Factors Affecting Joint Cooperation During The Civil War by LCDR Timothy R. Hanley USN

Author:LCDR Timothy R. Hanley USN [USN, LCDR Timothy R. Hanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782899372
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Golden Springs Publishing
Published: 2015-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Reprinted with permission from Combined Operations in the Civil War by Rowena Reed. Copyright c 1978, U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD.

The precipitate retreat from the Stono was one of the first problems in joint cooperation to surface. DuPont’s opinion of the Army’s capability was becoming more negative as time went on. Shortly after the withdrawal he complained to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy: “Oh those Soldiers, I put them nearly on top of the house in Charleston, but I did not push them into the windows and they came back.”{113}

Although DuPont’s criticism was minor, it marked a subtle but important shift in the tone of the relationship between the services. Until shortly after Hunter’s assumption of command of the Department of the South in late March, there had been numerous small, but successful, joint operations all along the coast, from the Stono south to St. Augustine, Florida. The subordinate commanders from both services realized that both branches working together could achieve more than either could separately.

Some of those successes could be laid to the cordial relationship between DuPont and Hunter’s predecessor, Brigadier General T. W. Sherman. Sherman was a stolid if unimaginative general who was willing to defer to DuPont on joint matters. Hunter was a political general, who like Ben Butler had to be humored by Lincoln for the sake of the war effort. Hunter was unwilling to accept or imply any degree of subordination to DuPont, a situation bound to cause friction with the touchy and prerogative-obsessed Admiral.

Another factor, besides the change in Army commanders, was that DuPont himself had undergone a transformation from the time of his aggressive attack on Port Royal. The tedium of occupation and blockade duty set in. From the winter of 1861 onward, his official correspondence with the Navy Department dealt increasingly with administrative details and less and less with operational matters. His ideas and proposals regarding new operations against the enemy became rarer as time went on.{114} A man who is losing interest in initiative may find it to be an irritating quality in a colleague whom he is required to work with closely. Despite his poor showing at James Island, Hunter would prove to be the more aggressive commander.

One lasting effect of the Battle of Seccessionville was that the War Department came to view the Charleston area as expensive sideshow. After the Seccessionville fight, the War Department withdrew seven of Hunter’s regiments to reinforce other theaters, leaving him with insufficient forces to renew offensive operations against Charleston. A manpower shortage would hobble the Army’s efforts near Charleston for the remainder of the war.{115} Secretary of War Stanton and his Chief of Staff, Major General H. W. Halleck, were willing to let the Army cooperate with the Navy in any attempt to seize Charleston but they were unwilling to commit substantial numbers of new troops to it.

“After the failure of the assault of Seccessionville and the abandonment by the Federal troops of the footholds they had secured on James Island in

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