May 18. Above is a view of the steamer Planter, a dispatch boat of General Ripley in Charleston harbor, which was run off by the pilot Robert and the black crew last week. It is a very remarkable affair, and makes quite a hero of Robert. She was tied up at the wharf close to Ripley’s office. Yet he slipped out of the harbor unobserved, and gave the steamer up to our blockading fleet. The Planter lay at Beaufort from Thursday morning to this morning. She was run off on Tuesday, May 13.
The following to Mr. Fuller gives General Stevens’s views on the proper war policy, and the severity of the contest yet to be fought. It was at this time that the government, rendered over-confident by Western successes, stopped recruiting. It will be seen how exactly he read the military situation:—
Beaufort, S.C., March 15, 1862.
My dear Sir,— ... At this moment every effort should be made to keep our ranks full by enlistments. We are only at the beginning of the hard fights. Our men will fall in battle, and die in the hospitals. The best troops rapidly melt away in aggressive movements. We must take nothing for granted except the determination on the part of the South to make a stern and protracted resistance. The great point is to open the Mississippi down to the Gulf, and this can be done by driving our forces southward in Tennessee, and farther south into Alabama and Mississippi. This should be combined with a great movement from the Gulf. The Mississippi River in our control, everything westward will fall by vigorous, rapid, comparatively short movements. We must husband our men and resources. We, if we don’t look out, will find our victorious march stayed in mid-course by the melting away of our attacking columns, not kept full in consequence of a too great dissemination of our force.
At this time General Stevens wrote Professor Bache a memoir, to be laid before the President, giving his views of the military policy and operations to be undertaken. Dr. Lusk, who, as his aide, copied the letter from the rough draft, declares that he urged the very movements that were afterwards adopted, and was greatly impressed with the ability and prophetic foresight of the memoir. Unfortunately, no copy of it has been found.
Headquarters Second Brigade, E.C.,
Beaufort, S.C., February 25, 1862.
W.J.A. Fuller, Esq.,
My dear Sir,—I hope not the least suggestion will be made in any quarter in relation to placing me in command of the expeditionary corps of General Sherman. I am induced to write you in relation to it, because I have learned from a reliable source that it is being spoken of in some influential quarters in Massachusetts. General Sherman has treated me with marked kindness and consideration, and I feel that I would be acting badly towards him if I did not express decidedly my views and feelings in regard to the matter. It would be, however, sheer affectation on my part to say that I did not desire a separate command. I of course most earnestly desire one, but not at the expense of a friend, or with injustice to any one.
The advanced position of General Stevens’s command was a constant threat to the Charleston and Savannah Railroad, justly regarded by the enemy as the vital line of communication between the two cities. The railroad crossed the many rivers which empty along this part of the coast by long pile or trestle bridges of hard Southern pine, full of pitch, and exceedingly combustible. In thirty miles it thus crossed, going north from Savannah, the Coosawhatchie, Tulifiny, Broad, Pocotaligo, Combahee, and Ashepoo rivers, with six miles of bridges in the aggregate, and at Pocotaligo, the centre of this stretch, was only eight miles distant from Port Royal Ferry and the Union lines. So important was the preservation of this railroad regarded by General Robert E. Lee, the Confederate commander, and so probable did he deem our advance in this direction, that he made his headquarters at Coosawhatchie, posted strong detachments with guns and intrenchments at the bridges, and supported them with considerable bodies of troops at central points, all under General J.C. Pemberton, with headquarters at Pocotaligo. And that officer, on succeeding Lee in command of South Carolina and Georgia in March, remained at the same place, and continued the same attitude of watchful defense.
General Stevens early fixed his eye upon these bridges as affording the most feasible way of breaking up the railroad. He was eager to cross swords with Lee and confident, more than once remarking that he could beat “Bob Lee,”—that he felt himself more than a match for him. From negro refugees he learned that the enemy held them in force, but nothing sufficiently definite and reliable to be of much value. Anxious to gain exact and full information of the bridges, the enemy, and his dispositions, and of the roads and nature of the country, he offered the task to Captain Elliott, of the Highlanders, who undertook it with alacrity. During January, February, and March, this intrepid officer made trip after trip within the enemy’s lines, explored the whole region, and examined every bridge between the Coosawhatchie and the Ashepoo, located the enemy’s posts, ascertained their forces, intrenchments, guns, etc., and gleaned much information in regard to the roads, approaches, and country. On these scouts Captain Elliott went in uniform. He would start at night in a small canoe with a trusty negro guide, paddle noiselessly up one of the rivers until within the enemy’s lines, then land and pursue his explorations on foot. By day he usually lay hid in the swamps or pine woods. The service was not only fraught with danger, but extremely arduous, involving every hardship of cold, hunger, and exposure. It was so well performed that it is doubtful if the Confederate commander himself was much better informed as to the state of things within his lines than was his opponent. No whisper of suspicion of Captain Elliott’s scouts was suffered to get out; and although his long and frequent absences on special duty excited comment, all knowledge of them was confined to himself, General Stevens, and the assistant adjutant-general of the brigade.