From a photograph owned by Mr. C. B. Hall.
“The attacking column of the army was hid and protected by the river bank as it approached the left flank of the work, but the naval column came up the open beach upon our center. As its success would have been disastrous, I concentrated all available guns upon this column, and met its assault with the larger portion of my men, posting them upon the ramparts so as to fire down upon the sailors and marines.” The quotation is from a letter by Colonel Lamb, commanding the fort.
Some of the sea force reached the row of palisades, and there found shelter, but when eighty-two had been killed and 269 wounded, the others broke and fled out of range. They were armed (except the marines) with cutlasses and revolvers only. It was not a good place for boarders. Nevertheless, this assault was not in vain, as W. R. Mayo, one of the Confederate officers in the fort, testifies in Scharf’s work. He says:
“Though proving a great failure in itself, this assault occupied the nearly worn-out and depleted garrison, and had the direct result of admitting the army to the ramparts of the disabled land face of the fort before attention could be given to the assaulting column in that direction.”
There were forty-two ships in the line bombarding Fort Fisher on January 15, 1865, of which six were ironclads—five monitors and the New Ironsides. The total number killed afloat during the three days of fighting was seventy-four, and 289 were wounded. Ammen estimates from the reports in the department that 21,716 shells were thrown at the fort. In the first attack 15,000 were thrown.
Second Attack upon Fort Fisher by the U. S. Navy, under Rear-admiral D. D. Porter, January 13, 14, 15, 1865.
Scharf has this to say of the capture of Fort Fisher:
“The fall of Wilmington was the severest blow to the Confederate cause which it could receive from the loss of any port. It was far more injurious than the capture of Charleston, and, but for the moral effect, even more hurtful than the evacuation of Richmond. With Wilmington and the Cape Fear River open, the supplies that reached the Confederate armies would have enabled them to have maintained an unequal contest for years, but with the fall of Fort Fisher the constant stream of supplies was effectually cut off and the blockade made truly effective—not by the navy fleet, but by its captures on land.”
The other forts about the river soon fell into government hands. The Civil War was already drawing to a close before the assault was made. It was a question only of how many days the able and determined men of the South would struggle against overwhelming numbers. The fall of Fort Fisher was therefore fortunate for both sides. It the sooner brought a hopeless fight to an end.