Maj. John A. Johnson, commanding engineer at Fort Sumter during the 1863-65 Confederate occupation.
On November 6, the Confederate engineer at Fort Sumter, Maj. John Johnson, reported that while the height of the mass of the fort was “diminishing visibly on the sides away from the city, when it gets down to the lower casemates it will have become so thick from accumulated debris as to resist further battering.” Two weeks later, he found the fort stronger than ever, with casualties surprisingly low—only two men were killed in the August bombardment and only 22 more since the start of the present one; 118 had been wounded. Johnson was not fearful of being driven out by the big Federal guns, but rather “exposure to assault from barges at night.”
In mid-November such an attack seemed to be forthcoming. During the early hours of the 18th, the defenders of the fort had four distinct alarms as small boats approached within hailing distance; “all hands out each time and expecting a fight.” On the following night, a force estimated at 250 men approached within 300 yards of the fort, only to be driven off by the muskets of the aroused garrison. This was not, however, a real attack but only a reconnaissance ordered by Gillmore “with a view to compel the garrison to show its strength.” Having done that, he would now wait for the Navy to make the next move.
But Admiral Dahlgren could not move until the repairs on the monitors were finished, and as late as January 1864 these still were not completed. Even so, confronted with reports of greatly strengthened harbor fortifications and a growing concern over the exact nature of the harbor obstructions, he was reluctant to move without additional monitors. Defeat was always possible, and defeat for the Union’s only ironclad squadron might have serious consequences—not only for the blockade and Gillmore’s command on Morris Island, but for operations elsewhere along the coast. Nevertheless, substantial advantages had already been gained: the blockade at Charleston was tighter with Morris Island in Federal hands. To all this, the Navy Department agreed. Elsewhere, while Dahlgren and Gillmore marked time, the war gathered momentum. In November 1863, the North won decisively at Chattanooga.
The additional monitors, always promised, never seemed to arrive. On December 5, General Gillmore stopped the bombardment of Fort Sumter begun 41 days earlier. There seemed no great advantage in continuing, and it required considerable ammunition. He had made his last sustained effort against the fort. On only four other days in December did he fire any rounds at all. During the four months he remained in command, the firing was intermittent, never more than “minor” in character. Meanwhile, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s forthcoming operations in Virginia required all available troops. On May 1, 1864, Gillmore departed for Fort Monroe with 18,000 picked men and quantities of valuable matériel.
Dahlgren’s much-needed monitors never did arrive (Grant needed those, too) and, with the monitor force he did have reduced to six by the foundering of the Weehawken in December, further offensive operations against Charleston seemed completely out of the question. In June, the ironclad frigate New Ironsides was withdrawn to the north.
In the preceding December, Fort Sumter had been an almost chaotic ruin. But with the fort practically left alone during the months immediately following, the garrison gradually restored order from chaos. The parade ground, excavated well below high-water level to provide sand-filling, was cleared, drained, and partially rebuilt. Trim ranks of gabions (wicker baskets filled with sand) bolstered the sloping debris of the walls on the interior. The three-gun battery in the lower right face was lined with logs and planks, 10 feet deep, and revetted more thoroughly in the rear. In casemates on the left flank another three-gun battery was created. Through the disordered debris of the left and right faces, the garrison tunneled a 275-foot timbered gallery connecting the two batteries and fort headquarters in the left flank. And in from the rubble of the sea front, the garrison built a loopholed timber blockhouse to cover the parade ground in the event of further assault. In May, Capt. John C. Mitchel, son of the Irish patriot, relieved Lt. Col. Stephen Elliott in command.
The onset of summer, 1864, brought one more attempt to take Fort Sumter; likewise another officer of the original Fort Sumter garrison came into the operation. Maj. Gen. John G. Foster, engineer of the fort in April 1861, had succeeded to Gillmore’s command on May 26 and was convinced that “with proper arrangements” the fort could easily be taken “at any time.” The proper arrangements included special light-draught steamers and 1,000-man “assaulting arks” equipped with 51-foot scaling ladders and elevated towers for sharpshooters. Though initial War Department reaction was cool, Foster went ahead with a preliminary operation to complete the demolition of the fort. “Yankee ingenuity” might succeed where routine operations had failed or been judged too costly.
The last two commanders of Fort Sumter: