Floating Battery of Charleston Harbor
The Floating Battery of Charleston Harbor was an ironclad vessel that was constructed by the Confederacy in early 1861, a few months before the American Civil War ignited.
On November 8, Colonel John L. Gardner, federal garrison commander, angered Charlestonians when he attempted to remove all of the small-arms ammunition from the Charleston Arsenal.
[2] Gardner attempted to pacify the angry crowd by returning the ammunition which may have saved him at the time but he would eventually be relieved of his command for his actions nonetheless.
When the new garrison commander, Major Robert Anderson, sent Captain J. G. Foster to get 100 muskets for the workmen of Castle Pinckney and Fort Sumter, he was flatly refused by Colonel B. H. Huger who cited that special orders from Washington would be necessary.
Intent on gaining a strategic advantage in artillery position, the Confederates adopted the contemporary military idea of implementing floating batteries.
The French Navy had enjoyed success using floating batteries in the Battle of Kinburn (1855) to demolish Russian forts during the Crimean War.
Construction began in January 1861, under the leadership of Lieutenant John R. Hamilton formerly an officer in the United States Navy and the son of a former governor of South Carolina.
[10] To offset the weight of the barn with the armament added, the vessel was counterbalanced at the rear with 6 ft. thick sandbag emplacements along the length of the stern.
[11] Captain John G. Foster, a Union Army engineering officer observing from Fort Sumter, wrote reports to his superiors about the progress of the battery construction.
The enemy next directed his fire upon the enfilade battery on Sullivan's Island, constructed to sweep the parapet of Ft. Sumter, to prevent the working of the barbette guns and to dismount them.
Upon this the fire of our batteries was increased, as a matter of course, for the purpose of bringing the enemy to terms as speedily as possibly, inasmuch as his flag was still floating defiantly above him.
Our brave troops, carried away by their natural generous impulses, mounted the different batteries, and at every discharge from the fort cheered the garrison for its pluck and gallantry, and hooted the fleet lying inactive just outside the bar.
On April 12, Hamilton's floating battery commenced in a 34-hour intermittent artillery siege against Union army forces occupying Ft.
The guns that bore on the three batteries at the west end of 'Sullivan's Island' were 10 32-pounders, situated on the left face, and on at the pan-coupe of the salient angle, (four embrasures being bricked up.
[17] "The so-called 'floating battery' was struck very frequently by shot, one of them penetrating at the angle between the front and the roof, entirely through the iron covering and wood work beneath, and wounding one man.
"On Friday, 12th, at 27 minutes past 4 A. M., General Beauregard, in accordance with instructions received on Wednesday from the Secretary of War of the Southern Confederacy, opened fire upon Fort Sumter.
J. R. Hamilton, commanding the floating battery and Dahlgren gun; Captains Butler, South Carolina Army, and Bruns, aide-de-camp to General Dunovant, and Lieutenants Wagner, Rhett, Yates, Valentine, and Parker.
One diarist, serving on Morris Island, wrote that they had a shortage of fuel until one morning after a storm when they found logs purportedly from the battery washed up on the beach.
In 1865, a visitor to Charleston described the harbor entrance with this description, "... Just beyond the ruin (of Ft. Sumter) at the left, lies the wreck of the famous old floating battery ... A portion of one of its sides, with four portholes visible, still remains above the water.
