RECOVERY OF THE GUNS OF THE KEOKUK. BY JULIA PORCHER WICKHAM.
Among the daring and successful episodes of the War between the States the recovery by the Confederates of the two guns from the wreck of the ironclad vessel Keokuk deserves a place of the highest distinction. It is something entirely of its own kind, involving mechanical skill and ingenuity beside secrecy, cool judgment, and unflinching resolution. It is pleasant to add that it was attended by no casualties.
No special documents, official and contemporary, relating to the enterprise have been discovered. A few paragraphs embodied in more general reports constitute all the notes possessed from Confederate sources, while some correspondance between the Union authorities is the sum of contributions from the other side.
But of the actors in this marine adventure five have been consulted in the preparation of this narrative, and no particulars have been used to supplement the official record except such as rest on the agreement of evidence, or seem to. be most probable under all circumstances.
The Keokuk's brave commander, A. C. Rhind, took his vessel within shorter range of the fort than any of her colleagues. His report closes with the sinking of the Keokuk at seven-thirty the morning after the fight. She had been kept afloat during the night in smooth water, but at daylight it became rough, and in the effort to get the vessel round with the assistance of a tug, she sank in eighteen feet of water (high tide), completely submerged to the top of her smokestack. At the later period of the ebb tide, the turrets were just visible above water. The wreck lay off the southern extremity of Morris Island, and about thirteen hundred yards from the beach. As plainly seen at low tide with the naked eye from the walls of Fort Sumter, it was distant nearly four miles (nearer the ocean), a little east of south.
Later on, the Navy Department asked the rear admiral why the wreck had not been blown up and not left to the Confederates to overhaul; but that official had no answer to give.
Two or three visits were paid to the wreck by Confederate officers, who pronounced the recovery of the guns absolutely impossible, but, after a visit paid to the wreck on April 16, by S. Cordes Boylston, adjutant of the garrison at Fort Sumter, and another visit April 19, by Maj. D. B. Harris (from Goochland County, Va.), Chief Engineer of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, steps were taken by Maj. Gen. R. S. Ripley, commanding the
first military district, under instructions from General Beauregard, to organize a gang of mechanics, with guard boats, for making the hazardous attempt upon the guns.
About this time the Northern public was reading the opinion of some letter writer in their fleet, which was still at its station off Charleston Harbor, that all was going on very well, and that the work of recovering any spoils from the wreck would be a fruitless task. He states that efforts had been made to blow up the wreck, but entirely unsuccessfully, and then goes on to say: ''At all events, she is useless to the Rebels. She is filled with sand, and will be broken up or buried after the first gale. The Rebels cannot raise her, and she is covered by the guns of the blockading fleet, and will ever be beyond their reach."'
Before operations could be begun upon the wreck, the commanding officers were busy looking around and selecting the right kind of men for the undertaking. In the employ of the Ordnance Department was Adolphus W. La Coste, a native civilian, a rigger by trade, who had been for a long time rendering invaluable service in mounting heavy guns and performing such like duties. After long and special conferences, General Beauregard placed him in charge of the work, and he continued throughout as its leader. A band of picked men was organized and Fort Sumter was called upon to furnish a detachment of barges, to be used as a covering force, with an officer in command, in order to facilitate escape if the force was attacked by the Federals while they were at work.
The two turrets of the Keokuk were exposed only at low tide, so little more than two and a half hours labor on each night could be expected under the most favorable circumstances. The enterprise was thus conditioned and limited by the following necessities: Darkness, secrecy, quiet, short time, smooth water, and perpetual vigilance. Morris Island was then held entirely by the Confederates, and escape from the wreck would have to be by a rapid pull for the beach, about thirteen hundred yards distant.
Outside the bar were strung the blockading gunboats and their protector, the flagship, the New Ironsides. The nearest of them might be on her station, two miles off, but there was nothing to prevent their crossing the bar by day or night; while small boats might make a dash upon the wreckers and capture them all. Later, when the force of workmen was increased, and more was at stake, one or both of the Confederate ironclads took a covering position in the vicinity of the party.
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The first thing to be done was to convey the workmen with their tools to the wreck, and then push off and stand guard some distance out and down the channel, in the small boats provided. With slippery footing on the roofing of the turrets, con-
stantly awash with the swell breaking over them, the
-success. some of their small boats on picket duty could be | descried from the wreck, but so lulled into confidence were they that no interruption occurred
scant clothing of the men kept wet with the salt spray, and with no light allowed them, the mechanics bent themselves to their task. They attacked the turrets with sledge and chisel, wrench and crowbar, for they had to remove a large section of the roof to allow the lifting through a free passage of a gun thirteen feet five inches long, nearly three feet in diameter at the breach, and weighing sixteen thousand pounds.
Beside the upper and lower plating, three of the heavy girders had to be cut through, each in two places, and removed. Then the gun, seen below on its carriage, mostly under water, could not be made ready for lifting until two massive cap squares of brass, which fastened it down, were cut and wrenched out of place. Then a strong rope or hawser was passed around the cascabel, and wrapped around the breech of the gun, with lashings sufficient to sling it to the hoisting tackle.
La Coste had now all in readiness for the crowning act. Already nearly two weeks had been consumed in these preparations. The spirit of the brave fellows rose with the difficulties they encountered and the success that had thus far rewarded them. On one night only were they discovered and forced to
hurry away from the wreck, but even then no unfavourable result followed, nor was their actual
work for the recovery of the guns suspected. The
war correspondent's confidence must have been
shared by the whole fleet, yet, while more hopeful than when they began, the men knew that the most uncertain stage of their operations was to come.
The hoisting out of those enormous guns from the
turrets—how was this to be accomplished?
An old, but solid, hulk, a lightship formerly in use at Rattlesnake Shoal, north of the harbor, was made ready for the hoisting and transporting of the
guns to the city. The bow was weighed down with fifteen hundred sand bags destined to play a very Important part in the execution of the plan.
Secrecy and dispatch were the requisites of The Union fleet lay outside, and even
from that quarter. On the final night, with the slinging of the gun
safely effected, came the order to hoist away; the Men on the lightship responding cheerily, though
with the hush of caution, to their comrades waistdeep in water within the turret.
The strain begins, the stout ropes tighten, the block slowly rises; then the massive breech of the gun appears, inch by inch, above the level of the roofing, the muzzle yet hanging far down below it, and splashed by the swell of sea water. Stick to it as they did, the task was a heavy one, the progress slow, the operation very delicate, and the time very short. La Coste ordered the sand bags shifted on the lightship, and they were passed to the stern. The gun could be seen gradually rising and in another minute it promised to swing free from the Keokuk's turret—but, no, it stopped—and human ingenuity could do no more.
Suddenly, to their relief, just as the day was breaking, came at this instant a friendly wave from the ocean and lifted the muzzle of the gun free from its detaining lodgment. Never did morning dawn upon lighter spirits, as the men saw themselves free at last to return to the city with their well-earned trophy.
In three nights more the second gun was made ready for hoisting; the weather was favorable, the same force of men and means of transportation were employed, and success, without any delays or drawbacks, crowned their efforts.
The papers in Charleston, on May 6, announced the complete recovery of the guns. The work must have occupied about three weeks. Certainly it was well done, and deserves to be held in remembrance. At the time it was complimented with special mention in the reports of General Beauregard and MajorGeneral Ripley.
In a short time, after they were landed in Charleston, the guns were again under transportation, this time to be used for the defense of the harbor against which they had once been brought to attack. One was mounted on the walls of Fort Sumter. This gun was subsequently brought back and placed at Battery Ramsay at White Point Gardens (on the Charleston Battery). The other was mounted at Battery Bee, Sullivan's Island, and took part in the severe action of September 8, and kept its place there to the last. They were the heaviest guns in the harbor.
By the skill, daring, and perseverance of a few dauntless men, Charleston became possessed of two of the proudest and most formidable trophies of the war. They had been abandoned by the Union navy, then pronounced irrevocably lost by the Confederate navy, but, finally, with great risk and labor, they were raised and turned against their former owners. It is no wonder that Mr. Wells, the Secretary, should have closed one of his dispatches
to Rear Admiral Du Pont with these words: "The wreck and its important armament ought not to have been abandoned to the Rebels, whose sleepless labors appear to have secured them a valuable prize.' These guns, I believe, are now on the 'famous battery (formerly White Point Gardens) in Charleston.
[Abbreviated from Chapter III of the ''Siege of Charleston"' by Maj. John Johnson.|