rolling hard, under the impetus of an eighteen hours' blow. The ship
was uninjured and everything on board in good condition. But where
was the fleet? Of all the splendid company that left Hampton Roads
four days ago, only two or three were in sight, looking disconsolate
enough and pitching about like eggshells. We knew afterward that two
of them had gone down, one had thrown overboard her battery of eight
guns to keep from foundering, and others had turned back, disabled, for
Fortress Monroe. But on the whole, most of them had escaped serious
damage, and, like ourselves, were again making headway toward the
south. Nevertheless it was a lonely day, and at nightfall we had no
more companions about us than there were in the morning.
By this time we knew our destination. The sealed orders were opened and
the ship put on her course. The next day, Sunday, was bright and clear,
with a smooth sea. Other vessels began to appear, moving in the same
direction; and before noon we were off Port Royal entrance, with ten or
eleven ships in company. Stragglers continued to come up as the time
passed, and on Monday morning when the flagship arrived, there were
already twenty-five or thirty sail around her.
Any land looks pleasant from the sea, when you have been knocking
about for some days in bad weather; and the South Carolina shore had
a particularly attractive appearance for us, partly no doubt because
we knew it would still be rather hard work getting there. It was ten
miles away, but the mirage made it visible; and the long stretch of
beaches and low sand bluffs, with their rows of pines, all sleeping in
the quiet sunshine, had a kind of luxurious, semi-tropical look, at
least to the imagination. Every light-house and buoy had been removed,
and not a sign was left for guidance over the bar. But soon a busy
little steamer was at work, sounding out the channel and placing buoys;
and in the afternoon all except the deeper-draft vessels went in. We
were among the first of the lot; and of those that followed, many
showed the marks of their rough treatment at sea. The big sidewheel
steamer, _Winfield Scott_, came in dismasted, and with a great patch
of canvas over her bows, looking like a man with a broken head. Others
had lost smoke-stacks, or stove bulwarks or wheel-houses. But when all
that could get over the bar were collected inside, they still made a
respectable fleet. The heavier vessels had to wait for another tide.
That was early next morning, when the _Wabash_ came in, followed by
the rest. A weather-beaten old tar was standing in her fore channels
outside the bulwarks, feeling her way with lead and line; and as the
great ship moved slowly by, we could hear his doleful, monotonous
chant, "By the ma-ark fi-ive," telling that she was in thirty feet
of water and going safely along. She passed through the fleet of
transports and war vessels to her position in advance.
Meanwhile several gunboats had gone up the harbor, to learn something
about the forts. They were firing away now and then, either at the
enemy on shore or at the rebel gunboats hovering about beyond. We
supposed that their errand was only preliminary, and felt no surprise
at seeing them return after an hour or two and again quietly come to
anchor. But in the afternoon, when the flagship herself got under
way, we expected something more; especially as she had undergone a
transformation and was now in fighting trim. Her topmasts were sent
down, and all her lofty tracery of spars had disappeared. As she moved
off, looking like a champion athlete stripped for the fray, every eye
followed her in eager expectation. Soon a puff of smoke from one of
the rebel batteries, followed by the dull reverberation of the report,
and then another from the opposite shore, spoke out their defiance, as
if they would like nothing better than to begin hostilities at once.
But there was no answering gun from the frigate. On she went, in the
same leisurely fashion, as if she had seen and heard nothing. More guns
from the forts, more smoke and more reverberation. Now she will surely
open her ports and show these blustering rebels, at least with a shot
or two, what it is to fire upon a United States frigate. But no. She
seemed to pause awhile as if in doubt, then turned and came slowly back
toward the fleet, followed to all appearance by the parting scoffs of
the enemy. It was impossible to repress a certain feeling of chagrin at
seeing the flagship apparently chased out of the harbor, on the first
trial, without even firing once in reply.
That was because we had been looking at something we did not
understand. After getting the reports of the gunboats, the flagship had
gone up to obtain for herself a few more particulars as to the location
and outline of the forts. The cannonading was at too long range to do
her any harm, and her expedition was meant for business, not for show.
However, the next day must find us ready; and perhaps it would be
none too soon. We had now been four days, off and on, at the harbor
entrance; and by this time all South Carolina knew where we were and
what we had come for. Every additional twenty-four hours gave the enemy
more time for preparation, without any advantage to us; and the longer
the enterprise was deferred, the more difficult it would become. But
the next day there was rather a high wind, with considerable sea; and
accordingly matters again remained _in statu quo_. That was another
disappointment. It seemed almost impossible that it should be so. Were
these old sea-dogs, after coming six hundred miles on purpose, to be
delayed in their work by a little rough water?
Well, yes. This was to be a contest between ships and forts. The forts
are planted on the solid ground, and their guns are mounted on level
platforms, with every angle of inclination sure and uniform. But the
ships are afloat; and if rolling about with the sea, and their decks
tipping this way and that, their aim must be uncertain and much of
their metal thrown away. Of course, a fort is not to be reduced by
firing guns at it, but by having the shot penetrate where it is meant
to go. Captain Dupont was a man who had come to win, not to fight a
useless battle with no result; and the way he went to work after the
time arrived made it plain to all that he knew equally well when to
stop and when to go ahead.
On the morning of Thursday, November 7th, everything was favorable.
The sea was smooth, with a gentle breeze from the northeast. About
nine o'clock the war vessels began to move forward between the forts.
The transports were drawn up as near as possible and yet be out of
the line of fire. Our own vessel, the _Oriental_, was the second in
position, General Sherman's being the only one in advance of us. As
for myself, I climbed into the fore cross-trees, and then, seated on
the reefed topsail, with my back against the foot of the topmast, I
had a view that commanded the entire scene. It was a bright, clear
day, with hardly a cloud on the horizon. Before us lay the broad
harbor nearly two and a half miles across, guarded on each side by the
enemy's earthworks. On the right, at Bay Point, was Fort Beauregard,
and on the left, at Hilton Head, Fort Walker, the stronger and more
important of the two. A little to the north of Fort Walker was a high,
two-story house, with a veranda in front, the headquarters of the rebel
commander; and away beyond, moving about in the adjoining creeks, we
could see the tall smoke-stacks and black smoke of the rebel gunboats,
watching an opportunity to capture vessels that might be stranded or
crippled, or to chase them all, should they be defeated.
And now the battle began. The naval force in a long line of fifteen
ships, passed up midway between the forts, receiving and answering the
fire from each. Near the head of the harbor, five or six were thrown
off for a flanking squadron, to engage the rebel gunboats or enfilade
the enemy's works from the north. The rest, including all the larger
vessels, then turned south, and, passing slowly down in front of Fort
Walker, gave her, one after the other, their heavy broadsides, turning
again, after getting fairly by, to repeat the circuit. From my position
I could see every shell strike. When one of them buried itself in the
ramparts or plunged over into the fort, its explosion would throw up a
vertical column of whirling sand high in the air, followed by another
almost as soon as the first had disappeared. When one from the rebel
batteries burst over the ships, it appeared suddenly like a white ball
of smoke against the sky, that swelled and expanded into a cloudy
globe, and then slowly drifted away to leeward; while a few seconds
later came the sharp detonation of the exploded shell. On both sides
the conflict was unremitting, and along the whole sea-face of the fort
its guns kept on belching their volleys against the fleet.
About this time we noticed on our left, close in shore, a gunboat that
seemed to be engaging the fort on its own hook. It was a two-masted
vessel, probably of six or seven hundred tons, but it looked hardly
larger than a good sized steam tug; and on its open deck was a single
big gun, firing away at the southeast angle of the fort. It was
the _Pocahontas_. She had been kept back by the gale, and had just
arrived in time to get over the bar while the fight was going on. Her
commander was Captain Percival Drayton, a native of South Carolina,
but one of the stanchest and most gallant officers in the navy of the
United States. The commander of the two forts was his brother, General
Drayton, of the Confederate army, whose plantation on the island was
only two or three miles away.
When looking at the new comer, I could not help thinking how much
expression there may be in such inanimate things as two pieces of
ordnance. The way the gun on the _Pocahontas_ was worked certainly gave
the idea of skill, determination, and persistency; while that which
answered it from the fort was equally suggestive of vexation, haste,
and a little apprehension. No doubt it was natural for the defenders
to feel so, when, in addition to the cannonading in front and on one
flank, another enemy should appear, to harass them from the opposite
quarter.
Through all this hurly-burly, the movement of the war vessels was a
masterpiece of concerted action. Round and round they went, following
the flagship in deliberate succession, pounding at the fort with one
broadside going up and with the other coming down. So far as we could
see, not one of them fell out of line, or failed to do her full share
in the engagement. It had been going on now nearly four hours. The
fire of the fort was somewhat lessened, but it was still enough to be
doubtful and dangerous. One great gun in particular, on the southern
half of the sea-front, kept working away with dogged energy, as if
determined to inflict some deadly blow that might retrieve the fortunes
of the day. After a while there seemed to be a cessation. The _Wabash_
stood motionless before her enemy. She fired a single gun, to which
there was no response. Then a boat shot out from under her quarter;
and pulled straight for the shore. An officer landed, and went up the
bluffs to the fort. For a moment we could see his dark figure running
round the parapet, then down and out by the sally-port, and across the
intervening field to the two-story house, where it disappeared in the
doorway. A few moments later, at the flagstaff on the roof, a flag
mounted swiftly to the top, and then, in sight of all, the stars and
stripes floated out with the breeze, over the coast of South Carolina.
What followed was a kind of pandemonium. Cheers from the vessels all
over the harbor, with the tooting of steam whistles and music from the
regimental bands, mingled in long reiteration till every vocal organ
was exhausted, and the notes of the "Star-spangled Banner" had traveled
over the Bay Point and back again. The transports began to move in,
and were soon collected as near the beach as they could safely come.
In an hour or two I went ashore with General Viele and others of his
staff, to take a look at the surroundings. The fort was naturally our
first object of interest. Three of its guns dismounted, with their
gun-carriages standing wrong end upward, the parapet and traverses
seamed with shot and shell, and the ground strewn with pieces of
exploded projectiles, told of the hard struggle it had gone through.
The few dead left by the enemy had been decently removed by the marines
who first took possession. A day or two afterward the surgeon of the
fort was found in one of the galleries, dead, and covered with sand
from a bursted shell. In the rear of the fort was a stretch of open
plain, also covered with fragments of shell, over which the fugitives
had passed in their final rout, leaving behind arms, knapsacks,
blankets, and everything that could impede their flight. Traveling over
this field, half a mile or so from the fort, I came upon the body of
a stout fellow, who had been struck down while running for his life.
There was a gaping wound in his breast, into which you might have put a
quart pot; but his countenance was as serene and quiet in expression as
if he had laid down by himself for a few moments' rest.
General Wright's brigade was landed that afternoon. But it was slow
work, with a shelving beach and no wharf; and the rest of us postponed
disembarking till the next day. When all were on shore, General
Wright's command was located at and about the fort, and that of General
Stevens some distance farther on, near the crossing of a tide-water
creek. Our own brigade, which held the advanced position, was about two
miles northwest of the creeks, on the main road from that direction.
The fort at Bay Point was abandoned by the enemy without further
resistance, and was occupied by a detachment from the second brigade.
I have understood that this battle made some change in current opinion
as to the efficiency of ships and forts against each other. A fort, or
at least an earthwork, would seem almost impregnable against artillery.
It has no masonry walls to crumble or batter down. Solid shot may bury
themselves in its ramparts without doing the least harm; and when a
shell explodes there, it only throws up a volcanic eruption of earth
and sand, that settles back again nearly in the same place. The day
after the battle at Hilton Head, the walls of the fort were practically
as good as ever, and within a week or two its scarred outlines were all
smoothed over again. On the other hand, a frigate or a sloop-of-war
is vulnerable throughout. A single shot at the water line will make a
leak, hot shot will set her on fire, and exploding shells may derange
her machinery. Her oaken sides are a slight bulwark compared with the
twenty feet of earth in the ramparts of a fort.
All this was thoroughly appreciated by the enemy, who were prepared for
the attack and confident of success. Captured letters and documents
showed that they had entire faith in their works and guns, and fully
expected to sink the Yankee vessels and teach them a lesson for their
temerity.
But in one thing ships may be superior to forts; that is, in their
power of defensive action. What decides the day more than anything else
is the number of guns in service and the rapidity of their fire. Ships
may be brought from various directions and concentrated at a given
place, so that their united batteries will far outweigh the armament
of a fort. At Hilton Head the _Wabash_ alone fired, in four hours, 880
shot and shell; and from the entire fleet no less than 2000 projectiles
must have been hurled upon the fort within that time. The earthwork
itself may withstand this tempest, but its defenders cannot continue to
work their guns. After a time their fortitude must give way under such
a trial, and, as it was in Fort Walker, the moment comes at last for a
final stampede. Of course, this implies that the ships are present in
sufficient force and do their work in the right way.
But perhaps the victory was due, more than anything else, to the
practical skill and originality of Captain Dupont. He saw at once
that the work at Hilton Head was the important one, and that if that
were reduced, the other would be untenable. When first leading his
ships up the harbor in mid-channel, he engaged both forts at about
two thousand yards distance. On making the turn and coming down again
towards the south, he passed in front of Fort Walker at eight hundred
yards. This distance was of his own choosing, and he had the range
beforehand. But the guns of the fort had to be sighted anew, in the
heat and excitement of actual conflict; not an easy thing to do, even
for the most experienced. After going again toward the north at longer
range, he once more made the turn and repassed the fort on his way
back, this time at six hundred yards. So, the vessels were always in
motion, and after every turn presented themselves to the enemy at a
different distance. It was this second promenade of the ships, pouring
into the fort their terrific broadsides at the short distance of six
hundred yards, that did the effective work of the engagement. At this
time, according to nearly all the commanders' reports, the enemy's shot
mostly passed over the ships, injuring only their spars and rigging.
Throughout the battle none of them were struck more than ten times in
the hull, none were seriously disabled, and two of them were not hit
at all. Captain Dupont said afterward that he believed he had saved a
hundred lives by engaging the fort at close range.
After the first rejoicings were over, there was a singular feeling of
disappointment in the North at the seeming want of result from the
victory at Port Royal. It was expected that the troops would move at
once into the interior, capture the important cities, and revolutionize
the states of Georgia and South Carolina. One of the newspaper
correspondents wrote home, a few days after the battle, "In three weeks
we shall be in Charleston and Savannah;" and in the popular mind at
that time the possession of a city seemed more important than anything
else, in the way of military success. So when the months of November,
December, and January passed by, without anything being done that the
public could appreciate, there was no little surprise manifested at the
inactivity of the army in South Carolina.
In reality the military commanders were busy from the outset. The
day after the battle, Captain Gillmore, the chief engineer, made a
reconnaissance to the north side of the island, and laid out there
a work to control the interior water-way between Charleston and
Savannah; and before the end of the month he had commenced his plans
for the reduction of Fort Pulaski, which in due time were brought to
a successful issue. But these movements, and others like them, were
after all secondary in importance to the main object of the Port Royal
expedition, namely, the permanent acquisition of Port Royal itself, as
an aid to the naval operations on the Atlantic coast.
The government at Washington was by this time fully alive to the
magnitude of the contest and its requirements. One of the most pressing
of these requirements was the blockade; which must be maintained
effectively along an extensive line of coast, exposed to severe
weather during a large part of the year. The vessels of the blockading
squadron must be supplied with stores and coal at great inconvenience
and from a long distance; and when one of them needed repairs it must
be sent all the way to New York or Philadelphia to get a new topmast
or chain cable. This involved much expense, long delays, and the risk
of temporary inefficiency in the blockade. It was important that the
fleet should have, near at hand, a capacious harbor, where store-houses
and workshops might be established, and where shelter might be had for
the necessary inspections and repairs. Port Royal was such a harbor;
and it also served, in course of time, as a base for further military
operations. It had been selected by Captain Dupont and General Sherman
in joint council.
THE SEA ISLANDS AND FORT PULASKI.
The sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia are grouped in a nearly
continuous chain along the coast, between the mainland and the sea.
They are flat, with only a few slight elevations here and there; and
there is not, over their whole area, a single boulder, pebble, or
gravel bed, nor any spot where the ledge rock comes to the surface.
The soil at first seems to be sandy; but you soon discover that it
has mingled with it a fine black loam and is extremely productive.
It yields the "sea-island cotton," a variety of long fibre, formerly
much valued for certain purposes of textile manufacture. There is no
sod or turf, like that of the Northern states, but the fields not
under cultivation produce a tall thin grass, which is soon trampled
out of existence by passing wagons or by soldiers on the march. In the
clearings are the live oak and the great magnolia, both evergreen.
The palmetto is also a conspicuous object, and the dwarf palmetto
grows abundantly under the shadow of the pine woods. Everywhere there
is a large proportion of hard-wood shrubs and trees with polished,
waxy-looking, evergreen leaves.
There are many extensive plantations, where the owners often remain
during a large part of the year. Their houses are not grouped in
villages, but scattered at a considerable distance apart, each on its
own plantation, with the negro cabins usually in long lines at the rear
or on one side. The roads from one plantation to another run through
the pine woods, or over the plains, bordered on each side by cotton
or corn fields, and marking the only division between them. There is
seldom to be seen such a thing as a rail fence, and of course never a
stone wall.
Hilton Head, where we were now encamped, was one of the largest of
these islands. It was twelve miles long, in a general east and west
direction, and about five miles in extreme width, north and south. At
its Port Royal end, the sand bluffs rose to the height of eight or
ten feet above the beach, giving the name of "head" more especially
to this part of the island; elsewhere they were generally much lower.
Along its sea-front there was a magnificent beach, ten miles long,
broken only at one place by a creek fordable at half tide. At frequent
intervals on this route there were marks of the slow encroachment of
the sea upon the land. Often you would come upon the white, dry stump
of a dead pine, standing up high above the beach on the ends of its
sprawling roots, like so many corpulent spider legs. Once it grew on
the low bluffs above high-water mark, as its descendants are doing now.
But the sea gradually undermined its roots and washed out the soil from
between them, till it gave up the ghost for want of nourishment, and in
time came to be stranded here, half-way down the beach. It looked as
if the tree had moved down from the bluffs toward the water, though in
reality the beach had moved up past the tree. The same thing was going
on all along the coast in this region. There were trees on the very
edge of the bluff, with their roots toward the sea exposed and bare,
but with enough still buried in the soil on the land side to hold the
trunk upright and give it sap; while here and there was one already
losing its grip and slowly bending over toward the sea. When it has
nothing more to rest on than the sands of the beach, its branches and
trunk decay, but its roots and stump remain for many years whitening in
the sun, like a skeleton on the plains.
The chain of islands from Port Royal toward Charleston harbor included
Parry, Saint Helena, Edisto, John's and James islands; in the opposite
direction, toward the Savannah river, Daufuskie, Turtle, and Jones'
islands. Inside these were other smaller islands, the whole separated
from each other and from the mainland by sounds and creeks, sometimes
broad but oftener narrow and tortuous, through which small steamers
could find an inside passage from Charleston to Savannah. This
communication was of course cut off when our troops occupied Port Royal.