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| Headquarters of General Q. A. Gillmore at Hilton Head General Gillmore is not out of place in a volume that deals with the naval side of the Civil War, for almost continually he was directing movements in which the Federal navy was operating or was supposed to lend assistance. Had many of this splendid officer's suggestions been adopted, and had he received better military support from Washington, Savannah and Charleston could not by any possibility have held out, with all the bravery in the world, as long as they did. Had he been given supreme command at the time that he was ranked by General Thomas W. Sherman and had he commanded 50,000 men instead of a small army, the Federal naval victories might have been followed up by army successes. General Gillmore conceived and superintended the construction of the fortifications at Hilton Head, and also planned the operations that resulted in the capture of Fort Pulaski. Transferred to western Virginia and Kentucky, and brevetted for gallantry, he once more returned to the coast as commander of the Department of South Carolina, where he succeeded General Hunter. It was greatly through his efforts that Forts Wagner and Gregg, near Charleston Harbor, were finally silenced. During the latter part of the war he was successively in command of the Tenth and Nineteenth Army Corps. |
