Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea

by Noah Andre Trudeau

This morning about 8 o’clock the Dandelion arrived with Captain Duncan and two scouts, Sergeant Myron J. Emmick and George W. Quinby, bearing the following lines from General Howard:

  To: Commander of U.S. Navy Forces,

  Vicinity of Savannah, Ga.

  HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF ARMY OF TENNESSEE,

  Near Savannah Canal, Georgia.

  Sir: We have met with perfect success thus far. Troops in fine spirits and near by.

  Respectfully,

  O. O. Howard

  Major-General, Commanding

  Captain Duncan states that our forces were in contact with the rebels a few miles outside of Savannah. He says they are not in want of anything.

  Perhaps no event could give greater satisfaction to the country than that which I announce, and I beg leave to congratulate the United States Government on its occurrence.

  It may, perhaps, be exceeding my province, but I can not refrain from expressing the hope that the Department will commend Captain Duncan and his companions to the honorable Secretary of War for some mark of approbation for the success in establishing communications between General Sherman and the fleet.

  It was an enterprise that required both skill and courage.

  I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

  J.A. Dahlgren,

  Rear-Admiral, Comdg, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron

  Declared a member of the admiral’s staff: “The excitement, the exhilaration, ay the rapture, created by this arrival, will never be forgotten by the officers and crews of the Federal vessels who saw the beginning of the end of the war.” Dahlgren’s covering note, along with Howard’s brief communication, was immediately put aboard a fast ship headed north. An officer on board later told a reporter that the entire fleet was firing a salute as they departed, “and the vessels were decorated with flags.”

  Along the U.S. lines outside Savannah, “the Corps and Division Commanders are getting their troops gradually in front of the rebel lines as far as yet known,” recorded Major Hitchcock at Sherman’s headquarters. Most were cautious probes, but one division commander, Brigadier General John W. Geary in the Twentieth Corps, planned a two-brigade assault on a Confederate fortification in his front. The selected troops were roused at 2:30 A.M., then moved into a swamp bordering the objective preparatory to the charge. Apprehensions went up several notches when word spread that the water in the front was nearly neck deep. Finally, at 4:30 A.M., the attack orders were canceled. Sputtered one well-soaked Ohioan: “Ambitious Geary baffled again!!!”

  For many of those not engaged in siege activities, the name of today’s game was “Find the food.” It wasn’t that the army was out of supplies, it was just that what was on hand was not appealing to men accustomed to the rich variety enjoyed during the march. For instance, there remained a sizable beef herd, but the quartermasters always killed the most scrawny beasts first, leading one soldier to complain that they were getting “dried beef on foot.”

  Savannah Lines

  Some Wisconsin boys got an unexpected education in differing cultures when they visited a community of slaves recently arrived from Africa, where they were given rice cooked with a tangy meat. The soldiers’ pleasure was ruined when they learned that the distinct flavor came from chicken entrails—often the only portion of the bird allowed the blacks by their owners. Along the section of the line held by the 39th Ohio, the Buckeyes were taunted by Confederate pickets, who boasted that there was plenty of bacon in their camps. A Federal present recalled that “one of our boys replied if you have so much bacon why in hell dont you grease your britches and slide back into the union?”

  Since the various corps had approached the main line of resistance in something of a pell-mell fashion as their differing routes of march converged, some readjustment of positions was necessary to tidy up the deployments. The late-arriving Fourteenth Corps today occupied a section previously held by the Seventeenth, which slid to the right. One group of Major General Blair’s infantry and artillery had to choose either a long roundabout march out of range of the enemy’s guns, or a shorter path across their sights. The officers opted to wait for nightfall to risk the direct passage.

  Those involved described the experience as either running the “blockade” or the “gauntlet.” “As soon as it was nearly dark we moved out,” recollected an Ohio infantryman, “making as little noise as possible and just before merging into the open plain we were ordered to carry our arms muzzle downwards so they could not be seen and not to speak above a whisper lest the Rebel battery should open up.” The infantry went first, followed by the artillery. “You may judge of our feelings as we he[a]rd time and again of the strength of the [rebel] fort and that it was near to our rout[e],” said a member of the 1st Minnesota Light Artillery. “We pass at a quick walk and they only fired 5 times at us and did not hurt one of us. But you ought to see the heads bow, when we saw the flash of the guns.”

  On the far left of the Union siege lines, the tedious process of getting the 3rd Wisconsin transferred onto Argyle Island was further slowed by dramatic events. A short distance above where the dogged Midwesterners were about to resume crossing twenty at a time, a Federal battery had taken a position on the river bluff, supported by the 22nd Wisconsin. It was still before dawn when infantry lieutenant W. H. Morse made his way about a mile north of the camp to check on an outpost. Once there he “spied a light some distance up the river which appeared and disappeared several times. I waited and watched and soon I saw smoke, and, daylight approaching, I saw the vessels.”

  The boats in question, part of Savannah’s ad hoc naval squadron, consisted of the gunboats Sampson and Macon, accompanied by the tender Resolute. They had initially been ordered up the river from the city to protect the Charleston and Savannah rail bridge, but once it became evident that Sherman’s men were astride the line, new orders came to destroy the span. With that mission completed, Lieutenant General Hardee had recalled the craft to Savannah in order to add their firepower to the city’s defenses.

  Sampson was leading the column, followed by the Resolute and the Macon. It had proven to be a sobering journey for the Confederate sailors. “As we went along we saw at the different places smoking ruins,” reported the squadron’s commander. Intelligence gathered from civilians met on the way suggested that the Yankees had yet to establish any artillery positions along the riverbank.

  In fact, the four rifled Parrott cannon guarded by the 22nd Wisconsin had been rolled into position on the Colerain plantation just the previous afternoon. The tubes represented Battery I of the 1st New York Light Artillery, Captain Charles E. Winegar commanding. On paper the Confederate squadron’s heavier-caliber guns seriously outmatched what the Federals had, but Winegar had picked a good spot for his cannoneers. They were positioned on a bluff in a bend of the river where the channel narrowed, forcing the enemy craft to approach head-on, significantly limiting how many of their weapons could bear on the target. Still, the Confederates knew their business. As the three vessels drew within range, the Macon swung out somewhat to starboard to unmask its forward piece. Captain Winegar, a Gettysburg veteran, opened fire at 2,700 yards, while the gunboats remained menacingly silent until within 800 yards.

  Winegar’s opening shot was somewhat anticlimactic, bursting in the air well short of the targets. This brought some unsolicited advice from the Wisconsin colonel to the New York captain that he was cutting his fuses too short. Winegar retorted that he was using percussion shells, which exploded on impact, and guessed that a defective firing pin caused the premature detonation. The rest of the colonel’s boys were well under cover and enjoying the fireworks display. A member of the regiment recollected most of the enemy’s return fire “falling short, but some struck in the bank just under the battery, and some went high above us…. None of us were hurt in the least, for when we saw the white smoke from their guns, we either jumped down behind our breastworks or got behind the big trees near the shore.”

 
; No one counted how many times the Sampson and Macon fired, but Captain Winegar logged 138 rounds from his guns. The fact that the Confederate craft, approaching head-on, were essentially stationary targets, simplified the firing solution for the Yankee cannoneers, who scored with 5 percent of their shells. The Rebels scored no hits, even though a midshipman aboard the Sampson recollected a “terrific fire” from both sides. As later reported by the Southern squadron commander, Sampson “was struck three times—on her hurricane deck, near machinery and steam drum, and once in her rudder…. C.S.S. Macon was struck twice, once under her bow and one shot passing through [her] smokestack. C.S.S. Resolute [was] struck twice, one shot injuring her wheel so as to disable her.” Hoping to push through to Savannah before the Federals closed the river, the Confederates had instead run into a hornets’ nest. It was evident to the squadron commander that “we could not pass the batteries.”

  Orders were given for the three ships to reverse course. Struggling to maneuver in the narrow channel while still under fire, Sampson collided with Resolute, “damaging both vessels.” Adding insult to injury, the Macon also sideswiped the tender making its U-turn. “The C.S.S. Resolute being unmanageable, drifted ashore [on Argyle Island],” continued the squadron commander’s report. “It being impossible to render her any assistance without endangering the safety of the other vessels from the fire of the enemy…, we were compelled to leave her, with orders for the crew to escape in their boats if it was impossible to get her off.”

  The frantic efforts by the crew of the Resolute to lighten the craft by throwing every loose object overboard was observed with very great interest by some recently arrived spectators on the shore—Company F of the 3rd Wisconsin, which had hurried up Argyle Island from where the rest of the regiment was crossing from the Georgia side. The Wisconsin boys were enjoying the spectacle when the Rebel sailors signaled their intention to abandon ship by piling into two lifeboats. At this several riflemen waded into the shallows, parted the reeds, and called out: “Turn back, Cap, turn back.” When the captain of the Resolute ordered his men to continue rowing, he was shot in the shoulder for his trouble, which was enough to convince his men to surrender. A couple of overeager infantrymen waded into the neck-deep water to take possession. The Wisconsin colonel in charge later tallied five naval officers and nineteen sailors taken prisoner.

  The Macon and Sampson successfully steamed the 200 miles to Augusta, though they were reduced to burning bacon in their boiler furnaces to finish the home stretch. The Resolute itself was repaired by its captors, and despite stories that it was burned shortly thereafter, actually remained in U.S. service throughout the siege, providing useful services transferring troops and supplies. Chatting afterward with Major Hitchcock, Captain Winegar bragged that this was “the first naval engagement he ever took part in, and that he wants more of the same sort.”

  Just about all that Sherman could think about now was Fort McAllister; so, after seeing the Cuyler brothers on their way, he rode to Major General Howard’s headquarters to be closer to the action. Work on King’s Bridge was continuing, with Captain Reese expecting to be finished early on December 13. Security on the opposite bank was now courtesy of Brigadier General Kilpatrick’s First Brigade, which had crossed the Ogeechee higher upriver, followed by a crossing of the Canoochee on a hastily re-erected pontoon bridge to get there. His advance detachment had surprised Fort McAllister’s commander, Major Anderson, who was undertaking a scout of his own. “We were hotly pursued by their cavalry,” Anderson later reported; nevertheless, the detail accompanying him had time enough to burn two barns full of rice and a steam tug anchored three miles above the fort.

  The Yankee troopers stopped for the night on the plantation owned by Captain Joseph L. McAllister of the Confederate army, which one Pennsylvanian declared “a beautiful place,” though this did not prevent it being ransacked by other less appreciative cavalrymen. Some members of the 8th Indiana drew coffee water out of the Ogeechee but then had to spit it out since it was “too salty to drink.” In the near distance they could hear the irregular but constant boom of cannon fire as the Union tubes positioned at Cheves’ Rice Mill* opened a harassing bombardment on the fort. (The Yankee cannoneers also hoped that the sound of their guns firing might serve to signal the navy downriver of their presence.) At this extreme range there was little chance of doing any significant damage, but a couple of Federal shells came close enough to one of the powder magazines that Major Anderson ordered a protective traverse wall thrown up. Return fire from the fort was equally wild, managing only to scatter a pile of sweet potatoes collected by the Union gunners for their dinner.

  The fort commander was at his moment of truth. There was no doubt that the enemy’s sights were set on McAllister, but with fewer than 200 defenders* the result was a foregone conclusion. There was still time to spike the guns, then evacuate the soldiers, but Anderson rejected that option. “I determined under the circumstances, and notwithstanding the great disparity of numbers between the garrison and the attacking force,” he vowed, “to defend the fort to the last extremity.”

  Whether Anderson abandoned or fought mattered little to Sherman, who was set on taking the place. “We wanted the [commissary] vessels and their contents,” Sherman declared, “and the Ogeechee River, a navigable stream, close to the rear of our camps, was the proper avenue of supply.” After a quick consultation with Major General Howard, he decided to pass on Brigadier General Kilpatrick’s offer to assault the fort and rely instead on the Second Division of the Fifteenth Corps—Brigadier General William B. Hazen’s—to do the job. Howard had been holding it off the front line in reserve, and besides, Sherman, who had once commanded the division, thought very highly of it.

  Hazen, a thirty-seven-year-old West Point graduate, was summoned from his headquarters a couple of miles away. When he arrived, Howard and Sherman explained the role his division was to play in the next day’s work and, as Hazen remembered, they “gave me a little map of the country about the mouth of the Ogeechee River.” Then, recounted Sherman: “I gave General Hazen, in person, his orders to march rapidly down the right bank of the Ogeechee, and without hesitation to assault and carry Fort McAllister by storm. I knew it to be strong in heavy artillery, as against an approach from the sea, but believed it open and weak to the rear. I explained to General Hazen, fully, that on his action depended the safety of the whole army, and the success of the campaign.”

  Before Hazen could depart to begin organizing matters at his headquarters, Sherman proffered one last piece of advice. He indicated on the map how the ground on the southern edge of Genesis Point was veined with small streams and creeks. Pushing a force of any size through that region would be fraught with difficulties. Sherman was determined that not one piece of the plan go awry, so repeated his injunction, as Hazen phrased it, “not to find myself behind any creek, so that we could not get forward.”

  TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1864

  Throughout southeastern Georgia, good news was where one could find it. It was reported in today’s Augusta Daily Chronicle & Sentinel that solid progress was being made on reestablishing telegraphic communication with Macon. More than sixty-five miles of chopped poles and smashed insulators had already been repaired by the Southern Telegraph Company. However, even the upbeat newspaper writers had to admit that “some time must elapse” before the task was finished.

  In Savannah, there was increasing concern in high military places regarding Union efforts to cut the narrow communication corridor with Charleston. The Yankees had been island-hopping in the Savannah River like so many fleas; even though their few forays to the South Carolina shore were small-scale, limited in scope, and easily batted away, they portended much worse to come. Such was General Beauregard’s concern that he diverted the last reinforcements he had been able to scrape together (450 men, more or less) to bolster its defense. Echoing Beauregard’s concern, Lieutenant General Hardee informed Major General Wheeler in no uncertain terms that the prop
er place for his cavalry was on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River, not pecking at Sherman’s rear guard. Wheeler at once began the laborious process of ferrying his mounted units across the stream to consolidate them at Hardeeville. All would transfer over save for Iverson’s division, which would continue to harass the Union rear areas. The net result was that the best military asset capable of inflicting real damage on Sherman’s logistical apparatus was off the chessboard.

  One of those irritants that so bothered Beauregard and Hardee was the 3rd Wisconsin, now entirely installed on Argyle Island. Most of the men were set to work getting the island’s three rice mills into operation. This was accomplished in short order and soon, bragged a soldier, they were running the “rice-mills to their full capacity, thrashing out rice for our hungry comrades.” One squad had already returned from an unopposed December 12 landing in South Carolina at a place called Izard’s Plantation. Today there was fighting near Izard’s landing dock as the Argyle Island Yankees tangled in a cross-river exchange with a Rebel reaction force. “We drove them off without much trouble,” snorted a Wisconsin officer.

  Closer to the city, Hutchinson Island was also the scene of some limited combat. Rebel snipers had established themselves in several buildings, and one had killed a popular officer in the 134th New York. That was enough for Brigadier General John W. Geary, commanding this sector, who sent sixty men onto the upper island to clean out the murderous nests. When this force proved too small to do the job, Geary promptly reinforced it. The pop-popping of men engaged in a deadly game of hide-and-seek would continue throughout the day.

  In a myriad of ways, efforts were made all along the siege line to strengthen positions or improve the flow of supplies. Technicians from the 1st Michigan Mechanics and Engineers labored to close the locks that Confederates had busted open to flood the fields now occupied by Sherman’s men. Other units spread along the wrecked railroad right-of-way, transforming the useless track bed into a valuable wagon road. Abandoned rice mills were put into operation to process the stacks of the confiscated raw product into something edible. All across the rear zones of Sherman’s lines, wagon corrals, cattle herds, and supply caches were secured with earthworks or fortified posts. In a hundred different ways, his men were signaling that they had come to stay.