Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[481] of the failure may be found in the lack of co-operation on the part of the fleet with the land forces, at the beginning. During the delay caused by the first three days waiting for the fleet, at the rendezvous, and the succeeding gale, the Confederates were apprised of the expedition, and took sufficient measures to meet and frustrate it. Wilmington was denuded of troops and the army was waiting off Fort Fisher, at the middle of December, when the garrison of that work consisted of only six hundred and sixty-seven men. It was nine hundred strong when Weitzel stood before it, and at least seven thousand men were within forty-eight hours march of it. General Bragg had been called back from Georgia, and was in command there, which some Confederate officers say was the reason the whole of the National troops landed on the beach above Fort Fisher were not captured.

The writer was an eye and ear witness to much that is here recorded (and a great deal more) concerning the first attack on Fort Fisher and its dependencies, having been invited by both General Butler and Admiral Porter to accompany the expedition.¹ He visited Fort Fisher and its vicinity, from the land, after, the war, when on his way southward, to. the battle-fields and other places of interest in the late Slave-labor States. It was in March, 1866, that the author left Washington City, and journeyed by steamer, on the Potomac, to Aquia Creek, and thence by railway through Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg, Weldon, and Goldsboroa, to Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, where, in the family of his excellent friend, Edward Kidder, he found a pleasant and hospitable home for two or three days.

Major Mann, the post commander at Wilmington, kindly offered to take, the author, in a government tug, to Fort Fisher, and on Monday morning,

March 27, 1866.

in company with that officer and a small party, we made an interesting voyage down the Cape Fear. At almost every mile of the way, we saw the remains of war, in the form of obstructions to navigation,² and forts and batteries on the shore. We landed at Fort Anderson, fifteen miles below Wilmington, and visited the ruins of Brunswick Church, within its embankments, which was built before the old War for Independence.

It was well toward noon when we landed on Federal Point (called “Confederate Point,” during the war), near Battery Buchanan, and traveled across the moor-like peninsula to Mound Battery and Fort Fisher. There we spent a few hours, examining the fortifications and sketching. It was on our return voyage that we met the colonel of the National Secret Service, mentioned in note 1, page 35, volume II. Early the following morning I left Wilmington, and journeyed into the interior by railway, as far as Florence, where I turned southward and sea-ward, and, by the Northeastern railroad, reached Charleston that evening, at twilight. The latter portion of our journey was a very interesting one. We swept for more than two miles through a blazing pine-forest, and traversed the great swamps along the margins of the Santee River, which we crossed late in the afternoon. Ten days before, I had left Philadelphia in a snow-storm; now I was among