thedrifter
10-18-05, 12:56 PM
Naval tactic helped Union win Battle of Port Royal Sound
Published Tuesday October 18 2005
By GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
The Beaufort Gazette
In these days of smart bombs and nuclear-powered fleets, it can be easy to discount the tactical brilliance of the elliptical pattern Union naval forces used to bombard two Confederate forts. But in 1861, it was groundbreaking.
In November of 1861, as the Civil War first roared, Union forces hungrily eyed Port Royal Sound as a place to refuel ships and to serve as the nucleus of an aquatic blockade of the South.
And in one day, they snatched it from the Confederates, driving the established white ruling class out of Beaufort County and flipping Beaufort's centuries-old social order with the blast of cannons and a haze of gun smoke.
Steam ships had just come into widespread use, and the Union obliterated Confederate forts on Hilton Head and Phillips islands, which flanked both sides of the sound and were meant to protect the harbor.
On Nov. 5, Civil War buffs will get a chance to tour the sound where the battle took place 144 years ago and learn what made the Union forces so militarily successful and what ultimately saved antebellum Beaufort from aesthetic annihilation.
Larry Rowland and Stephen Wise, two distinguished local and military historians, will lead a boat tour Nov. 5 to take attendees through the battle.
"In terms of naval warfare, it changes the old adage that one gun on shore is worth 10 guns on sea," Wise said. The boats no longer needed to be stationary in order to fire their ordnance. "This is the first time that a large number of ships employed steam engines during an attack against a fixed fortification."
A boat will depart from Hilton Head Island to tour the watery battlegrounds. Along the way, Wise and Rowland will school those in attendance on the social and military implications of the pivotal 19th-century battle.
Sponsored by the University of South Carolina Beaufort, where Rowland is a professor, the tour will include a lunch, the boat ride and a wind-down session with a cash bar.
"It was one of the largest naval battles in the Civil War," Rowland said. "For us in Beaufort County, it was literally an earth-changing event. Before that, Beaufort was the archetype of the old south, a slave-owning plantation society of great wealth."
Day of the big gun shoot
As the gears of war began to roll in earnest through 1861, Union forces planned the naval blockade of Confederate vessels, according to "A History of Beaufort County, South Carolina," written by Rowland, Alexander Moore and George C. Rogers Jr.
As Union planners increasingly ruled the Port Royal Sound to be their best option for a refueling and staging point for blocking 3,000 miles of southern coast, Confederate forces in the area also realized the strategic viability of the deep waters and wide channels of the sound, the book stated.
So while Union vessels began preparing, Confederate leaders readied for defense of the sound by building Fort Beauregard on Phillips Island and Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island.
The installations were built in the muggy summer heat of 1861, largely with slave labor, according to the book.
Toiling away, the slaves seemed to know what was coming, and their impending liberation shone through in their work songs.
"No more peck of corn for me, no more, no more," the slaves are said to have sung, according to "A History of Beaufort County." "No more pint of salt, no more drivers lash, no more mistress call, no more, no more."
By September, the forts were completed, and Hilton Head forces grew in anticipation of the battle to come.
In late October, more than 40 Union vessels and nearly 20,000 troops set out to take Port Royal Sound. Confederate forces had established a railroad from Charleston to Savannah that would later be obliterated by the Union. But in November 1861, it provided a good route for land-based reinforcements, the book stated.
It did not, however, provide anything for the sea islands of Beaufort.
After a few days of testing each other, the battle began in earnest on Nov. 7, 1861. But an eerie meeting in the night preceded the battle.
On Nov. 6, a Union vessel was laying buoys in the dark, according to the book. The crew encountered a Confederate boat carrying messages for the commanders of the two forts.
"In the smooth, deep water of Port Royal Sound, they hailed one another, rested on their oars, exchanged circumspect conversation and passed by without hostility," the book stated.
As the battle began on the morning of Nov. 7, Union vessels initially formed a rotating ellipse and began bombarding both bases before focusing on the larger Fort Walker, Wise said.
The ellipse formation allowed the boats to keep moving while constantly attacking the stationary forts.
By that afternoon, the forts were in shambles, according to "The History of Beaufort County," with the Union counting eight casualties while the Confederates suffered about 60 deaths.
A small fleet of converted tugboats used by the Confederates retreated to Skull Creek and into the Savannah River, Wise said.
The short range of the fort's weapons and the fortified batteries of the two installations probably saved many from a combat death, the book stated.
"Compared to what was to follow in the Civil War, the casualties from the Battle of Port Royal Sound were fairly light," the book stated.
But the sound was deafening.
The volleys are said to have been heard from Coffin Point on St. Helena Island to Daufuskie Island and all the way to Lobeco.
"For a generation of freedmen on the sea islands, Nov. 7 was remembered as the 'day of the big gun shoot,'" the book stated.
Beaufort would never be the same
As word of the Union vessels came to white Beaufort residents in the days before the onslaught, varying shades of panic engulfed the local citizenry.
As Union vessels sat just outside the harbor, preparing the attack, the white residents of Beaufort County began evacuating en masse, according to the book.
Some tried to take their slaves with them, but most slaves refused to go.
Some landowners watched the roaring battle from Land's End on St. Helena Island before fleeing to other areas.
"Capt. John Fripp told his slaves to keep together, stay on the plantation, plant provisioning crops for their own sustenance and forget the cotton," the book stated. "He wished them well and left St. Helena Island."
Union forces occupied the area by Nov. 9, and according to tradition, found just one white man left in town. He was drunk on Bay Street.
Beaufort was the first southern city to be captured by the Union, Rowland said. The relative ease of the acquisition probably prevented it from being razed by the North.
In a matter of days, an established social order in Beaufort county that had endured for years disappeared.
"That whole history of Beaufort County basically ended on one day, Nov. 7, 1861," Rowland said. "What followed was quite a profound social and political revolution that eventually affected the whole South and the whole country."
"After the Emancipation Proclamation in the sea islands, there was no going back," he said.
The Union probably would have still won the war if it hadn't taken the Port Royal Sound, but it would have hampered their efforts, Wise said. The Confederates would also have had to devote significant resources to its perpetual defense.
Taking the sound also gave the Union morale and momentum, he said.
"It placed right here in South Carolina a Union base that would serve them throughout the war," Wise said.
After Confederate forces had retreated from their forts, a Union commander of one boat went ashore and walked the wreckage of Fort Walker, according to "The History of Beaufort County."
"He walked to the flagstaff, reached in his blue jacket, pulled out the Stars and Stripes, and raised the ensign to the top of the pole," the book stated. "Cheers erupted from the fleet and bands on several ships began simultaneously playing 'The Star Spangled Banner.' The Battle of Port Royal Sound was over."
Ellie
Published Tuesday October 18 2005
By GEOFF ZIEZULEWICZ
The Beaufort Gazette
In these days of smart bombs and nuclear-powered fleets, it can be easy to discount the tactical brilliance of the elliptical pattern Union naval forces used to bombard two Confederate forts. But in 1861, it was groundbreaking.
In November of 1861, as the Civil War first roared, Union forces hungrily eyed Port Royal Sound as a place to refuel ships and to serve as the nucleus of an aquatic blockade of the South.
And in one day, they snatched it from the Confederates, driving the established white ruling class out of Beaufort County and flipping Beaufort's centuries-old social order with the blast of cannons and a haze of gun smoke.
Steam ships had just come into widespread use, and the Union obliterated Confederate forts on Hilton Head and Phillips islands, which flanked both sides of the sound and were meant to protect the harbor.
On Nov. 5, Civil War buffs will get a chance to tour the sound where the battle took place 144 years ago and learn what made the Union forces so militarily successful and what ultimately saved antebellum Beaufort from aesthetic annihilation.
Larry Rowland and Stephen Wise, two distinguished local and military historians, will lead a boat tour Nov. 5 to take attendees through the battle.
"In terms of naval warfare, it changes the old adage that one gun on shore is worth 10 guns on sea," Wise said. The boats no longer needed to be stationary in order to fire their ordnance. "This is the first time that a large number of ships employed steam engines during an attack against a fixed fortification."
A boat will depart from Hilton Head Island to tour the watery battlegrounds. Along the way, Wise and Rowland will school those in attendance on the social and military implications of the pivotal 19th-century battle.
Sponsored by the University of South Carolina Beaufort, where Rowland is a professor, the tour will include a lunch, the boat ride and a wind-down session with a cash bar.
"It was one of the largest naval battles in the Civil War," Rowland said. "For us in Beaufort County, it was literally an earth-changing event. Before that, Beaufort was the archetype of the old south, a slave-owning plantation society of great wealth."
Day of the big gun shoot
As the gears of war began to roll in earnest through 1861, Union forces planned the naval blockade of Confederate vessels, according to "A History of Beaufort County, South Carolina," written by Rowland, Alexander Moore and George C. Rogers Jr.
As Union planners increasingly ruled the Port Royal Sound to be their best option for a refueling and staging point for blocking 3,000 miles of southern coast, Confederate forces in the area also realized the strategic viability of the deep waters and wide channels of the sound, the book stated.
So while Union vessels began preparing, Confederate leaders readied for defense of the sound by building Fort Beauregard on Phillips Island and Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island.
The installations were built in the muggy summer heat of 1861, largely with slave labor, according to the book.
Toiling away, the slaves seemed to know what was coming, and their impending liberation shone through in their work songs.
"No more peck of corn for me, no more, no more," the slaves are said to have sung, according to "A History of Beaufort County." "No more pint of salt, no more drivers lash, no more mistress call, no more, no more."
By September, the forts were completed, and Hilton Head forces grew in anticipation of the battle to come.
In late October, more than 40 Union vessels and nearly 20,000 troops set out to take Port Royal Sound. Confederate forces had established a railroad from Charleston to Savannah that would later be obliterated by the Union. But in November 1861, it provided a good route for land-based reinforcements, the book stated.
It did not, however, provide anything for the sea islands of Beaufort.
After a few days of testing each other, the battle began in earnest on Nov. 7, 1861. But an eerie meeting in the night preceded the battle.
On Nov. 6, a Union vessel was laying buoys in the dark, according to the book. The crew encountered a Confederate boat carrying messages for the commanders of the two forts.
"In the smooth, deep water of Port Royal Sound, they hailed one another, rested on their oars, exchanged circumspect conversation and passed by without hostility," the book stated.
As the battle began on the morning of Nov. 7, Union vessels initially formed a rotating ellipse and began bombarding both bases before focusing on the larger Fort Walker, Wise said.
The ellipse formation allowed the boats to keep moving while constantly attacking the stationary forts.
By that afternoon, the forts were in shambles, according to "The History of Beaufort County," with the Union counting eight casualties while the Confederates suffered about 60 deaths.
A small fleet of converted tugboats used by the Confederates retreated to Skull Creek and into the Savannah River, Wise said.
The short range of the fort's weapons and the fortified batteries of the two installations probably saved many from a combat death, the book stated.
"Compared to what was to follow in the Civil War, the casualties from the Battle of Port Royal Sound were fairly light," the book stated.
But the sound was deafening.
The volleys are said to have been heard from Coffin Point on St. Helena Island to Daufuskie Island and all the way to Lobeco.
"For a generation of freedmen on the sea islands, Nov. 7 was remembered as the 'day of the big gun shoot,'" the book stated.
Beaufort would never be the same
As word of the Union vessels came to white Beaufort residents in the days before the onslaught, varying shades of panic engulfed the local citizenry.
As Union vessels sat just outside the harbor, preparing the attack, the white residents of Beaufort County began evacuating en masse, according to the book.
Some tried to take their slaves with them, but most slaves refused to go.
Some landowners watched the roaring battle from Land's End on St. Helena Island before fleeing to other areas.
"Capt. John Fripp told his slaves to keep together, stay on the plantation, plant provisioning crops for their own sustenance and forget the cotton," the book stated. "He wished them well and left St. Helena Island."
Union forces occupied the area by Nov. 9, and according to tradition, found just one white man left in town. He was drunk on Bay Street.
Beaufort was the first southern city to be captured by the Union, Rowland said. The relative ease of the acquisition probably prevented it from being razed by the North.
In a matter of days, an established social order in Beaufort county that had endured for years disappeared.
"That whole history of Beaufort County basically ended on one day, Nov. 7, 1861," Rowland said. "What followed was quite a profound social and political revolution that eventually affected the whole South and the whole country."
"After the Emancipation Proclamation in the sea islands, there was no going back," he said.
The Union probably would have still won the war if it hadn't taken the Port Royal Sound, but it would have hampered their efforts, Wise said. The Confederates would also have had to devote significant resources to its perpetual defense.
Taking the sound also gave the Union morale and momentum, he said.
"It placed right here in South Carolina a Union base that would serve them throughout the war," Wise said.
After Confederate forces had retreated from their forts, a Union commander of one boat went ashore and walked the wreckage of Fort Walker, according to "The History of Beaufort County."
"He walked to the flagstaff, reached in his blue jacket, pulled out the Stars and Stripes, and raised the ensign to the top of the pole," the book stated. "Cheers erupted from the fleet and bands on several ships began simultaneously playing 'The Star Spangled Banner.' The Battle of Port Royal Sound was over."
Ellie