CHAPTER XI. Disappointment and Dissatisfaction.-The Public denounce the Leaders of the Attack on Charleston.-Sympathy of Government with Popular Sentiment.-Removal of Dupont and Hunter. Their Successors.-Life of General Gillmore. Gillmore in command at Charleston.-Organization.-Siege Operations.—Headquarters established at Folly Island.-Batteries Erected.-Batteries Unmasked.-Fire Opened.-An Assault.-Works carried at the south end of Morris Island.—Assault upon Fort Wagner.-Failure.-Co-operation of Fleet under Admiral Dahlgren.-Life of Dahlgren.-Gillmore's Congratulations to his Troops -The Unionists reoccupy James Island. The Enemy strive to drive them off.-The Result.-Behavior of Negro Troops.—Siege of Fort Wagner.-Fire Opened.—Assault.— Failure.-The Havoc. 1863. THE disappointment at the result of the attack on the forts of Charleston naturally led to dissatisfaction with those who had conducted it, and the people, as is usual in popular governments, seeking expiation for a general fault in individual sacrifice, demanded their punishment. The Administration, accordingly, in sympathy with the popular discontent, yielded up two of its former favorites, General Hunter and Admiral Dupont, to public denunciation. Both were finally removed from command at Charleston, though the former was the first to suffer. General Gillmore succeeded him. Dahlgren was appointed in place of Dupont. These new commanders were officers whose high character justified their selection for the important duties to which they were assigned. General Quincy Adams Gillmore was born in the township of Black River, Loraine County, Ohio, in 1828. He received his early education in Elyria, Ohio, and was intended by his parents for a medical practitioner, but on leaving school expressed a desire to go to West Point. His father consented, on his son promising that he would try to come out at the top of his class. The promise was faithfully kept, and young Gillmore entered the Academy at West Point in 1845. He graduated in 1849, the first of a class of fifty-three in number, among whom were many who have attained high rank and distinction in the present war. He entered the army as brevet second lieutenant of engineers, and was at once detailed for duty on the fortifications in progress of erection in Hampton Roads. In 1852 he was appointed Assistant Instructor in Practical Engineering, and in 1856, Quartermaster and Treasurer at West Point. On the 1st of July of the same year he was promoted to a first-lieutenancy of engi neers, and was detailed for duty upon the defences of New York harbor. While thus employed, he made a series of experiments, the results of which he published in his "Treatise on Limes, Hydraulic Cements, and Mortars." In 1861, being promoted to a captaincy of engineers, the young officer demanded a more active sphere of duty, and was accordingly appointed Chief Engineer on the staff of General Thomas W. Sherman, commander of the land force which co-operated with the fleet of Admiral Dupont in the capture of Port Royal. His engineering skill was at once put into requisition in the erection of defensive works upon the ground occupied by the troops. The consummate ability of Captain Gillmore as an engineer being proved by his masterly siege and reduction of Fort Pulaski, the Administration recognized his merit, and promoted him, April 28, 1862, to a brigadier-generalship of volunteers. In September, 1862, General Gillmore was appointed commander of the district of Western Virginia, but had no sooner arrived at that post than he was assigned to the command of a division of the Army of Kentucky. He was subsequently appointed commander of the forces occupying Lexington, whence he marched out to meet General Pegram, whom he defeated at Somerset on the 30th of March, 1863. On the 3d of June, 1863, General Gillmore was ordered to South Carolina, to relieve General Hunter, and on the 12th of the month assumed command of the Department of the South. General Gillmore, after a rapid organization of his department and a thorough personal survey of the position before Charleston, began a series of operations with the view of capturing or destroying the enemy's works. Per suaded that Folly Island, which had been for some time occupied by a Union force, was a good temporary base, he removed to it a large supply of cannon, mortars, and ammunition, constructed formidable batteries, and finally established his headquarters there. Having completed his works, he now determined to attack the enemy's position on Morris Island. On the 10th of July, General Gillmore unmasked the guns of the Folly Island batteries and opened fire. Under cover of a heavy cannonade the assaulting column was landed, which after a short struggle carried the works at the south end of Morris Island. "At five o'clock on the morning of the 10th instant," wrote General Gillmore in his report, July 12, 1863, “I made an attack on the enemy's fortified position on the south end of Morris Island, and after an engagement lasting three hours and a quarter, captured all his strongholds on that part of the island, and pushed forward my infantry to within 600 yards of Fort Wagner. We now hold all the island except about one mile on the north end, which includes Fort Wagner and a battery on Cummings' Point, mounting at the present time fourteen or fifteen heavy guns in the aggregate. tinued their fire during the day, mostly gaged. A writer who was on board against Fort Wagner. of the last-named vessel, thus describes the action : "On the morning of the 11th instant, at daybreak, an attempt was made to carry Fort Wagner by assault. The parapet was gained; but the supports recoiled under the fire to which they were exposed, and could not be got up. "Our losses in both actions will not vary much from 150 in killed, wounded, and missing. "We have taken eleven pieces of heavy ordnance and a large quantity of camp equipage. The enemy's loss in killed and wounded will not fall short of 200." The assault upon Fort Wagner was gallantly made by a portion of the Seventh Connecticut, which volunteered to perform the hazardous work; but a New York and Pennsylvania regiment which were to act as supports, recoiling before the enemy's fire, the Connecticut men, after gaining the parapet, were driven back with a loss of over a hundred in killed, wounded, and cap tured. The naval force, of which Admiral Dahlgren* had now assumed command, took part. Four iron-clads, the Catskill, Weehawken, Nahant, and Montauk, were, however, the only vessels en • Admiral John A. Dahlgren was born in Pennsylvania. He entered the navy as a midshipman, February, 1826, became a lieutenant in March, 1837, a commander in September, 1855, and an admiral in 1863. Since 1847, with the exception of a short cruise, until his appointment to the command at Charleston, he was engaged on ordnance duty at the navy-yard in Washington. His name is associated with a cannon called Dahlgren, invented by him for the discharge of heavy shells "The morning was soft and mild. At a quarter to four A.M. all hands were called, anchor was soon up, and in a few moments we were well under weigh, steaming well in across the bar. It was too early to perceive the condition of affairs on Morris Island, and not until half-past four o'clock could we easily distinguish the shore. Admiral Dahlgren, who had come up from Port Royal in the Augusta Dinsmore, now took his position on board the Catskill, as his blue pennant indicated. As we crossed the bar, the work of the day began, commencing with the guns of General Gillmore on Folly Island, which threw their shell and grape far over the low lands and bluffs of Morris Island into the channel beyond-indeed, into the neighborhood of the four iron-clads. It was a magnificent sight indeed. One heavy, unbroken, continuous boom, boom, boom, filling the air with bursting shell and spreading grape, and sending a broad, heavy veil of blue smoke behind and over the woods, against the dark foliage of which we watched with peculiar interest the rapidly succeeding flashes of the guns. It was now halfpast five o'clock, and the firing by the rebels from Morris Island was very irregular. The iron-clads steadily and slowly moved up the channel, sending their globes of iron across the island and into the bluffs which lined the coast. The batteries upon the bluffs were not • Providence Journal. beach on the south end of Morris Island, appear a dozen or twenty men, bearing the familiar army signal flag, and wav used, probably from the scarcity of men and the surprise of the attack. And yet we saw men around the little clusters of tents, which were near the bat-ing in exciting exultation the Stars and teries and upon the shore; but they seemed excited and unable to man the batteries, even if disposed, which they did not seem to be after the location of part of our cargo in the midst of them. Soon, however, we saw large bodies of men coming from the centre of the island up to and into the batteries which covered the bluffs. Immediately our shell were sent with astonishing precision among them, which caused the evacuation of their strongholds to be as rapid as the possession had been. Over the tops of the bluffs, through the valleys between them, around them, and in all directions, the rebels were flying in straggling crowds, driven by our shells from the seaward, and from the land side by the troops of General Gillmore's army, whose occupation of the south end of Morris Island had been indicated by the discontinuance of the firing of the heavy guns and the rattling of musketry which now filled our ears. Stripes. They had scarcely come into view, when the solid black mass of our men, with splendid front, and bearing above them our own banners, came over the point and moved, line after line, in beautiful order along the smooth beach. In vain the rebels tried to turn the guns on the bluffs upon the advancing columns, for our shells immediately scattered sand and men in all directions. The line of bluffs, about half a mile long, had now all been evacuated, with the exception of one solitary battery, from which they succeeded in throwing four shots upon our advancing men. The concentrated fire of the four ironclads in two minutes drove the rebels from their last position, and sent them in flying crowds down the hills and over the low lands toward the city. Instantly our men secured the battery and turned the guns upon the flying rebels. "In twenty-five minutes after the appearance of our men upon the lower end of Morris Island, they held all these bluffs, and were using the guns. "There are no other earth-works upon Morris Island, except upon the "No sooner would a crowd occupy one of the batteries, than a fifteen-inch would immediately dislodge them, sending them in confusion to the next bat-northern extremity. Between the bluffs tery, from which again they were scat- and the upper end, a distance of pertered in a similar manner. From bluff haps two and a half miles, the island is to bluff and through the gullies the low and narrow, easily swept by guns rebels were continually flying, never from the channel. Along the slope are stopping to use the muskets which they some six or eight houses, toward which carried over their shoulders. our forces rapidly moved. About two "But now, over the low point of miles from the bluffs and near the shore, and within easy range of Fort Sumter, shrapnel and grape, were sent slowly is a large and finely constructed earth- and deliberately within the rebel work, work, with all the usual accompaniments doing fearful execution among the men, of an extensive fort, and mounting guns, and the well-arranged and nicely probably some twenty guns. This forti- sodded bastions and angles. It was fication, called Fort Wagner, was com- a magnificent sight, and he was a lucky menced immediately upon the breaking one who had possession of a standing out of the rebellion, and is a formidable place within the little pilot-house and affair. Farther up, upon the extreme watched through the eyeholes the scene point of the island, and where the old which was becoming so intensely excitCummings' Point battery was, is another ing. On the right is Moultrie, silent work, and a strong one, called Battery and still; across the narrow sea way Bee. Sumter covers both of these. is Sumter, with its red walls looming above the sea around it, with its parapet occasionally lighted by the gun flash, while from under the rings of blue smoke which so gracefully float away above the strong walls, issue their shots and bolts, but falling into the water and doing the fleet no harm. To the rear of Sumter the steamers are occasionally running, evidently carrying men and munitions. To the left of Sumter is Cummings' Point and Battery Bee; still farther to the left is Fort Wagner, now being torn and rent by our shells. On the extreme left the regiments, which were but a few hours before marching in solid column up the beach, are now resting, their muskets stacked, and the men in groups upon the sand hills, watching the fight in which they have now no participation, excepting, indeed, the wary skirmishers and sharpshooters which, advancing from hut to bush, quietly kneel and give the rebel gunners knowledge of their presence, and receive in return, every now and then, the compliment of a shell. "After the evacuation of the bluffs we moved slowly up the channel, shelling the low land as we moved. Soon the long-range guns of Wagner opened upon us, with an occasional gun landward toward the troops. Shells were fired from Wagner, destroying two of the houses on shore, as they were serving as a protection to our skirmishers, who were rapidly advancing under their cover. The burning houses filled the sky above with the black smoke, adding to the interest, which was now becoming intense. "The four iron-clads were now in excellent position off Wagner, and sending their eleven and sixteen inch shell through and through the parapet, and opening great caves into the immense solid walls and traverses which formed the earth-work. Seldom was a head seen above the parapet, and when the men sprang to load their guns, as soon as the black port-holes in the turret were turned toward the fort, the men immediately disappeared as though shot. "Shell after shell, with an occasional "At forty minutes past twelve o'clock, |