Pershing
"...Wittenmyer's crossing with two landship brigades and six divisions on October 27th from Augusta, directly into the teeth of Confederate defenses centered upon Aiken and the highlands around Edgefield, directly to the northeast of his crossing point. Wittenmyer's postwar memoirs described "possibly the most hellish fighting since we were in the belly of the beast at Nashville; trees exploded around men as they surged forward, and it seems like every artillery piece left in the Confederacy had been evacuated into South Carolina." Nonetheless, the material advantages of the United States were now overwhelming; on the 29th, an aerial assault launched from Savannah terrorized Aiken through firebombing and phosphate gas detonated above hardened trenches. The hundred kilometers towards Columbia were now, for the most part, open as the state's elite but thinned-out Palmetto Guard attempted to prevent the fall of the state capitol and, another hundred kilometers north of it, the last bastion of Dixie's government in Charlotte.
Pershing was fairly persuaded, however, that it was not in fact Charlotte that was the most necessary target, but rather the annihilation of Charleston. In practical terms, this had in some ways already been achieved; limited naval raids had been essentially uninterrupted against the city since the summer of 1915, with long-range bombardments destroying much of its critical infrastructure, but the city nonetheless maintained its population and the harbor fortress of Fort Sumter remained in Confederate hands, with hardened shore batteries having prevented an incursion into the city proper via its large natural harbor, and the low-lying, marshy islands surrounding it a poor place for an amphibious landing, especially in the malarial summer and autumn.
The choice to follow Wittenmyer's lead and attack across the Lowcountry on October 28th was driven not so much by a strategic calculation, however, so much as an ideological one. It was not to bottle up Charleston's use as a harbor that motivated Pershing's attack with the weight of his forces but rather the desire for a "Carolina campaign" even harsher than the March to the Sea. Pershing, a dedicated student of history, viewed "the cancer of Palmetto-ism" as the reason for not only the current war, as instigated by the Charleston Mercury, Benjamin Tillman's intransigence and Ed Smith's decision to authorize the preemptive assault on Washington, but "the beating heart of violence, hatred and bloodshed on this continent for nigh a century." Pershing took the notion - a notion shared amongst many of his fellow officers and many politicians in Philadelphia, for that matter - that South Carolina was uniquely responsible for the War of Secession beginning in 1861 and looked further back to the Nullification Crisis as much of the origin of virulent politics in what would become the Confederacy. If the intellectual project of an aggressive, belligerent Confederacy as competing regional power was to be ended and a supine, obedient client state that would never again subject the Republic to the outrages of 1862-63 and 1913-14 was to replace it, then the core of said project needed to be ripped up, root and stem.
The Carolina Campaign that drove across the Lowcountry in the first days of November is certainly not Pershing's finest work; it was probably launched too soon after the March to the Sea, too many men were thrown at makeshift Confederate defenses to rapidly overwhelm the enemy, and valuable landships and planes were lost as Charleston was placed fully in the United States' crosshairs. But despite the staggering bloodshed - numbering as many as fifteen thousand killed between both sides on November 3rd, the bloodiest day of the push - the Army rapidly reached Charleston just as Wittenmyer blasted his way through Columbia on the same day, and both of South Carolina's major cities were razed to the ground, with homes and shops burned alongside depots and armories, while suspected partisans were rounded up and thrown in prison camps, if they were lucky.
As Charleston glow deep into the night of November 4th, rockets and shells from a major fleet collected just offshore hammered the fortresses as mobile artillery and aerial bombs rained down on them from land; Pershing estimated that the "drumfire" was probably the largest expending of artillery in the history of war. Just before dawn on the 5th, Marines came ashore at Fort Sumter to find nearly all the defenders dead and the thick defensive walls, heavily damaged but sturdy throughout the war, reduced to rubble. As the sun broke over the Atlantic, Pershing was handed field binoculars by aide-de-camp Omar Bradley and looked out across Charleston Harbor from his vantage point, and smiled at what he saw: for the first time since 1861, Old Glory flew over the ruins of Fort Sumter..."
- Pershing
Pershing was fairly persuaded, however, that it was not in fact Charlotte that was the most necessary target, but rather the annihilation of Charleston. In practical terms, this had in some ways already been achieved; limited naval raids had been essentially uninterrupted against the city since the summer of 1915, with long-range bombardments destroying much of its critical infrastructure, but the city nonetheless maintained its population and the harbor fortress of Fort Sumter remained in Confederate hands, with hardened shore batteries having prevented an incursion into the city proper via its large natural harbor, and the low-lying, marshy islands surrounding it a poor place for an amphibious landing, especially in the malarial summer and autumn.
The choice to follow Wittenmyer's lead and attack across the Lowcountry on October 28th was driven not so much by a strategic calculation, however, so much as an ideological one. It was not to bottle up Charleston's use as a harbor that motivated Pershing's attack with the weight of his forces but rather the desire for a "Carolina campaign" even harsher than the March to the Sea. Pershing, a dedicated student of history, viewed "the cancer of Palmetto-ism" as the reason for not only the current war, as instigated by the Charleston Mercury, Benjamin Tillman's intransigence and Ed Smith's decision to authorize the preemptive assault on Washington, but "the beating heart of violence, hatred and bloodshed on this continent for nigh a century." Pershing took the notion - a notion shared amongst many of his fellow officers and many politicians in Philadelphia, for that matter - that South Carolina was uniquely responsible for the War of Secession beginning in 1861 and looked further back to the Nullification Crisis as much of the origin of virulent politics in what would become the Confederacy. If the intellectual project of an aggressive, belligerent Confederacy as competing regional power was to be ended and a supine, obedient client state that would never again subject the Republic to the outrages of 1862-63 and 1913-14 was to replace it, then the core of said project needed to be ripped up, root and stem.
The Carolina Campaign that drove across the Lowcountry in the first days of November is certainly not Pershing's finest work; it was probably launched too soon after the March to the Sea, too many men were thrown at makeshift Confederate defenses to rapidly overwhelm the enemy, and valuable landships and planes were lost as Charleston was placed fully in the United States' crosshairs. But despite the staggering bloodshed - numbering as many as fifteen thousand killed between both sides on November 3rd, the bloodiest day of the push - the Army rapidly reached Charleston just as Wittenmyer blasted his way through Columbia on the same day, and both of South Carolina's major cities were razed to the ground, with homes and shops burned alongside depots and armories, while suspected partisans were rounded up and thrown in prison camps, if they were lucky.
As Charleston glow deep into the night of November 4th, rockets and shells from a major fleet collected just offshore hammered the fortresses as mobile artillery and aerial bombs rained down on them from land; Pershing estimated that the "drumfire" was probably the largest expending of artillery in the history of war. Just before dawn on the 5th, Marines came ashore at Fort Sumter to find nearly all the defenders dead and the thick defensive walls, heavily damaged but sturdy throughout the war, reduced to rubble. As the sun broke over the Atlantic, Pershing was handed field binoculars by aide-de-camp Omar Bradley and looked out across Charleston Harbor from his vantage point, and smiled at what he saw: for the first time since 1861, Old Glory flew over the ruins of Fort Sumter..."
- Pershing
