NOTE B.
Taking the Offensive.
When General Hagood reported, on the evening of the 11th July, to General
Beauregard, the latter seemed very solicitous as to James Island front;
and, in assigning General Hagood to that command, earnestly sought to
impress its importance upon him. At the district headquarters immediately
afterward General Hagood proposed to Ripley that instead of sending him
to James Island that he be put on Morris Island that night with a sufficient
force to take a vigorous offensive. General Hagood stated that he
would be satisfied to do so with 2,000 fresh troops, the garrison of the
island being sufficient to act as a reserve in the attack—provided, he could
be landed with his men on the island by 12 o'clock that night. General
Ripley thought the suggestion practicable, seemed much pleased with it,
and they forthwith went together to General Beauregard with the proposition.
He dismissed it summarily, with the statement that he had not the
troops at hand, nor was the transportation available to put them there in
time, if he had. The writer now knows General Beauregard was right.
General Hagood was not at the council of general officers on the 13th. At
the council, just before the evacuation of Wagner, he thought it too late to
assume the offensive, and, indeed, never thought it practicable with our
means to expel the enemy from Morris Island after the first night. Had
the enemy's position not then been carried by assault before he had sufficiently
entrenched, it would have grown under a slower approach into the
dimensions of Wagner. A counter-siege, with the fire of the fleet enfilading
and taking in reverse our approaches and the ground permitting no enfilade
batteries for us, was simply out of the question.
