Located on Jmes Island south of Charleston, the swampy, mucky, humid place was fortunately free of bugs for my brief visit.
Monument to mark the location of the battle, properly speaking, located inside the Union's objective
The 12 June 1862 battle saw five brigades of Union infantry, two of which were under Brigadier Isaac Stevens, try to assault Fort Lamar, whose guns were covering Charleston's harbor. Poor coordination and a lack of leadership doomed the assault to failure.
Interpretive Stand
I read a book about the battle several years ago and being in the area for work, I thought I would see what there is of the battlefield. It's a state park and wildlife refuge, so there is minimal infrastructure to support or interpret the battle, but the stand they do have was excellent, if somewhat faded, due to weather.
That part of James Island has been built over, so there are houses on the routes of approach that the Union forces used. With the housing area being private property, I did not dismount and walk around, there was literally no place to park, but instead I drove slowly along.
Inside Fort Lamar, there is a very nice walking area. Even if it was miserably humid at ten in the morning.
Some of the remains of earthworks of Fort Lamar
As the Union forces made their advance across a narrow strip of semi-dry land, the Confederates held them off with artillery and musket fire. Other forces moved down from Charleston to help the fort and put pressure on the Federals to retreat.
An example of the swampy bits. Looking towards Charleston. This was approximately where a tower stood, hence the fort's other name Tower Battery
Union avenue of approach as seen from the Confederate side
To the left of the picture, Colonel David Leasure's brigade of Stevens' division would have been advancing with the road on their left flank. The other brigade, which included the 28th Massachusetts and the 7th Connecticut, would have been on the other side of the road. Both brigades were squeezed in as the terrain canalized them as they got closer to the fort.
Part of the excellent map on the interpretive stand
The overall map on the stand. Excellent explanations and details.
A view of where Leasure's brigade made their part of the assault
The end result was several hundred dead Union Soldiers with the Confederates suffering approximately 200 casualties themselves.
Just walking around with my water bottle in shorts and a t-shirt was miserable enough. Wearing my Civil War kit would have been just awful. I can only sympathize for those who had to do so.
Overall the site is very nice, small, easily accessible, and I felt it was worth the hour or so I spent there. With very stormy clouds on the way in, I decided to pack up and leave a little sooner than I was originally planning. Thunderstorms in this part of South Carolina are nothing to ignore.
I am thinking about how I can run this on the tabletop, definitely in 15mm, with All The Kings Men rules, I think it would be an interesting game.
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