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victory, and the possession of them, complete, but a few troops to occupy them.1 It was a great mistake.
The works were almost entirely uninjured, and, according to a statement of General Whiting, only one man of the garrison of Fort Fisher was mortally hurt, three severely and nineteen slightly wounded, and five gun-carriages disabled.
This was the sum of injury received.
The transports arrived off Fort Fisher just as Porter was closing the bombardment.
An arrangement was made for a renewal of the attack and the co-operation of the troops, the next morning at eight o'clock. It was ten before the work commenced, when the lighter draught gun-boats were employed in shelling the Flag Pond Hill and Half-Moon batteries, two or three miles up the coast above Fort Fisher, preparatory to the landing of the troops.
The bombardment continued seven hours without intermission.
At a little past noon the transports moved within eight hundred yards of the shore, and soon afterward, when the batteries in front were silenced, the launches were prepared, and a part of Ames's division, or about one-third of the troops were landed.
General Curtis was the first to reach the shore, and plant the flag on a deserted battery, when loud cheers went up from the transports, and the bands struck up Yankee Doodle. It was then about three o'clock. The Malvern passed by the Ben Deford, and Admiral Porter, standing on the wheel-house of his flag-ship, called out to General Butler, saying: “There is not a rebel within five miles of the fort.
You have nothing to do but to march in and take it.”
This was a grave mistake, and led the Admiral to make most unkind reflections upon the military commander in his report two days afterward.2 The fact was that the garrison, at that moment, was two hundred and fifty men stronger than it was the day before; and behind those sand walls were nine hundred effective men, in good spirits, according to a statement made by General Whiting, on his dying bed. Responses from the fort had been kept up all day. “The garrison was at no time,” General Whiting said, “driven from its guns, and fired in return, according to orders, slowly and deliberately, six hundred and sixty-two shot and shell.”
3
1 At about the middle of the afternoon, Admiral Porter sent off a dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy, in which he said that in half an hour after getting the ships in position, he silenced Fort Fisher, but there were no troops to take possession, and he was “merely firing at it to keep up practice.” “The forts,” he said, “are nearly demolished, and as soon as troops come, we can take possession.” He added, “All that is wanted now is troops to land to go into them.” This real complaining of the absence of troops was unfair, under the circumstances, and unjust to the army, which, as we have seen, had waited for the motion of the fleet already six days; and had the Admiral waited a few hours for the troops, which, he had been informed, would be there that day, he would have had them in full co-operation with him. As it was, he had defeated the intentions of both branches of the service concerning the powder-vessel, by exploding it when the army, in consequence of waiting for the navy, was seventy miles from the scene of action.
2 In his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy, December 27th, he spoke of his “disappointment at the conduct of the army authorities, in not attempting to take possession of the forts which had been so completely silenced by our guns. They were so blown up, burst up, and torn up,” he said, “that the people inside had no intention of fighting any longer. Had the army made a show of surrounding it, it would have been ours; but nothing of the kind was done.” He then repeated rumors, afterward shown to be untrue, which reflected on the commander. “There never was a fort,” he said, “that invited soldiers to walk in and take possession more plainly than Fort Fisher . . . . . . . We silenced the guns in one hour's time.” Observe what is said in the text, as to the strength and feelings of the garrison. The writer stood on the deck of the Ben Deford, during the entire bombardment, and avers that he saw and heard guns fire from the fort, at brief intervals, during the whole time, until twilight. The verity of history requires this notice of the Admiral's mistake. As to the guns being “blown up, burst up,” &c., the statement of General Whiting shows that the “damage was very slight,” and that only one gun and four gun-carriages were disabled; also, that every thing — was thoroughly repaired that night.
3 General Whiting was wounded in a second attack on Fort Fisher, and died a prisoner in the hospital, at Fort Columbus, Governor's Island, in the harbor of New York. General Butler addressed to him a series of pertinent questions, touching the first attack on Fort Fisher; which Whiting promptly answered. A certified copy of these questions and answers is before the writer.
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