Brave Deeds of Union Soldiers

by Samuel Scoville

In the Civil War the youngest general in both the Union and the Confederate forces was Major-General Galusha Pennypacker, who still lives in Philadelphia. He became a captain and major at seventeen, a colonel at twenty and a full brigadier-general a few months before he became twenty-one. His last and greatest fight was at Fort Fisher and the story of that day, of which he was the hero, is typical of the bravery and readiness which made him the only boy-general in the world. By the end of 1864 the Union forces had captured one by one the great naval ports of the Confederacy, the gates through which their armies were fed by the blockade-runners of Europe. New Orleans, Mobile and Savannah had at last fallen. By December, 1864, Wilmington, South Carolina, was the only port left through which the Confederacy could receive provisions from outside. In that month an expedition was sent against the city by sea and land. The river-forces were commanded by Admiral Porter while Generals Ben Butler and Witzel had charge of the land-forces. General Butler conceived the fantastic idea of exploding an old vessel filled with powder close to the ramparts. In the confusion which he thought would result, he hoped to carry the place by assault. Fort Fisher was the strongest fortress of the Confederacy. Admiral Porter afterward said that it was stronger than the famous Russian fortress Malakoff, which next to Gibraltar was supposed to be the most impregnable fortification in the world. Fort Fisher consisted of a system of bomb-proof traverses surrounded by great ramparts of heavy timbers covered with sand and banked with turf, the largest earthworks in the whole South and which were proof against the heaviest artillery of that day. The powder-boat was an abandoned vessel which was loaded to the gunnels with kegs of powder and floated up to within four hundred yards of the fort. When it was finally exploded, its effect upon the fortress was so slight that the Confederate soldiers inside thought it was merely a boiler explosion from one of the besieging vessels. General Butler and his assistant, General Witzel, however, landed their forces, hoping to find the garrison in a state of confusion and discouragement. General Butler found that the explosion had simply aroused rather than dismayed the besieged. From all along the ramparts as well as from the tops of the inner bastions a tremendous converging fire was poured upon the attacking force. Back of these fortifications were grouped some of the best sharp-shooters of the whole Confederate Army and after a few minutes of disastrous fighting, General Butler was glad enough to withdraw his forces back to the safety of the ships. He refused to renew the battle and reported to General Grant that Fort Fisher could not be taken by assault. General Grant was so disgusted by this report that he at once relieved General Butler of the command and this battle was the end of the latter's military career and he went back to civil life in Massachusetts. President Lincoln too was deeply disappointed at the unfortunate ending of this first assault on the last stronghold of the Confederacy. General Grant sent word to Admiral Porter to hold his position and sent General Alfred H. Terry to attack the fort again by land with an increased force. General Robert E. Lee learned of the proposed attack and sent word to Colonel Lamont, who commanded the fort, that it must be held, otherwise his army would be starved into surrender.

On January 13, 1865, Admiral Porter ran his ironclad within close range of the fort and concentrating a fire of four hundred heavy guns rained great shells on every spot on the parapets and on the interior fortifications from which came any gun-fire. The shells burst as regularly as the ticking of a watch. The Confederates tried in vain to stand to their guns. One by one they were broken and dismounted and the garrison driven to take refuge in the interior bomb-proof traverses. The attacking forces were divided into three brigades. The attack was commenced by one hundred picked sharp-shooters all armed with repeating rifles and shovels. They charged to within one hundred and seventy-five yards of the fort, quickly dug themselves out of sight in a shallow trench in the sand and tried to pick off each man who appeared in the ramparts. Next came General Curtis' brigade to within four hundred yards of the fort and laid down and with their tin-cups and plates and knives and sword-blades and bayonets, dug out of sight like moles. Close behind them was Pennypacker's second brigade and after him Bell's third brigade. In a few moments, Curtis and his brigade advanced at a run to a line close behind the sharp-shooters while Pennypacker's brigade moved into the trench just vacated and Bell and his men came within two hundred yards of Pennypacker. All this time men were dropping everywhere under the deadly fire from the traverses. It was not the blind fire with the bullets whistling and humming overhead which the men had learned to disregard, but it was a scattering irregular series of well-aimed shots of which far too many took effect. The loss in officers especially was tremendous and equal to that of any battle in the war. More than half of the officers engaged were shot that day while one man in every four of the privates went down.

When the men had at last taken their final positions, the fire of the vessels was directed to the sea-face of the fort and a strong naval detachment charged, with some of Ames' infantry of the land-forces, at the sea angle of the fort. The besieged ran forward a couple of light guns loaded with double charges of canister and grape and rushed to the angle all of their available forces. The canister and the heavy musketry fire were too much for the bluejackets and they were compelled to slowly draw back out of range while the Confederates shouted taunts after them.

"Come aboard, you sailors," they yelled; "the captain's ladder is right this way. What you hangin' back for?"

Attacking the Inner Traverses of Fort Fisher

The last words were drowned in a tremendous Rebel yell as they saw the bluejackets break and retreat out of range. The Confederates, however, had cheered too soon. In manning the sea-wall they had weakened too much the defenses on the landward side and the word was given for all three brigades to attack at once. The color-bearers of all the regiments ran forward like madmen, headed by the officers and all sprinting as if running a two hundred and twenty-yard dash. The officers and the color-bearers of all three brigades reached the outer lines almost at the same time. With a rush and a yell they were up over the outer wall and forming inside for the attack on the inner traverses which yet remained. It was desperate work and the hardest fighting of the day was done around these inner bomb-proofs, each one of which was like a little fort in miniature. The crisis came when the first brigade was barely keeping its foothold on the west end of the parapet while the enemy which had repulsed the bluejackets were moving over in a heavy column to drive out Curtis' panting men. It was at this moment that the boy-general Pennypacker showed himself the hero of the day. He had already carried the palisades and the sally-port and had taken four hundred prisoners and then wheeled and charged to the rescue of Curtis' exhausted men. Ahead of them was the fifth traverse which must be stormed and crossed before Curtis' men could be relieved. Already the men were wavering and it was a moment which called for the finest qualities of leadership. Pennypacker himself seized the colors of the 97th Pennsylvania, his old regiment, and calling on his men to follow, charged up the broken side of the fifth traverse. His troops swarmed up after him side by side with the men of the 203d Pennsylvania and the soldiers of the 117th New York, but Pennypacker was the first man to fix the regimental flag on the parapet and shouted to Colonel Moore of the other Pennsylvania regiment:

"Colonel, I want you to take notice that the first flag up is the flag of my old regiment."

Before Colonel Moore had time to answer, he pitched over with a bullet through his heart and Colonel Bell was killed at the head of his brigade as he came in. The gigantic Curtis was fighting furiously with the blood streaming down from his face. Just at that moment, at the head of his men, General Pennypacker fell over, so badly wounded that never from that time to this was a day to pass free from pain. His work was done, however. His men fought fiercely to avenge his fall, broke up the enemies' intended attack, freed the first brigade and all three forces joined and swept through the traverses, capturing them one by one until the last and strongest fort of the Confederacy had fallen. The only remaining gateway to the outer world was closed. After the fall of Fort Fisher, it was only a few months to Appomattox. One of the bloodiest and most successful assaults of the war had succeeded. General Grant ordered a hundred-gun salute in honor of the victory from each of his armies. The Secretary of War, Stanton, himself, ran his steamer into Wilmington and landed to thank personally in the name of President Lincoln the brave fighters who had won a battle which meant the close of the war.

General Pennypacker was to survive his wounds. This was the seventh time that he had been wounded in eight months. At the close of the war he was made colonel in the regular army, being the youngest man who ever held that rank, and was placed in command of various departments in the South and was the first representative of the North to introduce the policy of conciliation. Later on he went abroad and met Emperor William of Germany, the Emperor of Austria and Prince Bismarck and von Moltke, that war-worn old general, who shook hands with him and said that as the oldest general in the world, he was glad to welcome the youngest.