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[No. 125. See pages 794 and 796.]
testimony of Major-General Weitzel.1 I pushed a skirmish line to, I think, within about one hundred and fifty yards of the work. I had about three hundred men left in the main body, about eight hundred yards from the work. There was a knoll that had evidently been built for a magazine, an artificial knoll on which I stood, and which gave me a full view of the work and the ground in front of it. I saw that the work, as a defensive work, was not injured at all, except that one gun about midway of the land face was dismounted. I counted sixteen guns all in proper position, which made it evident to me that they had not been injured; because when a gun is injured, you can generally see it from the way in which it stands. The grass slopes of the traverses and of the parapet did not appear broken in the least. The regular shapes of the slopes of the traverses and slopes of the parapets were not disturbed. I did not see a single opening in the row of palisades that was in front of the ditch; it seemed to me perfectly intact. From all the information which I gained on my first visit to New Inlet, from what I saw on this reconnoissance, together with the information that I had obtained from naval officers who had been on the blockade there for over two years, I was convinced that Fort Fisher was a regular bastioned work; the relief was very high. I had been told by deserters from it that the ditch was about twenty feet wide and six feet deep, and that it was crossed by a bridge. I saw the traverses between each pair of guns, and was perfectly certain within my own mind that they were bomb-proofs; they ought to have been, and they were. It was a stronger work than I had ever seen or heard of being assailed during this war. I have commanded in person three assaulting columns in this war. I have been twice assailed by assaulting columns of the enemy, when I have had my men intrenched. Neither in the first three cases where I assailed the
1 Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, Fort Fisher Expedition, p. 72.
A. M. Thayer and Co. 1892.
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