USA > New York > The history of the Forty-eighth regiment New York state volunteers, in the war for the union. 1861-1865 > Part 4
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
But while the other wing was on board the Winfield Scott, passing through " Pull-and-be-damned " Creek, the ship went ashore on a tongue of oyster-beds which projected from Long Pine Island. As the tide went down, she broke in two in the middle, and left us " wrecked " upon that barren sea-island. We had on board twenty days' provisions, which were saved. The horses were disembarked with difficulty, being pushed overboard and made to swim ashore. I re- member that the colonel's horse insisted on swimming to the opposite bank of the creek, got fast in the mud, and was extricated with great difficulty. Some of the boys went out on a scouting expedition, and succeeded in finding a venerable cow, which they killed. But our brief stay on Long Pine Island is particularly memorable because we there discovered the "goat ;" we took him with us, and he
R
0
T
PINE
C
TID.
S.
NYWORTHS' ID.
WRIGHT R.
NEW R.
1 0.
BATTERY
A . N
JLI LULO
« SAVANNAH
JONES
ERTURTLE
I D.
ID.
U
BONAVENTURA
E
RIVER
M
P
1
N
. 5
C
M
L
A
N
0
1
CUNION BATTERIES
WILMINGTON
1
R
T
1
D.
MILES
A
5
7
I D.
.
Y
T
CABBAGE I D.
SKIDAWA
I D.
NOLONIWTIA
N
CEDAR TUFT 1 D.
COCKSPRAY/ T.PULASKI
ROMARTELLO TOWER
1
SAVANNAH & GULE. R. R.
1
BLUFF ID.
A
CE 0
UNION BATY.
UNION BATY.
0
T
<
WILMINGTON NARROWS
LONG ]D
1D.
0
E
N-
HILTON HD. ID.
Z
PROCTOR:
E
ROCK PT.
0
E
FIG ID.
ELBA TO
MUD R.
SUNKEN PILES)
FT.JACKSON
FORT PULASKI AND ITS ENVIRONS.
LIT. TYBEE
DAWFUSKIE
HUTCHINSONS' I
A
30
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
became a regimental pet. The steamer Mayflower came to our rescue the next day, and landed us on Dawfuskie Island, where, in a fine piece of woods. on February 1, 1862, we finally went into camp. Dawfuskie Island was a beauti- ful spot in those days. Monjion's and Stoddard's planta- tions were especially fine. Great forests of pine and oak were on the island, and the magnificent Spanish moss. which is the chief beauty of the far-famed cemetery of Bonaventure at Savannah, festooned the branches of the forest. We erected our tents and built arbors over them, and, gathering moss from the woods, covered the roofs and sides of the arbors with it,. until our camp on Dawfuskie be- came perhaps the most picturesque of all our "resting- places" in the war. We cleared a parade-ground in front of the camp, and there the daily " drill " continued.
Since this history was begun the writer has revisited Daw- fuskie Island. In company with Captain Knowles of Com- pany D, the Rev. W. N. Searles of Kingston, N. Y., and the Rev. A. M. Palmer of Staten Island, he landed again at Daw- fuskie, at Cooper's Landing. in April. 1884. We expected to find the Southern planters back in their houses, and that, twenty-two years after we had evacuated their beautiful island, they would have re-established their homes upon it. We were surprised to find it occupied mostly by a few negroes who cultivated little patches of cotton, sweet potatoes, and water-melons, near by their cabins. These cabins were not better than they were in the war; and the old mansions of the planters were unoccupied, and fallen into decay. A single new and unpretentious house has been erected along the shore. We strolled up the sandy road and easily found the piece of woods where our camp had formerly been. The ground was overgrown with briers and brush, but it recalled many memories of the months we spent there in camp, and the dear fellows who had been our comrades then.
Major Beard of our regiment distinguished himself at this time by removing certain obstructions which the rebels had placed in Wall's Cut, an artificial channel connecting New
31
PORT ROYAL FERRY TO FORT PULASKI.
and Wright rivers. Wall's Cut and Dawfuskie Island were historic places ; for on the 16th of September, 1779, when the city of Savannah was in the possession of the English. and was invested by the French forces under Count d'Es- taing and the American army under General Lincoln, Colonel Maitland of the English army arrived at Dawfuskie Island and desired to form a junction with Provost in Savannah. He was unable to do so because the Savannah River was in the possession of the French. He chanced, however, upon some negro fishermen who. were familiar with the creeks and marshes thereabouts, and they informed him of the passage through Wall's Cut. Aided by the tide and a dense fog he succeeded by this route in reaching Savannah, and the British garrison thus reinforced, success- fully resisted the combined attack of the French and Ameri- can allied forces. a few days afterwards. We were therefore on historic ground at Dawfuskie Island.
And now began one of the most difficult undertakings (and one of the most successful) of our entire history. True it was but subsidiary to the work of our comrades on Ty- bee Island in the reduction of Fort Pulaski, but it was nevertheless of the greatest importance.
Jones' and Bird's Islands are two flat marsh-islands, over- flowed twice a day by the tides, opposite each other on the north and south banks of the Savannah River. It was de- termined that batteries should be erected upon them to cut off communication between Pulaski and Savannah. It was a work of great difficulty, but it was successfully accom- plished, and chiefly by the Forty-eighth Regiment. The Seventh Connecticut, however, and later some other regi- ments, aided in the work. To begin with. some eight or ten thousand logs were cut in the woods at Dawfuskie, and car- ried on the shoulders of the men to the river-shore. (Who that recalls that lugging of logs will not feel his shoulders ache to this very day?) Thence the logs were transported on boats to Jones Island. and used to build a causeway, over which the heavy cannons were dragged. The islands them-
32
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
selves are a mere formation of mud, of the consistency of jelly, from four to twelve feet in depth, which the river has deposited upon shoals of sand. The surface is covered with matted sea- grass. It was a herculean task to cross this island, a distance of a mile, and drag heavy cannons over loose planks laid across the logs and place them in batteries. When the guns slipped off in the mud they had to be lifted on the planks again by main strength. But difficult as it was, the task was successfully accomplished, and the guns mounted on heavy plank-platforms at Venus Point. So " Battery Vulcan," on Jones' Island, and subsequently " Bat- tery Hamilton," on Bird's Island, opposite, were erected. The work was all done at night. We are glad to be able to furnish from the graphic pen of the Rev. D. C. Knowles (then Captain of Company D); who was in command of the detachment which finally succeeded in moving the guns across the island and erecting them on the battery one dismal night, an account of his labors. He also tells the story of the most ridiculous project ever devised for at- tacking an "iron-clad," known among us as the Cold-chisel Brigade. He writes :
"On February 12, 1862, I was ordered to go down to Jones' Island with Lieutenants Miller and Lockwood, and a detail of 150 men. The guns, six in number, had already been landed on the island at a point one mile in a straight line from the point designated for the battery.
"Our task was to drag them over that distance to their destination. The corduroy-road for some reason had been abandoned after being laid a few hundred yards. We reached the spot where the guns were placed about sundown. Just as we were landing, a rebel gun-boat came up the river from the fort, stopped opposite us, about a mile away, and seemed to be curiously scanning our doings. Every mo- ment we expected a shell. but for some reason they left us unmolested. and passed on to the city. Had they seen our cannon, which were covered with reeds, and thus screened from observation, they would not have left us so undisturbed to the tender mercies of swamp-fever. " About dark, Lieutenant Wilson, afterward General Wilson, sho captured Jefferson Davis, then a young officer in the regular army. landed, and explained the work to be done. Dividing my men into small reliefs under the command of non-commissioned officers, we at
33
PORT ROYAL FERRY TO FORT PULASKI.
once began the hardest task I ever saw performed by human beings Six huge guns were to be transported over a mile of mud. so soft and. bottomless that we sank ankle deep at every step, and oftentimes were in danger of being utterly mired in the treacherous morass. It was done in this wise : Planks IS feet long, 16 inches wide, and very thick, were laid down and gauged like a railroad track, along which we care- fully guided the wheels of the cannon. After they were all moved forward the planks were lifted out of the deep mire, carried forward, and laid again. Thus we proceeded the live-long night, and by nine o'clock the next morning every gun was mounted in position. I saw men that night standing upright in the mire knee-deep, fast asleep. The work done, I threw myself on a plank covered with the softest of Carolina soil, myself a pillar of mud, my head softly resting on mud, and with a full South Carolina sun burning in my face, slept as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms. On this low, marshy island our regiment was quartered, two companies at a time, until the fort was taken. The purpose was to cut off all approach to the fort from Savannah for relief or assistance. Our duties were to support the battery in case of attack, and also to build a parapet before the guns. This was no easy task, as the men were compelled to stand knee-deep in the mud and water in the ditches, and what they threw up was so near the consistency of molasses that it refused to stay until the sun had dried it, when it took the hardness of stone. General Viele, in his report of this work, says : 'These islands, as well as all others in the river, are merely deposits of soft mud on sand-shoals, always covered at high tide, and overgrown with dank grasses.'
"In speaking of the mud-forts built there he also says : 'Although the material of which they are composed (mud highly saturated with water) is of the most unfavorable description, they are both creditable specimens of field-works, and evidence the great labor and persever- ance of the troops under the most trying circumstances, the fatigue- parties always standing in water twenty-four hours.'
"One night in February a very high tide rolled in, covering the whole island, putting out our fires, and leaving us wallowing in water from one to three feet deep. We were literally at sea. Amid such discomforts, exposed to cutting winds and malarial odors, we fought with destiny until the middle of April.
"And now I come to an episode that is a type of many a curious plan that our civil war brought forth. Probably no contest ever pro- duced so many novel expedients to circumvent an enemy as were born in the fertile brains of our inventive Yankee soldiers. Powder gun-boats, monitors, and mines hurling forts in the air are samples of these extra-military expedients for defeating a watchful foe. The
3
34
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
event I am now about to relate is not a whit behind the chiefest of , them in hazard and reckless audacity.
" About the middle of March two deserters from the rebel lines came into our brigade and reported the existence of a steamer at Savannah clad with railroad iron, after the order of the celebrated Merrimac. They said a movement was on foot to run the vessel down with a body of troops, capture our forts on the banks of the Savannah, and thus open the way to the relief of Pulaski.
"Certain reports of officers making reconnoissances of the river seemed to corroborate the existence of such a vessel, and the fears of our officers were aroused for our safety and the success of our enter- prises. Schemes for defence were at once devised, and the plan I now give in detail was adopted.
" It was supposed that the vessel lying low in the water, with slop- ing sides of iron like the roof of a house. would steam down the river and anchor directly between our batteries, of which we had two, one on either bank, and proceed boldly to shell us at close range, while all our shot in reply would fly harmlessly from her invulnerable covering. In the mean time the infantry would attack us in the rear, cut off re- treat, and take us all prisoners at their convenience. The line of defence, therefore, must include the capture of the vessel by some expedient. The plan devised in the fertile brain of somebody was to take six common row-boats, three on either side of the river, man each of them with six oarsmen, six soldiers, and an officer. The sol- diers were to be armed with revolvers, hand-grenades, cold-chisels, and sledge-hammers. The boats were to be well supplied with grap- pling-irons and ropes. Thus equipped, when the vessel came, the whole expedition was to row out from either shore, board the vessel by means of the ropes and grappling-irons, keep the gunners from the guns by the free use of hand-grenades thrown into the port-holes, and cutting through the iron roof by means of the cold-chisels and sledge- hammers, get inside the vessel and capture her, crew and all. Such, in brief, was the line of defence. Suffice it to say, the boats were selected, the material all sent down to the batteries, and the officer in command of the forts directed to select some one to lead the forlorn hope. I was called to the command. Selecting two lieutenants as assistants, we picked our crews, drilled our men, and awaited the final hour.
" While making preparations, Captain Hamilton, a prominent otfi- cer in the Third Artillery of the regular army, came down to inspect our progress, and report our condition. He sent for me to visit him in the Lieutenant-Colonel's tent. I explained our preparations, and asked advice. One point seemed to me not to have been well con- sidered. I said to him, 'Captain, that vessel has steam and an
35
PORT ROYAL FERRY TO FORT PULASKI.
engine, and it seems to me if we should succeed in getting a force on her sloping sides, and threatening to take her, they would slip their cables, steam up the Savannah, and carry us off to jail with all dis- patch.' 'But you must stop her,' said he. 'Well, how?' was my reply. He sat a moment in silent meditation, when he broke out : ' I do not know any better way than to take strong ropes, fasten them to her anchor or some part of the vessel, and then attach the other end to the screw, so that when the wheel starts the rope will wind up and stop its revolutions.' 'Not a very easy thing to do, it strikes me,' said I, ' in such a rapid current as this river, and that too while cannon are thundering in our very faces.' 'Well,' said he, ' it is a desperate case, and we must hold these batteries at any cost. You must do the best you can, at any rate.'
"Just at that moment a thought struck me, suggested by my knowledge of the construction of a steam-boiler and the presence of the cold-chisels. I ventured to suggest it as a new plan of offence. 'Captain,' said I, ' why could we not board the vessel, strike at once for the smoke-stack, and cutting a hole in it, throw down a bomb- shell, blow up these tubes that run through the boiler, and thus let out the steam and scald the crew, and take the whole institution at a blow.'
1758025
"The Captain sprang to his feet, with a face all radiant with joy, and with many big words which I do not desire to repeat, declared that the thing should be done, and consequently a huge bomb-shell, with fuse all ready, was placed in each boat as a part of our arma- ment. And while we waited the coming of our foe we wrote to our friends the possibility of our fate, and talked together of a grave in the muddy flood of the Savannah. For we all felt assured that nothing less than an interposition of Providence could save us from certain destruction. To row half a mile in the face of such a foe, in such a rapid current, in crowded boats, and board a vessel under such conditions, was an enterprise that had in it few chances of success. Disaster in all probability would have been the end of such an expedi- tion. And yet in the face of these convictions we entered on the pro- ject with all the ardor of assured victory. The devoted band was denominated ' The Cold-chisel Brigade,' and when the enterprise was finally abandoned the cold-chisels were seized as souvenirs of a project that gained at the time quite a local notoriety.
"Suffice it to say the report was false. No such vessel then ex- isted; and when General Hunter took command of the Department he made an early visit to the batteries to see what the . Cold-chisel Brigade ' was proposing to do, and with the curt remark, ' What fool got up that plan ? ' he ordered it disbanded."
36
FORTY- EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S VOLS.
While we were at work at the batteries on the mud-islands, Captain Gillmore had succeeded in erecting on Tybee Island the splendid batteries which were destined to demolish Fort Pulaski. The work on Tybee also was of a laborious na- ture, it requiring 250 men to move a single cannon with a sling-cart over the sand and mud to its place. However, on the 9th of April Gillmore had II batteries erected, mounting 36 guns. The nearest to the fort were Batteries . Potter and McClellan, which were only 1650 yards distant. Each battery had a magazine containing two days' supply of ammunition, and a great powder-magazine, with a capa-
GENERAL DAVID HUNTER.
city of 3000 barrels, was constructed near the martello tower. On March 31st General T. W. Sherman was relieved in command of the Department of the South by Major- General David Hunter. General Hunter, accompanied by General Benham, the district-commander, arrived on Tybee Island on the evening of April 8th. At sunrise on the 10th he sent a summons to Colonel Charles H. Olmstead, the Confederate commander of Fort Pulaski, to surrender. His refusal was in this memorable phrase : " I am here to defend this fort, not to surrender it." At quarter-past eight o'clock Gilmore's batteries on Tybee opened fire. All day long they
37 .
PORT ROYAL FERRY TO FORT PULASKI.
hurled their deadly shot and shell upon the doomed fort- ress ; all night long, at intervals of fifteen and twenty min- utes, they kept up their fire. At sunrise the next morning. with redoubled fury, the batteries continued their work: not until two o'clock in the afternoon did the fort capitu- late. It had made a brave defence, for the Parrott projec- tiles, some of which had cut their way through six and seven feet of brick wall, had made a terrible breach on the angle of the fort facing Tybee Island. The fight was nearly blood-
BREACH IN FORT PULASKI.
less : the Confederates lost one killed and several wounded ; the Federals only one killed. Forty-seven heavy guns were taken with the fort, 40,000 pounds of gunpowder, large quantities of fixed ammunition and commissary stores, and 300 prisoners. Who does not remember watching that mag- nificent bombardment from the bank in front of our camp on Dawfuskie Island? It was a grand spectacle, which never can be forgotten by any one who witnessed it. It demonstrated forever that brick walls could no longer with- stand the projectiles of modern artillery. It lifted the name
38
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. VOLS.
of Captain Gillmore into renown. He was promoted to be Brigadier-General of Volunteers. To say that the Confed- erates were dumbfounded at their defeat is to speak mildly. I quote from the historical sketch of the (rebel) "Chatham Artillery:" "Not for a moment was it believed that the walls could be breached or the fort rendered untenable by any fire which might be brought to bear from guns located on Tybee Island. This opinion was freely expressed by General Robert E. Lee, and by other officers, whose judg- ment and experience inspired confidence. Such an achieve- ment had never in the history of artillery been accomplished by breaching batteries. Novel results, however, were soon to be attained with the aid of rifle-guns and conical shot and percussion shells, for the anticipation of which the mili- tary mind had not been prepared by the accepted lessons of former days." That reflection upon their defeat was at least philosophical. For the next month we remained quietly in our camp on Dawfuskie Island, resting after the severe toils on the mud-islands. Many of the men were ill with malarial fevers, contracted during their exposure on the marshes, but the most of them recovered in the balmy air of the spring-time.
Not a few will remember kindly the four lady-nurses, whose names have already been mentioned, who nursed them in the hospital on Dawfuskie, and whose connection with our regiment ceased from that time. Rattlesnakes abounded on the island. Some of the boys-notably Bugler Anthony Schellings-found pleasure in hunting for them : the writer did not. It was here that Hospital Steward Fisher had his adventure with the goat. The goat had become a regi- mental pet, and was facetiously called a member of the Colonel's " staff," as he always presented himself on dress- parade, and took his position near the Colonel. One day Mr. Fisher held a Sto greenback in his hand and shook it towards the goat, saying, " Wouldn't you like to have that, Billy?" The goat opened his mouth. made one jump, and caught the greenback before Fisher could rescue it, and
39
PORT ROYAL FERRY TO FORT PULASKI.
instantly swallowed it. The Hospital Steward tried to per- suade the Colonel to permit him to rip the goat open : but that was not to be the fate of Billy : he was destined, years afterward, to make a tough meal for the regiment known as the " Lost Children," who are believed to have stolen and eaten him. Our mails came regularly to the camp on Daw- fuskie, and the papers from the North were eagerly read, and many an argument ensued concerning the merits and demerits of the battles which our comrades in the Northern and Western armies were fighting. The officers in their tents told each other how they would have conducted the campaigns; and the privates round their camp-fires eagerly read the news, and often wished that they were participants in the battles. The writer remembers when the papers arrived which described the first day's fight at Pittsburg Landing. General Grant was greatly blamed for permitting himself to be surprised (as it was supposed) by a superior force, with the river in his rear and Buell's army a long dis- tance from him. Not until the next mail arrived did we learn of the great victory that he really had won, and a remark of Colonel Perry's, as he laid down the paper, is re- called. He said, " If I were the Secretary of War I would dismiss that man Grant for such incompetency." Little did he then know what a catastrophe to the Republic it would have been if his hasty judgment had been carried out. We received our pay every two months in those days-at first in gold, but soon and always afterwards in greenbacks. The sutler's tent was convenient, and he got the most of our money. It recalls an effusion of a South Carolina darkey :
"Big bee sucks de blossom. Little bee makes de honey ; Colored people grows de cotton. White people gets de money."
By substituting " private soldiers" for " colored people" and the " sutier" for " white people." that doggerel will ap- ply very well to our experience in those days. Early in the
1
40
FORTY-EIGHTH REGIMENT, N. Y. S. L'OLS.
month of May most of the troops who had been with us on Dawfuskie Island were withdrawn. The Sixth Connec- ticut and Twenty-eighth Massachusetts, which had encamped near us, left. Finally, on the 23d of May, we received orders to proceed to Fort Pulaski, to do garrison duty there. Our officers felt greatly indignant at that order. It was like putting them in prison to shut them up within the walls of the fort. There was, however, no alternative but for us to go. As a matter of fact, the authorities at Washington did not seem to require much to be done in our Department, but were satisfied that we should hold the sea-islands and occa- sionally worry the enemy in a little skirmish ; and perhaps it was as well for us to be in Fort Pulaski as to be anywhere else. On May 25th we left Dawfuskie on the steamer Mattano for the fort, leaving behind, however, companies E and B, under Captain Coan, for picket-duty on the island. They rejoined us the last day of the month. We relieved the Seventh Connecticut, then commanded by Colonel A. H. Terry (the Lieutenant-Colonel was Joseph R. Hawley), in the garrison of Fort Pulaski. Then began our long period of inactivity, for we were destined to remain, as that garrison, a year.
.
·
CHAPTER IV.
Fort Pulaski-June 1, 1862, to May 31, 1863.
The Fort-In Garrison-Fatigue Duty-Quarters in the Casemates-The Fort Revisited in 1834-Drill-Wreck of the Sutler's Schooner-Death of Colonel Perry-Colonel Barton Succeeds to the Command-Captain Knowles Resigns-Expedition to Bluffton-General Mitchel Succeeds General Hunter-Visit and Address from General Mitchel-His Death -Chaplain Strickland-Pocotaligo and Coosawhatchie-Coosawhatchie Revisited-Report of Colonel Barton-Sports at Fort Pulaski-The Theatre-The " Barton Dramatic Association"-" Talking in the Ranks" -Order of Major Beard-Thanksgiving Day, 1862-Lieutenant-Colonel Beard Resigns-Chaplain Strickland Resigns-Flags of Truce-Colored Regiments-Lieutenant Corwin Promoted-Capture of Steamer General Lee-Tybee-A Mammoth Sea-Turtle-The Blockade-runner Sadowa- Life in the Fort-the Ladies-The Musicians.
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.