The stalemate of April outside Charleston, Part 2

First off, let me update the map provided in part 1 of this set (looking at the situation outside Charleston in late April 1863):

I’ve added the place-names for the islands held by the Federals.  Also depicted the units deployed to James, Morris, and Folly Islands.

Second, let me better describe Brigadier-General Vogdes’ command.  The brigade  consisted of 6th Connecticut, 36th Illinois, 4th New Hampshire, 100th New York, 62nd Ohio, 67th Ohio, and 85th Pennslvania infantry regiments.  The Third Battalion of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry (Companies I, K, L, and M) accompanied the brigade.  Also attached to Vogdes’ command was one company of the 3rd New York Light Artillery, two companies of the 3rd Rhode Island Artillery, and Battery C, 1st U.S. Artillery.  Rounding out the formation was three companies of the 1st New York Engineers.

On Seabrook Island, just off the map to the left, Brigadier-General Thomas Stevenson had the 10th Connecticut, 24th Massachusetts, 56th New York, and 97th Pennsylvania, along with additional supporting troops.  All told, nearly 7,500 Federals occupied the barrier islands south of Charleston.

On the Confederate side, General P.G.T. Beauregard’s calls for assistance, prior to and after the April 7 ironclad attack, resulted in an increase in troops around Charleston.  On March 21, Brigadier-General Roswell Ripley’s 1st Military District (Charleston, Fort Sumter, James Island, St. Johns Island, and posts to the north of Charleston) numbered 12,345 troops present, up from 8,663 reported at the middle of the month.  On April 7, when the ironclads attacked, that number was roughly the same.  But by April 23, Ripley reported 18,351 present for duty.  But this was a temporary increase in strength.

Although not engaged in any major fighting, the troops were far from idle. In the weeks after the April 7 attack, Beauregard feared a Federal landing at Bull’s Bay might expose the flanks of Sullivan’s Island.  One brigade shifted to Christ Church Parrish in response.  At the same time, Beauregard ordered Brigadier General S.R. Gist to occupy Black Island, behind Morris Island, with field artillery (see the map above for location).  Fear was that Federals might occupy that island and take in flank both the Morris Island defenses and Secessionville (Fort Lamar).  But to fortify these points the Confederates needed time and labor.  As mentioned before, they were coming up short on the later.

By the first days of May, troops were departing Charleston for other threatened sectors.  Among those departing were the brigades of Brigadier-Generals S.R. Gist and W.H.T. Walker. Pressed to send Brigadier-General Nathan Evan’s Brigade on top of that, Beauregard argued with some success to retain at least 13,000 troops in front of Charleston (both 1st and 2nd Military Districts).

Reflecting on the situation and the results of the April 7th engagement, Beauregard offered advice to Colonel John Forsyth, responsible for the defenses at Mobile Bay:

I place great reliance, however, on three things – heavy guns, Rains torpedoes, and, in deep water, rope obstructions.  I have also introduced here Lee’s (one of my officers) spar torpedoes, attached to row-boats, which ought to be used in flotillas on all our large rivers.

In the days after the attack, Beauregard had followed his own advice.  He temporarily held up some heavy guns, including Brooke rifles, moving by rail to Savannah.  But unable to retain those, he looked about for other options.  One was to modify more of the heavy smoothbores into rifled guns – particularly the 8-inch columbiads which had little effect on the ironclads – in a manner similar to the 42-pdrs.  This program eventually expanded to 10-inch columbiads.  But the process took time.  None of the guns would appear in the harbor defenses until mid-summer at the earliest.

The number of rifled guns in Beauregard’s entire command as of the end of April was 113, as indicated on an April 24 report:

The majority of rifled guns were field artillery, and an odd assortment at that (Wiards, Blakelys, Parrotts, James, and Whitworths).  The converted 42-, 32- and 24-pdrs were marginal at best. Of the Brookes, three of those from the report were earmarked for the CSS Atlanta at Savannah.

But the Charleston defenders would receive, as the spoils from the victory on April 7, two additional heavy guns.  With the USS Keokuk sunk in shallow waters (see the blue mark just to the lower right of the map), Confederate engineers deemed it possible to salvage the ship’s XI-inch Dahlgrens.  That work took place between mid-April and the first week of May.  As result, Beauregard added the heaviest guns in all of the South to his defenses. (I promise more details on that operation in posts to follow.)

While working the wreck, the Confederates needed to support the salvage crew from any Federal interference.  At least twice during the salvage, Confederate ironclads moved up to cover the operation.  On April 20, the CSS Chicora exchanged shots with the Federals.  Guns on Morris Island also covered the operation, particularly a Whitworth field gun.  Although of light caliber, the gun could fire a solid bolt accurately to extreme ranges.  Beauregard wanted a second gun of this type, but was denied.

With respect to torpedoes, after the ironclad attack the Confederates wanted to determine the reason for the “big torpedo” failure.  As related earlier, the determination was excess cable played out during the laying of that weapon, thus rendering it incapable of firing.  That issue identified, the defenders soon placed more of the large torpedoes.

But Beauregard was most interested in employing the spar torpedoes.  Writing to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper in Richmond, he lamented that, “The work on the marine torpedo ram is at a stand-still for want of material and money.”  The funding for the project was expended and more was needed. While the Confederate navy provided some materials, much of the needed iron-plating went to the ironclads then under production in Charleston.  Pressing the point, Beauregard added:

Meantime the great value of the invention has been demonstrated so as to secure general conviction, and Captain Tucker, commanding Confederate States naval forces afloat on this station, declares unhesitatingly that this one machine of war, if finished, would be more effective  as a means of defense and offense than nearly all the iron-clads here afloat and building, a fact of which I am and have been fully assured.  Had it been finished and afloat when the enemy’s iron-clads entered this harbor several weeks ago but few of them probably would have escaped.

In early May, Confederates in Charleston received reports of “400-500 tons of iron mailing plates” in Nassau.  Circulars went out offering up to $1,500 per ton to blockade runners transporting the iron.  Beauregard went to the extreme measure of denying cotton to any runner who refused to carry the iron.

During the lull through the end of April, Confederates angled for an opportunity to mount a row-boat spar torpedo attack on the Federal vessels anchored in the Stono River near Folly Island. But these efforts came to naught.  Naval crews sent to Charleston in anticipation of capturing a monitor were soon sent back to Richmond.

As April closed, both sides maintained a stalemate outside Charleston.  Yet as both sides shouldered for leverage on the coastline, particular points gained prominence for future operations.  Folly Island would be the toe-hold needed to secure Morris Island.  Morris Island would thence become the key to reducing Fort Sumter.  Beauregard’s spar torpedoes would indeed succeed in damaging the Federal ships outside the harbor.   And the stationary torpedoes would keep the fleet out of the harbor.  The stalemate in April was but a brief respite before the next round of operations.  There would be few such respites in the next two years of war as Charleston became a very active theater.

(Citations and table from OR, Series I, Volume 14, Serial 20, pages 906, 917, and 927.)

“The troops in Virginia and Tennessee have generally built [forts]…”: Slave labor for seacoast forts

Last month, while discussing the issues facing the Charleston defenders, I mentioned the shortage of labor needed to build the defenses. General P.G.T. Beauregard and other military officials complained the planters failed to supply the numbers required to complete the works. Often when interpreting this particular issue, we bring up the irony that in order to preserve States Rights and the “peculiar institution” the Confederacy came to some rather “federalist” policies. Not to take away from that, I’d offer a side path to consider.

The requirement for labor remained, even after the ironclad attack of April 7, 1863 – if nothing else, the requirement was even greater. At Savannah, officials estimated the need for 1,500 slaves. But in the previous month only 132 were “engaged upon the earthworks near Savannah. Of these 102 will be discharged this week.” In South Carolina, the army called upon the state for 3,000 laborers. Yet, officials reported receiving only a fraction of that number.

And I would point out this was not just a practice unique to South Carolina and Georgia were Beauregard commanded. Fellow blogger Jim Schmidt recently discussed slave labor employed to build the defenses of Galveston, Texas (both Federal and Confederate use, BTW).

While the military complained the planters were not answering the calls, the planters had grievances of their own. A letter from state senator A. Mazyck to South Carolina Governor Milledge Luke Bonham, later attached to correspondence to General Beauregard, offers ample enumeration of those:

South Santee, April 21, 1863.
His Excellency M. L. Bonham, Governor, &c.:

MY DEAR SIR: While I was in Charleston, on my way home from Columbia, I met my neighbor, Dr. A. E. Gadsden, who told me that some 7 or 8 negroes that he had had there for some months in the public service had been without employment fur a week or ten days because it was said there was nothing for them to do, and were at length discharged and sent home to him, yet notwithstanding this a notice is published that negroes will be called for from this district early in May. The fact stated by Dr. Gadsden will be generally known in this part of the country, and cannot fail to make the impression that the labor is not really wanted, and that the planters are harassed and their business interrupted for nothing. Most of the negroes on this river have been removed. A few of us, however, have kept ours at home, and are endeavoring to plant a crop, which we cannot do if our negroes are taken away in May. In the course of the winter a good many of them were employed in constructing a battery on North Santee, which has been a long time finished, but not a single gun has yet been mounted on it, and it does not seem that any will be, so that this, like all the rest of our work, is wasted. Under these circumstances I do not think it likely that any negroes will be obtained here. The facts I have stated show that there must be some gross mismanagement on the part of the military authorities. I do not know that you can do anything to remedy the evil, but I think it right to bring it to your notice, as you may not otherwise lie aware of it.
Very respectfully and truly, yours, &c.,
A. Mazyck.

Given the inefficiency of the system, and the ever present need for labor on the plantation, little wonder the planters were reserved with their support.

In Georgia, Governor Joseph E. Brown added his concerns in correspondence with Brigadier-General Hugh Mercer, commanding at Savannah, on April 24, 1863:

… It was believed that the Confederate generals in command had no more right to call on the State government to impress negroes for them than they had to call on State officers to impress provisions, forage, or any other thing necessary for the Army, as the act of Congress makes the one as much the duty of Confederate officers as the other. It was also believed that the negroes now called for could not be collected in time to erect new works which might be completed and ready for use before the time when the enemy will be forced by the heat of the climate to abandon further offensive operations against Savannah this spring…. If we are to continue the war successfully it is of the most vital importance that our fields shall be cultivated and provisions made for the Army and the people at home, including the families of our brave soldiers. It is now the time of greatest necessity for labor in the fields. A hand taken from the plantation for the next two or three months had as well be taken for the whole year, as he can make no crop unless he works now….

The State troops last year built the line of fortifications constructed by order of General Jackson, including Fort Boggs, with the exception probably of the masonry, without any additional compensation and without complaint. The troops in Virginia and Tennessee have generally built the fortifications ordered by our generals in the same way.

The letter from Brown carried considerable sting. However his prediction about Federal operations proved incorrect, at least in part. The “enemy,” apparently undeterred by the heat, continued active operations outside Charleston through the summer. Although, as far as Brown was concerned Savannah remained safe.

Now having offered these citations, I could then invite you down the path to discuss the practical failure of states rights in a Confederacy at war. But you’ve probably read the “died of a theory” quote before.

Instead, consider the ready example offered by Brown when insisting the troops do more of the work. Virginia and Tennessee? Both states had seen heavy campaigning the previous year. The Armies of Northern Virginia and Tennessee had carried the war into the North during 1862. And…And, more importantly the rank and file had seen the “total war” being waged.

We shouldn’t just isolate discussions about “total war” to blusterous John Pope or William T. Sherman. That mode of warfare had implications in the Confederacy as well.

(Citations from OR, Series I, Volume 14, Serial 20, pages 902, 914, and 915-16.)

 

150 years ago: Replinishing the magazines at Charleston

In just 2 ½ hours of action on April 7, 1863, the guns defending Charleston harbor fired 2,229 rounds.  As discussed earlier, General P.G.T. Beauregard was concerned at the expenditure of ammunition.  Try as you might, one cannot “un-shoot” a gun.  Recovery of shot spread across the bottom of the channel was impractical.  So the Confederates had to rely upon resupply from the foundries and arsenals.

One of the vendors involved was, no surprise, J.M. Eason and Brothers.  Through the month of April, the firm delivered projectiles to the Charleston Arsenal:

The receipt indicates delivery of:

• Thirty-six 42-pdr rifle bolts
• Ten 42-pdr hollow shot
• Four 42-pdr rifle shell
• Thirty-nine 32-pdr rifle bolts
• Forty-five 24-pdr conical rifle shot

Along with parts for making friction primer tubes and cartridges.

So fire off 140 of the 42-pdr rounds on April 7, then receive 50 replacements by the end of the month.  A net deficit of 90 rounds.  But wait a second.  The 42-pdr bore was 7-inches, and the rifled modifications shared projectiles with the 7-inch Brookes (at least some varieties of projectiles that is).  So with 86 Brooke rounds fired, the Confederates were at a deficit of 176 for the month.  Not so good.  Even worse, Eason deliveries replenished only 13% of the number of 32-pdr bolts fired on April 7.  But with no 24-pdrs firing on April 7, that caliber was a net gain for the month… though of little value overall.

Eason was but one of several vendors providing ordnance for Charleston’s defenders.  But at the same time, these vendors were stretched thin with orders from other pressed sectors and a rather diminishing supply of raw materials.

Again, we see Beauregard was right to admonish his gunners for wasteful firing. After all, $2706.50 would only buy a fraction of that expended on April 7.