Southern Storm (63 page)

Then it was up the wall and onto the parapet. A member of the 116th Illinois recalled this as “the most difficult part of the work—to climb up the side of the fort, which was loose earth.” Frantic defenders tried to fire over the parapet edge or hurled objects on the yelling, scrambling mass of blue men swarming the fort’s outer walls. Along the river side’s northwest face, where no one was expecting trouble, a ragged cheer and shouts announced the arrival of the 47th Ohio and portions of the 111th Illinois.

From his perch at Cheves’ Rice Mill, Major General Howard found the sight of the fighting both appalling and irresistible. “They crossed the
ditch, then over the parapet,” he said. “The wind lifted the smoke,” added a Sherman aide. “Crowds of men were visible on the parapet, fiercely fighting—but our flag was planted there.”

Soon afterward, claims would be made by the 47th Ohio, 70th Ohio, 90th Illinois, and 111th Illinois on the honor of having placed the first flag on the Confederate works. None would be able to definitively prove their contention. More to the point, flags on the parapet did not signal an end to the fighting. Groups of the McAllister garrison fought around their cannon, while others fell back to the interior to fort up in bombproofs and magazines.

For a short time, recalled a member of the 47th Ohio, the attackers “were all engaged in [a] fierce hand-to-hand encounter, fighting with the bayonet and the butt of muskets.” Seconded another soldier in the melee, “we had to bayonet them before they would stop fighting.” Several gun commanders who refused to abandon their tubes were engulfed by the blue flood. One who died under the onslaught was Lieutenant Richard C. Hazzard of Clinch’s Light Artillery. His commander was also felled at the very end of the fighting, but not before a combat notable enough to merit mention in Major Anderson’s final report:

Major Anderson almost added his own name to the list of killed. Cornered on the parapet, he threw down his sword but then was jabbed at by a bayonet-wielding Yankee. When Anderson protested, the soldier reversed his gun and clubbed the fort commander in the
head before moving on. Fortunately, the next Federal on the scene was Brigadier General Hazen himself, who knew Anderson before the war. “Get to the rear, George,” Hazen told the groggy Confederate, “and report to me later.” Hazen also encountered another acquaintance wearing the other uniform, the human pincushion Captain Clinch. Somehow the Rebel officer “recognized and spoke to me,” recorded an astonished Hazen. “He was lying on his back, shot through the arm, with a bayonet wound in the chest, and contused by the butt of a gun.”

Sherman recalled that “the parapets were blue with our men, who fired their muskets in the air, and shouted so that we actually heard them, or felt that we did.” “Then all of us who had witnessed the strife and exalted in the triumph, grasped each the other’s hand, embraced, and were glad, and some of us found the water in our eyes,” said Major Nichols of Sherman’s staff. Howard’s communications chief, Captain McClintock, was tempted to tell everyone to pipe down, for “so wild and boisterous were their demonstrations that the old building was so shaken that it was next to impossible to hold a glass with sufficient steadiness upon a flag at that distance to distinctly read it.” McClintock complained to his boss, Major General Howard, who found a way to settle things down. Howard then dictated a message for Lieutenant Fisher on the
Dandelion:

The twilight had deepened to the point that Lieutenant Fisher could barely read the flag waggles, and he realized that he had neglected to pack any torches for night signaling. The officer decided that the tug should retire to the river’s mouth, where he could deliver his news before returning to pick up Sherman.

The fighting inside Fort McAllister sputtered fitfully for a few minutes as the last defenders were prised out of their hiding places. On his way to the Union rear, POW Major Anderson encountered Colonel James S. Martin, one of the three brigade commanders. Martin after
ward claimed to have accepted Anderson’s surrender of the post. Before leaving the fort area, the Confederate commander observed a company of Union soldiers marching out of McAllister on a course that would take them right into the torpedo belt. Anderson, recalled the young lieutenant in charge of the detail, “held out your hand and told me not to go out that way and you told me the way to go out and I found out afterwards that if I had…went out the way I first started I would have been blown up with torpedoes.”

Instead of destroying their flags, the garrison had tried to hide them, not a smart thing to do when confronted by some of Sherman’s most experienced scroungers. Captain George E. Castle of the 111th Illinois found one stuffed in the fireplace of a bombproof, while Captain J. H. Brown of the 47th Ohio located another tucked away with stored gunpowder, and yet a third was taken by Captain George Nelson, a Third Brigade staff officer.

In the final accounting, Hazen put his losses at 24 killed (most by the torpedoes) and 110 wounded. The fatalities were especially heavy among the color bearers, who, because their duty put them in the van of the advance, were among the first to reach the torpedoes. Three of them—two in the 48th Illinois and one in the 70th Ohio—died. Major Anderson counted sixteen of the fort’s defenders killed, and twenty-eight wounded. The rest, including himself, were prisoners. Taken also were twenty-four cannon, one mortar, sixty tons of ammunition, some fine Havana cigars, and thirty days of food supplies, including a small but select wine cellar.

When he had calmed down somewhat, Sherman waved over his aide-de-camp, Major Lewis Dayton, to sketch a note for Major General Slocum, holding down the left flank. “Take a good big drink, a long breath, and then yell like the devil,” read the message. “The fort was carried at 4:30
P.M
., the assault lasting but fifteen minutes.” Dayton went on to say that contact had finally been made with the Federal fleet.

Sherman now committed an act of utter folly. So anxious was he to be in touch with the outside world that he commandeered one of the small boats used by the signal corps men at the rice mill with the intention of reaching Fort McAllister via the Ogeechee River. No one
present seems to have calculated the potential risk for a small party in a rowboat on an unfamiliar river in the dark traveling to the site of a fierce battle not thirty minutes ended. Compounding the imprudence, Major General Howard insisted on going along. There was a streak of vanity in the man who, writing long after the war, would take great pains to claim much of the credit for the successful attack. The prospect of Sherman’s going alone to the site of one of his (Howard’s) triumphs was just unthinkable.

So the pair—representing two-thirds of the top leadership of the forces that had marched from Atlanta to the gates of Savannah—piled into the small skiff that the signal men provided. Somebody had to row, so Major Nichols and Captain Nehemiah Merritt of Sherman’s staff volunteered for the duty, claiming, according to Sherman, that “they were good oarsmen.” Somehow room was also found for Howard’s chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel William E. Strong, and another Sherman aide, Captain Joseph C. Audenried.

The group set off on a voyage of what Sherman estimated to be six nautical miles, rowing against a flood tide. Strong, Merritt, Nichols, and Audenried constituted the galley, while Sherman—no surprise here—sat in the stern and steered. It was a tough pull against the river current, so to help them ignore their exertions, the rowers sang songs. Strong’s recollection was that “even Generals Sherman and Howard entered into the spirit of it and joined in the chorus of many an old and familiar air.” It was not long after 9:00
P.M
. when they somehow found their way to a landing point about a mile and a half above the captured fort.

Sherman’s luck was still running strong, for the sentry they encountered on the shore was not trigger-happy, and the party was soon brought to Brigadier General Hazen’s Middleton house headquarters. They found the brigadier preparing to eat dinner with his staff; “he invited us to join them,” wrote Sherman, “which we accepted promptly, for we were really very hungry.” Hazen asked permission to allow the fort’s captured commandant, Major Anderson, to join them. Since it was Hazen’s party after all, Sherman offered no objection. The only awkward moment came when Anderson, noticing that among those serving the table was one of his house slaves, asked him what he was doing. “I’se workin’ for Mr. Hazen now,” was the answer that spoke volumes about changing fortunes.

A group of couriers and aides, riding north from Cheves’ Rice Mill, spread the word of the Union victory. While most would find out next morning, many heard about it this night. “When the news was received we raised such a loud and long cheer that we made the whole country resound,” declared a Seventeenth Corps man. Someone had to come out of the picket line of the 64th Illinois to explain why everyone in camp was celebrating. “I would the world could have heard the whole joyful yells pass around the lines which encircle Savannah,” proclaimed a happy member of the 39th Ohio.

Word spread through the Left Wing, anchored on the Savannah River. “I hear the troops cheering and the bands playing Yankee Doodle,” noted a diarist in the 38th Ohio. Few were thinking of this in any strategic sense; for most it meant that supplies would soon begin to flow. Near the 74th Ohio the cry was: “Fort McAllister is taken and the cracker line is open!” A Pennsylvanian in the 147th regiment felt that “a great load was lifted from our shoulders, and the rejoicing in our ranks was very great.” In the 21st Michigan, the pickets shouted “Hardtack!” at the doubtless perplexed Confederates opposite them, but the Michigan boys knew full well what it meant. “‘Hardtack’ was really a jubilant cry of real meaning, a just cause of exultation as it foreshadowed the full fruits of victory,” predicted one soldier.

Sherman was determined to obtain “some news of what was going on in the outer world.” Having already survived one foolhardy adventure this night, he saw no reason why he shouldn’t undertake another. Hazen, remembering that the spoils of war included a yawl in good condition tied up on the far side of the fort, led his guests toward it. As they crossed along the causeway, a guard warned them to watch out for torpedoes. It was Sherman’s recollection that a soldier seeking a wounded pal had actually been killed while he was there, though Howard remembered it as being “an ambulance with mules hauling it” that triggered the explosion. Either way, Sherman promptly authorized Hazen to use some of the captured garrison to clear the minefield in the morning.

This infuriated Major Anderson, who branded it “an unwarrantable and improper treatment of prisoners of war.” Perhaps as a sop to the offended commander, or maybe as a little psychological warfare, Brigadier General Hazen allowed McAllister’s Confederate signal officer to send news of the surrender to his counterpart at the Rose Dhu Island battery. The unsigned message quickly worked its way up the Confederate chain of command, “reporting the loss of the work and representing the officers unhurt [save one].”

Sherman and Howard clambered aboard the yawl, which was crewed by fresh arms provided by Hazen, leaving the former rowers—Strong, Nichols, Audenried, and Merritt—on shore. Once again the brain trust of a major military operation was committing risky business, but Sherman was adamant. Luckily for all involved, Lieutenant Fisher was a responsible and proactive officer. After delivering word of the army’s arrival to the other vessels in Ossabaw Sound, he returned with the
Dandelion
to a point just below the captured fort. They had not been on station very long when the splash of oars heralded a small craft heading toward them.

“What boat is that?”

“Sherman.”

The yawl scraped alongside, allowing the generals to climb onto the deck. The two, noted Fisher, “were welcomed with twice three cheers by those on board.” Fisher launched into a short briefing of current events, indicated that Major General Foster was eager to get in touch, and that he had sent back word of Sherman’s arrival. The generals also learned that the intrepid Captain Duncan, Sergeant Amick, and Private Quimby had, recalled Howard, “succeeded in avoiding all dangers and hindrances and had reached the fleet the morning of the 12th.” Asking for paper and a place to write, Sherman sat down to personally compose dispatches to the secretary of war and the army’s chief of staff. Lieutenant Fisher also remembered notes for Major General Foster and Rear Admiral Dahlgren.

Sherman’s dispatches opened with news of McAllister’s capture, then summarized his forces’ position outside Savannah. He declared that his “army is in splendid order, and equal to anything.” He went on in more detail in the note intended for Major General Halleck (knowing it would be shared with Lincoln and Grant), adding that the
newspaper “editors in Georgia profess to be indignant at the horrible barbarities of Sherman’s army, but I know the people don’t want our visit repeated.” Typical of Sherman’s rapid-fire mind, suggestions were advanced for the next phase—either a course reversal to Montgomery, Alabama, to draw Hood down from Tennessee; or a march into the Carolinas to force General Robert E. Lee to abandon the fortifications protecting Richmond and Petersburg.