Efforts to Capture Charleston

ALTHOUGH Charleston had become a comparatively unimportant point in the grand theatre of the war, its possession was coveted by the National Government because of the salutary moral effect which such conquest would produce. A strong effort to accomplish that purpose was made in the spring of 1863. On the 6th of April, Admiral Dupont crossed Charleston Bar with nine "monitor" or turreted iron vessels, leaving five gun-boats outside as a reserve, and proceeded to attack Fort Sumter, the most formidable obstacle in his way to the city. At the sam time a co-operating force of land troops, four thousand strong, under General Truman Seymour, took a masked position on Folly Island. As Dupont approached, the cannon of the confederates on Sumter and the adjacent batteries were silent until the vessels were entangled in an unsuspected network of torpedoes and other obstructions, when nearly three hundred guns opened a concentric fire upon the fleet, driving them back to the ocean and destroying the Keokuk, one of the smallest of the iron-clads. The land troops could do nothing until Fort Sumter was reduced, and the enterprise was a failure.

In June following, General Quincey A. Gillmore succeeded General Hunter in the command of the Southern Department. He found himself at the head of eighteen thousand men, with a generous supply of ordnance, small arms, and stores. A expedition against Charleston, by land and water, was immediately planned. Gillmore determined to seize Morris Island, on which was strong Fort Wagner that commanded Fort Sumter. that island and its military works in his possession, he might batter down Fort Sumter with heavy siege guns, and Daly charleston I ashes with his shells, if it was not surrendered. Dupont did not approve than plan ; and early in July, Admiral John A. Dahlgren took his place. General Alfred H. Terry was sent with a force to James Island to mask Gillmore's intentions, when National troops were suddenly landed on Morris lsland, and with the aid of batteries on Folly Island, they drove the Confederates into Fort Wagner. Then Gillmore planted a line of batteries across Morris Island to confront that fort, which he found to be much stronger than he suspected. The Nationals assaulted it (July 11) and were repulsed, when a simultaneous bombardment by sea and land was determined on. This was done on the 18th of July, when hundred great guns opened on the fort from the ships and the land-batteries. Meanwhile General Terry had been attacked by a force sent from charleston, by Deauregard, to surprise him. But the vigilance of Terry ever slept, and the confederates were easily repulsed. The Nationals were then withdrawn from James island and joined the main body of troops on Morris Island.

At sunset, on the 18th, Gillmore's forces moved in two columns, to attack for Wagner. A violent thunder-storm was raging. One column was led by general Strong, the other by colonel H.L. Putnam, acting as brigadier. The struggle was brief but fearful. Both columns of the Nationals were repulsed, with great slaughter in their rants, losing, in the aggregate, full fifteen hundred men. Strong and Putnam were mortally wounded ; and Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who was at the head of the first regiment of colored troops organized in the free-labor states, was instantly killed. Because he commanded colored troops, Shaw was intensely hated by the Confederates ; and they foolishly thought they had dishonored him when , as they proclaimed, they had buried his body "in a pit under a heap of his niggers."

Gillmore now abandoned the plan for capturing Fort Wager by direct assault, ad began a regular siege. With infinite labor a battery was constructed in a morass half-way between Morris and James islands, upon a platform of heavy timbers standing in the deep black mud. When a lieutenant of engineers was ordered to construct it he said, "It is impossible." His commanding officer replied, "There is no such word as impossible ; call for what you need." The lieutenant, who was a wag, made a requisition on the quartermaster for "one hundred men eighteen feet high to wade in mud sixteen feet deep;" and he gravely inquired of the engineer whether these men might be spliced, if required. The lieutenant was arrested for contempt, but was soon released, ad he built a redoubt with the services of men of ordinary height. Upon the redoubt was erected a Parrott gun, which they called "The Swamp Angel," that sent shells into Charleston, five miles distant. One of these entered St. Michael's church near the roof, and destroyed the table on the wall that contained the ten commandments, obliterating all of them excepting two-"Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery."