John Call Dalton, M.D., U.S.V.

by John Call Dalton

Most horses, on coming to the surface, after a short reconnoissance make straight for the shore, where they are taken in hand by men waiting for them. But some lose their heads and swim away in the wrong direction, so that they must be followed by boats and captured or turned back; and a few will persist in getting upon some marshy island or mud flat, where they flounder about until rescued with no little trouble and difficulty. So we took the precaution, for our own horses, to have a boat in waiting alongside the ship, with a long halter shank attached to the head-stall, by which they could be guided to a safe landing. On first coming up from his involuntary plunge bath, the animal's expression is one of unbounded astonishment and indignation at the outrage; but he soon follows willingly in the boat's wake, and, once on shore, is quite contented to find himself again in friendly hands.

Every one in a brigade camp thinks his own horse the best of the lot. He listens kindly to the eulogies of his comrades on their respective mounts, but with full persuasion that every one of them would exchange with him if he would allow it. My own animal was a bay stallion, hardly more than fifteen hands high and slab-sided as a ghost; and the deep hollows over his eyeballs proclaimed that his tenth birthday was already past. But he had plenty of lightning in his veins, and there must have been royal blood in his pedigree, though it was a stolen one. He would go over broken bridges wherever there were timbers enough for a foothold; and I have taken him out on a flatboat to the middle of a wide creek and then walked him up a gang-plank to the deck of a steamer without his showing the least hesitation. Notwithstanding his slender build, his power of endurance was extreme, and the oddities of his disposition were an unending source of surprise and entertainment.

The next enterprise of the expeditionary corps was the siege of Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah river. It was a formidable casemated work, situated just inside the entrance, and guarding the approach from below to the city of Savannah. It could not be successfully attacked by the navy, owing to its size and strength and the narrow limits of the river channel giving no room for the evolutions of a fleet. The only place where land batteries could be planted against it was Tybee island, between it and the sea, where there were but slender facilities for such an operation. The island was half sand and half marsh. On its sea-front was a shelving beach, backed by a low ridge with a few stunted pines and bushes; and on the land side there was little more than a wide stretch of trembling morass, in full view of the fort and commanded by its guns. Nevertheless Captain Gillmore reported that the thing could be done; and early in December the Forty-sixth regiment was detached from our brigade and sent to occupy Tybee island. The city of Savannah was fifteen miles above the fort, on the south side of the river.

The part assigned to General Viele was to establish a blockade of the Savannah river, between the city and the fort. In the month of January we struck camp at Hilton Head and moved southwest to the farther end of Daufuskie, the last of the islands in that direction suitable for occupation by troops. From Hilton Head in direct line it was only fifteen or sixteen miles; but by the circuitous water route through Port Royal harbor, Scull creek, Calibogue sound, Cooper river, Ramshorn creek, and New river, it was nearly twice that distance. In its general features the island was similar to Hilton Head. Our quarters were on a slightly elevated point, overlooking the lowlands and waterways toward the Savannah river, which was about three miles away. In that whole interval there was absolutely nothing to break the uniform level of the landscape. It was at Daufuskie and thereabout that we came to know the singular network of land and water communication that marks the region. From the knoll in front of our headquarters you might see, some distance away, the masts and smokestack of a gunboat apparently sailing along through the meadows. Her spars and perhaps her bulwarks might be visible, with nothing to be seen around them but a wide expanse of grass-covered flats. Go where she was, and you would find her in a creek hardly wide enough for her to turn in, but with ample depth of water and straight vertical sides of black mud, like an enormous ditch. Passing through one of these creeks in a row-boat at half tide, with nothing to be seen on either hand above the brink, and other channels opening into it every half mile or so, all looking alike, it would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost, and almost impossible to find your way again without a guide. Steamers of light draft and not too great length could pass through most of these channels at the proper tide.

On one occasion, after going down to Hilton Head for some business connected with the medical department, I took passage at my return on the steamer Winfield Scott, carrying one of the regiments destined for Daufuskie. She left Hilton Head at an early hour, and in the forenoon reached the sinuous channels northwest of Calibogue sound. She was rather a large vessel to attempt the passage, but with due care and a flood tide the pilot hoped she might get through. On coming to a bend in the creek she would run her nose against the opposite bank, then back a little and try again, turning slowly meanwhile, edging round by degrees and rubbing the mud off the banks, bow and stern, till she was clear of the obstruction and ready to go ahead again. At last she came to a turn that looked rather easier than the rest, but where there was a narrow spit at the bottom running out from one side toward the other. In trying to pass, the vessel grounded on this spit. It was still flood tide, and with vigorous pushing she might get over. So at it she went, with all steam on and her paddles doing their best. At each new trial she gained a little, but it was harder work every time; and she finally succeeded, at full high water, in getting exactly half-way over. Fifteen minutes later there was no chance. She was stranded, helpless, on the bar, bow and stern both sinking slowly with the ebb and weighing her down past hope of deliverance. In an hour or two her main deck began to crack open, and it was all the men could do to get a few horses across the widening chasm to be landed on the neighboring flats. Then we all disembarked and made ourselves as comfortable as possible while awaiting other means of transportation. But the Winfield Scott never left that place till she was taken away piecemeal. She had weathered the November gale at sea, to be wrecked on a sunshiny forenoon in Ramshorn creek.

The troops at Daufuskie were a part of the old brigade, together with the Sixth Connecticut, two or three companies of artillery, and a detachment of the First New York Engineers. The last were extremely useful, as much of the work to be done was of an engineering character. The spot selected for the first blockading battery was a part of Jones' island called "Venus Point," on the north shore of the Savannah river, four miles above Fort Pulaski. To reach it from Daufuskie we had to pass by boats through New river and Wright river into Mud river, and thence across the marshy surface of Jones' island to Venus Point, a distance altogether of nearly five miles. The opening from Wright river into Mud river was an artificial passage called Wall's Cut, excavated some years before to enable steamers from Charleston by the inside route to get into the Savannah river. It had been obstructed after the battle of Port Royal by an old hulk placed crosswise and secured by piles, to prevent the passage of our gunboats. A company of the New York Engineers, under Major Beard, opened the passage again by removing the piles and swinging the hulk round lengthwise against the bank, where it now lay, a dismal looking object, abandoned at last by friend and foe.

Military operations often seem to be going on very slowly, especially to those at a distance who are unacquainted with the local conditions; but the work required for an enterprise like the investment of Fort Pulaski, as we soon found, cannot be done in a hurry. First of all there must be night reconnoissances by capable and well informed officers, through intricate waterways and over pathless islands, to learn the position of the enemy, the obstacles to be encountered, and the available points for occupation. After that begins the labor of the troops. Wharves must be built and roads cleared, before the barges and steamers can be used to advantage for transportation. Jones' island, the intended location of the battery, was like its neighbors, a marshy flat covered with reeds and tall grass. Its surface was so treacherous that a pole or a stick could be thrust down through its superficial layer of tangled roots into a fathomless underlying quagmire of soft mud. Twice a month, at the spring tides, it was flooded almost everywhere to the depth of several inches; and at no time would it bear with safety a horse, a wagon, or even a loaded wheelbarrow. For the transportation of anything weighty over its surface to Venus Point, it must have an artificial causeway.

Early in February the troops on Daufuskie were set to work in the pine woods, cutting down saplings of the proper size, and carrying them on their shoulders to a newly built wharf on the west side of the island. Ten thousand of these poles were thus brought from the woods to the water front, there loaded on flatboats and towed round to the landing place at Jones' island. There they were laid crosswise on the surface, to form a corduroy road, about three-quarters of a mile in length, to Venus Point. Then sandbags were carried over, to make something like firm ground for the gun-platforms, and a dry spot for the magazine. All the work at this place had to be done in the night time, as it was in full view of the rebel steamers passing every few days up and down the river.

At last all was ready for taking over the armament of the battery. In the afternoon I went over the corduroy toward Venus Point, and at my return about dusk, two of the guns were starting on the same road. It looked then as if the officers and men in charge would have no easy time of it, but their difficulties turned out much greater than I supposed. It took all that night and the next to get the guns over and put them in place. With the carriage wheels guided on a double row of planks laid end to end, taken up in the rear and laid down in front as the procession moved on, the shifting tramways were soon covered with the island mud, smooth and slippery as so much mucilage. When a wheel happened to get over the edge of its plank, down it would go, hub deep, in the soft morass; and then the men must set to work with levers to lift it out again, themselves immersed up to their knees in the same material. Many of them encased their feet and legs in empty sandbags tied at the knee, for protection against the all pervading mud. It was an exhausting labor, sometimes almost disheartening; but perseverance at last prevailed, and on the morning of the twelfth the six guns were all in position.