LIFE AT FORT WAGNER. BY CAPT. S. A. ASHE, RALEIGH, N. C.
The holding of Wagner is one of the memorable incidents in warfare. Charleston's capacious harbor runs east to Sumter, then turns due south, on the west side being Morris Island, an extensive marsh with many meandering creeks. The waters of one creek ran south, with a narrow strip of sand hills between them and the ocean. Battery Gregg was at the northern extremity of these sand hills, which, constituting the beach, narrowed until, more than a mile away, it was only some thirty yards wide, then widening, it continued on some three miles to its extremity. Federal demonstrations against the city had been by way of James Island, and it was not thought that an attack would be made by Morris Island, so that approach to the city had been neglected. However, in the summer of 1862, two engineers, Capt. F. D. Lee and Langdon Cheves, had other notions, and, selecting a site about a thousand yards from Battery Gregg, where the ridge was only two hundred and fifty yards wide and the sand hills high, they created a fortification of remarkable strength.
Beginning at the ocean edge was a two-gun battery sweeping down the beach, then came the ocean face, the parapet being twenty feet above the floor level, with three heavy traverses separating the gun chambers and extending back until they connected with an interior bombproof; under each traverse being a small room for magazines and headquarters. The land face retreated at a right angle, but changed direction to command the approach, finally resting on the creek. Along the beach battery and sea face was a moat, by flood gates kept filled with water from the high tides, while the glacis gradually sloped to the front. The interior bombproof for the garrison was hardly sufficiently capacious, but, on the whole, the fort was of marvelous strength. The armament consisted of one 10-inch Columbiad and a dozen smaller guns placed to repel a land attack. It was named for Major Wagner, a member of the celebrated firm of John Frazer & Co., a man of great capacity, energy, and intelligence, who devoted himself to the defense of his native city. Whatever promised to be of use, he pressed and urged until it was accomplished. Unhappily, by the bursting of a gun which was being tested, he was mortally wounded. He was the most useful citizen of Charleston.
There were no important fortifications at the end of the island, nothing to prevent landing. On July 10, the Federals landed and, easily taking possession, rapidly advanced to within gunshot of Wagner. Simultaneously with this advance, the fleet opened on Wagner, the small garrison replying with avidity. Now the authorities acted. At once some 1,300 additional men were thrown into the fort with instructions to be prepared for a night assault. In the morning, about four o'clock, it came. The defense was incomparable. When light broke, the blue coats were seen seeking the shelter of the distant hills Then for five days the Federals erected batteries with heavy rifled cannon and mortars about sixteen hundred yards from Wagner.
On the 18th, eleven vessels and the batteries began a bombardment, twenty shells each minute for eight hours. A night attack followed. But the advancing column had to pass along the narrow beach which the Confederate fire swept. The repulse was terrific. '' Four thousand men had dashed against the fort: when reformed within the Federal lines only six hundred answered to their names."'
Now began an incessant rain of shot and shell, and there were such difficulties in holding the position that evacuation was recommended, and was being favorably considered, when Captain Chichester, of the Charleston Artillery, who had
steadily remained at the guns, came to the city and remonstrated. Neither Beuaregard, nor Ripley, nor, indeed, any of their staffs, had been to Wagner and seen its capacity to endure; but some of the interior batteries commanding the harbor had not been entirely completed, and Beauregard asked that Wagner should be held only three or four days longer, when they would be ready for defense. Chichester prevailed.
He was designated as Chief of Artillery, and he joyfully hastened back. Lieut. Edmund Mazick and I were, in special orders, assigned as alternate ordnance officers, and arrangements were made for holding the fort. The garrison was to be changed every third night; and provisions, water, and other supplies were to be brought every night by a steamer to Cummings Point where was Battery Gregg. There was no communication by day except by the signal stations. Sometimes the commanding officer remained longer than three days. Generally there was no engineer officer; and no other officers but of the regiments. The necessary work in repairing at night the damage done by the Federal fire was supervised by the colonels of the several regiments, except that relating to the armament.
Captain Chichester had erected an aerie for himself, where he was at first much on the watch. But human endurance has its limit, and he fell ill. The ordnance officers were the only regular officers of the station, either Mazick or I being there the whole time. At night it was our work to remove the broken gun carriages and replace them, often requiring the aid of one or two hundred men to move them over the heavy traverses, while the little Coehorn mortar shells were dropping around us. In the day we managed to keep the supplies of ammunition ready and to snatch some sleep. It certainly was our lot to have the experience. Night and day, with scarcely an intermission, the shells would come, while, generally, with dawn the ironsides and monitors would deliver terrific broadsides, seeking to prevent breakfast.
In the meantime the Federal land forces were constructing parallels and making their approach. The garrison was ever ready for what might come next. At times, after a long bombardment, it would be found that seven feet of sand had been removed from the top of the bombproof and traverses, and the whole structure would shake on the falling of a shell.
The accuracy of the Federal fire can be judged by the following circumstances: On the creek side of the land face there was an 8-inch howitzer. A shot aimed at it struck the muzzle, driving the gun back. The officer in command had it run up again. The second shot entered its bore and disabled the gun. One day I was coming along the hard beach from Cummings Point, the batteries firing at Sumter or Moultrie, a mile or more away. They altered the elevation, cut the fuze, and, when I was in line, a shell burst twenty feet from me, a fragment passing between my legs. One of the great traverses between the gun chambers on the parapet extended on to the top of the bombproof, making a covered way, say, twenty feet long, nine feet high, which was considered humanly safe. The Federals had the habit of shooting on each side of that traverse, the projectile falling so as to penetrate the adjacent bombproof. Generally, there were no engineer officers, but one day Captain Wampler, having come from the Western army, was sent over. After looking around the fort, he took a seat in this covered way and began a letter to his wife; a shell came over the parapet and, bursting at the right second, a piece cut Captain Wampler in half, and his dead body crumpled up under the table.
Their sharpshooters were skillful, and when a man exposed himself he drew a rifle fire. However, we could go them one better as to that. I had been instrumental in having our
A VIEW OF FORT WAGNER. (From ''Photograpic History of the Civil War."
agent in England, Major Huse, obtain for us some telescopes for rifles, and he sent besides half a dozen Whitworth rifles with telescopes affixed. Two were given me. I had some sand bags removed from a wall, leaving two holes, at each of which a marksman with a Whitworth rifle stood ready to fire. A hat raised on a ramrod drew the fire of some Federal sharpshooter, who then would look to see the effect—and quick would come the Whitworth bullet. Those guns were fatal at fifteen hundred yards. Nor had our single 10-inch Columbiad been useless. Admiral Dahlgren said: ''The duties of the ironclads were not performed under idle batteries; the guns of Wagner never failed to open on them. One of their cannon, a 10-inch, left deep dents in every turret that will not be easily effaced. On August 17, the ironsides were struck thirty-one times, mostly from Wagner and Gregg."
On August 2, it happened that all of our guns were out of business, and I was very anxious to get one to keep up our fire the next day. I finally got the 10-inch Columbiad in order, but it was found that the carriage would not work in and out of gear. Something had to be done. I was so eager to be in readiness to keep up that Maj. Henry Bryan, Assistant Adjutant General on Beauregard's staff, a most efficient officer then at Wagner, wrote a note to Colonel Rhett commanding Fort Sumter (which note is before me now), and I took the parts over to Sumter for the mechanics to remedy the trouble. I went on the night steamboat, at about half past eleven o'clock, getting off at Sumter. Fortunately, a gentleman who had been on duty at Sumter some months earlier, a friend of Colonel Rhett's, was also going to see him, and we went together to his quarters. On entering, there was no person present but the Colonel, When he saw us he arose and, with much agitation, threw his arms around the other gentleman's neck, exclaiming: ''O, they have ruined my beautiful fort! They have ruined my beautiful fort!'' He had taken such a pride in Sumter, and it had been so destroyed by the terrific bombardment that the poor Colonel was unmanned. He had me attended to and then took me back to Morris Island in his own rowboat; and in the morning our Columbiad made answer to the Federal's early fire.
A vessel had recently slipped in in whose cargo were some limes and rum. The terrific violence of this attack led General Beauregard to ask Colonel Keitt, then commanding: "Can you hold the fort another day?'' The Colonel, who was a real good fellow, as well as a fine officer, replied: 'If you will send over a few limes and some rum and sugar and a little water, we will hold the fort another day. '' That was August 3, and we held it for more than a month.
One day was very much like another, unless it was worse.
By courtesy of the Review of Reviews.)
The constant shelling, the scarcity of supplies, the difficulties of the situation, the expediencies resorted to, taxing ingenuity to the utmost, and the heavy night work in repairing damages, the working parties swarming everywhere to restore the parapet, the traverses, and the bombproof, where, on one occasion, seven feet of the sand covering had been displaced. All these tried the souls of men, but I have no recollection of there being a single failure in anyone to do his duty promptly, although the garrison was changed a dozen times while I was there. ''Nor was the garrison inactive. For the blows received blows were given. Several monitors retired worsted and were never seen again."
Later there was no steamboat to transport the men and provisions, and that was done by small boats furnished chiefly by the navy. In the meanwhile, the Federals had been busy making their approach by parallels. By August 9, the third parallel was finished, the head being about five hundred yards from Wagner However, halfway between was a high sand ridge, which we occupied with sharpshooters. and on the 21st the Federals, after heavy firing all day, a shot every second, at dark made an attack with the hayonets, but were repulsed. Four days later a second assault, and again the Federals were driven back; but communication with the city was now interrupted, and reénforcements and supplies could not be brought over, and an overwhelming force eventually captured the ridge. The Federals now redoubled their work constructing their parallels, while still maintaining the daily bombardment. It was at this period of repose that an interesting collateral incident occurred. On Sunday, about August 26, I was off duty and at my quarters on Sullivan's Island. Major Bryan, who was one of the most devoted and efficient officers I ever knew, and, doubtless, largely the eyes and hands of General Beauregard, came over to our headquarters with the purpose of establishing some caches farther down the island. Circumstances interfered, so, abandoning that, he suggested going to inspect the sea walls of Fort Sumter. The introduction of rifled cannon had brought new conditions. Granite masonry cannot withstand the terrific impact, and it was desirable to see the effect on the walls of Sumter. I got a boat and two men, and we went to the front of Sumter. The current beine out, we drifted about two hundred yards slowly along the sea" face, the projectiles passing above us. After drifting beyond the line of fire, we rowed back, and drifted down again. This we continued to repeat for more than half an hour, until the Major was content with his observations. When at length he was satisfied, I raised sail and took him to the city. Projectiles frequently passed a few feet over our heads and, striking the masonry, fragments of stone were hurled here and there.
I suppose that was the only inspection ever made in the history of warfare under similar conditions by an inspecting officer.
By day and night the Federals worked on their trenches, and as they neared Wagner, they opened a terrific fire and with powerful calcium lights blinded the defenders. At length they pushed forward their approach to the very moat of the fort, so that I could have tossed a biscuit into their trench. The crisis had come. Wagner was but an outpost. It could no longer be provisioned and supplied with water. An asasult by vastly superior numbers and a hand-to-hand conflict was imminent.
With heroism and fortitude, the garrison had held the outpost until the last extremity. The interior defences had been completed, the outpost was no longer necessary. General Beauregard determined that the gallant soldiers there should not be sacrificed. On Sunday, the 6th of September, it was considered that the fort should be evacuated, preparations were made, and the evacuation was successfully carried out. It happened that in regular course, Lieutenant Mazick had relieved me a day or two before, so the evacuation was made while he was on duty. It was the fifty-eighth day of the siege. The movement was happily executed; with such quietude were the men withdrawn that the alert Federals, hardly a hundred feet away, did not realize what was passing.
The next morning they were amazed to find that Wagner, and, indeed, Battery Gregg, as well, were abandoned. And Beauregard was right. Holding Morris Island was then not necessary for the safety of Charleston. Charleston was held for eighteen months longer, until Sherman reached Columbia, when, under orders, it was evacuated, the garrison reaching Sherman's front at Fayetteville. And they fought him desperately at Bentonville.