Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/73

Rh contribution to the Sunday News,Charleston, S. C., in which it appeared November 6 and 13, 1898. Reference may be made also to another earnest contribution, published in the News, and reprinted in this volume, "Charles Colcock Jones"-an excellent biographical sketch. See ante, p. 32. ]

On St. Andrew's Day, 1864, near Boyd's Landing, in old Beaufort District, a desperate battle was fought and won by citizen soldiers of Georgia and South Carolina against enormous odds.

Thirty-three years have passed since, many of the actors in the honor and glory of that November day have joined the majority, yet no effort has been made to record this great military achievement at Honey Hill to garner up even some of the details of this wonderful victory.

I have been requested at this late day to do this work; to correct erroneous official records; to unravel the now tangled and complex personal recollections of that eventful day. Many of the chief actors have "crossed over the river," memories of the events of that day are related differently by gentlemen who have no motive but the truth. Lapse of time has brought these results. I can only promise an impartial pen, and my closest attention and if I satisfy myself as to the truth, and the facts, I will write an account of this battle. If not, such information as may be possible.

Introductory to such battle narrative, it is properly in place here to recall the general military situation on the seacoast of South Carolina during those eventful four years; as well for the information of those at a distance, as for later generations of Georgians and Carolinians, that they may learn of the invincible spirit of their fathers, which, under every disability, kept inviolate the entire coast line from the Ashley to the Savannah, from the opening to the close of the struggle in South Carolina.

On November 7, 1861, a Federal fleet of seventeen ships and two hundred guns captured Port Royal subsequently General T. W. Sherman took possession of its shores with a large army of occupation. From this commanding base the entire coast region of South Carolina, was from that day, possibly open to the army and navy of the United States; the Stono, North and South Edisto, Ashepoo, Combahee, Coosaw and Broad rivers and their tributaries, gave to the Federal forces short water lines to many vulnerable points in our exposed territory.

It appeared at first that the undisputed control of the ocean, and