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General Gillmore’s book is valuable in many respects. It furnishes newand important information to the student of military history. Its tabularstatements are generally accurate; the plates, drawings, and carefully pre-pared maps annexed to it are interesting and instructive. The descriptionhe gives of the city of Charleston , and of the fortifications in and around itsharbor, is exact. But the inference to be drawn from the paragraph num-bered nineteen in the book [p. 11] is exceptionable. It reads as follows:
“ The strength of the Janies Island works was tested by a bold but unsuccessful assault uponthem by our forces under Brigadier-General [H. W.] Benham on the 16th of June, 1862.”
I deem it necessary to place the facts of this attack in their proper light,because that is the reason assigned by Gillmore for not having attacked byJames Island in July, 1863, when he attempted the Morris Island route.
The truth of the matter is, that the point attacked by Generals Benhamand 1.1. Stevens near Secessionville ,1 was the strongest one of the whole line,which was then unfinished and was designed to be some five miles in length.
The two Federal commanders might have overcome the obstacles in theirfront had they proceeded farther up the Stono. Even as it was, the fight atSecessionville was lost, in great measure, by lack of tenacity on the part ofGenerals Benham and Stevens. Their troops outnumbered ours more thantwo to one, and fought with considerable dash. Some of them, in the impetusof the assault, went even inside one of the salients of the work. It was savedby the skin of our teeth. General Benham’s attack was, therefore, hardly a“ test” of the possibility or impossibility of carrying the James Island works.The failure in June, 1862, was no good reason for not making the attemptover again in July, 1863—1. Because that point of the attack was the strong-est instead of the weakest of the line, other parts of it, further west, beingbut feebly guarded and poorly armed. 2. Because the forces under me inJuly, 1863, were much less than those under General Pemberton in June,1862. 3. Because in July, 1863, I had only 1184 infantry on the vdiole ofJames Island; whereas, in order to guard the defensive lines properly,I should have had a force of at least 8000 men there. General Gillmoresays, p. 12:
“ A land attack upon Charleston was not even discussed at any of the interviews to which IWas invited, and was certainly never contemplated by me.”
His reasons for not having contemplated such a movement are shown inparagraph 27 of his book, where he asserts, in substance, that beyond thecapture of Morris Island and the demolition of Fort Sumter he neverintended, with an army of only 11,000 men, and with so many difficulties inhis way, to undertake any operations against the land defenses of Charleston ,knowing as he did how superior my forces were to his own, and what facili-
i* The assault at Secessionville was made by report of General David Hunter, who commandedStevens’s division of about 3500 men, supported the department, the attack was made by Generaly General H. G. Wright’s division, numbering Benham in violation of his instructions.
100. Wright’s troops were not seriously engaged. The Confederate force engaged was commandedle aggregate Union loss was G83, of whom 520 by General N. G. Evans, and sustained a loss ofe longed to Stevens’s division. According to the about 200.— Editors.