Showing posts with label Combahee River. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Combahee River. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

Captain Charles Wright Wills: January 28, 1865 - 6 p.m.

Six miles south of Combahee River,
January 28, 1865, 6 p. m. 

The campaign commences Monday. It is yet cold; about an inch of ice forms every night, and sleeping out without tents is not a fair sample of paradise. I am in excellent health and we are all anxious to be en route. 

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 338

Captain Charles Wright Wills: January 29, 1865

Combahee River, Charleston and Beaufort road, 
January 29, 1865. 

We have had some rich sport to-day. Our regiment and the 40th are out here on a little reconnoisance, and making a demonstration pretending to be building a bridge on the river, etc. A party of Rebels saluted our skirmishers when they got to the river bank with a volley, but the boys soon drove them off, with no loss to us (or the Rebels either). We lay around a couple of hours shooting at marks, etc., when a party of the Rebels attempted to reoccupy their pits. We saw them coming for a full mile and they had hardly got within the very longest range before the 40th sent them back flying. Later in the p. m. half a dozen Johnnies arose from the mud and weeds and though they were across the river, surrendered to us. They are really deserters, though they say not. Had a great time getting them over the river. Four board and log rafts were made, launched, and put off after them. Two of them were wrecked against the bridge benches, and the other two succeeded in bringing over three Johnnies; we left the other three there. I certainly would not have risked myself on one of those rafts for 500 prisoners or 5,000 deserters. General Hazen of our corps has been made a full major general. The other division commanders only by brevet, and they feel a little sore over it. To-day one of General Wood's aids saw a turkey buzzard, and pointed it out to the general, saying, “there is a turkey.” Old Woods looked at it and answered, “I think that is a turkey by brevet.” 

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 338-9

Captain Charles Wright Wills: January 30, 1865

McPhersonsville, S. C., January 30, 1865.

We returned from Combahee river last night and at 10 p. m. received orders to move at 6 a. m. Came through Pocataligo and have made 14 miles to-day. Quite a place, but there is not even a clearing. Say 50 ordinary dwellings dropped down in the pine woods, and you have it. Not a citizen, white or black, here.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 339

Captain Charles Wright Wills: January 31, 1865

January 31, 1865.

Lay still all day. This place was a country summer resort. I was in a house to-day; the walls were rough boards white-washed, the floors were very rough, and I think had never been carpeted, yet the room was filled with mahogany furniture of the best quality, had a fine piano, splendid plate mirror, and a fine library. About 20 sets of buck horns were nailed to the walls in lines. Hear that the 17th Corps has crossed the Combahee. We hear that strict orders against burning and all foraging is to be done even more regularly than before.

SOURCE: Charles Wright Wills, Army Life of an Illinois Soldier, p. 339

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Sunday, June 14, 1863

I went to church at St Michael's, which is one of the oldest churches in America, and is supposed to have been built a hundred and fifty years ago. The Charlestonians are very proud of it, and I saw several monuments of the time of the British dominion.

This morning I made the acquaintance of a Mr Sennec, an officer in the Confederate States navy, who, with his wife and daughter, were about to face the terrors and dangers of running the blockade, Mr Sennec having got an appointment in Europe. The ladies told me they had, already made one start, but after reaching the bar, the night was not considered propitious, so they had returned. Mr Sennec is thinking of going to Wilmington, and running from thence, as it is more secure than Charleston.

I dined at Mr Robertson's this evening, and met a very agreeable party there — viz., two young ladies, who were extremely pretty, General Beauregard, Captain Tucker of the Chicora, and Major Norris, the chief of the secret intelligence bureau at Richmond.

I had a long conversation with General Beauregard, who said he considered the question of ironclads versus forts as settled, especially when the fire from the latter is plunging. If the other Monitors had approached as close as the Keokuk, they would probably have shared her fate. He thought that both flat-headed rifled 7-inch bolts and solid 10-inch balls penetrated the ironclads when within 1200 yards. He agreed with General Ripley that the 15-inch gun is rather a failure; it is so unwieldy that it can only be fired very slowly, and the velocity of the ball is so small that it is very difficult to strike a moving object. He told me that Fort Sumter was to be covered by degrees with the long green moss which in this country hangs down from the trees: he thinks that when this is pressed it will deaden the effect of the shot without being inflammable; and he also said that, even if the walls of Fort Sumter were battered down, the barbette battery would still remain, supported on the piers.

The Federal frigate Ironsides took up her position, during the attack, over 3000 lb. of powder, which was prevented from exploding owing to some misfortune connected with the communicating wire. General Beauregard and Captain Tucker both seemed to expect great things from a newly-invented and extradiabolical torpedo-ram.

After dinner, Major Norris showed us a copy of a New York illustrated newspaper of the same character as our “Punch.” In it the President Davis and General Beauregard were depicted shoeless and in rags, contemplating a pair of boots, which the latter suggested had better be eaten. This caricature excited considerable amusement, especially when its merits were discussed after Mr Robertson's excellent dinner.

General Beauregard told me he had been educated in the North, and used to have many friends there, but that now he would sooner submit to the Emperor of China than return to the Union.

Mr Walter Blake arrived soon after dinner; he had come up from his plantation on the Combahee river on purpose to see me. He described the results of the late Yankee raid up that river: forty armed negroes and a few whites in a miserable steamer were able to destroy and burn an incalculable amount of property, and carry off hundreds of negroes. Mr Blake got off very cheap, having only lost twenty-four this time, but he only saved the remainder by his own personal exertions and determination. He had now sent all his young males two hundred miles into the interior for greater safety. He seemed to have a very rough time of it, living all alone in that pestilential climate. A neighbouring planter, Mr Lowndes, had lost 290 negroes, and a Mr Kirkland was totally ruined.

At 7 P.M. Mr Blake and I called at the office of General Ripley, to whom Mr Blake, notwithstanding that he is an Englishman of nearly sixty years of age, had served as aide-de-camp during some of the former operations against Charleston. General Ripley told us that shelling was still going on vigorously between Morris and Folly Islands, the Yankees being assisted every now and then by one or more of their gunboats. The General explained to us that these light-draft armed vessels — river-gropers, as he called them — were indefatigable at pushing up the numerous creeks, burning and devastating everything. He said that when he became acquainted with the habits of one of these “critturs,” he arranged an ambuscade for her, and with the assistance of “his fancy Irishman” (Captain Mitchell), he captured her. This was the case with the steamer Stono, a short time since, which, having been caught in this manner by the army, was lost by the navy shortly afterwards off Sullivan's Island.

News has just been received that Commodore Foote is to succeed Dupont in the command of the blockading squadron. Most of these officers appeared to rejoice in this change, as they say Foote is younger, and likely to show more sport than the venerable Dupont.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 200-3