Confederate Veteran

Evacuation of Morris Island

Volume 12, February 1904, page 71

Williamson corrects the previous November's account: he gives the date of the evacuation of Battery Wagner, names the commands that held it, and explains that the transport was fired on by Fort Moultrie in error.

A letter from C. A. Williamson of Savannah, Georgia, Company B, 25th South Carolina Volunteers.

Cite as

C. A. Williamson, “Evacuation of Morris Island,” Confederate Veteran 12, no. 2 (February 1904): 71.

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Published: February 1904
Volume: 12, no. 2
Pages: 71
Author: C. A. Williamson

EVACUATION OF MORRIS ISLAND.

C. A. Williamson, Savannah, Ga., of Company B, TwentyFifth South Carolina Volunteers, writes of it:

"In the November number of the Veteran there appears an article under the above heading, some of the statements in which I write to correct:

"The evacuation of Battery Wagner took place on Sunday night at twelve o'clock, September 7, 1863. The commands holding that fort were part of Col. Huguenin's First South Carolina Regular Infantry, part of Col. Rhett's First South Carolina Regular Artillery, Col. L. M. Keith's Twentieth South Carolina Volunteers, and the Twenty-Fifth South Carolina Volunteers, to which I belonged.

"The incident spoken of as to the Twenty-Third Georgia occurred through a mistake on the part of the pilot of the transport boat De Kalb in dropping downstream between Fort Sumter and Morris Island. It was quite hazy, and when the boat loomed up below Fort Sumter she was taken for a Yankee gunboat and fired on by Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island. The mistake was soon discovered, but not before some damage was done.

"In the same article your correspondent corrects a statement of W. A. Day, which does not correct. The battle of the Crater was fought from start to finish by Elliott's South Carolina Brigade, and the Twentieth South Carolina Regiment was the heaviest loser. I should like to say also that between Colquitt's Brigade and the Crater were posted Elliott's South Carolina Brigade, Wright's North Carolina Brigade, and Hagood's South Carolina Brigade; and when the explosion took place Mahone's Division closed up on the right, followed by Hoke's Division, of which Colquitt was the left, Elliott's being in Mahone's Brigade, and Wright's, Hagood's, and Colquitt's in Hoke's Division."

Editorial notes

Statements in this article that are wrong, doubtful, or worth setting beside another account. The article’s own text is left as printed.

“The evacuation of Battery Wagner took place on Sunday night at twelve o'clock, September 7, 1863”
Right. 6 September 1863 was a Sunday; the works were abandoned in the small hours of the 7th. This is the correction that matters, and it disposes of the “August 31” of the article it answers.
“she was taken for a Yankee gunboat and fired on by Fort Moultrie”
The essential correction. Moultrie was in Confederate hands; the transport was hit by her own side.
“Col. L. M. Keith's Twentieth South Carolina Volunteers”
Col. Lawrence Massillon Keitt. The magazine's spelling is wrong.
“the transport boat De Kalb”
**[Information unknown — verify before use]* No Confederate harbor transport of that name is recorded at Charleston; the Union ironclad Baron De Kalb* had been sunk in the Yazoo two months earlier.
“the battle of the Crater was fought from start to finish by Elliott's South Carolina Brigade … Wright's North Carolina Brigade”
Two errors in one sentence. Elliott's brigade held the ground blown up and fought hard, but the assault that retook the crater was Mahone's, with Virginia, Georgia and Alabama troops. Wright's brigade was Georgian, not North Carolinian.