Save Morris Island!

[SCSecesh]

A grass roots organization has been formed to save this Civil War historic battle site from development.
A website can be found at

www.morrisisland.org

Morris Island is certainly one of the most endangered CW battlegrounds today. With the support of concerned Americans we can stop it's development and preserve this island for generations to come as well as preserve the view from another piece of historic property - Ft. Sumter!

While most know of Morris Island from the movie "Glory" and the 54th's assault on Fort Wagner. MI was the location of the "Star of the West Battery" manned by Citadel Cadets that turned back the reinforcements headed to Sumter. It was the key in the protection of Charleston from the Federal troops moving up from Port Royal; it was key to the Federal armies reduction of Ft. Sumter in the efforts to capture Charleston and etc. This ground was almost certainly contested over longer than any other piece of ground during the CW. Now we have a chance to preserve it!

[DougCooper]

Man this ought to be a no-brainer - the country and especially the citizens of Charleston vs a greedy SOB and 20 potential million dollar home owners. Sounds like a history spoiling, habitat killing, erosion inducing Hurricane Magnet.

We're all aware of the losses sustained by the various federal units assaulting Battery Wagner on Morris Island. There are quite literally hundreds of American soldiers from both sides of the conflict lying buried under the sand of Morris Island, which appears today very much as it did at the time of the Civil War. Please help us save it from the dozen or so multi-million dolar McMansions now being planned. Incidentally, if these things are built, they will undoubtedly be carried away from their perch on the unprotected barrier island by the next good sized hurricane. Of course, the owners losses will be offset by the American taxpayer in the form of federal disaster relief funds.

Here's an account from one of the SC units which helped garrison Battery/Fort Wagner:

"On the first day of September 1863, a battalion of the 25th regiment [SCVI], the 'Edisto Rifles' being one of the companies, composed a part of the garrison of Fort Wagner, the last five days it was held by Confederate forces, and was among the last troops to leave when it was evacuated at 11 o-clock on the night of the sixth of September. The federal flag was flying over one angle of the fort while the Edisto Rifles marched quietly out of the sally-port on their way to Cummings Point [at the northern tip of Morris Island] to make their escape in small boats to Fort's Johnson and Sumter.

The duty in Wagner was so arduous and exhausting that the garrison had to be relieved every few days. The detachment from the 25th, under command of Lt Col Pressley, went into Wagner on the night of the first of September, being about the last troops ever sent there.

I consider the the duty in Wagner the most fearful experience of the four years of the war; especially the last three days and nights. No water, no sleep, little to eat and all the while the fifteen-inch shells were being hurled in broadsides against the garrison [by the] powerful armament of the enemy's fleet.

At the same time, from quite a number of Coehorn mortars which the Federal engineers had succeeded in placing very near the fort on the land side, an incessant shower of mortar shells were being thrown over the parapet falling...all over the interior of the fort. On one of the vessels in the harbor, the enemy had placed a revolving calcium light, which when turned on the fort, made it as light as day, thus [making it impossible to repair at night] the damage sustained by the fort in the day's bombardment. Sentinels posted on the fort's parapet behind large stacks of sandbags for protection were frequently blown fifty feet by the projectiles thrown by 'USS New Ironsides' which had taken up station about five hundred yards from the fort and was firing fifteen inch broadsides every few minutes.

The mangled dead lay thick on every side and their fast decaying remains under the hot September sun impregnated the atmosphere with a sickening odor. All of this, added to the groans of the dying and shrieks of the wounded, was enough to cause the stoutest heart to shudder...

...when the 'Ironsides' would fire a broadside of shells from her fifteen-inch guns, the impact against the bombproof [garrison shelter] would cause the whole structure to quiver to its foundation, and the sand fall in showers through the interstices of timbers onto the miserable and sweltering soldiers below. It was horrifying to think that at any moment the [structure] might give way and everyone be buried in the wreck.

The charge of the Light Brigade was a holiday parade in comparison to the experience in Wagner. After Hagood's brigade went to Virginia, it went into a charge with about 700 men and retired with about 200 [Weldon's Railroad, 21 Aug 1864]. Though the carnage was fearful it lasted but a short time and was therefore preferable to the long spunout suffering and nervous strain in Wagner."

- "A Sketch of the War Record of the Edisto Rifles, 1861 - 1865" by Wm. Valmore Izlar, August Kohn publisher, 1908.


Cordially,
K. Bartsch

[SCSecesh]

Folks, we certainly need your assistance in stopping the destruction of Morris Island!!

All,

I spoke to good ol' SC Senator Arthur Ravenel today. He's opposed to Morris's development and referred me to the SC Coastal Conservation League to check on the latest to stop it from the very folks who share a great deal of the credit for stopping it last time. You can check them out at www.scccl.org

Mr Dana Beach (what an appropriate name!), who is director of the SCCCL, shared with me that the league officially opposes this development of Morris Island big time and is fighting hard to defeat it. Mr Beach is very optimistic that this plan to develop Morris, within the siightline of Ft Sumter, on some of SC's most sacred ground will fail, particularly since it would require drastic re-zoning to permit it and it doesn't appear there is sufficient political will for that to happen. The SCCCR helped lead the charge the last time somebody tried to pull off a crazy scheme like this and whipped 'em then.

Certainly very encouraging news, but let's not stop raising a ruckus by any means. In the meantime, I'm joining the SCCCR 'cause they seem like good folks who want what I want. I repectfully invite you to do the same. For the record, they are not "enviro-wacko's," they believe in fair use of land and have joined w/orgs like Duck's Unlimited to get things done for the land and people of SC. The names on their board of directors are very encouraging and confidence inspiring as well.

With luck and the help of lots of good folks, the ultimate solution will be purchase of this island and placement in public trust. Until that happens, we must remain vigilant.
Cordially,
K. Bartsch

[DougCooper]

SC boys - sent an e-mail and letter off today. Anybody else key to e-mail besides those already mentioned?

Keith - vigilant for sure. Thanks for staying on this one. Greed makes some folks really stupid - guess nobody ever heard of Hugo...let alone all the important reasons to leave it alone.

Watch www.morrisisland.org for updates, and be sure to sign up at the website for the Morris Island Coalition mailing list. The development of this treasure is NOT inevitable!

Nora Kravec
Morris Island Coalition

[SCSecesh]

In October of 1874, Abraham J. Palmer, formerly Private A. J. Palmer, Co. D, 48th New York Volunteer Infantry, revisited Morris Island and the site of Wagner. His words follow:

"Upon that arid, sterile, sandy island, where nothing ever grew before, over the whole area of that bastion which had been so heaped with dead, and there only, there grew a blue flower--a wild species of forget-me-not that blooms perennially. He made inquiries as to how the flowers came there, but no one could explain it. Somebody may have sown the seed; but those flowers doubtless sprang from the rich dust of the heroes who were so rudely sepulchred upon that spot--as if the great God, to rebuke the neglect of the Republic, had placed them there a monument. And what could be a nobler one? Marble shaft will crumble, bronze will tarnish with time, granite will wear away with years, but flowers will bloom in their seasons forever.
And yet the day may come when opposing sections of a restored Union will unite to erect upon that mound of sand a monument to the heroes who fell there on either side. Let it be a noble shaft, typical of the brave spirits who loved their lives less than they loved their honor, and who died upon those sands, lifting them forever into undying renown. The hearts of the sailors as they enter and leave the port will swell within them at the sight, and it will mean forever that upon this spot died heroic men, who believed that they were fighting for the right. For the grim courage that rushed forward against those fatal parapets was met by a courage not inferior that defended them. To appropriate the words of Thomas Starr King in describing the charge by Ney's cavalry at Waterloo, the assault and defence of Fort Wagner was "the beat of a fiery sensibility against a stormy patience;" it was "the old hypothesis in a dramatic play of an irresistible in contact with an immovable. The irresistible was spent--the immovable stood fast."
The chapter about Fort Wagner in Gen. Beauregard's recently published work closes with this sentence: "It is a matter of history to-day, that the defence of Battery Wagner is looked upon as the most skilful, desperate, and glorious achievement of the war; it stands unsurpassed in ancient and modern times."

Regimental History of the 48th New York State Volunteers. Abraham J. Palmer. 1885 pp.125-127.

While that spot may now rest just under the waves, the remainder of Morris Island should stand as an unspoiled monument to the heroism Palmer spoke of!!

[SCSecesh]

"We have captured one fort--Gregg--and one charnel house--Wagner--and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sand-hills that in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and breaking on the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside."

Clara Barton
October 11, 1863

[BHoover]

For those who don't realize how close Morris Island is to Ft. Sumter (and the general layout of Charleston Harbour) the Fort Sumter web site has some great aerial photos.

In particular this one shows Morris island (bottom of image), Fort Sumter (island in the middle, fort is at the top right) and part of Sullivan's Island (location of Fort Moultrie) at the top.