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809]
Let us see
Porter's description of the fort, and its capabilities of defence at the first attack.
He says:--
1
There never was a fort that invited soldiers to walk in and take possession more plainly than Fort Fisher. . . We silenced the guns in one hour and fifteen minutes time without the loss of a man [that I have heard of] except by the bursting of our own guns, in the entire fleet.
We have shown the weakness of this fort.
It can be taken at any moment in one hour's time if the right man is sent with the troops.
Again he says:--
2
General Bragg must have been very agreeably disappointed when he saw our troops going away without firing a shot, and to see an expedition costing millions of dollars given up when the hollowness of the rebel shell was about to be exposed.
Again:--
3
And now, sir, I beg that you will allow me to work this thing out, and leave nothing undone to take the place.
Could I depend on the sailors for landing I would ask no army force; but a large portion of the crews are new in the service, having little or no knowledge of the musket or drill, and I intend to make no mistakes if I can avoid it. A repulse is always demoralizing, and sailors cannot stand the concentrated fire of the regular troops.
And yet sixteen days afterwards on the second attack, he landed fourteen hundred of these poor fellows and four hundred marines, and ordered them to assault the fort, and quite one fourth of the whole force were murdered or disabled.
4
Well, sir, it could have been taken on Christmas with five hundred men without losing a Soldier.
There were not twenty men in the fort, and those were poor, miserable, panic-stricken people, cowering there with fear, while one or two desperate men in one of the upper casemates some distance above Fort Fisher [mound battery] managed to fire one gun that seldom hit anyone . . . .
