Quincy Adams Gillmore - Civil War

Civil War

With the outbreak of the Civil War in early 1861, Gilmore was assigned to the staff of Brig. Gen.Thomas W. Sherman and accompanied him to Port Royal, Virginia. After being appointed as a brigadier general, Gillmore took charge of the siege operations against Fort Pulaski. A staunch advocate of the relatively new naval rifled guns, he was the first officer to effectively use them to knock out an enemy stone fortification. More than 5,000 artillery shells fell on Pulaski from a range of 1,700 yards during the short siege, which resulted in the fort's surrender after its walls were breached.

The result of the efforts to breach a fort of such strength and at such a distance confers high honor on the engineering skill and self-reliant capacity of General Gilmore. Failure in an attempt made in opposition to the opinion of the ablest engineers in the army would have destroyed him. Success, which in this case is wholly attributable to his talent, energy, and independence, deserves a corresponding reward. —New York Tribune

Although he was one of the best artillerists and engineers in the army he was not well respected by his men.

After an assignment in New York City, Gillmore traveled to Lexington, Kentucky, where he supervised the construction of Fort Clay on a hilltop commanding the city. He was then assigned to replace Maj. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel in charge of the X Corps after that officer's death from yellow fever. In addition, Gillmore commanded the Department of the South, consisting of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, with headquarters at Hilton Head, from June 12, 1863, to May 1, 1864. Under his direction, the army constructed two earthen forts in coastal South Carolina—Fort Mitchel and Fort Holbrook, located in the Spanish Wells area near Hilton Head Island.

He commanded forces that occupied Morris Island, Fort Wagner, and Fort Gregg, and also participated in the destruction of Fort Sumter. On July 18, 1863, during the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, Gillmore launched a major assault on Fort Wagner. The troops who assaulted Ft. Wagner were primarily from the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, which included only African-Americans in its complement. Gillmore had ordered that his forces be integrated and that African-Americans were not to be assigned menial tasks only, such as KP or latrine duty, but instead they were to carry arms into battle. They and their assault on Ft. Wagner were the subject of the 1989 Civil War movie Glory, which starred Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick. However, his troops were unable to seize Charleston. In February 1864, Gillmore sent troops to Florida under the command of General Truman Seymour. Despite orders from Gillmore not to advance into the interior of the state, General Seymour advanced toward Tallahassee, the capitol, and fought the largest battle in Florida, the Battle of Olustee, which resulted in a Union defeat.

In early May, Gillmore and the X Corps were transferred to the Army of the James and shipped to Virginia. They took part in the Bermuda Hundred operations and played a principal role in the disastrous Drewry's Bluff action. Gillmore openly feuded with his superior, Benjamin F. Butler over the blame for the defeat. Gillmore asked for reassignment and left for Washington, D.C., On July 11, 1864, Gillmore organized new recruits and invalids into a 20,000-man force to help protect the city from a threat by 10,000 Confederates under Jubal A. Early, who had reached the outer defenses of the Union capital.

Gillmore was breveted as a major general of volunteers and a lieutenant colonel of engineers in the regular army. In mid-May 1865, Gillmore ordered all remaining slaves in the territory under his command to be freed; later that month he imposed martial law to enforce his orders.

With the war over, he resigned from the volunteer army on December 5, 1865.