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Show The Scene of a Farcical Failure In the history of the Civil war, Fort Fisher is best remembered perhaps because be-cause of the farcical failure of a plan to capture it, made by Gen. B. F. Butler, But-ler, "the most maligned (whether rightly right-ly or wrongly, history has not yet determined) de-termined) Union leader in the war. It might better be remembered for the brilliant attack led by Gen. Alfred H. Terry which did capture it a year later and the gallant defense made by the men in gray who held it. In 1S64 the Union leaders determined deter-mined to close the port of Wilmington, N. C. the haunt of the most successful success-ful Southern blockade runners. Wilmington Wil-mington was guarded by Fort Fisher, which the Confederates built at one of the entrances of the Cape Fear river. It was one of the strongest forts in the South, with parapets 25 feet thick and 20 feet high, upon which were mounted 44 heavy guns. It was held by Col. W. Lamb and 1,400 men. Late in December Admiral David Porter with a fleet of 150 vessels, the largest that had ever sailed under the American Hag. appeared before the fort. Accompanying this fleet were 3.000 soldiers commanded by General Butler who was to make a land attack while Porter bombarded the fort from the sea. As a preliminary to the attack at-tack Butler conceived the idea of sending send-ing a vessel, the old steamer Louisiana, Louisi-ana, loaded with more than 200 tons of gunpowder to be exploded under Its walls and dismantle its guns. The charge was set off about 2 o'clock in the morning. It was a miserable mis-erable failure, however, for the explosion explo-sion not only did no damage but it is said to have scarcely disturbed the garrison. After bombarding the fort for two days, the Union forces saw that a land attack would be futile1 and Porter sailed away On January 13. 18G5, another attempt at-tempt was made against Fort Fisher. Again the naval attack, although t; killed 200 of the fort's defenders, failed to reduce it. But the land attack at-tack led by Gen. Alfred H. Terry was more successful. . His army of 8.000 succeeded in capturing the fort after one of the most brilliant assaults of the war which was resisted with equal gallantry by the Confederates. The Southern loss was 500 killed and wounded: the Union. 20G killed and 1.075 wounded and missing. The fall of Wilmington followed the caprure of Fort fisher and the closing clos-ing of that port cut off the supplies which the Confederacy had been obtaining ob-taining by its blockade runners. Starvation Star-vation faced the South and three months later her ragiJ hosts laid down their arms. |
