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who had defended forts at Charleston to reinforce Fisher, and as I considered the garrison there already as sufficient, being two thousand strong, I ordered about six hundred less reliable troops to come out, considering it an unneccessary exposure of life to keep them there.
This order, however, was rescinded on General Whiting's appeal, and he was allowed to keep the whole.
With this garrison I considered the fort perfectly safe and capable of standing any length of siege.
I am at a loss to know what day the
General refers to. No reinforcements came from him on Saturday, the 14th, but during the day, Sunday, the 15th,
Colonel Graham arrived at Battery Buchanan with his brigade.
He did not land all of them, but telegraphed
General Bragg from
Smithville at 1 o'clock P. M.: “As instructed by you about four hundred of my men landed at
Fisher.
The rest were prevented by the fire of the enemy.
I will go there to night unless otherwise instructed.”
About three hundred and fifty of these men reported to me just previous to the assault, and they were all of the one thousand of
Bragg's “best men,” whom he started for the fort, who got there.
General Bragg is not accurate.
Up to the arrival of the three hundred and fifty South Carolinians I had but about fifteen hundred and fifty men. If there were others sent to reinforce the fort they never reported, and if more prisoners were captured by
General Terry on the peninsula than these figures indicate after subtracting the killed, they did not belong and were not properly chargeable to my garrison.
The General says:
We had steamboat communication with it, which we could keep open at all times during the night.
How odd then not to have sent the reinforcements at night, when the enemy could not have seen them entering the fort.
The letter continues:
The reports from the fort were of the most favorable character up to Sunday evening. Not a gun reported injured, the fort not damaged, and our loss three killed and thirty-two wounded in nearly three days.
It is painful to read this statement.
I reported at 6 P. M. on Friday, the 13th, that our casualties were two killed and forty-one wounded. I have recovered the original report, a copy of which was sent to
General Bragg.
The list of killed and wounded on the 14th was very large, more than double that of the previous day. I have been unable to recover this report, but I remember very distinctly the proportion of killed was very great, detachments being kept at each gun to fire at long intervals, and deliberately, until it was rendered unserviceable by the fire of the fleet.
More than ten per cent. of my garrison
