[162]
attack.
He visited Confederate Point frequently, riding over the ground with me, and selecting points for batteries and covered ways, so as to keep up communication, after the arrival of the enemy, betwen the fort and the entrenched camp, which I began at Sugar Loaf.
He pointed out to me where the enemy would land on the beach, beyond the range of our guns, and on both occasions the enemy landed at that very place, without opposition, although Whiting had prepared ample shelter for troops, to seriously retard, if not prevent a landing.
“It seems incomprehensible,”
Lamb continues, ‘that
General Bragg should have allowed the
Federal troops, on both attacks, to have made a frolic of their landing on the soil of
North Carolina. Six thousand soldiers from
Lee's army within call, and not one sent to meet the invader and drive him from the shore.’
Half the garrison had been sent to
Georgia, against
Sherman, under
Major Stevenson.
On the day the fleet came in sight, we had but 500 men, but next day we were reinforced by two companies under
Major Reilly, a company of the 13th North Carolina Battalion, and the 7th Battalion Junior Reserves, boys between sixteen and eighteen, in number 140—making a total in the fort of 900 men and boys.
The brave young boys, torn from their firesides by the cruel necessities of the struggle, were as bright and manly as if anticipating a parade.
What nobler women can be found in all history, than the matrons of the Old North State, who, with their prayers and tears, sent forth their darlings in a cause they believed to be right, and in defence of their homes?
Self-sacrificing courage seems indigenous to
North Carolina.
No breast is too tender for this heroic virtue.
The first life-blood that stained the sands of Confederate Point, was from one of these youthful patriots.
“Saturday (Christmas eve),”
Colonel Lamb says,
was almost an Indian summer day, and the deep blue sea was as calm as a lake.
With the rising sun out of the ocean, there came upon the horizon, one after another, the vessels of the fleet, numbering more than fifty men-of-war; the grand frigates led the van, followed by the ironclads.
At 9 o'clock the men were beat to quarters, and silently stood by their guns. * * * The Minnesota, Colorado and Wabash came grandly on, floating fortresses, each mounting more guns than all the batteries on land, and the first two combined carrying
