Combat· American Civil War
Morris Island Artillery Reinforcement
A strengthening of the Marine presence in the Charleston siege lines.
In August 1863, as the Union pressed its operations against Morris Island and the harbor forts, a Marine battalion under Major Jacob Zeilin was sent to reinforce the Marine artillery already established there. The added strength helped sustain the long bombardment of the Confederate defenses through the grinding months of the siege. The duty was the static, dangerous work of siege gunnery rather than open battle, and it cost no casualties. The officer who brought up the reinforcement, Major Zeilin, was a veteran of the Corps' service from the Seminole War and Perry's Japan expedition; within a year he would be appointed the seventh Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Morris Island batteries were part of the protracted Union effort against Charleston, an effort that ground on without ever taking the city by direct assault.
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Record no. 420