[114]The attack was not a surprise, neither was the erection of the enemy's works on Little Folly Island unknown to the local commanders or to these Headquarters. The enemy, indeed, made little effort to conceal them.
With a sufficient infantry force on Morris Island, the result of the attack of the 10th of July, I am confident, would have been different; but, as I have already explained, the threatening position of the enemy on James Island entirely precluded the withdrawal of a single soldier from its defence until the point of attack had been fully developed; and the only reinforcements that could be sent to Morris Island, some 300 men of the 7th South Carolina Battalion, arrived too late to render material assistance on the morning of the 10th of July.
The long-protracted defence of Battery Wagner must not be compared with the evacuation of the south end of Morris Island, by way of throwing discredit on the latter movement. The two defences are not analogous. In the one a large extent of exposed ground had to be guarded with an entirely inadequate force; in the other a strong earthwork, with a narrow line of approach, could be held successfully against any attack by a body of men numerically quite insufficient to have opposed the landing of an enemy on the south end of Morris Island.
While the enemy, on the 9th of July, was threatening Morris Island, he also made a strong demonstration against James Island by the Stono River.
At 12 M. on that day Colonel Simonton, commanding at Secessionville, telegraphed:
The enemy are landing on Battery Island; their advance pickets and ours arc firing. Pickets from Grimball's (on the Stono) report the enemy landing at that place.Three gunboats and a monitor proceeded up the Stono as far as the obstructions.
On the morning of the 10th of July, while the attack was progressing on Morris Island, Colonel Simonton telegraphed that the main body of the enemy were moving in force from Battery Island to Legare's house, having a line of pickets extending from a point at Legare's in an oblique line up the Stono, cutting the Grimball causeway about midway. Later in the day, however, the same officer telegraphed that the reported advance of the enemy was premature: “They are in force on Battery Island.”
Though the demonstration of the enemy in the Stono and on James Island was instituted to distract our attention from Morris Island, yet it was made in such strength that at any moment it could have been converted into a real attack of the most disastrous kind to us, had the garrison been weakened to support Morris Island.
On the afternoon of the 10th of July detachments of 1st, 12th, 18th, and 63d Georgia (534 effectives) arrived from the District of Georgia, under the command of Colonel Olmstead, with the 21st South Carolina Volunteers; and Nelson's Battalion became the garrison of Battery Wagner.
At daylight on the morning of the 11th of July the enemy assaulted Battery Wagner, and was repulsed with much loss; two (2) officers and ninetyfive (95) rank and file being left dead in front of our works, and six (6) officers and one hundred and thirteen (113) rank and file taken prisoners; about