| BATTLE OF SECESSIONVILLE, JAMES ISLAND, S. C. |
|
BRIGADIER-GENERAL EGBERT L. VIELE. |
One who participated in the bombardment relates an amusing incident. The batteries were under the immediate command of Lieut. (afterward General) Horace Porter, who went around to every gun to ascertain whether its captain was provided with everything that would be necessary when the firing should begin. At one mortar battery fuse plugs were wanting, and the officer was in despair. This battery had the position nearest to the fort, and its four mortars were useless without the plugs. Finally he remembered that there was a Yankee regiment on the island, and remarked, "All Yankees are whittlers. If this regiment could be turned out to-night, they might whittle enough fuse plugs before morning to fire a thousand rounds." Thereupon he rode out in the darkness to the camp of that regiment, which was immediately ordered out to whittle, and provided all the fuse plugs that were needed. The first gun was fired by Lieut. P. H. O'Rourke, who afterward fell at the head of his regiment at Gettysburg. It is said that the first gun against Sumter had been fired by a classmate of his. One who was in the fort says: "At the close of the fight all the parapet guns were dismounted except three. Every casemate gun in the southeast section of the fort was dismounted, and the casemate walls breached in almost every instance to the top of the arch. The moat was so filled with brick and mortar that one could have passed over dry shod. The parapet walls on the Tybee side were all gone. The protection to the magazine in the northwest angle of the fort had all been shot away, the entire corner of the magazine was shot off, and the powder exposed. Such was the condition of affairs when Colonel Olmstead called a council of officers in the casemate, and they all acquiesced in the necessity of a capitulation in order to save the garrison from destruction by an explosion, which was momentarily threatened."
| FORT PULASKI DURING BOMBARDMENT, APRIL 11, 1862. |
On the 16th of April the Eighth Michigan Regiment, Col. William M. Fenton, with a detachment of Rhode Island artillery, was sent from Tybee Island, Ga., to make a reconnoissance of Wilmington Island. On landing, they marched inland by three different roads, and soon discovered the enemy in some force. They took up a position for defence and were attacked by the Thirteenth Georgia Regiment. When Colonel Fenton ordered the bugler to sound the charge for his main body, his advance mistook it for retreat, fell back, and threw his line into confusion. At this moment the enemy advanced and began firing. Order was soon restored, and through the vigorous efforts of Lieut. C. H. Wilson one company was carried to the right, through the woods, and made a flank attack upon the enemy's left. Thereupon the Confederates slowly retired, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. The National loss was 45 men; Confederate loss, unknown.
On the 10th of January an expedition consisting of 5,000 men—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—set out from Cairo to make an extended reconnoissance in the neighborhood of Columbus, Ky., and in the direction of Mayfield. It was led by John A. McClernand, who was temporarily in command of that district. Nearly every point of any consequence within fifteen or twenty miles was visited, roads were discovered that had not been laid down on any map, the position of the enemy at Columbus was correctly ascertained, and much information was obtained regarding the disposition of the inhabitants toward the Government. The march of about one hundred and forty miles was made over icy and miry roads with considerable difficulty, and proved useful for future operations, although it was not enlivened by any conflict.
On the 15th of February Bowling Green, which had been considered an important point in the line of defence that was first broken by General Grant at Fort Henry, was evacuated by the Confederates, who went to join their comrades at Fort Donelson. The National troops under General Buell, marching forty miles in twenty-eight hours, took possession of the place in the afternoon.
Many of the gaps in the Alleghenies were strategically important because they were the natural places for the crossing of the road that connected the States east and west of that range, and there were frequent expeditions and small actions at these gaps by which one side or the other sought to clear them of the enemy. One of these took place in March, 1862, when it was discovered that a somewhat irregular Confederate force of about 500 men had taken possession of Pound Gap, Eastern Kentucky, built huts, and gathered supplies for a permanent occupation. A road to Abingdon, Va., passes through this gap. General James A. Garfield, whose defeat of Humphrey Marshall on the Big Sandy has been recorded in an earlier chapter, set out a month later, March 13th, with a force of 900 men to clear the Gap. It was a laborious march of two days in snow and rain and mud, with roads obstructed by felled trees, and streams whose bridges had been destroyed. Arriving at Elkton Creek, two miles below the Gap, Garfield sent out his cavalry to reconnoitre the position of the enemy, and himself with the infantry climbed the mountain a mile or two below the Gap, and thence moved along the summit to attack them in the flank. When this force arrived at the Gap, the enemy were found deployed on the summit at its opposite side. Garfield deployed his own force down the eastern slope, and then ordered them to charge through the ravine and up the hill held by the enemy, which they promptly did. But before they could ascend the southern slope the whole Confederate force disappeared. Nothing was left for the National troops to do but to ransack the captured camp, pack up what they could of the large quantity of supplies, burn the remainder, and return whence they came.
When Kentucky was invaded by the Confederate forces of Bragg, Humphrey Marshall, and Kirby Smith, the movement was accompanied and assisted by a raid from a large band of guerillas, or partisan rangers as they called themselves, led by a bold rider named John H. Morgan. The principal resistance to Morgan was at Cynthiana, July 17th, about fifty miles south of Cincinnati. The National troops occupying that town were commanded by Lieut.-Col. J. J. Landrum, and numbered about 340, a part of them being home guards not very well armed or disciplined, with one field gun. Morgan's men approached the town suddenly, drove in the pickets, and began shelling the place without giving any notice for the women and children to be removed. Landrum immediately placed his one gun in the public square, where it could be turned so as to sweep almost any of the roads entering the town, and posted all of his force except the artillery in the outskirts where he supposed the enemy were approaching, putting most of them at the bridge overlooking. But to his surprise Morgan's force was very large in comparison with his own, and entered the town from a different direction. In a little while Landrum's men found themselves practically surrounded, and subjected to a sharp fire both front and rear, the guerillas having the shelter of the houses. The artillerymen in the square were subjected to so hot a fire from the riflemen that they were obliged to abandon their gun. Colonel Landrum writes: "I rode along the railroad to Rankin's Hotel to ascertain what position the enemy was taking. Here I met an officer of the rebel band, aid to Colonel Morgan, who demanded my surrender. I replied, 'I never surrender,' and instantly discharged three shots at him, two of which took effect in his breast. He fell from his horse, and I thought him dead; but he is still living, and will probably recover, notwithstanding two balls passed through his body." A portion of Landrum's force, posted north of the town, was overpowered and forced to surrender. With another portion he attempted to drive the enemy from the bridge and take their battery, but found them so strong there as to render this hopeless, while all the time he was subjected to a fire from the rear. Finally he determined with the remainder of his men to cut his way through and escape. He emerged from the town in a southeast direction, met and routed a small detachment of the enemy, and was pursued by another detachment when he made a stand, posting his men behind the fences, and for a considerable time held them in check. When his ammunition was exhausted he gave orders for every man to save himself as he could, and thus his command was dispersed. In this affair the National forces lost about 70 men killed or wounded. The loss of the guerillas is unknown, but they left behind them a considerable number of wounded, and the capture of the town must have cost them about 100 men. In this raid Morgan is said to have commanded from 900 to 1,200 men, to have ridden over 1,000 miles, captured 17 towns, and paroled nearly 1,200 prisoners.