February 9, 1861; The New York Herald
We learn from our Washington correspondence of Thursday that Colonel Hayne, the South Carolina Commissioner to Washington to negotiate the surrender of Fort Sumter to the seceded republic, has failed in attaining the object of his mission, and has returned home. The mooted question then, recurs, will Fort Sumter be attacked by the South Carolina forces? We will add to this query: Will it pay South Carolina to attack it? We confess that at first we were inclined to the opinion that with its small garrison Fort Sumter could not hold out long against so large a numerical force as South Carolina has at their disposal, who would be aided in their assaults by the land works. Determined, however, to learn the probabilities in the case, we have carefully confined ourselves to historical analyses of naval and land warfare on which they should be based. In the first place, it is urged by competent military authority that the works at Fort Moultrie, Sullivan’s Island, Cumming’s Point, Morris Island and Fort Johnson, now in the hands of the South Carolinians, are too remote from Fort Sumter to be effectual to breach the latter work in order to facilitate assault by water.
If Fort Sumter be intact, against any considerable injury from the land works of the South Carolinians, the only alternative left them is to carry the work by an assault by water. For this purpose, we learn that the South Carolinians are preparing an immense and novel floating water battery, which is thus minutely described: – It consists of a huge platform of pine beams about fourteen inches square, powerfully framed and bolted together and adapted to float upon the water. At one end thick planks of the same material and similarly fastened stretch upwards and onwards for about twenty feet, at an angle of perhaps seventy degrees, met at the top by a sharper and shorter one, from the summit of which a bomb proof roof will slope to the rear of the platform, joining another short projecting angle enclosing the battery on that quarter.
The taller end, faced exteriorly with three or four thicknesses of railroad iron, and provided on the inside with a lining of sand bags or cotton bales, is intended for the receipt of four cannon, forty two pounders, protruding from orifices cut for that purpose. At the best this new war machine is but an experiment, and if brought within range of the guns of Fort Sumter, may be rudely tested.
It is the opinion of many military men that if Fort Sumter be bombarded by the South Carolinians with a view to breach its walls or reduce its garrison, prior to a water assault and close attack, open their fire from the land works, it is in the power of Major Anderson, with himself and garrison under the cover of bomb proof casemates, to reduce all the works opposed to him seriatum, within a period of ten hours from the time he fires his first gun, and drive every South Carolinian, not killed or wounded, out of harm’ sway, and all this without losing a man.
There is an old French military maxim that one gun on shore is worth a ship afloat, for the truth of which we always allowed a wide margin; but from recent researches in naval and military history, the result of which, we subjoin, we are inclined to adopt the sentiment of that maxim, and in the belief that Fort Sumter, if attacked, will prove an ugly and probably impregnable customer to the South Carolinians.
Read what history says: –
In 1792 a considerable French squadron attacked Cagliari, where the fortifications were at that time so dilapidated and weak as scarcely to deserve the name of defences. Nevertheless the French fleet after a bombardment of three days, was most signally defeated and obliged to retire.
In 1794 two British ships, the Fortitude, of seventy four, and the June, frigate, of thirty two guns, attacked a small town in the bay of Martello, Corsica, which was armed with one gun en barbette, and a garrison of thirty men. After a bombardment of two and a half hours these ships were forced to haul off, with considerable damage and loss of life. The Martello tower had received no injury, and its garrison were unharmed. There were one hundred and six guns afloat against one on shore, and yet the latter was successful.
In 1797 Nelson attacked the little inefficient batteries of Santa Cruz, in Teneriffe, with eight vessels, carrying four hundred guns. But notwithstanding his great superiority of numbers, skill and bravery, he was repelled while the garrison received little or no damage. A single ball from the land battery striking the side of one of his vessels, instantly sunk her, with near a hundred seamen and marines.
In 1798 a French flotilla of fifty two brigs and gunboats, manned with near seven thousand men attacked a little English redoubt on the island of Maroon, which was armed with two thirty two pounders, two six pounders, four four pounders and two cannonades, and garrisoned with two hundred and fifty men. Notwithstanding this great disparity of numbers, the little redoubt sunk seven of the enemy’s brigs and gunboats, captured another and forced the remainder to retreat with great loss; while the garrison had but one man killed and three wounded.
In 1801 the French with three frigates and six thousand men, attacked the poorly constructed works of Porto Ferrairo whose defensive force was a motley garrison of fifteen hundred Corsicans, Tuscans and English. Here the attacking force was four times as great as that of the garrison. Nevertheless, they were unsuccessful after several bombardments, and a siege of five months.
In July of the same year, 1801, Admiral Saumarex, with an English fleet of six ships of the line and two smaller vessels, carrying in all five hundred and ten guns, attacked the Spanish and French defences of Algesiras, supposing the floating forces of the contending parties to be equal , gun for gun – which is certainly a very fair estimate for the attacking force, considering the circumstances of the case – we have a French land battery of only twelve guns opposed by an English floating force of one hundred and ninety six guns. Notwithstanding this inequality of nearly seventeen to one, the little battery compelled the superior naval force to retreat with great loss.
Shortly after this the French and Spanish fleets attacked the same English squadron with a force of nearly three to one, but met with a most signal defeat; whereas with a land battery of only one to seventeen the same party had been victorious. What proof can be more decisive of the superiority of guns on shore above these afloat?
In 1803 the English garrison of Diamond Rock, near Port Royal bay, with only one hundred men and some fifteen guns, repelled a French squadron of two seventy four gunships, a frigate and a brig, assisted by a land attack of two hundred troops. There was not a single man killed in the redoubt, while the French lost fifty men. The place was afterwards reduced by famine.
In 1806 a French battery on Cape Licosa, of only two guns and a garrison of twenty five men, resisted the attacks of a British eight gun ship and two frigates. The carriage of one of the land guns failed on the second shot, so that, in fact, only one of them was available during the action. Here was a single piece of ordinance and a garrison of twenty five men opposed to a naval force of over one hundred and fifty guns and about thirteen hundred men. And what effects were produced by this strange combat? The attacking force lost thirty seven men killed and wounded, the eight gun ship was much disabled, while the fort and garrison escaped entirely unharmed! What could not be effected by force was afterwards obtained by negotiation.
In 1808 a French land battery, of only three guns, near Fort Trinidad drove off an English seventy four gun ship and a bomb vessel.
In 1813 Leghorn, whose defences were of a very mediocre character, and whose garrison at that time was exceedingly weak, was attacked by an English squadron of six ships, carrying over three hundred guns and a land force of one thousand troops. The whole attempt was a perfect failure.
Let us now examine the several British naval attacks on our own forts in the wars of the Revolution and 1812.
In 1776 Sir Peter Parker, with a British fleet of nine vessels, carrying two hundred and seventy guns, attacked Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, which was then armed with only twenty six guns and garrisoned by only three hundred and seventy five regular troops and a few militia. In his contest the British were entirely defeated, and lost, in killed and wounded, two hundred and five men, while the whole two hundred and seventy guns killed and wounded only thirty two men in the fort. Of this trial of strength, which was certainly a fair one, Cooper, in his naval history he says: – ‘It goes fully to prove the important military position that ships cannot withstand forts, when the latter are properly armed, constructed and garrisoned. General Moultrie says only thirty two rounds from the battery were fired, and was of opinion, that the want of powder alone prevented the Americans from destroying the men of war.’
In 1814 a British fleet of four vessels, carrying ninety two guns, attacked Fort Boyer, a small redoubt located at Mobile Point, at the mouth of Mobile Bay. This work was garrisoned by only one hundred and twenty men, officers included, and its armament was but twenty small pieces of cannon, some of which were almost entirely useless and most, of them poorly mouthed. batteries hastily thrown up and leaving the gunner uncovered from the knee upwards, while the enemy’s land force, acting in concert with the ships; consisted of twenty artillerists, with a battery of two guns and seven hundred and thirty marines, Indians and Negroes. His ships carried five hundred and ninety men in all. This immense disparity in numbers and strength did not allow to the British military and naval commanders the slightest apprehension four British ships, carrying ninety two guns, and a land force somewhat exceeding seven hundred combatants, could fail in reducing a small work mounting only twenty short cannonades, and defended by a little more than one hundred men, unprovided with furnaces for heating shot, or casemates to cover themselves from rockets or shells. Nevertheless, the enemy was completely repulsed, one of his largest ships entirely destroyed, and eighty-five men killed and wounded on board the other; while the American loss was only eight or nine. Here a naval force of five to one was repelled by the land battery.
Again, in 1814, a battery of one four-pounder and two eighteen-pounder guns, at Stonington, Conn., repelled a British fleet of one hundred and thirty- four guns. During the engagements the Americans exhausted their ammunition and spiked their eighteen-pounders, and only one of them was afterwards used. Two of the enemies’ ships, carrying one hundred and twelve guns, were engaged during the whole time of attack, and during much of this time bombarded the town from a position beyond reach of the land battery. They were entirely too far off for the four-pounder guns to be of any use. Supposing the two eighteen-pounders to have been employed during the whole of the action, and also all the guns of a fleet, one eighteen-pounder on land must have been more than equivalent to sixty-seven guns afloat, for the ships were so much injured as to render it necessary for them to withdraw. The British loss was twenty killed and more than fifty wounded. The American loss was two killed and only six wounded.
The fleet sent to attack Baltimore, in 1814, consisted of forty sail – the largest of which were ships-of-the-line, carrying an army of over six thousand combatants. The troops were landed at North Point, while sixteen of the bomb vessels and frigates approached within reach of Fort McHenry, and commenced a bombardment which lasted twenty-four hours. During this attack the enemy threw fifteen hundred shells, four hundred of which exploded within the walls of the fort, but without making any impression on either the strength of the work or the garrison, and the British were compelled to retire with much loss.
In 1815 a squadron of British ships, stationed off the mouth of the Mississippi for the purpose of blockade, ascended the river as high as Fort St. Phillip, which is a small work capable of an armament of only twenty guns in all. A heavy fire of shot and shell was continued, with but few and short pauses, for nine days and nights; but, making no impression on the fort or garrison, they retreated to their former position at the mouth of the river.
There is but one instance in the war of 1812 where the enemy’s vessels succeeded in reducing a fort; and this has sometimes been alluded to by persons ignorant of the real facts of the case as a proof of the inability of fortifications to resist naval attacks. Even if it were because of decided failure, would this single exception be sufficient to overthrow the weight of evidence on the other side? We allude to the reduction of the so-called Fort Washington by the British fleet that ascended the Potomac in 1814 to assist in the disgraceful and barbarous operation of burning the Capitol and destroying the archives of the nation. Fort Washington was a very small and inefficient work, incorrectly planned by an incompetent French engineer; only a small part of the fort was then built, and it has not, we believe, yet been completed.
Some have also pretended to find in modern European history a few examples contradictory of the relative power which we have assigned to ships and forts. Overlooking the numerous and well authenticated examples, where forts of small dimensions and of small armaments have repelled large fleets, they would draw their conclusions from four or five instances where fleets have gained – as was at first supposed – a somewhat doubtful victory over forts. But a careful and critical examination in these cases will show that even these are no exceptions to the general rule of the superiority of the guns ashore over guns afloat.