Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

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[672] had been unable to seal the harbour, and Secretary Welles had been forced to confess, that fifty fast Federal steamers had been quite unable to maintain the blockade here. The theory of the enemy was that the nature of the outlet of Cape Fear River was such that it required watching for so great a distance, that without possession of the land north of New Inlet, or Fort Fisher, it was impossible for the navy to entirely close the harbor against the entrance of blockade runners.

An expedition directed by Gen. Grant, in the close of December, 1864, to capture Fort Fisher, had failed of success. For this expedition there had been assembled in Hampton Roads, under command of Admiral Porter, what Gen. Grant designated as “the most formidable armada ever collected for concentration upon one given point.” The co-operating land force consisted of sixty-five hundred men, detached from Gen. Butler's command before Richmond. The expedition got off on the 13th December. Accompanying it was a vessel loaded with a large quantity of powder, to be exploded as near the fort as possible; Gen. Butler having obtained the singular idea of levelling the fort, or demoralizing the garrison by the shock of the explosion. The boat was blown up in the night of the 24th December, and attracted such little attention that the Confederates supposed it to be nothing more than the bursting of one of the enemy's guns, and were never enlightened as to the object of the explosion until informed of it by Northern newspapers.

Porter's fleet had already commenced a bombardment of the fort; and on the 25th December, under cover of this fire, a landing was effected by the enemy without opposition, and a reconnoissance pushed up towards the fort. The result of the reconnoissance was that Gen. Butler declined to attack, and very suddenly ordered the re-embarkation of the troops and the return of the expedition. This conduct of Butler was the occasion of his removal from command, and of a sharp recrimination which ran through official documents, newspapers, and even the lowest forms of personal controversy between himself and Gen. Grant. In a letter published in a Northern journal, Gen. Butler congratulated himself that he had retired from command, without having on his skirts the blood of his soldiers needlessly sacrificed-referring to Grant's list of butcheries and utter disregard of life in the Virginia campaign; and it could be said, if his powder ship had proved a ridiculous toy, it was at least not so expensive as Grant's experiment with the mine at Petersburg.

The fleet did not follow Butler's transports, and the persistence of Porter encouraged Grant to make another attempt to take Fort Fisher and secure Wilmington. He selected Gen. Terry to command the second expedition. The troops composing it consisted of the same that composed the former, with the addition of a small brigade numbering about fifteen hundred men, and a small siege train. The expedition sailed from Fortress