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Porter Unleashes Hell on Ft. Fisher, Xmas Eve 1864

Porter Unleashes Hell on Ft. Fisher, Xmas Eve 1864

The largest U.S. naval force yet assembled unleashed hell on Ft. Fisher on Christmas Eve, 1864.  Admiral David Dixon Porter's fleet of over 60 warships, including five ironclads, mounted 624 guns - and Porter intended to use every one of them to bury the Rebel fort under a torrent of iron.

Porter's ships fired over 8,100 rounds - with a combined weight of more than half a million tons - into the sandy bastions guarding the approaches to Wilmington, N.C.   Colonel William Lamb had only 44 guns inside the fort, and Porter hoped to so batter the defenses that General Benjamin Butler's troops could just walk into Fort Fisher unopposed.

Porter's massive bombardment was the greatest the Western Hemisphere had ever seen, yet it had minimal effect on the brilliantly designed fort.  Three guns were dismounted, and four defenders were killed and another 19 wounded.  Porter's fleet sustained heavier losses, with three ships forced to retire due to accurate fire from the fort.  Most of the 91 sailors killed or wounded in the action were victims of their own guns, a number of which exploded.

The Navy landed a portion of Butler's troops, but the assault never went in.   Reports from the advanced guard that the defenses were nearly intact convinced Butler, still offshore, to call off the attack. Much to Porter's fury, Butler re-embarked most of his men, except for about 700 who were forced to spend Christmas Day huddled on the beach, without food or water, due to a sudden storm.  Despite pleas to General Braxton Bragg for permission to attack and capture the remnants of the landing force, Bragg refused to give the order.  The last of Butler's men were pulled off by the Navy on the 26th, and the fleet retired to Beaufort.   

Less than a month later, Porter would return - and with troops commanded by the much more aggressive and competent General Terry.  Porter's fleet bested its own record, firing over 180 rounds a minute in a sustained and much more accurate bombardment that began on January 13 and continued through the day and night of the 14th and into the early hours of the 15th.  Porter's guns fired close support right up until Terry launched his assault - with ironclads and gunboats coming close in shore to rake the defenders when they came out of their bombproofs to battle Terry's infantry and a column of 2,000 sailors and marines that Porter had landed to support the assault.   Although the naval landing force was handily repulsed and with heavy losses, the infantry carried the fort - with help from the Navy's guns.

In GMT's strategic naval game of the Civil War, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, the Union player can build powerful fleets of screw sloops, ironclads and gunboats and recruit key admirals, Porter among them, to wear down the Confederate player's coastal defenses, which, through card play and careful planning, can be every bit as resilient as those constructed by Col. Lamb at Ft. Fisher.

150 Years Ago Today: Savannah, Sherman's Christmas Gift to Lincoln

150 Years Ago Today:  Savannah, Sherman's Christmas Gift to Lincoln

On December 22, 1864  President Abraham Lincoln received an early Christmas present from General William Tecumseh Sherman - the city of Savannah.  He announced this in a now famous telegram which stated:

"I beg to present you, as a Christmas Gift, the city of Savannah, with one-hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."

Sherman's army reached the outskirts of the city on December 20.  Confederate General William Hardee could not hope to hold Savannah, as his small force of 10,000 was outnumbered six to one.  Hardee managed to save his army and their field artillery, but was forced to abandon the many guns in the harbor forts.  One of his final orders was to scuttle and burn the CSS Savannah, a powerful casemate ironclad that had been built to help defend the city and harbor. Union forces entered Savannah on December 21, just as the ironclad was blown up by her crew.  Sherman officially took possession of the city on the following day.

Confederate ironclads play a vital role in the defense of ports in GMT's strategic naval game of the Civil War - Rebel Raiders on the High Seas - at least when those ports are attacked from the sea by the Union Navy.  When city's such as Savannah are taken from the land side, as Sherman did, they are lost.  Although Rebel Raiders is primarily a game of naval strategy, the land war is represented, and the Union player has many cards at his disposal, including Sherman himself, to help replicate that general's famous March to Sea.

150 Years Ago Today: Death of a Rebel Army at Nashville

Oh, my heart is feeling weary
And my head is hanging low
I'm goin' back to Georgy
To find my Uncle Joe.
You may talk about your Beauregard
And sing of Bobby Lee
But the Gallant Hood of Texas
He raised Hell in Tennessee

-These lyrics from the third stanza of Yellow Rose of Texas tell only part of the story of General John Bell Hood and the disasters that befell his ill-fated Army of Tennessee.  When President Jefferson Davis replaced General Joseph Johnston (the "Uncle Joe" referred to in the tune) in mid-July 1864,  General Robert E. Lee warned in a telegram that although "Hood is a bold fighter.  I am doubtful as to other qualities necessary." Prophetically, Lee added that  "We may lose Atlanta and the army too. "  On December 16, 1864, the second part of that warning came true outside of Nashville.

Two months after Hood took command, Atlanta did fall as Lee predicted. Hood evacuated the city in September after four bloody, pointless and disastrous attempts to break General William Tecumseh Sherman's ever-tightening ring around that vital urban center.   Rather than fight a delaying action, as Joe Johnston had done earlier in the year, in mid-October Hood struck north and "raised Hell in Tennessee."  Although he won a victory of sorts at Franklin on November 30, it was a hollow and Pyrrhic one.  Sherman, rather than follow Hood whom he said could "twist like a fox," left General George Thomas to deal with the situation in Tennessee while he the struck out for his infamous March to the Sea.  Thomas gathered Union forces at Nashville, and Hood obligingly followed.

For two weeks Hood laid an ineffectual siege around Nashville.  Despite a flood of telegrams from President Lincoln and General Ulysses Grant urging him to attack or be replaced by someone who would, Thomas waited until he was ready, and on December 15 launched his first major attack.  Although bloodied, bested and outnumbered nearly two to one, Hood does not use the cover of night to retreat.  He stubbornly holds his ground.  In the morning Thomas renews his attack, and the Confederate Army of Tennessee disintegrates.   

Hood lost 6,000 men at Franklin, and another 6,000 at Nashville (including 4,500 taken prisoner).  The remaining 25,000 fell back over the barren winter landscape,  abandoning over 150 cannon to the victorious Yankees.  Although elements of it would fight again,  on December 16 Hood's army ceased to be an effective military force.

Ironically, December 16, 1864 would have been the one-year anniversary of the date when Joseph E. Johnston took command of the Army of Tennessee.

Hood's invasion of Tennessee can be recreated by the Southern player in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.  Although primarily a naval strategy game of the Civil War, the land campaigns are replicated on an abstract scale through the use of cards, dice and point-to-point movement.   Hood, Johnston, Sherman and other generals and events relevant to the Western theater are represented by cards  (the one-armed, one-legged Hood is CSN Card 89,  and Sherman is USN Card 50).

150 Years Ago Today: US Marines Fight Citadel Cadets Outside of Savannah

150 Years Ago Today: U.S. Marines Fight Citadel Cadets Outside of Savannah: Battle of Tulifinny

On December 6, 1864 warships of the mighty South Atlantic Blockading Squadron demonstrated against the Confederate batteries defending Charleston and Savannah.  These actions were meant to distract the Rebels from two other major operations being undertaken by the Navy.  The first was the assembly in Hampton Roads of a massive fleet for the amphibious attack on Ft. Fisher, the main defense work protecting the big blockade running port of Wilmington, N.C.  The second was the landing of United States Marines in support of General William Tecumseh Sherman's March to the Sea.  That landing resulted in the Battle of Tulifinny, and one of the very few occasions in which U.S. Marines fought in a land battle with Confederate infantry.

By late 1863 both Charleston and Savannah had effectively been shut down as blockade running ports by the Navy.  After the loss of Mobile Bay in August, Wilmington remained the last major haven for the runners, upon whose cargoes the Confederacy and especially General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia depended for munitions and other staples.  Charleston and Savannah, however, remained key political objectives, and if taken would give the Navy a port to supply Sherman's army.   To help open the path for Sherman, the Navy landed 5,000 troops and a detachment of Marines on the banks of the Tulifinny River, not far from the town of Yemassee, about 45 miles from Savannah.  A dozen Union gunboats supported the landing on the swampy peninsula.  As the Yankees advanced they were met by 900 Confederate troops, among whom were the entire corps of cadets of the South Carolina Military Academy (now known as The Citadel).

The Cadets made up about a third of the defending force, and were deployed to defend the key railroad bridge over the river. Told that Union forces were encamped nearby, the Cadets moved out in the pre-dawn darkness of December 7 to participate in a surprise attack on the Yankee lines.  The attack succeeded in driving the Union infantry from their camps, and the Cadets and the men of the 5th and 47th Georgia infantry and a militia unit dug in to await the inevitable counterattack.  That came on the morning of December 9th. The right flank of that attack was spearheaded by Lieutenant  George G. Stoddard and his Marines - who ran right into the positions held by the Cadets.  The Marine attack stalled, and when the Union forces on the left flank fell back, so did the Marines.  The Union forces then retired to the fleet, which evacuated them.

The success of the Cadets and other Rebel forces was short lived, and although it bought time for the Confederates to evacuate war materials by rail, Savannah fell to Sherman on Christmas Day.

As for the Navy's assault on Ft. Fisher...that is a story for later.

Blockade Runners and the ports they dart in and out of are vital to the Southern player's hopes for victory in my strategic naval game of the Civil War, GMT's Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.

150 Years Ago Today: Lincoln Re-elected!

This day in history in 1864: Lincoln Re-elected!

150 years ago today voters in the North overcame their war-weariness to re-elect Abraham Lincoln.  Whatever hope the South had of a negotiated settlement died its final death that day.   Even had Lincoln lost to Little Mac (George McClellan), however, the Union would still have had nearly five months to finish the job.

Just prior to the election, Lincoln met with Generals Grant and Sherman and told them that no matter how the vote went, they were to continue to press the South - and press hard.  Moreover, if he lost, they were to redouble their efforts and do all in their power to bring the war to an end before the new president could be inaugurated on March 4, 1865.

The election plays a big part in my strategic naval game of the Civil War,  Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.  Each turn is four months, and the last turn of the game begins in December, 1864.  There is, however, a card which if drawn by the North gives the Union player a chance for an extra, 13th turn - one that begins in April 1865.  The card, however, like the election of November 1864, is not a sure thing:  a die is rolled and modified in the Union's favor based on which key cities the North controls.  If the North is doing well, the Yankee will get that extra turn to drive old Dixie down....but if not, the pressure is on, just as if Lincoln had indeed lost the election.

Tale of Two Raiders: Goodbye, CSS Chickamauga, Hello CSS Shenandoah

150 years ago: A Tale of Two Raiders: Goodbye, CSS Chickamauga, Hello CSS Shenandoah

150 Years Ago this week the storied Confederate blockade runner captain, John Wilkinson, went a-raiding aboard the mighty CSS Chickamauga.  In four days of raiding off Long Island, he burned, bonded or scuttled seven Union merchant ships - but as his raider burned coal at such a voracious rate, on November 3 he had to cut short the raid and go in search of coal.  The governor of Bermuda refused to sell Wilkinson a load, claiming he had new orders in regards to the neutrality acts.  Fortunately, Wilkinson, an old hand at this sort of thing, was able to bribe a lesser official (after first getting him roaring drunk), but while taking on coal nearly half his crew jumped ship.  The governor, moreover, got wind of all of this, and put a stop to the coaling.  Warned that four Union cruisers were converging on Bermuda,  Wilkinson upped anchor and set a course for Wilmington, the last major port still open to the raiders and runners.

As the CSS Chickamauga neared Wilmington, a Union squadron intercepted her.   Despite being heavily outgunned, Wilkinson refused to surrender, and fired shot and shell in an unequal duel with four Yankee warships, all while pouring on speed to seek safety under the guns of Fort Fisher.  Although he made it, his ship would never raid or go to sea again.  The CSS Chickamauga, however, did have one last fight left in her:  when the Union finally stormed Fisher, the Rebel raider was there, adding her guns to the fort's in defense.  When it was obvious that the fort would fall, the raider retreated to Wilmington, where she was scuttled and burned let she become a prize of war.

Just as CSS Chickamauga was ending her career as a raider, however, the last - and in may ways the greatest and also the most tragic of the raiders began hers.  CSS Shenandoah made her first capture on October 30  (the day as CSS Chickamauga also made her first capture).  The bark Alina was Captain James I. Waddell's first victory, and while there would be 37 more, 2/3s of those were taken after the end of the war - which Waddell did not know had concluded until reading newspapers found aboard his final prize, the bark Covington, which he burned on June 28, 1865.   Fearful of being held accountable for piracy, Waddell spent months seeking a harbor where he could safely retire his ship and crew, which he did on November 6, 1865....149 years ago this week.

While in my strategic naval game of the Civil War, Rebel Raiders on the High Seas,  the CSS Chickamauga is represented by a generic Raider counter, the CSS Shenandoah has her own counter and card, CSN Card 64: