Thursday, September 5, 2013
150 Years Ago: September 8-9, 1863-- Boat Attack on Fort Sumter Fails
SEPTEMBER 8TH-9TH-- Union forces mounted a boat attack on Fort Sumter late at night. It was led by Commander Stevens and consisted of more than 30 boats and some 400 sailors and Marines.
Unfortunately for them, the Confederates had learned about it in advance, thanks to a key to the Northern signal code they had recovered from the wreck of the USS Keokuk. They waited until the enemy was nearly ashore then opened up a heavy fire and used hand grenades.
The CSS Chicora aides with a sweeping, enfilading fire. Fort Moultrie also opened fire. The attack was repulsed and over 100 men captured. For the next several weeks, a period of relative quiet prevailed at Charleston.
--Old B-R'er
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(From Donald L. Collins, author of THE ADMIRAL'S GUARD being released this week. Website theadmiralsguard.us)
ReplyDeleteThe plan to retake the Confederate-held fort was one of the admiral's first acts as commander. It was opposed by the Union Army's commander for the Charleston campaign, who also planned a raid the same night.
Atop the rubble that had been a fort, Confederate soldiers quietly watched for the approaching attackers. They had been alerted the raid was coming when their signal officer broke the Union Navy's signal flag code. In a letter to his family after the attack, Leaman described what happened.
“Just after dinner of the eighth, some twenty of each company, making in all about a hundred, were ordered to get ready with canteen, haversack and blanket, which was done. We were on the way to the wharf with about sixty sailors from the camp below about three o’clock. We were then taken alongside of the flag ship, where after it getting dark we were put on launches which were about thirty in number. And about twelve o’clock as near as I could judge, we were towed as near to the fort as the steamer could go and there we were cut loose.
“We waited a few minutes and then moved up, our boat being ordered up on the left and to wait untill all were landed, and just as we got our position the sentry fired after challenging us and calling the corporal of the guard. Some of the boats had struck the beach. In a minute up went a rocket and in a minute we heard the guns from Moultrie, Johnson and the batteries on Sullivan’s Island, and Sumter was playing with musketry and hand grenades as fast as she could. She only fired from a howitzer once or twice. She seemed to have two or three hundred men.
“We were not up many minutes when we saw a tug making for us and we pulled out into shallow water towards Johnson and coming back around the point of this island. We went up near the front again and saw nothing of our men at all so we came back to the flagship. There was only one, by the name of Rogers, a marine, wounded in our boat, which was commanded by Lieut. Lowry of Marines.
“How many there was of us all I have no idea fore we were gathered from all of the fleet. I hear there are 140 or 150 of us killed, wounded and missing, 27 from this battalion. Lieut. Bradford, our quarter Master, who volunteered to go, was killed and Lt. Meade of Co. B was taken prisoner. How many of the boats are missing I do not know, but I hear there are seven. There are two I know to be struck by shells. We got back to camp about half past eleven yesterday.”
This is one of more than 90 letters Pvt Charles Leaman, USMC, sent to his family during his three years as a U. S. Marine and as guard and orderly to Admiral Dahlgren, a post he was named to following the raid in which the admiral lost a number of his marine guards. His detailed letters covering a wide range of subjects and activities are the basis of a novel The Admiral's Guard by Donald L. Collins being released this week by Old Pueblo Press LLC.