The attack was a disaster almost from the beginning. As soon as the Weehawken weighed anchor, its chain became entangled with the torpedo-clearing equipment attached to the bow of a raft nicknamed the Devil. The delay cost the fleet time and delayed its departure until about 1:15 in the afternoon.
With the procession under way, the Weehawken moved past Morris Island toward Fort Sumter without taking any fire from the Confederate batteries. As it did, it passed a number of buoys, which the crew suspected marked torpedoes. They were right; one exploded near the bow of the ship, lifting the vessel but not doing any damage.
Despite the explosion, the Weehawken briefly continued on its path. At 2:10, the ship signaled to those in the rear that crew members had spotted obstructions ahead. Rows of casks floated on ropes between Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. Beyond that, the captain could see timber pilings between Fort Pinckney and Fort Ripley. He thought the obstacles were too much to overcome and turned the ship, causing confusion in the narrow channel as the other vessels followed his lead.
Meanwhile, Du Pont’s ship, New Ironsides, had become so unmanageable in the strong ebb tide that Du Pont was forced to anchor to avoid the shoals. After briefly getting under way again, the ship collided with two monitors and had to anchor a second time. It did so directly over a Confederate torpedo containing nearly two thousand pounds of powder. A Confederate engineer tried to activate the torpedo multiple times from the shore, but unbelievably it never detonated. It was later discovered that a wagon had severed the wires connecting the switch and the torpedo. The engineer wrote, “For ten minutes, he [Du Pont] could not have placed the Ironsides more directly over it if he had been allowed to, but the confounded thing, as usual, would not go off when it was wanted.”
By 2:50 the Weehawken reached its position outside Fort Sumter. As the ship passed a buoy that the Confederates used as a range marker, all the Confederate guns from Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, Morris Island, and Sullivan’s Island opened fire on the Weehawken and the vessels following her. One reporter wrote,
A sheet of flame and volume of smoke extending from Morris to Sullivan’s Island inaugurated what has been undoubtedly the most terrific cannonade of the whole war, if indeed, it was ever equaled in the history of the world. A perfect torrent of shot and shell was poured upon the monitors, wrapping them sometimes entirely in spouts of water thrown up by the striking projectiles.
More than one hundred guns fired on them, mostly at short range. Heavy shot hit the side armor of the Weehawken in two places, and the iron splintered, opening a large hole in the deck that allowed water into the ship.
At 3:20 the Keokuk’s captain, A. C. Rhind, with whom Smalls had served on the Crusader in June, ordered Smalls, as pilot, to run ahead of the other ships to avoid colliding with them in the narrow channel. Smalls did as Rhind instructed and would have gotten even closer to the Confederate-held forts if he could. He was ready to fight the Confederates “muzzle-to-muzzle.” After making the break from the other Union ships, the Keokuk was just 550 yards from Fort Moultrie. For roughly the next thirty minutes, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter fired on the vessel.
So much fire was directed at the Keokuk that Rhind’s men struggled just to open the gun ports. The noise was deafening. Many officers went hoarse from trying to give orders as the men struggled to hear them. Few thought they would survive the attack.
In that half hour the Keokuk was struck ninety times in the hull and towers but was able to fire only three shots. One Confederate shell fragment entered the pilothouse where Smalls was standing. It startled him, but he remained calm. Just a moment later “a cart-load of bricks,” as Smalls described it, flew from the northeast walls of Fort Sumter. Nineteen of the ninety shots pierced the Keokuk at or below the water line.
The firepower was too much for the vessel, forcing Rhind to abandon the fight at 4:10 in the afternoon. He ordered Smalls to pilot the ship out of range of fire and anchor off Morris Island.
Nine men on board, including Rhind, were wounded from fragments of flying shells; a fragment of bolt struck Rhind in the ankle. A man who was standing next to Smalls suffered a fractured skull and wounds to his face that would prove fatal. Smalls was not reported as wounded, but he later wrote that he suffered from impaired vision from exploding shells and had “marks caused by the powder on both sides of my eyes.”11
By 4:30 Du Pont had been able to bring the New Ironsides within only one thousand feet of Fort Sumter and, with evening approaching, he ordered the remaining ironclads to withdraw. While the Confederates had fired 2,209 rounds and hit the Union ships 520 times, the ironclads were able to fire only 139 shots because of the slow rate of fire of their guns. Five ironclads were wholly or partially disabled.
Although the attack had been a disaster, Du Pont intended to renew it the next morning. That evening, however, the commanders of the monitors came to see him and reported the extent of the damage to their vessels. Du Pont was shocked that so many ships had been disabled after just a half hour’s engagement. Du Pont’s earlier concerns about the monitors seem to have been warranted, and he determined that continuing with their plans was too dangerous.
As the night wore on, Rhind and Smalls and the rest of the crew tried to keep the Keokuk afloat by manning the pumps and bailing water. The next morning as a tugboat tried to tow the Keokuk, the boat sank in eighteen feet of water, submerged up to its smokestack. Fortunately the Keokuk’s injured had been placed on board the tugboat right before it sank, and its remaining officers and crew survived.12
In the coming weeks the Confederates, who were in desperate need of arms, secretly salvaged the Keokuk’s two guns. Meanwhile, Du Pont received most of the blame for the failed attack on Charleston. Du Pont’s officers defended him, but their efforts were of little consequence. In June, Du Pont was dismissed as commander of the South Atlantic Blockade, and Hunter was dismissed as commander of the Department of the South. Dahlgren, who had lobbied so hard to lead the Charleston attack, was ultimately given Du Pont’s position.13
* * *
Smalls had to have been disappointed to see Du Pont and Hunter leave Port Royal. Du Pont had given him the chance to become a pilot for the Union and supported his trip with Reverend French to Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia, where Smalls was largely hailed as a hero. Du Pont and Hunter had also backed Saxton’s plan for French and Smalls to deliver the letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton requesting the authorization of black troops.
The next month brought Smalls an even more devastating loss when his only son, Robert, Jr., died of smallpox.14 The little boy, who may have contracted the disease either from face-to-face contact with an infected person or from contaminated objects, such as bedding or clothing,15 was just sixteen months old and had already been through much in his short life. Born into slavery months before the Civil War erupted, he had escaped to Union lines with his parents aboard the Planter, traveled with his famous father in the North and been granted freedom.
Smalls and Hannah were overcome with sorrow, but they were not alone in their suffering and grief. By mid-February 1863, months before the Union attack on Charleston, the disease was afflicting many people in the Beaufort area. Most victims were freedmen, but Union soldiers made up a half-dozen cases.
When the New York Herald correspondent reported the outbreak, he blamed the former slaves for the spread of the disease. He wrote, “The negroes, by their filthy habits, are constantly contracting and disseminating the loathsome disease.”16 The women and children, who often lived in crowded and unsanitary conditions without enough resources, were especially vulnerable to the disease, but they were hardly to blame for their circumstances, and no one was immune.
Given Smalls’ earnings as a pilot and as a storekeeper, as well as the prize money he had received, he probably had been able to secure private housing for Hannah, Elizabeth, and Robert, Jr., in Beaufort. Lydia, who was thought to have remained at Henry McKee’s Bay Street house when his family fled town, may
have moved in with her son and his family.
Housing, however, was not easy to find. By this time the military was using many homes on Bay Street as offices. In fact, by early 1863, the military had taken over most of the town’s buildings, either for offices or to house officers and their families; merchants had taken over other properties. At least half a dozen houses functioned as hospitals, with a separate one allocated for freedmen. Even more homes would be converted as the war progressed.
Despite the horrific loss of Robert, Jr., Smalls and Hannah had no choice but to go on, like so many during the war who faced tremendous losses. Their daughter, Elizabeth, was now five, and Hannah was expecting their third child, who would be born in early December.
* * *
Smalls continued working as a Union pilot in the spring and summer of 1863. He was now based out of Folly Island, just across the inlet from Morris Island, and in all likelihood he was moving supplies from Port Royal to the troops on Folly Island.
Now on the payroll of the Army quartermaster, not the Navy, Smalls could once again pilot the Planter, which had been transferred to the Army quartermaster the year before. By October 1863, he was earning $75.00 per month, nearly double what he was getting when Du Pont had first hired him as a civilian pilot the previous year.17 A sergeant major in the Union Army earned only $21.50 per month, while a second lieutenant made $105.50.18 Smalls’ skills were valuable, and the Union was willing to pay well for them.
While Smalls navigated the tricky waters of South Carolina the U.S. government was trying to respond to the ramifications of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. In March, Secretary of War Stanton created the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission to investigate the condition of freed people and determine what the Union needed to do “to place the Colored people of the United States in a condition of self-support and self-defense.” The commission collected testimony from former slaves; free blacks; white army officers, including Saxton and Higginson; missionaries; slaveholders; and government officials.19
The commission had a list of about a dozen standard questions it asked formerly and currently enslaved people, including “How did your master treat you?” “Have you seen any forms of cruel punishment?” “Did slaves want to be free?” “Are they willing to enlist in the army?” “How do blacks and whites get along together in this area?” The commission was also allowed to ask anything else that was of interest.20
Smalls was among those who were questioned. In fact, the interviewer asked him thirty-seven questions, which ranged from whether blacks were honest to whether black women had “a good deal of sexual passion.” It was one of the commission’s longest interviews of a former slave.
Smalls answered all the questions in a straightforward and thoughtful manner, despite the dubious value and insulting nature of many. Even when asked by an incredulous questioner whether black families “have much affection for each other,” Smalls calmly answered, “Yes, sir. Their love is strong. The country people regard their relations more than the city people; they [country people] often walk fifteen miles on Saturday night to see a cousin.”
One of the last questions put to Smalls was whether African Americans had “any general idea for fighting for their liberty.” This was an odd question to ask someone who had risked his life and the lives of his family for freedom. It was an even odder question considering that blacks, including people once enslaved, were already fighting by 1863, when the interview took place.21
In fact, so many blacks were fighting by May 1863 that the government created the Bureau of Colored Troops to take over the enlistment of black soldiers. Recruitment had been slow immediately after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1 but picked up when black leaders, such as Frederick Douglass, encouraged African Americans to enlist. In his famous recruitment speech “Men of Color, to Arms!,” Douglass reminded his audience of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers. He said, “By all the ties of blood and identity which make us one with the brave black men now fighting our battles in Louisiana and in South Carolina, I urge you to fly to arms, and smite with death the power that would bury the government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave.”22
Despite the peculiarity of the interviewer’s question about blacks’ willingness to fight for freedom, Smalls offered a considerate reply: “They have a great idea. If they had a chance there would be no difficulty in raising a military force. If our headquarters were in Charleston we would have ten or fifteen regiments. The people there have been constantly praying for this day. The people here on the plantations have had no chance. They have been kept in ignorance and punished if they attempted to learn.”23
In all, the commission interviewed forty-seven formerly enslaved men and women and reported its findings and recommendations to Stanton to help determine how the government could best help them. The commission recommended that Congress create a Bureau of Emancipation to assist African Americans, but Congress argued about the recommendation for the next two years. Republicans supported it, while Southern Democrats were against it. Finally, in March 1865 Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, to help newly freed blacks and poor whites during Reconstruction.24
* * *
Smalls’ work from Folly Island in the spring and summer of 1863 was part of the Union’s next effort to try to take Charleston. The Union’s plan was to first build up its forces on Folly Island. Once enough men were in place, the Union would land them on Confederate-held Morris Island and attack its two batteries, Wagner and Gregg.25 If the troops could get within fifteen hundred feet of Fort Sumter, the Union could bombard the fort until it was rendered useless. The ironclads, which had been repaired from the earlier assault on Charleston, could then enter the harbor unopposed, and Charleston would fall.
After months of preparation the Union finally had enough men in place by July. Maj. Gen. Quincy Gillmore, thirty-eight, was in command of the land forces. Gillmore was an engineer who hailed from Ohio; he had taken over Hunter’s position as commander of the Department of the South after Hunter was dismissed.
Gillmore began his assault on July 10 and was quickly able to secure most of the island. He was not, however, able to take Battery Wagner, a massive fortress built from sand, earth, and palmetto logs that protected the southern portion of Charleston Harbor. The following morning Gillmore tried to attack the battery again, but the sixteen hundred Confederates who now were defending it were able to push the Union troops back.
Gillmore launched a larger attack on Battery Wagner on July 18. This time the Navy’s guns backed him. In command of the Navy forces was Dahlgren, the man who had replaced Du Pont as commander of the South Atlantic Blockade.
Despite constant shelling from land and sea throughout the day, the Confederate troops would not surrender. That evening African American soldiers from the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers led an assault down the narrow beach to the heavily protected fort. Leading the regiment was its white commander, Robert Gould Shaw, in the fight that would be immortalized in the 1989 film Glory.
Already exhausted from a skirmish earlier on James Island and a march through difficult terrain in hot weather, the 54th quickly faced a hail of gunfire and hand-to-hand combat on the beach. A member of the regiment said, “Jets of flame darted forth from every corner and embrasure, and even Fort Sumter poured solid shot and shells on our heads.”26
Almost half of the six hundred men in the regiment were killed, wounded, or captured. Shaw, a fair-haired twenty-five-year-old, was shot and killed as he urged his men forward.
Fighting with the 54th were men from the 6th Connecticut, 48th New York, 3rd New Hampshire, 9th Maine, 76th Pennsylvania, 7th New Hampshire, 100th New York, 62nd Ohio, and 67th Ohio regiments. Many from these units died alongside those killed from the 54th that night. Despite their heroic efforts, the Union failed to take the fort. In all the Union’s 5,000 soldiers suffered 1,515 casualties compared to 174 casualties suffer
ed by the Confederacy’s 1,800 soldiers.
In the aftermath of the battle, the Confederates refused to return Shaw’s body to the Union, as was customary for officers, because he had commanded black troops. Instead they buried Shaw in a trench with his men, intending the action to be an insult. When Shaw’s father, an abolitionist, was told, he said, “We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company—what a body-guard he has!”27
The heroism displayed by these troops confirmed once more that African Americans were courageous and willing to fight for the Union cause. The New York Tribune wrote, “This new regiment … gave the most splendid and most terrible proof of its heroism; fighting in that deadly breach till almost every officer had fallen and three hundred of its men lay dead.” In fact, Sgt. William Carney of the 54th would become the first African American awarded the Medal of Honor (in May 1900) for his gallantry that day. After the color bearer was shot, Carney had grabbed the flag and carried it to the parapet, where he planted it. When Union troops pulled back under heavy fire, he retrieved the flag and was shot twice but managed to carry the flag, under continuing fire, to the rear lines.28
Shortly after the Union’s disaster at Battery Wagner, Lincoln finally responded to news that black soldiers captured by the Confederates were being treated more harshly than whites. They were sometimes even executed. Confederate president Davis had promised as much in late 1862 when he declared that black soldiers and their white officers would not be given the same protections as regular prisoners of war. They would be charged under state laws for inciting “servile insurrection” and therefore were subject to hanging.29
On July 30 Lincoln issued General Orders, No. 252, which said prisoners of war were entitled to equal protection, regardless of color. For every Union soldier killed “in violation of the laws of war,” the Union would execute a Confederate soldier, and for every Union soldier “enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery,” a Confederate soldier would be forced to do hard labor until the other was free.30 But the order was nearly impossible to enforce.
Be Free or Die--The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero Page 14