The Cold Chisel Brigade

Yankeedave

Captain
Joined
Dec 3, 2012
Location
Nebraska
The story that follows comes from the pen of the Rev. D. C. Knowles, Captain, Company D, Forty-Eighth New York, who describes graphically the plans of the "Cold-Chisel Brigade."1

And now I come to an episode that is a type of many a curious plan that our civil war brought forth. Probably no contest ever produced so many novel expedients to circumvent an enemy as were born in the fertile brains of our inventive Yankee soldiers. Powder gun-boats, monitors, and mines hurling forts into the air are samples of these extra-military expedients for defeating a watchful foe. The event I am now about to relate is not a whit behind the chiefest of them in hazard and reckless audacity.

About the middle of March two deserters from the rebel lines came into our brigade and reported the existence of a steamer at Savannah clad with railroad iron, after the order of the celebrated Merrimac. They said a movement was on foot to run the vessel down with a body of troops, capture our forts on the banks of the Savannah, and thus open the way to the relief of Pulaski.

Certain reports of officers making reconnaissances of the river seemed to corroborate the existence of such a vessel, and the fears of our officers were aroused for our safety and the success of our enterprises. Schemes for defence were at once devised, and the plan I now give in detail was adopted.

It was supposed that the vessel lying low in the water, with sloping sides of iron like the roof of a house, would steam down the river and anchor directly between our batteries, of which we had two, one on either bank, and proceed boldly to shell us at close range, while all our shot in reply would fly harmlessly from her invulnerable covering. In the mean time the infantry would attack us in the rear, cut off retreat, and take us all prisoners at their convenience. The line of defence, therefore, must include the capture of the vessel by some expedient. The plan devised in the fertile brain of somebody was to take six common row-boats, three on either side of the river, man each of them with six oars-men, six soldiers, and an officer. The soldiers were to be armed with revolvers, hand-grenades, cold-chisels, and sledge-hammers. The boats were to be well supplied with grappling-irons and ropes. Thus equipped, when the vessel came, the whole expedition was to row out from either shore, board the vessel by means of ropes and grappling-irons, keep the gunners from the guns by the free use of hand-grenades thrown in the port-holes, and cutting through the iron roof by means of the cold-chisels and sledge-hammers, get inside the vessel and capture her, crew and all. Such, in brief, was the line of defence. Suffice it to say, the boats were selected, the material all sent down to the batteries, and the officer in command of the forts directed to select some one to lead the forlorn hope. I was called to the command. Selecting two lieutenants as assistants, we picked our crews, drilled our men, and awaited the final hour.

vol5-4-5b2.jpg
While making preparations, Captain Hamilton, a prominent officer in the Third Artillery of the regular army, came down to inspect our progress, and report our condition. He sent for me to visit him in the Lieutenant-Colonel's tent. I explained our preparations, and asked advice. One point seemed to me not to have been well considered. I said to him, "Captain, that vessel has steam and an engine, and it seems to me if we should succeed in getting a force on her sloping sides, and threatening to take her, they would slip their cables, steam up the Savannah, and carry us off to jail with all dispatch." "But you must stop her," said he. "Well, how?" was my reply. He sat a moment in silent meditation, when he broke out: "I do not know any better way than to take strong ropes, fasten them to her anchor or some part of the vessel, and then attach the other end to the screw, so that when the wheel starts the rope will wind up and stop its revolutions." "Not a very easy thing to do it strikes me," said I, "in such a rapid current as this river, and that too while cannon are thundering in our very faces." "Well," said he, "it is a desperate case, and we must hold these batteries at any cost. You must do the best you can, at any rate."


Just at that moment a thought struck me, suggested by my knowledge of the construction of a steam-boiler and the presence of the cold-chisels. I ventured to suggest it as a new plan of offence. "Captain," said I, "why could we not board the vessel, strike at once for the smoke-stack, and cutting a hole in it, throw down a bomb-shell, blow up these tubes that run through the boiler, and thus let out the steam and scald the crew, and take the whole institution at a blow."

The Captain sprang to his feet, with a face all radiant with joy, and with many big words which I do not desire to repeat, declared that the thing should be done, and consequently a huge bomb-shell, with fuse all ready, was placed in each boat as a part of our armament. And while we waited the coming of our foe we wrote to our friends the possibility of our fate, and talked together of a grave in the muddy flood of the Savannah. For we all felt assured that nothing less than an interposition of Providence could save us from certain destruction. To row half a mile in the face of such a foe, in such a rapid current, in crowded boats, and board a vessel under such conditions, was an enterprise that had in it few chances of success. Disaster in all probability would have been the end of such an expedition. And yet in the face of these convictions we entered on the project with all the ardor of assured victory. The devoted band was denominated "The Cold-Chisel Brigade," and when the enterprise was finally abandoned the cold-chisels were seized as souvenirs of a project that gained at the time quite a local notoriety.

Suffice it to say the report was false. No such vessel then existed; and when General Hunter took command of the Department he made an early visit to the batteries to see what the "Cold-Chisel Brigade" was proposing to do, and with the curt remark, "What fool got up that plan?" he ordered it disbanded.
 
Back
Top