By Maxwell Shaw, 47th. New York Reenactors
For further background see Max Shaw's article on the Invasion of Port Royall which took place two months earlier.
The Confederate Commander in South Carolina, General Robert E. Lee, knew any determined attack across the Coosaw and the eight miles of flat country beyond it to Pocotaligo would bring disaster for Lee's meager forces. He put a battery of field-pieces in the strongly entrenched earthworks he had ordered built at Seabrook Landing, a mile and a half above the Port Royal Ferry, and another at the ferry, and he let it be known through Negroes who wandered back and forth between the armies that he kept a big force at Gardens Corner. The force was there all right; General Steven's scouts verified the fact, and Gardens Corner was just four miles from the ferry. Stevens sent a report to Corps headquarters at Hilton Head.
It was the contents of this report which aroused Sherman to such a pitch of martial ardor that he dared tell Stevens to cross the Coosaw and attack Lee in the field. Adjutants at headquarters on Hilton Head sat and stared in amazement at their general. Sherman was finally acting like a soldier.
General Stevens had occupied Beaufort on the evening of December 11, 1861, come ashore from the steamer Ocean Queen into the beautiful town. He had with him the Fiftieth Pennsylvania under the command of Colonel B. C. Christ, and a section of Battery E of the United States Third Artillery. Other elements of his brigade followed, and they were the Ninety-Seventh New York, known as the Highland Guard, and the One Hundredth Pennsylvania, called the Roundheads and commanded by Colonel Daniel Leasure. With them were big, raw-boned and hardy men, the rank and file of the Eighth Michigan whose colonel was William C. Fenton. The Michiganders were mainly descended from New England farm folks who had migrated out to the Great Lakes region, and they were very handy with gun and axe. The Fiftieth were supposed to be "Dutchmen" according to the other units of the brigade, but they were really of early, Pre-Revolutionary German stock, while the men in the One Hundredth Pennsylvania were from the western, mountainous part of the state. They were Scots-Irish by background, and a number of them were tall, and rough and they sometimes scuffled with the New Yorkers, and men of both outfits ended up in the provost guard's tent.
Almost the entire brigade, though, was new to war, and surprised_ even startled into speechlessness' by the spectacle of Beaufort when they landed. The town had been wholly deserted by its citizens. There was only one white man in town, and he was found in the post office, credited with being either drunk or demented. But the freed slaves, left with no restraints upon them by their former masters, had looted the town top and bottom.
Patrols walking the streets with bayoneted rifles at the ready heard nothing but shrill, almost hysterical laughter, climbed the gallery steps of magnificent, porticoed homes and saw within "uttering candles on mahogany tables, tatters of drapes ripped from doorways, and bits of clothing. A forgotten spoon, a child's toy, leaves from a torn book." But where were the people, the men of Steven's brigade asked themselves, and where the hell were the Confederate soldiers? This bandbox of a town was worth a fight.
General Stevens marched through stern-faced, without talk to his staff. Then he called a staff meeting. One of his first orders was that the town should be evacuated, cleared of looters at once, and kept cleared. Looting was not part of Steven's plan of war.
He was an officer with many of the same attributes as Lee, a West Point graduate who had served with Lee in Mexico, been his friend and messmate. He had from the beginning of the Port Royal Sound operation believed strongly in an immediate inland assault upon the Confederate lines. But he was held from it, and nothing was done in the field until Sherman gave permission for the Coosaw River crossing at the end of the year.
General Steven's son, Captain Hazard Stevens, who served as his father's adjutant, wrote: "Immediately after landing (at Hilton Head Island), General Sherman held a conference with his general officers as to undertaking an offensive movement. The enemy was evidently demoralized, and either Charleston or Savannah might fall before a sudden dash, and offered a tempting prize. But the general opinion was that movement upon either involved too great risks, and that the first duty was to fortify and render absolutely secure the point already gained."
General Stevens alone dissented from this view. He strenuously urged an aggressive movement inland to the mainland, then, turning to right or left, against one of the cities. In answer to objections, he declared that the overpowering naval force rendered Hilton Head already secure, and it could be fortified at leisure. The navy, too, could support an advance, and cover a withdrawal in case of need.
Captain Stevens continued: "The country was full of flatboats used by the planters for the transportation of cotton. Hundreds of these could be collected among the islands by the Negroes, and would furnish means of transporting the troops up, or ferrying them across the inland waters, which, instead of an obstacle, could thus be made an aid to the movement. But the cautious counsel prevailed, and General Sherman reaped the reward of his lack of enterprise by being superseded a few months later."
General Stevens had his plans for the Coosaw crossing perfected weeks before Sherman, at Hilton Head, authorized the attack. The obstacles that Lee had placed in the river could impede the progress of Federal gunboats, but Stevens had foreseen that, and, right along, had been collecting flatboats of really shallow draft to carry his troops. He kept his flatboat fleet hidden in a creek overgrown with cypress, creepers, reeds and sedge. It had an excellent landing place, though, and a good road connected it with Beaufort, eight miles away. On the last night of the year 1861, under the light of a half moon, with mist on the river, he loaded his troops aboard the flatboats with two Navy howitzers and started them around Port Royal Island to the ferry station and Seabrook Landing.
This would be the first face to face meeting with the enemy in battle for the Washington Grays. General Stevens' forces consisted of his brigade, Seventy-ninth New York Highlanders, Fiftieth Pennsylvania, Eighth Michigan, and One Hundredth Pennsylvania (Roundheads), and two regiments from General Viele's Brigade, the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth New York, under the command of Colonel Perry of the Forty-eighth. The naval forces consisted of the gunboats Ottawa, Pembina, and Hale, and Seneca, the ferryboat Ellen, and four large launches belonging to the frigateWabash, each carrying a twelve-pound howitzer. The 47th New York embarked at Hilton Head on December 31st aboard Boston .
There was a great deal of confusion as the troops went aboard the various craft, and Stevens' carefully organized table of operations suffered. But then, shouting through the mist, unit identified unit, and Stevens knew that he had unified all the elements of his brigade as well as the New York troops. Negro rivermen recruited for the work bent to the long, muffled sweeps, and the fleet moved up-river in quite good style, the U.S. Navy gunboat Ottawa ahead to cover the advance and three other black-painted vessels like her further astern.
At morning the Federals landed near the cotton-gin on Adams' plantation. With dawn, General Stevens got two columns of Highland Guard skirmishers ashore on the mainland side of the river. Colonel Christ's men of the Fiftieth Pennsylvania came in after them, then Colonel Fenton's Michiganders in support. General Stevens held the Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth New York as reserves and watched his flankers spread out to the right, the river on their left.
The ruins of the ferry-house were directly in front of the troops now, and the earthworks that contained the battery. General Stevens watched the advance through his binoculars, his blond, shoulder-long hair ruffled by the dawn breeze. Then, from the pine woods, came the first Confederate volley, and the men who fired strode forward, and the cannon in the earthworks rapidly served grape and canister.
Ottawa had begun to fire, and downstream the other gunboats let go eleven-inch shells in screaming flight. Colonel Christ's bugler had just lifted his instrument and sounded the charge. The Pennsylvanians went in at the double, their bayonets high, but Lee would not waste men this day. His field officers had orders to withdraw before intensive attack.
The Confederates fell back slowly into the woods, flanked and covered by a detachment of forty-two cavalrymen who put a raking fire into the Pennsylvania ranks with their double-barreled shotguns and long, heavy Colt .44 Navy revolvers. Leake's Virginia battery was in the action, and Joseph Wilmer Turner felt the great, awful excitement of his first real engagement. Over in reserve Elias A. Bryant of Hillsborough, New Hampshire, must have gripped his rifle hard and wondered what he would do under direct fire.
Lee, through Brigadier General John C. Pemberton, had given field command to Colonel James Jones of the Fourteenth South Carolina Regiment. Colonel Jones, in addition to the section from Leake's artillery outfit, had with him four companies of the Twelfth South Carolina and his shotgun-dealing cavalrymen. A large part of the Tennessee brigade commanded by General Donelson was also sent forward from Pocotaligo by General Pemberton, but got to the river too late to have part in the action.
Colonel Jones abandoned the earthworks, hauled out the guns as best he could by mules under fire, and, still slowly, retreated through the woods to Seabrook Landing and a possible defense there. The Federal troops came after him when they had levelled the earthworks and taken care of their dead and wounded.
Now the Forty-seventh and Forty-eight New York, under Colonel Perry, were brought into action by being thrown forward in line on the right, about at right angles to Stevens' brigade. As the New Yorkers advanced they soon unmasked the Seabrook landing battery, which apparently was well defended, along the skirt of woods in the front.
Who would not remember that New Years Day, when for the first time they heard the "rebel yell"? While the skirmish was in progress the men were ordered to lay down between the corn-rows in the field.
Colonel James H. Perry, Forty-eighth New York Infantry reported, "On account of some delay on the part of the Forty-seventh New York, I detained my column at Adams' plantation (the place of landing) until the latest moment, and finally commenced the march before the arrival of two companies of that regiment. I had advanced perhaps three quarters of a mile, when I received an order from the General to bring forward my command with the greatest expedition. We immediately advanced at double-quick until we overtook the supporting column, when I received notice of the existence of a battery threatening our right flank, and was ordered to attack and capture it. In obedience to the order, I immediately deployed my column, and forming double line of battle advanced upon the position of the enemy, the Forty-eighth New York, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Barton, leading, supported by the Forty-seventh New York, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Fraser.
When my first line was fairly under fire at long range it was halted under shelter of the timber and protected by the inequalities of the ground, and I sent forward two companies of skirmishers, with orders to ascertain the exact position of the battery, the best method of approaching it, the number of its guns, and with what force it was supported. The skirmishers were met by a sharp fire of artillery and musketry, but they went forward steadily and rapidly, and soon reported to me that a marsh covered the front of the enemy's position, and that they had at least four guns, supported by a heavy force of infantry. I then advanced the Forty-seventh New York for the purpose of maneuvering upon the left flank and gaining the rear of the enemy before attacking in front. The Forty-seventh pressed through the timber, and had gained a position well on the left and rear and in their advance had exchanged a few shots with the enemy, when I received the General's order to retire, the battery on the river having been taken and the object of the expedition accomplished. I drew off my men without loss. Three members of the Forty-eigth Regiment were slightly wounded, but not a man was disabled or rendered unfit for duty.
I am happy to add, that the men and officers of my command hehaved with great steadiness and resolution, obeying the word of command under fire as if they had been on drill."
It was time for him to leave, General Stevens knew. His orders from Sherman stopped him here. He had a signal made and the gunboats maneuvered among the rows of sharpened logs the Confederates had put in the stream. They came alongside the low, marshy bank with some of the flatboats in tow. The troops boarded. Stretcherbearers carried an officer and three soldiers who had been killed, and seventeen wounded. That had been the price to clear the Coosaw River and displace two light artillery batteries at Port Royal Ferry and Seabrook Landing.
The men of the 47th and other Federal units spent that first night of the new year on the battlefield, not being permitted to build fires lest it should attract the fire of the enemy, and as they were not prepared with suitable clothing to spend a winter's night out of doors, they shivered in the cold January air. In the morning they re-embarked and returned to Hilton Head, having destroyed the rebel works and accomplished the object of the expedition.
And so the 47th's first engagement with the enemy, though merely_to quote Colonel Perry's words_ "an affair," was a victory. Although the enemy was whipped in this little battle they reoccupied their works immediately after the Federalss abandoned them, and the Coosaw River continued to be the dividing line between the contending armies for the next three years.
General Lee sent a letter to his son on January 4, 1862 and told Custis: "Enemy quiet and retired to his Islands."
Sources: Hilton Head Island in the Civil War by Robert Carse The History of the Forthy-Eighth Regiment by Abraham Palmer
Website Note: Port Royal Ferry is about 70 miles South of Charleston. Battles in this are are included in Civil War @ Charleston's content because operations on the Port Royal area threatened Charleston, established a base for Federal operations in the Lowcountry and usually represent an attack on the Atlantic Coast Railroad which integrated the Confederate coastal defense. Most of the military units posted in that area were also active at Charleston at other times. The federal units mentioned here also fought at the Battle of Secessionville later near Charleston.