Second Battle of Charleston Harbor

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

Siege of Charleston Harbor

Part of the American Civil War

Date	August 17-September 7, 1863
Location	Morris Island, South Carolina & Fort Sumter, South Carolina
Result	Inconclusive

Belligerents

United States (Union)

CSA (Confederacy)

Commanders

Quincy Gillmore
John A. Dahlgren

P.G.T. Beauregard

Strength

X Corps

Forts Wagner & Sumter garrisons

Casualties and losses

117

unknown

v • d • e

Lower Seaboard Theater

Fort Sumter – Santa Rosa Island – Fort Pulaski – Forts Jackson and St. Philip – New Orleans – Secessionville – Simmon's Bluff – Tampa – Baton Rouge – 1st Donaldsonville – St. John's Bluff – Georgia Landing – 1st Fort McAllister – Fort Bisland – Irish Bend – Vermillion Bayou – 1st Charleston Harbor – 1st Fort Wagner – Grimball's Landing – 2nd Fort Wagner – 2nd Charleston Harbor – 2nd Fort Sumter – Plains Store – Port Hudson – LaFourche Crossing – 2nd Donaldsonville – Kock's Plantation – Stirling's Plantation – Fort Brooke – Gainesville – Olustee – Natural Bridge

The Second Battle of Charleston Harbor (or the Siege of Charleston Harbor) took place during the American Civil War in the late summer of 1863 between a combined Union Army/Navy force and the Confederate defenses of Charleston, South Carolina.

After being repulsed twice trying to take Fort Wagner by storm, Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore decided on a less costly approach and began laying siege to the fort. In the ensuing days, Union forces besieged the Confederate works on Morris Island with an array of military novelties. Union gunners made use of a new piece of artillery known as the Requa gun–25 rifle barrels mounted on a field carriage. While sappers dug zig-zag trenches toward Fort Wagner a second novelty was used–the calcium floodlight. Bright lights were flashed upon the defenders blinding them enough to decrease accurate return fire while the Union gunners fired safely behind the lights.

The Confederate defenders had advantages also. The ground the Union sappers were digging through was shallow sand with a muddy base. The trenching efforts also began to accidentally uncover Union dead from the previous assaults on Fort Wagner. Despite this, by mid August Gillmore had his siege guns within range of Fort Sumter. On August 17, he opened fire and during the first day of the bombardment nearly 1,000 shells were fired. By August 23 the masonry had been turned to rubble and General Pierre Beauregard removed as many of the fort's guns as possible. Gillmore wired the War Department that "Fort Sumter is a shapeless and harmless mass of ruin".

Gillmore's attention returned to Fort Wagner. Despite the marshy conditions on Morris Island, Union forces had constructed powerful batteries to combat Fort Wagner. One such battery officially known as the Marsh Battery, was dubbed the "Swamp Angel". This 200-pound parrott rifle hurled 35 shots into the city of Charleston itself, but on the 36th shot the gun exploded. Conditions within Fort Wagner were becoming intolerable, and the garrison commander informed General Beauregard that he now had only 400 men capable of defending the fort. Therefore on the evening of September 6-7, Beauregard ordered Confederate forces to abandon their positions on Morris Island. On September 7 Union troops occupied Fort Wagner.

Fort Wagner had withstood 60 days of constant bombing and held off a much larger Union army. The Union army and navy had captured an important position at the mouth of Charleston Harbor and reduced its most formidable fortress into rubble. However the city of Charleston and Fort Sumter itself would remain in Confederate control until William T. Sherman's armies marched through South Carolina in 1865.