ae, ere

 

 

 

 

694 NortH Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

Fisher; this time not in command of “Beast Butler,” but
General Terry. We were ordered back to our old line, but
before we were able to make the weary march from Wilming-
ton down, the enemy had succeeded in making a lodgment
upon the shore, and had thrown up a line of breast works
which General Hoke considered it was impracticable for his
men to attack, as his division would be exposed to an en-
filade fire from the enemy’s gunboats. It has always been the
opinion of most of the officers connected with Hoke’s Division,
so far as I have been able to ascertain those opinions, that if
his division had been allowed to remain at Sugar Loaf and not
have been carried to Wilmington for the purposes of review,
that the troops of the enemy could never have made a landing
and Fort Fisher would never have fallen into their hands.
It is well known that it fell by reason of the land attack and
not by reason of the fire from the gunboats. If Hoke’s divis-
ion had been where, it seemed to the officers, it ought to have
been, this landing of troops could never have been made and
there never would have been a land attack upon Fort Fisher.
It is useless, however, to speculate upon what might have been
and what might not have been, under such circumstances.
General Sherman was going in the direction of the centre of
North Carolina and if he had kept on his march, his army
would have been in the rear of Fisher and it would necessa-
rily have been abandoned any way, but we would have been
saved the loss of the gallant soldiers who met their death at
Fisher and would have been spared the humiliation of having
had that fort, even after a gallant defence, taken from us.

On the night after its fall, the scene was brilliant; rockets
and roman candles were thrown in every direction from the
gunboats in its front, and the soldiers of Hoke’s Division had
to grind their teeth and bear the humiliation of not having
“been there” to prevent the fall of Fisher, and to listen in
silence to the shouts and huzzas of the enemy over their vie-
tory.

The division, after the fall of Fort Fisher, remained on the
Sugar Loaf lines, strengthening the same, living amidst sand
and dust and on unsifted corn meal and spoiled Nassau bacon
until life became almost unendurable, but the spirit of the

Srxty-Sixta REGIMENT. 695

troops never flagged ; they were always willing to do their full
duty, and always glad to see the enemy in their front. Al-
most every day there would be fighting upon the skirmish
line ; and sometime in February, I do not now know the date,
an attack in considerable force was made upon us by a negro
regiment in command of white officers. The fact of seeing
those negro troops in front of us exasperated the men and
they fought with great gallantry and easily repulsed the at-
tack made upon us. While here, almost every day the gun-
boats of the enemy were shelling our line, and we could see
the shells about the size of the hoop of a barrel, as they left
the mouth of the cannon on the gunboat and came bouncing
over the water toward our lines. The men exposed them-
selves frequently in claiming the parts of the shells when
they had burst, so as to make rings and other ornaments out
of the brass parts connected therewith. As soon as the missile
burst you would see men running in every direction toward
the place for the purpose of finding the broken parts. We
here buried ourselves literally under the ground, and the
shelling had little or no effect upon us.

About 18 February, the division received orders to move
back to Wilmington. This we did, and occupied for a day
or so a line much nearer to Wilmington—the breastworks of
which can now be seen on riding from Wilmington to the
beach on the Seacoast Railroad. About the 21st or 22d, the
regiment marched to Wilmington, disheartened and dis-
pirited because we were falling back and leaving our “City
by the Sea” unprotected and unguarded.

RETREAT FROM WILMINGTON.

The enemy were rapidly pressing us, and we fell back
across the North East river over a pontoon bridge below the
railroad bridge, and had scarcely gotten a skirmish line out
before the enemy appeared upon the opposite side of the
river. The main part of the division had fallen back and es-
tablished a line on the edge of the sand hills, back of the
swamps, but a good strong force was left at the public road
crossing and at the railroad bridge. Very soon the enemy,
supposing that no troops had been left at all upon the north