Fort Fisher was planned early in the war, and no fort built by the Confederates received greater care. A look at the chart will show that a long arm of land comes down from the north between the river and the sea—an arm that at last is split like the claw of a lobster into two fingers. One, very fat, and extending in toward the channel of the river, is called Federal Point, and the other, very slender, continues the coast line to what is called New Inlet. A shoal body of water called the basin lies between the two fingers. Fort Fisher was erected right where the two fingers split apart—right on the wrist.
Beginning a few yards back from the beach and north of the split of the fingers, the Confederates erected a mound of sand eighty feet high. On this they mounted an eight-inch (150-pounder) rifle and a ten-inch medium-length (columbiad) shell gun. From this mound a series of connected batteries or earthworks, of the most approved form, extended away to the north for about 1,400 yards. In this stretch were mounted seventeen great guns, including rifles from four and a half inches up to seven inches, with a number of ten-inch smooth-bore shell guns. In height and thickness these batteries were all that could be wished in that day, and there were immense traverses (big mounds of sand) between the guns to protect the gun crews from an enfilading fire and from shells bursting on either side of them. At the north end of the north-and-south line so far described, the wall of the fort turned at a right angle toward the west. This part of the wall extending to the west was about 500 yards long, and it crossed the arm of dry land to the swamps of the river. Looking from the north, the whole fort was a very good L. The east-and-west arm mounted twenty-one great guns, and these were, for the most part, placed to defend the garrison from a land attack.
PLAN AND SECTIONS
OF
FORT FISHER
CARRIED BY ASSAULT
BY THE
U.S. FORCES
Maj. Gen. A. H. TERRY
Commanding.
January 15th, 1865.
After three days’ bombardment by
U. S. Fleet
REAR ADMIRAL D. D. PORTER,
Commanding.
From “The Navy in the Civil War.”
It was plain that the Confederates erected this huge structure to keep the Federal forces from entering Cape Fear River by the way of New Inlet. As a matter of fact, it was, in the judgment of engineers, built too near to the sea. The inlet was shoal at best. Only the lightest of vessels could enter it. Had Fort Fisher been erected back from the sea, where it would have been out of range of the deep-draft Union ships, a different story would have been told of it in history. As it was, Col. William Lamb, commanding it, gave a right good account of himself.
When an attack was at last planned by the Union forces, a very grave error was made in placing Benjamin F. Butler at the head of the army forces after Admiral David D. Porter had been assigned to command the naval part of the expedition. This is not to disparage the talents of either man. It is said because the two leaders heartily disliked each other. It was therefore utterly impossible for them to coöperate.
Ships and transports were assembled at Hampton Roads in September, but the publicity given to the destination of the expedition caused a postponement until December. In the meantime Butler had conceived an idea, and in order not to be unfair his exact words, from page 775 of “Butler’s Book,” are given. He says:
“In that time, after hearing of the great destruction for many miles around made by an explosion of gunpowder at Erith, England, I made an examination into the various instances of the explosive effect of large quantities of powder; and I believed that possibly, by bringing within four or five hundred yards of Fort Fisher a large mass of explosives, and firing the whole in every part at the same moment—for it was the essence of the experiment to have the powder all exploded at the same instant—the garrison would at least be so far paralyzed as to enable, by a prompt landing of men, a seizure of the fort.”