BY FREDERICK L. RATH, JR.,
ASSISTANT HISTORICAL TECHNICIAN

Historians like to draw analogies between the past and the present, and to say, with a kind of triumphant sneer, "There is nothing new under the sun." The habit is a bad one; perhaps there should be a law against such self-conscious effort, particularly since the historian offers his contribution only after the event.

Nonetheless, an opportunity too good to be passed has been offered by the recent military operations in Europe. The American public has watched with great interest the successful German offensive against the reputedly impregnable Maginot Line and its prototypes. One phase of these operations, that against the advance pill boxes covering the greater fortifications, is not dissimilar to a plan evolved by Federal forces on the Savannah River in 1862. The tactics of the Germans, so far as has been gleaned from present accounts, involved a use of flame throwers, hand grenades, and other special implements of war. Exactly how the operations were made effective is not yet known. The Germans were successful, at any rate, either in forcing their way into the small forts or in having the defenders open the forts to them.

In October 1861, General T. W. Sherman and more than 12,000 Federal soldiers embarked from Norfolk, Virginia, for an undisclosed destination. The sealed orders under which the huge flotilla sailed were opened at sea, after a violent hurricane wrecked several ships. The expedition, it was then learned, was to rendezvous at Port Royal Sound, South Carolina. Early in November, Forts Walker and Beauregard, guarding the entrance to the Sound, were taken, and the Union forces set up their headquarters on Hilton Head Island, about 15 miles north of the mouth of the Savannah River where stood Fort Pulaski, garrisoned by some 400 Confederates. A natural objective was the seizure of this fort, which controlled ingress to and egress from the important cotton port of Savannah.

In order to invest the fort, it was necessary to cut it off from its source of supply, the city itself, so expeditions were sent out early in 1862 to occupy the islands surrounding Cockspur Island, the site of Fort Pulaski. North and west of this island, along the Savannah River, lay a series of marsh islands on which batteries of guns were to be erected. This task was entrusted to the Forty-Eighth Regiment, New York State Volunteers, and the Seventh Connecticut Volunteers.

Accordingly, in February 1862, batteries were set up on Jones and Bird Islands, which were separated by the North Channel, or shipping channel, of the Savannah River. The story of the placing of the guns, a laborious task involving the building of cause ways across the marshes, can be told at another time. By February 20, Battery Vulcan and Battery Hamilton were in position to stop all traffic between Savannah and Fort Pulaski.

The story that follows comes from the pen of the Rev. D. C. Knowles, Captain, Company D, Forty-Eighth New York, who describes graphically the plans of the "Cold-Chisel Brigade."¹

And now I come to an episode that is a type of many a curious plan that our civil war brought forth. Probably no contest ever produced so many novel expedients to circumvent an enemy as were born in the fertile brains of our inventive Yankee soldiers. Powder gun-boats, monitors, and mines hurling forts into the air are samples of these extra-military expedients for defeating a watchful foe. The event I am now about to relate is not a whit behind the chiefest of them in hazard and reckless audacity.

About the middle of March two deserters from the rebel lines came into our brigade and reported the existence of a steamer at Savannah clad with railroad iron, after the order of the celebrated Merrimac. They said a movement was on foot to run the vessel down with a body of troops, capture our forts on the banks of the Savannah, and thus open the way to the relief of Pulaski.

Certain reports of officers making reconnaissances of the river seemed to corroborate the existence of such a vessel, and the fears of our officers were aroused for our safety and the success of our enterprises. Schemes for defence were at once devised, and the plan I now give in detail was adopted.

It was supposed that the vessel lying low in the water, with sloping sides of iron like the roof of a house, would steam down the river and anchor directly between our batteries, of which we had two, one on either bank, and proceed boldly to shell us at close range, while all our shot in reply would fly harmlessly from her invulnerable covering. In the mean time the infantry would attack us in the rear, cut off retreat, and take us all prisoners at their convenience. The line of defence, therefore, must include the capture of the vessel by some expedient. The plan devised in the fertile brain of somebody was to take six common row-boats, three on either side of the river, man each of them with six oars-men, six soldiers, and an officer. The soldiers were to be armed with revolvers, hand-grenades, cold-chisels, and sledge-hammers. The boats were to be well supplied with grappling-irons and ropes. Thus equipped, when the vessel came, the whole expedition was to row out from either shore, board the vessel by means of ropes and grappling-irons, keep the gunners from the guns by the free use of hand-grenades thrown in the port-holes, and cutting through the iron roof by means of the cold-chisels and sledge-hammers, get inside the vessel and capture her, crew and all. Such, in brief, was the line of defence. Suffice it to say, the boats were selected, the material all sent down to the batteries, and the officer in command of the forts directed to select some one to lead the forlorn hope. I was called to the command. Selecting two lieutenants as assistants, we picked our crews, drilled our men, and awaited the final hour.

While making preparations, Captain Hamilton, a prominent officer in the Third Artillery of the regular army, came down to inspect our progress, and report our condition. He sent for me to visit him in the Lieutenant-Colonel's tent. I explained our preparations, and asked advice. One point seemed to me not to have been well considered. I said to him, "Captain, that vessel has steam and an engine, and it seems to me if we should succeed in getting a force on her sloping sides, and threatening to take her, they would slip their cables, steam up the Savannah, and carry us off to jail with all dispatch." "But you must stop her," said he. "Well, how?" was my reply. He sat a moment in silent meditation, when he broke out: "I do not know any better way than to take strong ropes, fasten them to her anchor or some part of the vessel, and then attach the other end to the screw, so that when the wheel starts the rope will wind up and stop its revolutions." "Not a very easy thing to do it strikes me," said I, "in such a rapid current as this river, and that too while cannon are thundering in our very faces." "Well," said he, "it is a desperate case, and we must hold these batteries at any cost. You must do the best you can, at any rate."

Just at that moment a thought struck me, suggested by my knowledge of the construction of a steam-boiler and the presence of the cold-chisels. I ventured to suggest it as a new plan of offence. "Captain," said I, "why could we not board the vessel, strike at once for the smoke-stack, and cutting a hole in it, throw down a bomb-shell, blow up these tubes that run through the boiler, and thus let out the steam and scald the crew, and take the whole institution at a blow."

The Captain sprang to his feet, with a face all radiant with joy, and with many big words which I do not desire to repeat, declared that the thing should be done, and consequently a huge bomb-shell, with fuse all ready, was placed in each boat as a part of our armament. And while we waited the coming of our foe we wrote to our friends the possibility of our fate, and talked together of a grave in the muddy flood of the Savannah. For we all felt assured that nothing less than an interposition of Providence could save us from certain destruction. To row half a mile in the face of such a foe, in such a rapid current, in crowded boats, and board a vessel under such conditions, was an enterprise that had in it few chances of success. Disaster in all probability would have been the end of such an expedition. And yet in the face of these convictions we entered on the project with all the ardor of assured victory. The devoted band was denominated "The Cold-Chisel Brigade," and when the enterprise was finally abandoned the cold-chisels were seized as souvenirs of a project that gained at the time quite a local notoriety.

Suffice it to say the report was false. No such vessel then existed; and when General Hunter took command of the Department he made an early visit to the batteries to see what the "Cold-Chisel Brigade" was proposing to do, and with the curt remark, "What fool got up that plan?" he ordered it disbanded.

A variation of this story offers a humorous sidelight. Major General Quincy A. Gillmore, in charge of the operations against Fort Pulaski, gave this version:

The 48th New York, which furnished the guard for the battery, had not a reputation for conspicuous sanctity, but it is doubtful whether one story told of then would not suffer in point by contact with hard facts.

There was an iron-clad in Savannah named the Atlanta, but commonly known as the "Ladies" gun-boat, from the fact that means for building it had been largely supplied by contributions of jewelry from the ladies of the city. Some time after our occupation of Jones Island, it was reported that the Atlanta was coming down to shell us out. The thoughts of the battery-guard naturally turned toward measures for meeting such an attack, and it was resolved to fire shot connected by chains and so tangle her up and haul her ashore. When the question arose how they would get into their iron-bound prize, the officer in command of the detachment was ready with his solution: "I've got the men to do it." Then he paraded his men, and informed them of the facts. "Now, said he, "you've been in this cursed swamp for two weeks, up to your ears in mud, - no fun, no glory, and blessed poor pay. Here's a chancd. Let every one of you who has had any experience as a cracksman or a safe-blower step to the front." It is said that the whole detachment stepped off its two paces with perfect unanimity.