1 Bucks County Intelligencer, Pitiful Island Broken Puzzle August 30, 1961 Page B-TEN Col. 4-5-6 1
Pitiful
Island Broken Puzzle Morris
Island, in a pitiful state, had to be rebuilt and
remodeled. The
soldiers settled down to arduous duty. The enemy had left |
it behind like a puzzle with
a million, broken pieces. The men had little respite from
fatigue. The
project occupied the fall and some of the winter. Torpe- does and other contrivances
had been planted about the
slopes and great care was required to
avoid stepping on and exploding
them. Several
men were killed. Sev- eral men were wounded. Defenses
Built Half
a mile above the inlet, a fort was built on the sand
hills and a battery was constructed
there. Defenses were erected on the north and south ends of
the island. “With
the aid of iron-clads these works rendered Morris Island
im- pregnable to any force the
enemy could send against us,”
Davis said. Duties
performed by the sold- iers were enormous. “No
other troops worked any harder anytime during the
war,” noted Davis. “My own brigade may be instanced as a fair
aver- age.” The
104th did its full share of duties. The records for the per- iod give the regiment a
credit of 6,445 days of fatigue on the
bat- teries and forts and 14, 285
days in the trenches and other
mili- tary duty at the front of
the is- land. “A
tour of duty was always twenty-four hours in the trenches,” Davis
recalled. “The greater part of the time the
regi- ment numbered less than four
hundred men for duty. “The
trenches, parrallels, splinter proofs and
batteries con- structed during our
operations measured nearly eight miles
in length.” Patters
Of Fire For
several weeks the enemy kept up a staccato pattern
of fire on the working
parties. Men were killed and wounded
daily and nightly. “They
worked cheerfully,” Da- vis explained, “under the
sever- est conditions.” In
December, wintry weather belted the island in full
force. Wind-swept rains continued
for many days and nights. Storms swept into the island and
the men were vexed by three
enem- ies; the rebels, the weather
and fatigue. It
was near the new year and the men did not know that
they had an ally. The ally was time. They did not know that the
con- flict was coming to an end. “Two
hundred and fifty soldiers advanced to within firing
distance of Charleston, S.C., before
the turn of the New Year,” Davis
said. “Of these the 104th
furnished more than fifty men. Shelling “Batteries
were erected quick- ly. And they started throwing shells into that city just
as quick- ly. At
periods a shell was dropped into the city every five
minutes for five consecutive
nights. The firing was principally done
with two cannons, one of which
had been used throughout every
op- eration of the 104th.” “It
had been fired so many times,” Davis noted, “that
its muzzle was worn down smooth on one side.” Deserters
kept the union force informed, from time to time,
of the injury its shells did to
the city. A
number of public and private buildings were destroyed and
others damaged. On Christmas night a large cotton press
was set on fired and burned to
the |
ground. The debris from the ruin- ed buildings obstructed the streets. The beautiful city of Char- leston wore a dilapidated
appear- ance. “We
didn’t move into the city, just kept firing,” Davis
explained. The
Union Navy met with the enemy on Christmas,
too. The reb- els brought down four
cannons to Legareville, on the Stono
River, near Morris Island. At
daylight, they opened on the gunsboats Pawnee and Marble- head, lying at anchor in the
riv- er. There was brisk cannonade for a couple of hours. The
enemy was driven off — but a few men were killed
and wounded and the vessels
suffered slight damages. |