Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
Beneath leaden clouds that streaked across the sky over Charleston Harbor on the morning of April 12, 1861, white smoke curled from the fiery mouths of booming Southern artillery. The acrid smell of saltpeter permeated the air as cannon pounded Fort Sumter with what one newspaper described as an “iron vengeance.”
“Shell followed shell in quick succession; the harbor seemed to be surrounded with miniature volcanoes belching forth fire and smoke,” observed an eyewitness.
Union troops inside Fort Sumter, led by Southern-born Maj. Robert Anderson, did not reply until the third hour of the bombardment. They finally returned fire at 7 a.m.
About an hour later, the Northern-born officer in charge of the Army of South Carolina artillery, Lt. Col. Roswell Ripley, visited several of his batteries. The balding officer with the thick beard and thicker waistline liked what he saw. He singled out several men for praise in an official report, including 1st Lt. Frank Harleston, who worked a pair of big guns under his command “with all the rapidity which the order of firing permitted.”
Anyone who knew Harleston would not be surprised that he gained early and favorable notice. The Palmetto State establishment regarded him as one of their brightest military up-and-comers.
Described as “a manly soldierly fellow,” Harleston possessed an enviable résumé. A year earlier he graduated valedictorian of his class of seven at the South Carolina Military Academy. He had held the first position from his freshman year in 1856. “Young Harleston is one of our best Citadel boys,” declared one friend.
He had a pedigree to match. His father, Edward, had graduated from Yale, and prospered as a rice and cotton planter, and slave owner. His mother, Anne, descended from the wealthy Huger family. Harleston’s grandfather and namesake, the late Col. Frank Huger, was a friend of the Revolutionary War hero Lafayette.
Harleston followed in his grandfather’s footsteps and became a soldier. He received an appointment as an officer in his state’s First Artillery after South Carolina seceded from the Union, and joined the garrison of Fort Moultrie after Maj. Anderson evacuated the site and relocated to the more secure Fort Sumter.
Harleston and his company left Fort Moultrie shortly before the bombardment. They reported for duty to the newest addition to the defenses of Charleston, the Floating Battery.
Described by the 19th century historian Benson J. Lossing as “a curious monster,” the mobile structure traced its roots to the French Revolution. Early American efforts to replicate the model did not meet expectations. Interest was rekindled in 1855, however, after Napoleon III successfully deployed them in the Crimean War.
Charlestonians built their Floating Battery in early 1861 under the nose of Maj. Anderson and his garrison. Constructed “of heavy pine timber, filled in with palmetto-logs, and covered with a double layer of railroad iron. It appeared like an immense shed,” noted Lossing. The battery measured 25 feet wide and 100 feet long. Four cannon that fired 42-pound shot were mounted inside. Sandbags at the opposite end counterbalanced the heavy guns. A wood building attached to it served as a hospital.
Some soldiers voiced concerns about the battery’s combat worthiness. They called it the “Slaughter Pen” and refused to serve onboard. Harleston, ever the dutiful officer, accepted the assignment.
Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, overall commander of South Carolina troops, ordered the battery towed to the west end of Sullivan’s Island, about a mile across the harbor from Fort Sumter. This was accomplished on April 9, 1861.
Three days later, Harleston and another lieutenant commanded artillerists aboard the curious monster and blasted away at Fort Sumter. The effects of the fire from the Floating Battery and other installations soon began to tell on the walls of the stronghold.
“At each discharge of the guns, either the water adjacent to the fort would be dashed up in great sheets of spray, or the dense brown cloud of crumbling brick and mortar would mark the spot on the ramparts hit by the balls,” observed a correspondent from The Charleston Mercury who watched the action from the opposite side of the harbor on Morris Island.
“The Floating Battery,” added the correspondent, “was quite hidden from our view by the smoke from its own guns, but it was not difficult to see the effective execution of its 42 pounders upon the north parapet of Fort Sumter.”
Another eyewitness noted that of the shots fired from Harleston’s battery, “a very large proportion hit the mark, and brought the brick dust.”
That afternoon, Fort Sumter turned some of its guns on the Floating Battery, which responded in kind. “For more than an hour, a rapid and persistent cannonade was kept up between the two points, attracting the gaze and admiration of the whole city,” reported The Mercury.
The bombardment ended in Southern success the next day. The Floating Battery fired 490 shots during the action. The federals responded with 163 of their own. About a dozen indentations in the iron-plated wall were counted. One ball tore through the edge of the battery roof and lodged in the sandbags. The shot caused a sight contusion to the head of a private.
Had the use of floating batteries continued during the war, they might have played a larger role had not ironclad gunboats come along in the form of the Monitor and Merrimac. Demand for the new class of vessels took precedent. The Confederates eventually dismantled the Floating Battery and used its plating in an ironclad ship.
Harleston made captain and served a stint as an aide-de-camp to Ripley, who advanced to brigadier general.
In early 1862, Harleston reported for a new assignment at Fort Sumter.
He and his gunners defended the fort against massive Union attacks during the summer of 1863. Federal artillery batteries on Morris Island and gunboats off the coast turned Sumter into a heaping pile of ruins, completing the work started by Harleston and his comrades in 1861.
The garrison did what it could to repair breaches and shore up the battered bastion.
Harleston held his men together during these tough times. “His calm, cheerful composure of manner always produced a striking effect upon his men in times of danger,” noted one writer.
On Nov. 21, 1863, Harleston prepared to leave the fort on furlough to visit his family. The commanding colonel, who had come to rely on his abilities, asked him to stay on a bit longer. Harleston agreed, honored by the complimentary request.
Three days later, at 4 a.m., a sentry reported that the tide had washed away a section of chevaux-de-frise, or a defensive obstacle made of a pole or log pierced by long, sharp wooden spikes. Harleston went out in the darkness to investigate.
Time passed and he failed to return. His comrades grew uneasy and went to search for him. They found their captain stretched out on the wet rocks along the water’s edge, writhing in pain. A shell fired from a huge Parrott gun had burst near Harleston as he inspected the damage. Iron fragments from the explosion ripped apart his thighs and an arm.
“He was borne into the fort that he had fought for so gallantly, and his heart’s blood flowed upon her stones, consecrating them by that crimson baptism,” stated a writer, who added, “his sufferings were intense, but they were endured with a fortitude and manfulness that astonished those who beheld him.”
Harleston died in the arms of a fellow officer at 10:30 a.m., days before his 24th birthday. Word of his death made its way to Gen. Beauregard, who ordered that a gun emplacement located on James Island be renamed Battery Harleston “in commemoration of the soldierly qualities and accomplishments of a brave officer, unfortunately slain during the illustrious defense of Fort Sumter.”
The iconic fort remained in Confederate hands until February 1865.
Sources: The Charleston Mercury, April 13, 15 and May 2, 1861; John S.C. Abbott, “Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, April 1866; “The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies”; “The Battle of Fort Sumter and First Victory of the Southern Troops,” April 13th, 1861; Francis H. Harleston military service record, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C., 1860 Federal Census; Franklin B. Dexter, “Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College”; 1860 Federal Slave Schedules; The New York Times, April 11, 1861; Robert C. Suhr, “Military Technology: The Confederate Floating Battery Revival During the American Civil War,” America’s Civil War, July 1996; Benson J. Lossing, “Harpers’ Popular Cyclopædia of United States History, Vol. 1″; Claudine Rhett, “Frank H. Harleston — A Hero of Fort Sumter,” Southern Historical Society Papers; The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, La.), May 20, 1884; Daily Chronicle & Sentinel (Augusta, Ga.), Nov. 25, 1863.
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His forthcoming book profiles the lives of men of color who participated in the Civil War. He writes “Faces of War,” a column in the Civil War News.