Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 5.djvu/97

Rh them surrendered, but most retreated to their supports in the direction of Battery island. The gunboats, in full view in the Stono, opened a fire on the Confederates, and the enemy’s supports, Twenty-eighth Massachusetts and Eighth Michigan, coming rapidly up, a retreat was ordered, and with a Federal captain and 20 other prisoners, Colonel Capers fell back to the position held by Colonel Gaillard. The enemy did not advance further than Legare’s, and the affair was over. The adjutant of the Charleston battalion, Lieut. Henry Walker, was wounded at the houses and fell into the enemy s hands. In this affair 9 men of the Twenty-fourth and 8 of the Charleston battalion were wounded.

The engagement just described, and a reconnoissance in front of Grimball’s on the 10th of June, gallantly made by the Forty-seventh Georgia regiment, fully developed the positions and force of the Federal army on James island. General Pemberton was active and efficient in strengthening the lines of defense and in concentrating troops on the island. By June 15th a force fully equal to that of the Federal army was encamped behind the batteries, and on the lines of defense from Fort Pemberton on the Stono, at Elliott’s, cut, to Secessionville on the extreme east, under Brig.-Gens. N. G. Evans, W. D. Smith and S. R. Gist, the former in chief command. Col. Johnson Hagood, First volunteers, commanded the advance guard, composed of his own regiment, the Twenty-fourth, Col. C. H. Stevens; the Eutaw battalion, Lieut.-Col. C. H. Simonton, and the Fourth Louisiana battalion, Lieut.-Col. J. McEnery. This force was encamped outside the line of defense, and was charged with guarding the front of the Confederate line, except the immediate front of Secessionville, which was protected by its own outposts.

Secessionville is situated on a peninsula cut from the east side of the island by an arm of Lighthouse creek, a bold tidewater stream which empties into the harbor of