The Battle of Grimball's Landing took place in James Island, South Carolina, on July 16, 1863, during the American Civil War. It was a part of the campaign known as Operations Against the Defenses of Charleston.
To draw Confederate forces away from reinforcing Fort Wagner, Brig. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore designed two feints. One force was sent up Stono River to threaten the Charleston & Savannah Railroad bridge. A second force, consisting of Alfred Terry's division, landed on James Island on 8 July. Soon, Terry demonstrated his forces before the Confederate defenses but did not launch an attack.
On July 11, Gillmore made his move on Fort Wagner. The attack was made by the 7th Connecticut Infantry. Supported by a heavy naval bombardment, the assault jumped off at dawn, moving forward through a thick morning fog which helped to conceal their advance. The attackers were met with stiff resistance and were forced back with heavy losses. The regiment lost 339 men, with 123 wounded, 49 killed, and 167 missing. Against this the defenders suffered 12 casualties. Gillmore considered his next move.
Meanwhile, the Confederates moved against James Island. On July 16, they attacked, with the goal of encircling and destroying a part of the Union forces there. The men of the 10th Connecticut Infantry were in an exposed position, and in jeopardy of being cut off. The Confederate efforts to get around them were checked by the men of the 54th Massachusetts, who rebuffed a series of attacks while the 10th Connecticut was withdrawn. The 54th suffered 43 casualties, with 14 killed, 17 wounded, and 12 others lost to capture, but the 10th Connecticut was saved. The following day the Union forces were pulled off the island.
This battle was the first engagement of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
A letter to his wife written two days later by First Sergeant Robert John Simmons (a British citizen from Bermuda, who had previously served in the British Army) shortly before the attack on Battery Wagner was published in the New York Tribune on 23 December 1863, giving a first-hand account of the action.
We are on the march to Fort Wagner, to storm it. We have just completed our successful retreat from James Island; we fought a desperate battle there Thursday morning. Three companies of us, B, H, and K, were out on picket about a good mile in advance of the regiment. We were attacked early in the morning. Our company was in the reserve when the outposts were attacked by rebel infantry and cavalry. I was sent out by our Captain in command of a squad of men to support the left flank. The bullets fairly rained around us; when I got there the poor fellows were falling down around me, with pitiful groans. Our pickets only numbered about 250 men, attacked by about 900. It is supposed by the line of battle in the distance, that they were supported by the reserve of 3,000 men. We had to fire and retreat toward our own encampment. One poor Sergeant of ours was shot down alongside of me; several others were wounded near me.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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