The History of the Confederate War, Its Causes and Its Conduct, Volume 2 (of 2) / A Narrative and Critical History

by George Cary Eggleston

Toward the last his lines were swept by a fire from a battery on James Island and by a cross fire of infantry and sharpshooters from a point in Fort Wagner itself. With the ingenuity of an accomplished engineer he protected his men against these special dangers by bringing up tubes of boiler iron through which the men were able to do their mining, moving them forward at night, in order to cover the space excavated by day.

In all the war no more desperate work was done than that of both the Federals and Confederates on the face of Fort Wagner. The fire was incessant and whether it came from siege guns, from field pieces, from rifles or from pistols held in the hand, it was all at pistol shot range. And it was all murderous in its effects. Yet on neither side was there for one moment a sign of flinching by day or by night. Many scores of men were shot through the body as they slept, and at no moment of the twenty-four hours was any man secure against this danger.

Little by little Gillmore got his great guns into position for breaching his enemy's works. The moving of each gun into its place cost scores of lives and every attempt to fire it must cost other scores. But here was work that must be done, and here were men resolute enough to do it.

On the seventeenth of August the great guns opened against Fort Wagner and Fort Sumter. Night and day for a full week the terrible conflict continued. The walls of Fort Sumter were beaten into an amorphous mass of bricks and mortar, its guns were dismounted and its men dwelt ceaselessly under the fire of Gillmore's terrible instruments of death. Nevertheless, they stood firm, and held their position without faltering or failure. It is to be observed that the terror of this struggle was due to the fact that the men on the one side and on the other were of unconquerable spirit, and indomitable courage, and that to them the measure of danger served only to set a measure for endurance.

It should be stated here that in spite of the ruin of Fort Sumter's defenses, the Confederates continued to occupy that work, driving off several assaults that were afterwards made upon it. A little later Major, afterwards Brigadier General, Stephen Elliott, of South Carolina—a man almost womanly in his delicacy of demeanor, but lion-like in courage and activity—was sent to take command of the little infantry force which still held the ruins of the fort. With an enterprise that suggests a creative imagination on his part, he ordered cargoes of sand bags to be brought thither by night, and little by little with these, he reconstructed the frowning walls, and mounted upon them again the great guns that such a fort is supposed to carry.

His work was first revealed to the enemy in a dramatic and poetic way. When the time came for the Christmas salute in which the foes, as it were, lifted their caps to each other, the saluting was begun by the ships of the Federal fleet. One after another, as they lay in line, they fired the conventional number of guns. Then the Confederate batteries took up the courteous work, each firing its quota. When the last one on the left of Sumter had fired it was supposed that the saluting would be continued by the next battery on the right of that ruined work. It was not dreamed on either side that Sumter had a single gun in position. But Elliott's work of reconstruction had been done. His guns were ready again for the fray. And in his turn he fired the Christmas salute, to the astonishment and admiration of all.

Then came one of the graceful courtesies of war. Under signal orders from the commandant of the Federal fleet every ship in the squadron dipped its flag in deference to Fort Sumter.

Here were brave men saluting brave men, and rejoicing in their courage and their enterprise although these were antagonistically employed. Perhaps no incident in all the war better illustrates than this one does the sympathy that brave men feel for brave men, irrespective of the lines of conflict drawn between them.

As he approached Fort Wagner General Gillmore was forced to work upon ground so low that the spring tides freely washed over it, and drenched his working details to their waists. Nevertheless, he pushed them forward, determined that the work he had undertaken should be fully done. As his parallels drew nearer and nearer to the work they were intending to reduce they came at last upon ground which had been mined, and planted with destructive torpedoes. Nevertheless, Gillmore pushed forward his working parties and multiplied the fire of his mortars which dropped shells incessantly into the fort, letting them fall vertically so that no earthwork might afford protection against their destructiveness. Under the glare of powerful calcium lights the work went on by night as well as by day. During every minute of every hour in the twenty-four the contest was continued ceaselessly. The destructive fire upon the Confederate fort was added to by bringing a great ironclad warship the New Ironsides close in shore, and setting her guns at work.

After two days of this fearful conflict Gillmore was ready with his infantry columns to make that final rush upon the works by which he hoped to conquer them. But suddenly, in anticipation of a charge which they were too weakened to resist with any hope of success, the Confederates abandoned Fort Wagner, and withdrew also from Battery Gregg to the north of it.