On January 15, 1865, the attempt was renewed with a larger number of troops, amounting, after the arrival of General Schofield, to twenty-odd thousand. Porter's fleet also received additional vessels, making the whole number fifty-eight engaged in the attack. The garrison of Fort Fisher had been increased to about double the number of men there on the 24th of December. The iron-clad vessels of the enemy approached nearer the fort than on a former occasion, and the fire of the fleet was more concentrated and vastly more effective. Many of the guns in the fort were dismounted, and the parapets seriously injured, by the fire. The garrison stood bravely to their guns, and, when the assault was made, fought with such determined courage as to repulse the first column, and obstinately contended with another approaching from the land-side, continuing the fight long after they had got into the fort. Finally, overwhelmed by numbers, and after the fort and its armament had been mainly destroyed by a bombardment—I believe greater than ever before concentrated upon a fort—the remnant of the garrison surrendered. The heroic and highly gifted General Whiting was mortally, and the gallant commander of the fort, Colonel Lamb, was seriously, wounded. They both fell into the hands of the enemy. General Hoke, distinguished by brilliant service on other fields, had been ordered down to support the garrison, and under the directions of General Bragg, commanding the department, had advanced to attack the investing force, but a reconnaissance convinced them both that his command was too weak to effect the object. The other forts, of necessity, fell with the main work, Fisher, and were abandoned. Hoke, with his small force retiring through Wilmington, after destroying the public vessels and property, to prevent them from falling into the hands of the enemy, slowly fell back, fighting at several points, and seeking to find in the separation of the vastly superior army which was following him opportunity to attack a force the number of which should not greatly exceed his own, and finally made a junction with General Johnston, then opposing Sherman's advance through North Carolina.
The fixed purpose of General Grant's campaign of 1864 was the capture of Richmond, the Confederate capital. For this he had assembled the large army with which he crossed the Rapidan and fought the numerous battles between there and the James River. For this he had moved against Petersburg, the capture of which in itself was not an object so important as to have justified the effort made to that end. It was only valuable because it was on the line of communication with the more southern States, and offered another approach to Richmond. In his attack upon Petersburg it will be seen from the events already described that he adopted neither of the two plans which were open to him: the one, the concentration of all his efforts to break the line covering Petersburg; the other, to move his army round it and seize the Weldon and Southside Railroads, so as to cut off the supplies of Lee's army and compel the evacuation of both Petersburg and Richmond. Had there been approximate equality between his army and that of Lee, he could not wisely have ventured upon the latter movement against a soldier so able as his antagonist; but the vast numerical superiority of Grant's army might well have induced him to invite Lee to meet him in the open field. He did, however, neither the one nor the other, but something of both.
In the opening of the campaign of 1865, he continued, as he had done in 1864, to extend his line to the left, seeking, after having gained the Weldon Railroad, to reach still farther to that connecting Petersburg with the Richmond and Danville Railroad. Lee, with a well-deserved confidence in his troops and his usual intrepidity, drew from his lines of defense men enough to enable him for a long time to defeat the enemy in these efforts, by extension to turn his right flank. After Grant's demonstration on the north side of the James by sending over Hancock's corps had been virtually abandoned by its withdrawal, Longstreet's corps, which had been sent to oppose it, remained for a long time on the north side of the James. Finally, General Ewell with a few troops, the Richmond reserves, and a division of the navy under Admiral Semmes, held the river and land defenses on the east side of Richmond.
General A. R. Lawton, who had become the quartermaster-general of the Confederate army, ably supported by Lewis E. Harvie, President of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, increased the carrying capacity of that line so as to compensate for our loss of the use of the Weldon Railroad. At the same time, General St. John, chief of the commissariat, by energetic efforts and the use of the Virginia Canal, kept up the supplies of General Lee's army, so as to secure from him the complimentary acknowledgment, made about a month before the evacuation of Petersburg, that the army there had not been so well supplied for many months.
During the months of February and March, Lee's army was materially reduced by the casualties of battle and the frequency of absence without leave. I will not call these absentees deserters, because they did not leave to join the enemy, and again, because in some instances where the facts were fully developed, they had gone to their necessitous families with intent to return and resume their places in the line of battle. His cavalry force had been also diminished by the absence of General Hampton's division, to which permission had been given to go to their home, South Carolina, to get fresh horses, and also to fill up their ranks. Long, arduous, and distant service had rendered both necessary.
In the early part of March, as well as my memory can fix the date, General Lee held with me a long and free conference. He stated that the circumstances had forced on him the conclusion that the evacuation of Petersburg was but a question of time. He had early and fully appreciated the embarrassment which would result from losing the workshops and foundry at Richmond, which had been our main reliance for the manufacture and repair of arms as well as the preparation of ammunition. The importance of Richmond in this regard was, however, then less than it had been by the facilities which had been created for these purposes at Augusta, Selma, Fayetteville, and some smaller establishments; also by the progress which was being made for a large armory at Macon, Georgia. To my inquiry whether it would not be better to anticipate the necessity by withdrawing at once, he said that his artillery and draught horses were too weak for the roads in their then condition, and that he would have to wait until they became firmer. There naturally followed the consideration of the line of retreat. A considerable time before this General Hood had sent me a paper, presenting his views and conclusion that, if it became necessary for the Army of Northern Virginia to retreat, it should move toward Middle Tennessee. The paper was forwarded to General Lee and returned by him with an unfavorable criticism, and the conclusion that, if we had to retreat, it should be in a southwardly direction toward the country from which we were drawing supplies, and from which a large portion of our forces had been derived. In this conversation the same general view was more specifically stated, and made to apply to the then condition of affairs. The programme was to retire to Danville, at which place supplies should be collected and a junction made with the troops under General J. E. Johnston, the combined force to be hurled upon Sherman in North Carolina, with the hope of defeating him before Grant could come to his relief. Then the more southern States, freed from pressure and encouraged by this success, it was expected, would send large reënforcements to the army, and Grant, drawn far from his base of supplies into the midst of a hostile population, it was hoped, might yet be defeated, and Virginia be delivered from the invader. Efforts were energetically continued, to collect supplies in depots where they would be available, and, in furtherance of the suggestion of General Lee as to the necessary improvement in the condition of his horses, the quartermaster-general was instructed to furnish larger rations of corn to the quartermaster at Petersburg.
Though of unusually calm and well-balanced judgment, General Lee was instinctively averse to retiring from his enemy, and had so often beaten superior numbers that his thoughts were no doubt directed to every possible expedient which might enable him to avoid retreat. It thus fell out that, in a week or two after the conference above noticed, he presented to me the idea of a sortie against the enemy near to the right of his line. This was rendered the more feasible, from the constant extension of Grant's line to the left, and the heavy bodies of troops he was employing to turn our right. The sortie, if entirely successful, so as to capture and hold the works on Grant's right, as well as three forts on the commanding ridge in his rear, would threaten his line of communication with his base, City Point, and might compel him to move his forces around ours to protect it; if only so far successful as to cause the transfer of his troops from his left to his right, it would relieve our right, and delay the impending disaster for the more convenient season for retreat.
Fort Steadman was the point against which the sortie was directed; its distance from our lines was less than two hundred yards, but an abatis covered its front. For this service, requiring equal daring and steadiness, General John B. Gordon, well proved on many battle-fields, was selected. His command was the remnant of Ewell's corps, troops often tried in the fiery ordeal of battle, and always found true as tempered steel. Before daylight, on the morning of the 25th of March, Gordon moved his command silently forward. His pioneers were sent in advance to make openings through the obstructions, and the troops rushed forward, surprised and captured the garrison, then turned the guns upon the adjacent works and soon drove the enemy from them. A detachment was now sent to seize the commanding ground and works in the rear, the batteries of which, firing into the gorges of the forts on the right and left, would soon make a wide opening in Grant's line. The guides to this detachment misled it in the darkness of a foggy dawn far from the point to which it was directed. In the mean time the enemy, recovering from his surprise and the confusion into which he had been extensively thrown, rallied and with overwhelming power concentrated both artillery and infantry upon Gordon's command. The supporting force which was to have followed him, notwithstanding the notice which was given by the victorious cheer of his men when they took Fort Steadman, failed to come forward, and Gordon's brilliant success, like the Dead Sea fruit, was turned to ashes at the moment of possession. It was hopeless, with his small force unsupported, to retain the position he had gained. It only remained as far as practicable to withdraw his command to our line, and this the valiant soldier promptly proceeded to do; some of his men were killed on the retreat, many became prisoners—I believe all, or nearly all, of those who had been detached to seize other works, and had not rejoined the main body.
The following letter from General Gordon furnishes some important details of the attack:
"ATLANTA, GEORGIA, October 16, 1880.