By Ed Churchill

You may be aware that Hilton Head Island served as a Union coaling station and service base during the Civil War. But did you know that the Federals captured it from Robert E. Lee? General Lee didn't assume command of the Army of Northern Virginia until June of 1862. Prior to that time he held a number of lesser posts, one of which was command of the military department which was responsible for the coastal defenses of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Lee was sent south to assume that command in November, 1861 (a little over six months after Ft. Sumter), when a large Union fleet began threatening Charleston and Savannah, and menacing the hundred-mile rail link between those two vital ports.

The assignment was a difficult one. The coastal fortifications were inadequately supplied and equipped, and manned by inexperienced artillerists. There were only about 7,000 raw militiamen to defend the railroad. Most were unaccustomed to hard labor, and objected to digging entrenchments. They had agreed to serve only a year and their enlistments were about to expire. And they balked at going beyond their own State boundaries.

Passing up the gay social life of Charleston and Savannah, Lee established his headquarters, with only five assistants and two black servants, in the tiny hamlet of Coosawhatchie, astride the Charleston-Savannah Railroad. Today Coosawhatchie is little more than a refueling stop along the Interstate. The old post office is abandoned; there is no railroad station; nor any markers commemorating the famous Confederate general's brief stay there.

The militia had established Fort Walker on Hilton Head and Fort Beauregard on St. Phillips island to keep enemy vessels from entering Port Royal Sound. But the day after his arrival, when Lee rode out to inspect these forts, he was informed that the Union fleet had already blasted its way past them (during the Battle of Port Royal) and had thereby gained access to the best deep water harbor on the south Atlantic coast. This made the immediate evacuation of Hilton Head imperative. Although that was successfully accomplished, the two forts cannon, the men's tents, clothing and provisions were all lost.

And although the troops were ordered to fall back to Bluffton and Beaufort, the Georgia contingent "returned to Savannah without orders."

Lee sent a message to the commander of Ft. Beauregard, requesting a report of his situation. When no reply was received by November 9th, he telegraphed the Secretary of War that he feared "every gun has been lost."

By that time the Yankees had landed 12,000 men at Hilton Head and Port Royal and were approaching Beaufort. The situation looked grim indeed and in a private letter to one of his daughters, the General characterized his assignment as "another forlorn hope expedition."

Indicative of his great state of depression, he suggested that a child he'd heard had just died was "a happy little creature, to be spared the evil of this world."

Ironically, the town of Beaufort (the first in the State to endorse secession) became the first recaptured by the Yankees.

To add to Lee's burden, he was also worried about conditions back home; particularly the safety of his family, and the plundering of their mansion on Arlington Heights. He wrote his wife, Mary: "It is better to make up our mind to a general loss. [But] they [the Yankees] cannot take away the remembrances of the spot & the memories of those that to us rendered it sacred." At that time he was unaware that the Federals had already overrun the [Custis-Lee] mansion and its surrounding grounds, overlooking the Potomac River, and were in the process of turning the property into an army bivouac area.

But Massa Robert was no summer soldier. His former commander, old Winfield Scott, had stated earlier that year: "If given an opportunity Lee will prove himself the greatest captain in history."

Though acknowledging the fact that "our enemy increases in strength faster than we do & is now enormous," he was determined to do everything possible to deter them. He ordered his thinly spread infantry force to entrench along the railroad at probable points of attack. He directed the navy to obstruct the mouths of the rivers. And he pressed forward the work of strengthening both Fort Pulaski, which protected the port city of Savannah and the several forts guarding Charleston harbor.

Seldom remaining at his sparsely furnished headquarters, he traveled ceaselessly up and down the coast, inspecting every military installation between Fernandina, Florida and Charleston. One day he covered an incredible 115 miles, thirty-five of them aboard a horse named "Greenbrier".

Though Christmas day was just another weary work day for the beleaguered general, he did find time to pen a brief greeting to Mary back in Virginia. In it he cautioned: "You must not build your hopes on peace on account of the United States going into a war with England...We must make up our minds to fight our battles & win our independence alone. No one will help us. [But] we require no extraneous aid, if true to ourselves."

However, he was far more pessimistic than he let on, even to her. In a letter to his son, Custis, he admitted being "dreadfully disappointed in the spirit here. They have all of a sudden realized the aspirates of war, in what they must encounter, and do not seem to be prepared for it." He'd been forced to write a sternly worded letter to Governor Milton of Florida, stating that "it will be necessary for the citizens of Florida to turn out to a man to defend their homes, and the sooner your Excellency can impress upon them this fact, the easier will be its accomplishment."

But the Floridians did not "turn out to a man." In a later letter to his daughter, Anne, he confided; "Things look dark at present...it is plain we have not suffered enough, labored enough, repented enough, to deserve success."

Since the "gentlemen" of the militia were loathe to do manual labor, the South Carolina legislature eventually had to pass a resolution authorizing the use of slaves to build the fortifications. But by mid-February Lee had little hope of holding the coastal forts. He had come to favor instead "abandoning all exposed points as far possible, within reach of the enemy's fleet of gunboats & of taking interior positions, where we can meet on more equal terms."

His chance to do so never came. On the 2nd of March he received (undoubtedly welcome) orders to report back to Richmond, to help repel George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac, which was about to march up the peninsula between the York and James rivers.

He never returned to "the low country". Reading his letters, one gets the impression that he already knew "the cause" was all but hopeless. Yet, like the dutiful soldier he'd been all his life, he felt compelled to play out his role to the bitter end. And the work he accomplished along the coast must have been pretty good, since neither Savannah nor Charleston were ever captured from the sea.

POSTSCRIPT:

Hilton Head remained in Union hands for the duration of the war. When Jeff Davis was captured (near Irwinsville, Georgia on May 10, 1865), he and his wife, Varina, along with Vice President Alexander Stevens, Postmaster General John H. Reagan and the notorious cavalry commander Joe Wheeler, were taken to Savannah, then transported by steamer to Hilton Head. Rather than being taken ashore, they were detained on the steamer, for fear that the Union troops on the island might try and harm the Confederate President. Later, the group was transported to Fortress Monroe, Virginia, where Davis was imprisoned for several years.

[1] There is an interesting bronze plaque at Barker Field, which indicates that Confederate Brig. Gen. Thomas Drayton was in command of Ft. Walker and that his brother, Capt. Percy Drayton, commanded the Union warship Pocahontas, which took part in the assault on the fort.

[2] Fortunately most of its lovely old antebellum homes were spared and have survived to this day; including "Secession House" at the corner of Church & Craven Streets, where the declaration was made.

[3] It would never be returned to his family. Some people suspect that Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, decided to use the property as a Union cemetery so that it could never revert back to the Lee's.

About the Author:

BJT's founder & President, Ed Churchill, has had a life-long interest in the War Between the States. This interest was undoubtedly first generated by his mother's stories about her grandfather, Sgt. Henry Murray of the Army of the Potomac, who earned his stripes in many battles, was wounded, then imprisoned at Andersonville until nearly the end of the war.

Ed holds a BS degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters in Education. He has authored several books and articles on the C/W (including one published in the October '98 edition of CWTI), taught adult ed courses on the war at BCCC and spoken at C/W Roundtables as far south as Savannah, Georgia. He is a member of the Bucks County (PA) Civil War Roundtable and an honarary member of the Cumberland Guard, a group of re-enactors who portray the very same regiment his great-grandfather belonged to. He's also a member of The Friends of the Florence Stockade (where his great-grandfather was sent after Andersonville during Sherman's march to the sea), the SUV, the Winfield Scott Hancock Society, the Confederate Network and the Friends of the GAR Library & Museum in Philadelphia.

His knowledge of the war is extensive (particularly the eastern theater of operations) and his enthusiasm quite contagious -- as you'll learn for yourself if you accompany him on one of our tours. Visit Billy & Johnny Tours for more information.