What line of eulogy, however expressed, could come with greater power than from the master of strategy and the patriot hero, whom his troops loved with undying devotion, and who gave the last bloody lesson to the invader on North Carolina soil—in the struggle at Bentonsville? To ask for Whiting as his second in command, and to declare: ‘If you were with me, I should feel confident!’ That is a sentence which should be the immortal epitaph of the hero whose life we attempt to review to-day. In his valuable address, delivered at the request of Cape Fear Camp, United Confederate Veterans, by Colonel William Lamb, is this description of Fort Fisher, which was still unfinished when the attack occurred. He says:
The plans were my own, and as the work progressed, were approved by French, Raines, Longstreet, Beauregard and Whiting. It was styled by Federal engineers, “the Malakoff of the South.” It was built solely with the view of resisting the fire of a fleet, and it stood uninjured, except as to armanent, two of the fiercest bombardments the world has ever witnessed. The two faces to the works were 2,580 yards long, or about one and a half miles. The land face mounted twenty of the heaviest sea-coast guns, and was 682 yards long; the sea-face with twenty-four equally heavy guns. The land face commenced about 100 feet
