Abstract
Geomorphology dictated Union strategy during the Federal campaign to reduce Fort Sumter and capture Charleston, South Carolina during 1862. After the Union army captured Stono Inlet, they had several approaches to Charleston available across the Modern, Holocene, and Late-Pleistocene barrier-island complexes south of the city. The first Federal attempt to breach the Confederate defensive lines around the city was stymied when an assault against a Confederate sand fortification, which was positioned across an ancient beach ridge and flanked by marshes, failed miserably. A year later another more massive assault failed on a much younger barrier-island beach in an identical manner. Quincy Gillmore’s land-based artillery, along with naval support, relentlessly bombard Confederate Battery Wagner before a 6000-man strong infantry assault attempted to captured the fortification. Battery Wagner was sited on the narrowest part of Morris Island, and it spanned from ocean to marsh, perpendicular to the waterfront and facing the only viable approach for the Union infantry. Marsh mud prohibited attack from the west, and the Atlantic Ocean barred attack from the east. As a result, the Union direction of attack was entirely predictable, and would have to take place across a narrow beach with no cover. Gillmore’s massive preemptory bombardment proved effectively useless against the sand fortification, and his infantry assault was cut to pieces as it crossed the thin neck of sediment in front of the Battery. More than any significant engagement of the Civil War, geology benefited the defense, and Confederacy, on almost every scale during the Union attempts to capture Morris Island and during the siege of Charleston.
“The fort is now as silent as a natural sand bank, which, indeed, it much resembles”
—Major T.B. Brooks, Assistant Engineer, describing Battery Wagner after the Union bombardments of August, 1863.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Union studies of the northernmost channel, Maffit’s Channel, indicated that the path of the deepest water changed from year to year by as much as 50 m during the 1850s. Deep-draft ships, even during peacetime, were constantly in danger of running aground in the narrow channels.
- 2.
These same strong currents sandblasted and mechanically eroded the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley after it sank in 1864. Later, shifting currents and sediment diverted by the construction of harbor jetties buried the submarine until it was discovered and raised 125 years later.
- 3.
The origin of the name “Secessionville” is somewhat controversial. The name has been attributed to the secession of several James Island farmers from the town of Johnsonville long before the Civil War. However, more recent research has indicated that the name was not used until very soon after December 20, 1860 (Cote 1985; Trinkley and Hacker 1997). The proximity to Fort Sumter and the timing of the first use of the name certainly suggests a link to the Rebel cause.
- 4.
Nevertheless, the “citadel” was only lightly guarded by the Union as he formulated his plans.
- 5.
Geologically, this isn’t far-fetched. Imagine, for example, if the diabase outcrops in Devil’s Den covered a larger, somewhat linear area with a single pathway possible through the rugged rocks.
- 6.
Atkins (2008) estimates that Longstreet suffered around 4400 of the 6000 casualties on the Confederate right on July 2, and the Union Army lost around 9000 men.
- 7.
An attack from south towards Charleston Harbor was favorable because of the capture of first Port Royal (to the south) and Stono Inlet (to the south). An approach from the north on Isle of Palms or Sullivan’s Island offered even fewer options for maneuver.
- 8.
Although brick rubble on Fort Sumter proved surprisingly effective at shielding Confederate infantry and artillery after the fort had been repeatedly bombarded and reduced. The brick fragments became, in essence, irregularly-shaped cobbles that could be piled and formed into rudimentary earthworks.
- 9.
It is not entirely clear if this sand was piled by engineers with the intent to add protection to the masonry walls or if it had been deposited through natural (storm) processes. Either way it was left in place to protect against incoming naval gunfire.
- 10.
Quartz has a hardness of seven on the Moh’s scale of mineral hardness, making it harder than feldspar and almost as hard as gemstones like topaz or corundum (ruby or sapphire).
- 11.
Some of this diverted sediment almost certainly helped to bury and hide the missing Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.
References
Atkins, M. (2008). The Gettysburg companion: A guide to the most famous battle (544p). Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.
Barnhardt, W. A. (Ed.). (2009). Coastal change along the shore of northeastern South Carolina—The South Carolina coastal erosion study (77p). Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1339.
Bollinger, G. A. (1972). Historical and recent seismic activity in South Carolina. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 62(3), 851–864.
Bostick, D. W. (2010). Charleston under siege: The Impregnable City (159p). Stroud: The History Press.
Boutelle, C. O. (1865). General Map of Charleston Harbor, prepared for J.A. Dahlgren, U.S. Coast Survey.
Brooks, T. B. (1863). Map showing siege operations against Forts Sumter and Wagner, United States Coast Survey Office.
Brooks, T. B. (1890). The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Note Number 15, Series 1, Vol. 28, Pt 1).
Cote, R. (1985). Jewel of the cotton fields: A history of Secessionville manor. Mt. Pleasant, SC: Richard N. Ceote and Associates.
Fraser, W. J. (2009). Lowcountry hurricanes: Three centuries of storms at sea and ashore (319p). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Gardner, J. B. (1891). Map from Emilio, L. 1891, history of the fifty-fourth regiment of Massachusetts volunteer infantry, 1863–1865 (p. 80). Boston: The Boston Book.
Gillmore, Q. (1890). The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Series 1, Vol. 28, Pt 1).
Gillmore, Q. (1891). United States congressional serial set (Vol. 2778).
Jones, S. (1911). The Siege of Charleston and Operations on the South Atlantic Coast During the War between the States. New York: The Neale Publishing Company.
Ripley, W. (1966). The Civil War at Charleston (85p). News and Courier/Evening Post.
Serrell, E. W., Brooks, T. B., Reese, C. B., Suter, C. R., & Michie, P. S. (1863). Map of Siege Operations against the Defenses of Charleston Harbor. New York: Julius Bien and Company.
Trinkley, M., & Hacker, D. (1997). Excavations at a portion of the Secessionville archaeological site (38ch1456), James Island, Charleston County, South Carolina (201p). Columbia, SC: Chicora Foundation Inc.
Turner, J. W. (1890). The War of the Rebellion: A compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Series 1, Vol. 28, Pt 1).
Weems, R. E., Lewis, W. C., & Lemon, E. M., Jr. (2014). Surficial geologic map of the Charleston region, Berkeley, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester, and Georgetown Counties, South Carolina. U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2013–1030, 1 sheet, scale 1:100,000.
Wise, S. R. (1994). Gate of Hell: Campaign for Charleston Harbor, 1863 (312p). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Further Reading
Catton, B. (1960). The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (630p). Rockville, MD: American Heritage Publishing.
Debelius, M. (1996). Illustrated Atlas of the Civil War (320p). New York: Time Life Books.
Huntington, T. (2006). Birthplace of the Civil War. Naval History, 20(5), 16–21.
MacDonald, S. S., & Beckman, W. R. (2009). Foster’s A Humbug. North and South, 11(5), 24–42.
McPherson, J. M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (905p). New York: Ballantine Books.
Nosworthy, B. (2003). The bloody crucible of courage: Fighting methods and combat experience of the Civil War (753p). New York: Carroll and Graf.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hippensteel, S. (2019). Morris Island. In: Rocks and Rifles. Advances in Military Geosciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00877-2_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00877-2_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00876-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-00877-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)