. The naval history of the Civil War . and. And here arises the question—Was it wiseto undertake so great a task as the captureof Charleston at one blow ? It would havebeen a good beginning to have taken FortWagner. To have attacked that place eighthundred yards to the southward would haveplaced the squadron two and a half miles from the forts on Sullivans Island and amile and three-quarters from Sumter. Ofcourse, if the iron-clads could not reduceWagner, it would be useless to attempt togo up to the city. There was a great desire,on the part of the Northern people, thatCharleston should be ta
. The naval history of the Civil War . and. And here arises the question—Was it wiseto undertake so great a task as the captureof Charleston at one blow ? It would havebeen a good beginning to have taken FortWagner. To have attacked that place eighthundred yards to the southward would haveplaced the squadron two and a half miles from the forts on Sullivans Island and amile and three-quarters from Sumter. Ofcourse, if the iron-clads could not reduceWagner, it would be useless to attempt togo up to the city. There was a great desire,on the part of the Northern people, thatCharleston should be taken, and the officerwho could at that moment have capturedthe place would have won unbounded popu-larity. It was certainly the hardest taskundertaken by the Navy during the fact, without the co-operation of anarmy, the taking of Charleston was an im-possibility. Charleston was approached by tortuouschannels filled with obstructions, that evenwithout the fortifications would have beenformidable to the squadron that went to at-. COMMANDER (MOW REAR-ADMIRAL) A. C. RHLND. tack it. It is difficult to manoeuvre a squad-ron in a narrow space with strong currentsrunning; how much more difficult must itbe, then, when crooked channels are filledwith obstructions ? In such a case a Commander-in-chief isentitled to use his own discretion, and notundertake a movement against a place un-less he is confident the obstructions are notof a character to impede the progress of hisfleet. Had Dupont persevered and entan-gled his vessels in the contrivances placedin the channels for that purpose, those whourged him on would have put the blame ofthe necessary failure upon his discontinued the attack in good time,and let us see the result: No ships had been exposed to the severest 376 THE NAVAL HISTORY fire of the enemy more than forty minutes,yet in that brief period five iron-clads werewholly or partially disabled. CommanderRhind, in the Keokuk,hadbeen able to fire only three ti
Size: 1422px × 1758px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectunitedstatesnavy
