Part of Civil War @ Charleston Website
By William J. Hamilton, IIIIn the July of 1863, the armed forces of the United States were conducting three campaigns against the South. At Vicksburg, the North was attempting to gain control of the Mississippi River and sever the Western Confederacy and its vital supply link to Mexico from the East. In Pennsylvania a new General was probing towards the Confederate invasions of Pennsylvania, in which each army hoped to decisively defeat the other.
Charleston's harbor was now blocked by a fleet of the North's ironclad monitors and the New Ironsides. Blockade running was getting chancier with each passing month. Under the commands of Gen. Quincy Gilmore and Admiral Dahlgren, a major effort to enter Charleston's heavily defended harbor and capture "the hellhole of secession" was underway.
Demands for troops to fight in the North and West reduced the Charleston garrison. The Confederate Commander, Gen. P. T. G. Beauregard was forced to rely on the strength of the James Island Lines and the rapid deployment of the available troops to the threatened point to protect Charleston's James Island approach. The troops on the line would have to hold until reenforcements from James Island, Charleston and possibly Savannah could be dispatched.
Joining Gen. Gilmore's Federal army was a new unit composed of free blacks from the North, the 54th. Massachusetts. While freed slaves and other blacks had been organized into federal units and fought before and small numbers of black men were fighting for the South, the 54th. was a high profile test of the black American's potential as a fighting soldier. They had been given regular training and had the backing of Frederick Douglas and other prominent Abolitionists. The use of black troops was widely opposed in both the North and South.
On July 10, 1863 Federal Forces camped on Folly Island overran the Confederate Defenses on three fourth's of Morris Island until Battery Wagner, a large, well positioned earthwork, stopped their advance. That day the Federal armies rejoiced upon reading about Union victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in Southern newspapers found in the abandoned Confederate trenches.
Anticipating a third Union victory, Gen. Gilmore began bringing more troops up from the large federal based at Port Royal and Hilton Head Island. Gen. Terry's division, including the 54th. Mass. set up a line opposing the Confederate lines across James Island behind which fifty-two hundred men were positioned. Federal gunboats in the Stono river protected the approaches from the Confederate lines. To the back of the Federal troops were the marshes and water of the Folly and Stono Rivers. A narrow and vulnerable retreat route of rickety walkways stretched across the marsh to Coles Island on the Folly River.
The Confederates prepared a complicated attack. Confederate General Hagood Planned to drive the Federal gunboats down river, cut off the Federal retreat and trap the bluecoats against the water, by first entering Sol Legare Island and hitting the other Union troops on James Island.
Three companies of the 54th. Mass. were standing picket on Sol Legare island, near the end of one of the two causeways connecting it to the mainland on the morning of July 16, 1863 when the Confederate Force of Thirty-two hundred men moved out from Secessionville and the James Island lines. Four Confederate cannon opened up, pushing the Yankee gunboats Pawnee and Marblehead down the Stono River beyond the point where they could protect the union troops.
Gen. Colquitt's Confederate Brigade charged across the causeway hitting the 54th.'s outpost guards. Vicious hand to hand fighting took place between the larger Confederate force and the untested black troops. The men of the 54th. were overwhelmed. Some fled. Some surrendered. Most fought.
Behind the Confederate Infantry came the Cavalry, dashing across the island to break up the Union army and cut off its retreat. The federals fought hand to hand desperately at the causeway, while the rest of their regiment and the other federal units prepared to fight. The federal army was learning for the second time that while part of James Island was outside the gray lines it was all Confederate territory.
The rest of the 54th. Mass went online and fighting spread across the island. Col. Robert Shaw directed the fire of his men while the Confederates pushed their assault across the island into the teeth of Yankee lead. A battery of Connecticut artillery was rushed to the front. The Marion Artillery opened a duel with them. The federal gunboats, now in Big Folly Creek opened up with their big guns, but the Confederates charged on. Gen. Terry ordered the 54th. to fall back with the rest of the division to a new battle line on nearby Battery Island where the gunboats could protect them.
The Confederate forces swept across Sol Legare Island, broke off fighting and returned over Grimball's Causeway to James Island. To the Federal forces it looked like a gray retreat, but the Confederates were attempting join the forces of Col. Carleton Way and trap the 10th. Connecticut at Grimball's Landing on James Island, where the federals would then be cut off from their retreat across Sol Legare Island. The delay caused by the 54th.'s fierce resistance allowed the federal troops to escape. The battle ended.
The Fifty-fourth Mass. returned to their camp, recovering their wounded and the bodies of their dead, some of which had been picked over by fiddler crabs in the marsh. Forty-three of the forty-six union casualties came from the unit.
Later the federal forces would continue their retreat to their base on Folly Island over the slick boards of their rickety walkways to Coles Island and by boat across the Folly River. All of James Island was in Confederate hands again.
For the Confederacy it was a victory over superior numbers of federal troops with strong naval support. A complicated attack had demonstrated the zeal and competence of the Charleston troops. Though the Federal troops had escaped, it was victory.
It was also, a few hundred feet to the right side of what it now Folly Road where it intersects Sol Legare Road, an answer to the question of weather black men would fight. They had and saved a federal division. Even the Charleston Courier noted the fighting of the black troops as being superior to that of the other federal forces.
The Connecticut Troops visited the Massachusetts camp to convey their gratitude and compliments, a feeling the federal Generals shared. Two days later, on the beach before Ft. Wagner, Gen. Gilmore would send out the 54th. as the forlorn hope of his grand assault on Battery Wagner in a charge reported around the world for its determination and terrible loss of life.
Sol Legare Island would be the proof that persuaded Gen. Gilmore to send the 54th. against Wagner. Wagner would be the proof that black men would fight, eventually earning the respect of both Union and Confederate soldiers.
By the end of the Civil War nearly Two hundred thousand black men were wearing the blue uniform. A small number of black men had fought with the South from the beginning, but 1865 saw the first official organizing of black Confederate Troops who joined Lee's army on its fighting retreat from Petersburg to Appomattox. Divided by war, a nation recognized the fighting ability and patriotism of its black men.