310 NortH Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

halted under cover, when in a few minutes there was a sudden
cessation of the fire, and on the instant the vidette reported
the advance of the enemy’s column. The men of this com-
pany rushed to the palisades, and a section of a battery at the
sallyport at once opened fire on the enemy, and a destructive
fire was kept up by the battery and Company D on the enemy
now within a short distance of the slough, and this was kept
up until the enemy veered, or could not be seen from the pali-
sades at all. In this time, after a few rounds from the bat-
tery, the detachments, two or three in succession, were all
shot down at their guns, apparently by sharpshooters, and the
pieces were not after this served. In a very short time the
enemy again showed himself in our front. This time the
column advanced to the right of this company’s position, un-
der a heavy fire poured on it from the palisades between
the sallyport and the river’s edge, moving as if to effect a
lodgment on the fort to the right of the position held by
Company D, but to some extent exposed to its fire now being
delivered in volleys. In the midst of this fire, it was found
that the enemy were inside the palisades, to the right of Com-
pany D, and then a desperate struggle succeeded almost hand-
to-hand, some of Company D to the left of the sallyport club-
bing their muskets and fighting with the width of the palisade
only between them and the enemy. But to the right of the
sallyport and on that angle of the fort, the enemy in this as-
sault got possession of the exterior slope, a lodgment was ef-
fected, the parapet gained, and the men were surrounded. A
large number of the company were taken at the palisade, a
few retreated down the lines of the fort, others to slight en-
trenchments near the river at right angles to the land face,
and there fought and held possession until overpowered.
Those who retreated joined the other commands in resisting
the enemy from the traverses to the west of the middle sally-
port, the enemy’s line now enveloping the land face on both
sides. At length the enemy reached a traverse defended by
detachments of Company D, which had been left serving the
guns when the company went to the left. Here these men
made a deadly struggle with the foe for the traverses, the
enemy and they firing into each other’s faces at a few paces

Ninto Barration. 311

distance. Our men yielded the traverse only when all or
nearly so, were killed or disabled. Some of the men joined
Colonel Lamb, who conducted the charge on the enemy shortly
afterwards, and were close to that gallant officer when he was
shot down, and continued to resist until the works were occu-
pied.

In the assault on the palisading on the extreme left ex-
tending from left angle of the fort to the river’s edge, Com-
pany D, together with the section of a light battery, repelled
the enemy, their line on the second rush apparently obliquing
to the right of this position, moving over the Wilming-
ton road, and from a redoubt above the fort. General Whit-
ing in referring to the assault in a dispatch after the battle
and while a prisoner, said: ‘A portion of the troops on the
left had also repelled the first rush to the left of the works.”
This Company D, of the First Heavy Artillery Battalion,
carried into the action seventy to seventy-five men, and in the
three days’ fight lost forty men in killed and wounded, and
those left were taken prisoners. It is not here intended in
any way to say that other commands in this action did not act
as gallantly in this terrible fight, but only to state the facts in
connection with the part borne in it by one of the companies
of the First Battalion. After the fall of Fisher all the pris-
oners were sent North, the works at Bald Head, Fort Cas-
well and Fort Campbell were blown up or abandoned, and
Companies A, B and C, together with some men from Com-
pany D, who were not captured because on detached duty at
other points, were placed under command of Colonel John
D. Taylor, of the Thirty-sixth North Carolina. At Fort
Anderson, or in that vicinity, they participated in the defence
of that place and of other places on the west side of the Cape
Fear river, when pressed by the enemy, now advancing from
Smithville. At Town Creek Lieutenant John T. Rankin, in
charge of a light battery, greatly distinguished himself, fight-
ing his guns until shot down and his section and men sur-
rounded and captured by the enemy.

SOUTH WEST CREEK AND BENTONVILLE.

The battalion was on duty on the retreat from Anderson,
and after the evacuation of Wilmington in February, marched