Chapter II: Part 2

Meanwhile several gunboats had gone up the harbor, to learn something about the forts. They were firing away now and then, either at the enemy on shore or at the rebel gunboats hovering about beyond. We supposed that their errand was only preliminary, and felt no surprise at seeing them return after an hour or two and again quietly come to anchor. But in the afternoon, when the flagship herself got under way, we expected something more; especially as she had undergone a transformation and was now in fighting trim. Her topmasts were sent down, and all her lofty tracery of spars had disappeared. As she moved off, looking like a champion athlete stripped for the fray, every eye followed her in eager expectation. Soon a puff of smoke from one of the rebel batteries, followed by the dull reverberation of the report, and then another from the opposite shore, spoke out their defiance, as if they would like nothing better than to begin hostilities at once. But there was no answering gun from the frigate. On she went, in the same leisurely fashion, as if she had seen and heard nothing. More guns from the forts, more smoke and more reverberation. Now she will surely open her ports and show these blustering rebels, at least with a shot or two, what it is to fire upon a United States frigate. But no. She seemed to pause awhile as if in doubt, then turned and came slowly back toward the fleet, followed to all appearance by the parting scoffs of the enemy. It was impossible to repress a certain feeling of chagrin at seeing the flagship apparently chased out of the harbor, on the first trial, without even firing once in reply.

That was because we had been looking at something we did not understand. After getting the reports of the gunboats, the flagship had gone up to obtain for herself a few more particulars as to the location and outline of the forts. The cannonading was at too long range to do her any harm, and her expedition was meant for business, not for show.

However, the next day must find us ready; and perhaps it would be none too soon. We had now been four days, off and on, at the harbor entrance; and by this time all South Carolina knew where we were and what we had come for. Every additional twenty-four hours gave the enemy more time for preparation, without any advantage to us; and the longer the enterprise was deferred, the more difficult it would become. But the next day there was rather a high wind, with considerable sea; and accordingly matters again remained _in statu quo_. That was another disappointment. It seemed almost impossible that it should be so. Were these old sea-dogs, after coming six hundred miles on purpose, to be delayed in their work by a little rough water?

Well, yes. This was to be a contest between ships and forts. The forts are planted on the solid ground, and their guns are mounted on level platforms, with every angle of inclination sure and uniform. But the ships are afloat; and if rolling about with the sea, and their decks tipping this way and that, their aim must be uncertain and much of their metal thrown away. Of course, a fort is not to be reduced by firing guns at it, but by having the shot penetrate where it is meant to go. Captain Dupont was a man who had come to win, not to fight a useless battle with no result; and the way he went to work after the time arrived made it plain to all that he knew equally well when to stop and when to go ahead.

On the morning of Thursday, November 7th, everything was favorable. The sea was smooth, with a gentle breeze from the northeast. About nine o'clock the war vessels began to move forward between the forts. The transports were drawn up as near as possible and yet be out of the line of fire. Our own vessel, the _Oriental_, was the second in position, General Sherman's being the only one in advance of us. As for myself, I climbed into the fore cross-trees, and then, seated on the reefed topsail, with my back against the foot of the topmast, I had a view that commanded the entire scene. It was a bright, clear day, with hardly a cloud on the horizon. Before us lay the broad harbor nearly two and a half miles across, guarded on each side by the enemy's earthworks. On the right, at Bay Point, was Fort Beauregard, and on the left, at Hilton Head, Fort Walker, the stronger and more important of the two. A little to the north of Fort Walker was a high, two-story house, with a veranda in front, the headquarters of the rebel commander; and away beyond, moving about in the adjoining creeks, we could see the tall smoke-stacks and black smoke of the rebel gunboats, watching an opportunity to capture vessels that might be stranded or crippled, or to chase them all, should they be defeated.

And now the battle began. The naval force in a long line of fifteen ships, passed up midway between the forts, receiving and answering the fire from each. Near the head of the harbor, five or six were thrown off for a flanking squadron, to engage the rebel gunboats or enfilade the enemy's works from the north. The rest, including all the larger vessels, then turned south, and, passing slowly down in front of Fort Walker, gave her, one after the other, their heavy broadsides, turning again, after getting fairly by, to repeat the circuit. From my position I could see every shell strike. When one of them buried itself in the ramparts or plunged over into the fort, its explosion would throw up a vertical column of whirling sand high in the air, followed by another almost as soon as the first had disappeared. When one from the rebel batteries burst over the ships, it appeared suddenly like a white ball of smoke against the sky, that swelled and expanded into a cloudy globe, and then slowly drifted away to leeward; while a few seconds later came the sharp detonation of the exploded shell. On both sides the conflict was unremitting, and along the whole sea-face of the fort its guns kept on belching their volleys against the fleet.

About this time we noticed on our left, close in shore, a gunboat that seemed to be engaging the fort on its own hook. It was a two-masted vessel, probably of six or seven hundred tons, but it looked hardly larger than a good sized steam tug; and on its open deck was a single big gun, firing away at the southeast angle of the fort. It was the _Pocahontas_. She had been kept back by the gale, and had just arrived in time to get over the bar while the fight was going on. Her commander was Captain Percival Drayton, a native of South Carolina, but one of the stanchest and most gallant officers in the navy of the United States. The commander of the two forts was his brother, General Drayton, of the Confederate army, whose plantation on the island was only two or three miles away.

When looking at the new comer, I could not help thinking how much expression there may be in such inanimate things as two pieces of ordnance. The way the gun on the _Pocahontas_ was worked certainly gave the idea of skill, determination, and persistency; while that which answered it from the fort was equally suggestive of vexation, haste, and a little apprehension. No doubt it was natural for the defenders to feel so, when, in addition to the cannonading in front and on one flank, another enemy should appear, to harass them from the opposite quarter.

Through all this hurly-burly, the movement of the war vessels was a masterpiece of concerted action. Round and round they went, following the flagship in deliberate succession, pounding at the fort with one broadside going up and with the other coming down. So far as we could see, not one of them fell out of line, or failed to do her full share in the engagement. It had been going on now nearly four hours. The fire of the fort was somewhat lessened, but it was still enough to be doubtful and dangerous. One great gun in particular, on the southern half of the sea-front, kept working away with dogged energy, as if determined to inflict some deadly blow that might retrieve the fortunes of the day. After a while there seemed to be a cessation. The _Wabash_ stood motionless before her enemy. She fired a single gun, to which there was no response. Then a boat shot out from under her quarter; and pulled straight for the shore. An officer landed, and went up the bluffs to the fort. For a moment we could see his dark figure running round the parapet, then down and out by the sally-port, and across the intervening field to the two-story house, where it disappeared in the doorway. A few moments later, at the flagstaff on the roof, a flag mounted swiftly to the top, and then, in sight of all, the stars and stripes floated out with the breeze, over the coast of South Carolina.

What followed was a kind of pandemonium. Cheers from the vessels all over the harbor, with the tooting of steam whistles and music from the regimental bands, mingled in long reiteration till every vocal organ was exhausted, and the notes of the "Star-spangled Banner" had traveled over the Bay Point and back again. The transports began to move in, and were soon collected as near the beach as they could safely come. In an hour or two I went ashore with General Viele and others of his staff, to take a look at the surroundings. The fort was naturally our first object of interest. Three of its guns dismounted, with their gun-carriages standing wrong end upward, the parapet and traverses seamed with shot and shell, and the ground strewn with pieces of exploded projectiles, told of the hard struggle it had gone through. The few dead left by the enemy had been decently removed by the marines who first took possession. A day or two afterward the surgeon of the fort was found in one of the galleries, dead, and covered with sand from a bursted shell. In the rear of the fort was a stretch of open plain, also covered with fragments of shell, over which the fugitives had passed in their final rout, leaving behind arms, knapsacks, blankets, and everything that could impede their flight. Traveling over this field, half a mile or so from the fort, I came upon the body of a stout fellow, who had been struck down while running for his life. There was a gaping wound in his breast, into which you might have put a quart pot; but his countenance was as serene and quiet in expression as if he had laid down by himself for a few moments' rest.

General Wright's brigade was landed that afternoon. But it was slow work, with a shelving beach and no wharf; and the rest of us postponed disembarking till the next day. When all were on shore, General Wright's command was located at and about the fort, and that of General Stevens some distance farther on, near the crossing of a tide-water creek. Our own brigade, which held the advanced position, was about two miles northwest of the creeks, on the main road from that direction. The fort at Bay Point was abandoned by the enemy without further resistance, and was occupied by a detachment from the second brigade.

I have understood that this battle made some change in current opinion as to the efficiency of ships and forts against each other. A fort, or at least an earthwork, would seem almost impregnable against artillery. It has no masonry walls to crumble or batter down. Solid shot may bury themselves in its ramparts without doing the least harm; and when a shell explodes there, it only throws up a volcanic eruption of earth and sand, that settles back again nearly in the same place. The day after the battle at Hilton Head, the walls of the fort were practically as good as ever, and within a week or two its scarred outlines were all smoothed over again. On the other hand, a frigate or a sloop-of-war is vulnerable throughout. A single shot at the water line will make a leak, hot shot will set her on fire, and exploding shells may derange her machinery. Her oaken sides are a slight bulwark compared with the twenty feet of earth in the ramparts of a fort.

All this was thoroughly appreciated by the enemy, who were prepared for the attack and confident of success. Captured letters and documents showed that they had entire faith in their works and guns, and fully expected to sink the Yankee vessels and teach them a lesson for their temerity.

But in one thing ships may be superior to forts; that is, in their power of defensive action. What decides the day more than anything else is the number of guns in service and the rapidity of their fire. Ships may be brought from various directions and concentrated at a given place, so that their united batteries will far outweigh the armament of a fort. At Hilton Head the _Wabash_ alone fired, in four hours, 880 shot and shell; and from the entire fleet no less than 2000 projectiles must have been hurled upon the fort within that time. The earthwork itself may withstand this tempest, but its defenders cannot continue to work their guns. After a time their fortitude must give way under such a trial, and, as it was in Fort Walker, the moment comes at last for a final stampede. Of course, this implies that the ships are present in sufficient force and do their work in the right way.

But perhaps the victory was due, more than anything else, to the practical skill and originality of Captain Dupont. He saw at once that the work at Hilton Head was the important one, and that if that were reduced, the other would be untenable. When first leading his ships up the harbor in mid-channel, he engaged both forts at about two thousand yards distance. On making the turn and coming down again towards the south, he passed in front of Fort Walker at eight hundred yards. This distance was of his own choosing, and he had the range beforehand. But the guns of the fort had to be sighted anew, in the heat and excitement of actual conflict; not an easy thing to do, even for the most experienced. After going again toward the north at longer range, he once more made the turn and repassed the fort on his way back, this time at six hundred yards. So, the vessels were always in motion, and after every turn presented themselves to the enemy at a different distance. It was this second promenade of the ships, pouring into the fort their terrific broadsides at the short distance of six hundred yards, that did the effective work of the engagement. At this time, according to nearly all the commanders' reports, the enemy's shot mostly passed over the ships, injuring only their spars and rigging. Throughout the battle none of them were struck more than ten times in the hull, none were seriously disabled, and two of them were not hit at all. Captain Dupont said afterward that he believed he had saved a hundred lives by engaging the fort at close range.

After the first rejoicings were over, there was a singular feeling of disappointment in the North at the seeming want of result from the victory at Port Royal. It was expected that the troops would move at once into the interior, capture the important cities, and revolutionize the states of Georgia and South Carolina. One of the newspaper correspondents wrote home, a few days after the battle, "In three weeks we shall be in Charleston and Savannah;" and in the popular mind at that time the possession of a city seemed more important than anything else, in the way of military success. So when the months of November, December, and January passed by, without anything being done that the public could appreciate, there was no little surprise manifested at the inactivity of the army in South Carolina.

In reality the military commanders were busy from the outset. The day after the battle, Captain Gillmore, the chief engineer, made a reconnaissance to the north side of the island, and laid out there a work to control the interior water-way between Charleston and Savannah; and before the end of the month he had commenced his plans for the reduction of Fort Pulaski, which in due time were brought to a successful issue. But these movements, and others like them, were after all secondary in importance to the main object of the Port Royal expedition, namely, the permanent acquisition of Port Royal itself, as an aid to the naval operations on the Atlantic coast.

The government at Washington was by this time fully alive to the magnitude of the contest and its requirements. One of the most pressing of these requirements was the blockade; which must be maintained effectively along an extensive line of coast, exposed to severe weather during a large part of the year. The vessels of the blockading squadron must be supplied with stores and coal at great inconvenience and from a long distance; and when one of them needed repairs it must be sent all the way to New York or Philadelphia to get a new topmast or chain cable. This involved much expense, long delays, and the risk of temporary inefficiency in the blockade. It was important that the fleet should have, near at hand, a capacious harbor, where store-houses and workshops might be established, and where shelter might be had for the necessary inspections and repairs. Port Royal was such a harbor; and it also served, in course of time, as a base for further military operations. It had been selected by Captain Dupont and General Sherman in joint council.

THE SEA ISLANDS AND FORT PULASKI.

The sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia are grouped in a nearly continuous chain along the coast, between the mainland and the sea. They are flat, with only a few slight elevations here and there; and there is not, over their whole area, a single boulder, pebble, or gravel bed, nor any spot where the ledge rock comes to the surface. The soil at first seems to be sandy; but you soon discover that it has mingled with it a fine black loam and is extremely productive. It yields the "sea-island cotton," a variety of long fibre, formerly much valued for certain purposes of textile manufacture. There is no sod or turf, like that of the Northern states, but the fields not under cultivation produce a tall thin grass, which is soon trampled out of existence by passing wagons or by soldiers on the march. In the clearings are the live oak and the great magnolia, both evergreen. The palmetto is also a conspicuous object, and the dwarf palmetto grows abundantly under the shadow of the pine woods. Everywhere there is a large proportion of hard-wood shrubs and trees with polished, waxy-looking, evergreen leaves.

There are many extensive plantations, where the owners often remain during a large part of the year. Their houses are not grouped in villages, but scattered at a considerable distance apart, each on its own plantation, with the negro cabins usually in long lines at the rear or on one side. The roads from one plantation to another run through the pine woods, or over the plains, bordered on each side by cotton or corn fields, and marking the only division between them. There is seldom to be seen such a thing as a rail fence, and of course never a stone wall.

Hilton Head, where we were now encamped, was one of the largest of these islands. It was twelve miles long, in a general east and west direction, and about five miles in extreme width, north and south. At its Port Royal end, the sand bluffs rose to the height of eight or ten feet above the beach, giving the name of "head" more especially to this part of the island; elsewhere they were generally much lower. Along its sea-front there was a magnificent beach, ten miles long, broken only at one place by a creek fordable at half tide. At frequent intervals on this route there were marks of the slow encroachment of the sea upon the land. Often you would come upon the white, dry stump of a dead pine, standing up high above the beach on the ends of its sprawling roots, like so many corpulent spider legs. Once it grew on the low bluffs above high-water mark, as its descendants are doing now. But the sea gradually undermined its roots and washed out the soil from between them, till it gave up the ghost for want of nourishment, and in time came to be stranded here, half-way down the beach. It looked as if the tree had moved down from the bluffs toward the water, though in reality the beach had moved up past the tree. The same thing was going on all along the coast in this region. There were trees on the very edge of the bluff, with their roots toward the sea exposed and bare, but with enough still buried in the soil on the land side to hold the trunk upright and give it sap; while here and there was one already losing its grip and slowly bending over toward the sea. When it has nothing more to rest on than the sands of the beach, its branches and trunk decay, but its roots and stump remain for many years whitening in the sun, like a skeleton on the plains.

The chain of islands from Port Royal toward Charleston harbor included Parry, Saint Helena, Edisto, John's and James islands; in the opposite direction, toward the Savannah river, Daufuskie, Turtle, and Jones' islands. Inside these were other smaller islands, the whole separated from each other and from the mainland by sounds and creeks, sometimes broad but oftener narrow and tortuous, through which small steamers could find an inside passage from Charleston to Savannah. This communication was of course cut off when our troops occupied Port Royal.

At Hilton Head I first made the acquaintance of the southern plantation negro. Every white inhabitant had disappeared, leaving the slaves alone in possession. Their inferior appearance, habits, and qualities, their curious lingo and strange pronunciation were in amusing contrast with those of the blacks and mulattoes we had seen at the north. When I met one of them near the Jones plantation and asked him whether he belonged there, his answer was this: "No mawse, I no bene blahnx mawse Jones, I bene blahnx mawse Elliot." Not having any idea what he meant, I repeated the phrase to General Viele, who had some familiarity with the southern negro, and who gave me the interpretation as follows: "No master, I did not belong to master Jones, I belonged to master Elliot." Mr. Elliot was the owner of another plantation near by. Soon after we took possession of Hilton Head, negroes began to come in from the neighboring islands, seeking shelter and food. They generally appeared to rate themselves at the value set upon them by their former masters. One morning a young black, of the deepest dye and most cheerful expression of countenance, presented himself at brigade headquarters, and on being asked whether any others had arrived with him, he said with a delighted grin: "Yes, mawse, more 'n two hundred head o' nigger come ober las' night." Most of the field hands were of this description. But on each plantation there was usually one man noticeably superior to the rest in manner and language. He was generally the leader in their religious exercises, and had the gift of the gab to no small degree; though his uncontrollable propensity to the use of long words and incongruous expressions often gave a ludicrous turn to the effect of his eloquence.

But whatever their grade of capacity or intelligence, the negroes agreed in one thing. They were well satisfied to live on the plantations, without control of their former owners, so long as the crops of the present season would supply them with food. Their liberation they knew was owing to the success of the Union troops, and they showed a much more intelligent comprehension of the causes and probable results of the war than they had been supposed to possess. But as for doing anything themselves to help it on, that did not appear to form part of their calculations. They would work for their rations when destitute, would obey when commanded as they had been accustomed, and they would aid the Union cause whenever they could do so in a passive sort of way. But we soon found that we must not look to them for anything like energetic or spontaneous action. This seemed a strange indifference to a contest involving the freedom or servitude of their race, and no doubt accounted for much of the aversion afterward felt by our troops to the project of transforming some of them into soldiers.

But if we had remembered where the negroes came from, perhaps we should not have been so much surprised. Their ancestors had been brought to this country from the coast of Africa by slave-traders who had bought them there. They were slaves already, when they were taken on board ship. They had been captured in war, or seized by native marauders, who took them for the purpose of reducing them to slavery and selling them for profit. They were consequently from the least capable and least enterprising of the negro tribes in Africa; and their descendants in this country were of the same grade. If they could not resist being made slaves by other negroes, how could they be expected to take part in a war between whites, even to recover their own freedom?

Of course there were exceptions to this. In the month of May following, a boat's crew brought away from Charleston harbor the barge of the Confederate General Ripley, and escaped with it to the naval vessels outside; and not long afterward the negro pilot, Robert Smalls, and his companions ran the gauntlet of the forts in the night-time with the steam-tug _Planter_, and delivered her safely to the blockading fleet. But these were rare instances, and nothing of the kind happened at Hilton Head.

What the sea-island negroes appeared to excel in more than anything else was handling an oar, which they did in a way quite their own. In their long, narrow "dug-outs," hollowed from the trunk of a Georgia pine, each man pulling his oar in unison with the rest, they would send the primitive craft through the water with no little velocity. In lifting and recovering the oar they had a peculiar twist of the hand and elbow that no white man could imitate; and their strange sounding boat songs seemed to give every moment a fresh impulse to the stroke. These songs had no resemblance to the half-humorous, half-sentimental "plantation melodies" known to theatre-goers at the north. They were more like religious rhapsodies in verse. At least, they had many words and phrases of a religious character; but mingled together, in a kind of incoherent chant, with many others of different significance, or even none at all. It was not its meaning that gave value to the song; it was its sound and cadence. Sometimes the verse would open with a few words of extempore variation by the leader, and then the other voices would strike in with the remaining lines as usual. Oftener than not, the song was a fugue, every one of the half dozen boatmen catching up his part at the right second, and chiming in all the louder and lustier for having kept still beforehand. Once in a while the passenger would be startled at seeing an oarsman suddenly strike the one in front of him a smacking blow between the shoulders, at the same time injecting into the melody a short improvised yell, by way of stimulus and encouragement. Altogether, I have seldom witnessed a more entertaining performance than one of these semi-barbarous vocal concerts in a South Carolina dug-out.

Our brigade camp was in a large cotton-field lying across the road to the northwest. At the time of our arrival it was covered with tall, scraggy bushes, their white balls still ungathered; and for a night or two we bivouacked in the deep furrows between them. But they were soon removed and the surface quickly trampled down into a serviceable parade ground, with the regimental camps extending along one side. Brigade headquarters were in advance of the parade ground, opposite the right of the line. At one end was the general's tent, fronting upon an oblong space, enclosed on its two sides by the tents of the staff officers, orderlies, and employees. Within the enclosed space was a single live-oak, under which we gathered in the evening round a fire, to smoke our pipes and talk over arrivals, reconnoissances, or projected expeditions.

For some weeks pork and hard-bread were an important part of our fare. Our private stores from the _Oriental_ were soon exhausted, and much of the commissary supplies on the transport fleet had been lost or damaged on the voyage down. Foraging on the plantations did something; and the general even secured a cow, which he stabled alongside our camp. But she was of very unprepossessing appearance. Her only fodder was dry cornstalks; and the milk she gave, in the opinion of most, was worse than none at all. The same verdict was rendered, after trial, on the native beef. The most successful venture of this kind was a young kid, secured in a day's tramp, which I butchered and dressed myself, as being the only one of the staff entitled to rank as sawbones. After a time supply ships and sutler schooners reached Port Royal, and our days of short commons were over.

But the most gratifying arrival was that of our horses. They had been shipped with many others, at the starting of the expedition, on the steamer _Belvidere_, which was among the missing when the fleet reassembled at Port Royal; and hearing nothing of her, we had given her up for lost. In reality she had been very roughly handled in the gale, and many of the animals cast loose, trampled on and thrown overboard; but she had managed to keep afloat and make her way back to Fortress Monroe. Here, after some delay, the remainder of the live stock was reshipped and sent down to Port Royal on another steamer. Fortunately our own horses were among the survivors.

The process of getting them on shore was something of a novelty. The ship could hardly approach nearer than a quarter of a mile from the beach; so they had to be dumped into the sea and make a landing for themselves. The way it was done was this. A gangway was opened in the ship's bulwarks, on the side away from shore; and a gang-plank with cross cleats laid over the deck to the opening. The animal was then placed at one end, prepared to "walk the plank" like a pirate's prisoner. As he would never do this of himself if he knew what was coming, he is half persuaded into it and half forced. One man starts him with a little gentle solicitation by the head-stall. At the same time two strong fellows clasp hands behind him, just above the hocks, and as he steps forward they follow him with increasing pressure toward the gangway; so that by the time he comes in sight of the awful void beyond, his motion is too rapid for effectual resistance and over he goes with a final splash.

Most horses, on coming to the surface, after a short reconnoissance make straight for the shore, where they are taken in hand by men waiting for them. But some lose their heads and swim away in the wrong direction, so that they must be followed by boats and captured or turned back; and a few will persist in getting upon some marshy island or mud flat, where they flounder about until rescued with no little trouble and difficulty. So we took the precaution, for our own horses, to have a boat in waiting alongside the ship, with a long halter shank attached to the head-stall, by which they could be guided to a safe landing. On first coming up from his involuntary plunge bath, the animal's expression is one of unbounded astonishment and indignation at the outrage; but he soon follows willingly in the boat's wake, and, once on shore, is quite contented to find himself again in friendly hands.

Every one in a brigade camp thinks his own horse the best of the lot. He listens kindly to the eulogies of his comrades on their respective mounts, but with full persuasion that every one of them would exchange with him if he would allow it. My own animal was a bay stallion, hardly more than fifteen hands high and slab-sided as a ghost; and the deep hollows over his eyeballs proclaimed that his tenth birthday was already past. But he had plenty of lightning in his veins, and there must have been royal blood in his pedigree, though it was a stolen one. He would go over broken bridges wherever there were timbers enough for a foothold; and I have taken him out on a flatboat to the middle of a wide creek and then walked him up a gang-plank to the deck of a steamer without his showing the least hesitation. Notwithstanding his slender build, his power of endurance was extreme, and the oddities of his disposition were an unending source of surprise and entertainment.

The next enterprise of the expeditionary corps was the siege of Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah river. It was a formidable casemated work, situated just inside the entrance, and guarding the approach from below to the city of Savannah. It could not be successfully attacked by the navy, owing to its size and strength and the narrow limits of the river channel giving no room for the evolutions of a fleet. The only place where land batteries could be planted against it was Tybee island, between it and the sea, where there were but slender facilities for such an operation. The island was half sand and half marsh. On its sea-front was a shelving beach, backed by a low ridge with a few stunted pines and bushes; and on the land side there was little more than a wide stretch of trembling morass, in full view of the fort and commanded by its guns. Nevertheless Captain Gillmore reported that the thing could be done; and early in December the Forty-sixth regiment was detached from our brigade and sent to occupy Tybee island. The city of Savannah was fifteen miles above the fort, on the south side of the river.

The part assigned to General Viele was to establish a blockade of the Savannah river, between the city and the fort. In the month of January we struck camp at Hilton Head and moved southwest to the farther end of Daufuskie, the last of the islands in that direction suitable for occupation by troops. From Hilton Head in direct line it was only fifteen or sixteen miles; but by the circuitous water route through Port Royal harbor, Scull creek, Calibogue sound, Cooper river, Ramshorn creek, and New river, it was nearly twice that distance. In its general features the island was similar to Hilton Head. Our quarters were on a slightly elevated point, overlooking the lowlands and waterways toward the Savannah river, which was about three miles away. In that whole interval there was absolutely nothing to break the uniform level of the landscape. It was at Daufuskie and thereabout that we came to know the singular network of land and water communication that marks the region. From the knoll in front of our headquarters you might see, some distance away, the masts and smokestack of a gunboat apparently sailing along through the meadows. Her spars and perhaps her bulwarks might be visible, with nothing to be seen around them but a wide expanse of grass-covered flats. Go where she was, and you would find her in a creek hardly wide enough for her to turn in, but with ample depth of water and straight vertical sides of black mud, like an enormous ditch. Passing through one of these creeks in a row-boat at half tide, with nothing to be seen on either hand above the brink, and other channels opening into it every half mile or so, all looking alike, it would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost, and almost impossible to find your way again without a guide. Steamers of light draft and not too great length could pass through most of these channels at the proper tide.

On one occasion, after going down to Hilton Head for some business connected with the medical department, I took passage at my return on the steamer _Winfield Scott_, carrying one of the regiments destined for Daufuskie. She left Hilton Head at an early hour, and in the forenoon reached the sinuous channels northwest of Calibogue sound. She was rather a large vessel to attempt the passage, but with due care and a flood tide the pilot hoped she might get through. On coming to a bend in the creek she would run her nose against the opposite bank, then back a little and try again, turning slowly meanwhile, edging round by degrees and rubbing the mud off the banks, bow and stern, till she was clear of the obstruction and ready to go ahead again. At last she came to a turn that looked rather easier than the rest, but where there was a narrow spit at the bottom running out from one side toward the other. In trying to pass, the vessel grounded on this spit. It was still flood tide, and with vigorous pushing she might get over. So at it she went, with all steam on and her paddles doing their best. At each new trial she gained a little, but it was harder work every time; and she finally succeeded, at full high water, in getting exactly half-way over. Fifteen minutes later there was no chance. She was stranded, helpless, on the bar, bow and stern both sinking slowly with the ebb and weighing her down past hope of deliverance. In an hour or two her main deck began to crack open, and it was all the men could do to get a few horses across the widening chasm to be landed on the neighboring flats. Then we all disembarked and made ourselves as comfortable as possible while awaiting other means of transportation. But the _Winfield Scott_ never left that place till she was taken away piecemeal. She had weathered the November gale at sea, to be wrecked on a sunshiny forenoon in Ramshorn creek.

The troops at Daufuskie were a part of the old brigade, together with the Sixth Connecticut, two or three companies of artillery, and a detachment of the First New York Engineers. The last were extremely useful, as much of the work to be done was of an engineering character. The spot selected for the first blockading battery was a part of Jones' island called "Venus Point," on the north shore of the Savannah river, four miles above Fort Pulaski. To reach it from Daufuskie we had to pass by boats through New river and Wright river into Mud river, and thence across the marshy surface of Jones' island to Venus Point, a distance altogether of nearly five miles. The opening from Wright river into Mud river was an artificial passage called Wall's Cut, excavated some years before to enable steamers from Charleston by the inside route to get into the Savannah river. It had been obstructed after the battle of Port Royal by an old hulk placed crosswise and secured by piles, to prevent the passage of our gunboats. A company of the New York Engineers, under Major Beard, opened the passage again by removing the piles and swinging the hulk round lengthwise against the bank, where it now lay, a dismal looking object, abandoned at last by friend and foe.

Military operations often seem to be going on very slowly, especially to those at a distance who are unacquainted with the local conditions; but the work required for an enterprise like the investment of Fort Pulaski, as we soon found, cannot be done in a hurry. First of all there must be night reconnoissances by capable and well informed officers, through intricate waterways and over pathless islands, to learn the position of the enemy, the obstacles to be encountered, and the available points for occupation. After that begins the labor of the troops. Wharves must be built and roads cleared, before the barges and steamers can be used to advantage for transportation. Jones' island, the intended location of the battery, was like its neighbors, a marshy flat covered with reeds and tall grass. Its surface was so treacherous that a pole or a stick could be thrust down through its superficial layer of tangled roots into a fathomless underlying quagmire of soft mud. Twice a month, at the spring tides, it was flooded almost everywhere to the depth of several inches; and at no time would it bear with safety a horse, a wagon, or even a loaded wheelbarrow. For the transportation of anything weighty over its surface to Venus Point, it must have an artificial causeway.

Early in February the troops on Daufuskie were set to work in the pine woods, cutting down saplings of the proper size, and carrying them on their shoulders to a newly built wharf on the west side of the island. Ten thousand of these poles were thus brought from the woods to the water front, there loaded on flatboats and towed round to the landing place at Jones' island. There they were laid crosswise on the surface, to form a corduroy road, about three-quarters of a mile in length, to Venus Point. Then sandbags were carried over, to make something like firm ground for the gun-platforms, and a dry spot for the magazine. All the work at this place had to be done in the night time, as it was in full view of the rebel steamers passing every few days up and down the river.

At last all was ready for taking over the armament of the battery. In the afternoon I went over the corduroy toward Venus Point, and at my return about dusk, two of the guns were starting on the same road. It looked then as if the officers and men in charge would have no easy time of it, but their difficulties turned out much greater than I supposed. It took all that night and the next to get the guns over and put them in place. With the carriage wheels guided on a double row of planks laid end to end, taken up in the rear and laid down in front as the procession moved on, the shifting tramways were soon covered with the island mud, smooth and slippery as so much mucilage. When a wheel happened to get over the edge of its plank, down it would go, hub deep, in the soft morass; and then the men must set to work with levers to lift it out again, themselves immersed up to their knees in the same material. Many of them encased their feet and legs in empty sandbags tied at the knee, for protection against the all pervading mud. It was an exhausting labor, sometimes almost disheartening; but perseverance at last prevailed, and on the morning of the twelfth the six guns were all in position.

The next day I paid another visit to the work at Venus Point to see how it looked. It could hardly be called a fort. It was only a place where some platforms had been laid down and guns mounted, enclosed by a low parapet, not so much to repel an enemy as to keep out the tides. Nevertheless it was named Fort Vulcan, perhaps because it was better fitted for aggression than for defense.

While I was there it happened that the rebel steamer came down on her usual trip from Savannah to Fort Pulaski, and the battery opened on her for the first time. She was an ordinary river steamboat, painted white; and her name, the _Ida_, could be read with a good glass upon her wheelhouse. She evidently suspected something new at Venus Point and hugged the farther edge of the channel. After some shots had been launched at her, the artillery officer in charge invited me to try my hand at the game. So I sighted one of the guns as well as I could guess at her speed and distance, pulled the lanyard, and watched the effect of the discharge with no little interest. It was the first time I had ever had the opportunity of firing at a steamboat. As might be expected, I failed to make a hit. At that distance she seemed to be moving very slowly, though she was no doubt making the best of the time so far as she was able; and while my thirty pound projectile was traveling across the river, she was going down stream fast enough to be quite out of its way when it got there. Apparently she escaped all the shots without serious damage, for she kept on her course toward Fort Pulaski; but she did not venture to risk it again, and returned to Savannah by a circuitous channel farther south.

A week later the passage was more effectually closed by a second battery established on Bird island, opposite Venus Point and near the south bank of the river. This was the same kind of low-lying flat with the other islands in the neighborhood. When I made a visit to the work some days afterward, it was at the period of a spring tide, and nearly everything beyond the parapet was submerged. I was taken to the tent of Major Beard, the commanding officer, in a row-boat. The plank floor of the tent was just above the water level; but the major was lying, high and dry, in a bunk of rough boards, smoking his pipe with an air of supreme satisfaction. He had been from the start most active and efficient in the work of establishing the blockade, and he now held the advanced position, where it hardly looked as if he had ground enough to stand on. He was commissioned as field officer in the Forty-eighth New York, but had been detached for some weeks on special service at Hilton Head and Daufuskie.

During this time we had at brigade headquarters several officers of the regular army, whose acquaintance I greatly enjoyed. Captain Gillmore, chief engineer of the expedition, then about thirty-seven years of age, was with us from the first. Cheerful, hearty, enterprising, and wholly devoted to his work, he was the moving spirit throughout. He knew every detail of the engineering and artillery service, and his knowledge was exact and thorough. It was his examination and advice that determined the plan for the reduction of Fort Pulaski, and he fixed upon the location of all the batteries on Tybee island. The river blockade from Daufuskie was a part of his scheme, and while there he spared no pains or fatigue to superintend everything and make sure that it was done right. After this was completed, he returned to Tybee island, to push on the works at that place with the same unremitting persistency. The capture of the fort was the occasion of a well deserved advancement in rank, and before the close of the war he became major-general of volunteers.

Lieutenant James H. Wilson, topographical engineer, and Lieutenant Horace Porter, ordnance officer, were both busy under Captain Gillmore's direction. Neither mud and water, nor rain or darkness seemed to discourage them; and they would come in, after a night on Jones' island, wet, weary, and famished, but as lively and talkative as ever. Wilson was afterward a cavalry general, and it was a part of his command that captured Jeff Davis in his flight through Georgia in 1865, the last brilliant exploit of the war. Porter also became a general, and served on the staff of General Grant through the Petersburg campaign. Both were transferred to the batteries at Tybee island after finishing their work on Daufuskie. General Viele's troops remained, to keep up the river blockade, and prevent further supplies reaching Fort Pulaski.

Our own headquarters had been shifted by this time to a dwelling-house on the extreme southernmost point of Daufuskie, about a mile from the regimental camps. It was a spacious well-built mansion, and from a sort of open veranda on the roof there was a wide prospect, including the mouth of the Savannah river, with Tybee island and Fort Pulaski on the opposite shore, a little over three miles away. I sometimes went up into this crow's nest before sunrise, to watch the strange effect of the morning mist. At that hour the landscape for miles around was often covered by a low-lying bank of white cloud, with a few clumps of trees or small hillocks emerging from it here and there like so many scattered islands, and everything looking cool and still, without a sign of animal life or human habitation. Afterward, when the warm sunbeams began to touch the surface of this cloudy sea, the mists would slowly melt away into vapor, and I could see the outlines of the roads and fields and inlets and watercourses coming out, one after another, like the markings on a map. On two sides of the house was a flower-garden with carefully trimmed beds and walks, that had evidently been a favorite with the owner. Roses and camellias were in full bloom there in February and March, and many other flowering shrubs followed as the season went on. The cardinal grosbeak nested among them almost within reach of the windows, and the brown thrush and mocking-bird reared their broods but a short distance away.

There was a similar house toward the eastern side of the island, which we occupied for a brigade hospital. After obtaining the necessary stores and appliances from Hilton Head, it made a very convenient and useful establishment. Here we placed all the sick or disabled men, likely to need a prolonged treatment; thus relieving the regimental hospitals of all but their temporary cases, and giving the chronic invalids a better chance for convalescence and recovery.

We had a new topic of interest about this time in the rebel iron-clad steamer _Atlanta_, said to be approaching completion at Savannah. The country had just passed through a spasm of terror and relief at the unexpected performances of the _Merrimac_ and _Monitor_ at Hampton Roads; and after that, every one had a realizing sense of the devastation an iron-clad might accomplish in case there were no _Monitor_ to oppose her. We knew that such a vessel was getting ready at Savannah; and for some weeks it appeared doubtful whether our control of Venus Point and Bird island might not at any moment come to a sudden termination. As a matter of fact, the _Atlanta_ was getting on very slowly, and it was not until some weeks after the fall of Fort Pulaski that she could be put in condition to move. By that time the monitor _Weehawken_ was in waiting for her; and on her approaching and opening fire, disabled and captured her in fifteen minutes. Nevertheless she was the cause of no little foreboding on Daufuskie during the months of March and April.

Meanwhile Captain Gillmore was erecting his batteries on Tybee island along the western side of the sand ridge, toward the fort. Every night, under the cover of darkness and silence, his working parties traversed a narrow causeway of fascines and brushwood to the advanced positions, returning before daybreak to their camps on shore. As the low parapets and bombproofs gradually rose above the surface, they were shielded from view by clumps of bushes carefully distributed along the front; and lastly the heavy guns and ammunition were transported with the same precautions to their destination. After seven weeks of this labor, everything was ready. Eleven batteries, mounting sixteen mortars and twenty guns, were arranged along a sinuous line following the edge of the morass. From the lookout on our house-top all was in full view, Fort Pulaski on the right and Tybee island with its concealed batteries on the left. At that distance nothing was visible to show the preparations on either side; but the first gun would be seen and heard from our position almost as well as on the spot.