University of Virginia Library

Secessionville Campaign.

After the fall of Port Royal in 1861, in the general abandonment
of the sea islands in South Carolina, possession of all of
them, as far north as and including Edisto, was conceded to the

enemy. When he chose, he took unopposed possession and
departed with like impunity. The Confederates only visited these
islands in scouting parties. Johns Island was dismantled of its
defense on North Edisto Inlet and the population withdrawn,
but upon it a movable Confederate force in the nature of an
advanced guard had been so far stationed. The enemy had
availed themselves of their success at Port Royal and were
holding within their lines all of the territory conceded; and it is
said that in May, 1862, the Federal chiefs, Hunter and Dupont,
were considering a combined land and naval effort to wrest Johns
Island also from the Confederate occupation. The escape of the
steamer "Planter" and the information she gave of the abandonment
of the posts on Stono, as well as of the condition of the new
lines on James Island, changed their programme to a sudden blow
at the city itself.[11]

The James Island lines, the construction of which as an interior
line of defense was commenced in the winter of 1860-61, had
become the main line of defense of the city upon the Stono front.
At the date of Hunter's advance, they consisted of a series of
redans for artillery connected by an infantry breastwork of slight
profile, running from Mellichamp's house on the eastern shore of
the island to Royall's house on New Town Creek. In its general
course here it was parallel to the Stono and two and a half
miles from the river. Advancing toward Stono along New
Town Creek, redans without connecting breastworks were placed
on the northern bank, and constituted the defense at a point
three-quarters of a mile from the river, the line turning at right
angles again became parallel to the river, and again consisted of
redans with connecting breastworks, till at Lawton's house, on
Wappoo, it reached the northwestern side of the island. On the
right and left of this line Fort Pemberton and Secessionville
(redoubts) were thrust forward. Fort Pemberton was a considerable
work on the banks of Stono River below the mouth of
Wappoo, and was advanced some three-quarters of a mile in
front of the main line on the right; on the left, Secessionville was
perhaps a mile in front and to the left of Mellichamp's. It was
at the extremity of a peninsular made by the divergence of a

[ILLUSTRATION]

creek from Folley River into two branches, the land approach
being from the Stono side, and communication with the rear
established by a bridge. An intrenchment across the narrowest
part of the peninsular made Secessionville also an enclosed work,
and it was further strengthened by a small flanking battery
across the northern creek or marsh, afterwards called Battery
Reed, in honor of the gallant Captain Sam J. Reed, killed in this
campaign. From Mellichamp's to Royall's there was a second
line of defense consisting of detached redoubts, each behind an
interval in redans of the first line.

Fort Pemberton was in fighting condition. But four guns were
mounted at Secessionville; a bomb-proof shelter, and a powder
magazine had been there constructed. The parapet was unfinished
in front of the guns—indeed, its profile was so slight that after
the battle of the 16th June Colonel Hagood rode his horse into
the ditch and over the parapet from the exterior approach. As
to the redans and redoubts of the rest of the defenses, they had
no guns mounted or platforms laid.

The whole system was not only incomplete in construction, but
faulty in design. The engineer, to avoid the then dreaded gunboat
fire, had drawn his line so far back from Stono River as to
give up full half of the island to the operations of the besiegers;
and had accepted for himself full five miles of entrenchments to
defend, separated into two divisions by New Town Creek, across
which his communication in rear was circuitous and difficult.
These evils were perceived early in the campaign, and a new line
laid out along the eastern division which would have somewhat
shortened it. But this line was never finished; and in the final
shape which the defense of James Island took under Beauregard
in 1863 to 1864, the whole system of defense heretofore indicated
was abandoned, and, starting from Secessionville, a much shorter
and better line was taken to Stono below the mouth of New Town
Cut.

About the middle of May, the movement of the blockading
vessels off Stono Inlet—sounding and buoying the channel—
indicated the intention to effect an entrance. No hostile troops
were then nearer than Edisto Island. The following extracts
from the diary of Captain Carlos Tracy, volunteer aid-de-camp

on the staff of General S. R. Gist, commanding on James Island,
furnish a memorandum record of events up to 9th June:

"19 May.—Several of the enemy's gunboats attempted to enter Stono
Inlet; one ran aground and the rest put back.

On the 9th of June Colonel Hagood was definitely relieved of
provost duty in Charleston, and reported in command of his regiment,
which had been on the island since the 3rd under Major
Duncan. The colonel had served one day with it, as noted in
previous journal.

The troops on the island were sufficient for its defense, but
without exception had never before seen actual service; and most
of them being newly raised corps, officers and men were alike
ignorant of field duty. In consequence of these facts, four of the
best regiments were organized into a temporary brigade, under
the name of the "Advanced Forces," and these were charged with
the whole picket duty along the extended front of the southern
division of the lines, except of that portion immediately in front
of Secessionville, which remained in charge of the commander
and was furnished by the garrison of that post until after the
battle of the 16th June. General Smith did Colonel Hagood the
honor to place him in command of this special brigade. It consisted
of Hagood's own regiment, First South Carolina; Stevens'
Twenty-fourth South Carolina, Simonton's Twenty-fifth South
Carolina, and McEnnery's Seventh Louisiana Battalion. A battery
of field artillery reported daily for duty with the Advanced
Forces, and ten or twelve cavalry for courier duty. Captain
Moloney, Adjutant First South Carolina, acted as assistant adjutant
general. Orderly Ben Martin as aid-de-camp, and Captains
Hay and Lartigue were volunteer aides. The regiments drew

their commissary, quartermaster and ordnance supplies through
regimental channels direct from the officers of the post staff in
Charleston.

Two regiments of the Advanced Forces on duty one day furnished
the pickets and alternated with the other two regiments in
reserve.

The arrangement of the picket system was as follows (see Map,
p. 200.):

Two grand guards; one at Artillery Cross Roads and one at
Frier's Cross Roads. Three outposts; one at Episcopal Church,
one at Presbyterian Church, and one on Battery Island Road.
The outposts furnished the chain of videttes, running from
where the Battery Island Road crosses the northern Secessionville
Marsh (near Hill's house), to which point the Secessionville
picket came, through fields and woods to the bridge over New
Town Cut near Stono River.

A section of the Light Battery on duty each day was placed
with the Grand Guard at Frier's, and the other sections with the
Grand Guard at Artillery Cross Roads.

The regiments of the Advanced Forces not on picket were
allowed to go into bivouac at convenient points near reserve.

Skirmishing along the lines was frequent, and the firing of the
videttes almost incessant—the usual custom, however, of green
troops. The Yankees were as nervous as we were, sometimes in
the night following up a fusillade that would break out without
occasion from their videttes with volleys from their grand guards
—at nothing, unless perhaps at their videttes running in. It
rained almost incessantly during the whole period of active
operations and there was something of ludicrous pathos in the
enquiry which a half-drowned Yankee shouted out one day across
the line, "I say, does it ever get dry in this country?" There was
no brigade or division organization of the Confederate troops on
the island except the "Advanced Forces," nor any distribution of
general command by localities. There were three different generals
commanding in this short campaign, and as each one arrived
he took charge of everything, holding the others in reserve as

* It is noteworthy that Beauregard afterwards rearranged the defenses upon this
idea.

second and sometimes third in command. The fact is, things
were pretty generally haphazard.

On the 10th, General Pemberton directed our lines advanced,
with a view to establishing a battery of heavy guns on the edge
of Grimball's clearing within sufficient range to drive the gunboats
from that landing and confine the enemy to the use of the
Battery Island landing[14] as well as to break up the Yankee camp
at Grimball's. General Smith took charge of the operation, and
in the afternoon of the same day sent forward Colonel Hagood
with the First South Carolina and the Seventh Louisiana Battalion
and two pieces of Preston's Field Battery on the road
through the Grimball woods, by the Presbyterian Church.
Colonel Williams, with the Forty-seventh Georgia, was started
more to the left from the point where these woods touched the
Battery Island Road. The instructions were to drive in the
enemy and seize and hold the line of the clearing. Colonel
Hagood advanced along his road with a part of his forces
deployed on either side of it, the rest following in supporting
distance in column. The enemy were driven before him with but
little resistance, and the sight of the deployed line had already
reached the clearing when he was recalled in consequence of a
reverse sustained by Williams. Williams had no road, but
advanced in line of battle without skirmishers in front, and when
he struck the clearing encountered the enemy in force behind the
ditch and bank fence of the plantation and supported by artillery.
The woods through which he had advanced were almost a jungle;
his line had become very much disordered; and he was in action
before he knew it. But his men rushed gallantly upon the enemy
in squads as they came up, and, of course, were driven back badly
cut up. His loss was some sixty or seventy men. Hagood lost
none, and killed upon the field but two of the enemy from the
feeble resistance encountered. They were not in force upon his
front of attack. He was, however, subjected to a rapid fire of
gunboat shells, which threatened as much damage from the falling
limbs cut from the trees as from themselves.

The enemy were engaged at this period in passing troops from
North Edisto to across Johns Island to Legareville on the Stono
nearly opposite Battery Island. To do this they had to make a
flank march of ten miles in front of an equal number of troops

under General Evans, commanding the Confederate forces on
Johns Island. Evans had orders to attack, information of which
was communicated to Hagood with instructions upon hearing the
sounds of battle in that quarter to begin to press the enemy with
the Advanced Forces and at once to report the fact. It would be,
he was told, the occasion of a general offensive movement for
which the troops on James Island were held in readiness.

General Evans allowed the enemy to pass, and they were
straggling along his front for more than two days and nights
without firing a gun. He was not court-martialed, for then, as
ever afterwards, it was the bane of Confederate service not to
hold its commanding officers to rigid account. Evans attempted
indirectly to clear himself of the slur upon his reputation by
court-martialing one of his colonels for drunkenness upon this
occasion, alleging in the charges that this drunkenness had balked
the attack. It was the unpleasant fortune of Colonel Hagood to
have been president of the court when it sat at a later period, and
the facts were thus brought before him. The officer was broken[15]
—the fact of his drunkenness was proved; but had Evans been
before the court he would have found it difficult, upon the evidence
elicited, to have escaped the same fate for the same offense.
Nor can it be conceived how the intoxication of a single colonel
of junior commission could have kept a considerable army from
assuming the offensive for over two days and nights, or, indeed,
for a longer period than it would have taken to arrest him and
order his successor to move. Would it be believed that during
the whole of the time his troops were watching for the passage
of the enemy and every preparation made for momentary attack,
Evans, without a subordinate general officer in his command,
went back to Adams Run every night, a distance of eighteen
miles, to escape the malaria of the island? Yet this fact was
incidentally proven upon the trial.[16] The enemy having without

molestation effected the passage across Johns Island to James,
General Evans, too, with a portion of his troops was transferred
to the same point, and arriving on the 14th took command, Smith
sinking to second and Gist to third in command. The general
officers were all quartered at Royall's, and there was considerable
unpleasantness among them, as much perhaps from the anomalous
relations in command which they held toward each other, as from
any other cause. General Evans occupied himself on the 14th
and 15th in riding along the lines and examining into the condition
of things, requiring Colonel Hagood to accompany him. On
the afternoon of the 15th he removed his headquarters to a point
near Lawton's house, on the shores of the harbor opposite
Charleston and four miles to the rear. On the night of the 15th-16th
June, the portion of the "Advanced Forces" on picket consisted
of seven companies of Twenty-fourth South Carolina, six
companies of First South Carolina, and one company of Williams'
Forty-seventh Georgia, temporarily assigned to Advanced Forces.
Boyer's Field Battery was on duty with the grand guards; and
all were under command of Colonel C. H. Stevens. The Twenty-fifth
South Carolina, the Seventh Louisiana and four companies
of the First South Carolina were in reserve. Colonel Hagood
was with these troops. At 4:30 a. m., on the 16th, he received a
dispatch from Colonel Stevens that the Secessionville picket,
which, as before mentioned, until after this date, was furnished
by that garrison and did not report to Hagood, was driven in,
and that the enemy were advancing in force upon that position.
Colonel Hagood immediately ordered under arms the reserve;
he directed Colonel McEnnery with the Fourth Louisiana Battalion
to proceed by the foot bridge in rear of Secessionville to
the re-enforcement of the garrison, and Colonel Simonton with
the Twenty-fifth South Carolina and detachment of the First
South Carolina, to proceed down the Battery Island road to
operate on the flank of the enemy's advance. Having delivered
these orders in person, he galloped on in advance in the same
direction, ordering forward from Artillery Cross Roads one of
the 6 drs. (under Lieutenant Jeter[17] ) of the section of Boyce's
Battery on duty at that point. Arriving at the scene of action,
the enemy were making their second assault upon the post at
Secessionville.

At 4 p. m. they had advanced upon that work, with, according
to their own account, two brigades of infantry and three companies
of artillery, numbering in all 3,337 men (2 Am. Conflict,
462) under command of General J. J. Stevens.[18] Moving
swiftly and noiselessly upon the picket, they succeeded in
capturing some of them and the rest fled without firing a
gun. The gallant Lamar (as he afterwards himself told
Colonel Hagood) had been superintending all night the operations
of a working party, and exhausted had fallen asleep
upon the parapet. Aroused by the sentinel over the guns, he
discovered the enemy at the heels of his picket, not fifty yards
from him. With no time to give an order, he himself pulled the
lanyard of a columbiad, ready shotted with grape, and as the
deadly missiles tore their way through the approaching column,
the bellowing thunder aroused the garrison to the bloody work
before them. It consisted of two companies of Lamar's own
regiment—Second South Carolina Artillery—the Charleston Battery
(afterwards Twenty-seventh South Carolina), Smith's Battery
and a portion of Goodlette's South Carolina Regiment. The
enemy assailed vigorously and with considerable dash; several
were slain upon the parapet, and one bold fellow, jumping into
the work and finding himself unsupported, effected his retreat,
but carried one of Lamar's men with him a prisoner. The enemy
were, however, in twenty or thirty minutes driven back with
considerable loss. Stevens reformed his lines and again advanced,
aided this time by another brigade under General Williams with
Hamilton's Field Battery of Regulars attached, these last moving
on the opposite side from Secessionville of the northern
marsh forming the Secessionville peninsular. This force numbered
2,663 men and moved by Hill's house. It was on the flank
of General Williams that Colonel Hagood found himself. A
thicket of felled trees ran parallel with their line of advance and
about 400 yards from it, on the edge of which, next to the enemy,
Colonel C. H. Stevens had deployed about 100 men who had been

on picket duty near that point. These men were from the Twenty-fourth
Regiment and from the companies of Captains Tompkins,
Pearson (Lieutenant Hamiter commanding), and Gooding (First
Lieutenant Beckman commanding). The Battery Island Road,
here so obstructed as to be impassable by artillery or by infantry
except with difficulty as to individuals, ran between this felled
thicket and the dense wood stretching towards Grimball's on
the Stono. Simonton's Twenty-fifth South Carolina, about 220
strong, coming up, was placed behind this felled thicket in line of
battle, its right resting near the Battery Island Road. Lieutenant
Jeter's piece was placed in position on Simonton's left
and directed to open on Williams's advancing column. Lieutenant
Colonel Capers of the Twenty-fourth was personally dispatched
to ascertain the cause of the unaccountable silence of
Battery Reed and to bring its guns also to bear upon Williams.
The detachment of the First South Carolina (about 120 men)
was held in column as a reserve on the Battery Island Road, and
directed to throw out a strong line of skirmishers on its right
flank towards the Stono. The first sound of Jeter's piece brought
all of Hamilton's guns upon our line from its position on the
right of the Battery Island Road, beyond and in front of the
felled thicket. Colonel Hagood saw the opportunity of pushing
the First South Carolina through the woods against Hamilton's
Battery, and advancing Simonton and Stevens against the rear
of Williams's men, now enfilading and slowly galling the front
despite the fire of Jeter's piece and Battery Reed, but apprehending
a general advance, and charged especially with picketing
the front of the southern division, he feared to take the offensive
with his small force, which constituted the whole picket reserve,
without re-enforcement or special orders. The disparity in men
and guns between his force and General Williams's (about 5 to 1)
was also perfectly apparent. While, therefore, making his dispositions
to take the offensive, he despatched Captain J. V. Martin,
commissary of First South Carolina, who had reported for
duty as A. D. C., to report the situation and ask for orders and
re-enforcements to attack. In the meantime Jeter's piece was
rapidly and effectively worked, the infantry merely supporting;
Battery Reed had also been opened by Capers and was doing
good service. In the fort, Colonel Lamar had been wounded on
the first assault and succeeded by Lieutenant Colonel Gaillard;
Gaillard was now wounded and succeeded in command by Major
Wagner. McEnnery arriving at a run with the Fourth Louisiana,[19]
went into action on the right, engaging Williams's flanking
line. The Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, acting as
infantry and which had been held in reserve near Hamilton's Battery,
advanced to take Jeter's piece, but were handsomely
repulsed by Colonel C. H. Stevens's skirmishers, except one
portion, which penetrated to Simonton's line on the left. One of
his companies was engaged for a few moments in driving them
back, exchanging the first volley at twenty paces, so closely had
they approached without being discovered in the dense abattis
of the thicket. But the Yankee bolt was shot. They fell back
sullenly and unpursued, leaving their dead and wounded upon
the field. Captain Martin arrived with permission for Colonel
Hagood to attack, and a few minutes afterwards Slaughter's
Georgia and Gadberry's South Carolina regiments reported as
re-enforcements for the purpose; but the enemy had regained
the shelter of his gunboats and the effort against Charleston was
over for this time. For such was the result of the Battle of Secessionville—one
of the decisive engagements of the war.

The Federals, by their own showing, had 6,000 men engaged
and 1,500 in reserve[20] (part of this reserve being the Third Rhode
Island). Colonel Hagood might have found Hamilton's Battery
on his flank had he advanced without first sending a force against
the position first occupied by it.[21] There were engaged on the
Confederate side, in the fort and out of it, not exceeding 1,300
men, of which 450 were with Colonel Hagood. The Federals
reported their loss at 574 men; the Confederates lost about 150
killed and wounded, of which 32 casualties were in Hagood's
force.

The people of the city and State were justly elated at this
stroke of good fortune. It was the first exploit upon the war
path of most of those engaged in it. Newspaper reporters were
anxious to obtain all the particulars and the parties interested in
no wise loath to furnish them. It was amusing for weeks afterwards
to see in Charleston papers the gross mistatements and, in
some cases, absolutely false representations that were made, the
writer or his friends always the hero of the tale. But to cap the
climax of eagerness to catch "all the glory going," General Evans
appeared in a card in the public papers announcing the fact that
he was in command on the 16th. In General Evans's official
report, which Pemberton showed Colonel Hagood before forwarding
to Richmond, there were almost as many inaccuracies
as in the newspaper accounts; and it really seemed as if he had
not read the reports of his subordinates which he forwarded
accompanying his own. For instance, he stated that he ordered
McEnnery to re-enforce the garrison, yet took no notice of
Hagood's or McEnnery's statements in their reports that the
latter had been sent into Secessionville as heretofore stated in
these Memoirs. Colonel Hagood received no order from any
superior until the enemy left the field. How it was in the fort
he could not say. But it always appeared to him that as far as
generalship went, this battle, decisive as it was on the Confederate
side, can only be characterized as an affair of outposts, in
which the subordinate officers and the troops on the spot did the
best they could upon the emergency; and whatever credit for
generalship, if any is awarded, should be to General Smith, under
whose direction the arrangement of the outposts was made.
There were on the island under Evans at least as many regiments,
and probably as good ones, as the enemy had, and not one was
brought into action. Had his headquarters been nearer to the
lines they might possibly have been used advantageously to some
extent. Williams's column might have been cut off. But the affair
was over very quickly, and the enemy had but a short distance
to retreat before regaining the shelter of their gunboats.

No further offensive movements were undertaken by the Federals
after the repulse of the 16th. They lingered upon the
island, protected by their steam fleet and by defensive entrenchments,
until 7th July, when the last of them embarked
unmolested.

Many valuable lives were lost, and much individual heroism
was displayed in this short and decisive campaign. Lamar
deservedly won much reputation and commenced a career which
promised much usefulness to the State, but this promise was soon
cut short. He perished, a victim of malaria, the following summer.
Gaillard, Wagner, Hopkins and others commenced here a series
of brilliant services, traced in subsequent pages of these Memoirs.
The fate of Captains Henry King, of Charleston, and Samuel J.
Reed, of Barnwell, was especially deplored. The latter was an
elevè of the State Military School and a most promising officer.
There was an incident, too, of brave and faithful conduct in
humble life, which deserves mention in any record of Secessionville.
Vich Jan Vohr's henchman in the dock at Carlisle had not
in his bosom a more leal and affectionate heart than the humble
hero.

Lieutenant John A. Bellinger, of the artillery, was asleep in
his quarters some distance from the battery when the roar of
Lamar's columbiad summoned the garrison to its defense. After
he had repaired to his post, his negro servant discovered that in
his haste he had left his pistol, and hastened to carry it to him
against the remonstrances of his companions, for the approach
to the battery was now swept by bullets as with the besom of
destruction. But the faithful servitor could not bear that his
young master should be in such deadly conflict without his trusty
weapon; and he fell, mortally wounded, in the attempt to bear
it to him. Every attention that affection could suggest to Bellinger
soothed poor Daniel's last moments during the week that
he lingered. He said to his master just before he died, "Duncan
and Normie"—Bellinger's little motherless sons—"Duncan and
Normie will be sorry when they hear that I am dead."