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177 { 12 } The Handsomest Thing I Have Seen in This War Major General William T. Sherman’s troops ran low on supplies as they reached Savannah and began the siege of the city. In a letter to his wife, Margaret, Lieutenant Colonel Owen Stuart starkly summarized the situation the Union army faced upon reaching Savannah: “Our lines are now formed, and the Supplies all out.” In Brigadier General William Hazen’s Second Division, a First Brigade Regiment, the 55th Illinois, reported receiving “half rations of coffee, sugar, and hard-tack, the stores in the wagons being nearly exhausted” upon approaching Savannah.1 Starvation, at least in the short term, remained too dire a description of the army’s situation. Rich oyster beds flourished nearby, and local plantations held piles of harvested rice. But before the rice could be eaten, it had to be hulled, which the troops accomplished in due fashion. Beef from large herds of cattle collected on the way supplemented the rice. According to Major Henry Hitchcock of Sherman’s staff, ten days of rations remained for the troops, but they lacked fodder for the army’s horses, mules, and cattle, and their supply of corn and oats would soon be exhausted. Another staff member, Major Thomas Ward Osborn, considered rice “poor food to feed an army on.” The customary diet of the Irish Legion did not include brown rice, either, so they could be expected to have shared Osborn’s opinion of such fare.2 With its large cannons covering the Ogeechee River, Fort McAllister effectively blocked river traffic, preventing resupply of Sherman’s army by the Union fleet hovering offshore. This small, rather simple looking sand fort had withstood Union naval bombardment eight separate times from July 1862 through March 1863. During the attack on March 4, 1863, it survived bombardment by 345- to 350-pound 178 • The Handsomest Thing shells from the fifteen-inch guns of the monitors Passaic, Patapsco, and Nahant from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an hour and a half out for lunch. (Naval warfare still retained some degree of civility.) The fort remained defiant and largely intact with only one casualty, the garrison’s pet cat, Tom. The shelling caused little damage , simply shifting the sand around, which the fort’s defenders speedily moved back in place. Stuart bluntly stated the problem: “Ft. McAllister . . . was between the army and our Supplies, it must be taken or the army [will] starve.”3 Sherman gave Major General Oliver Howard the job of opening up communications with the fleet. “Hazen’s” was Howard’s answer to Sherman’s question as to which division to use to capture the fort. Sherman’s agreement meant that the 90th Illinois would be part of the force attempting to take the fort by a frontal attack, which, based on past experience, would not be an easy thing to accomplish.4 Today, Fort McAllister, as restored by Henry Ford, who once owned the land on which the fort is located, may not look particularly impressive, but looks can be deceptive. As it existed in December 1864, it would have appeared formidable to the troops preparing for the attack. The fort’s river frontage stretched only about 550 feet, but its circumference measured a little over 3,000 feet. A dry moat fronted three of its four land sides. The marshy terrain in front of the fourth land side made attack from that direction difficult (Map 14). Most of the fort’s twenty-two guns fired over a protective wall or parapet. However, the five large cannon of eight- or ten-inch diameter mounted along the fourth land side faced downriver and thus provided little protection against a land attack from the other three sides. As Sherman’s army neared Savannah, the land defenses of the fort had been strengthened and the fort resupplied to withstand a thirty-day siege. The Confederate defenders cut down trees and removed brush to provide clear fields of fire. To slow the approach of attacking Union troops, the Confederates placed abatis, trees cut down with sharpened branches facing outward, in front of the dry moat, a ditch some fifteen feet deep and six or seven feet across at the bottom. The fort side of the moat had an inclined slope or glacis that could be swept by fire from the defenders. To further delay enemy troops attempting to cross the moat, the fort’s defenders had constructed a palisade...

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