In the third summer of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy had essentially been relegated to playing handmaiden to the Army’s river operations in the West, chasing Confederate privateers, and enforcing the blockade. By late summer 1863, operations along the Southeast coast offered the Navy its only real opportunity for independent success.
The lodestone was Charleston, South Carolina, the fountainhead of disunion, a city of incandescent treason that excited Union strategic planners for reasons as much political and psychological as military.1 The Army and Navy had been operating against Charleston since November 1861 from an advance base seized earlier in the war at Hilton Head. Since then, the Army had maintained a force of 13,000 among the sea islands, stretching north from Beaufort to Charleston. By late August 1863 the Union Army, commanded by Major General Quincy Gillmore, stood on Morris Island within sight of the spires of the city. The Navy had maintained a blockading fleet off Charleston since 1861. Gradually, the wooden hulls of the early blockaders had given way to the new ironclad designs of the Monitor and her successors. In April 1863, Rear Admiral Samuel F. DuPont’s attempt to breach the harbor in an ironclad-fort duel ended in his decisive defeat.
In August, the Army-Navy plan was to finish the reduction of Morris Island, the northern half of which was held by Confederate forces, while Army artillery leveled Fort Sumter. By 1 September 1863, Sumter was a shapeless ruin without artillery.
General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, commander of Confederate forces in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, oriented his defenses seaward with low earthwork batteries on islands in the harbor mouth, commanding the ship channel. The judicious use of underwater barriers and mines (then called torpedoes) in the harbor and other water approaches supplemented the artillery defense of the city. Fort Sumter, bisecting the harbor mouth, dominated all approaches.
All this weighed heavily on the mind of Rear Admiral John Dahlgren, DuPont’s successor as commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Of paramount concern to him was how to proceed once Morris Island fell, and how to deal with still-stubborn Fort Sumter. Its defenders had broken DuPont and the most advanced naval technology of the period; in a war and a theater where the Navy’s contribution had waned from dominant to supportive, the seizure of Sumter would be an enormous prize, a victory not only for the Union, but also a reaffirmation of Navy primacy among the sea islands.
Fort Sumter—even as only an infantry outpost—still could interfere with the work of minesweepers clearing the channel for the deep-draft ironclads. Both the Army and Navy agreed that the entry of an ironclad fleet into the inner harbor would be necessary to break the Confederate defenses.
As Admiral Dahlgren mulled these problems throughout August, what seemed to be the answer to his prayers came into view. On 5 August, the arrival of a 257-man battalion of New York State Marines at Port Royal—under the command of a future Commandant, Major Jacob Zeilin—gave the admiral the opportunity he had sought.
Dahlgren immediately began to plan for a Marine boat attack on Fort Sumter, to be executed when conditions warranted. The presence of Marines would make cooperation with the Army unnecessary. As early as 10 August, the admiral had begun nightly reconnaissances, sending boats into the harbor to establish the feasibility of a night operation against Fort Sumter.2
The admiral directed the squadron to release some of its Marines from ships’ guards to supplement the Marine battalion ashore on Morris Island. On 10 August Major Zeilin reported a strength of 502 enlisted Marines: 245 from the 11 ships of the squadron, and 257 from his own unit.3 This would turn out to be the largest operational assembly of Marines under a Marine commander in the Civil War.4 The battalion put ashore on Morris Island and established its bivouac. Camp Marine Battalion, behind Army lines. The primary responsibility of the Marines was to train in operations ashore.5
Dahlgren and Zeilin met immediately to discuss the disposition of the battalion. The attitude of its commander must have come as no small surprise to the admiral. Major Zeilin argued forcefully against the use of Marines in an opposed landing. He cited several reasons: lack of unit cohesion, little or no training of his raw troops, and the generally low overall quality of his Marines. The admiral was astonished and confided to his diary: “Rather hurtful. What are Marines for?”6
Reasonably enough, Dahlgren required that Major Zeilin put his reservations in writing. The resulting letter stated “that the force of Marines, collected at New York from the various posts, the receiving and other ships then at home, and now united with the Marines of the South Atlantic Squadron ... is incompetent to the duty assigned it.”7 Most of his Marines were raw recruits, he wrote, completely untrained and incapable even of caring for themselves in bivouac. They had begun to drill, but the oppressive Charleston summer had caused several heat casualties; the men did not know their officers and had no confidence in them. The beach allowed insufficient room to train properly; the litany of complaints and problems went on and on.8
In closing. Major Zeilin observed that “. . . it would be very dangerous to attempt any hazardous operation requiring coolness and promptness on their part; and no duty which they could be called upon to perform requires such perfect discipline as landing under fire.”''
This sudden switch from relative obscurity to the seat of war was daunting. The success of the Corps would depend entirely upon the ability of its officers to reorient the troops from quarterdeck ornamentation to operational ability. Off Charleston Harbor, such leadership and vision were sorely lacking and reflected the advanced atrophy of senior leadership throughout the Corps. Many promising young Marine officers chose to cast their lot with the South in 1861, draining an officer corps already low in operational experience.
Despite Zeilin’s report, Admiral Dahlgren queried his Marine commander again in late August about the feasibility of using Marines as an assaulting force. Zeilin’s reply was hardly encouraging: “I have to say that I can furnish 150 men, such as they are. I cannot say whether they are such as you require or not, but they are the best I have.”10 Shortly after this, Zeilin fell ill and returned north for an extended convalescent leave. He would never return. His successor was Captain E. McDonald Reynolds of the USS Wabash.
As a result of the exchanges between Dahlgren and Zeilin, the admiral shifted his landing-force concept to one crewed jointly by sailors and Marines—a tacit admission that Marines were, in fact, incapable of carrying out assault landings. He began canvassing his ships for Navy officers and sailors to augment the Marines." By his own frank admission of inadequacy, Zeilin had forfeited any prospects for Marines to participate in the planning and execution of a landing operation against Fort Sumter.
On the night of 6 September, the Confederates evacuated Morris Island. When this became apparent early on the 7th, Admiral Dahlgren demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter: General Beauregard refused, responding under a flag of truce that Union forces could have Sumter when they could “take it and hold it.”12
Upon Beauregard’s refusal, Dahlgren ordered the monitor Weehawken into the harbor to cut off small boat communication between the fort and the rest of the harbor defenses. Unfortunately, the ironclad ran aground, drew Confederate fire through the next day, and eventually escaped. Dahlgren decided to carry out his boat attack on Sumter that night: 8 September.
Dahlgren chose Commander Thomas H. Stevens, commanding officer of the monitor Patapsco, to lead the expedition. But Stevens had fought his ship that day in support of the grounded Weehawken and was not aware that he would be in command of the landing force that night. In the absence of the commander-designate. Lieutenant Commander E. P. Williams, executive officer of the Wissahickon, was directed during the morning to begin formulating a plan.13 Signals ordered ships of the squadron to send a quota of volunteer sailors or Marines—in small boats—armed with cutlasses and pistols. They would rendezvous at the flagship Philadelphia.
Messages also went to the commanders of the naval battery ashore on Morris Island and to the Marine battalion, telling commanders to collect volunteers and move to Lighthouse Inlet, at the extreme southern end of Morris Island, for pickup.14
The admiral learned that the Army was planning a similar operation for the same night, also against Fort Sumter. Army boats would assemble in the bay west of Cummings Point as soon after dark as possible and move across when the tide allowed. The strength of the force was to be some 400 men.15 This spurred Dahlgren to attack first.
Central to the squadron’s plan was the admiral’s perception that Fort Sumter was but a shapeless ruin with a cowed and beaten light infantry guard. The plan also reflected the squadron’s jaundiced opinion of its Marines. Of the approximately 500 Marines available, fewer than 120 would make the landing. More than 300 sailors comprised the bulk of the force and all of the assault element. The Marines would play a strictly secondary role.
The expected 25 boats would form at the flagship into three primary and two supporting divisions. A steam tugboat would tow the boats under cover of darkness in two columns to a point as close to the southeast side of the fort as the tug could approach, within 1,000 yards. The boats would then cast off tow and form into divisions, with the three primary divisions landing silently and simultaneously at the foot of the southern, or gorge wall of the fort, which was the side facing Morris Island. The remaining two divisions, one composed of the Marines and the other of sailors, would stand off, prepared to support the assaulting force as needed.
The Marines, armed with muskets and bayonets, would fire on the fort when the assault began. If needed, they were to land and use their bayonets.16 Sailors were armed with pistols and cutlasses only. No provision was made for scaling ladders to get over the fort walls. The planners believed that the gorge wall was sufficiently breached to allow access without assistance. The fire of an ironclad detachment, with Captain S. C. Rowan of the New Ironsides commanding, would cover the assault.17
The mood of the Marines at their camp ashore was one of great anticipation when the call for volunteers came. Company C 2nd Lieutenant Frederick T. Peet volunteered, as did all other company-grade officers. Eighty-six privates, eight corporals, and six sergeants were selected from the battalion volunteers. Only six Marine officers were needed, however, and Peet flipped a coin with 2nd Lieutenant Robert L. Meade. Meade won and went with the assault force. It was an unlucky victory; he would be captured and spend more than a year in captivity.18 The commander of the Marine detachment was to be Captain C. G. McCawley of Company C, who later succeeded Zeilin as Commandant of the Marine Corps. Captain Reynolds, the new battalion commander, elected not to participate in the attack.
It was late afternoon before Commander Stevens, the nominal commander of the attack, learned of his role in it. Summoning Stevens to the flagship, Dahlgren told him of the impending boat attack and that he wanted Stevens to command it. Stevens demurred, voicing several objections to the admiral. First, information on conditions within the fort or the strength of its defenders was unreliable. Second, he had grave reservations about the practicability of scaling the walls, breaches or not, without ladders. Third, he was being asked to command a force that had been organized in his absence and to execute a plan that was not his. And last, he was concerned that surprise would be difficult.
In the late afternoon swell, more than 20 boats and launches bobbed about the flagship, most filled with sailors and Marines. The tugboat Daffodil had been making runs to and from Lighthouse Inlet, towing columns of boats to the Philadelphia. Confederate watchers in Sumter and the other harbor posts could see it all. Stevens did not see how he could hold the fort, even if the landing operation were successful; Fort Sumter would still be the center of a concentric fire sack, and resupply would be hazardous.
All these objections surfaced in the course of his discussion with the admiral, and Stevens asked permission to decline the command. Dahlgren replied “You have only to go and take possession. You will find nothing but a corporal’s guard to oppose you.”19 Without having resolved the question of command, Stevens went to sit in the wardroom, where he shared his concerns with Lieutenants Porter and Forrest, both of whom were on board the Philadelphia to take part in the attack. Shortly afterward, Flag Captain Samuel W. Preston came in with more arguments from the admiral for Stevens.
The admiral’s concern focused on the Army’s contemplated boat attack that same night. Now that Fort Sumter seemed finally to be within his grasp, it would be bitter indeed to lose it to the Army. As Preston said, “If you [Stevens] do not go, the naval demonstration will fall through, and the Army will reap all the glory.”20 Stevens was trapped, and he knew it. He could not honorably refuse the command—despite his concerns about its chance of success—and eventually accepted.
In the meantime, Dahlgren’s cooperation with the Army was not proceeding smoothly. Gillmore sent a message to Dahlgren at 1900, proposing a joint Army-Navy expedition, under the command of an Army officer. Dahlgren refused to countenance a “combined” (in the language of the era) operation, since the attack was of a naval character. At best, the two commanders could agree only on a challenge. Whichever force reached Sumter successfully would display a red light over the walls to prevent friendly fire.21 It was the very lowest common denominator of coordination, being wholly negative.
Shortly before the force left the Philadelphia, Stevens modified the plan significantly, deciding to send one of his two unengaged divisions around to the western side of the fort ahead of the main force. This force would act as a diversion and test the strength of the defense.
Unfortunately, Stevens did not brief the other four divisions of this change in plans. In fact, many were unaware of where they were going and what they were attacking. A case in point was a launch from the Housatonic. According to its captain, “none of the crew knew anything of their destination further than the fact that an attack was to be made somewhere.”22
At 2300 the unwieldy double line of 25 boats, some 400 men strong, pulled away into the darkness. Stevens’s command boat, the admiral’s barge, was on one quarter of the tug, but he initially rode on board the tugboat. The column stopped at Stevens’s Patapsco to pick up a surgeon and harbor pilot and then the monitors Montauk and Lehigh to coordinate fire support.
As the force entered the harbor proper. Fort Sumter loomed off the bow of the tug. Silent Fort Moultrie was on the right, and then-friendly Cummings Point on the left. The night was calm and clear, and the stars were brilliant. The only noises were the monotonous turn of the Daffodil's propeller and the occasional groaning of wood and rope under strain of the pull.21 When Fort Sumter was about 1,000 yards distant, the tug touched bottom in eight feet of water. Acting Master Carr, skipper of the Daffodil, would go no closer.24
Stevens then inexplicably turned the expedition around and moved east, approaching one of the fire support monitors he had left just moments before. This turn disoriented many members of the expedition. Stevens, it seems, wanted to consult with another pilot on board the ironclad, perhaps in hopes of finding a closer point of approach to Sumter. This completed, Stevens reboarded the tug, and the force made another great looping turn in the mouth of the harbor, pressing toward Sumter. During this approach, the tug ran over a marker buoy, which caused Carr again to make radical turns. To 2nd Lieutenant Jonathan Harris of the Marine battalion, it seemed as though the tug’s steering gear was “unmanageable.”25
Closing on Sumter for the second time, several sailors spotted a group of boats off to the left of the fort. They carried the Army’s assault force, which had assembled at Cummings Point, awaiting the tide and the results of the Navy expedition. At a distance of 800 yards, the Daffodil released the boats in the middle of a sharp turn away. While trying to retain some semblance of silence, division leaders cursed their boats and coxswains and tried to assemble and form on line.
Several things happened simultaneously. Lieutenant Higginson and his 4th Division set off around the northern side of the fort. Because of the poor briefing, however, the other division leaders mistook the movement as the signal for their assault, and began to move forward en masse. Any advantage of timing or diversion that might have been gained because of the initial maneuver was irrevocably gone. Divisions became entangled, and a mass of madly racing boats without clear leadership or direction pulled toward the gorge wall of Fort Sumter.
Several boats became so disoriented that they turned east and rowed directly away from Sumter. Lieutenant Harris’s boat proceeded until he saw the flagship dead ahead. No one knew that the Philadelphia had moved up in the rear of the force, so the appearance of the flagship, which he had last seen outside the harbor, further disoriented the Marine. He came on board, where an irate Admiral Dahlgren directed him toward Sumter with his personal compass.26
The 1st Division of Lieutenant Commander Williams approached the fort directly on target at the gorge. At a distance of 50 yards, a sentry hailed him. Williams did not reply, but using his “night glass” (a large-aperture telescope), he hurriedly studied the foot of the gorge wall for a suitable landing site. Finding a ledge, he ordered his boats to close and land. The sentry in the fort challenged a second and third time, and as Williams touched shore, the fort exploded with fire.27
Having taken advantage of the fact that they could read the U.S. Navy’s signal traffic—based on code books captured that April—General Beauregard and Major Stephen Elliott had ample warning that an attack was pending on Fort Sumter. Elliott requisitioned hand grenades and “fireballs” from Charleston, and the guns of Forts Moultrie and Johnson were “zeroed” in on Sumter, so that at night they could be fired quickly and with accuracy in support of the fort. Signals were arranged so that the garrison could call for these final protective fires when needed.28 The Confederate gunboat Chicora had dropped anchor within easy range on the harbor side of the fort.
Elliott had made his dispositions for an expected attack every night since he had assumed command on 4 September, but he redoubled his vigilance after the evacuation of Morris Island. Three rifle companies manned the parapet of the fort through the night. Four reserve companies sat in bombproofs, ready to occupy designated supporting positions on the parapet. Elliott also formed three engineer detachments to throw hand grenades and fireballs over the walls of the fort.29 And he had his engineer. Captain J. T. Champneys, emplace two fougasses in the face of the gorge.30 The gorge face worried Elliott most. Steady pounding had broken the wall to a 45-degree incline, and in places it was not a serious barrier against determined infantry. The eastern and northern faces were also battered, but they retained their relatively vertical face, despite multiple breaches. Elliott’s plan was to prevent a landing force from gaining access into the fort, where numerical superiority might overwhelm his small garrison.
Elliott himself was on the eastern wall at 0100, when a lookout spotted first one of the fire-support monitors to the east, then a group of boats approaching under oar. He never saw the Army’s expedition assembled at Cummings Point, probably because they were hidden under the loom of Morris Island. While the men on the parapet crouched and watched, one group of boats split away and headed to the northeast angle of the fort; a larger group continued to the southeast side.
Elliott quickly and quietly called up three companies to their positions on the parapet, leaving one company as his reserve. Just as Williams’s boats began to land, Captain Hopkins’s 43 riflemen of Company D deployed across the top of the gorge and opened fire. Within seconds, the other five companies manning the walls commenced a withering fire down on their targets, with their muskets propped on the masonry.
In one second, everything was complete darkness and silence; in the next, a heavy fire of musketry, explosion of grenades, massive boom of the fougasses, and the shock of tumbling masonry. Lieutenant Commander Williams scampered ashore and tried to work his way up the incline of the gorge but found that it was much more difficult to climb than it had appeared from a distance. He was unable to get over the top of the parapet.
All of Williams’s boats followed him in, except the boat containing Marine 1st Lieutenant Percival P. Pope and the Marine guard of the Powhatan. Its coxswain pulled away from the fort immediately after touching ground and coming under fire. A Marine and a sailor, determined to be part of the attack, leapt over the gunwales as the boat pulled off. Lieutenant Pope did not leave the boat, nor did he stop the coxswain’s movement, and thus never landed.
Lieutenants George C. Remey and Samuel Preston of the 2d and 3d Divisions landed within moments of Williams. Very few of their division boats followed them. Instead, they milled around 20 yards or so away from the narrow ledge at the base of the fort. Doubtless, the rain of grenades, fireballs, and masonry blocks falling on their compatriots, crouching defenseless at the base of the wall, had a powerful effect on coxswains and officers weighing the relative merits of discretion and valor. By avoiding the base of the fort, however, they were perfect targets for the infantrymen on the parapet. The men at the base of the fort were in a dead space for direct fire but were suffering heavily from the bricks and explosives dropping on them.
Soon five or six boats had beached against the gorge wall. The sailors and Marines who had not landed, including all the Marines of the Marine battalion, began to fire their revolvers and muskets at the walls of the fort, striking their comrades who were scrambling desperately up the same walls.
Lieutenant Commander Williams saw this and called above the din to cease fire and to land. His order had two consequences. First, the two boats commanded by 1st Lieutenant Bradford and 2nd Lieutenant Meade of the Marine battalion promptly answered his call and immediately joined the assault force under the walls. Bradford was mortally wounded leaving his boat. The second and unintended result of Williams’s order was the start of a retreat from the fort by the remainder of the as-yet-unlanded boats. Most sailors and Marines heard, or chose to hear, only the first half of the order.
A rocket arced up from Sumter, and within seconds the batteries of Forts Moultrie and Johnson, and the Chicora, opened fire on their preset bearings. While this was happening, Lieutenant Higginson and his erstwhile diversionary force had circled around the northern side of the fort, apparently unnoticed. He beached his boat on the northwest face but found those walls in perfect repair. Without scaling ladders there was simply no purchase. Elliott neglected this force; he was too busy dealing with the main party in front of the gorge wall. Higginson made a complete circuit of the fort, seeing the Chicora off to his right, as he rejoined the main body in their retreat from the fort.31
Had Higginson’s division been equipped with ladders, an assault over the northwest face might have altered the outcome of the battle. As it developed, his force had no effect and took men away from the point of main effort.
Commander Stevens, near the base of the fort, decided that it was hopeless to continue and ordered a general retreat. He had issued his order after the fact, since the actual retreat from Fort Sumter had begun with the almost universal misunderstanding of Williams’s cease-fire and land order. A few moments later, Williams recognized the hopelessness of his plight and surrendered his force to Elliott, who quickly took his men inside the fort to avoid the still bursting fire of the Confederate batteries.
Eleven Navy and two Marine officers were captured, as were 63 sailors and 32 enlisted Marines. Three of five division leaders were captured: all who landed. One Marine officer, 1st Lieutenant Bradford, eventually died of his wounds. Five Marines and sailors were killed, and 20 wounded. The Confederates suffered no casualties. It was one of the most lopsided engagements of the war.
No Marines landed, except the single Marine of the Powhatan and the two boats of the battalion that answered Williams’s call and pushed through the fire. No Marine officer above the rank of 1st lieutenant had landed. Captain McCawley, the senior Marine, clearly heard the call for “cease fire” and attempted to organize the boats around him for landing. But the rush of boats fleeing the crossfire overwhelmed his efforts.32 The sole contribution of the bulk of the Marine battalion had been fire support.
The soldiers of the Army’s expedition never left their assembly area off Cummings Point. The Navy’s attack went in before they could begin to move. After its pyrotechnic failure, it was obvious that any hope of surprise was lost, and the expedition was stood down. The monitors detailed to support by fire were never used, probably because of the shortness of the engagement. The action lasted less than 15 minutes from the first shot to the surrender of the men trapped ashore.
The thoroughly disorganized and scattered remnants of the assault force made their way to the Daffodil and the monitors in the harbor mouth. Fort Sumter would never fall to the Union; it would remain in Confederate hands, and the harbor would be inviolate until February 1865, when the Confederates evacuated the city’s garrison in response to Union Major General William T. Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea.
The U.S. Navy’s worst operational failure in the Civil War was the lengthy siege and blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. New technology was no match for the harbor forts. In the boat attack on Fort Sumter, the Navy and Marine Corps were badly embarrassed by a tactical disaster. The boat attack itself sprung from Rear Admiral John Dahlgren’s desire to seize the fort ahead of the Army; his actions were based partially on operational requirements—mines—but they were also driven by a strong interservice rivalry and an equally strong ego.
Once they decided to assault Sumter, the inability of both the Army and Navy to cooperate helped doom the operation. In fact, the limited cooperation that did materialize was not really cooperation at all; instead, it was an agreement not to cooperate, resulting in two independent expeditions with no possibility of mutual support.
The boat attack was a total operational disaster for the Navy. But it was far more than that for the Marine Corps. The failure of this attack and the failure of Marine officers to assert themselves in the planning process not only doomed the operation—it also gave notice that the Marine Corps had failed to rise to the occasion. Given an opportunity to transcend their mundane duties of the antebellum period, no officers had the vision to take the Marine Corps from its quarterdeck guard image to operational equality with either the Navy or the Army. All this is true, despite the fact two future Commandants served in that battalion off Charleston.
The attack was born of the ego of Admiral Dahlgren, and that engine powered an aborted planning process that failed to uncover the many dangers of Charleston Harbor. It was not the finest hour of the war for the sea services; it was probably their worst. The final verdict on the Fort Sumter boat attack may very well lie in the words of Captain McCawley that he wrote in his report to Admiral Dahlgren: “It was very dark near the fort, and there was great confusion.”33
1. Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington, (New York: Harper and Row, 1941), after…the incandescence of their treason…," p. 23
2. Moody, Rawson, et.al.. Editors, The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (ORN), Series I, Vol. 14, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1902), Dahlgren to Gillmore, p. 433.
3. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Zeilin to Dahlgren, p. 434.
4. Clyde B. Metcalf, A History of the United States Marine Corps, (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1939), p. 222.
5. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Dahlgren, p.429.
6. M. V. Dahlgren, Memoir of Admiral John A. Dahlgren, (New York: Webster and Company, 1881), p. 407.
7. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Zeilin to Dahlgren, p.439.
8. Ibid., p.438.
9. Ibid., p.439.
10. Ibid., p.518
11. Op. cit.. Order of Rear Admiral Dahlgren, 25 August 1862, p. 514.
12. Op. cit., Beauregard to Dahlgren, p. 548.
13. Op. cit., Dahlgren to Williams, p. 606.
14. Op. cit., Dahlgren to Gillmore, p. 607.
15. Scott, et. al., Editors, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (ORA), (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1890), Part II, Vol. 28, Special Orders #150, p. 89.
16. ORN, Series I, Vol. 28, Report of McCawley, p. 622.
17. Op. cit., Dahlgren to Rowan, p. 609.
18. Frederick Tomlinson Peet, Personal Experiences in the Civil War, (New York: Privately printed, 1905), p.85.
19. Thomas H. Stevens, “The Boat Attack on Sumter,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, (New York: The Century Company, 1884), Vol. IV, p. 49. Cited hereafter as Battles and Leaders.
20. Ibid.
21. ORA, Series II, Vol. 28, Special Order #150, p.89.
22. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Pickering to Dahlgren, p. 617.
23. Battles and Leaders, p.49.
24. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Report of acting Master Carr, p. 621.
25. Op. cit.. Report of 2nd Lieutenant Harris, p. 624.
26. Ibid.
27. Op. cit.. Report of Lieutenant Commander Williams, p. 628.
28. Alfred Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard, Vol. II, (New York: Harper and Brothers), pp. 156-157. See also ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Reports of Elliott and Beauregard, pp. 637-639.
29. John Johnson, The Defense of Charleston Harbor, (New York: Walker, Evans, and Cogswell Company, 1890), Appendix, p. cviii.
30. A fougass was a large explosive mixture of combustible fuel and air. It was detonated electrically. The fougass continues to be used extensively today in engineer operations, usually in 55-gallon drums or larger.
31. ORN, Series I, Vol. 14, Report of Higginson, p. 618.
32. Op. cit.. Report of McCawley, pp. 622-623.
33. Op. cit., McCawley to Dahlgren, p. 623.