Part 16

Wise heads of both sections in 1860 saw that war was inevitable between the North and the South, though patriots did their best to prevent armed conflict. But the doctrine of State individualism or State’s Rights was too firmly established to be gotten from the body corporate without a purging of blood, just as individual rights in the social structure can never be enforced to the last limit without conflicting with the community purpose. So when, on Christmas night, 1860, Major Anderson, commanding at Fort Moultrie, moved his whole force secretly over to the sub-post, Fort Sumter, and sent his women and children to Charleston, with the request that they be sent north, the citizens of Charleston, at least, knew that the issue had been squarely met, to be settled at the court of last resort.

Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel, in her delightful reminiscences of Charleston, writes:

Doubt and delay were gone. Then came the call to arms.... January, February, and March were so full of crowded life that they seemed an eternity, yet one dreaded lest eternity should end. End it did when one night at eleven o’clock seven guns thundered out over the town and every man sprang up, seized his rifle and ran to the wharves. It was the signal that the relieving fleet (from the north) was on its way south, and that the whole reserve must hurry to the islands.

During all this time Fort Sumter had been supplied with provisions and necessaries by the citizens of Charleston.

When Major Anderson in command at Fort Sumter accepted Beauregard’s terms of surrender and saluted the new flag, he was conveyed, with all the honors of war, in the steamer _Isabel_ to the United States fleet which had lain idle in the offing.

From this time until the end of the Civil War Charleston was in a state of siege. There was a short period of preparation on both sides before the Federal fleet appeared, November, 1861, outside the quaint old city. The city maintained its integrity complete against attacks by water, and finally fell to a move in force by land in the last year of the war, when the defenders of Charleston were withdrawn and all of the men of the remnants of the armies of the Confederacy were being concentrated for one last desperate protest against the inevitable.

After the Civil War Fort Sumter was repaired and strengthened and is still a seat of military power as a sub-post of Fort Moultrie.

To reach Fort Moultrie one goes from Charleston by ferry to the northern side of the Cooper River and takes a trolley which leads seaward along the coast across an inlet to Sullivan’s Island, which has become a popular summer place with many people of Charleston.

Fort Moultrie, when once it is reached, is not a pretentious place,--the old works, that is,--being simply a star-shaped fort of brownish-red brick on which the hot southern sun pours down in quantity. It overlooks a rumpled beach and the sea on one side and flat uninteresting land on the other. To the seaward one can gaze upon Fort Sumter and find it not more interesting of aspect close at hand than it is at a distance. Beside the gate of Fort Moultrie is a small marble shaft which marks the grave of Osceola, the Seminole chieftain. If one has devoured Indian tales in his youth he will no doubt be more interested in this simple memorial than in the immediate aspect of military things around him. It was in Fort Moultrie that Osceola was jailed after his capture in Florida and it was here that he died,--from a broken heart, if one is still interested in Indian stories!

The present Fort Moultrie was started in 1841 on the site of a famous old palmetto structure of the same name which had stood since early Revolutionary days. In 1903, with the exquisite tact which it displays occasionally, army headquarters in Washington decided to change the name of the fort to Fort Getty in honor of some deserving soldier whose career is recorded in the files of the Army Department, but the loud chorus of indignation that greeted this move carried all the way from Charleston to Washington, and the name of that delightful old Revolutionary character, William H. Moultrie, is still preserved at the spot where his first battle was fought.

The foundations of Fort Moultrie were laid in January, 1776, when a Mr. Dewees, owner of the island which bears his name, was ordered to deliver at Sullivan’s Island palmetto logs eighteen to twenty feet long and not less than ten inches in diameter in the middle; and Colonel Moultrie was ordered to superintend the erection of a fort from this material. It was not completed in June when the British came into view. In design a double square pen it was built of palmetto logs piled one upon the other and securely bolted together; the space between the outer and inner pen was about sixteen feet and this was filled in with sand; there were square bastions. The walls were intended to be ten feet high above the gun platforms where were mounted 64 guns.

The British fleet bearing a land force was under the command of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, and reached Cape Fear early in May, where it was joined by Sir Henry Clinton from New York with a portion of the troops which had participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Clinton assumed command of all the land forces. On the 4th of June the fleet appeared off Charleston bar and a small force of men was landed on Long Island, the island just north of Sullivan’s Island, and on the 28th of June advanced under Sir Peter Parker to give battle to Fort Sullivan, as Moultrie was then known. There were brought into action in this engagement the following English vessels: The _Bristol_ and _Experiment_ of 50 guns each; the frigates _Active_, _Solebay_, _Acteon_, _Siren_, and _Sphinx_ of 28 guns each; the _Thunderbomb_ and _Ranger_, sloops, of 28 guns; and the _Friendship_ of 22 guns, in all, a very powerful squadron. The Americans had their unfinished palmetto fort, 64 guns and 1200 men. Several days before the battle the fussy General Charles Lee, whom Washington afterwards in his only recorded uncontrolled exhibition of temper called, at the battle of Monmouth, “a damned poltroon,” had removed to another defence of the city half of the small quantity of gunpowder which Moultrie had been given for the defence of his fort.

The command of the defence of Charleston had been given to General Lee by the Continental Congress, and General Lee had appeared in the city on the same day that the British fleet was sighted off the bar. From the first he seems to have been in conflict with Moultrie. Moultrie’s fort, he said, was poorly designed, and doubtless it was; Moultrie should provide a means of retreat for his men, and Moultrie replied that they would never use it; and Moultrie this and that. Moultrie himself, his admirers were forced to admit, was “a man of very easy manners, leaving to others many things which he had better have attended to himself.”

But the point is that Moultrie carried this same easiness of manner and mental poise into battle with him and was on this account an ideal officer to direct a fight. He had, moreover, the unlimited confidence and affection of his men and he knew the people he was working with.

The British appeared off Fort Sullivan just when the feeling between General Lee and Moultrie was at an acute stage. We find Moultrie now at face with the problem of defending his “slaughter pen” fort against an overwhelming force with the insufficient quantity of gunpowder which General Lee had left him.

The ships formed in double column and poured a terrific fire upon the fort. Moultrie feared that the concussion of the shells would rock his guns off their platforms. “Concentrate upon the Admiral, upon the fifty-gun ships!” This was Moultrie’s direction to his men. The Americans, expert marksmen that they were, obeyed his commands and the _Bristol_ and the _Experiment_ suffered fearfully, the captains of these two great ships being mortally wounded.

The Americans now began to run short of powder. Colonel Moultrie sent a despatch for more. He was in pressing need, but no one would have guessed it from his message which read as follows:

I think we shall want more powder; at the rate we go on I think we shall. But you can see for yourself; pray send more if you think proper.

Rutledge sent 500 pounds, and Lee, who was at Haddrell’s with 5000 pounds he had taken from Fort Sullivan, sent no powder but the message:

If you should unfortunately expend your ammunition without driving off the enemy spike your guns and retreat with all the order you can. I know you will be careful not to expend your ammunition.

General Lee had an idea that battles were fought with bows and arrows and gunpowder kept to celebrate the victory afterwards with! And he was determined that that retreat should take place, because he had prophesied a retreat by all the laws of war some weeks before.

The cannonade went on, the fire from the fort being at a much slower tempo than that from the ships. And now a new fact was discovered in the art of war: The soft palmetto logs with sand in between were a better bulwark than solid stone. Cannon balls entered them easily and stopped just as easily without sending splinters all around. Shells threw the sand up in the air and the sand fell back again to the spot whence it had risen.

The _Bristol_, the flag-ship, suffered more than any other of the British vessels. At one time Sir Peter was the only man unwounded on the quarter-deck, and he, too, presently was hurt.

The _Acteon_ went hard aground on the shoal where Fort Sumter was afterwards to be raised and had to be abandoned, being set on fire before she was deserted.

The rattle-snake flag flying over the American fort was shot down, and Sergeant Jasper, leaping over the parapet, braved the fire of the British to recover the emblem. Sergeant Jasper lost his life at Savannah in an effort to duplicate this same feat.

At length the British drew off beaten. They had lost heavily, on the flag-ship alone 104 men being killed. The American loss was 12 killed and 25 wounded. When the news of this defeat reached England, though the intelligence was given out by the Admiralty in the most politic fashion possible, it was a terrible blow to English pride. “That an English admiral with a well-appointed fleet of 270 guns should be beaten off by a miserable little half-built fort on an uninhabited sand bank was incomprehensible,” wrote a correspondent from London. Had Moultrie had powder enough the British loss must have been much heavier than it was.

On the 9th of April, 1780, Fort Moultrie was again in action, when it opened upon Admiral Arbuthnot’s fleet which was sailing into the harbor in the course of the operations against Charleston that year. It was unable to prevent the passage of the fleet but it inflicted some damage to the vessels and killed 27 of the enemy. Shortly after Fort Moultrie fell to an overwhelming force of British who attacked by land, and was not again in action during the Revolution.

FORT PULASKI

AT MOUTH, SAVANNAH RIVER--GEORGIA

The trip from beautiful Savannah to the battered ruins of the once famous brick fortress, Pulaski, takes one through that gold and green country which one comes to associate with the name of this charming southern city. Fort Pulaski is that great hexagon of brick which one sees from incoming steamers on Cockspur Island at the mouth of the muddy Savannah River, and all the country round about is marshy, reedy land, cut up by big and little streams with no hills to be seen and only scraggy pine trees breaking the flat monotony of the horizon.

If one would go to Fort Pulaski from Savannah, he seeks out the little railroad which runs to Tybee, and whose passenger traffic is confined almost exclusively to summer. There he will be received by the hospitable southern trainmen and put off the train near the light-house which graces the northern end of Cockspur Island. Here, if he has been wise and has made his arrangements properly, the will be met by a boat from the light-house and will be carried across to the island.

Arrived at the landing which gives access to the fort, one is struck by the graceful desolation of the scene. The boards and timbers of the wharf have rotted, and ends of planks hang down toward the water like withered arms. Yet the brilliant Georgia sunshine gives a charm to it all. One does not feel in the presence of decay; one feels only in the presence of something that is passing painlessly away.

This same feeling one carries up the long, straight, muddy path leading to the ruined monument of valor through the marsh which surrounds that work. One comes to a broad ditch now full of mud and weeds and faces the remains of a once sturdy draw-bridge. Passing over this and between the mounds of former outworks one at last faces the entrance to Fort Pulaski.

The walls of this great brick fortress, which cost a million dollars and was one of the greatest brick fortresses of its time, tower over one with great impressiveness. The brick face is pierced by long narrow slits for rifle fire, and these peer at one vacantly. A large ditch, or moat, surrounds the fort, and this still contains water owing to the low elevation of the island above tide, but it is choked with rank vegetation and though horrid of aspect would not be a serious bar to the approach of any storming force.

Crossing the ditch, one passes through a long passage and past massive wooden gates studded with iron bolts and, at length, comes out upon the parade ground. Where brilliant columns once formed and marched in martial evolutions now wave tall saplings except where the solitary care-taker of the fort has cut these growths down to make room for a vegetable garden. The walls go around in a great circle above this parade, the angles of the circumference not being easily perceptible from our vantage point. To the right hand and the left hand stretch casemates in which officers and men dwelt. On the far side of the parade are open casemates fitted for cannon, for this is the quarter from which attack might be expected. Close at hand is a spring whose clear water flows ceaselessly from the rusty iron mouth which the hand of man has provided and neglected.

Passing across the parade to the gun casemates, which occupy the flanks of the fort on three quarters of the compass, one finds the flooring still in good condition, this fact being due to the protected nature of this part of the fort and to the sturdy quality of the planks which are three inches thick and of some close-grained wood--probably cypress. The circular gun-tracks are still visible. Where one can peer through holes in the floor one gazes down into dank, dark depths from which the light is reflected evilly by scummy water.

At the northeast angle of the fort are the remains of one of the magazines. If one cares to prowl in here and is willing to make entrance through a mysterious black hole into an uncanny void, he will be rewarded for his adventure by being able to pick up some rusty grape-shot and smaller odds and ends of murderous looking iron.

Ascending to the parapet of the fort by means of one of the twisting iron stairs which are to be found at each angle, or by the broad stone stairs adjacent to the habitable casemates, one has a wide view of land and sea. To the east lies the mouth of the Savannah River where this stream joins the Atlantic Ocean. In this direction, too, can be seen long, low, sandy Tybee Point, where Fort Screven, the modern defensive work, lies. To the south are marshes and in the distance the gleam of the river up which the Union forces brought their cannon to attack Fort Pulaski in 1862. To the north and west--more marshes.

The island on which Fort Pulaski is situated was acquired by the government in 1830 by purchase from Alexander Telfair and sisters (an old and wealthy Savannah family) and the title of the government thereto for the purposes of a fortification was confirmed by the State of Georgia by act December 27, 1845. The entire reservation occupies about 150 acres.

The site for the fort was selected by Major General Babcock, United States Corps of Engineers, and work was begun in 1831 under the direction of Major General Mansfield. Sixteen years passed before its mighty walls, containing thirteen millions of bricks, were completed. The name Pulaski was given to the fort in honor of Count Casimir Pulaski, the Polish patriot who lost his life in the siege of Savannah by the Americans during the Revolution, the scene of this sad event being the Spring Hill redoubt near the site of the present Central of Georgia railway station.

The military history of Fort Pulaski does not cover a long period of time. When, in December, 1860, the news reached Savannah of the removal of Major Anderson, in command of the United States forces in Charleston Harbor, from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, there was an open expression of opinion that Georgia should forestall such occupation of the forts on her coast by the forces of the Federal government; and when, on January 2, 1861, it became known that Governor Brown had ordered the seizure and occupation of Fort Pulaski by the military under the command of Colonel A. R. Lawton on the following day, the city was wild with enthusiasm.

Says Adelaide Wilson in her delightful history of Savannah:

Looking back upon the arrangements that were made for the setting out of that first military expedition, there is temptation to smile at the amount of impedimenta that was prepared for the small forces of less than two hundred men. There was scant time between the promulgation of the order and the hour named for its execution, yet when, on the morning of the third, the companies marched down to the wharf to embark on the little steamer _Ida_, it is safe to say that they were encumbered with much more baggage than served later in the war for an entire division in the field. Every man had his cot, every three or four men his mess-chest, with kettles, pots, pans and other cooking utensils in liberal allowance, not to speak of trunks, valises, mattresses, camp-chairs, etc.,--in all a pile large enough to make the heart of a quartermaster sink within him. It was evident that the troops long had anticipated the call upon their services, and also that the mothers, wives and sisters of Savannah had, with anxious forethought, determined that their loved ones should carry into service as many of the comforts of home as possible.

The siege of Pulaski by the Federal troops, April, 1862, was not long at the climax, though it was long in preparation. The Federal forces gathered slowly south of Savannah and then moved to the attack. By means of a channel in the flats to the south of the fort which the Confederates had left unguarded, they were able to post their guns in advantageous positions. As the result of a heavy bombardment the walls of the fort were battered in at the east salient and the garrison was obliged to surrender.

The visitor to Fort Pulaski to-day may see some of the wounds in the walls which the fort sustained on that occasion. The worst injuries were repaired by the United States troops during their occupancy of the fort, and the course of these repairs may be traced by the discerning eye through the different color of the bricks.

Shortly after the Civil War, Fort Pulaski was abandoned. It is still controlled by the government and is in the care of a retired soldier of the United States who lives a life of seclusion, disturbed only by the very infrequent sight-seer or by parties of young men of the neighborhood who find the marshes of the reservation an excellent gunning preserve.

FORT MORGAN

MOBILE BAY--ALABAMA

Mobile Bay, that pear-shaped body of water, with its far-reaching system of water tributaries, has been a scene of settlement and fortification since the early days of French attempts at settlement in the New World. There was, to begin with, Fort Louis de la Mobile, which protected the infant first settlement of Mobile, precursor of the city of to-day. In various guises Fort Louis passed from one to another of the different races of men with which the history of Mobile Bay is associated. Then there are the forts placed on the islands at the mouth of Mobile Bay and the forts at the head of the bay where the big rivers flow in. Finally there is Fort Morgan (Fort Bowyer to begin with) which occupies the point of that long, thin peninsula of land which forms the southern boundary of Mobile Bay, dividing its waters from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fort Morgan to-day is in ruins and has never been thoroughly rebuilt since its capitulation to Farragut in one of the hottest battles of the Civil War. The governmental reservation of land on which the works are situated contains about 500 acres and is occupied, as well, by modern defences. The view from the point on which the old fort is situated gives a wide prospect of blue water and sky. Across the ship channel is historic Dauphine Island, on which Fort Morgan’s sister fort, Fort Gaines, was situated, and where the government to-day maintains extensive batteries. To the right are the waters of Mobile Bay, with the smoke of the city thirty miles to the north. To the left are the sunny waves of the Gulf.

The first that we hear of Mobile Point as a place of fortification was in 1812, when the Spanish evacuated Mobile. General Wilkinson, in command of the United States forces in the southwest, put nine guns as a battery on Mobile Point and made his way on up to the city, where he commenced to fortify the perdido. Subsequently Mobile Point appealed to him as a better place for defensive works than a spot so far up the bay, and he placed a fortification here, which was called Fort Bowyer in honor of Lieutenant-Colonel Bowyer.

The next occupant of Fort Bowyer was a more picturesque personage than General Wilkinson, none other than Andrew Jackson. Upon his retirement from Pensacola in 1814, Jackson stopped at Fort Bowyer and left a force there of 130 men under the leadership of Major William Lawrence. On September 12 the British appeared before the fort with land and naval strength and demanded the surrender of the little structure. Major Lawrence refused to surrender.

The British strength on this occasion consisted of the _Hermes_ of 22 guns, the _Sophia_ of 18 guns, the _Caron_ of 20 guns, _Anaconda_ of 18 guns, all vessels of large size, under the command of Captain Percy. It was a squadron which Jackson had driven from Pensacola Bay and it was thirsting for revenge. There was, in addition, a land force under Colonel Nichols of a few marines and about 600 Indians which assailed Fort Bowyer from the rear.

The battle began early on the morning of the 15th. The word for the day in the American ranks was “Don’t give up the fort,” and this originated an oft-repeated phrase. A heavy cannonade continued without interruption until 5.30 o’clock in the afternoon. The flag-staff of the _Hermes_, Captain Percy’s flag-ship, was shot away and Lawrence gave the order to cease firing while he hailed the vessel to find out whether she had lowered her colors. The only answer was a murderous volley of grape-shot from another quarter. The flag-staff of the fort then happened to be struck, and the Indians and British on shore, thinking that the plucky little garrison had surrendered, ran forward with terrible cries. They were met by a terrific hail of lead which drove them back for good.