“Resolved, That a copy of these proceedings be transmitted to Lieutenant-General Holmes and Major-General R. C. Gatlin, that it may be communicated to the commands which they are intended to honor.”
From Belfield the four battalions, together with the First and Second Regiments of Junior Reserves, were ordered, under Colonel Leventhorpe, to Tarboro to repel a Federal raid from Washington, N. C. The command moved to Hamilton, some miles below Tarboro. The enemy retired upon the advance of the Confederate troops. The battalions remained there a day or two and returned to Tarboro. The troops camped about a mile northeast of the town for several days. The boys were without overcoats, tents or tent flies, and lay upon the bare ground in the rain and sleet and snow. Many of them were frost bitten. A good old farmer along side of whose fence the boys camped on the first night of their stay, kindly gave them leave to start their fires by using the top rail of his fence. When he came back next morning there was not a rail to be seen. When he protested with some warmth, saying that they had taken more than he had given them leave to take, one wag said: “No, sir; as long as there was a top rail, we had your permission to burn it. We never took any but the top rail.” The old man laughed good naturedly and left.
The severity of the experience of the Reserves on the Belfield expedition may be realized when it is stated that although they had been in camp over six months and had been somewhat enured to a soldier’s life, over one-half of them were sent to the hospital when the battalions returned to Wilmington.
The command was marched from Tarboro to Goldsboro and by train was conveyed to Wilmington, and thence back to Sugar Loaf. There they remained under the command of General W. W. Kirkland until the battle of Fort Fisher. This officer was a splendid fighter and a superb soldier. He was Colonel of the Twenty-first North Carolina Regiment, and afterwards commanded Early’s Brigade, Pettigrew’s Division. He had taken part in many of the desperate battles of Virginia and had been twice severely wounded. He was transferred to Wilmington late in December and established his headquarters at Sugar Loaf.
FIRST ATTACK ON FORT FISHER.
The three battalions composing the Third Regiment of Junior Reserves participated brilliantly in the defence of Fort Fisher, when attacked by General B. F. Butler and Admiral Porter on 23, 24 and 25 December, 1864.
Fort Fisher was located on the point of a narrow peninsula which extends southwardly from New Inlet between the ocean and Cape Fear river, near its mouth. It defended Wilmington, the last remaining port through which army supplies, ammunition, clothing and food for Lee’s Army were brought in by blockade runners. Under its guns, the “Ad-Vance” brought in supplies of inestimable value to the North Carolina troops. Its defence was of supreme importance to the Confederacy. It was an earthen fort of an irregular form, with bastions at the angles. The land face, 250 yards long, was continuous from ocean to river. The sea face was 1,300 yards long. Both faces were mounted with heavy guns, mortars and light artillery, presenting a formidable front to the enemy. It was the strongest earthwork built by the Confederacy, and really, as Admiral Porter said, “stronger than the Malakoff tower which defied so long the combined power of France and England.” Two miles above the fort were the Half Moon and the Flag Pond Batteries, and a mile and a quarter below, and at the extreme end of the peninsula, Battery Buchanan with four heavy guns.
When Butler’s expedition of 8,000 men set forth against it, the fort was garrisoned by only 667 men—a totally inadequate force for its defence. General Butler, with General Weitzel and his troops, appeared in transports off New Inlet, near Fort Fisher, on 15 December. The navy under Admiral Porter, did not appear until the 18th. He had collected the largest and most formidable naval expedition of modern times. The weather being stormy, prevented any hostile operations until the 23d. On the night of the 23d, Admiral Porter anchored a powder ship, containing 215 tons of powder, about 800 yards from the northeast salient of the fort. It was anticipated that the explosion of this mass of powder would greatly impair, if not destroy, the works, and the least effect expected was that the garrison would be so paralyzed and stunned as to offer but small resistance to subsequent attacks. The explosion did no more harm than a Chinese fire-cracker. Colonel William Lamb, then in command of the fort, wired General Whiting at Wilmington that one of the enemy’s fleet had blown up, so little impression did it make on him.
General Benjamin F. Butler, of New Orleans fame, in his autobiography, gives an amusing account of an interview with Major Reece, who commanded the Fourth Battalion of Junior Reserves and was captured at Fort Fisher. Butler says: “I inquired of him where he was the night before last (the night of the explosion of the powder boat). He said he was lying two miles and a half up the beach. I asked him if he had heard the powder vessel explode. He said he did not know what it was, but supposed a boat had blown up, that it jumped him and his men who were lying upon the ground, like pop-corn in a popper, to use his expression.” It is hard to tell which most to admire, Butler’s gullibility or Reece’s “jollying” extravagance.
The next day, 24 December, was employed by Porter in bombarding the fort, dropping into it as many as 130 shells a minute. At this time the three battalions of Junior Reserves, about 800 strong, were encamped near Sugar Loaf, six miles up the Cape Fear river from the fort. On the night of the 24th, the Fourth, Seventh and Eighth battalions were assembled at Sugar Loaf under Brigadier-General William W. Kirkland. Major French had been temporarily assigned to the command of a regiment of Senior Reserves, but at his request was permitted to return to his own command and follow its fortunes. General Whiting directed General Kirkland to send these battalions to Battery Buchanan, there to take boat for Bald Head and relieve Colonel J. J. Hedrick and his seasoned veterans, in order that they might reinforce Fort Fisher. They marched soon after midnight through Fort Fisher to Battery Buchanan, on the extreme end of the peninsula. In the darkness, many of the boys while passing through the fort, stumbled into the holes which were made in every direction by the shells. All the battalions arrived at Fort Buchanan before day. The boat which was to carry them to Bald Head could not make a landing on account of the tide, whereupon Captain Bristol early in the morning reported in person the situation to Colonel Lamb, who ordered the Juniors into the Fort. This was early Christmas morning.