The Black Phalanx / African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the War of 1812, and the Civil War

by Joseph T. Wilson

"The Charleston Battalion was assigned to that part of the work which extended from the Sally port or Lighthouse Inlet creek around to the left until it occupied part of the face to the south, including the western bastion; the Fifty-first North Carolina connected with these troops on the left and extended to the southeast bastion; the rest of the work was to be occupied by the Thirty-first North Carolina Regiment, and a small force from that regiment was detailed as a reserve, and two companies of the Charleston Battalion were to occupy outside of the fort the covered way spoken of and some sand-hills by the seashore; the artillery was distributed among the several gun-chambers and the light pieces posted on a traverse outside so as to sweep to sea face and the right approach. The positions to be occupied were well known to every officer and man and had been verified repeatedly by day and night, so there was no fear of confusion, mistake or delay in the event of an assault. The troops of course were not ordered to these positions when at 6 o'clock it was evident a furious bombardment was impending, but, on the contrary, to the shelter of the bomb-proofs, sand-hills and parapet; a few sentinels or videttes were detailed and the gun detachments only ordered to their pieces.

"The Charleston Battalion preferred the freer air of the open work to the stifling atmosphere of the bomb-proofs and were permitted to shelter themselves under the parapet and traverses. Not one of that heroic band entered the opening of a bomb-proof during that frightful day. The immense superiority of the enemy's artillery was well understood and appreciated by the Confederate commander, and it was clear to him that his policy was to husband his resources and preserve them as best he could for the assault, which it was reasonable to expect would occur during the day. He recognized the fact that his guns were only defensive and he had little or no offensive power with which to contend with his adversaries. Acting on this conviction he had the light guns dismounted and covered with sand bags, and the same precaution was adopted to preserve some of the shell guns or fixed carriages. The propriety of this determination was abundantly demonstrated in the end.

"About a quarter past 8 o'clock the storm broke, ship after ship and battery after battery, and then apparently all together, vomited forth their horrid flames and the atmosphere was filled with deadly missiles. It is impossible for any pen to describe or for anyone who was not an eye-witness to conceive the frightful grandeur of the spectacle. The writer has never had the fortune to read any official Federal report or any other account of the operations of this day except an extract from the graphic and eloquent address of the Rev. Mr. Dennison, a chaplain of one of the Northern regiments, delivered on its nineteenth anniversary at Providence, R. I. He says: 'Words cannot depict the thunder, the smoke, the lifted sand and the general havoc which characterized that hot summer day. What a storm of iron fell on that island; the roar of the guns was incessant; how the shots ploughed the sand banks and the marshes; how the splinters flew from the Beacon House; how the whole island smoked like a furnace and trembled as from an earthquake.'

"If that was true outside of Wagner it is easy to conceive how intensified the situation was within its narrow limits towards which every hostile gun was pointed. The sand came down in avalanches; huge vertical shells and those rolled over by the ricochet shots from the ships, buried themselves and then exploded, rending the earth and forming great craters, out of which the sand and iron fragments flew high in the air. It was a fierce sirocco freighted with iron as well as sand. The sand flew over from the seashore, from the glacis, from the exterior slope, from the parapet, as it was ploughed up and lifted and driven by resistless force now in spray and now almost in waves over into the work, the men sometimes half buried by the moving mass. The chief anxiety was about the magazines. The profile of the fort might be destroyed, the ditch filled up, the traverses and bomb-proof barracks knocked out of shape, but the protecting banks of sand would still afford their shelter; but if the coverings of the magazines were blown away and they became exposed, the explosion that would ensue would lift fort and garrison into the air and annihilate all in general chaos. They were carefully watched and reports of their condition required to be made at short intervals during the day.

"Wagner replied to the enemy, her 10-inch columbiad alone to the ships, deliberately at intervals of fifteen minutes, the other guns to the land batteries whenever in range, as long as they were serviceable. The 32-pounder rifled gun was soon rendered useless by bursting and within two hours many other guns had been dismounted and their carriages destroyed. Sumter, Colonel Alfred Rhett in command, and Gregg, under charge of Captain Sesesne, with the Sullivan and James Island batteries at long range, threw all the power of their available metal at the assailants and added their thunders to the universal din; the harbor of Charleston was a volcano. The want of water was felt, but now again unconsciously the enemy came to the assistance of the garrison, for water was actually scooped from the craters made in the sand by the exploded shells. The city of Charleston was alive and aflame with excitement; the bay, the wharves, the steeples and streets filled with anxious spectators looking across the water at their defenders, whom they could not succor.

"At 2 o'clock the flag halliards were cut by a shot and the Confederate garrison flag was blown over into the fort; there was an instant race for its recovery through the storm of missiles, over the broken earth and shells and splinters which lined the parade. Major Ramsey, Sergeant Shelton and private Flinn, of the Charleston Battalion, and Lieutenant Riddick, of the Sixty-third Georgia, first reached it and bore it back in triumph to the flagstaff, and at the same moment Captain Barnwell, of the engineers, seized a battle-flag, and leaping on the ramparts, drove the staff into the sand. This flag was again shot away, but was again replaced by Private Gaillard, of the Charleston Battalion. These intrepid actions, emulating in a higher degree the conduct of Sergeant Jasper at Moultrie during the Revolution, were cheered by the command and inspired them with renewed courage.

"The day wore on; thousands upon thousands of shells and round shot, shells loaded with balls, shells of guns and shells of mortars, percussion shells, exploding upon impact, shells with graded fuses—every kind apparently known to the arsenals of war leaped into and around the doomed fort, yet there was no cessation; the sun seemed to stand still and the long midsummer day to know no night. Some men were dead and no scratch appeared on their bodies; the concussion had forced the breath from their lungs and collapsed them into corpses. Captain Twiggs, of the staff, in executing some orders was found apparently dead. He was untouched, but lifeless, and only strong restoratives brought him back to animation, and the commanding officer was buried knee-deep in sand and had to be rescued by spades from his imprisonment. The day wore on, hours followed hours of anxiety and grim endurance, but no respite ensued. At last night came; not however, to herald a cessation of the strife, but to usher in a conflict still more terrible. More than eleven hours had passed. The fort was torn and mutilated; to the outside observer it was apparently powerless, knocked to pieces and pounded out of shape, the outline changed, the exterior slope full of gaping wounds, the ditch half filled up, but the interior still preserved its form and its integrity; scarred and defaced it was yet a citadel which, although not offensive, was defiant.

"It was nearly eight o'clock at night, but still twilight, when a calm came and the blazing circle ceased to glow with flame. The ominous pause was understood; it required no signals to be read by those to whom they were not directed to inform them that the supreme moment to test the value of the day's achievements was now at hand. It meant nothing but assault. Dr. Dennison says the assault was intended to be a surprise. He over-estimates the equanimity of the Confederate commander if he supposes that that bombardment, which would have waked the dead, had lulled him into security and repose. The buried cannon were at once exhumed, the guns remounted and the garrison ordered to their appointed posts. The Charleston Battalion were already formed and in position; they had nestled under the parapet and stood ready in their places. The other troops with the exception of part of one regiment, responded to the summons with extraordinary celerity, and the echoes of the Federal guns had hardly died away before more than three-fourths of the ramparts were lined with troops; one gap remained unfilled; the demoralized men who should have filled it clung to the bomb-proofs and stayed there. The gallant Colonel Simpkins called his men to the gun-chambers wherever guns existed. De Pass, with his light artillery on the traverse to the left, his guns remounted and untouched, stood ready, and Colonel Harris moved a howitzer outside the fort to the right to deliver an enfilade fire upon the assailants.

"The dark masses of the enemies columns, brigade after brigade, were seen in the fading twilight to approach; line after line was formed and then came the rush. A small creek made in on the right of the fort and intercepted the enemy's left attack; they did not know it, or did not estimate it. Orders were given to Gaillard to hold his fire and deliver no direct shot. It was believed the obstacle presented by the creek would confuse the assailants, cause them to incline to the right and mingle their masses at the head of the obstacle and thus their movements would be obstructed. It seemed to have the anticipated effect and the assaulting columns apparently jumbled together at this point were met by the withering volleys of McKethan's direct and Gaillard's cross-fire and by the direct discharge of the shell guns, supplemented by the frightful enfilading discharges of the lighter guns upon the right and left. It was terrible, but with an unsurpassed gallantry the Federal soldiers breasted the storm and rushed onward to the glacis.

"The Confederates, not fourteen hundred strong, with the tenacity of bull dogs and a fierce courage which was roused to madness by the frightful inaction to which they had been subjected, poured from the ramparts and embrasures sheets of flame and a tempest of lead and iron, yet their intrepid assailants rushed on like the waves of the sea by whose shore they fought. They fell by hundreds, but they pushed on, reeling under the frightful blasts that almost blew them to pieces, some up to the Confederate bayonets. The southeast bastion was weakly defended, and into it a considerable body of the enemy made their way but they were caught in a trap, for they could not leave it. The fight continued; but it was impossible to stem the torrent of deadly missiles which poured out from the fort, the reflux of that terrible tide which had poured in all day, and the Federals retreated, leaving near a thousand dead around the fort.