page_title: Battery White
section_title: Capture
hierarchical_section_title: Battery White / Capture
caption_attribution_description: English: Columbiad at Battery White, located on Winyah Bay south of Georgetown, South Carolina.
context_page_description: Battery White was an artillery battery constructed by the Confederates during the American Civil War. Built in 1862–63 to defend Winyah Bay on the South Carolina coast, the battery was strongly situated and constructed; however, it was inadequately manned, and was captured without resistance during the final months of the war.
  The battery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It is located on private land, but is open to the public.
context_section_description: In November 1864, Trapier was ordered to bring most of his forces to Mount Pleasant, just north of Charleston.  Only a company of the German Artillery was left to defend the Georgetown district.  By the end of January 1865, only a small crew commanded by a lieutenant remained at Battery White.
  In January and early February 1865, Union forces under General William Tecumseh Sherman moved northward from Georgia into South Carolina.  On February 2 and 3, they defeated a Confederate force in the Battle of Rivers' Bridge, clearing their pathway into the state.  After a feint at Charleston, they marched to Columbia, which they entered on February 17; on the same day, Charleston was evacuated, and on the 18th, it was surrendered.
  From Charleston, Union naval forces under Admiral John A. Dahlgren moved up the coast to Georgetown, which Dahlgren thought might be a useful point of communication with Sherman's land forces.  On February 23, deserters told the captain of the gunboat USS Mingoe that Battery White had been or would soon be evacuated. Mingoe fired four rounds into the battery.  When no response was made, a party was sent ashore; they found the battery abandoned and its guns spiked.  The sloop-of-war USS Pawnee and the gunboat USS Nipsic continued up the bay and landed a party of Marines to take possession of Georgetown; the intendant and wardens of the city formally surrendered it on February 25.
  Soon thereafter, Dahlgren inspected the battery, and was impressed.  The fortification, he wrote, was well situated and designed, laid out to defend against both shipborne bombardment and attack by landing parties.  Eleven guns bore on the channel: two 10-inch (254 mm) Columbiads, three banded rifled 32-pounders, four smoothbore 24-pounders, and two banded rifled 12-pounders.  A 6-pound smoothbore flanked the ditch.  The rear was defended by a "formidable" rampart and ditch, with a 24-pound smoothbore at either end; in the fort were numerous traverses and magazines.  The approach along the beach to the battery's right flank was covered by a 24-pound and a 12-pound smoothbore.  "If the works had been sufficiently manned", wrote Dahlgren, "it would have required good troops to take the work."
caption: Columbiad at Battery White
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ20", "Image Software": "Ver1.0", "Image DateTime": "2011:09:12 07:52:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "354", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "150", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:09:12 07:52:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:09:12 07:52:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "154/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "185", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}