NEW JERSEY BUREAU. Naval Rendezvous at Swedesboro - Van Amburg's Menagerie Draws a Crowd

A temporary naval recruiting station was established in the historic village of Swedesboro amidst great pageantry and fanfare on September 27, 1864.  While the local businessmen and town folk held their annual street festival last Saturday with many food vendors and hucksters of all sorts selling their wares, naval officer, Bruce Tucker, Boatswain's Mate, Dan Cashin, and sailors, George McDowell and William Myers, all of the USS Lehigh, attempted to enlist men and boys for duty with the Navy.  The Seamen pitched their tent in the dusty street in front of the stately home of Doctor Charles Garrison, a prominent and well-respected physician of this town.  It was something of a homecoming for the shipmates of the Lehigh, their vessel having been constructed in 1863 in the shipyard at Chester, Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware from this place.

Despite the lure of potential prize money from captured blockade runners and the guarantee of immunity from conscription into the Army, few stepped forward to sign on, although many young boys, apparently eager for an adventurous life at sea, tried to enlist as cabin boys without their parents' consent.  Gone for good, apparently, are the days of the press gangs scouring the waterfront for unwary recruits.  Boatswain's Mate Cashin attributed the lack of recruiting success to the area's pacifism, thought to be engendered from a strong Quaker influence within the County of Gloucester.  The community is not, however, bereft of noble military heroes: Lieutenant Commander William N. Jeffers, formerly the skipper of the famed Monitor and now assigned to duty with the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, was born here, as was Brigadier General Charles G. Harker, recently killed heroically leading a charge at Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia, July 27, 1864.  These men are just two among the many who have volunteered from Swedesboro and Gloucester County to serve in their country's hour of need. In fact, Mr James Plummer, the proprietor of the well-appointed Plummer's Hotel (the best accommodations in Swedesboro), where this journalist had recently taken a room, has not seen his son since the Battle of Chancellorsville, where the young man was reported missing from the ranks of the 12th New Jersey Volunteers, a regiment made up largely of men from this region.  It must also be said that a draft was just held in Camden on September 23, and that the Township's complement of soldiers is made up.  Uncertain rumors of distant peace are being bandied about, as well, making service in any branch of the service less attractive at this late date in the war.  Still the US Navy is always in need of able-bodied men.

Van Amburg's Traveling Menagerie was also on hand to draw in the crowds from the surrounding communities.  Upwards of twenty large circus wagons were parked up and down Main Street as white circus tents had sprouted up over the previous night like giant mushrooms.  Several lions and two large elephants were on display.  The largest pachyderm, "Hannibal," weighs 15,000 pounds and was at times during the day very ferocious.  (Perhaps, some of the local men, having already seen the elephant, no longer desired to "see the elephant," as the expression goes.)  In addition to the wild beasts there were acrobats, jugglers, sword-swallowers, and a human giant, purportedly eight feet, two inches tall in his stocking feet, plus a dwarf and his normal-sized wife among other singular curiosities, all for the paying customers' viewing pleasure.   One of those curious exhibits was a seemingly normal, down-to-earth Negro from Mississippi, who had once been a slave, laboring in the tenches during the famous siege of Vicksburg.  The fortunate fellow, whose name is Abraham, was literally blown over to freedom with the explosion of one ton of black powder placed  underneath a salient in the rebel line by General Grant's soldiers, who had been endeavoring for weeks to blast their way into the Confederate stronghold.  The resulting battle in the huge crater that was caused by the detonation of the mine was a flat failure, but Abraham was blown sky high over to General John A. Logan's part of the federal line, about 250 yards distant, where he landed among the astonished Yankees.  The former slave certainly took an unusual route to emancipation, but was otherwise unhurt, and only a little shaken.  When a certain Times' reporter asked Abraham if he remembered about how high he had flown, the sable young man replied with all candor, "I's a blown up about t'ree mile, I was, suh!"

This particular story was enlivened and perhaps given added credibility by the purchase of hard apple cider, known locally as "Red Stingo," a town staple, and according to Dr. Garrison, of great medicinal value.  Despite the apple harvest being some weeks away, there was plenty of the home-brewed concoction available for purchase, much to the delight of townsmen and visiting sailors, alike.  A near brawl that followed a baseball game played on the fairgrounds just outside of Swedesboro was probably fueled by the imbibing of too much Red Stingo.

- H. J. W.

Captain Tucker, a tall circus performer, and a N-Y Times' reporter at Swedesboro Day.  Photo courtesy of William Myers.

[Editor's note: The phrase, "Seeing the elephant," is old soldier slang for green troops who have witnessed their first battle and lived to tell about it.  For further information, see:  Personal Memoirs by Ulysses S. Grant; The Diary of Charles Garrison, M.D. - Swedesboro and the Civil War (1861 - 1865)]
             

Early's Raid on Washington - The President Under Fire! - Attack on Fort Stevens Repulsed.

Rebel General Jubal Early with 15,000 battle-hardened veterans of Lee's army advanced on Washington but were summarily turned back at the gates of the city.  Unsubstantiated reports of Rebel numbers and rumors of atrocities were greatly exaggerated, causing many citizens to flee in panic.  On July 9th Early's thrust across the Potomac had been heroically delayed by a scratch force of national troops pulled together at the Monocacy River under the command of General Lew Wallace.  Consequently, Early and his marauders did not reach the formidable fortifications on the outskirts of Washington City until the eleventh.  Once reinforcements from General Grant's army arrived, the game was up, and Early was forced to retreat back to the Valley of Virginia.  (But not before maliciously burning to the ground the house of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair at Silver Spring.)  This gave rise to the humorous observation that when the rebels arrived to capture Washington City, "Early was late!"  Not to be outdone, the profane General Early is reported to have exclaimed, "We may not have taken Washington, but we scared Old Abe like h---!"

Far from being "scared," the President, a few senators and members of the Cabinet, notably Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, came out to Fort Stevens to have a first-hand look at the progress of the battle from the ramparts.  Heavy skirmishing was occurring beyond the fort's walls as Union infantry advanced to meet the rebel attack.  Sharpshooters firing from trees and abandoned houses threatened the President and his entourage as they stood upon the parapet.  After a surgeon standing right beside the President was hit and severely wounded, General Wright ordered the Commander-in-Chief down from the works.  One officer nearby, perhaps not recognizing the President, was reported to have shouted, "Get down, you fool!"  Mr. Lincoln reluctantly complied and sought a safer place to view the battle.  It is believed to have been the first and only time an American President has come under hostile enemy fire that didn't emanate from the opposition press.  Whether or not rebel marksmen specifically targeted the President may never be known.

President Abraham Lincoln under rebel fire at Fort Stevens, July 12, 1864.  (Bas-relief by Schwizer in Jubal Early's Raid on Washington, 1864 [p. 142])

Mr. Lincoln had been highly displeased upon learning that Gustavus V. Fox, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, had ordered two or three gunboats up the Potomac to stand by with steam up in case the present emergency required that the President be evacuated.  However, President Lincoln was not content to ride out the storm confined to the White House.  Instead he and Mrs. Lincoln, in the presidential carriage, rode out the Seventh Street Road to Fort Stevens to watch the battle in progress on two successive days, July11th and 12th.

Ultimately, Fort Stevens with its heavy artillery and the other forts that form a protective ring around the Capital proved their worth, even undermanned as they were, as the works were just too strong for a raiding party the size of Early's force to invest and overrun.  The ordnance at Fort Stevens alone boasted four 24-pounder seacoast cannon firing in barbette; six 24-pounder siege guns in an embrasure; two 8-inch siege howitzers; five 30-pounder Parrott guns, plus a 10-inch siege and a 24-pounder Coehorn mortar.  The Confederates' plan to siphon off troops and relieve Lee's army besieged at Petersburg, succeeded to some degree, but not enough to materially alter the strategic situation there.  We daily await the news that General Grant's troops will have breached the works at Petersburg, the so-called "Backdoor to Richmond," and sent the rebels flying.                        

- H. J. W.

Members of the 6th Independent Battery, New York Artillery at Fort Stevens [i.e., Parker Press Park, Woodbridge, NJ] prepare to fire as President Lincoln and an unidentified lady look on.  Photo courtesy of William Myers.

[Editor's note:  For more information, see B. F. Cooling's Jubal Early's Raid on Washington, 1864]

Stono River Expedition in South Carolina - Union Navy Supports Army Demonstration in Front of Charleston - Failure of Attack on Fort Johnson - Fort Sumpter [sic] Pummeled by Federal Batteries - Union Flotilla Covers Withdrawal of the Army

USS Lehigh in the Stono River, 1864.  Image taken from Konstam A, Union Monitor 1861 - 65.

A large scale assault was conducted 2 - 10 July 1864 by Federal forces in the Department of the South at several points southwest of Charleston, South Carolina.  The operation has just concluded without significant results.  Federal infantry to the number of 5,000 troops under the command of Major-General John Foster failed to cut the rail line from Savannah to Charleston.  Union Brigadier-General Alexander Schimmelfennig demonstrated on James Island with another 1,000 soldiers, supported by Rear-Admiral John Dahlgren's flotilla along the Stono River. Although the main effort was directed against the railroad, it was also rumored that the Confederate Navy had planned to sortie with its ironclad rams against the blockade of Charleston Harbor.  Our sources revealed that the Federal offensive was conducted as a preemptive strike, in part to counter this impending threat to the blockaders; however, the rumored Rebel attack on the fleet proved illusory.

General Foster's diversionary assault got underway at dawn on 2 July.  General Schimmelfennig landed at Legareville on the eastern end of James Island with Colonel Alfred Hartwell in immediate command of the demonstrating force.  These troops included the 54th and 55th Massachusetts, the former regiment of Fort Wagner fame (the battle having been fought almost a year ago on Morris Island [18 July 1863]), the 103rd NewYork, and the 33rd USCT.  This force assaulted the Rebel works in two columns, with the gunboats protecting the left flank of the infantry.  The attackers were following along nearly the same route the British took on their way to capturing Charleston in 1780.  Hartwell's soldiers were supported by Union ships shelling the Rebel works on both sides of the narrow Stono River, each projectile throwing up great clods of earth.  The flotilla consisted of the monitors USS Lehigh and USS Montauk, gunboats USS Pawnee and USS McDonough, along with the mortar schooners USS Para and USS Racer.  The flotilla was preceded by USS Dai Ching, sweeping the Stono Inlet for torpedoes.

Schimmelfennig's troops gallantly carried a portion of the Rebel line, but stiff Rebel resistance and the intense heat combined to impede further advance. The temperature reached 110 degrees on the afternoon of 2 July as recorded in the ship's log of the Lehigh.  Ashore the extreme heat felled more soldiers than Rebel bullets with over 50 men in the 54th regiment alone suffering heat prostration. Captain Jones, while directing the Federal skirmish line, was overcome by sunstroke and had to be borne to the rear on a stretcher, raving in delirium.

The Federal diversion managed to achieve one intended aim as the Confederates shifted troops and guns to the besieged works on James Island, leaving Battery Simkins and Fort Johnson in a weakened condition. Consequently a night assault on those works was planned for 3 July.  Twenty open boats carrying 500 men under the command of Colonel Henry Holt [i.e., Hoyt] got underway.  Federal planning apparently failed to account for the receding tide, which caused innumerable delays as the boats approaching the forts through salt marshes continually grounded on the mud flats.  As night became day, the Union soldiers finally landed some fifty yards from Fort Johnson.  The enemy fired just one volley when some unknown Federal officer evidently panicked and gave the order to retreat. Fortunately, when the enemy opened up with their heavy artillery and musketry, the defenders generally fired high as the boats were so close to shore the Rebels could not depress their pieces far enough to hit the attackers.  Inexplicably, only three of the boats had landed with the result that about 140 Union soldiers, including their commander, were soon captured as the other boats pulled away.  It is believed that their were only 150 Confederates at that time defending Fort Johnson.

Likewise the attempt to cut the Charleston and Savanna Railroad ended in abject failure.  The whole operation got off to a sluggish start and bogged down completely in the swamps of the North Edisto River.  The only thing that prevented this affair from becoming a complete disaster was the minimal number of casualties suffered by General Foster's army.

Meanwhile Federal batteries on Morris Island intensified their bombardment of Fort Sumpter [sic] on 7 July.  New breaches in the walls of the fort became visible as the artillery began to methodically destroy this defiant symbol of the Rebellion.  On 10 July a second futile attempt by the Federals to take Fort Johnson was handily repulsed by the Rebels.

Operations on the Stono having concluded with mixed results, Dahlgren's vessels ably covered the withdrawal of the Army from James Island.  General Schimmelfennig sent a highly complimentary letter to Admiral Dahlgren on 9 July praising the conduct of the flotilla.  An excerpt from the missive follows:

"I take pleasure in informing you of the excellent practice by your gunboats and monitors on Stono River yesterday.  They drove the enemy out of his rifle pits and prevented him from erecting an earthwork which he had commenced.  As I shall probably have to occupy that line again before long, this fire of your monitors will undoubtedly save many lives on our side, for which I desire to express to them my thanks."

The fire of the Rebel forts on James island was also quite accurate, as the numerous dents on the iron turret of the Lehigh well attest.  One well-aimed shot fired by the enemy took the leg off a sailor and wounded another onboard the Montauk, the flotilla's only casualties.

-30-

(Editor's note:  General Schimmelfennig came to the United States in 1853 after formerly serving as an engineer officer in the Prussian Army.   He promptly offered his services to the Union when the Civil War began, serving in the XIth Corps, Army of the Potomac, before requesting a transfer to South Carolina. He is probably best remembered as the general officer who spent two days hiding in a pigsty to avoid capture by the Confederates at Gettysburg.  For further study, see Browning RM, Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron During the Civil War;  Scharf JT, History of the Confederate States Navy; and Warner EJ, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders.)