In The Footsteps of the Beaufort Artillery – Part 1

“Now the B.V.A. were out of doors but in sight of the old roof-trees, they were grim and on the hunt for more work.”

The B.V.A. in the Civil War: Bay Point – Waiting for the Inevitable – The Value of Heavy Guns by J.A.H. (probably Lt. J.A. Hamilton) in The Beaufort Gazette, July 30, 1903, pg 4

Flight From Bay Point

The Federal fleet that converged at Port Royal Sound, South Carolina on November 7, 1861 numbered 77 vessels, more than 12,000 soldiers and laborers, 1500 horses, and tons of ammunition, wagons, medical supplies, and food. “Nothing less than an immense armada to rout a handful of men from their sand holes in the beach,” remembered Beaufort Volunteer Artillery (BVA) veteran J.A. Johnson,¹ who helped man the cannon at Fort Beauregard on Bay Point. The artillerymen fled inland in disarray via flatboat, foot, ferry, and rowboat, and rendezvoused first at Port Royal Ferry, then the village of Pocotaligo on the Charleston & Savannah (C&S) Railroad.

Protecting the Charleston and Savannah Railroad

The next day – November 8, 1861 – General Robert E. Lee arrived to take command of the troops in South Carolina and Georgia. Lee “settled in to defend the [C&S] Railroad” and wrote to Secretary of War Judah Benjamin, “The enemy has complete possession of the water and inland navigation, commands all the islands on the coast and threatens both Savannah and Charleston.”¹ Lee wrote to General Roswell Ripley in Charleston, “I am in favor of abandoning all exposed points… within reach of the enemy’s fleet of gunboats, and of taking interior positions where all can meet on more equal terms.”² The BVA was assigned to guard the middle of three sections of the C&S, and built small fortifications at Pocotaligo and Coosawhatchie. They would spend the next three-plus years out of doors.

Picket Squads

BVA Pvt. C.A. DeSaussure wrote that Lee charged the BVA with, “picketing the outposts and observation points, and of driving off the Federals, should they land in force and endeavor to cut the railroad line and push further into the interior.” He continued,

“It was incessant round of picketing, with occasional brushes with the Yankees. A picket squad consisted of 8 or 10 men under a corporal or sergeant. The picket posts were from 5 to 10 miles from the camp and we went on horseback, on a week’s picket, carrying rifles, a week’s rations, and provender for the horses. The post was always a bluff or point extending out into the river or bay…. We dug a hole about 5 feet deep and 5 inches in diameter. In this the two on guard stood or sat during their watch, heads only above the level of ground, and observed through logs or bushes…. One horse was always kept saddled so that if any demonstration was made by the enemy one man was ready to make speed to the camp… with warning and information.” ³

BVA Pvt Charles.W. Hutson remembered, “Our company was often for a week at a time on picket duty at some critical point in the region below Pocotaligo. Sometimes mosquitos and sometimes sandflies tortured us in that plantation land but we did not get the fever which before the war was so sure the result of spending even one night in the summer on the plantation. Our exemption was probably due to the constant open-air life. While I was on picket duty at Huspah Bridge… we were amusing ourselves blowing soap bubbles… when a message came from [former family slave] Dinah to come to Bindon [a nearby plantation house] and get a good dinner…. Warm was the welcome and delicious the dinner. She had been my “minder” when I was a little boy.” ⁵ That meal was especially appreciated as the men assigned to picket duty usually ate through their weekly rations in three or four days, and otherwise subsisted by foraging. Examples the men gave included terrapin stew – the turtles being found by wading barefoot into muddy ponds and marshes – gorging on plums from an abandoned orchard, boiling turnips, roasting corn, “racoon oysters” (“while small and tough, they kept us going.”³), and frying alligator-tail steaks.

Guerrilla Raids

BVA commander Capt. Stephen Elliott was not content with merely defensive pickets. Most of his men were competent boatsmen, and had an intimate familiarity with the rivers and creeks that surrounded their former family homes and plantations. Among the first of a number of forays against federal forces occurred the night of Dec. 5, 1861. At least three different newspapers reported that a BVA detachment of as many as 22 men destroyed between 450 (Hillsborough NC Recorder) and 4000 (Albany NY Evening Journal) bales of cotton on Port Royal and Parris Islands.

Battles and Forays – 1862

A March 1862 muster roll of the BVA listed 92 men at Pocotaligo including our ancestor – twenty-six year-old Corporal Julius B. Bell, and his teenage nephews – Privates Ernest A. and John Bell. Their first major engagement occurred near Pocotaligo in late May, when a reported two to three thousand Union cavalry, artillery, and infantry troops came upriver and advanced to within two miles of the railroad. C.A. DeSaussure described his memories of what became known as the 1st battle of Pocotaligo. “Our pickets reported the enemy were landing in force at Mackay’s Point, where the Pocotaligo and Tulifinny Rivers unite to form the Broad, some six miles from our headquarters…. They had a much larger force than we – probably three times…. We had only our 12 lb smoothbores but they were well served and Capt. Elliott… used grape and canister with great effect at short distances and our shells did great damage also… we lost two killed and a number injured in our battery.” The federals were driven back to their boats. In June, Robert E. Lee returned to Virginia, and BVA unit histories indicate there was a minor skirmish at Port Royal Ferry. Later in the summer an Augusta newspaper reported on:

“[A] brilliant little affair which occurred on Pinckney Island…. Capt. Stephen Elliott of the Beaufort Artillery, with a detachment of his corps, accompanied by Capt. Mickler with a detachment of infantry, repaired to Bear Island… with a view of attacking the Federal picket stationed on the latter. They crossed over to Pinckney at daylight yesterday and… a fierce engagement ensued which resulted in the capture of the entire Federal picket consisting of thirty-six men and a Lieutenant…. The three wounded Yankees… were taken to Hardeeville; the remainder to McPhersonville.”⁴

2nd Pocotaligo/Coosawhatchie

October 1862 brought another major raid by Union forces, with pickets reporting twelve gunboats and transports landing once again at Mackay’s Point to threaten Pocotaligo, and four additional transports continuing west toward the town of Coosawhatchie. It was to the latter that at least two guns of the BVA were ordered, commanded by Lt. H.M. Stuart, as Capt. Elliott had by then been given authority over all the various batteries of artillery. The South Carolina troops were spread over a sixty-mile front as skirmishes were fought ahead of the railroad, while reinforcements were raced by rail from Savannah to Coosawhatchie, and from Charleston to Pocotaligo. One BVA gun went forward for these engagements supported by cavalry and sharpshooters before pulling back to the railroad at Coosawhatchie. In his official report, Gen. W.W. Walker wrote:

“I beg to express my admiration of the remarkable courage and tenacity with which the troops held their ground…. The Beaufort Volunteer Artillery fought with great courage, and their pieces were admirably handled. Captain Stephen Elliott, whose name is identified with the history of the defense of this coast by many a daring exploit, behaved with his accustomed coolness, skill, and determination…. The most important point to defend was the railroad bridge over the Coosawhatchie River. From this the enemy were very quickly driven by our artillery fire, but they succeeded in penetrating to a point on the railroad, west of the bridge, before the cavalry arrived; one or two rails only being torn up and the telegraph wire cut. The damage was repaired within a few minutes.”

Camp Life

For most of their time along the C&S railroad, the BVA camped in the woods between the towns of McPhersonville and Pocotaligo. After the various battles and raids, C.A. DeSuassure wrote, “The wounded were carried to McPhersonville… where the Presbyterian Church was used as a hospital. The chancel… at the back end was curtained off with a sheet as an operating room. I remember going around the building and seeing the pile of legs and arms which had been amputated and dropped out of the window for later disposal.” ³

Charles Hutson wrote, “At the time of my joining the company we had tents, but one winter, our tents being needed elsewhere and we having the means of putting up huts, we built… houses of pine logs roofed with cypress shingles… from the swamps around Brailsford Lake. These we made thoroughly comfortable with clay chimneys, stuffing the chinks between the logs with clay and grey moss and making our cots an integral part of the house, firm and stationary. Here I slept one night during a prolonged rainy spell thirteen hours.”⁵ When out of doors the men reported cooperating by hanging one man’s blanket as shelter and sharing the other’s for warmth.

When they weren’t assigned picket or other duties, “In [McPhersonville] were social pleasures for those who could get away from camp, while in camp from time to time plays were acted by a group of young soldiers…. Jim Brawley was a first-rate comic actor.”⁵ C.A. DeSuassure wrote,“We were happy and contented and would get together and sing “Juanita” and “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” and “Bonnie Blue Flag” and a hundred other old timers in a chorus of fifty good voises [sic]. When in camp for the winter we got up theatricals… and would have lots of fun.” ³ The men read newspapers and books when they could get them, and read or wrote letters. Some men were able to ride out to visit their families that had fled inland, while others’ families made arrangements to visit their men near the camp.

Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.

Continued in Part 2

¹ Theodore Rosengarten, Tombee: Portrait of a Cotton Planter © 1986, Morrow & Co. pg 214, 221

² Elliott Capers, Confederate Military History Vol. 4 – South Carolina © 2016 Eastern Digital Resources pg 54

³ C.A. DeSuassure “The Story of My Service in the Army of the Confederate States” (1931) contained in “Records Relating to the BVA,” South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, S.C.

⁴ Augusta Daily Constitutionalist Aug 23, 1862 pg 1. (note: the Mickler name shows up in the Bell family tree through Julius’ future wife. It is unclear how this officer was related to her.)

5 C.W. Hutson, “The Beaufort Volunteer Artillery – Experiences of Charles Woodward Hutson” contained in “Records Relating to the BVA,” South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, S.C.