Rear Admiral Samuel F DuPont |
The First
Battle of Fort McAllister in Bryan County, Georgia was on March 3rd
1863.
Union Rear
Admiral Samuel F DuPont ordered four ironclads, the USS Montauk, Nahant,
Passaic, and Patapsco to fire on the small three gun earthworks battery located
within the Confederate defenses of Fort McAllister. The goal of this firing was to test the ships
guns and determine their effectiveness against an earthen shore battery.
Fort
McAllister was ordered to be built on July 7th 1861, using available
materials, mostly sand and mud. It was
armed with one rifled 32 pounder a 42 pounder and an eight inch Columbiad.
On March 3rd
1863 at about 8:30 in the morning, the four ironclads opened fire with an eight
hour long bombardment. The shelling did
some damage to the battery, but did not destroy it. Two Confederates in the Fort were slightly
wounded. The ships held up well under the return fire from the fort, suffering
only a few minor dents. It also showed
that the Fort wouldn't fall to a strictly naval attack, as most the damage was
repaired by the next day. DuPont,
reported that, "Whatever degree of impenetrability the monitors might
have, there was no corresponding quality of destructiveness against
forts."
Fort
McAllister would finally fall into Union hand on December 13th 1864,
when Union General William Tecumseh Sherman captured the Fort by land.
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