USA > New York > The history of the Forty-eighth regiment New York state volunteers, in the war for the union. 1861-1865 > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28
In the sense in which it was all one general assault, Colonel Shaw's colored regiment did lead it ; but in fact the charge which they made was distinct, preceding the others. was in different formation, and directed against a different point. At the command of General Strong, the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts moved forward,-formed in column of wings, -the right resting on the sea. They obliqued to the left, and attacked the curtain at the land-face of Battery Wag- ner (not the sea-face salient, which we subsequently car- ried). They went forward to that charge 650 strong, com-
10.4
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS. '
manded throughout by white officers. Colonel Shaw's last word to the major commanding the left wing of his regi- ment as he went to the front was, " We shall take the fort or die there ; good-by." I would not disparage the brave rush of that colored regiment to death. It has, however, received not undue but disproportionate attention from. historians. They ran forward at the " double-quick," with a magnificent courage ; we still remaining where we were, standing in column on the beach. As they approached the ditch they met a withering fire: the garrison outnumbered them two to one. The rebels had exhumed their buried can- non and remounted them, and were at their posts behind the parapets, defiant as ever. Before that fire of grape and shrapnel and musketry the intrepid regiment of black men broke : a few of them followed their brave Colonel through the ditch and up the bank behind it, and planted their flag in the most gallant manner upon the ramparts: there Colonel Shaw was shot through the heart, and fell back dead in the ditch ; many of his brave colored soldiers died by his side, but others were seized with a furious panic, and fled to the rear in dismay.
During their assault and at the moment of their re- pulse Strong's "fighting brigade" was still standing - in column by company-upon the beach, awaiting the com- mand to go forward. Putnam's brigade was also formed in their rear. In number they were about four thousand ; in discipline and drill they were the finest soldiers of the volunteer armies, for they had been two years in training ; in spirit they were the choicest youth of the Republic, for they had rushed to arms at her first call for help. There they stood as night settled down upon them-a mile of men massed in solid column in the gathering gloom ; their faces were blanched, for they knew now that Fort Wagner was not evacuated nor disabled by the bombardment, and that its garrison-standing behind embankments which. " if no lon- ger offensive, were still defiant "-was ready to give them also a more deadly reception. It may be doubted if any
105.
FORT WAGNER.
man who never has known the experience of a moment like that can conceive it. With blanched cheeks indeed, but with undaunted hearts in face of imminent death, they de- termined that night to do their duty. The Sixth Connecti- cut was in advance : the Forty-eighth. New York was next- just at that fatal point in the column, as it proved, where the direct fire and the enfilade would focus. The Third New Hampshire, Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, and Ninth Maine followed. Suddenly the voice of General Strong rang clear as he shouted the command, "Column, forward ! double- quick march!" and forward on the full run they rushed. The earth shook beneath their tread; the storm lulled, the very sea beside them seemed to grow quiet ; the cannon-
FORT WAGNER-SEA-FACE BASTION, POINT OF SECOND AND THIRD ASSAULTS.
firing of all the batteries and from all the ships suddenly ceased ; grim and formidable the banks of Wagner lay before them ; and there was silence everywhere, except that Sumter kept up her fire incessantly, and the "tramp," " tramp." " tramp," of the onrushing column, and by their side the gentle swash of the sea.
When we had gone twelve hundred yards and the head of the column was almost to the ditch. suddenly the parapets were alive with men : they " yelled :" they fired all their muskets and their cannon straight in our faces. It was as if the deepest pit of hell had vomited its hottest fires upon you. It was as light as day, and that noble column reeled and swayed and fell, shot through with grape and canister and shrapnel-the deadliest missiles of cruel war: these
106
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
crushed their way through the bared breasts of that daunt- less column of loyal blue, and levelled it to the earth. Oh, it was pitiful ! The air was on fire everywhere, and the fire seemed to have voices that now moaned and now cheered, and now cried with pain ; the deadly volleys followed each other faster than I can write of them : the dead and dying were piled in heaps, heroic, far up that fatal slope : the sea moaned, the thunder muttered in the sky. It grew dark suddenly, and only the eye of God saw the survivors of that shattered column pushing on toward the fort. Here was ' one, yonder another, ten steps away a third-all that were left standing of the solid columns that had melted away in the fires ; but they did not halt. did not retreat-they pressed on. Those in the rear followed them, trampling down their dead and dying comrades, stumbling over wire entangle- ments as they rushed in the dark towards the fort. We struck the bank at its highest point. at what was called the southeast bastion. The Thirty-first North Carolina defend- ed that position : they have been falsely accused by the Confederate commanders of cowardice. Beauregard claims that they " disgracefully abandoned their position ;" General Taliaferro, that " the southeast bastion was weakly defend- ed." It is a cruel and unjust accusation. They stood to their guns as long as they could. The reader will discover another reason for their panic and retreat: the "fighting brigade" was irresistible. It reached the moat, crossed it. Many fell there under the terrible enfilades; others im- paled their feet on spikes and blades of steel ; but the rest climbed up that first bank, and step by step, with swords drawn and bayonets fixed, without the firing of a single shot, without the speaking of a single word, drove the enemy back, captured their guns, their magazine, followed them as they fled in terror across the terre-plein, drove them over the " superior slope :" and at last a mere handful of them, but all that remained of the " fighting brigade," stood triumphant upon the rebel parapets, and the strongest bas- tion of Fort Wagner was taken. Then there rang a great
107
FORT WAGNER.
shout of victory over the sea, but it was lost in the shrieks of pain that followed it around the world.
History has never been just to that assault ; it has writ- ten it down a failure, and insisted that it was repulsed. It is a remarkable fact that only the Confederate writers have acknowledged that Strong's brigade, as a matter of fact, DID CARRY THE STRONGEST BASTION OF THE FORT, AND HELD IT FOR MORE THAN THREE HOURS.
What did the enemy think of us as we rushed towards them that night ? Let me quote again from the narrative of General Taliaferro :
"THE GRAND ASSAULT.
"A dark mass of the enemy's columns, brigade after brigade, were seen in the fading twilight to approach. Line after line was formed, and then came the rush. Orders were given to Gaillard to hold his fire and deliver no direct shot. As the assaulting columns came on they were met by the withering volleys of McKethan's direct and Gail- lard's cross fire, and by the direct discharge of the shell-guns, supple- mented by the frightful enfilading discharges of the lighter guns upon the right and left. It was terrible ; but with an unsur passed gallantry the Federal soldiers breasted the storm and rushed onward to the glacis. The Confederates, with the tenacity of bull-dogs and a fierce courage which was aroused to madness by the frightful inaction to which they had been subjected, poured from.the ramparts and embrasures sheets of flame and a tempest of lead and iron ; yet their intrepid assailants rushed on like the waves of the sea by whose shore they fought ; they fell by hundreds, but they pushed on, reeling under the frightful blasts that almost blew them to pieces, up to the Confederate bayonets. The southeast bastion was weakly defended (?), and into it a considerable body of the enemy made their way. . . . But they left near a thousand dead around the fort."
The above tribute from the pen of the Confederate Gen- eral who commanded Battery Wagner that night to the courage of the undaunted men who faced his deadly fire is the tribute of a brave man to brave men. The assaulting columns everywhere else but at that single point, where the " fighting brigade" won its renown, were beaten back and retreated. The men who had succeeded in capturing the sea-face bastion were the survivors of the Sixth Connecticut
IOS
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
and Forty-eighth New York (the two regiments that had led the column), and a handful of brave fellows from other regiments who had had the courage to join them. The losses had been terrible: Beauregard estimates them at three thousand. I have been unable to find a detailed re- port from any Federal authority of the casualties ; the most moderate authorities estimate them as about two thousand men. I quote once more from the narrative of the Confed- erate General Jones, in order that the reader may see this great assault from every side. His estimate of the losses is believed to be unexaggerated. The account now quoted be- gins at the time when we started upon the assault.
" Half the ground to be traversed before reaching Wagner was un- dulating with sand-hills, which afforded some shelter, but not so much as to prevent free and easy movement : the other half smooth and unob- structed up to the ditch. Within easy range of Wagner the marsh en- croached so much on the firm sand of the island as to leave but a narrow way between it and the water. A few stirring words were ad- dressed by the officers to their troops, and the men responded with cheers.
" THE ASSAULT.
" About half-past seven the assaulting column was hurled against Wagner, with orders to use the bayonet only, the Federal artillery continuing their fire over their heads as long as it could be done with- out risk to their own men. The Confederates at their posts were straining their eyes to catch through the deepening twilight the first glimpse of the enemy. When the head of the column came in view, a rapid fire of grape and canister was opened, the fire from James Island batteries was poured in on the flank. Sumter and Gregg, fir- ing over Wagner, plunged their shot into the advancing column and the parapets of Wagner were lit up by a line of infantry fire.
" A HARD TASK IN HAND.
" The advancing column pressed defiantly forward, breasting the storm of iron and lead which was rapidly thinning their ranks. The Fifty-fourth Massachusetts broke and fled, large bodies of it falling upon and with violence foreing their way through the ranks of the advancing column, greatly heightening the general confusion.
"The storm of fire from Wagner had strewn the ditch and glacis with killed and wounded. A few of the bravest of the different regi-
109
FORT WAGNER.
ments, notably the Forty-eighth New York and Sixth Connecticut, con- tinued to press forward, bearing their colors and striving to reach the ditch and mount the parapet ; but the brigade had been hopelessly re- pulsed ; its gallant commander, General Strong, was mortally wounded, as was Colonel Chatfield. Colonel Shaw of the Fifty-fourth Massa- chusetts was killed, and many other officers killed and wounded. So heavy was the fire and so great the disorder, that General Seymour saw the necessity of immediate support and accordingly dispatched his Assistant Inspector-General, Major Plympton of the Third New Hampshire, to order up Colonel Putnam with his supporting brigade. To his amazement Colonel Putnam positively refused to advance, be- cause, as he explained, he had been ordered by General Gillmore to remain where he was.
" THE FIRST BRIGADE IN CONFUSION.
" In the mean time the First Brigade was urged on with admirable spirit and gallantry by General Strong, who had been assured of prompt support. But the destructive fire from Wagner was more than his men could stand.
"PUTNAM'S CONDUCT.
"What were Colonel's Putnam's feelings in the mean time perhaps will never be known, but may with much certainty be conjectured. He was a gallant young officer, and could not stand idly by at the head of a fine brigade and see the command of his classmates and intimate friends cut to pieces. . After a disastrous delay and without orders,' says General Seymour, 'he led his brigade forward and pressed on to the assault of the southeast angle through a destructive fire.'
" AN UNGUARDED BASTION.
" It seems that the terrible bombardment of eleven hours had demor- alized the Thirty-first North Carolina Regiment. It did not respond to the call to man the ramparts: the southeast bastion and sea- front, to the defence of which it had been assigned, was therefore unguarded. Colonel Putnam and a part of his brigade crossed the ditch, which had been nearly filled with sand by the long bombard- ment, mounted the parapet and a hundred or more men gained pos- session of the southeast bastion."
This mistake of attributing to Colonel Putnam's brigade the capture of the bastion, General Jones, in a private letter to the writer, says that he was led to make by the report of
IIO
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
General Seymour. The fact was that STRONG'S BRIGADE took the bastion, and although Putnam died within it, gallantly coming to its relief, one regiment of his brigade-by the mis- taken volley elsewhere described-was the unhappy cause of its final loss.
The account continues :
"'Seeing the advantage gained by Colonel Putnam, General Seymour had just dispatched an order by Major Plympton to General Steven- son to advance with his brigade to Colonel Putnam's support when he too was severely wounded. Before he was carried from the field he repeated the order to General Stevenson to advance, but the order was not obeyed-why, does not appear.
" THE CONFEDERATE LOSS.
"The Confederate loss was only one hundred and seventy-four- surprisingly small, thanks to the sheltering capacity of sand-works. The loss on both sides had been unusually heavy in commissioned officers. Among the Confederate killed were Lieutenant-Colonel J. C. Simkins, First South Carolina Infantry ; Captain W. H. Ryan of the Charles- ton battalion ; Captain W. T. Tatem, First South Carolina Infan- try; and Lieutenant G. W. Thompson, commanding company Fifty- first North Carolina. Major David Ramsay of the Charleston bat- talion was severely wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Simkins, as Chief of Artillery, had directed the operations of that arm with admirable skill and daring, and when the assault commenced mounted the para- pet to aid and encourage the infantry. 'There, on the ramparts in the front, this admirable soldier and accomplished gentleman sealed his devotion to our cause by an early but most heroic death.'
"THE UNION LOSS.
"The Federal loss has not yet been officially ascertained. General Taliaferro estimated it at not less than two thousand-perhaps much more. General Beauregard in his official report says their loss must have been three thousand, as eight hundred bodies were interred in front of Battery Wagner on the following morning.
"In a letter of the 20th to Admiral Dahlgren General Gillmore tells him that during the ten days from the beginning of his operations he had lost thirty-three per cent of his troops in killed, wounded, miss- ing, and sick. He had commenced with somewhat more than thirteen thousand on Morris and Folly Islands, and his tri-monthly report for the 20th of July shows an aggregate sick on those two islands of twelve
III
FORT WAGNER.
hundred and forty-one. It would seem therefore that General Beau- regard's estimate was not excessive."
The defence of Fort Wagner was signalized by a courage that was equal and a military skill that was superior to the assault. General Seymour was wounded. General Gillmore seems to have been too far to the rear to have brought forward reinforcements promptly, and the brave General Strong did his best to bring other regiments in support of the Sixth Connecticut and Forty-eighth New York to hold the salient they had taken, but so terrible had been the slaughter that no one would heed him; finally he placed himself at the head of a battalion composed of what remained of the immortal Seventh Connecticut, and to them he made his last appeal. Here Strong fell, mortally wounded, before he could come to our relief, and the command of the column passed rapidly from one to another, until every Federal Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel present at the front had fallen ; and when it finally broke, the ranking officer of the brigade was Major Plympton of the Third New Hampshire, who led part of its shattered fragments back into the gather- ing gloom.
The Second Brigade, commanded by Colonel Putnam of the Seventh New Hampshire, did their best to rein- force us in the fort, making a furious charge: but there had been unfortunate delays: it was now pitch-dark, and they were beaten back by the enfilades. Colonel Putnam himself was killed just as he reached the fort ; his regiment, the Seventh New Hampshire, distinguished itself.
It was late in the night when the last shattered regiments finally recoiled under the terrible fire ; their retreat was one of unspeakable horror. From the ramparts behind them a mur- derous fire of grape and canister followed them on their way back to the Union lines. Men fell by scores on the parapets and rolled back into the ditch ; many were drowned in the water, and others smothered by their own dead or wounded companions falling upon them ; some dragged themselves to
112
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
the rear on their hands and knees through the sand. Per- haps in all the history of our war a more ghastly scene was never witnessed than that on the beach and glacis of Fort Wagner that night, where, piled on one another in ditches, with bleeding wounds, parched with thirst, writhing in pain, still under the terrible fires of batteries that were not silenced, and lying in ridges where the enfilade had ploughed them down, more than a thousand Union soldiers awaited the coming of the day. The Confederates claim to have buried next morning eight hundred dead upon the ocean beach. Among the killed were Colonels Putnam of the Seventh New Hampshire and Shaw of the Fifty-fourth Massachu- setts, and Lieutenant-Colonel James M. Green of the Forty- eighth New York. Among the mortally wounded were Brigadier-General George C. Strong, the commander of the "fighting brigade," and Colonel Chatfield of the Sixth Con- necticut. Among the seriously wounded were General Sey- , mour, Colonels Barton (Forty-eighth New York), Jackson, and Emery. But these are only the names of the more prominent general and field officers. In the Forty-eighth, in addition to Colonel Barton (he was severely wounded in the thigh) and Lieutenant-Colonel Green (he was shot dead inside the fort on the "superior slope"), Captains Farrell and Hurst and Lieutenant Edwards were killed, and Captain Paxson and Lieutenant Fox mortally wounded ; Captains Lockwood, Elfwing, Swartwout, and Coan, and Lieutenants Miller, Barrett, Taylor, and Acker, were wounded. . The Forty-eighth went into that assault with eight companies and nearly five hundred men, and with sixteen officers. The next morning but eighty-six men answered to the roll-call. Fifteen of the sixteen officers were killed or wounded. Such mortality was unparalleled in the war. It was a very deluge of death through which'those immortal columns had tried to fight their way to victory ; and they did it.
For now it remains for me to record a hitherto unwritten chapter of history. A mere chronicler of the deeds of a sin- gle regiment, and not a professional military historian, might
113
FORT WAGNER.
be deemed presumptuous to pretend to contribute new facts to history ; but it is as true as lamentable, that no one has yet attempted to write with any fulness the history of the assault on Fort Wagner. Fragmentary records of the deeds of cer- tain regiments have been published, but the career of our armies in the whole Department of the South yet awaits a competent historian. The confusion of that night assault was so great, the final disaster so overwhelming, the chief partici- pants all dead or disabled, the only persons capable of tell- ing the entire story captured, marched away to rebel prisons, and destined not to return for months and years, and the general-in-chief of the command seemingly ignorant to this day of what actually transpired on the parapets of Wagner in the darkness of that awful night-these may be the causes why this history has remained unwritten ; but that it should be reserved for Confederate military writers to first acknowl- edge a deed of unexampled valor by Federal soldiers nine- teen years after its occurrence, is certainly noteworthy. My authorities for the remarkable narrative I am now about to relate are the Confederate General Taliaferro, the memories of my comrades, and my own.
The reader who would understand the precise situation must keep clear the distinction between the three separate assaults. The first (that of Colonel Shaw's Fifty-fourth Massachusetts), against the curtain on the land-face of Bat- tery Wagner, had failed within ten minutes after it began. The second assault, made chiefly by the two leading regi- ments of Strong's brigade,-the Sixth Connecticut and. the Forty-eighth New York,-not moving in column of wings as the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts did, but in column by com- pany at close order, and directed not against the curtain of the fort, but straight against its most precipitate parapets on the sea-face, did not fail, but succeeded. Strong's " fighting brigade" perished that night, but it was not beaten. Its object was the capture of that sea-face bastion against which it was hurled ; and it took that bastion, every inch of it, in a hand-to-hand encounter with the Thirty-first North Carolina,
8
114
FORTY.EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
whom it drove from their positions step by step, and gained possession of the entire salient. The writer estimates (in round figures) that as many as seven or eight hundred men succeeded in forcing their way into that bastion, while it was in our possession ; that four or five hundred fell there ; that one or two hundred succeeded in making their escape back to the Union lines after they became convinced of the folly of longer attempting to hold it; and it is known that one hundred and forty men, who persisted in holding what they had taken at such terrible cost, were, after between three and four hours of most desperate fighting, finally over- whelmed and taken prisoners. But from shortly after eight o'clock at night until twelve o'clock midnight they succeeded in defending the fortifications they had taken, despite re- peated assaults of the enemy. They were cut down also by a most fearful volley from a regiment of their own men when Putman's brigade made the assault in their support. It was a mistake, of course, growing out of the dreadful con- fusion that existed everywhere, and possible only, I suppose, because of the pitch-darkness of the night, and the loss of division, brigade, and regimental commanders, who had been shot down before its occurrence. The lack of definite information as to the precise situation of our forces within the fort, and the lack of care in seeking such information. led the second brigade, hurrying up to reinforce us, to shoot us down from the rear as fatally as the enemy had done from the front. As nearly as I can now fix the time of these three assaults. they were as follows: The Fifty-fourth Massa- chusetts made their charge at about 7.45 P.M .. Strong's brigade at 8.5, and Putman's brigade at 8.30. We had been therefore inside the fort-clinging to its further bank, send- ing frequent messages to the rear with information of our position and calling for reinforcements-for nearly half an hour before they came up the beach behind us, crossed the ditch. and. reaching the first parapet, fired a whole volley at point blank range into us. It was then that Colonel Barton fell, and hundreds of brave fellows who had survived
-
115
FORT WAGNER.
that storm of fire in their front went down before the volley of their own comrades from the rear. It was one of those mistakes never to be accounted for, nor atoned for, in war. I have no doubt that, exasperated by such a stupid blunder, some of the men within the fort fired back at their assailants on the parapet behind them. At least they broke and re- treated, and left us there, still holding the salient, but greatly reduced in numbers. There was never a better illustration of the wisdom of the famous order of General Anthony Wayne at the storming of Stony Point, "Empty your cartridge-boxes and trust to your bayonets." Had that been done that night, before they reached us with their bayonets, Colonel Dandy's One Hundredth New York would have discovered that we were their friends. Messen- gers were sent continually to the rear pleading for reinforce- ments to help us hold the salient till daylight. Sometimes a wounded man would volunteer to drag himself away and bring some one to our relief. Why they never came we could not understand. Stevenson's brigade was still in reserve, and had they reinforced us our position was secure. The lack of reliable information in the rear seems to have been the difficulty, and there appears to have been a strange lack of faith in the assurances of the messengers who did reach our lines and applied to General Stevenson to come forward to our support. In the history of the Ninety-seventh Pennsylvania, written by Major Isaiah Price, I find the fol- lowing acknowledgments :
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.