Immortal 600: Prisoners Under Fire at Charleston Harbor During the American Civil War

America's Civil War  | one comment  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Shells arched over the waters of Charleston Harbor throughout the summer of 1864. Some of the ponderous bombs shrieked into the city, while the deadly trajectory of others ended in Federal fortifications ringing the cradle of secession. For a group of Confederate prisoners living in a stockade built on a wispy spit of sand, the path of those hissing bombs, some so large and slow-moving that they could be followed in flight, was uncomfortably familiar, for their Morris Island prison pen had been deliberately placed in harm’s way. In essence, the beleaguered Rebels baking in the sun were being used as human shields. It was a sad commentary on how nasty the Civil War had become.

The unfortunate situation had its roots in the previous summer. On August 21, 1863, Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, the Federal commander in the Charleston area at the time, had sent a message to his Confederate counterpart, General P.G.T. Beauregard, informing him of the Union army’s intention to fire into Charleston. He stated that the city was a military target due to its arsenal, which manufactured artillery shells, and its docks, which received supplies smuggled through the blockade. He informed the Southern general that the shelling would start sometime after midnight, August 22.

Beauregard howled in protest, stating that he did not have adequate time to evacuate the city of its noncombatants. Nevertheless, in the wee hours of the following morning, Federal mortars sent their deadly projectiles into both the residential and business areas of downtown Charleston. Most affluent residents quickly fled the city, but the poorer inhabitants had to remain and face the onslaught.

Gillmore placed an 8-inch Parrott rifle on Morris Island, four miles across the harbor from the south end of the city. The giant cannon, nicknamed the ‘Swamp Angel,’ hammered 16 screaming shells into Charleston before dawn, signaling the beginning of a bombardment that would last 567 days. In the month of January 1864 alone, 1,500 mortar shells were fired into the city. Once-mighty Fort Sumter, the linchpin of the city’s defenses, was being pounded into a pile of rubble.

On April 20, 1864, Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones arrived in Charleston to take command of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida from Beauregard, who had been reassigned to North Carolina. Jones was a career army officer who had been born on December 17, 1819, in Powhatan County, Va. He attended West Point and ranked 19th out of 52 cadets in the class of 1841. He served on the Maine and Florida frontiers before returning to West Point in 1846 as a mathematics professor and an artillery instructor. Unlike many of the U.S. Army’s young officers at that time, he saw no action in the Mexican War. In 1853 he was promoted to captain and served in Texas until 1858, when he was made assistant judge advocate.

After Virginia seceded from the Union, Jones went with his native state. He resigned from the Army on April 27, 1861, and reported for service with the Confederacy. At the First Battle of Manassas, he commanded the Confederate artillery as a colonel under Beauregard and was shortly afterward promoted to brigadier general. Jones then led a brigade in Virginia, but was sent to Florida at the turn of 1862. He was promoted to major general and spent the rest of that year in various posts in Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Jones had a bad habit of questioning his superiors, and at times refusing their orders. He hated to relinquish troops under his command and usually ran into trouble as a consequence. In the autumn of 1862 he failed to send reinforcements to General Braxton Bragg in Kentucky, and for that misstep he was transferred to command the Department of Western Virginia. Throughout 1863 and early ‘64, he maintained the supply routes that fed the Army of Northern Virginia, but fell into disfavor with General Robert E. Lee when he continually argued about the assignment of regiments. In March, Jones was relieved of his Virginia command and ordered to Charleston.

Tags: 19th Century, America's Civil War, American Civil War, Historical Conflicts

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.