B. F. Butler.
From a photograph.
A small earthwork called Fort Clark was the first one met. It had no bomb-proof, and it mounted five guns. The ships opened fire on this fort long before they were within range, and the fort replied. Both sides sowed the water with shot and shells; but the Confederates soon ceased to waste their ammunition, and when the ships got within range, their fire proved so hot that the fort was abandoned.
Meantime the troops had reached the surf in their boats, and for a pleasant day they found it a right vigorous surf. There was very little difficulty in getting the boats to the sand; they were so large that a gale would scarcely have swamped them; but the moment they touched bottom forward, the waves caught them under the floating stern, slewed them around broadside on, and hove them up hard and fast. In vain the soldiers and sailors and marines tugged and pried and swore. In all 420 men, with two howitzers, were placed on the beach, and not another armed man could they land. And what made matters worse was the fact that they had neither provisions nor supplies of any kind, and their ammunition (it was the day of paper cartridges) was in great part wet by the surf. It was a fortunate thing that the Confederates were kept busy in Fort Hatteras about that time.
Bombardment and Capture of the Forts at Hatteras Inlet, N. C.
From a lithograph published by Currier & Ives.
However, the Confederates having abandoned Fort Clark, the Federal troops were marched to it, and at 2 o’clock in the afternoon the Union flag was hoisted above it.
Meantime the fire of Fort Hatteras had been “smothered by the fire of the frigates,” and the Confederate flag had disappeared. Seeing this, the frigates ceased firing at 12.30 o’clock, on the supposition that the Confederates were willing to surrender. But when, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the Monticello was ordered to go in through the inlet and take a look at the small fleet of Confederate vessels inside the inner bar, the Confederate fort opened fire on her. The Wabash was at this time towing the Cumberland to a safe anchorage off shore, but the Minnesota, Susquehanna, Pawnee, and Harriet Lane returned the fire with vigor until sunset. But the fire was, “for the most part, ineffective, from too great a distance,” as Ammen says. The fact is, there was nothing reckless in the attack.
At sundown the Union troops abandoned Fort Clark and camped up the beach, where the smaller steamers could protect them. They had had a hungry day of it, but food was sent ashore at night. Then, as the night wore away, the troops threw up a sand battery facing the sound, and from this threw some shells at the Confederate vessels, “which seems to have materially disconcerted the enemy,” and prevented the landing of reinforcements for the fort.