The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The Immortal 600 and Morris Island Prison, 1864 - Apr. 20th, 2005

America's Civil War | January 2003 | Tim Cunningham

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues

Where Duty, Honor and Country
are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.

Our Mission:

The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans.

In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support.

The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer.

If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions.

We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.

To read previous Foxhole threads or
to add the Foxhole to your sidebar,
click on the books below.

The Immortal Six-Hundred:
Prisoners Under Fire

Knowingly exposing helpless prisoners to artillery fire seems unconscionable. War, however, has a way of fostering inhumane behavior.

Shells arched over the waters of Charleston Harbor throughout the summer of 1864. Some of the ponderous bombs shrieked into the city, while the deadly trajectory of others ended in Federal fortifications ringing the cradle of secession. For a group of Confederate prisoners living in a stockade built on a wispy spit of sand, the path of those hissing bombs, some so large and slow-moving that they could be followed in flight, was uncomfortably familiar, for their Morris Island prison pen had been deliberately placed in harm's way. In essence, the beleaguered Rebels baking in the sun were being used as human shields. It was a sad commentary on how nasty the Civil War had become.

The unfortunate situation had its roots in the previous summer. On August 21, 1863, Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, the Federal commander in the Charleston area at the time, had sent a message to his Confederate counterpart, General P.G.T. Beauregard, informing him of the Union army's intention to fire into Charleston. He stated that the city was a military target due to its arsenal, which manufactured artillery shells, and its docks, which received supplies smuggled through the blockade. He informed the Southern general that the shelling would start sometime after midnight, August 22.

Beauregard howled in protest, stating that he did not have adequate time to evacuate the city of its noncombatants. Nevertheless, in the wee hours of the following morning, Federal mortars sent their deadly projectiles into both the residential and business areas of downtown Charleston. Most affluent residents quickly fled the city, but the poorer inhabitants had to remain and face the onslaught.

Gillmore placed an 8-inch Parrott rifle on Morris Island, four miles across the harbor from the south end of the city. The giant cannon, nicknamed the "Swamp Angel," hammered 16 screaming shells into Charleston before dawn, signaling the beginning of a bombardment that would last 567 days. In the month of January 1864 alone, 1,500 mortar shells were fired into the city. Once-mighty Fort Sumter, the linchpin of the city's defenses, was being pounded into a pile of rubble.


Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore

On April 20, 1864, Maj. Gen. Samuel Jones arrived in Charleston to take command of the Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida from Beauregard, who had been reassigned to North Carolina. Jones was a career army officer who had been born on December 17, 1819, in Powhatan County, Va. He attended West Point and ranked 19th out of 52 cadets in the class of 1841. He served on the Maine and Florida frontiers before returning to West Point in 1846 as a mathematics professor and an artillery instructor. Unlike many of the U.S. Army's young officers at that time, he saw no action in the Mexican War. In 1853 he was promoted to captain and served in Texas until 1858, when he was made assistant judge advocate.

After Virginia seceded from the Union, Jones went with his native state. He resigned from the Army on April 27, 1861, and reported for service with the Confederacy. At the First Battle of Manassas, he commanded the Confederate artillery as a colonel under Beauregard and was shortly afterward promoted to brigadier general. Jones then led a brigade in Virginia, but was sent to Florida at the turn of 1862. He was promoted to major general and spent the rest of that year in various posts in Florida, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Jones had a bad habit of questioning his superiors, and at times refusing their orders. He hated to relinquish troops under his command and usually ran into trouble as a consequence. In the autumn of 1862 he failed to send reinforcements to General Braxton Bragg in Kentucky, and for that misstep he was transferred to command the Department of Western Virginia. Throughout 1863 and early '64, he maintained the supply routes that fed the Army of Northern Virginia, but fell into disfavor with General Robert E. Lee when he continually argued about the assignment of regiments. In March, Jones was relieved of his Virginia command and ordered to Charleston.


Confederate Major General Samuel (Sam) Jones

When Jones arrived in Charleston, the battered city had already endured eight months of bombardment. Though deaths from the shelling were few, the Federal artillery had caused irreparable destruction throughout the city, and very few buildings within Union cannon-shot range had escaped damage from shellfire. The streets were pockmarked with craters and littered with the bodies of unburied animals. Only weeds grew in the yards of what had once been lovely homes, and the jewel of Southern antebellum culture had been reduced to the apocalyptic landscape of a scarred battlefield. In a grim attempt at humor, remaining residents called the area most damaged by the Federal guns the "Gillmore District."

Shortly after the Southern change of command, the Union also assigned a new man to Charleston. On May 26, 1864, Maj. Gen. John Gray Foster replaced Gillmore as the head of the Department of the South. Foster was also a West Point graduate, class of 1846. He had seen considerable combat in the Mexican War and was wounded while in command of sappers, miners and pontoniers.

Foster had been stationed at Fort Sumter as a captain when it fell in 1861. After the fort surrendered he returned to Washington, where he was placed in command of a New England brigade that he led to victories at Roanoke Island and New Bern, N.C. In 1863 he was transferred to Tennessee, where he fought at the siege of Knoxville and briefly commanded the Army of the Ohio. Following a fall from an unruly horse, Foster was transferred to the Department of the South to replace Gillmore. The relocation was a homecoming of sorts for the general. But no matter how badly he wanted to avenge Fort Sumter and seize Charleston, Foster realized that he lacked the means to successfully assault or outflank the massive defenses of the harbor town, and settled into continuing the siege by bombardment.


300 pound Parrot Gun, in Ft. Chatfield, Morris Island, S.C.

Lacking the manpower and resources to drive Foster's Yankees away, General Jones looked for immediate ways to alleviate the bombardment. He turned to drastic measures to do so. On June 1, 1864, he requested from Jefferson Davis' military adviser, General Braxton Bragg, that 50 Federal prisoners be sent to him to be "confined in parts of the city still occupied by civilians, but under the enemy's fire." Davis approved his request, and orders were issued to move the unfortunate prisoners from Camp Ogelthorpe in Macon, Ga., to Charleston. On Sunday, June 12, trains arrived from Georgia bearing their unhappy cargo of Union captives.

The event was smugly reported in the local newspaper, the Charleston Mercury, which expressed pleasure at the plight of the endangered Federal officers. "For some time it has been known that a batch of Yankee prisoners, comprising the highest in rank now in our hands, were soon to be brought hither to share in the pleasures of the bombardment. These prisoners we understand will be furnished with comfortable quarters in that portion of the city most exposed to enemy fire. The commanding officer on Morris Island will be duly notified of the fact of their presence in the shelled district and if his batteries still continue at their wanton and barbarous work, it will be at the peril of the captive officers."

The unlucky 50 Yankees, all officers—five of them brigadier generals—were placed in a home converted into a prison in the south end of Charleston. Jones sent a note to Foster the day after their arrival to tell the Federal general of the captives' arrival and that they had been placed in "commodious quarters in a part of the city occupied by non-combatants....I should inform you that it is a part of the city…for many months exposed to the fire of your guns." With that action, the Confederate commander set in motion a chain of events that would endanger the lives of helpless prisoners of war and outrage the highest officials of both governments.


Morris Island, S.C. Federal mortars aimed at Fort Sumter, with crews

Foster was furious and immediately requested that 50 Confederate officer prisoners be sent from the prison at Fort Delaware, located on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, and placed in front of the Union forts on Morris Island in retaliation. He sent a letter to Jones under flag of truce in which he argued that Charleston had munitions factories and wharves for receiving goods run past the blockade. He stated in angry terms that to "destroy these means of continuing the war is therefore our object and duty. You seek to defeat this effort, not by honorable means, but by placing unarmed and helpless prisoners under our fire."

Jones was unshaken by the stern words of the Union general and fired back a letter chastising Foster and the Federal armies for their conduct throughout the war. He complained at length that the Confederate authorities had not been notified, or given time to evacuate the city, before the bombardment began the previous August. He closed his dispatch to the enemy commander with the furious words: "Under the foregoing statement of facts, I cannot but regard the desultory firing on this city which you dignify by the name bombardment, from its commencement to this hour, as antichristian, inhuman, and utterly indefensible by any law, human or divine." Clearly Jones was in no mood to be chastised by the Yankees, nor was he prone to any sympathy for the captive Union officers he was exposing to danger.

[Professional Engineer]

Hi miss Feather

[Professional Engineer]

LOL!

[Professional Engineer]

That's one way to wash your wheels. :-)

LOL ;-)

[Wneighbor]

Please pray for me.

A good friend, a man I have called "dad" for the last 20 years, a U.S. Navy vet died this morning. I am far away and can't make it home to be with the loved ones right now.

[Samwise]

All humanity is of one Author, and is one volume; when one dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God’s hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another.

-- JOHN DONNE (1572–1631)

[stand watie]

NICE PICTURE!

free dixie,sw

[snippy_about_it]

Prayers offered. Sam and I are so sorry to hear of your loss.

[Wneighbor]

Thank you Samwise, Snippy and Samwolf.

Boss sent me home tonight. I've made some necesary calls and am at loose ends now waiting to hear what the plans are. I really need to be able to make another trip home this weekend but will be rough to get there. Thanks for all prayers.

[SAMWolf]

NICE PICTURE!

:-)

[SAMWolf]

Please accept my condolences on your loss, Wneighbor.

[Wneighbor]

Thank you sir. We all lost a great patriotic American and Navy vet today. I know that in this place that kind of person is appreciated well. :-) I've always been pretty honored that such folks counted me as friend. :-)

[Professional Engineer]

Sad news bump.

[Wneighbor]

Thanks. :-) ~snif~

[KDD]

Another great one...Thanks

[Valin]

One prayer...on the way.

So sorry to hear that.

[Valin]

Don't know if anyone else got pinged on this
ATTENTION FREEPERS - PRAYERS REQUESTED FOR TexKat's son injured in Iraq (Update-TexKat's son OK)
TexKat | 4/20/05 | mystery-ak

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1387605/posts
Posted on 04/20/2005 3:20:17 PM CDT by mystery-ak


TexKat has learned that her son has been injured in Iraq. TexKat posts the daily Operation Phantom Fury Thread....she has left her workplace and has returned to her home to await details....



Update from TexKat

04/20/2005 2:59:17 PM PDT

Thank all of you praying Freepers and please continue to pray for mine and for all others that are in harms way. My son took a licking and is lower back sore but still ticking, thank God.


I talked to him while he was still in the hospital in Baghdad (I guess that is where the hospital is.) and then he is scheduled to be flown back to camp later. God has spared him again.

(snip)

[Wneighbor]

Thanks for the prayers Valin. Praying for TexKat's son and family too. Night.

[SAMWolf]

Pretty Cool!

[Valin]

Hang in there kid! Better days are coming.







Of course in the mean time there's a blackhole in the center of the galaxy. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Thanks Valin