Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 01.djvu/414

 daily bombardment from Dahlgren's fleet and Gillmore's breaching batteries and mortars for fifty days, or until the Federal troops had dug their way up to the glacis and planted their flag on the very verge of the counter scarps of that work, such was the system that the defence was crowned by an evacuation of Battery Wagner and of Morris' Island, which has no parallel in ancient or modern warfare for its skill. Moreover, the works on James' Island, which enabled Beauregard's small force on the 16th of July, 1863, to defeat so signally the strong column under General Terry, were parts of a wholly different system and of other description than those in existence upon the same island when the battle of Secessionville was fought on the 16th of June, 1862.

A like radical difference characterized the arrangements made for the defence of John's Island, and aided General Wise to inflict a handsome defeat upon the strong Federal column which was pushed out by that way in February, 1864, to strike and break Beauregard's communications with Savannah, and occupy his attention pending the descent of General Seymour's powerful military and political expedition into Florida; and when that skillfully planned expedition was brought to signal disaster at Olustee, on the 20th February, 1864, it was Colquit's brigade, whose opportune appearance on the field on John's Island had been so effective, which, by its precisely timed arrival, contributed even more decisively to the victory over Seymour.

It was under similarly changed or modified dispositions of the defensive resources (material and personnel) of the department, that Brannan's column of more than 4,000 infantry, with two sections of field artillery and a naval detachment with three boat howitzers, was badly defeated at Pocotaligo in October, 1862, by less than five hundred men and twelve pieces of field artillery. The same may be said of the works at Fort McAllister, when it beat the iron-clad Federal fleet so handsomely, and indeed of the whole defensive system around Savannah.

General Long observes that the Coosawhatchie was the centre of the defensive system of that department as planned by General Lee, who established his headquarters there. Geographically Coosawhatchie may have been the centre, but not in the military sense, which assuredly was that so occupied by Beauregard—the city of Charleston. Nevertheless, the matchless defence of that port, the most sailent feature of Confederate operations on that theatre of