THE ABOVE ARTICLE HAS BEEN
TRANSCRIBED FROM THE STATE GAZETTE, FEBRUARY 27, 1869
USING OCR (OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION
The Swamp Angel:
The entrance to the harbor of the city of Charleston is formed by
Sullivan’s island on the north and Morris Island on the south. Morris Island is
a low, sandy reef, about three and three-quarter miles long, and varies from
twenty five to one thousand yards in width. Its area is some four hundred acres.
The outer end of the island that nearest the bar is separated from Folly Island,
a sand reef of like description, by Light House inlet. Across this stream at
day break, July 10, 1863, the successful bombardment and assault of the rebel
batteries was made by the Tenth Army Corps, under general Gillmore. This fight
secured to the Union forces about three-fourths of Morris Island. A half mile
from the inner end of the island Fort
Wagner stretched from the sea shore to
Vincent’s creek, which with another sand
fort, called Cummings’ Point Battery, gave the rebels a foothold on the island. Let me remark, in passing,
that this last mentioned Battery is the one which fired upon the Star of the
West, January 10, 1861, and all descriptions of the bombardment of Sumter which
followed that event, call it an iron clad fort. It was made simply of sand,
more impregnable indeed than if covered, as was supposed, with bars of rail
road iron, or erected of the heaviest masonry. This point is exactly 6,616
yards, about three and three quarter miles from the wharves of Charleston.
Morris Island is made up of sand ridges,
the highest thereof being twenty feet, while just in front of Wagner it is but
two feet, and in the Spring the tide here breaks entirely across the reef. It is separated from James’ Island by
deep and almost impossible marshes from one to three miles in width. Crooked
and often very deep creeks or bayous traverse these marshes in every
direction. Indeed Morris Island, as well
as the islands adjacent, are but deposits of sand made by the sea and wind upon
the surface of these salt marshes. On the sixteenth day of July 1863, Gen. Gillmore directed Col. Edward W. Serrell,
1st New York Engineers, and Lieut. Peter
S. Michie, U. S. Corps of Engineers, to examine these marshes to
ascertain if a battery could be placed on- our left front within range of the city of Charleston. For several days they continued their reconnaissance,
accompanied by Lieut. Nathan M. Edwards, of Serrell’s regiment, and they reported
its feasibility. Soundings were made in the marsh with an iron rod thirty feet
long and three quarters of an inch in diameter. They found the mud about twenty
feet deep, the weight of the rod carrying it one-half the distance and easily
pushed the rest with one hand. The
bottom of the marsh was apparently sand, while the top was
covered with wild grass and reeds some four feet high, but with such little root as
to furnish no sustaining power
whatever.- Two men standing on a plank
on the surface of the mud, and throwing their weight from side to side made
waves of mud, vibrating like jelly for
many yards around. Several trials of the
sustaining power of this mud were made. A platform was erected and loaded with
sand bags. It sustained about six hundred pounds to the square foot, but on
increasing the weight to nine hundred pounds, the pile upset and most of the
sand bags vanished in the mud. A man of one hundred and fifty pounds weight sank
in the marsh eighteen inches at every step if he moved rapidly. A witty officer,
when ordered to do some work in this swamp sent in his requisition to Col. Serrell
asking for a detail of “twenty men eighteen feet long” for duty in fifteen feet
of mud! It was decided to locate the
battery about half way between Morris and James islands, at a place in the
marsh where a deep creek flowed in front and to the left side. It was just 7000
yards to the lower end and 7,410 yards or nearly four and a quarter miles to
the heart of the city of Charleston. It was in easy range of Forts Hascall,
Simkins and Cheves, and indeed of all the batteries on James Island. This made
it necessary, of course, that the work should be done at night. An estimate of the
labor required in the construction of the battery was made on the morning of
the 2d of August, and the order was immediately issued for its erection. Large
working parties commenced felling trees on Folly Island, and men were employed day
and night, making and filling sand bags. A pile driver could not be used had one
been at hand. Two platforms were at first placed on the surface of the marsh.
The plank to be driven into the mud, sharpened on one end, was fastened to a
long pole by taking a bight thereto with a rope. The short end of the pole was
then attached to one of the platforms, which had been loaded with sand bags,
and five men on the other platform, pulling at a rope adjusted to the long end
of the pole, pressed the plank down to the solid substratum of sand. As soon as
enough piling had thus been driven in two places on opposite sides of the
proposed battery, the plank was attached
to the centre of the pole and then
parties on each end thereof, pressed the
pile down as before. Cheerfully, with great enthusiasm, and very rapidly, the
men worked exposed every moment to shelling from the rebel batteries. When the
foundation was thus constructed, cross-beams, or to speak technically, a
grillage of large yellow pine logs was bolted together strongly thereon.
Thirteen thousand sandbags, more than eight hundred tons in weight, were then carried
by the soldiers from the Engineer camp, over a mile and a half distant, and a
parapet, with a return or epaulement constructed in form like one-half of a hexagon.
A road two and a half miles long, made
of logs and sand-bags, was also built from this place to our left
batteries in the approaches to Wagner
and another round the left flank to the
edge of the creek before alluded to.
Over these roads the entire armament of the battery was carried. A bout this
time, August 12th, boats armed with naval bow howitzers commenced to picket the
streams leading to James Island and Charleston, and heavy log booms were
fastened across them a little distance from the battery to obstruct, if
possible, the approach of the enemy from the harbor. A mock battery was also
built by the soldiers, of boards and sand-bags to draw the fire of the James
Island batteries, and in this it was to some extent successful. An eight-inch parrott rifle gun, a 200 pounder,
was on the 17th of August, ordered by the commanding general to be mounted in
the battery. This gun, I may add, is often confounded with the great 300
pounder which battered down Fort Sumter. The gun erected in the swamp never
fired at Fort Sumter, the ten inch rifle, or 300 pounder, the only one of that caliber
at this time in the Department never fired into Charleston. The latter gun was
in position at Fort Strong, on our left batteries and the muzzle was blown off
by the premature explosion of a shell. It threw nineteen thousand pounds of
metal at the gorge wall of Sumter. The gun in the marsh was manned by a
detachment of the 11th Reg’t. Maine Volunteers, Lieutenant Sellmer
commanding. On all official papers it is
spoken of as the “Marsh Battery,” but
the soldiers called it the Swamp Angel,
and I have also heard it referred to by
them as the “ Marsh Croaker" and
the "Mud Lark.” At nine o’clock on
the morning of 21st of August a
communication was sent by Gillmore to Gen. Beauregard, Commanding the rebel
forces at Charleston, demanding the surrender of Fort Wagner and assuring him unless it was done the city
would be bombarded from batteries
established within easy and effective range of the heart of the city.”
Of course Beauregard laughed at Gillmore’s presumption and took no heed
thereto. That night the order of
Gillmore reached Lieut. Sellmer and the “Swamp Angel” was ranged for the
steeples in Charleston city. Heavy woods on James Island near Fort Simkins hid
the city from their view. An elevation
of 31°, 30’ was given the gun, sixteen pounds of powder the charge and one
hundred and fifty pounds the weight of the projectile. At half past one on the
morning of the 22nd, the firing commenced. "Through the air,
with a rush and a yell, with a screech and a roar went the howling
shell"
and the fiery missile was pitched over the James
Island batteries, the harbor and into
the city. As we lay on the sand hillocks watching its flight, it seemed to go
up among the very stars and its burning fuse lit up its track as it descended
on its course of destruction. The ringing of fire bells, the screaming of
whistles from tug boats in the harbor told us truly that they had reached the
city. Fifteen shells at this time were fired and the Charleston dispatches of
that day to the department at Richmond report “twelve shell as having fallen
into the city.” Just at day break Beauregard sent a message to Gillmore telling
him that his firing “with the most destructive missiles used in war upon a city
filled with sleeping women and children would give him a bad eminence in
history." His protest was four pages in length and enclosed remonstrance
from the English, French and Spanish Consuls against burning the city. The
latter official said that although “all the women and children have been removed
from the city too, “thereby falsifying Beauregard’s pathetic appeal. Gillmore replied
very briefly and on Sunday night, twenty more shell were fired into the
city. All the rebel batteries which
could obtain the range of the Swamp Angel commenced a furious cannonade. But
still our shell kept flying in the midst of their iron hail storm. It was a wild
night and the whole Army corps watched and listened for each report from the
gallant little party in the marsh. On the thirty sixth discharge the entire
breach, just behind the vent blew out and the gun was thrown forward on the
parapet. The band which always encases the first re-enforce of Parrott guns was
split and has now become entirely separated from the piece. The Parrott projectiles were the only kind
ever used in this gun. Some were called incendiary and contained port-fire mixed
with the explosive material. Some of the shell also contained “Short’s Solidified
Greek Fire,” and some with powder alone. The Greek Fire was encased in tin
tubes three inches long and three quarters of an inch in diameter, closed at
one end. These tubes were placed in the shell and the interstices filled with
powder. As near as I have been able to ascertain, ten of the fifteen shots fired
the first night contained each some twenty pieces of this Greek Fire, and were
so far, seacoast mortars were placed there for the purpose of drawing the fire
of the James Island" batteries when the navy should commence their part of
the siege; which they never did. Immediately
on the surrender of Cumming’s Point, Gilmore had guns mounted thereon, calling
it Fort Gregg. It was three and three quarter miles from Charleston. I have the
record of one of these guns, a thirty pound Parrott rifle which threw more than
four thousand six hundred shells four thousand two hundred and fifty-three of
which were seen to fall into the city.
No great military results were ever expected from the erection and firing
of the Swamp Angel. As a difficult problem in engineering, as a severe testing
of heavy guns, as a novel method of damaging an enemy’s city, over the heads of
its army and their fortifications; the result, as we have seen, was highly successful.
