Freedom by the Sword - US Army Center Of Military History

Chapter 3
The South Atlantic Coast
1863–1865
By the first week of September 1863, Union troops on Morris Island had dug
their trenches close enough to Fort Wagner’s earthworks to risk another assault.
Just after midnight on the morning of 7 September, a Confederate deserter brought
word that the defenders had slipped away by rowing out to steamers that took them
to other sites around Charleston Harbor. Federal troops moved into the battered
fort before dawn. The eight-week siege of Fort Wagner had ended, but operations
against the city itself would go on. 1
Two days later, a small party of men from the 1st and 2d South Carolina set out
on one of the riverine expeditions they were becoming expert in, a foray that depended
on the men’s local knowledge. The object was to ascend the Combahee River to the
Charleston and Savannah Railroad, a little more than twenty miles from the mouth of
the river, and tap the telegraph line that ran beside the tracks for enemy messages. 2 The
party numbered nearly one hundred men led by two officers, 1st Lt. William W. Sampson
of the 1st South Carolina and 1st Lt. Addison G. Osborn of the not-yet-mustered
4th South Carolina. Chaplain James H. Fowler, 1st South Carolina, and Capt. John E.
Bryant, 8th Maine Infantry, the originator of the expedition, went along. The chaplain
was a remarkable character who sometimes accompanied troops on expeditions heavily
armed; Bryant was “one of the most daring scouts in these parts,” Col. Thomas W.
Higginson wrote. The lieutenants were both former enlisted men of Bryant’s company
who had been appointed to South Carolina regiments. On the night of 10 September,
Lieutenant Osborn, ten enlisted men, and Chaplain Fowler left the base camp along
with a civilian telegraph operator and headed for the railroad. 3
Osborn’s party reached the railroad on 11 September, found a hiding place
in the woods about 275 yards from the track, and laid a wire from the woods
to the telegraph line. Unfortunately, the telegraph operator’s connection was so
1 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Armies, 70 vols. in 128 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), ser. 1, vol. 28,
pt. 1, p. 27, and pt. 2, p. 86 (hereafter cited as OR).
2 Capt J. E. Bryant to Brig Gen R. Saxton, 29 Sep 1863, filed with (f/w) Brig Gen R. Saxton to
Maj Gen Q. A. Gillmore, 10 Nov 1863 (S–518–DS–1863), Entry 4109, Dept of the South, Letters
Received, pt. 1, Geographical Divs and Depts, Record Group (RG) 393, Rcds of U.S. Army
Continental Cmds, National Archives (NA).
3 “War-Time Letters from Seth Rogers,” p. 65, typescript at U.S. Army Military History
Institute (MHI), Carlisle, Pa.; William E. S. Whitman, Maine in the War for the Union (Lewiston,