The Civil War Through the Camera - Henry W. Elson

THE FIFTEEN MINUTES’ FIGHT

Across these ditches at Fort McAllister, through entangling abatis, over palisading, the Federals had to fight every inch of their way against the Confederate garrison up to the very doors of their bomb-proofs, before the defenders yielded on December 13th. Sherman had at once perceived that the position could be carried only by a land assault. The fort was strongly protected by ditches, palisades, and plentiful abatis; marshes and streams covered its flanks, but Sherman’s troops knew that shoes and clothing and abundant rations were waiting for them just beyond it, and had any of them been asked if they could take the fort their reply would have been in the words of the poem: “Ain’t we simply got to take it?” Sherman selected for the honor of the assault General Hazen’s second division of the Fifteenth Corps, the same which he himself had commanded at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Gaily the troops crossed the bridge on the morning of the 13th. Sherman was watching anxiously through his glass late in the afternoon when a Federal steamer came up the river and signaled the query: “Is Fort McAllister taken?” To which Sherman sent reply: “Not yet, but it will be in a minute.” At that instant Sherman saw Hazen’s troops emerge from the woods before the fort, “the lines dressed as on parade, with colors flying.” Immediately dense clouds of smoke belching from the fort enveloped the Federals. There was a pause; the smoke cleared away, and, says Sherman, “the parapets were blue with our men.” Fort McAllister was taken.

A BIG GUN AT FORT McALLISTER