On the 25th a landing was effected without opposition, and a reconnoissance, under Brevet Brigadier-General Curtis, pushed up toward the fort.
The army consisted of General Ames’s division of the Twenty-fourth corps, and of General Paine’s colored division of the Twenty-fifth corps, numbering together six thousand five hundred effective men.
The attacking force of Admiral Porter consisted of thirty-seven vessels, five of which were iron-clads, with a reserve of thirteen vessels, while the transports and smaller vessels were seventy in number.
Colonel Comstock, chief military engineer of the expedition, thus describes the defences of the inlet and Fort Fisher:
“The land front consists of a half bastion on the left or Cape Fear river side, connected by a curtain with a bastion on the ocean side. The parapet is twenty-five feet thick, averages twenty feet in height, with traverses rising ten feet above it and running back on their tops, which are from eight to twelve feet in thickness, to a distance of from thirty to forty feet from the interior crest. The traverses on the left half bastion are about twenty-five feet in length on top. The earth for this heavy parapet and the enormous traverses at their inner ends, more than thirty feet in height, was obtained partly from a shallow exterior ditch, but mainly from the interior of the work. Between each pair of traverses there was one or two guns. The traverses on the right of this front were only partially completed. A palisade, which is loopholed and has a banquette, runs in front of this face, at a distance of fifty feet in front of the exterior slope, from the Cape Fear river to the ocean, with a position for a gun between the left of the front and the river, and another between the right of the front and the ocean. Through the middle traverse on the curtain is a bomb-proof postern whose exterior opening is covered by a small redan for two field-pieces, to give flank fire along the curtain. The traverses are generally bomb-proofed for men or magazines. The slopes of the work appear to have been revetted with marsh sod or covered with grass, and have an inclination of forty-five degrees or a little less. * * * There were originally on this front twenty-one guns and three mortars. * * * The sea front consists of a series of batteries, mounting in all twenty-four guns, the different batteries being connected by a strong infantry parapet so as to form a continuous line. The same system of heavy traverses for the protection of the guns is used as on the land front, and these traverses are also generally bomb-proofed.” There was also a rebel battery, commanding the channel, on Zeeke’s island, two miles southeast of Fort Fisher, and several miles north of the latter were the Flag Pond Hill and Half Moon batteries, serving as outworks to it.
The expedition was delayed two days waiting for the equipment of a powder-boat, on which two hundred and fifteen tons of powder were stored, with the hope of destroying the face of Fort Fisher, by its explosion on the edge of the beach opposite the works. The gunboat Louisiana was selected for the purpose, and disguised as a blockade-runner, she approached the fort before daylight on the morning of December 24th, was anchored four hundred yards from the works without observation, and there exploded, producing no sensible effect on the works. The rebels were not aware of the object of this expedition, until informed through the northern papers.
VIEW OF A PARROTT GUN BURST ON BOARD THE SUSQUEHANNA AT THE ATTACK ON FORT FISHER.
At noon on the same day, the fleet got into position, and bombarded the fort until dark. They renewed fire on the next morning, and continued it without intermission all day. More than twenty thousand shots were thrown from fifty vessels of war, while the rebel response numbered only about twelve hundred shots. Under cover of this tremendous fire, a body of troops was landed, on the afternoon of the 25th, with the intention of storming the fort. The ground in front and rear of the fort was torn up with shells, and some of the guns dismounted; but a careful reconnoissance, under the eyes of General Weitzel, revealed the fact that the fort was uninjured, and that an attempt to storm the place with the force and material then at the disposal of the commander-in-chief, could not be undertaken with any probability of success. This view was sustained by other engineer officers attached to the expedition, and was confirmed by the evidence of the rebel commander of the fort. The troops were accordingly reembarked on the transports, and returned to their former position in the army of the James. The Committee on the Conduct of the War, after a rigid examination of General Butler’s conduct in this affair, acquitted him of all blame in the matter.