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NOTE A.
The Different Routes to Charleston.
Of the five routes of approach mentioned by General Beauregard, the
two involving operations in rear appear to have been entirely beyond
Gilmore's power with the land force at his disposal—by his own account
some 17,000 men. It is worth noting, however, that both times when
Charleston has fallen (in the Revolution and in the late war), it was from
operations in this quarter after the direct attack had failed. The route by
James Island is the only remaining one, the pursuit of which could have
effected the fall of the city. Success upon this line of approach would
undoubtedly have effected this object had Gilmore taken it. He would
not have as efficient co-operation from the navy here as at Morris Island,
principally from the greater facility with which the defense could have
protected itself from the enfilading fire of the fleet. The lines on James
Island, as already mentioned, were at that time exceedingly defective in
location, incomplete in construction, and requiring a large force, not then
in position, to man them. By vigorous and rapid operations against their
center advancing from Grimball's and Dill's on the Stono, and a movement
upon their flank and rear from Light House Inlet, as indicated in previous
pages of these Memoirs, they may have been carried by assault. The
slower these operations the less would have been their chance of success;
and against these lines as established by General Beauregard later in the
slege, from Dill's to Secessionville with heavy works from Secessionville to
Fort Johnson defending that flank and rear, Gilmore with the means at
his disposal would certainly have failed. He himself seemed to have had
a full appreciation of the difficulties of this route. "Upon James Island,"
says he in his official report, "our progress would soon have been stopped
by the concentration of superior force in our front. Upon Morris Island,
on account of its narrowness, our force was ample. James Island was too
wide to operate upon with a fair promise of success with our force."
Success on the Sullivan's Island route, from the nature of the channel,
would have completely closed the channel for purposes of blockade running,
would have furnished as good a point d'appul for the disabling of
Sumter and given a direct fire upon almost every part of the inner harbor.
But if it had taken as long to reduce Sullivan's Island as it did Morris
Island (and it probably would), the same defenses would have sprung up as
afterwards lined the shores of the inner harbor; and the navy would have
had to exhibit more dash than it did at any time during the siege to have
passed them. Charleston would not necessarily have fallen, had this route
been taken. Another consideration of weight was this: To attack Sullivan's
pickets, was necessary, when by a coup de main Sullivan's Island was to
be reached across Breach Inlet. This could not have been done without
attracting attention and totally depriving the coup of the attribute of
surprise. Breach Inlet was also defended by works in a better state of
completion than Light House Inlet was. Of Folley Island the enemy had
for some time been in quiet possession as well as of the adjoining waters
of Stono Bay, which gave them the opportunity of preparing measurably
unobserved for a sudden descent upon Morris Island. And whatever stress
they may have laid upon it, it was this element of surprise in their descent
upon the south end of the island that gave them all the success they met
with. What followed (the lodgment once made) was, with the conditions
imposed, but a matter of time. General Beauregard in his report, it will
be observed, denies the surprise, and attributes the fall of this end of the
Island to the inadequate means of preparation and defense at his disposal.
He undoubtedly, from his report, and, the writer may add, from very
full conversations with him, appreciated the importance of strongly
defending this point, and had planned and ordered a system of works
adequate to the end; but they were not executed in time. Could it have
been done? Could, under the circumstances of locality, the vigilance
possibly have detected the massing on Little Folley for attack in time to
have increased our infantry supports? Was there infantry available for
this purpose? On these questions turns the whole matter. General
Beauregard's report ably presents the difficulties that beset him. Gilmore
says: "Wise defense would have kept us off of Morris Island entirely."
And it was a general opinion of the Confederate troops, as well as the
impression of the public mind, that this was the weak point in the otherwise
masterly defense of Charleston. General Ripley took the opportunity
of an investigation of the matter by General Beauregard's inspector-general
to submit an elaborate defense of himself as district commander
which he read to the writer, whose information of facts (he up to that time
serving in another district) is not sufficient to warrant the expression of
a decisive opinion as to where the fault was. The inclination of his mind
then was and still is to attribute the laches rather to his subordinates and
to circumstances, which he could not control, than to any oversight or
negligence of the general commanding.
Upon the whole it appears that the route by Morris Island, though, in
the language of General Beauregard, "the least injurious to us" that
could have been taken, was the only one with the resources at his disposal
by which Gilmore could have accomplished anything.
The narrow front upon which he operated and the difficult communication
between Morris Island and the Confederate base of supply made
difficult the concentration of a force in his front superior or even equal to
that he could with easier communications at all times operate. His flanks
were rendered unassailable by the ocean on one side and an impassable
marsh from one and a half to two miles wide on the other. And, above
all, he had the fullest possible benefit of the enfilade and reserve fire of the
Federal commander flatters himself, when he says in his report, "that it
would have been entirely practicable to have pushed his approaches to Fort
Wagner without the co-operating fire of the gunboats." The siege journal
appended to his report decisively indicates the reverse. Without this fire
the role would have been changed and from besieger he would probably
have become besieged.
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