The lives lost were not utterly thrown away, however, for the naval attack made a diversion, distracting attention from the movements of the troops.
Soon after the naval advance, and about the time that it was evident that it had failed, the veteran troops from the James River assaulted, with the determination, steadiness and dash which they had learned at Petersburg, Cold Harbor, Spottsylvania, and a dozen other scenes of hard fighting. The guns on the land face were all disabled, but there was a howitzer fire from a sally-port, which did much damage, although it did not stay the advance of those well-dressed lines an instant. Reaching the foot of the lofty earthworks, the pioneers’ axes soon cleared away the palisade, and the troops entered the two western traverses. An entirely novel and fierce combat now took place, as each mound was captured in turn.
For more than five hours this hand-to-hand struggle, a fight to the death, went on in those traverses. There was nothing exactly like it during the whole war. The Ironsides fired into the traverses ahead of our troops until this was rendered, by the darkness, as dangerous to friend as foe. Night came, and still the struggle went on. Shouts and yells, shrieks and groans, musket-shot and clash of bayonet, with the flash of small arms, marked the centre of the fight. Thus traverse after traverse was won, until about ten o’clock at night the last one, at the mound, was taken; then was heard a tremendous peal of cheers, and the garrison poured, pell-mell, down to Federal Point. Here they laid down their arms and surrendered. The fact was at once telegraphed to the fleet, by signal lanterns, and round after round of hearty cheers went up from every ship.
The “impregnable” Fort Fisher was taken. The Cape Fear River, the great port of the blockade runners, was closed, and the Confederacy at last completely isolated.
The next morning the light-draught vessels at once began to work in over the New Inlet Bar, and for some days they were busy in capturing forts, and in sweeping the Channel for torpedoes, and removing obstructions.
About seven o’clock in the morning there was a tremendous explosion within the Fort, which threw masses of earth and timber, and bodies of men, high into the air; while a dense balloon-shaped cloud of powder smoke and dust hung in the air for a long time.
It was the main magazine which had blown up. It was never known how it happened. Many officers and seamen of the fleet, as well as soldiers, lost their lives by this explosion.
Upon landing from the men-of-war, to see what this celebrated place might be like, we met, in the first place, boats conveying the wounded of the Navy to the Hospital ship, while upon the beach parties were collecting for burial those who had been killed, and ranging them in rows. This beach, as well as the whole of the land front of the fort, was strewn with an immense number of fragments of shell, muskets, musket-balls, bayonets, cartridge boxes and belts, articles of clothing and dead bodies.
As we approached the land face, we began to find the bodies of soldiers, instead of those of sailors, lying in the strangest attitudes, just as they happened to be when the death bullet struck them. The faces of some still showed the deadly purpose of battle, while others were as peaceful as if they had died in their beds. Many of these bodies had rolled down the steep earthwork after being shot, and were lying against the palisades, covered with dust and powder grime. Upon gaining a point of view from one of the traverses, one was struck by the great extent of the fort. Before us lay the huge smoking crater caused by the morning’s explosion, while fatigue parties of soldiers were engaged in collecting the wounded and the dead, and in piling up, in great stacks, the small arms of the captured garrison, as well as those of our own dead and wounded. Peeping into the bomb-proofs, which were full of dead, and filthy beyond description, from long occupation during the bombardment, the next sight was the guns. These were, many of them, not only dismounted, but partially buried in the earth and sand, by the terrible explosions of the eleven- and fifteen-inch shells. In many cases the gun’s crew were buried with them, as an occasional hand or foot, peeping out, testified.
At the northeastern angle of the fort, in two huge embrasures, were two very heavy guns, a 68-pounder, and an 8-inch Blakeley rifle, both of English make. These two guns had fired principally at the ironclads, and the latter had returned the compliment. Our fire often caused the gunners to leave them, but they generally returned at the first slacking of the fire. Just before the assault, one of them had the carriage disabled, and it was now slewed round with its muzzle to the westward.