Lot 320

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Description:

Important Hand-Drawn Civil War Map: Fort Wagner Defense of Charleston dated 4th September 1863, Fort Wagner, Morris Island, South Carolina,
Docketed on the verso: "Engrs. Office / Morris Isl. S. C. / Sept 4th 1863 / Capt Suess Vol Engrs. This is my present idea of the force of Ft. Wagner / T. B. Brooks Maj."

Although Confederate forces were able to retain control of Charleston and its harbor for the first two years of the Civil War, even in the face of Federal attempts to attack the city with its superior naval forces, another major effort was made by Union Major General Quincy A. Gillmore (1825-1888) through his operations against the defenses of the city during the summer of 1863. Gillmore, an engineer, wanted to disable the Confederate artillery that protected the city from two strategic fortifications, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and Fort Wagner on Morris Island. Using his superior firepower from the guns of Union warships and Federal batteries, he hoped to pound both forts into rubble. His first effort to storm Fort Wagner on 11 July failed with more than three hundred casualties. The second attack on Fort Wagner, a week later, was also repelled, but Gillmore refused to give up his efforts to destroy the fort. Both attempts to capture the fort had been by direct frontal assaults by infantry, and the 18 July battle had been exceptionally costly in loss of life. That assault was led by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, which was composed of African American soldiers under the command of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Shaw was killed, and the regiment lost almost half of the six hundred men who went into battle. The 1989 film "Glory" chronicled the ill-fated attack. As soon as the battle ended, Gillmore set his men to work besieging the fort while his artillery constantly bombarded Fort Wagner, and he also stepped up the shelling of Fort Sumter. By using his troops to dig parallel trenches toward the fort, Gillmore planned to advance his battle line to within yards of the walls before attacking. By late August, he was close enough to launch another assault.

Before the Union forces attacked, General Gillmore wanted more precise details about the disposition of Confederate artillery and defensive positions for infantry within the fort. He requested his aide-de-camp and assistant engineer, Major Thomas Benton Brooks (1836-1900), to prepare a map to show as many of the interior features as possible. Major Brooks, in his journal, published in 1865 as part of Gillmore's report, "Engineer and Artillery Operations Against the Defenses of Charleston Harbor in 1863" (New York: D Van Nostrand, 1865), recorded the origin of the map in his entry for 5 September. "During the past two days, by order of the general commanding, I have examined several prisoners, and have from them obtained additional information, which enabled me to draw a plan of Wagner, which was afterward found to contain no material error. At the request of General Terry twenty copies were furnished for the officers who were to go in the assaulting column of the 7th inst." This map appears to be the original manuscript that Major Brooks sent to Captain John Ludwig Suess (c.1825-c.1910) of the New York Engineers.
One page, on lined paper, W8" L12 1/2"

Provenance: Dr. & Mrs. C.G. Hopper, Jr. Collection

    Condition:
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February 10, 2023 11:00 AM EST
West Columbia, SC, US

Charlton Hall

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