There Is a Book "Defending South Carolina's Coast' by Rick Simmons

I came across a book written about the Fort Randall, Fort Ward area by Rick Simmons titled "Defending  South Carolina's Coast:  The Civil War from Georgetown to Little River."  It is an Arcadia book and Simmons, an area native, relates the often overlooked stories of the Upper South Carolina Coast during the war.  (Obviously a whole lot has been written about the Charleston area.)

As a base of operations for  more than three thousand  troops early in the war and the site of more than a dozen forts, almost every inch of  the coast was effected by  and hotly contested during the Civil War.

From the skirmishes at Fort Randall in Little River to repeated Union naval bombardments of Murrells Inlet to the unrealized  potential of the massive  fortifications at Battery White and the sinking of the USS Harvest Moon in Winyah Bay, the region's colorful Civil War history is unfolded here at last.

This book would also contain information about John Collins,the USS George Mangham and USS Fernanandina which I have been writing about a lot lately.

I Just Might Have to Get Me a Copy.  --Old B-Runner

Fort Randall at Little River Neck-- Part 3: Naval Action There

The fort was named after Thomas Randall on whose property it was built.

On December 14, 1861, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant George W. Browne, commanding the bark USS Fernandina reported off Wilmington that on the previous night (13th) off Little River Inlet, that he had spotted a lot of fires on the beach.  Forty of them were concentrated in one area and the others spread 1 to 2 miles apart farther along the coast.

Closing on the shore, he saw groups of men which caused him to believe this to be a Confederate encampment.  He burned a prepartory signal but received no reply and opened fire on the beach with his starboard battery.

At this time he was just 700 yards off the beach in four fathoms of water.  After firing three rounds from the starboard, he tacked and turned around and fired one round of shot and one of shell from the port battery.

By this time, the fires had been mostly extinguished, so he left the area.  He now believed that the fires were signals for some vessel running the blockade.

Much confusion existed among Union forces as to whether Little River was in North or South Carolina.  The North Carolina border is just a short way from the mouth of the Little River Inlet.  Browne reported the site as being in North Carolina.

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall at Little River Neck-- Part 2: Built by Thomas Daggett

When the war broke out, Thomas Daggett joined Confederate forces and was put in charge of the coastal defenses from Winyah Bay to Little River Inlet.

Like Battery White, which was located on Belle Isle on Winyah Bay just outside Georgetown, Fort Randall was an earthen work.  Records indicate  that the battery consisted of an approximately 10 foot broad and five foot deep ditch with a parapet and a blockhouse pierced so that defenders could fire without being exposed top enemy fire.

The fort was armed with two 6-pounder cannons.  He also inquired as to getting two 12-pounder cannons which were in the mill yard at Laurel Hill Plantation.

In addition to the blockhouse, he also built a magazine to store  ammunition and arms.

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall at Little River Neck-- Part 1

From Coastal Carolina "Fort Randall, Little River Neck, Horry County, South Carolina" by Ben  Burroughs.

The fort is located on the eastern end of Little River Neck on property currently known as Tilgham Point and it is the remains of a  Confederate battery/fort built to protet the Little River Inlet from Union forces during the war.  The Union's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron was very active in this area.

Fort Randall was built for a dual purpose of protecting the village of Little River and the surrounding countryside and to provide safe haven for blockade runners.  As the Union blockade of the major two ports in the area, Wilmington and Charleston, tightened, blockade runners ran into this place.

Fort Randall was in existence by March 1861 when Captain Thomas West  Daggett, commanding the Waccamaw Light Artillery, tried to lodge his men in Fort Randall and Fort Ward.

Captain Daggett was a native of  Massachusetts who was an engineer who had moved to South Carolina  where he used his skills to build and operate rice mills on the Waccamaw Neck.

--Old B-Runner

Thomas Randall Plantation-- Part 2

Again, Fort Randall was built on his land at Little River Inlet, S.C. and the fort was named after him.

**  Number of acres:  In 1937, it consisted of  about 3,000.

**  Primary crops:  cotton,   Indian corn, cattle, swine

**  Number of slaves:

1850:  78

1860:  85

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall, S.C.

From North American Forts:  South Carolina.

FORT RANDALL  (1861-1865)

Near Little River.

A CSA four-gun earthwork battery and blockhouse at Tilghman's Point on Little River Neck.  Union forces briefly captured the battery in January 1863.  No remains of the battery and only a slight mound and depression marks the site of the blockhouse, located on private property.

--Old B-Runner

Some More Information on Thomas Randall and Little River Before and After the War

From the Little River Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center.

Until recently, a burned out hulk of a house towered over a grassy slope near the harbor in Little River.  It was the Randall-Vereen House, one of the oldest in Horry County.

The house was one of three built by Captain Thomas Randall of New England, who came to Little River after the War of 1812.  For a time, Little River was called "Yankee Town" by the rest of the county, because a few people from New England had come to live there.

The village became a prosperous port in the 1850s, shipping  fine lumber and naval stores to Northern markets.  It had a saw mill, waterhouse, stores, school and bank.   Several churches were organized and b people built nice homes.

The Civil War, however, wiped out this progress.  A large salt works produced much needed salt for the Confederate Army until it was burned by Union forces.  Shipping and fishing was at a standstill with the coastal blockade.

--Old B-Runner

Thomas Randall's Plantation (Site of Fort Randall)

Fort Randall was built on his property and named after him.

From South Carolina Plantations  "Thomas Randall's Plantation -- Little River --  Horry County."

**  Location:  Little River,  All Saint's Parish, Horry County

Located east of US 17 in the vicinity of Little River Neck

**  Origin of the name:  Named for the owner

**  Other names:  Tilghman Point; Little River in modern times

**  Current status:  privately owned

TIME LINE

1860s:  A Confederate battery was constructed on the property on a  bluff overlooking Little River Inlet.  It was known as Fort Randall.

An outline of it can be seen today.

1920s:  Horace Tilghman , Sr. purchased the property (hence Tilghman's Point name.

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall Historical Marker

From The Historical Marker database.

Near North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the Home of Carolina Beach Music.  Get your history and do a little dancing too at Fat Harold's and HOTO's.

INSCRIPTION:

Locaterd  about 5 miles east of here, this Confederate fort included a blockhouse pierced for muskets and earthworks surrounded by a ditch about 10 foot broad and five feet deep.

The fort was captured Jan 1863 by U.S. Navy  Lt. Wm. B. Casuhing and twenty-five men while looking for blockade-runner pilots.  Cushing held the fort briefly until his supply of ammunition was  exhausted.

Erected 1976 by the Horry County Historic Preservation Commission.  (Marker  Number 26-4)

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall-- Part 4: The USS Maratanza

The Confederates returned to Fort Randall after William Cushing and his men left.

About a month after Cushing's attack on Fort Randall, it was mentioned again in a report filed by  James Gibney and George Smith, both  acting ensigns aboard the USS Maratanza.

The two men led a reconnaissance up the Little River to see if there were any blockade runners there.

They encountered a boat with five men in it and ordered them to stop and be searched.  Instead,  the men in the boat beached it and higtailed it into the woods.

In the boat, they found  weapons and supplies meant for Fort Randall.

All that remains of Fort Randall today is a clearly defined footprint of the fortification.  It commands  a spectaular view.

Old B-Runner

Fort Randall and Cushing-- Part 3: Action at the Fort

"At 8 o'clock at night I crossed the bar with three cutters and  25 men and proceeded up the river.  My object was to look for pilots, and also to find some schooners supposed to be inside," reported William Cushing.

After meeting light resistance, Cushing beached his boats and formed his men about 200 yards from Fort Randall.

"Knowing that the enemy was ignorant of our numbers, I charged with bayonet and captured their works, going over one side as they escaped over the other," he wrote.

In the abandoned camp, Cushing found a blockhouse pierced for muskets, but no cannons.  Apparently they had been taken to more strategic forts.

"The enemy left in such haste that their stores, clothing, ammunition and a portion of their arms were captured.  I destroyed all that I could not bring away," wrote Cushing.  "I went a short distance up the river; had another skirmish; did not see the schooners; got out of ammunition and returned with the loss of but one man shot in the leg."

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall and Cushing-- Part 2: A Daring Raid...of Course

At the onset of the war,  recognizing the importance of defending the inlet and the village of Little River, Confederates  ordered the construction of an earthen fort on Thomas Randall's land overlooking the inlet.

The fort, actually more of a battery, consisted of  a moat aprroximately ten feet wide and five feet deep.  It had a parapet and a blockhouse from which defenders could fire with protection.

Captain Thomas Dagget, commander of the Waccamaw  Light Artillery onstalled two  six-inch cannons at Fort Randall.  (He also commanded Fort  Ward, believed to have been at nearby Murrells Inlet.

According to Union naval records, there was considerable blockade running done at  the Little River Inlet.  The blockade runners brought in valuable war supplies and left with locally-produced cargo such as resin, turpentine, cotton and lumber.

In January, 1863,  Union naval officer Lt. William Barker Cushing made a daring raid on Fort Randall.

Well, that answers that question.

William Barker Cushing it was.  Of course, in 1864, he achieved even bigger acclaim for sinking the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle.

--Old B-Runner

Blockade Runners at Little River Inlet-- Part 1: Was It or Was It Not Will?

From the August 3, 2022, My Horry News (South Carolina) "Blockade runners sought  refuge in Little River Inlet" by Steve Robertson.

The Little River flows into the Atlantic Ocean at the North Carolina-South Carolina border.

With Wilmington to the north and Charleston to the south coming under increasing Union blockade throughout the war, blockade runners increasingly turned to remote and isolated points like Horry County, South Carolina, to deliver their cargoes.

To protect them, Confederates set up small forts in Little River and Murrell's Inlet.  The remnants of one of them, Fort Randall, can be seen by alert boaters traversing the Intercoastal Waterway near Little River.

The Vol.  36, No. 4 edition on the Independent Republic Quarterly, reveal that a surprise attack on this fort ended with a Confederate rout by a small party of Union sailors.  (And, when I see a sneak attack in the area around Wilmington, North carolina, the name William Cushing immediately comes to mind.)

The fort was named for  Captain Thomas Randall, a large landowner who lived on the eastern end of  Little River Neck.

Was This a William Barker Cushing Production?  --Old B-Runner