Morris island, the selected point of real attack, lies along the main ship channel, about 3½ miles in length, north and south, its north end, Cummings point, being three-quarters of a mile south by east from Fort Sumter. At Cummings point, Battery Gregg, named in honor of Brig.-Gen. Maxcy Gregg, mounted guns of the heaviest caliber which the department could command. This battery was an important outpost of Fort Sumter, and one of the strong defenses of the harbor. Three-quarters of a mile south of Battery Gregg stood, square across a narrow neck of the island, Battery Wagner, named in honor of Lieut.-Col. Thomas M. Wagner. Wagner touched the beach on its sea flank, and Vincent's creek on its west flank, covering the whole island width of about 280 yards. It is noteworthy that the Star of the West battery, which fired the first gun of the war, was located, in January, 1851, just in advance of the ground on which Wagner stood.
At the time of which we write (July, 1863), Battery Wagner mounted two heavy guns on the sea face, and some twelve or more, of lighter caliber, on the south and west faces. It was a strong earthwork, constructed of compact sand, upon which the heaviest projectiles produced little effect, with well-built traverses protecting the guns from the sea fire, high merlons, thoroughly protected magazine and bomb-proof, with a strong parapet on the north or gorge face, for the protection of the opening. The salients on the east and west were flanked by infantry and howitzer fire. The barbette guns of Sumter, distant a mile and a half from Wagner, commanded its immediate approaches from the south, while from the parapet of Sumter, with a good glass, Morris island for its entire length was in plain view for observation.
Late in May, General Ripley, commanding the defenses of Charleston, became dissatisfied with the progress of constructing batteries on the extreme south end of Morris island, designed to prevent an attack by boats from Folly island. The enemy's strength on the latter island was unknown, boats and barges were at Vogdes' command, and if two or three thousand troops were to make a determined attack, Ripley felt unprepared to meet it. These representations were made by him to General Beauregard on the 24th of May, and the work on the south end was pushed slowly forward by an inadequate force. Meanwhile General Gillmore had come into command, and by the middle of June was preparing his plans for attack at the south end of Morris island.
When the attack came, on the early morning of July 10th, it was a surprise and overwhelming. Gillmore had put forty-seven guns and mortars in battery, facing the nine separate 1-gun batteries of the Confederates, within three-eighths of a mile of the rifle-pits, and without their knowledge. Observant officers and men were satisfied that batteries were being constructed on Folly island, but so well was the work screened, that not until the brushwood was cut away, the embrasures opened out, and the fire opened, did the little force on the south end of Morris island, or the general commanding the district, or General Beauregard, realize the true character of the attack that had been so secretly prepared. "With lookout stations on the ruins of the old lighthouse on Morris island; on the mast-head of a wrecked blockade-runner, off Lighthouse inlet, and at Secessionville on James island, there was yet no discovery of these Federal works. So far from it, that General Ripley (district commander) reports, that 'up to the 8th or 9th of July the enemy, so far as ascertained, had constructed no works on Folly island, except to shelter his pickets from our shells.'" (Johnson's "Defense of Charleston.") On this subject Major Gilchrist says, in his pamphlet on the defense of Morris island, himself a participant in that defense:
It has always been a vexed question on whom should rest the blame for the neglect of this strategic point. There were mutual recriminations and much bad blood between those who were thought to be responsible for the success of the Federals on July 10th, which involved the destruction of Fort Sumter and the long and bloody siege of Wagner. But the truth is, General Beauregard did not believe an attack would be made by this route, and was firmly persuaded that the enemy would again essay an advance by way of James island. He therefore withdrew the negro laborers from Morris island to strengthen the fortifications elsewhere, leaving the Gist Guard and Mathewes' artillery to finish half-completed Fort Wagner. And when General Ripley, on his own responsibility, and by his own engineer, commenced to fortify the neighborhood of Lighthouse inlet, he commanded the work to stop. Later, when it was discovered that General Vogdes was doing some work—its extent unknown—on Folly island, General Ripley again, with the tardy consent of General Beauregard, sent two companies of the First South Carolina artillery, Capt. John C. Mitchel commanding, who, with the assistance of the Twenty-first South Carolina, Col. R. F. Graham, built among the sand-hills of the south end of Morris island nine independent 1-gun batteries, which were eventually to meet the concentrated fire of forty-seven guns in the masked batteries on Folly island, and 8, 11 and 15-inch guns in the monitors.
The writer of the pamphlet quoted cannot have been aware of the fact, that as early as March 10th General Beauregard had ordered the south end of Morris island fortified, that the work was promptly begun, and that when General Ripley complained, May 24th, of its slow progress, Capt. Langdon Cheves, of the engineers, was prosecuting it with an inadequate force, and no wood material furnished, necessary for magazine and bomb-proof. As a precautionary measure the works were ordered by General Beauregard, and more appreciated as being necessary by General Ripley, but neither of these generals expected them to be attacked except by boat howitzers and rifle guns of light batteries covering an attack by infantry landing from small boats. In such an attack the batteries on the south end, supported by 1,000 men, could have successfully repelled the enemy. If an attack at that point should come, it was looked for only in that shape.
On July 4th, from his headquarters at Hilton Head, General Gillmore issued his order for the disposition of two divisions designed to attack Morris island. The First was commanded by Brigadier-General Terry, its brigades by Brigadier-General Stevenson and Colonel Davis; the Second by Brigadier-General Seymour, its brigades by Brigadier-Generals Vogdes and Strong. The brigade of Vogdes was already on Folly island, and had been since April 7th; Strong landed on the 6th of July, and Stevenson subsequently.
On the 9th, General Beauregard telegraphed Mr. Davis of the presence in Stono and off the bar of thirty-eight vessels and five monitors, and at noon of the same day to Governor Bonham, and to Richmond, that "an attack on Sumter along Folly and Morris islands is evidently imminent." General Mercer, at Savannah, and General Whiting, at Wilmington, were asked for support, and Generals Hagood and Walker were ordered to hold all available troops in the Second and Third districts in readiness to march or take the cars for Charleston at a moment's warning.