Gillmore’s report

The plates

Seventy-six engraved plates and views — and the twenty that carry the narrative.

The 1865 volume was issued with seventy-six plates and engraved views — charts, siege maps, sections through the approaches, elevations of individual batteries, and studies of burst guns and Confederate projectiles. Several are folding. The 1868 edition carries eighty-three.

They are not decoration. Several of them are the best surviving record of what a siege battery in sand actually looked like, and the plate of the head of the sap approaching Battery Wagner is very nearly the only one of its kind for the war.

The selection below is the working plate program for the condensed edition — the images that carry the narrative rather than the full seventy-six. Roman numerals are the original plate numbers as recorded in the source packet and should be checked against a copy of the volume before any of them is reproduced.

The working plate program

PlateSubjectPlacement
IChart of Charleston Harbor and its approachesEstablishes the whole problem: the channel, the islands, the forts and the distances between them.Front map, or Chapter 1
IIMap of the siege operations against Battery Wagner and Fort SumterThe campaign on one sheet — Folly, Morris, the parallels and the batteries.Chapter 3 or 4
IIIApproaches to Battery WagnerShows how the parallels and saps closed the ground yard by yard.Chapter 7
IV–VSections of the approaches and of Battery WagnerThe one place a reader can see what a sand parapet and a bombproof actually were.Chapter 7
VILeft batteries used against Fort SumterThe breaching line, at the ranges that made the bombardment possible.Chapter 8
VIIView of Fort Sumter, 23 August 1863The fort at the end of the first great bombardment.Chapter 8
VIIIPlan of Battery WagnerThe trace, traverses and bombproof that defeated two assaults.Chapter 6 or 10
XIISplinter-proof shelterOrdinary siege construction, and almost never illustrated this clearly.Chapter 7
XIIIBattery BrownA heavy battery built in sand, as built.Chapter 8
XVBattery MeadeCompanion to Brown in the breaching line.Chapter 8
XVIThe Marsh Battery — the "Swamp Angel"The most famous engineering episode of the campaign, drawn from the work itself.Chapter 9
XVIINaval BatteryThe Navy's guns ashore — the joint operation made physical.Chapter 13
XXI10-inch Parrott rifle, Battery StrongThe 300-pounder: the heaviest rifle in the campaign.Chapter 11
XXII–XXIIIGorge wall, Fort SumterRifled artillery against brick, at the point of aim.Chapter 8
XXIV–XXVIHead of the sap approaching Battery WagnerSap rollers and the working face of a siege, drawn under fire.Chapter 7
XXVIIEntrance to the bombproof, Battery WagnerWhere the garrison sat out the bombardment of 18 July.Chapter 10
XXVIII–XXIXBurst Parrott riflesThe campaign's most important ordnance evidence.Chapter 11
XXXVWhitworth rifleThe precision weapon, for comparison against the Parrotts.Chapter 11
XXXVI–XXXVIIConfederate projectilesMaterial culture straight from the source — what was coming the other way.Chapter 11

The original volume, as printed in 1865

Gillmore's own report runs from page 7. Everything after page 135 is the technical evidence beneath it. Page numbers below are as recorded in the source packet's reconstruction of the original table of contents; they disagree in places with the packet's own chapter endnotes and must be reconciled against a copy of the volume before print.

SectionPage
Report of Maj. Gen. Q. A. Gillmorep. 7
Appendix A · Report of Brig. Gen. J. W. Turner, Chief of Artilleryp. 135
Supplementary report of Brig. Gen. Turnerp. 144
Appendix B · Report of Maj. T. B. Brooks, A.D.C., assistant engineerp. 148
Appendix C · Report of Col. Edward W. Serrell, 1st New York Volunteer Engineersp. 267
Appendix D · Report of Lt. Charles R. Suter, U.S. Engineersp. 294
Appendix E · Report of Lt. Peter S. Michie, U.S. Engineersp. 300
Appendix F · Report of Capt. Foxhall A. Parker, U.S. Navyp. 310
Appendix G · Correspondence, Gen. Halleck and Maj. Gen. Gillmorep. 312
Appendix H · Correspondence, Rear Adm. Dahlgren and Maj. Gen. Gillmorep. 319
Appendix I · Statement of R. P. Parrottp. 350