By command of Major-General Cox.
(Signed) THEO. Cox,
Capt. and Ass't Adj't-General."
Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. p. 303.]
Weighing anchor at daybreak on Sunday morning, we passed Kettle Bottom Shoals safely, and found much more open water in the lower river. The day was mild and calm, and we made good progress to Fort Monroe, where we stopped in the evening to take on board a supply of ammunition. While this work was going on, I took advantage of the opportunity to land in a small boat and pass through the place by moonlight. As one of the largest and most important of the fortresses of the old style, with heavy walls of masonry, casemated, and with regular moat, it was an interesting study to a soldier, and all the more so as we were then in the full heat of the discussion of the relative value of such formal works compared with mere earthworks, of which Fort Fisher, to which we were bound, was a very striking example. It was admitted that modern ordnance could soon knock the walls into a rubbish-heap, but Fort Sumter had raised the supplementary debate, whether the rubbish-heap did not begin a new chapter in the defence, longer and more important than the first period of attack.
As soon as the ammunition was on board and properly stowed, our voyage was resumed, and at daybreak we had passed out of Chesapeake Bay, joining our consorts of the transport fleet near Cape Henry, and were running down the coast along the even line of keys which lie as a breastwork against the Atlantic Ocean outside of the much indented coast proper of North Carolina. The wind was moderate and off shore, so that Captain Gray laid his course straight for Cape Hatteras, with only offing enough to keep in a good depth of water,--say fifteen or twenty miles. At intervals during the day we could see isolated clumps of pine-trees rising out of the water, like low-lying, blue clouds, so that we could hardly say that we were wholly out of sight of land. We passed Cape Hatteras late in the afternoon, about sunset, and as the coast now trends much more to the westward, with concave lines from Hatteras to Cape Lookout (near Beaufort), and from Lookout to Cape Fear, our course took us farther out to sea. I woke on Tuesday morning to find the ship pitching heavily and heavy rain sounding loud on the deck over my head, driven by gusts of wind. Doubts as to the reliability of my "sea legs" made me prudently keep my berth till about ten o'clock, when I went on deck to find a dense fog and a high running sea. The rain had ceased, but the succeeding fog was a worse obstacle to navigation. We were nearly at our destination, and were feeling our way slowly along. My "doubts" vanished in the fresh air, and the bit of real seafaring was exhilarating. Most of the cabin passengers, however, failed to show themselves on deck, and the soldiers and officers whom duty kept there did not all enjoy it greatly. The recruiting regulations, just then, allowed transfers to the gunboat service of soldiers who had any experience even in inland navigation, and the impulse to change had made the subject a "burning question," even while we were in the West The inveterate practical jokers now had their opportunity, and a man leaning uneasily over the lee rail was sure to be offered the chance to enlist in the navy, with glowing eulogies of its superior comfort compared with marching in the mud. In the middle of the afternoon we dropped anchor in nine fathoms, but toward evening the fog lifted, and we ran further in, anchoring in seven fathoms, about a mile off the shore. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 927.] Fort Fisher was abreast of us, on Federal Point, its big parapet looking like a long, low hill, with knobs upon it, rising from the beach of glittering white sand against a background of the pine forest. Admiral Porter's fleet lay at their moorings all around us, a few of the lighter vessels having crossed the bar and run into the mouth of Cape Fear River behind the fort, where the river channel was nearly parallel to the sea beach and less than a mile from it. We were at New Inlet, between Federal Point and Smith Island, or rather the long, narrow key which runs northward from the island. Cape Fear is the sharp southern point of Smith Island, some seven miles south of where we lay, and the old entrance was south and west of the cape, between the island and the mainland. [Footnote: See official Atlas, pl. cxxxix.]
The landing of the troops was a difficult task, for the roughness of the sea made it impossible for another vessel to lie alongside the transports, and we had to resort to the slow and somewhat dangerous method of transferring the men from the ships to a light-draft steamer in the ship's small boats. A little wharf was on the inner side of Federal Point, but there the water was so shallow that even the light-draft propeller could not get to the wharf, and another transfer had to be made. Crossing the bar could only be done at high water or near it, and the time for work was consequently so much shortened that the whole of the 8th and 9th was used in landing the division. At sunset of the 9th the sea went down enough for the propeller to come alongside; the headquarters tents and baggage were transferred to her, and we took leave of the good ship "Atlantic." By the time this transfer was made, the tide was too low to let us pass in over the bar, and we had to pass the night on the dirty propeller, lying outside till eight o'clock of Friday the 10th, when we ran in at high tide, and after the second transfer resumed our character of land forces on the sandy shore of North Carolina. All the saddle horses of the command were, however, upon a freight ship that did not arrive for several days, and mounted officers who had lived in the saddle for years found it slow and tiresome work to wade on foot through the soft sands in the performance of military duty.
General Terry with his forces was holding a line across Federal Point about two miles above Fort Fisher, [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 910.] and I directed my own troops to encamp a little in rear of Terry's line. My own quartermaster arranged with the chief of that department on the ground to send our headquarters tents and baggage with the division. Meanwhile, taking the little river steamboat which had made our final transfer to the shore, I visited General Schofield, who had his headquarters temporarily on the steamer "Spaulding," assigned to the medical department for hospital use, but which at the time had no sick or wounded on board. Like myself, he was for the nonce dismounted, and as he was contemplating movements up both sides of Cape Fear River, some means of ready communication with both banks was a necessity. With him I visited Admiral Porter on the flag-ship "Malvern," and a movement for next day, the 11th, was arranged. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. p. 927.]
General Bragg was in command of the Confederate Department of North Carolina, to which he was assigned when General Lee, being made by law general-in-chief of the army, superseded him in the similar duties he had been performing by appointment of President Davis. Bragg's headquarters were at Wilmington. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. ii. pp. 1088, 1099.] Hoke's division was mostly in intrenchments across Federal Point about four miles above Fort Fisher, his right resting at Sugar-loaf Hill on the left bank of the river, and his left near the lower end of Myrtle Sound. Opposite Sugar-loaf, at Old Brunswick, was Fort Anderson, a strong earthwork with ten pieces of heavy ordnance, garrisoned by General Hagood with his brigade of two thousand men. [Footnote: Official Atlas, pl. cxxxii.; Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. i. pp. 911, 1077.] The channel of the river was obstructed by torpedoes and other defensive devices. The enemy's fortifications on Smith Island and near Smithville had been abandoned when Fort Fisher fell, opening the way into the river above them.