Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[455] merchant marine, was not all that could be desired; but in an enterprise so speedily organized, and of such unprecedented magnitude, perfection was not looked for. On the 25th of October the whole fleet and the vessels with Sherman's army on board were assembled off Fortress Monroe; the order of sailing and of disembarkation had been arranged in minute details. The transportships were formed into three columns, each conveying a complete brigade; they were provided with long-boats, and had in tow a sufficient number of surf-boats to land four thousand five hundred men each trip.

The point of attack was not definitely settled until the last moment, and its choice remained a profound secret; it was only known to Dupont, Sherman, and the members of the cabinet, when the fleet got under way. This uncertainty regarding the destination of so vast an armament caused trouble and alarm along the whole coast of the Southern States. There was not a single Confederate port from Charleston to Texas where that fleet, whose power had long been the subject of comment in all the Northern papers, was not expected to appear soon. Having first thought of the Savannah River, Dupont had decided to direct his attack upon the entrances to Hilton Head. These inlets, situated in South Carolina at almost equal distances from Charleston and Savannah, form the principal entrance into a labyrinth of canals, with which the numerous islands along the coast comprised between those two points are intersected. Rivers run from every direction to mingle their waters with those of the sea. These islands, flat, sandy, and half submerged, produced the famous cotton known by the name of sea-island cotton, which sold in the European markets ten times higher than the coarser products of the inland plantations. Near the mouth of the rivers, which roll their waters sluggishly through an alluvial soil covered with forests and heavy thickets of myrtle and magnolias, there were swamps which the hand of man had converted into fruitful rice-fields. The white proprietors were all in the habit of flying from this deadly climate at the approach of summer, and even among the negroes themselves those alone could stand it who had been accustomed to it from their birth; but the incomparable mildness of winter again brought back to the beautiful plantations which abound in the neighborhood