Charleston Under Siege: The Impregnable City

By Douglas W. Bostick

Charleston was the prize that the Union army and navy desperately sought to capture. Union General Halleck, in writing to General W.T. Sherman, declared, "Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed." However, despite bringing to bear the full firepower of the U.S. Army and Navy, Charleston would not relent. The defense of Charleston employed every tool available to an outmanned Confederate army. Yet after 567 days of constant attack by infantry, gun batteries and the Union fleet, Charleston would not surrender. Only after the evacuation of the Confederate forces to reinforce General Joe Johnston in North Carolina did the Federal government gain control of the city. Join historian Doug Bostick as he tells the story of the siege of Charleston, the longest siege of the Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781614230342

Douglas W. Bostick

Doug Bostick is a native of James Island and is an eighth-generation South Carolinian. He is a graduate of the College of Charleston and earned a master's degree from the University of South Carolina. Bostick is a former staff and faculty member of the University of South Carolina and the University of Maryland. He is the author of fifteen books, and his knowledge of history is enhanced by a raconteur's gift for storytelling.

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1

GREAT TERROR PREVAILING

It was almost 4:30 p.m. on April 14, 1861, when, after withstanding an intense bombardment, Major Robert Anderson and his beleaguered garrison marched out of Fort Sumter to the tune of Yankee Doodle, followed by Hail to the Chief, thus ending the first chapter of a four-year-long civil war. Later that evening in Charleston, South Carolina governor Francis Pickens made a speech from the balcony of the Charleston Hotel in which he declared:

We have defeated their twenty millions. We have humbled the flag of the United States before the Palmetto and Confederate, and so long as I have the honor to preside as your chief magistrate, so help me God, there is no power on earth shall ever lower from that fortress those flags, unless they be lowered and trailed in a sea of blood. I can here say to you it is the first time in the history of this country that the stars and stripes have been humbled. That flag has never before been lowered before any nation on this earth. But today it has been humbled and humbled before the glorious little State of South Carolina.

On April 15, 1861, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union. He also called for both houses of Congress to convene on July 4 to consider and determine, such measures, as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest may seem to demand.

Illustration of the firing on Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861, published in Harper’s Weekly. Author’s collection.

Harper’s Weekly engraving of the Confederate flag now flying over Fort Sumter, April 15, 1861, after the evacuation of the Federal garrison. Author’s collection.

On April 19, 1861, Lincoln ordered the blockade of all Southern ports from South Carolina to Texas. The next day, the Gosport Navy Yard at Norfolk was captured by the Confederacy. William Mahone, president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, tricked the Union troops at Gosport into evacuation. He bluffed the Union command by running a passenger train in and out of Norfolk, repeatedly blowing the whistle, leaving the Northerners with the impression that a large Confederate force was assembling for an attack. The Union troops withdrew to Fort Monroe at Hampton Roads, and the Confederacy seized the Gosport Navy Yard, the largest shipyard and logistical base of the U.S. Navy. At the navy yard, the Confederates also seized more than $8 million in property, including three thousand pieces of ordnance, among them Dahlgren guns, the navy’s latest and most modern naval weapon.

Charleston was a point of immediate attention for the Union ships moving to form the blockade. Not only was it the cradle of secession, but also its proximity to Bermuda (780 miles) and Nassau (500 miles) made the South Carolina port a key connection for blockade runners. Once goods reached Charleston, its strategic railroad connections allowed vital supplies to be distributed throughout the South. The goal of the blockade, quite simply, was to prevent cotton from leaving the port and finished goods, food and military supplies from entering the port, thus choking off Charleston and the Confederacy.

On May 11, 1861, the steam frigate USS Niagara was the first ship to arrive at the mouth of Charleston Harbor to initiate the blockade. The warship was one of the fastest ships in the U.S. Navy and was heavily armed with nine guns. However, with a deep draft of twenty-four feet, the blockading frigate could only cover the main channel, leaving three other shallower harbor entrances open.

The Niagara had visited Charleston previously when a slave trader, the Echo, was seized while illegally transporting captured Africans. The captain and crew of the Echo were placed on trial for piracy and murder. The Africans were held in protective custody, first at Castle Pinckney and later at the unfinished Fort Sumter. Custody of the Africans was ultimately transferred to the Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color. On September 21, 1858, the USS Niagara picked up the surviving 271 Africans and transported them to Monrovia, Liberia, for resettlement.

In its second day on patrol, the Niagara could only watch as the A and A, a bark from Belfast, steamed past utilizing one of the other channels, marking the event as the first ship to run the blockade. Later on May 12, another first occurred when the Niagara seized the General Parkhill, a British ship from Liverpool, the first blockade runner captured by the Union navy.

Charleston resident Emma Holmes wrote in her diary, "Old Abe has at last fulfilled his threats of blockading us by sending us the Niagara here."

Shortly, the USS Seminole, USS Wabash, USS Vandalia and the revenue cutter USS Harriet Lane arrived at Charleston, joining the Niagara on patrol. When the Wabash arrived, it collided with the Seminole, mistaking the Seminole for a blockade runner. Even with these ships’ arrival, the blockade was still largely ineffective as the ships patrolled up and down the Southern Atlantic coast. Additionally, they were constantly steaming to Hampton Roads, Virginia, or Pensacola, Florida, to refuel with coal. This often left only one ship stationed at Charleston. Captain Samuel Mercer of the Wabash, in a report to Washington, stated, You know as well as I do that to blockade this port with this ship alone is next door to an impossibility.

On September 28, Commander Samuel Phillips Lee aboard the Vandalia came close to sparking an international incident. He spotted a vessel thought to be a blockade runner quickly moving to enter Charleston Harbor. Lee ordered his crew to quarters and fired a warning shot ahead of the vessel. He then sent a boarding party to inspect the ship. On arrival, the boarding party realized they had fired on the HMS Steady, a British gunboat dispatched to Charleston to communicate with the British consul there.

Blockade running became big business in Charleston. John Fraser & Company in Charleston was a leading firm in providing the Confederacy with war supplies. Though many ships successfully ran the Union blockade, food and personal goods were becoming scarcer, and prices for items that did reach Charleston were high. One Charleston merchant observed, The blockade is still carried on and every article of consumption particularly in the way of groceries…[is] getting very high.

In the first six weeks after the surrender of Fort Sumter, more than thirty thousand bales of cotton shipped out of Charleston. Between June and December 1861, more than 150 vessels successfully arrived at Charleston using the interior waterways rather than the main shipping channel.

The Confederacy also worked with citizen privateers by issuing them a Letter of Marque, granting them a commission to seize enemy shipping off the Southern coast. One privateer, the Jefferson Davis, captured nine merchant vessels during the summer of 1861.

The Southern blockade, with much coastline to cover, continued to be ineffective, and on June 27, 1861, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles appointed the Commission of Conference, nicknamed by many the Blockade Strategy Board. The committee members were Professor Alexander Bache, superintendent of the U.S. Coast Survey; John G. Barnard, chief engineer of the U.S. Army; navy captain Charles H. Davis; and navy captain Samuel Francis Du Pont, chairman of the commission. The commission, charged with the responsibility to make recommendations for the blockade strategy, met frequently from July to September at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

In a report on July 13, 1861, the commission recommended that a port of operations be established to support the South Atlantic blockade. Their three choices for consideration were Bull’s Bay, north of Charleston, and St. Helena Sound and Port Royal Sound, south of Charleston. The choice of St. Helena or Port Royal could also support Federal operations against Savannah. Port Royal, considered to be the finest natural deep-water harbor south of the Chesapeake Bay, was ultimately selected. They calculated that a force of six thousand men would be needed to capture Hilton Head, Parry’s Island (now Parris Island) and Phillip’s Island. Further, they estimated that ten to twelve thousand troops would be required to hold that position on the South Carolina coast.

On August 27, U.S. flag officer Silas Horton Stringham led an expedition to Hatteras Inlet and forced the surrender of the Confederate forts there. Welles gave Du Pont the command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which was responsible for the Atlantic coast from the North Carolina–South Carolina border to Key West. Welles also instructed Du Pont to organize his own expedition south.

After the fall of Fort Sumter, Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard began enhancing the defenses on the South Carolina coast. Governor Pickens, however, asked that two forts be constructed at the entrance to the Port Royal Harbor: Fort Walker on Hilton Head and Fort Beauregard at Bay Point. On May 27, 1861, Beauregard departed South Carolina for Virginia, and Captain Francis D. Lee, South Carolina Army Engineers, was tasked with building the two new forts.

Work on Forts Walker and Beauregard began in July 1861, utilizing slave labor from local plantations. Fort Walker was constructed with twelve guns trained on the harbor and ten guns installed on the rear and right flank to address any land attack. Fort Beauregard had thirteen guns trained on the harbor and six mounted to defend against a ground attack.

By August, Union brigadier general Thomas W. Sherman was ordered by the secretary of war to start recruiting an army in the New England states for an attack on the Southern coast. Flag Officer Du Pont was assigned the responsibility for the naval expedition to coordinate with Sherman. The army assembled 12,653 troops and thirty-six transports at Annapolis, Maryland, while Du Pont used New York to organize fifteen warships with a total of 148 guns. Sherman and Du Pont rendezvoused at Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Union brigadier general Thomas Sherman. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

On October 28, the coal and ammunition ships, escorted by the USS Vandalia and the USS Gem of the Sea, departed Hampton Roads. The next day, the warships and troop transports departed en route to Port Royal, South Carolina. The captain of each ship was provided with sealed orders with their destination, only to be opened at sea. Despite the efforts to keep the mission secret, the New York Times published a front-page article entitled The Great Naval Expedition, providing the Confederacy with the details and destination of the campaign.

Once the fleet entered South Carolina waters, it encountered a large storm. Several ships had to return to Hampton Roads for repairs. The USS Isaac P. Smith had to dump its guns to stay afloat. Three ships—the USS Union, the USS Peerless and the USS Osceola, carrying food, supplies and ammunition—were lost.

The first of the Federal fleet arrived at Port Royal by November 3. By November 7, most of the Federal ships surviving the sea journey were all in place. On November 4, the USS Vixen, a coast survey ship, was escorted by the warships USS Ottawa, USS Seneca, USS Pembina and USS Penguin to conduct sounding for the charts for Port Royal Sound. The CSS Savannah, CSS Resolute, CSS Lady Davis and CSS Sampson moved in to confront the Union ships, but the firepower of the heavily armed enemy chased them off.

The next day, six Union warships entered the harbor to draw fire from the forts to measure their strength and number of guns. The two Confederate forts opened fire, and the four Confederate gunboats again challenged the Union ships but were once again chased off.

Though the U.S. Navy was ready to attack, the army was unprepared. The landing ships were lost in the storm at sea, as was much of their ammunition. Sherman was waiting for the arrival of the USS Ocean Express, transporting additional ammunition and heavy ordnance.

An 1861 engraving of flag officer Samuel F. Du Pont, published in Harper’s Weekly. Author’s Collection.

Du Pont would not agree to delay and ordered an attack by his warships for November 5. However, as the USS Wabash moved into the sound, it ran aground on Fishing Rip Shoal. The decision was made to delay the attack one day. The next day, though, was stormy, and the attack was set back one more day.

Finally, on November 7, the weather was favorable, and the Federal ships formed in two columns. The main column included the flagship Wabash, followed by the Susquehanna, Mohican, Seminole, Pawnee, Unadilla, Ottawa, Pembina and Isaac P. Smith towing the Vandalia. The flanking column included the Bienville, Seneca, Penguin, Curlew and Augusta. The warships R.B. Forbes, Mercury and Penguin were held back to protect the troop transports.

The Confederates at Fort Walker fired the first shot at the approaching column of