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very much concerned when, scarcely a week afterward, the War Department compelled me to send Cooke’s and Clingman’s commands hack to NorthCarolina , and, early in May, two other brigades [S. E. Grist’s and W. H. T.Walker’s], numbering five thousand men, with two batteries of light artillery,to reenforce General Joseph E. Johnston at Jackson, Mississippi . The factis that, on the 10th of May, Mr. Seddon, the Secretary of War, had evendirected that still another force of five thousand men should be withdrawnfrom my department to be sent to Vicksburg to the assistance of GeneralPemberton. But my protest against so exhaustive a drain upon my com-mand was fortunately heeded, and I was allowed to retain the reduced forceI then had under me, amounting on the 1st of June, for the whole State ofSouth Carolina , to not more than ten thousand men. With these, it wasevident, I could not protect every vulnerable point at the same time; andthereafter, whenever the occasion arose, I had to withdraw troops from onequarter of the department to reenfoi'ce another.
The fact that a new commander of high engineering repute, GeneralGillmore , had been sent to supersede General Hunter & confirmed me in theopinion that we would not have to wait long before another and more seriousattack was made. A further reason for such a belief was the presence atthat time of six Federal regiments on Folly Island, under Brigadier-GeneralIsrael Vogdes, an officer of merit, perfectly familiar with Charleston and thesurrounding country, having been stationed at Fort Moultrie before the war.
On the 7th of July four monitors were seen off the Charleston bar. Thefleet had not otherwise increased up to that day. During the night of the 8ththe noise, apparently made by extensive chopping with axes, was distinctlyheard from the extreme southern end of Moms Island. The sand-hills, sonumerous on Little Folly Island, afforded much facility to the enemy forkeeping us in the dark as to his ulterior designs, although nothing indicateda uy effort on his part at concealment. |
General Hunter was transferred from the De-partment of Kansas to tlie command of the Depart-ment of the South on the 31st of March, 1802,relieving Brigadier-General Thomas W. Sherman ,and was himself relieved hy General Quincy A.Gillmore on the 12tli of June, 18G3. Among thechief events of General Hunter’s administrationVere the capture of Port Pulaski, April 11th,1862 (see General Gillmore ’s description of theseoperations, Vol. II., p. 1); the declaration of free-dom (April 12th, 1802) to slaves in Port Pulaskia nd on Cockspur Island, Ga. ; a similar declaration(May 0th) to slaves in Georgia, Florida, and SouthCarolina , which was annulled, ten days later hyPresident Lincoln ; and the enlistment of the firstcolored troops, called the 1st South Carolina regi-ment.— Editors.
4- The following is an extract from my officialreport to the War Department upon this importantevent in the siege of Charleston :
“At 5 o’clock on the morning of the 10t.li of July theenemy’s attack commenced by a heavy fire on our posi-tion from a great number of light guns, apparentlyPlaced during the preceding forty-eiglit hours in the
works lately thrown up on Little Folly Island. Threemonitors about the same time crossed the bar andbrought their formidable armaments to bear on tbeleft flank of our position, while several barges withhowitzers, in Lighthouse Inlet, flanked our right. Fortwo hours the enemy kept up the fire from these threedifferent points, our batteries replying vigorously.
“ The barges of the enemy, filled with troops, havingbeen seen in Lighthouse Inlet in the direction of BlackIsland, and Oyster Point being tlie nearest and most ac-cessible spot for debarkation from them, it was justlyconsidered the one most necessary to protect, and there-fore the infantry, consisting of the 21st South CarolinaVolunteers, about 350 effective men, were stationed byColonel R. F. Graham, the immediate commander ofthe island, on the peninsula leading to that point.
“In this position the infantry wore unavoidably ex-posed to the fire of the boat howitzers, but sheltered bythe nature of the ground from that of the guns on LittleFolly Island.
“ About 7 o’clock the enemy advanced on OysterPoint in a flotilla of boats containing between two andthree thousand men, a considerable portion of whomendeavored to effect and hold a landing, in which theywere opposed by the infantry until about 8 o’clock, whenanother force of two or three regiments made good a land-ing in front of our batteries on tlie south end of MorrisIsland proper. These formed in line of battle on thebeach, and advanced directly upon our works, throwing