Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
advanced, faintly seen in the white, sulphurous smoke; there was a
pause, a cessation of fire; the smoke cleared away, and the
parapets were blue with our men, who fired their muskets in the
air, and shouted so that we actually heard them, or felt that we
did. Fort McAllister was taken, and the good news was instantly
sent by the signal-officer to our navy friends on the approaching
gunboat, for a point of timber had shut out Fort McAllister from
their view, and they had not seen the action at all, but must have
heard the cannonading.
During the progress of the assault, our little group on Cheeves's
mill hardly breathed; but no sooner did we see our flags on the
parapet than I exclaimed, in the language of the poor negro at
Cobb's plantation, "This nigger will have no sleep this night!"
I was resolved to communicate with our fleet that night, which
happened to be a beautiful moonlight one. At the wharf belonging
to Cheeves's mill was a small skiff, that had been used by our men
in fishing or in gathering oysters. I was there in a minute,
called for a volunteer crew, when several young officers, Nichols
and Merritt among the number; said they were good oarsmen, and
volunteered to pull the boat down to Fort McAllister. General
Howard asked to accompany me; so we took seats in the stern of the
boat, and our crew of officers pulled out with a will. The tide
was setting in strong, and they had a hard pull, for, though the
distance was but three miles in an air-line, the river was so
crooked that the actual distance was fully six miles. On the way
down we passed the wreck of a steamer which had been sunk some
years before, during a naval attack on Fort McAllister.
Night had fairly set in when we discovered a soldier on the beach.
I hailed him, and inquired if he knew where General Hazen was. He
answered that the general was at the house of the overseer of the
plantation (McAllister's), and that he could guide me to it. We
accordingly landed, tied our boat to a driftlog, and followed our
guide through bushes to a frame-house, standing in a grove of
live-oaks, near a row of negro quarters.
General Hazen was there with his staff, in the act of getting
supper; he invited us to join them, which we accepted promptly, for
we were really very hungry. Of course, I congratulated Hazen most
heartily on his brilliant success, and praised its execution very
highly, as it deserved, and he explained to me more in detail the
exact results. The fort was an inclosed work, and its land-front
was in the nature of a bastion and curtains, with good parapet,
ditch, fraise, and chevaux-de-frise, made out of the large branches
of live-oaks. Luckily, the rebels had left the larger and unwieldy
trunks on the ground, which served as a good cover for the
skirmish-line, which crept behind these logs, and from them kept
the artillerists from loading and firing their guns accurately.
The assault had been made by three parties in line, one from below,
one from above the fort, and the third directly in rear, along the
capital. All were simultaneous, and had to pass a good abatis and
line of torpedoes, which actually killed more of the assailants
than the heavy guns of the fort, which generally overshot the mark.
Hazen's entire loss was reported, killed and wounded, ninety-two.
Each party reached the parapet about the same time, and the
garrison inside, of about two hundred and fifty men (about fifty of
them killed or wounded), were in his power. The commanding
officer, Major Anderson, was at that moment a prisoner, and
General Hazen invited him in to take supper with us, which he did.
Up to this time General Hazen did not know that a gunboat was in
the river below the fort; for it was shut off from sight by a point
of timber, and I was determined to board her that night, at
whatever risk or cost, as I wanted some news of what was going on
in the outer world. Accordingly, after supper, we all walked down
to the fort, nearly a mile from the house where we had been,
entered Fort McAllister, held by a regiment of Hazen's troops, and
the sentinel cautioned us to be very careful, as the ground outside
the fort was full of torpedoes. Indeed, while we were there, a
torpedo exploded, tearing to pieces a poor fellow who was hunting
for a dead comrade. Inside the fort lay the dead as they had
fallen, and they could hardly be distinguished from their living
comrades, sleeping soundly side by side in the pale moonlight. In
the river, close by the fort, was a good yawl tied to a stake, but
the tide was high, and it required some time to get it in to the
bank; the commanding officer, whose name I cannot recall, manned
the boat with a good crew of his men, and, with General Howard, I
entered, and pulled down-stream, regardless of the warnings all
about the torpedoes.
The night was unusually bright, and we expected to find the gunboat
within a mile or so; but, after pulling down the river fully three
miles, and not seeing the gunboat, I began to think she had turned
and gone back to the sound; but we kept on, following the bends of
the river, and about six miles below McAllister we saw her light,
and soon were hailed by the vessel at anchor. Pulling alongside,
we announced ourselves, and were received with great warmth and
enthusiasm on deck by half a dozen naval officers, among them
Captain Williamson, United States Navy. She proved to be the
Dandelion, a tender of the regular gunboat Flag, posted at the
mouth of the Ogeechee. All sorts of questions were made and
answered, and we learned that Captain Duncan had safely reached the
squadron, had communicated the good news of our approach, and they
had been expecting us for some days. They explained that Admiral
Dahlgren commanded the South-Atlantic Squadron, which was then
engaged in blockading the coast from Charleston south, and was on
his flag-ship, the Harvest Moon, lying in Wassaw Sound; that
General J. G. Foster was in command of the Department of the South,
with his headquarters at Hilton Head; and that several ships loaded
with stores for the army were lying in Tybee Roads and in Port
Royal Sound. From these officers I also learned that General Grant
was still besieging Petersburg and Richmond, and that matters and
things generally remained pretty much the same as when we had left
Atlanta. All thoughts seemed to have been turned to us in Georgia,
cut off from all communication with our friends; and the rebel
papers had reported us to be harassed, defeated, starving, and
fleeing for safety to the coast. I then asked for pen and paper,
and wrote several hasty notes to General Foster, Admiral Dahlgren,
General Grant, and the Secretary of War, giving in general terms
the actual state of affairs, the fact of the capture of Fort
McAllister, and of my desire that means should be taken to
establish a line of supply from the vessels in port up the Ogeechee
to the rear of the army. As a sample, I give one of these notes,
addressed to the Secretary of War, intended for publication to
relieve the anxiety of our friends at the North generally:
ON BOARD DANDELION, OSSABAW SOUND, December 13, 1864--11.50 p.m.
To Hon. E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:
To-day, at 6 p. m., General Hazen's division of the Fifteenth Corps
carried Fort McAllister by assault, capturing its entire garrison
and stores. This opened to us Ossabaw Sound, and I pushed down to
this gunboat to communicate with the fleet. Before opening
communication we had completely destroyed all the railroads leading
into Savannah, and invested the city. The left of the army is on
the Savannah River three miles above the city, and the right on the
Ogeechee, at King's Bridge. The army is in splendid order, and
equal to any thing. The weather has been fine, and supplies were
abundant. Our march was most agreeable, and we were not at all
molested by guerrillas.
We reached Savannah three days ago, but, owing to Fort McAllister,
could not communicate; but, now that we have McAllister, we can go
ahead.
We have already captured two boats on the Savannah river and
prevented their gunboats from coming down.
I estimate the population of Savannah at twenty-five thousand, and
the garrison at fifteen thousand. General Hardee commands.
We have not lost a wagon on the trip; but have gathered a large
supply of negroes, mules, horses, etc., and our teams are in far
better condition than when we started.
My first duty will be to clear the army of surplus negroes, mules,
and horses. We have utterly destroyed over two hundred miles of
rails, and consumed stores and provisions that were essential to
Lee's and Hood's armies.
The quick work made with McAllister, the opening of communication
with our fleet, and our consequent independence as to supplies,
dissipate all their boasted threats to head us off and starve the
army.
I regard Savannah as already gained.
Yours truly,
W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General.
By this time the night was well advanced, and the tide was running
ebb-strong; so I asked. Captain Williamson to tow us up as near
Fort McAllister as he would venture for the torpedoes, of which the
navy-officers had a wholesome dread. The Dandelion steamed up some
three or four miles, till the lights of Fort McAllister could be
seen, when she anchored, and we pulled to the fort in our own boat.
General Howard and I then walked up to the McAllister House, where
we found General Hazen and his officers asleep on the floor of one
of the rooms. Lying down on the floor, I was soon fast asleep, but
shortly became conscious that some one in the room was inquiring
for me among the sleepers. Calling out, I was told that an officer
of General Fosters staff had just arrived from a steamboat anchored
below McAllister; that the general was extremely anxious to see me
on important business, but that he was lame from an old Mexican-War
wound, and could not possibly come to me. I was extremely weary
from the incessant labor of the day and night before, but got up,
and again walked down the sandy road to McAllister, where I found a
boat awaiting us, which carried us some three miles down the river,
to the steamer W. W. Coit (I think), on board of which we found
General Foster. He had just come from Port Royal, expecting to
find Admiral Dahlgren in Ossabaw Sound, and, hearing of the capture
of Fort McAllister, he had come up to see me. He described fully
the condition of affairs with his own command in South Carolina.
He had made several serious efforts to effect a lodgment on the
railroad which connects Savannah with Charleston near Pocotaligo,
but had not succeeded in reaching the railroad itself, though he
had a full division of troops, strongly intrenched, near Broad
River, within cannon-range of the railroad. He explained,
moreover, that there were at Port Royal abundant supplies of bread
and provisions, as well as of clothing, designed for our use. We
still had in our wagons and in camp abundance of meat, but we
needed bread, sugar, and coffee, and it was all-important that a
route of supply should at once be opened, for which purpose the
assistance of the navy were indispensable. We accordingly
steamed down the Ogeechee River to Ossabaw Sound, in hopes to meet
Admiral Dahlgren, but he was not there, and we continued on by the
inland channel to Warsaw Sound, where we found the Harvest Moon,
and Admiral Dahlgren. I was not personally acquainted with him at
the time, but he was so extremely kind and courteous that I was at
once attracted to him. There was nothing in his power, he said,
which he would not do to assist us, to make our campaign absolutely
successful. He undertook at once to find vessels of light draught