Meanwhile, the sailors observed out movements from the mastheads of the gun-boats, and threw their shells over our heads into the midst of the enemy.  The Highlanders took the fortifications at the ferry with great gallantry, and with a loss of nine wounded.  Who will not remember that New Year's Day, when for the first time we heard the "rebel yell"?  While the skirmish was in progress we were ordered to protect ourselves by lying down between the corn-rows in the field, Colonel Perry himself, however, standing erect through it all.  I cannot better describe our part in the work of that day than by giving entire the report of Colonel Perry.  This was the only occasion when he led us in person in a fight, and therefore the only report of a battle which is from his pen.  True the engagement was but a skirmish and we would have made little note of it in after-years; but because it was our first engagement, and the only one in which we were to be led by the gallant soldier under whom we had enlisted, the battle of Port Royal Ferry is cherished in our memory, but possibly with disproportionate interest.

When my line was fairly under fire at long range it was halted under shelter of the timber and protected by the inequalities of the ground, and I sent forward two companies of skirmishers, with orders to ascertain the exact position of the battery, the best method of approaching it, the number of its guns and with what force it was supported.  The skirmishers were met by a sharp fire of artillery and musketry but they went forward steadily and rapidly and soon reported to me that a marsh covered the front of the enemy's position, and that they had at least four guns, supported by a heavy force of infantry.  I then advanced the Forty-seventh New York for the purpose of maneuvering upon the left flank and gaining the rear and their advance had exchanged a few shots with the enemy, when I received the general's order to retire, the battery on the river having been taken and the object of the expedition accomplished.  I drew off my men without loss.  Three members of the Forty-eighth Regiment were slightly wounded, but not a man was disabled or rendered unfit for duty.

I am happy to add, that the men and officers of my command behaved with great steadiness and resolution, obeying the word of command under fire as if they had been on drill.

Very Respectfully,                 J. H. Perry
                                             Colonel Forty-eighth Regiment New York Volunteers
 

On January 12th a set of colors, consisting of a regimental flag and two "markers," was presented to the regiment from friends in Brooklyn.

On January 18th, Captain Ward of Company I resigned.  We remained in our camp at Hilton Head during the most of that month.  Many amusing incidents might be recalled, if space would permit, that served to break the monotony of camp-life in those days.  For instance, while Company B was on provost-guard one day, Private Patrick Reilly rolled an unexploded eleven-inch bombshell up to a camp fire and began to probe the vent of it with an ignited stick;  of course it exploded, making great havoc everywhere, but leaving Private Reilly absolutely unharmed.  From that day he carried the nickname of "Bombshell Reilly,"  At that time Captain Quincy A. Gillmore was chief-engineer of the Department of the South, a gallant soldier, destined hereafter to be associated as our commander with the greater part of our history as a regiment.  To him General Sherman intrusted the task of the reduction of Fort Pulaski, at the mouth of the Savannah River, in order to cut off communication between Fort Pulaski and the city of Savannah.  It was that part of the work which was intrusted to us.  On January 25th we broke camp at Hilton Head, and marched to Saybrook's Landing.  One wing of the regiment, under Lieutenant-Colonel Barton, was safely landed at Haig's (or Hague's) Point on Dawfuskie;  all but one Corporal Dutcher of Company A, who walked overboard in his sleep and was drowned. (His was the eighth death since leaving Camp Wyman.)

But while the other wing was on board the Winfield Scott, passing through "Pull-and-be-damned" Creek, the ship went ashore on a tongue of oyster-beds which projected from Long Pine Island.  As the tide went down, she broke in two in the middle, and left us "wrecked" upon that barren sea-island.  We had on boarad twenty days' provisions, which were saved.  The horses were disembarked with difficulty, being pushed overboard and made to swim ashore.  I remember that the colonel's horse insisted on swimming to the opposite bank of the creek, got fast in the mud, and was extricated with great difficulty.  Some of the boys went out on a scouting expedition, and succeeded in finding a venerable cow, which they killed.  But our brief stay on Long Pine Island is particularly memorable, because we there discovered the "goat:"  we took him with us, and he became a regimental pet.  The steamer Mayflower came to our rescue the next day, and landed us on Dawfuskie Island, where, in a fine piece of woods, on February 1, 1862, we finally went into camp.  Dawfuskie Island was a beautiful spot in those days.  Manjion;s and Stoddard's plantations were especially fine.  Great forests of pine and oak were on the island, and the magnificent Spanish moss, which is the chief beauty of the far-framed cemetery of  Bonaventure at Savannah, festooned the branches of the forest.  We erected our tents and built arbors over them, and, gathering moss from the woods, covered the roofs and sides of the arbors with it, until our camp on Dawfuskie became perhaps the most picturesque of all our "resting places" in the war.  We cleared a parade-ground in front of the camp, and there the daily "drill" continued.

Since this history was begun the writer has revisited Dawfuskie Island.  In company with Captain Knowles of Company D, the Rev. W. N. Searles of Kingston, N. Y., and the Rev. A. M. Palmer of Staten Island, he landed again at Dawfuskie, at Cooper's Landing, in April 1884.  We expected to find the Southern planters back in their houses, and that, twenty-two years after we had evacuated their beautiful island, they would have re-established their homes upon it.  We were surprised to find it occupied mostly by a few negroes who cultivated little patches of cotton, sweet potatoes, and water-melons, near by their cabins.  These cabins were not better than they were in the war;  and the old mansions of the planters were unoccupied, and fallen into decay.  A single new and unpretentious house has been erected along the shore.  We strolled up the sandy road and easily found the piece of woods where our camp had formerly been.  The ground was overgrown with briers and brush, but it recalled many memories of the months we spent there in camp, and the dear fellows who had been our comrades then.

Major Beard of our regiment distinguished himself at this time by removing certain obstructions which the rebels had placed in Wall's Cut, an artificial channel connecting New and Wright Rivers.  Wall's Cut and Dawfuskie Island were historic places;  for on the 10th of September, 1779, when the city of Savannah was in the possession of the English, and was invested by the French forces under General Lincoln, Colonel Maitland of the English army arrived at Dawfuskie Island and desired to form a junction with Provost in Savannah.  He was unable to do so because the Savannah River was in the possession of of the French.  He chanced, however, upon some negro fishermen who were familiar with the creeks and marshes thereabouts, and they informed him of the passage through Wall's Cut.  Aided by the tide and a dense fog he succeeded by this route in reaching Savannah, and the British garrison thus reinforced, successfully resisted the combined attack of the French and American allied forces, a few days afterwards.  We were therefore on historic ground at Dawfuskie Island.

And now began one of the most difficult undertakings (and one of the most successful) of our entire history.  True it was but a subsidiary to the work of our comrades on Tybee Island in the reduction of Fort Pulaski, but it was nevertheless of the greatest importance.

Jones and Bird's Islands are two flat marsh-islands, overflowed twice a day by the tides, opposite each other on the north and south banks of the Savannah River.  It was determined that batteries should be erected upon them to cut off communications between Pulaski and Savannah.  It was a work of great difficulty, but it was successfully accomplished, and chiefly by the Forty-eighth Regiment.  The Seventh Connecticut, however, and later some other regiments, aided in the work.  To begin with, some eight or ten thousand logs were cut in the woods at Dawfuskie, and carried on the shoulders of the men to the river-shore.  (Who that recalls lugging of logs will not feel his shoulders ache to this very day?)  Thence the logs were transported on boats to Jones Island, and used to build a causeway, over which the heavy cannons were dragged.  The islands themselves were a mere formation of mud, of the constancy of jelly, from four to twelve feet in depth, which the river has deposited upon shoals of sand.  The surface is covered with matted sea-grass.  It was a herculean task to cross this island, a distance of a mile, and drag heavy cannons over loose planks laid across the logs and place them in batteries.  When the guns slipped off in the mud they had to be lifted on the planks again by main strength.  But difficult as it ws, the task was successfully accomplished, and the guns mounted on heavy plank-platforms at Venus Point.  So "Battery Vulcan," on Jones' Island, and subsequently "Battery Hamilton," on Bird's Island opposite, were erected.  That work was all done at night.  We were glad to be able to furnish from the pen of Rev. D. C. Knowles (then Captain of Company D), who was in command of the detachment which finally succeeded in moving the guns across the island and erecting them on the battery one dismal night, an account of his labors.  He also tells the story of the most ridiculous project ever devised for attacking an "iron-clad" known among us as the Cold-chisel Brigade.  He writes:
     "On February 12th, 1862, I was ordered to go down to Jones' Island with Lieutenants Miller and Lockwood, and a detail of 50 men.  The guns, six in number, had already been landed n the island at a point one mile ion a straight line from the point designated for the battery. 
     "Our task was to drag them over that distance to their destination.  The corduroy road for some reason had been abandoned after being laid a few hundred yards.  We reached the spot where the gins were placed about sundown.  Just as we were landing, a rebel gunboat came up the river from the fort, stopped opposite us, about a mile away, and seemed to be curiously scanning our doings.  Every moment we expected a shell, but for some reason they left us unmolested, and passed on to the city.  Had they seen our cannon, which were covered with reeds, and thus screened from observation, they would not have left us so undisturbed to the tender  mercies of swamp-fever.
     "About dark, Lieutenant Wilson, afterward General Wilson, who captured Jefferson Davis, then a young officer in the regular army, landed, and explained the work to be done.  Dividing my men into small reliefs under the command of non-commissioned officers, we once began the hardest task I ever saw performed by human beings.  Six huge guns were to be transported over a mile of mud, so soft and bottomless that we sank ankle deep at every step, and oftentimes were in danger of being utterly mired in the treacherous morass.  It was done in this wise:  Planks 18 feet long, 16 inches wide, and very thick were laid down and gauged like a railroad track, along which we guided the wheels of the cannon.  after they were all moved forward the planks were lifted out of the deep mud, carried forward, and laid again.  Thus we proceeded the live-long night, and by nine o'clock the next morning every gun was mounted in position.  I saw men that night standing upright in the mire knee-deep, fast asleep.  The work done, I threw myself on a plank covered with the softest of Carolina soil, myself a pillar of mud, my head softly resting on mud, and with a full South Carolina sun burning in my face, slept as sweetly as a babe in its mother's arms.  On this low, marshy island our regiment was quartered, two companies at a time, until the fort was taken.  The purpose was to cut off all approach to the fort from Savannah for relief or assistance.  Our duties were to support the battery in cae of attack, and also to build a parapet before the guns.  This was no easy task, as the men were compelled to stand knee-deep in the mud and water in the ditches, and what they threw up was so near the consistency of molasses that it refused to stay until the sun had dried it, when it took the hardness of stone.  General Viele, in his report of this work says: "These islands, as well as all others in the river, are merely deposits of soft mud on sand-shoals, always covered at high tide, and overgrown with dark grasses."
     "In speaking of the mud forts built there he also says"  'Although the material of which they are composed (mud highly saturated with water) is of the most unfavorable description, they are both creditable specimens of field-works, and evidence of the great labor and perseverance of the troops under the most trying circumstances, the fatigue-parties always standing in water twenty-four hours.'
     "One night in February a very high tide rolled in, covering the whole island, putting out our fires, and leaving us wallowing in water from one to three feet deep.  We were literally at sea.  Amid such discomforts, exposed to cutting winds and malarial odors, we fought with destiny until the middle of April.
     "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 in the air are samples of those extra-military expedients for dealing a watchful foe.  The event that 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 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 reconnaissance 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 defense 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 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 defense, 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 oarsmen, 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 the ropes and grappling-irons, keep the gunners from the guns by the free use of hand-grenades thrown into the port-holes, and cutting through the iron roof by means of the cold-chisels and the sledge hammers, get inside the vessel and capture her, crew and all.  Such, in brief, was the line of defense.  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 send some one to lead the forlorn hope.  I was called to 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 the cables, steam up the Savannah, and carry us all of 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 offense.  '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 bombshell, 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 an assured victory.  The devoted band was denominated '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 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-chisels Brigade' was proposing to do with the curt remark, 'What fool got up that plan?'  He ordered it disbanded."

(Chapter III continued)