Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

It will be observed that Porter says, when he speaks of the fort as being stronger than Malakoff Tower, “an engineer officer might be excusable in saying that it could not be captured except by regular siege,” and that he even wonders how it was captured.¹ So then General Weitzel was excusable in his view of the fort, and he saw the land face, where the assault must be made, was uninjured. But how can the statements of Porter be excused when he says that it “might have been taken on Christmas Day by five hundred men without losing a soldier; there were not twenty men in the fort, and those were poor, miserable, panic-stricken people, cowering with fear.” ² Colonel Lamb says he had fourteen hundred and fifty men in the fort on Christmas Day. Had Porter seen any of them go away? How could he suppose that the Confederates had built such a work there and left only twenty men to defend it? In the same report Porter says that only “one or two desperate men managed to fire one gun which seldom hit anyone,” during the bombardment. Colonel Lamb says he expended six hundred shot and shell besides grape and canister on that day, and that he had expended six hundred more on the 24th. How shall Porter be excused with such a work before him, its strength visible to every eye, for saying that it was only a “rebel shell” ?³ These reports were only downright falsehoods, made for the purpose of getting Welles to allow him to make another attempt.

Porter's performances at the first attack were not intended to demolish the fort; he did not mean that they should take the fort. He says that his order was that the firing should not be rapid; that only one division of guns should fire at a time from each vessel.⁴ His fleet being anchored around the fort, the battery of one broadside of the ships only should be brought to bear. Ship's guns are divided into two divisions at least for each broadside, so that only one quarter of his guns were, according to his orders, used at a time at most and some of his vessels, he says, did not fire a single shot. He further says that during the day while the troops were being landed, which was most of the day of the 25th, he only fired to amuse the enemy.⁵ He further says that all the shell that he expended in both days were not more than what he would expend in target practice in a month anyhow.⁶