Part III.
Department of the South and Army of the James

The 1st New York Volunteer Engineer Regiment reported for duty in 1861 to Fort Monroe, Virginia. An expedition accompanied by Companies A and D, with a detachment from Company A of the Regular Engineer Battalion, left Fort Monroe on October 17, 1861, for Port Royal, South Carolina. Early in the following January the force left Port Royal for a landing on Daufuskie Island in the Savannah River to cut off communications between Fort Pulaski and Savannah.

The Confederate forces had sunk a brig (and secured it in position with heavy piles) in Walls Cut, thus blocking a route to Port Royal. A company of the 1st, after three weeks of unremitting night labor in close proximity to Confederate forces, removed the obstruction in this inner route toward the Savannah River. The expedition then established a camp on Daufuskie Island for operations in the Savannah River. (Figure 1.) The engineers constructed parapets, magazines, coverings, boardwalks, and wheelbarrow roads, and staked out gun positions. The two engineer companies were also employed in cutting poles for a causeway and engineer wharf.

In April 1862, Companies A and D accompanied an expedition which captured Fort Pulaski at the entrance to the Savannah River on April 11.

Company E accompanied an attacking column against Secessionville on June 16, 1862, for the purpose of capturing James Island in the Charleston Harbor. With their muskets upon their backs they moved forward with engineer tools to remove obstructions and to carry on engineer work. They also assisted the movement of the artillery, opened a road through a dike under fire; and fought as infantry.

A detachment of 250 engineers from the 1st was a part of a force of 4,500 Union troops that cut the Charleston and Savannah Railroad on October 22, 1862, just north of Savannah. Large flat boats each capable of transporting half a battery of artillery with the horses, but without caissons, were built. The boats were provided with hinged aprons at the bow to facilitate the landing of both the artillery and the troops. Two rails were cut and six partially cut; ties were burned and rails warped; two telegraph poles and the wires were downed; and four bridges were destroyed.

Other detachments of the 1st New York Volunteer Engineers served at Beaufort, South Carolina; and at Fort Clinch and Fort Old Town, Florida. On March 9, Company I left Jacksonville and proceeded 75 miles up the Saint Johns River to Palatka where it landed without opposition and proceeded to construct defenses and mount guns.

Union forces occupied the south end of Morris Island on July 10, 1863, in the campaign to capture Charleston. Fort Wagner, a Confederate battery, was sited at the northern end of the island. To establish a ferry from Folly Island to Morris Island, the engineers cut the obstructing piles 8 feet below low tide with underwater saws. On July 12 the regiment, numbering 438, began the line of siege works in order to capture Fort Wagner and the northern extremity of Morris Island so as to establish breaching batteries against Fort Sumter.

The immense unoccupied bogs between Morris Island and James Island farther inland, were much nearer to Charleston than were the batteries intended for action against Fort Sumter. It was thought that if a battery could be emplaced on that unstable ground, it might bombard the city and if it could not cause its evacuation it might, at least, satisfy Northern public opinion which demanded the chastisement of the city.

Colonel Serrell selected a site 1,734 yards in a straight line from Morris Island and 7 miles from the city of Charleston where the soil offered more firmness than the remainder of the bog. (Figure 2.) It was protected from the enemy by one bayou on the west and one on the north. A third bayou leading to the south was navigable at high tide for small boats. A reconnaissance of the ground made between July 16 and 20 revealed that the mud would stand a pressure of about 5,250 pounds to the square yard. A battery of a 200 pounder Parrot gun, of nearly 8 inches calibre, weighed more than 15,000 pounds. It was feared that once the firing started, the vibration of the recoil would disturb the equilibrium and gradually cause the entire battery to sink. To avoid this, the parapet and the platform were established upon independent bases. Trunks of pine trees 16 to 20 yards long were-rafted via the bayou to the battery site. Four rafts were formed by fastening the logs one to another, and two of the rafts laid in one direction and the other two laid perpendicular to the first. All four were joined at their extremities so as to form an immense rectangular floor, leaving an empty square in the middle. The parapet was made up of sandbags on three sides of the floor.

The platform of the piece was placed on piles in the vacant space in the middle of the flooring. A square coffer was formed with sheet piles driven into the mud by the weight of a squad of engineers who suspended themselves to a beam placed across the top of the pile planks. Inside the cofferdam were spread in successive layers: grass, cloths, and sand to keep the mud down. In this way the vibration caused by the firing would not be communicated to the raft bearing the parapet. However, if the raft should sink, the parapet would be easily raised by adding sand bags, and the mud forced away by the weight of the parapet would form a kind of glacis outside, and the pressure working upward inside the coffer would assist in sustaining the platform of the cannon.

The work was started on August 2. A workshop was established, and the sandbags, timber, gun carriage, and ammunition were transported in barges and then hauled at high tide to the location of the battery over a heavy corduroy road. A plank road resting on thick grass allowed the men to go in on foot. After three weeks of rough work in the mud and under a burning sun, the site was ready on August 21 for the cannon. As its weight would have swamped the only boats that could navigate the bayou, the cannon was carried by hand across the swamp. Wooden cylinders were placed around the breach and muzzle and this enabled the men to roll the piece like a barrel on two board tracks prepared for that purpose. The "Swamp Angel" was mounted. A false battery, made of reeds, was sited a short distance away to deceive the enemy. The bombardment of Charleston started on August 23. Unfortunately, the gun burst after firing thirty-six rounds on the city.

The materials used in the construction of the battery were: 13,000 sandbags; 123 pieces of yellow pine timber, 55 feet long and 15 feet round; 5,000 feet of 1-inch boards; 9,156 feet of 3-inch planks; 600 pounds of iron; 6,000 pounds of spikes and nails; and 8 paulins.

In April 1864 the 1st New York Volunteer Engineers were transferred to Fort Monroe, Virginia, for duty with the Army of the James in joint operations with the Army of the Potomac against Petersburg and Richmond.

On August 3, the regiment constructed a ponton bridge 560 feet long on the Appomattox River at Broadway Landing to pass the 2d Corps.

Two signal towers, 120 and 126 feet high, were constructed at Point of Rocks and on the right flank of the line. From the latter the Richmond and Petersburg turnpike and crossroads could be observed. A lookout was stationed constantly on the tower to give information on the Confederate Army movements.

On September 18, a canvas ponton bridge of 23 boats was constructed on the Appomattox River. The inexperienced pontoniers spent 12 minutes in constructing the first ponton and 3 minutes in constructing the last ponton, the average time being 7 ½ minutes for each ponton.

During the night of September 28, a ponton bridge 1,320 feet long was constructed on the James River at Aikens Landing in 6 ½ hours by 100 pontoniers. The army began to cross the river at 3:00 a.m. September 29 in two columns, one on this bridge and one on a bridge constructed at Deep Bottom.

In January 1865, a permanent pile bridge, 1,368 feet long, was constructed to replace the ponton bridge at Aikens Landing because of freshets in the river, floating ice, and driftwood. A channel draw of 180 feet was provided. The construction of the bridge took two weeks.

Other engineering jobs included cutting a canal across the peninsula called Dutch Gap in August 1864 to protect Union boats sailing up the James River from enemy guns on the river bank; perfecting defense works; constructing wharves; corduroying roads; and cutting timber from Bermuda woods, 7,000 to 10,000 feet per day, to build a permanent hospital at Point of Rocks.

According to a report of Brevet Brig. Gen. Peter S. Michie, Chief Engineer, Army of the James, a detachment of the 1st New York Volunteer Engineers marched into Richmond on April 3, 1865, and assisted in extinguishing the fire engulfing the city. The detachment also constructed a 2,400-foot ponton bridge across the James River connecting Manchester and Richmond. This was a record length for a ponton bridge. A permanent bridge, called May's bridge, some 1,396 feet long, was constructed in the same vicinity in June 1865.

In the march to the Appomattox, the 1st repaired and constructed twelve bridges and repaired over 20 miles of roads. At Farmville the regiment was the first engineer unit to bring up its ponton trains and thus was able to construct a bridge over the Appomattox for the first troops of the 2d and 6th Corps, Army of the Potomac.

The best testimonial to the importance of the engineers in the Department of the South and the Army of the James is contained in instructions to a lieutenant in July 1864 while making a reconnaissance for a bridge site to accommodate a bridge leading from Coles Island to James Island. In compelling words the commanding general said, "The sergeants are not to wear chevrons, nor must anything be worn which will indicate to the enemy that you or the sergeants belong to the Engineers."