Confederate garrison responded in time to man the parapet, although

not uniformly. The 51st North Carolina raced out of the bombproof and took

its position when there were still a few Federal shells falling, leaving only a

handful of men behind who did not have the nerve to expose themselves. The

entire 31st North Carolina, however, remained in the bombproof when or-

dered to take its position. The emotional hammering that accompanied the

bombardment was too much for them. The regiment had been in service

since September 1861, but it had been captured wholesale at Roanoke Island

in February 1862 and had seen little combat since then. Lt. Col. Charles W.

Knight reported that he could not get his men into position. A sympathetic

artillery ofﬁcer explained that it was ‘‘caused by the demoralizing effect of a

new and strange experience.’’ Yet the 51st North Carolina had seen as little

combat as the 31st, and it performed very well. Beauregard thought the

action of the 31st shameful, but Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro, who com-

manded Wagner that day, glossed over the incident in his report.

≥≥

The absence of the 31st North Carolina left a gap on the left wing of the

land face that was exploited by the next wave of Yankees. The 6th Connecti-

cut and 48th New York next hit Wagner, climbing the sea face. The Connecti-

cut men made their way into the angle where the 31st North Carolina should

have been and effected a lodgment, supported by many members of the 48th

Charleston 257

New York. The rest of Strong’s brigade hit the center of the land face, al-

though their formations were disrupted by the retreat of some members of

the 54th Massachusetts. But three additional regiments, the 3rd New Hamp-

shire, 9th Maine, and 76th Pennsylvania, climbed the land face to reinforce

those men of the 54th Massachusetts who remained on the parapet.

≥∂

Putnam’s brigade was late in coming to Strong’s support, and this helped

doom the assault. Division leader Truman Seymour rode with Strong’s bri-

gade. He sent an aide, Maj. Josiah I. Plimpton, back to fetch Putnam as soon

as he saw help was needed. Plimpton found Putnam’s men lying down 200

yards to the rear of the Union batteries. When told to move forward, Putnam

said Gillmore had told him to stay put. Plimpton reported back to Seymour,

but the brigade commander could do little more than reiterate his order.

Putnam responded to this second entreaty after having halted his brigade for

some twenty to thirty minutes. As the brigade moved forward, its progress

was delayed by a stream of men from Strong’s brigade, most of whom had

given up their precarious foothold on the parapet and retreated in the dark-

ness. Fragments of the 54th Massachusetts, 6th Connecticut, and 48th New

York still clung to the angle.

Although late, Putnam’s men came closer than anyone to taking the fort.

Part of his brigade attacked the sea face while Putnam and about 100 of

his men entered the angle. Here they were protected from Confederate ﬁre

by the bombproof and the traverses, which also trapped the Federals in a

corner. For a while neither side could accomplish anything. Putnam’s men

climbed to the roof of the bombproof and ﬁred into the fort, but they lacked

the strength to push forward. Taliaferro ordered the Charleston Battalion to

counterattack and recapture the angle; but its captain was killed, and the

battalion stopped in its tracks. The Federals did not know what to do. Put-

nam consulted with Maj. Lewis Butler of the 67th Ohio. Butler advised hold-

ing on until Brig. Gen. Thomas G. Stevenson’s brigade, next in line of sup-

port, should come up. Then Putnam was killed, and Butler took command of

what remained of his brigade. He held on in the angle longer than he esti-

mated it would take Stevenson to come up, all the while pelted by ﬁre from

the 51st North Carolina to the left. The angle Butler’s men occupied was like

a well into which the Rebels were dropping small arms ﬁre. Finally, Tal-

iaferro organized another counterattack through the opening to the angle,

and Butler retired at 10:30 p.m.

≥∑

Stevenson’s brigade never made it to the work. Seymour had sent Plimp-

ton to bring it up, but Gillmore, evidently concluding the assault was a

failure, ordered the brigade to halt before it came within supporting range of

the other two units. Again the primary problem was the narrow approach