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Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

Aug 3, 2021, 5:21 AM

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And now, for the rest of the story…

II. The Land Attack

After their victory at Fort Pulaski and their failure at the Pocotaligo Railroad, the Union force at Port Royal was ready to get back to the main event – the capture of Charleston.

They marched right up the coast, capturing Edisto, Seabrook, Wadmalaw, Kiowah, and John’s Islands. But when they got to James Island the Confederates were waiting for them.

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Right between James and Morris Islands was a small village called Secessionville. Could there have ever been a more South Carolinian name than that at the time? The rebels built a tower there so they could see for miles around, and a fort at the base of the tower.

The commander of the fort had the best name in the entire Civil War. General States Rights Gist. “States” to his friends. It’s just fun to say. Try it. It’s like Lay’s chips. Once is not enough.

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Could there have ever been a more South Carolinian name than that at the time? You just can’t make this stuff up.

And in the bitingest irony ever to i-ron,
irony that would show even Alanis Morissette what irony is, as opposed to just plain bad luck, he was born in Union, SC.

Yes, States Rights was born in Union. SMDH.

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He died in the horrible Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, but he’s buried right over in Trinity Episcopal Church in Cootlumbia, if you are ever in the neighborhood. I think he deserves a visit just for his name alone.

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Honorable mention in the best name category goes to Kenesaw Mountain Landis, from Ohio, whose dad fought and was wounded in the war. Guess where? He went on to be the first baseball commissioner. What is it with Civil War and baseball? First Abner Doubleday at Fort Sumter and now this. Maybe Ken Burns, and two of his more famous documentaries, The Civil War, and Baseball, can help us answer that one day.

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Kenesaw Mountain, or Dustin Hoffman?
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Anyhow, back to the Battle of Secessionville. The Union marched all the way up from Port Royal, attacked the fort, failed, and went home.
Charleston was saved! It made the newspapers too.

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There’s the tower in the back. Unusual for a Civil War battlefield. Ballons were used on occasion, but not many towers. Probably only feasible because of the low lying marshes, rather than forests, in the area. Charleston was proving to be exactly the tough nut the North feared it might be.

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Confederates: 4 - Secessionville victory
Union: 2

A little slow on the uptake, the Union thought that maybe Fall, rather than Spring, might be the better time to go for Drayton’s railroad again. Same game plan. Same result. Union sailed upriver, saw people with guns, and went home. The Second Battle of Pocotaligo.

Confederates: 5 - Railroad defense
Union: 2

But a new year, 1863, and a new fleet of all new ironclads, brought new hope for the Union cause. Not having learned one GD thing from the Revolutionary War, the Union doggedly persisted in believing Charleston could be taken by sea.

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III. The Sea Attack

The Confederates had been busy bees in the meantime, and had all kinds of nasty tricks waiting. They had spiked underwater piles all over the harbor just waiting to jab ships in the bottom. They had a giant chain floated on timbers like a military “Red Rover – Send the Navy on Over” line to block ships out.

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They had almost 50 cannon batteries with nearly 400 cannon sprinkled all over the harbor, an enormous underwater bomb waiting to be remotely exploded when a ship floated over it, and the Palmetto State and Chicora ironclads, if you’ll remember. This was gonna be a throw down of the Titans.

Waiting for the right moon phase and tide, the Union finally struck at high noon on April 7, 1863, with their 9 shiny ironclads mounting 32 guns. Note Fort Sumter in the center and the city behind.

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2000 Confederate cannonballs and 500 direct hits later, the Union ironclads withdrew. One unfortunate ironclad was struck 90 times and later sank. Remarkably, despite all the fire and fury, only one Union sailor died. You know, because they were covered in iron.

The Confederates, relying on brick walls and earthen mounds, lost 5 soldiers. History repeated itself, and Charleston was saved, again, for the second, or maybe third time, depending on how you count it. For a little salt in the wound, the Confederates salvaged the guns off the sunken Union monitor, and added them to their already burgeoning harbor arsenal.

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Confederates: 6 - Charleston Harbor Defense
Union: 2

But where the Navy had failed disastrously, maybe the Army could gain some traction. Later that summer, the Union landed fresh troops on Folly Island, crossed over Lighthouse Inlet and made their way up Morris Island towards Fort Wagner at the tip, overlooking the harbor entrance.

Advancing through heavy morning fog, they were successful till people with guns and cannons behind prepared earthworks stopped them cold. So, a week later they did the exact same thing, and failed again in the exact the same way. Saves number four, and five, for Charleston.

Remember all that stuff about enfilade fire and lines of sight? Here it worked perfectly. Wholesale slaughter. As it had for 300 years before. The second massacre is the one from the movie Glory.

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This was the attack plan. Just makes me cringe. Sometimes, you just know what is going to happen. Like Longstreet looking across that field at Gettysburg and saying “It’s a mathematical equation.” Translation – this is a massacre before the first shot is fired. So too with Ft. Wagner.

The 4 guns in a row to the left of the "GNER" in the pig would certainly kill you. Point blank cannister fire, basically a shotgun shell the size of a cannon barrel, makes for a bad day in anyone’s book. But it’s the guns on the end, firing along the entire length of the wall, that just murdered this attack.

Whereas a direct shot from one of the 4 cannons might hit a half or dozen soldiers up close, the end cannons hit every single person along that wall, like a bowling ball smashing through human pins. Just as the fort designer’s had planned it.

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Slaughter

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Enfilade Fire

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Cannister Shot

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Not your average sized shotgun pellet

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Confederates: 7 - Fort Wagner I
Union: 2

Confederates: 8 - Fort Wagner II
Union: 2

IV. The End

But in what was about to be a “skunk” in sandlot sports parlance, the Union finally learned something from their defeats at Secessionville, Charleston Harbor, and the Fort Wagner failures I and II. And it was courtesy of Ulysses S. Grant, who was at the time capturing Vicksburg in Mississippi, and cutting off his slice of General Scott’s pie, everything west of the Mississippi River.

Instead of crying about their defeat and moping their way back home for 6 months or a year, the Union stayed right where they were on Folly Island. It was as simple as that. You might not be able to advance, but you don’t have to retreat, either.

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(U.S. Grant. Not actually in Charleston)

In my opinion Grant’s two finest moments in the Civil War were at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, and at the Battle of The Wilderness in Virginia. At Shiloh, he had his axx ruff-cobbed by the Rebels. I’m talking a pants down, bent over, wholly embarrassing defeat on the first day.

The kind of defeat where you can lose your job before sundown. In fact, Sherman, his subordinate, probably should have been canned that day for not even having guards posted outside of his camp, much less for having NO idea 40,000 Confederates were 100 yards away and creeping towards him in the morning fog.

When the attack struck, his men were still half asleep, half dressed, and cooking breakfast outside their tents. They barely managed to string together a battle line as the rebs fell on them, crashing through their camp. Look at that guy on his knee in the tent with his pan of grits. You know he's thinking "What the he77, this place is fugging LOUSEY with Rebs!

Heah come the Rebels!

But, as Sherman said, "I protected Grant while he was drunk, and he protected me while I was crazy." Quite a team. It's good to know people in high places.

Grant almost got his entire army pushed into the Tennessee River and drowned that day. Only nightfall, and the fact that you could't see a damm thing to shoot at in the surrounding woods after dark, saved him.

Yangehs fleein’ for deah lives!

Later that night he was standing on the riverbank and Sherman walked up and said, paraphrased, “that was a he77 of a day.” As cool as Clint Eastwood, Grant lit up a cigar, paused for his words, and said “We’ll beat ‘em tomorrow.”

Not “we’re gonna run and hide”, not “we’re gonna evacuate across the river to safety.” Just, “We’ll win tomorrow.” And he did. That’s one cool cucumber.

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Shiloh, aka, Pittsburg Landing – Where Grant almost had to teach 60,000 men how to swim.
He was trying to cut a railroad too, by the way. But not one that belonged to Drayton.

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In the Wilderness two years later, again after a horrible first day, the Union Army began habitually preparing for their annual retreat back to Washington after being axxraped yet again by Lee. It was a yearly ritual, so why not get a head start on the bug-out? Start packing the wagons. Word got back to Grant at his HQ and he sent out a simple, clear order to the entire Army that night. “Tomorrow we advance.”

It was said to have inspired the greatest cheer ever given by the Army of the Potomac. Beaten men, ordered to advance after being soundly defeated, and cheering out loud about it? What gives?

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Here he is at The Wilderness. Forty-two years old. Charged with holding the entire country together through violence. Lincoln put it plainly. “I can’t spare this man, He fights.”

A good running back wants the ball the most just after he fumbles it, a good receiver wants the ball the most right after he drops a pass, and a good QB wants the ball the most right after he throws an interception. Same thing here. A chance at redemption.

And Grant, seemingly more than any Union general before him, understood that. Even in failure people want a chance to succeed, not go home and mope. And so the Union stayed, pulled its pants back up, and marched forward the next day.

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Grant gets a lot of flak as being “The Butcher”, but no more futile attack in the war was made than by Lee with Pickett’s Charge, and no bloodier, more pointless battle, by size, than at Franklin by drugged out Confederate General Hood. Could be the topic of a future post. Lots and lots of post-war mythology to sort through.

Back in Charleston, the Union piled more and more and more artillery on Folly and Morris Islands, including the mammoth siege gun the “Swamp Angel”, with the range to hit the city itself. Then they sent an ultimatum. Surrender Fort Wagner or the city itself would be bombarded. The Confederates said pound sand.

So the Union did just that. They bombed the ever living he77 out of Ft. Wagner. Reports were that the month long bombardment was so intense it literally blew the dead out of the ground. Those who had been buried there after the two earlier failed assaults had to be buried all over again, sometimes in the bottom or even sides of craters since flat ground couldn't be found.

After all that death the Rebels finally retreated, unable to survive under a constant rain of cannon balls and explosive shells. Charleston itself took 35 hits from the Swamp Angel before the barrel cracked. It was the first time in the war civilians had been deliberately targeted by a military bombardment.

Here it is then, on Morris Island, and now, on display in New Jersey.

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You can see the crack in the back, or breech, of the gun

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Sensing that killing civilians is not a good way to make a post-war peace, the Union chose not to replace the broken Swamp Angel and suspended its bombardment of Charleston, for the time being.

Confederates: 8
Union: 3 - Fort Wagner

But the Union was not going to let its momentum fade, and after demolishing Ft. Wagner, they turned all those guns to Ft. Sumter, which was now doomed to the same fate as Ft. Pulaski, or any other brick fort in a time of enormous, ground mounted rifled cannons.

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Sumter before:

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Sumter after: note the flag of defiance flying on the left.

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Confederates: 8
Union: 4 - Fort Sumter

After Sumter was reduced to rubble the Union then turned their guns back onto Charleston. They still couldn’t take the fort or the city itself because of all the other fortifications nearby. And Charleston still couldn’t break the blockade she was under, so there was a stand off. Then the Union changed its mind. Any means would be used to end the war. And the bombardment of the city resumed.

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The Battery, 1863

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During the standoff, though, a technology war ensued. The Union built bigger and longer ranged guns to bombard the city, for another year and a half. Charleston built torpedo boats like the CSS David and submarines like the CSS Hunley and to try and destroy the Union blockaders and their vice grip on the harbor.

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A 300 lb Parrot Gun, the upgrade over the 200 lb Swamp Angel. 300 is the weight of the shell it throws. The gun itself weights about 14 tons.
Only 3 were made, and all were on Morris Island pointed at Charleston. This one has a busted schnozzle, but the Union just sawed it off and kept firing.

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CSS David Torpedo Boat

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CSS Hunley Submarine

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Confederates: 9 - Submarines and Torpedo Boats
Union: 5 - More and bigger guns

Then finally, the deadlock was broken – by Sherman. Over three long years he cut his slice of General Scott’s pie across the Appalachian Mountains, from Nashville, to Chattanooga, to Atlanta, and to finally Savannah, almost exactly along today’s interstate highway route. He then presented the Hostess City to Lincoln as a Christmas and re-election present in December 1864. And then he turned north, to South Carolina.

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Confederates: 9
Union: 10 - Sherman

In the end, Charleston never was taken by force by the Union. Ironically, she was declared “militarily irrelevant” by Sherman as he approached. After all the fighting, destruction, and death, deemed irrelevant. Rather than further humiliate the already demolished city, he wanted to make a political statement by destroying the state capitol instead.

So he simply bypassed Charleston, and the city, or what was left of it, was peacefully surrendered by the mayor to his mop up troops. By 1865 she had been cut off from the land, and from the sea, and was virtually an island all unto herself.

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The last standing palmetto in the city, as legend has it

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But the story’s not quite over, because everyone, especially a politician, loves a good party. And the gala-to-end-all galas was scheduled to be held in Charleston at Ft Sumter to celebrate the end of the war, exactly where it had started.

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The Civil War version of the V-E and V-J day ticker tape parades was to be held on April 14, 1865, four years and a day since Fort Sumter was surrendered to the Confederates. Everyone who was anyone was there, the speeches were given, hands were shaken, and a new era of hope was about to begin.

Even Robert Anderson was brought back to the fort to raise the very same flag he had lowered 4 years before; the very distinctive 34 star Fort Sumter flag. He said “I thank God I have lived to see this day.”

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It was a huge political, social, and media event, and it’s all been lost to history. Because on the very day of that party-to-end-all-parties, with Charleston herself as the national centerpiece, there was one final casualty in the war. One that stole every headline in the country.

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Excellent work again! I just learned this week that my great great uncle on my mother's side died approximately 3 weeks after being wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness which was pure hell. He died in a hospital in Charlottesville and is buried on the UVA campus. I knew that another relative survived Cold Harbor, but lost a finger from being shot there.

I finally am getting around to reading Grant by Ron Chernow which is excellent. You are absolutely correct, Grant was always looking to advance even when things didn't go his way.

Had Mary Todd Lincoln not treated Julia Grant, Gen Grant's wife, so poorly, the Grants probably would have accepted the Lincoln's invitation to attend Ford's theatre with them and may well have been killed or injured as was Secretary of State Seward who was attacked at home by another would be assassin who stabbed Seward and multiple other people in the Seward home.

Alas Seward would recover and go on to commit the "folly" of purchasing Alaska from Russia.

History is good stuff! Keep it up. Really enjoy your posts.

Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

The Gist family mansion still remains on south side of

Re: The Gist family mansion still remains on south side of

BTW, US Grant kinda resembles FBcooch…..***

Thanks will read later on the clock

Did you say 'beck"?

Re: Did you say 'beck"?

Re: Thanks will read later on the clock

Re: Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

Re: Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

I has a sad you didnt mention Tulifinny...***

Re: I has a sad you didnt mention Tulifinny...***

Re: Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

Re: Military Pron - The Battle of the Lowcountry (2 of 2)

Love reading these. I have read a lot of Civil War History.

Re: Love reading these. I have read a lot of Civil War History.

Thanks once again!!

Re: Thanks once again!!

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