Combat· American Civil War
Wassaw Sound Operations
A small coastal occupation on the Georgia seaboard, part of the South Atlantic squadron's steady consolidation of the coast.
In August 1862 Marine detachments from the gunboats Ottawa, Seneca, and Pembina occupied an abandoned Confederate fort on Wassaw Island, on the approaches to Savannah, extending the Union grip on the Georgia coast. The Confederates had given up the work, and the occupation met no resistance. No casualties resulted. It was of a piece with the many such minor operations by which the blockading squadron took up the abandoned points along the coast, the gunboats putting parties ashore to hold the river mouths and barrier islands that the enemy could no longer defend. Wassaw guarded one of the water approaches to Savannah, and its occupation was a small link in the tightening blockade that would help isolate the city before its eventual fall.
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Record no. 448