Confederate Shop
The incredible story of the bravery and stalwart tenacity of the Confederate defense of Fort Sumter would make a fantastic movie and is probably not nearly as well known as it should be. It remains one of the most outstanding Confederate victories of the war. For many Northerners, South Carolina, and Charleston in particular, represented the hotbed of secession and they wanted to wreck havoc on the Southern port city. Fort Sumter itself served as something of a symbol and a focal point, since it was the scene of the first serious military bombardment by Confederate forces, who needed to secure the fort from Major Robert Anderson before Abraham Lincoln’s naval force could arrive with reenforcements. By 1863, the North stepped up military operations against Charleston and her harbor defenses, including Sumter. Charleston itself suffered 587 continuous days of attack. The Northerners hit Sumter with everything they had, including ironclad ships, marine ground troops, and tens of thousands of rounds from heavy siege guns, including 200,- and 300-pounder breeching guns but the fort never surrendered. Sumter never fell to enemy action - it was simply abandoned when the Confederate authorities ordered the evacuation of Charleston and her environs.
Construction of Sumter, situated on a shoal near the entrance to Charleston harbor, began in 1829. The five-sided fort was built out of brick and mortar with walls forty feet high and five feet thick - ten feet thick in places. The longest and weakest wall - the gorge - faced west away from the sea and contained the sally-port. The other walls were built in two tiers of casemate plus the parapet which mounted guns in barbette. By 1860, when the final construction of the fort was almost complete, it was already obsolete. The masonry couldn’t hold up to 300-pounder breechers. To make matters worse, Sumter’s best guns, four 10-inch smoothbore columbiads were also out of date. The columbiads could only fire a 128 pound projectile, although one Northern general stated that the Confederate fire was remarkably accurate even at a distance of two miles.
Two groups of men defended Sumter: the garrison troops who manned the guns, mostly by day, and the army engineer teams who ventured out to rebuild and repair the fort by night. Colonel Alfred Rhett, who commanded the fort, and 550 men of the 1st South Carolina Artillery comprised the garrison. They manned 40 guns in casemate and 45 in barbette plus 7 mortars. As the war progressed, however, and the casualties mounted, they would be relieved by other units. Captain of Engineers, John Johnson commanded the engineers which also included, at various times, one hundred black men and a gang of ten white mechanics made up of detailed soldiers. Given the dangerous task of working outside the fort under enemy fire, serious casualties among the engineer units mounted as well. (Much of the information found here, including the quotes, comes from Johnson’s excellent book published in 1890, The Defense of Charleston Harbor, Including Fort Sumter and the Adjacent Islands: 1863-1865.)
On April 7, 1863, under the command of Rear-Admiral Samuel DuPont, a seven vessel squadron of ironclads steamed forward to attack Fort Sumter. The squadron included eight monitors, each carrying 2 heavy guns, plus DuPont’s flagship, the armored frigate, the New Ironsides carrying 16 guns. To give an idea of the discrepancy of armament, the squadron carried twenty-two XI-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns, seven XV-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns and three VIII-inch Parrott rifled guns. The XV-inch guns could throw a 440 pound shot or a 352 pound explosive shell, the XI-inch guns lobbed a 166 pound shot, and the VIII-inch rifles could throw a 200 pound projectile. Although Sumter mounted more than 80 guns, none of them had the range or firepower of the attacking squadron and only 40 of those guns were engaged during the battle. Sumter’s best guns were inferior to every one of the squadron’s guns, and the fort’s 32-pounders were completely useless against ironclads.
With the Weehawken taking the lead, and the other vessels following in line in two divisions, plus the flagship, a sharp battle commenced about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Nearby Confederate batteries assisted at a greater range but the ironclads concentrated most of their attack on Sumter itself. As more ironclads from the first division steamed into position, the fighting intensified. Using their pre-set buoys to gage distance, the disciplined gunners of the 1st South Carolina Artillery poured on the fire.
The flagship New Ironsides appeared to have trouble of her own as she moved about eccentrically. According to Rear-Admiral DuPont, “owing to the narrow channel and rapid currents she became partly unmanageable.” The New Ironsides made it to about a mile from Sumter then drifted to about two thousand yards away. At this point, the Confederate defenders on the nearby shore watched as the large ironclad passed directly over their boiler torpedo (underwater mine). Using the electric wire connected to the device, the engineer officer on shore tried desperately to ignite the charge but couldn’t get the monstrous torpedo to explode.
Within the first twenty minutes of the battle, two of the eight heavy guns of the first division of monitors were knocked out of action. Admiral DuPont, not knowing that his flagship had passed within an electrical impulse of disaster, signaled for the rest of the squadron to ignore his erratic movements. The second division of monitors steamed into the fray and took a beating as the smoke filled the air. Last in line, the Keokuk, an earlier class of monitor mounting two turrets with one gun each and outfitted with slightly lighter armor than her sisters, moved in the closest to Sumter - about 600 to 900 yards distant. The Keokuk took ninety hits - nineteen of which pierced her hull at or below the water-line. Bolts and shots had passed completely through both turrets. She was finished. With her engines miraculously still functioning, she limped away. Four more monitors were disabled and by 4:30, DuPont ordered a withdrawl. The obsolete masonry fort had just defeated the best armed, best armored and most state-of-the-art naval squadron the world had ever seen.
The Northerners managed to get all their men, including the wounded, off the Keokuk but left behind the invaluable guns. She sank the next morning in 18 feet of water (at high tide). The attack left gaping holes in Sumter’s masonry. Johnson provides sketches of the damage. But the fort and it’s scrappy garrison were ready to do battle again the next day. The same couldn’t be said for the squadron.
To top off the victory, a hand-picked crew of civilians and soldiers were sent out to the wreck under cover of darkness and protected by a detachment of troops from Sumter in barges, to recover the Keokuk’s two XI-inch guns. The crew worked over two weeks on the recovery, all while within easy range of the enemy blockading fleet. When all was made ready to hoist the precious guns from the wreck, another detachment of 50 men from Sumter as well as two Confederate ironclads, the Chicora and the Palmetto State were positioned nearby to protect the crew. The guns were safely carried away and put to Confederate use. With the exception of two imported English guns, which were of little use owing the a lack of proper projectiles, the recovered guns were the heaviest in the harbor’s defenses.
The ironclad battle was just a mere taste of the bombardment yet to come. In addition to the naval guns within easy range of Sumter, the enemy began emplacing land batteries equipped with 100,- 200,- and 300-pounder rifled breaching guns. The defenders knew that they had to strengthen the masonry with anything they could get their hands on and as quickly as possible. The defenders had already used the sand from the parade ground to fill in the casemates of the sea-front walls, but the western wall, the gorge, had to be filled in and reenforced. One item available to Southerners at the time was cotton bales. The engineers came up with an ingenious system of packing the rooms and casemates of the fort with cotton bales, thoroughly soaked in salt water (to prevent them from catching fire from an incendiary round) laid in wet sand like bricks in mortar. At first, the engineers thought that they would need a system of tubes to keep the bales wet, but they later discovered that the bales simply rotted and wouldn’t catch fire. The bales had the added bonus over sand in that they retained a nearly perpendicular shape even after the outer masonry had been shot away.
In addition to the cotton bales, 20,000 sandbags were shipped to the fort. With crews working twenty-four hours a day, anywhere from 300 to 450 black men rotated in and out of the fort in reliefs, day and night. The western walls, facing the enemy batteries on nearby Morris Island, were now buttressed with sand 40 feet high and between 25 and 40 feet thick. By August 16, 1863, Johnson’s workforce had spent six solid weeks converting Sumter from an obsolete masonry structure into a formidable earthen fort and not a moment too soon.
The next day the first great bombardment began. From land and naval guns, 948 rounds rained down on Sumter in a single day. Put in statistical terms, from 1863-1865 Sumter was shelled altogether for 280 days, and sustained 46,053 hits. The casualties included 52 killed and 267 wounded. Captain John Johnson himself received a severe shrapnel wound to the head from a mortar shell and was evacuated from the fort. Black men and white men alike suffered and died together. While at the wharf unloading supplies from the steamboat, Hibben, nine black men were severely scalded when an unexploded shell smashed through the boat’s boiler. Some of them died from their burns.
The defenders watched as Sumter crumbled all around them. Large craters and smashed equipment littered the parade ground. The flagpole was shot away numerous times and soldiers from officers to privates were cited for gallantry for dashing out and raising the flag under fire. Men had to salvage their own guns from the ruins when a casemate or terreplein gave way. Although battered literally to pieces, Sumter remained a formidable threat. In the words of Rear-Admiral John A. Dahlgren, who relieved DuPont a few weeks after the fateful ironclad battle, “The heap of rubbish at the gorge looks invincible.”
In addition to both light and heavy bombardments, the garrison constantly had to worry about amphibious assaults, especially at night. Sentinels were posted, sometimes on lookout ladders, to watch for enemy boats, and in many cases were literally blown away by enemy fire. The engineers also placed wire entanglements and other obstructions around the walls as well as the surrounding water to impede enemy assault troops. Sumter also employed several sharpshooters armed with Whitworth rifles with telescopic sights.
On the night of September 8, 1863, Rear-Admiral Dahlgren ordered a 400-man assault force of sailors and marines in two columns of small boats to take Fort Sumter - but the defenders were ready for them. Sentinels spotted the approaching boats, and Major Stephen Elliot, who had recently relieved Colonel Rhett and his battered command, ordered his men to hold their fire until the first of the enemy troops landed their boats. As the defenders opened fire with their rifles from above, nearby Confederate batteries fired on the landing force and boats, and the Confederate ironclad, Chicora, moved into position and swept the enemy with grape and cannister shot. Sumter’s defenders also lobbed hand grenades and even pieces of masonry down at the sailors and marines. The fight only lasted about twenty minutes. The Confederates captured several boats and over one hundred prisoners, for a total Union loss of 124 men. In November 1863, the Northern army attempted a similar boat assault but were repulsed before they could even land men.
The bombardment of Sumter continued through 1864 and into 1865. A third massive bombardment took place in July 1864, and the fort’s commander, Captain John C. Mitchel was mortally wounded. A week later Johnson himself was severely wounded in the head. By February 1865, the situation looked bleak throughout much of the South. After ravaging Georgia, Major General William Sherman’s 70,000 man army plowed into South Carolina. By mid-February, to spare his troops for use elsewhere in the state, General P. G. T. Beauregard ordered the evacuation of Charleston.
On the night of February 17th, while operating in secrecy and still posting sentinels in case of an assault, the last roll was called in Sumter, and the fort’s commander, Captain Thomas A. Huguenin, ordered the garrison to board the waiting boats. The captain then climbed to the ramparts and personally relieved the sentinels, who boarded the boats. Then, accompanied by Lieutenant Edwin White, engineer-in-charge, and the post adjutant, Lieutenant W. G. Ogier, Captain Huguenin made one final round through his still formidable and still undefeated fort. Making their way to the sally-port, the last Confederate commander of Fort Sumter was the last man to board the boat. The captain himself cast off the line, and the officers looked on in sadness as Fort Sumter disappeared into the night. Soon they would leave Charleston itself and, as Johnson remarked, “the best defended city of the Southern coast.”
Christmas at Fort Sumter:
Johnson gives us a glimpse of the Christmas celebration at Fort Sumter. On Christmas Day, 1863, Lieutenant-Colonel Elliot, the fort’s commander, hoped to boost the morale of the men and give them a merry Christmas in spite of the harried condition of their surroundings. The fort had enjoyed a respite from the bombings for two full weeks, and although the men couldn’t go home for Christmas, several of the officers had received well stocked boxes and hampers of food from home. The chassis from a 10-inch columbiad, run into the headquarters casemate, served as their table. They placed their plates and dishes onto the three irregularly spaced beams. For chairs, they used what they had on hand: carpet-bags, sandbags, valises, and even stands of solid shot and grape shot. Christmas dinner included roast turkey, wild ducks, oysters, sweet potatoes and other sundries, and as Johnson tells us, “there was a reminder of grim-visaged war presented that day in the centrepiece of the banquet.” One half of a huge fifteen-inch shell from an enemy breeching gun, set in a flattened sandbag, served as their Christmas punch bowl.
