9. Describe the attack on Fort Fisher.
10. What was the conclusion of the attack?
11 How did the state receive the news of this Federal failure? What forces were removed from Fort Fisher?
12. Describe the preparations for renewal of attack on January 12th.
13. Give an account of the engagement. What was the sad result?
CHAPTER LXII.
THE WAR DRAWS TO A CLOSE.
A. D. 1865.
1. With the fall of Fort Fisher the fate of Wilmington was sealed. With the Federal troops in such a position the port was most effectually closed. The last connection of the beleaguered Confederacy with the outer world was thus broken, and North Carolina, with beating heart, listened to the approaching footsteps of countless invaders. General Lee, who had been made General-in-Chief of all the Southern armies, selected General Joseph E. Johnston to command in North Carolina.
2. General Bragg's forces having retired from Wilmington, met the corps of Major-General Schofield in an ineffectual engagement at Kinston on March 8th, and retired upon Goldsboro. This command, with the troops lately in Charleston and Savannah, the remnant of the Army of Tennessee and Hampton's Division from Virginia, soon made an army of twenty-five thousand men, under the command of General Johnston.