JAMES ISLAND CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHARLESTON
General Hunter, busy in proclaiming martial law and freedom, and in
raising a black army by conscription, with which he hoped to strike a
blow into the vitals of the Confederacy in the future, decided for the
present simply to maintain a defensive attitude.
But Benham was greedy to signalize himself. His dense egotism and
self-sufficiency rendered him almost incapable of listening to any
suggestions, or even information, that did not originate with himself.
The movement planned by General Stevens with so much care was rejected
offhand by Benham. Yet he was extremely anxious to employ the troops in
some offensive operation, and gave Hunter no peace on that point.
Early in May Pemberton abandoned his works at the mouth of the Stono,
dismantling them and removing the guns for the purpose of arming an
inner line across James Island, which he was commencing, and which ran
from Fort Johnson in the harbor to Fort Pemberton on the Stono, ten
miles above its mouth, and the naval gunboats entered and took
possession of the lower four miles of the river. Here Benham saw his
chance. Hunter at length yielded to his importunity, and consented to a
demonstration in force upon Charleston by way of James Island. Benham
made the plan. One division of troops, under General Stevens, embarking
on transports, were to go around by sea, enter the Stono, and debark on
James Island. Another division, under General Wright, who was already
on Edisto Island with four thousand troops, was to make a combined land
and water movement over Edisto and John's islands, crossing the
intervening bays and streams, and reach James Island simultaneously with
Stevens. A prompt and successful attack upon the incomplete line of
intrenchments across that island would place Charleston in our power.
The plan was entirely practicable, but marred from the start by Benham's
unfortunate talent for blundering. When he communicated the details of
the movement to General Stevens, that officer pointed out to him that he
was not allowing time enough for Wright to make the movement required of
him, and reach James Island simultaneously with the other division, and
that he would necessarily be a week later in arriving unless his orders
were changed. Benham took this friendly advice in dudgeon. The orders
were not changed, and Wright was just one week behind the appointed
time, as predicted.
As soon as he was informed of the intended movement, General Stevens
earnestly urged Benham to inaugurate it by sending him to break up the
railroad, as he had so long and so well planned, or, if not with the
heavy force and thoroughness approved by General Sherman, at least to
permit him to throw his own brigade upon it. In a personal interview he
presented his views with such clearness and force that he actually
obtained a reluctant consent from Benham to make the attack, but at the
last moment he peremptorily countermanded the movement. Finally, to
General Stevens's last earnest request by telegraph he would only
consent that a demonstration might be made by the single regiment that
was to be left to garrison Beaufort, the 50th Pennsylvania, stipulating,
moreover, that it was to be back the same day it started on the raid.
Accordingly the 50th, under Colonel Christ, supported by a company of
the Highlanders and another of the Michiganders, a detachment of eighty
men of the 1st Massachusetts cavalry under Major Henry L. Higginson, and
a section of Rockwell's battery, advanced on May 29 to Pocotaligo, had a
brisk skirmish with the enemy, driving him from his position, with a
loss of two killed, six wounded, and two captured, and returned. The
Union loss was two killed and nine wounded. How different this mere
demonstration from the bold and crushing onslaught planned by General
Stevens!
General Rufus Saxton arrived at Beaufort to take charge of affairs there
on General Stevens's departure. He was one of the army officers who took
part in the Northern Pacific Railroad exploration under the latter, and
had been warmly recommended by him, as an able and experienced officer,
for appointment as brigadier-general, a recommendation which General
Saxton declares was finally the cause of his obtaining the appointment;
for, taking advanced views in favor of emancipating and elevating the
slaves, he was chiefly supported by the abolitionists, and was
considered a representative of that element. He brought with him a
provost-marshal, who, when the troops were embarking, came on the wharf
with a considerable guard, and summarily took from the hostler two
horses belonging to Captain Stevens, claiming that, having been captured
from the enemy, they were improperly held by that officer. They were, in
fact, captured animals, but had been regularly appraised by a board of
survey, and the value of them paid into the quartermaster's department.
The troops on the vessel witnessed this seizure with no goodwill, for
they all knew the horses, and one of the soldiers made haste to acquaint
the owner with what was taking place. He, finding remonstrance useless
and the captor determined to hold on to his prey, quietly stepped across
the wharf to the steamboat alongside, crowded with troops, all
interested spectators, and directed an officer of the 8th Michigan to
take his company ashore, seize the horses, and put them on board. The
order had scarcely left his lips when a hundred brawny fellows, musket
in hand, leaped over the ship's rail and on the wharf, rescued the
animals with no gentle hand, and drove the astonished and crestfallen
provost-marshal and his myrmidons off the wharf. Of course he rushed to
General Saxton, big with complaint, and the latter at once sought
redress of General Stevens for the forcing of his provost-guard. But the
latter in most emphatic terms rebuked the high-handed act of the
over-zealous provost, and fully upheld his staff officer.
Embarking the other three regiments of his brigade and Rockwell's
battery, reduced to four guns, on June 1 General Stevens proceeded to
Hilton Head, where he was joined by the 28th Massachusetts and 46th New
York in transports, and on the 2d steamed by sea around to, and entered,
the Stono, which was held by several gunboats, to a point above
Grimball's plantation, which was six miles above the mouth. The
transports anchored two miles below this point, and opposite a hamlet on
John's Island known as Legareville. A strong picket was thrown ashore on
James Island for the night, it being too late to land the troops. On the
3d they were put on shore in small boats, which were insufficient in
number, and made the landing slow and laborious. As soon as a few
companies were ashore, General Stevens advanced with them, drove back
the enemy, who were in considerable force, after a sharp action,
captured three guns, which they were moving back to their inner line,
and established his permanent picket line two and a half miles from the
river, running diagonally across the island from Big Folly Creek to the
Stono near Grimball's.
The action perhaps merits a fuller account. A farm road led back from
the river about two and a half miles to the bank of Big Folly Creek,
where it passed along a row of negro quarters. Here, turning to the left
or westward, it crossed a wide cotton-field, then traversed a strip of
woods, then crossed a marsh and slough by a causeway and continued on
across the island in a generally westward direction. Driving back the
enemy, General Stevens occupied the negro quarters with six companies,
two of the 28th Massachusetts on the right, then two of the Roundheads
and two of the Highlanders on the left. Two more companies of the
latter, as they came up, were posted farther to the left and front. The
enemy held the woods in front, and both sides opened a brisk musketry
fire across the broad intervening cotton-field. Some of their
skirmishers got across the field far to the right of our position, and,
under cover of the bushes which fringed the bank of the creek there,
threatened the flank. To meet this danger, Captain Stevens stationed a
platoon of the Roundheads a short distance to the right of the quarters,
where they, too, had the cover of the bushes.
Soon afterwards a column of the enemy, apparently a regiment, and which
was in fact the Charleston battalion, the crack corps of the city,
emerged from the woods, and advanced by the flank in column of fours,
headed by a mounted officer. In this order they charged down the road
across the field at the double-quick, and, notwithstanding the fire of
the companies stationed at the negro quarters, which proved singularly
ineffective, actually penetrated to the buildings; the 28th companies
gave way, and for a moment they had the position. But the Roundheads
held their ground, while the Highlanders charged them with the bayonet
and drove them in confusion to the right, whence they escaped across the
field to the woods. In the rush, however, they swept off and captured
Captain Cline and part of his platoon, which was posted to protect the
right flank. The Highlanders wounded and captured Lieutenant Henry
Walker, adjutant of the battalion, in the mêlée. General Stevens
immediately followed up this repulse by advancing his troops upon and
through the woods, and to the other side of the marsh and causeway,
forcing the enemy to abandon three pieces of artillery in his hasty
retreat. The guns were hauled to camp in triumph. The enemy acknowledged
a loss of seventeen wounded, one mortally, and one captured. His force
consisted of the Marion Rifles, Pee Dee Rifles, Evans Guard, Sumter
Guard, Beauregard Light Infantry, Charleston Riflemen, Irish Volunteers,
Calhoun Guard, and Union Light Infantry, in all apparently nine
companies. Yet all this array of chivalry did not save the guns they
were sent to bring in.
The picket line was posted along the front side of the woods, and on the
edge of the marsh. The enemy's pickets held the other side of the marsh.
There were several picket skirmishes during the next few days. The
troops were kept well employed in landing stores, making camps, and on
picket duty, awaiting the arrival of Wright's division.
Benham was eager for General Stevens to make a dash upon the enemy's
lines without waiting for the balance of his army, but hesitated to give
the order. The latter, fearing most his commander's blundering
precipitancy, in the following confidential note urged him to come to a
speedy decision, representing that a day's preparation was absolutely
essential:--
JAMES ISLAND, June 6, 1862.
DEAR GENERAL,--I understand your wish to be to make an armed
reconnoissance of the enemy's position, and if the result be
favorable, to follow it up by a dash, in order to seize James Island
below James River and Newton Cut.
We shall probably be as well able to make it day after to-morrow
(daylight) as at any other time.
Should you decide to make it day after to-morrow, it is of the first
consequence to make that decision without delay. It will require all
day to-morrow to prepare for it. I would suggest that not more than
three companies be left at Legareville; that everything else be
brought over to-morrow, including the six guns of Hamilton's
battery; that arrangements be made with the gunboats to open
cross-fires. The system of signals will require careful arrangement.
I desire that the dash be successful, and therefore I want to see
every man thrown in. But I desire particularly to express my
judgment that, in the present position of our troops, twenty-four
hours of vigorous work is absolutely essential in the way of
preparation.
Very truly yours,
ISAAC I. STEVENS.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL BENHAM.
How completely this judicious caution as to the necessity of due
preparation was thrown away upon the opinionated Benham was proved ten
days later, but for the present he gave up the idea of a dash.
In a letter to his wife, dated June 11, General Stevens gives expression
to his disgust at the incompetents set over him:--
"I am not in very good spirits to-night, for the reason that I have
two commanders, Hunter and Benham, who are imbecile, vacillating,
and utterly unfit to command. Why it has been my fortune to be
placed in positions where I was of little account, and to be
subjected to such extreme mortification and annoyance, is beyond my
imagining. It may not even teach me patience. I shall, however, do
the best I can. If the authorities would send some man not
altogether incompetent, I should be better satisfied. Why can't
Mansfield be sent here, and both Hunter and Benham relieved? As for
myself, I am tabooed. No proper use is intended to be made of me,
and as everybody is in the humor to speak highly of my abilities, I
shall be held in part responsible for the follies of others. Benham
is an ass,--a dreadful man, of no earthly use except as a nuisance
and obstruction."
A few days later he writes:--
"We are now attempting an enterprise for which our force is entirely
inadequate. The want of a proper commander is fearful. We shall try
to prevent any disaster occurring. This is all I can say at
present."
On the 8th Wright's division reached Legareville, and was occupied the
next two days in crossing the river, and taking a position at
Grimball's, a mile and a half above General Stevens's camp. Colonel
Robert Williams went into camp with his 1st Massachusetts cavalry just
below Wright. The 7th Connecticut, which came with the overland column,
joined General Stevens's division.
Wright's delay was caused by the inadequacy of the water transportation,
especially boats, furnished him. It was found an exceedingly slow and
laborious operation to transfer troops, guns, and horses from shore to
ship, and from ship to shore, in a few small boats. There were no
wharves, and the landing-places were narrow and swampy. It was only by
the greatest exertions, working his command night and day, that he was
able to accomplish in a week the movement which Benham expected made in
a day. Yet Benham, blind to the energetic and loyal character of Wright
and the strenuous exertions of his troops on this march, never forgave
that officer for the delay. Utterly unaccustomed to the command and
handling of troops, and swollen with new-found authority, he ever deemed
his loud and peremptory "Those are my orders, sir," an equivalent to
that painstaking attention to details and to means which Napoleon and
Wellington and all great soldiers have found indispensable.
The army now assembled numbered about twelve thousand, and was organized
in two divisions and an independent brigade, as follows:--
First Division, Brigadier-General H.G. Wright.
First Brigade, Colonel J.L. Chatfield.
6th Connecticut, Colonel J.L. Chatfield.
47th New York, Colonel P.C. Kane.
97th Pennsylvania, Colonel H.R. Guss.
Second Brigade, Colonel Thomas Welsh.
45th Pennsylvania, Colonel Thomas Welsh.
76th Pennsylvania, Colonel J.M. Power.
Battery E, 3d U.S. artillery, Captain John Hamilton.
Second Division, Brigadier-General Isaac I. Stevens.
First Brigade, Colonel William M. Fenton.
8th Michigan, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Graves.
28th Massachusetts, Lieutenant-Colonel M. Moore.
7th Connecticut, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph R. Hawley.
Second Brigade, Colonel Daniel Leasure.
79th Highlanders, Lieutenant-Colonel David Morrison.
100th Pennsylvania, Major David A. Lecky.
46th New York, Colonel Rudolph Rosa.
1st Connecticut Battery, Captain A.P. Rockwell.
Independent Brigade, Colonel Robert Williams.
1st Massachusetts cavalry, Lieut.-Col. H.B. Sargent.
3d R.I. heavy artillery (infantry), Major E. Metcalf.
3d New Hampshire, Colonel J.H. Jackson.
1st New York engineers, Colonel E.W. Serrell.
All this time the enemy were concentrating and working like beavers on
their new line of works across the island. In advance of the left of the
line, at the narrowest neck of a peninsula formed by two inlets
extending from Big Folly Creek, they had previously erected a strong
work, known as Battery or Fort Lamar. It was a hundred yards long in
front, and completely blocked the neck from shore to shore, so that it
was impossible to turn or flank it. It had a wide and deep ditch, and a
heavy parapet sixteen feet in height above the general level of the
grounds and twenty-four feet above the bottom of the ditch, and
extended back on both flanks along the inlets. It mounted eight heavy
guns, viz., an 8-inch columbiad, two rifled 24-pounders, four
18-pounders, and a 15-inch mortar, and protected the whole left of their
line with a flank fire. The front was well covered by abattis, except at
the left angle, where a cart road ran along the left flank a hundred
yards, then passing inside and to the rear.[17] In front of the fort the
peninsula rapidly widened out. The ground was in old cotton-fields, open
and level, except for the high ridges and deep furrows resulting from
that crop. About five hundred yards in front of the fort a hedge and
ditch extended across the peninsula, separating field from field; and
five hundred yards farther another hedge-row and ditch separated the
second field from the road already mentioned. Both sides of the neck
were skirted with bushes along the banks of the inlets, a light fringe
on the eastward or left, a thicker fringe, affording some cover, on the
west side. The ground rose immediately behind the work, overlooking it,
and was covered with a growth of pine timber, above which uprose a tall,
skeleton signal tower. The peninsula was known as Secessionville Neck,
from the landing-place of that name on its extremity.
Half a mile to the right of Battery Lamar, on the main line, was Battery
Reed, mounting two 24-pounders, and commanding the ground in front of
the former with a searching cross-fire.
There was also a floating battery, mounting two guns, moored in the
inlet to the left rear of the fort.
These works were continually shelling our pickets. The camps were beyond
their range. In order to answer them General Stevens was allowed by
Benham to erect a battery of three 24-pounder siege-guns on the point
nearest the enemy's fort, and half a mile to the right of the negro
quarters already mentioned. The battery was situated some two hundred
yards from the extreme point, and on the bank of Big Folly Creek, and
partially screened by the bushes there. It was well built, with heavy
parapet and traverse, and the detachment of Roundheads who manned the
guns soon felt quite secure. When it opened on the fort, it evidently
caused some perturbation among the enemy. For some time a lively
interchange of missiles was kept up. Our shells set fire to the floating
battery, and the next night it was moved farther down the inlet. The
Union battery could be approached on foot under cover of the bushes
which lined the bank of the creek, but to reach it on horseback it was
necessary to ride down the field in open view of the hostile work, and a
group of horsemen was pretty sure to draw their fire.
A few days after the battery was completed, General Benham, accompanied
by General Stevens and quite a cavalcade of their respective staffs,
rode out to inspect the picket line. As they were returning by the road
towards the negro quarters, Benham expressed a wish to visit the
battery, and turned his horse to ride towards it. General Stevens
suggested that it would be better to approach the battery on foot under
cover of the bushes, as the enemy would probably fire on so large a
party in the open field. Benham repelled the suggestion with a rude
exclamation, and continued to ride towards the battery. General Stevens,
of course, kept his place by his side without further comment, and the
staffs and orderlies followed as in duty bound. As soon as the
cavalcade emerged beyond the shelter of the woods, and came in view of
the fort, a puff of smoke dashed from its side, and one of those
shrieking shells hurtled just overhead and struck with a splash in the
creek. Benham instantly pulled up, stared around bewildered a moment,
and, wheeling his horse short about, hastily rode back behind the
friendly screen and shelter of the woods, followed by his staff. General
Stevens, ignoring this manoeuvre, kept quietly on at a moderate trot,
followed by his staff, and all soon reached the welcome battery
unharmed, although several more shells were fired at them.
On the 8th the 46th New York and one company of the 1st Massachusetts
cavalry, under Colonel J.H. Morrow, of Hunter's staff, made a
reconnoissance to the enemy's right through the woods above Grimball's,
but, meeting a heavy force of skirmishers, retired without seeing the
works. That same afternoon General Stevens sent Captain Stevens of his
staff, accompanied by Lieutenant P.H. O'Rourke of the engineers, with a
company of the 3d New Hampshire, under Captain M.T. Donohoe (afterwards
General Donohoe), to reconnoitre the fort at Secessionville. The enemy's
pickets were driven in, four of them captured; half the company, in
skirmish order, approached the fort to within six or seven hundred
yards, while the other half moved down the road to the left. Though
subjected to a brisk shell-fire, and the fire of the pickets, not a man
was touched. The character of the ground in front of the fort was
ascertained, and the little party withdrew deliberately.
On the 10th the 13th Georgia, under cover of the woods, the pickets not
being sufficiently advanced, got close to Wright's camp, and opened a
sudden and furious attack upon it. They were repulsed in short order,
with severe loss, by Wright's troops, aided by the fire of the
gunboats.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS, JAMES ISLAND]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] The Confederate major, Pressley, who went over the ground just
after the assault to be related in the next chapter, thus
describes Fort Lamar, in _Southern Historical Society Papers_,
vol. xvi.: "The work across the neck of the Secessionville
peninsula was about fifty yards in length, and was a very
well-constructed line of intrenchments. The ramparts were about
fifteen feet from the level of the ground. There was a ditch in
front about ten to fifteen feet in width. The exterior slope
was so nearly perpendicular that it was impossible to get up in
front without scaling-ladders. The enemy were not provided with
these."