When enslaved Beaufort native son Robert Smalls surrendered The Planter to Union forces, he supplied intelligence about Confederate movements off of Cole's and Battery Islands. This left Charleston vulnerable to Union attack from the south. Seizing the opportunity, Union Gen. David Hunter ordered the divisions of Gen. I.I. Stevens and Horatio Wright based in Beaufort and Hilton Head to James Island where the soldiers were placed under the command of Gen. Henry Benham. Benham ordered an ill-fated frontal attack on Fort Lamar.Capt. William T. Lusk of the New York Highlanders criticized Benham's actions in a letter to his uncle the day after the engagement:
You will learn from the steamer conveying this, of the shocking battle of the 16th. There will be a struggle to suppress the truth, to call fair names, and to shift the responsibility, but the blood of the murdered men cries out for vengeance....The ill-fated enterprise to this island has been characterized by the grossest mismanagement, and the men -- poor dumb creatures -- have had to suffer privation, exposure, and death, where no excuse can be pleaded in extenuation.... [Why?] Because ... A success would be but little gain to the country, but the eclat might make Benham a Major-General. Men might die to win a needless victory, could only his foolish vanity be gratified.
His orders were obeyed, and the next morning's work attests their folly. But even then all might not have been lost, had not his conduct in the field been marked by weakness, vacillation, and imbecility.
... Don't be deceived by printed reports of what took place on the 16th. It was a terribly disastrous affair.
Confederate reinforcements saved the day. The Battle of Secessionville was a Confederate victory. Gen. Benham was relieved of command after the battle.
The Civil War Trust has an excellent webpages about the Battle at
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/secessionville.html.
Prefer book length treatments? Secessionville: Assault on Charleston by Patrick Brennan,c1996 is available in our Research Room, call number SC 973.732 BRE.
Want to go deeper into the history? Come to the BDC to read our vertical files on Gen. Stevens and Gen. Hunter. The BDC and the Low-country Room at Hilton Head Island Branch have copies of The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, a full length biography written by the General's son. For a treatment of one of the Union troops, see A Scratch with the Rebels: A Pennsylvania Roundhead and a South Carolina Cavalier in the BDC and in Beaufort Branch.
Check out Edisto Rebels at Charleston from Bluffton Branch; Borrow Homemade Thunder: War on the South Coast, 1861 - 1865 from HHI, BLU, or LOB branch libraries; or for more general coverage of the Civil War as it transpired here in South Carolina, read the aptly titled: Civil War in South Carolina: Selections from the South Carolina Historical Magazine, edited by Lawrence Rowland and Stephen Hoffius, available everywhere.
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