Charleston, South Carolina was the birthplace of the Confederacy. It was there that delegates from across the state successfully voted to secede on December 24, 1860. Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard found himself overseeing the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. This initiated the Civil War and gave the Northern states more reason to despise the city. Beauregard would go on to command at Bull Run and in Western Tennessee, but in September 1862 would return to the city that made him a nationwide name.
Beauregard’s engineering expertise arrived just in time. Surprisingly the Union Navy had made no firm attempt to take the rebellious city, instead seizing other ports. But as 1862 progressed it finally began to tighten its grip, and the Army mounted a failed expedition in July. Still absent was a major naval assault. It would finally come on April 7, 1863. Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, a lifelong sea man who had joined the Navy at age 12 in 1815, would try to force Charleston Harbor with the latest in naval machines, the Jon Ericsson-designed ironclad monitors. Du Pont would pay the price for the hubris and unrealistic expectations of his political superiors.
Ironclad Faith
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| (https://www.loc.gov/resource/gvhs01.vhs00267/?r=0.099,0.07,1,0.398,0) |
Back when the war started in April 1861. Charleston’s defenses were woefully uncompleted, and even over a year later in September 1862, when Pierre Gustav Toutant Beauregard took command of the region, the general was dismayed at the their condition. He recognized that the Confederates had no chance to turn back “a determined attack.” Over the next few months he turned Charleston Harbor into one of the most, if not the most, well-defended corners of the Confederacy. He converted siege guns into rifled cannon, laid booms and traps in the water, and stationed the forts with extra men.[1] Charleston not only had an extensive system of forts and batteries, it benefitted from difficult water and terrain conditions. The sea here had fast currents, and the bar was shallow and uneven. The Confederates had removed as many buoys as they could, making it impossible for Union ships to navigate the bar.[2]
Jon Ericsson, the Swedish-American
inventor of the monitor ironclad
The
Union, for their part, believed their own feats of engineering would counteract
this formidable defense. They were the ironclad monitors, strange ships that
looked, according to one observer, like a cheese box on a raft. The first of
their kind, the Monitor, had proven seeming
invulnerability over a year earlier against the Confederate ironclad Virginia at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
Remembering how Farragut had run the forts at New Orleans with traditional
wooden war ships, many in the Union imagined what an ironclad fleet could do,
particularly against the birthplace of the Confederacy at Charleston.
Early
in January, Welles ordered five ironclads to join the Charleston blockade fleet,
based out of Port Royal, South Carolina. These would enable Du Pont “to enter
the harbor and demand the surrender of all its defenses or suffer the
consequences of a refusal.” General David Hunter and 10,000 men would be on
standby, but Welles expected the navy to win on its own. He wanted his Navy to
get all the glory. Welles was surely confident of the ironclads’ success, as he
also gave Du Pont, Admiral of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, instructions to concentrate the blockade at Savannah once he
took Charleston.[3]
These
monitors were upgraded versions of the one that had fought at Hampton Roads.
They were longer at 46 feet, had their pilot houses better placed on the
turret, and designed to resist the shock of artillery strikes thanks to extra
armor. Thanks to the larger size, they could upgrade from 11-inch to 15-inch
Dahlgren guns. However, not enough of these were made, so many monitors sported
an uneven arrangement of one 11-inch and one 15-inch.[4]
Generals
Quincy Gillmore and John Foster, however, thought the proper strategy was to
land their units from the Army on Morris Island and take it and Battery Wagner.
From there they could bombard Fort Sumter from both another angle and at closer
range while the Navy helped with the bombardment. As it happened Du Pont had
been calling for a joint Army-Navy operation for a while now, claiming 25,000
infantry were needed, but President Lincoln shot down this idea because he felt
it would result in a lengthy siege. Lincoln was showing his customary
impatience, sometimes justified and, as it would turn out here, unjustified. Perhaps
Welles had assured him that the ironclads would be enough. He may also have
seen the Morris Island plan as an attempt to give the glory to the Army.[5]
Admiral Samuel Du Pont
In
addition to being ordered into an operation he was heavily skeptical of, Du
Pont also suffered a major professional insult from his naval comrades. Captain
John Dahlgren, a major advocate of the ironclads, had been repeatedly
beseeching the Navy Department for an actual sea command. He had been stuck at
the Washington Navy Yard overseeing the new guns of his own design. Welles
offered command of a single ironclad, but Dahlgren pridefully said the command
of one ship for a man of his tenure was unfitting. He wanted an entire squadron
and a promotion, which Welles thought unreasonable. Then, when Du Pont’s
pessimistic assessment of the Charleston ironclad assault plan began to make
the rounds, he jumped the gun, assuming Du Pont was rejecting command, and
asked Rear Admiral Andrew Foote to argue for his appointment to Du Pont’s
place. Foote consented, but of course Du Pont had not relinquished command and
he felt insulted. He felt he was being conspired against.[6]
Test of Iron
Before
any move was to be made on Charleston, the higher-ups in the Navy wanted to
test an ironclad against another fort. On January 27, the Montauk, supported by several other gunboats, steamed against For
McAllister on the Ogeechee River in Georgia. The captain of the Montauk feared that the considerable
amount of debris covered the presence of torpedoes and fired from a very far
distance for four hours. This was very ineffective, but thankfully a runaway
slave told Du Pont where the torpedoes were. Thus on January 28 the Montauk was able to get closer. It still
made little impact on the fort while taking 48 hits. The armor absorbed the
hits, but the results were decidedly indecisive.[7]
Du
Pont acknowledged that the Montauk was
seemingly impervious, but also noted that its own fire had no effect on
McAllister. Thus early on he questioned the feasibility of an ironclad attack
on Charleston Harbor, such as in one letter: I asked myself this morning, while
quietly dressing, if an ironclad cannot take eight guns, how are five to take
147 guns in Charleston Harbor.”[8]
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles
Welles
was still ecstatic about the monitors, and he did not register Du Pont's reservations as valid. He complained in a February 16 entry in
his diary, “Du Pont shrinks, dreads, the conflict he has sought, yet is
unwilling that any other should undertake it, is afraid the reputation of Du
Pont will suffer.” Lincoln suggested that Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Gustavus Fox go down and stress the importance of action, but Welles convinced
him that this would hurt Du Pont’s pride and make him ineffective.[9]
Du
Pont made two more naval attacks on McAllister on February 28 and March 3, with
no better results, yet still no change in Welles or Fox.[10]
Though it was unable to really damage the fort, the Montauk went after the Nashville,
a former blockade runner that had run aground. Shrugging off fire from Fort
McAllister, the Montauk blasted the Nashville until it went on fire. Then
the fire reached the Nashville’s
magazine, exploding it.[11]
Du
Pont still did not share the politicians’ confidence. “The probabilities are
all against us…Thirty-two guns to overcome or silence two or three hundred,
which, however would not after all disturb me much if it were not for the idea
of obstructions. To remove these under fire is simply absurd.”[12]
He still thought an Army-Navy joint operation was needed. In fact General David
Hunter’s infantry was close by for use at Port Royal, but their commander could
do nothing without orders. In fact, the Navy was expected to clear the way and
then land them on Morris Island. Du Pont wrote his wife about this and
pessimistically wrote that the “failure of [Charleston’s] capture” was “more probable”
than success.[13]
Fortifying for
Battle
Pierre G.T. Beauregard
The
Confederates were aware of the buildup of Federal strength at Port Royal, and
General Beauregard was certain that an attack “was immediately impending.” In
addition to further strengthening the forts and batteries, he pulled in all
available troops and positioned them at the land approaches to Charleston.
Evidently Beauregard was expecting a coordinated Army-Naval assault.[14]
Beauregard
placed his southern flank on James Island, neighboring Morris Island.
Entrenchments were made on the Neck, the thin part of the peninsula leading to
the city. Trees were felled where the Wando River meets a series of ocean inlets.
These fallen logs were positioned to funnel ant landing attempt into
concentrated areas of fire. Entrenchments were built along Bee’s Ferry and the
Charles and Savannah Railroad. In the harbor itself General Ripley prepared six
boats, their purpose to take men in a night boarding attack against the
ironclads should they actually defeat the gauntlet of forts and obstructions.
More Rains torpedoes were added, and the gunners were instructed to target the
turrets of the monitors. Many buoys were placed to indicate target ranges,
allowing for more accurate fire.[15]
Torpedoes
at the time did not mean the heavy-hitter projectiles that ships and submarines
would employ in later wars, but was another term for mines. Torpedoes were
among the most feared devices of war at the time. They were devastating to
wooden ships, of which plenty were still in use, and a major threat to
ironclads. The possibility of these weapons, hidden by the surface of the
ocean, played heavily on the minds of naval personnel and drove them to
exercise extra caution. Some torpedoes were weight activated, and others by
electrical detonation systems which allowed men on shore to wait for a desired
target to pass over it.[16]
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| A Civil War torpedo (https://armyhistory.org/mine-warfare-in-the-civil-war/) |
These new weapons were heavily feared by the Union Navy, and lent to the dread that Du Pont felt. His warnings and correspondence may have been responsible for the overall pessimistic air in the ironclad fleet and among its observers. One war correspondent wrote, “I learned by degrees that from the chief commander down to the lieutenants, the officers of the fleet had not much faith in either the offensive or the speed of the new forms of ironclads.”[17] John Ericsson, the inventor of the monitor warship, also agreed that an attack with just his ironclads was doomed to failure against a network of fortifications, as they simply didn’t carry enough guns, though his valuable opinion failed to reach the fleet.[18]
Lincoln
himself, visiting Welles back in D.C., unfavorably compared Du Pont to
McClellan, even accusing him of having “the slows.” The only positive voice was
Gustavus Fox, who ignored the reservations of Ericsson and Du Pont and
untruthfully assured Du Pont that Lincoln and Welles were confident in him.[19]
On April 5, two days before the Charleston assault, Du Pont wrote his wife:
“…The country believes these vessels invulnerable and I also felt a certain
degree of hope, never any confidence, that with a certain number of monitors
the place might be attempted. The experience at the Ogeechee dampened this hope
and I cannot say it has since revived.”[20]
It was almost time to see if his qualms would be vindicated or, to his relief,
proven wrong.
The March of the
Monitors
The
ships were to go up the main Ship Channel “at intervals of one cable’s length”
without firing, unless signaled to do so. Once they were within “easy range of
Fort Sumter,” they were to pound it from the north and west. The ships were to
advance in the following order: Weehawken,
Passaic, Montauk, Patapsco, New Ironsides, Catskill, Nantucket, Nahant, and Keokuk. 5 further ships under Captain J.F. Green were to be
positioned nearby, called upon when the ironclads would turn their attention on
Morris Island. Du Pont ordered his ships to hold off on counter-fire until they
passed Fort Sumter.[21]
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| The USS Passaic |
All the ships save the New Ironsides only had two guns. The New Ironsides, more traditionally built, sported 16 guns, and its name referred to “Old Ironsides” the USS Constitution, the famed American war ship of the War of 1812. It sported sails like any wooden warship, but did have an engine, albeit one that gave it comparatively slower speed with heavy coal requirements. Du Pont chose it as his flagship, explaining its middle position in the column.[22]
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| The USS Keokuk (https://naval-encyclopedia.com/industrial-era/secession-war/uss-keokuk-1862.php#google_vignette) |
The Keokuk was something of an experiment, an attempt at more flexibility. Like the monitors it only had two guns, but there were placed at opposites ends of the ship in separate turrets. The armored pilot house was placed in the center of its length. There was trepidation among its crew about its use in the assault. It was designed to be lighter, with less iron, but hardwood shoring it up. Theoretically it would be as tough as the monitors, but that was a theory untested, and critics believed it would be too vulnerable to the intense firepower of the harbor’s defenses.[23]
There
were some notables among the Passaic-class monitors. John Rodgers of the Weehawken was known for both bravery and
talent, so his ship would take the lead. Captain Percival Drayton of the Passaic was actually a native of South
Carolina, now participating in an attack on his home state’s famous city. The Montauk’s captain was none other than
Captain John Worden, who had commanded the Monitor
in its famous, inconclusive duel with the Virginia
at Hampton Roads the previous year.[24]
The fleet also included a notable pilot, a black man named Robert Smalls.
Robert Smalls
Robert
Smalls may have been born into slavery, but many of his social status had to
learn all the trades of sailing and ship maintenance to work in Charleston
Harbor. He was so good at his job that his master had him piloting the CSS Planter, full of Confederate
soldiers and supplies, to all the forts and batteries around the harbor. Armed
with all this education and knowledge, Smalls concocted a daring plan. He would
steer himself, his family, and the other black slave sailors and their families
out of the harbor and to the freedom of the Union blockading ships.
He
got permission to have a slaves’ gathering at the ship. There he announced his
plan, and nobody dissented. Managing to impersonate the voice and profile of
the ship’s usual white captain, he passed a security check at Fort Sumter. Soon
the Confederate sentries realized the Planter was headed straight for the
blockade ships and signaled for action, but it was too late. Smalls had won his
and many others’ freedom. Admiral Du Pont was ecstatic about the whole affair
and insisted that Smalls serve in the Navy. Now Smalls would help pilot the Keokuk, with Captain A.C. Rhind, whom he
had served on a previous ship, commanding.[25]
[1] Ivan Musicant, Divided Waters: The Naval History of the
Civil War, (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 370-371.
[2] Kevin Dougherty Strangling the Confederacy: Coastal Operations in the American Civil War, (Philadelphia: Casemate, 2010), 146
[3] Samuel Francis Du Pont, Samuel Francis Du Pont: a Selection from His
Civil War Letters, (Cornell University Press, 1969), 352-353.; James M.
Merrill, Du Pont, the Making of an
Admiral: A Biography of Samuel Francis Du Pont, (New York: Dodd & Mead,
1986), 299.
[4] Tony Gibbons, Warships and Naval Battles of the Civil War,
(New York: Gallery Books, 1989), 30-31.
[5] Douglas W.
Bostick, Charleston Under Siege: The
Impregnable City, (Charleston: History Press, 2010), 57; Dougherty Strangling the Confederacy, 149;
Musicant, Divided Waters, 372.
[6] Musicant, Divided Waters, 373-374.
[7] Dougherty, Strangling the Confederacy, 150-151.
[8] James McPherson, War on the Waters: The Union &
Confederate Navies, 1861-1865, (University of North Carolina Press, 2012),
144.
[9] Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the
Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson Vol. 1, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911),
236-237.
[10] Dougherty, Strangling the Confederacy, 151.
[11] McPherson, War on the Waters, 144.
[12] McPherson, War on the Waters, 145.
[13] Du Pont, Du Pont Letters, 544.
[14] ORN XIV, 75.
[15] E. Milby
Burton, The Siege of Charleston 1861-1865,
(University of South Carolina Press, 1970), 132-135.
[16] Ivan V. Hogg, Weapons of the Civil War, (Brompton
Books Corp., 1995), 125-126.
[17] Merrill, Du Pont, 287.
[18] Merrill, Du Pont, 288.
[19] Merrill, Du Pont, 288.
[20] Du Pont, Du Pont Letters, 547.
[21] ORN XIV, 5-6, 9.
[22] Bostick, Charleston Under Siege, 59; Gibbons, Warships and Naval Battles, 33.
[23] Cate Lineberry,
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of
Robert Smalls’ Escape from Slavery to Union Hero, (St. Martin’s Press,
2017), 139; Gibbons, Warships and Naval
Battles, 44.
[24] Bostick, Charleston Under Siege, 59, 61.
[25] Lineberry, Be Free or Die, 4-28, 142.
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