Certainly this is not true. Porter guessed at the facts. The Confederate officers (see Scharf) had to use the flat of their swords to get some of the reserves out to man the parapet, but they had a force of nearly 1,000 that would have made a fight. But if Butler had been as anxious to carry the fort by assault as he was to report a failure on the part of Admiral Porter, he would have carried the fort inside of an hour with even the partial force he had landed. Moreover, when he said the beach was “the only practicable route” for an assaulting party, he was mistaken, for General Terry, three weeks later, found a much safer route “under the river bank.” It is an interesting fact that Butler in his book does not attempt any explanation of his lack of knowledge, when before the fort, of the river-bank route.
Thomas E. Taylor, a noted blockade-runner, who has printed a book on his experiences, was in Richmond in consultation with the Confederate chiefs at the time of this assault, and wrote the following in a letter to his employers regarding the matter: “They nearly had Fort Fisher; they were within sixty yards of it—and had they pushed on as they ought to have done, could have taken it. It was a terrific bombardment.”
Anyway, Butler did not even throw up intrenchments. He abandoned the enterprise altogether.
However, the operations against the fort were only suspended. Admiral Porter filled up his ships with ammunition. On January 13, 1865, Gen. Alfred H. Terry landed with 6,000 men. The ships anchored with the monitors at a range of half a mile, and the others outside at three-quarters of a mile (in some cases further), and a storm of bursting shells poured over the fort. It lasted all that day, was continued at intervals during the night and all the next day. The fort replied slowly, partly because ammunition was scarce and partly because of the effect of the Union fire.
The Bombardment of Fort Fisher.
From a lithograph.
That night an assault was planned, and 1,600 sailors and 400 marines were landed to help the soldiers. At 9 o’clock on the morning of January 15, 1865, the fleet once more opened fire. The soldiers, who had been lying at the river side of the arm of land, charged up to attack the extreme west end of the fort. The sea force, in three divisions, led by Cushing (he who destroyed the Albemarle), Lieut.-commander James Parker, and Lieut.-commander T. O. Selfredge, Jr., charged up the barren beach, where Butler did not dare to go, to attack the sea front. They had the post of greatest danger, for they were wholly uncovered.
T. O. Selfredge.