422 NortH Carottina Troops, 1861-’65. missions had been annulled. The situation was anomalous. There was no Confederate General or other officer in com- mand. Colonel S. L. Fremont, who had held a commission in the Engineer Corps, under some arrangement, continued in charge. There were no other persons to perform the neces- sary duties these gentlemen had been assigned to, and so they continued at work, in the emergency, without commissions, without pay, and having rank only by courtesy. Captain Winder planned the first defences, in conference with Colonel Fremont, who devised means for constructing the first casemate on Federal Point—built of palmetto logs cut on Smith’s Island, and sand-bags, and strengthened with’ railroad iron. Lieutenant Ashe equipped the batteries, and superintended the rifling of old smooth-bore guns with ma- chinery designed by Messrs. Easons, of Charleston. Captain Winder’s plan of defence for Federal Point con- sisted in a strong fort at the Point; a redoubt at the head of the sound, and an intermediate one, with a heavy covered-way striking from the head of the Sound to Fort Fisher, and commanding the beach. Captain R. Kidder Meade arrived and completed the unfinished casemate, Captain Winder being at work elsewhere. General J. R. Anderson arrived from Richmond with a number of young Virginians for staff duty, and as the Fed- eral expedition, supposed to be preparing for attack at Wil- mington passed down to Pocotaligo, Lieutenant Ashe begged leave to retire, and joined Company I, Eighteenth North Carolina, at Pocotaligo. Shortly after, he was appointed Lieutenant of Artillery in the regular army of the Confed- erate States, and remained therein during the war, except when serving as Assistant Adjutant-General of Pender’s Bri- gade, during the first Maryland campaign. It is quite true that the defences were immensely strength- ened by the labors of years, chiefly under Colonel Lamb, until the original works seem by comparison altogether inadequate, but it should not be forgotten that no such fleet as finally at- tacked Fisher, existed, with its monitors and iron-clads, in the early days of the war. Undefended, it would certainly have Corps or ENGINEERS. 493 been occupied, and with Wilmington gone and railroad com- munications cut, it is easy to perceive that the war could not have been waged with success. As it was, time was gained, and the object attained. When everything had to be erected, without implements, without resources, these patriotic officers, without pay, or rank, remained where the guns of the enemy were daily ex- pected, enduring privations and hardships, and laboring with unremitting devotion for the public welfare. Their work was of incalculable value, and should never be forgotten. What Fort Fisher became after the labor of years, and its admirable record of service, is told by the graphic pen of its distinguished defender, Colonel William Lamb, in the his- tory of the Thirty-sixth Regiment in the second volume of these records. As Major of Artillery, C. S. A., Colonel Lamb was on duty at Fort St. Philip (afterwards Anderson), when he was elected Colonel of the Thirty-sixth, and relieved Major Hedrick at Fisher 4 July, 1862. With wonderful energy and tenacity he rendered the fort finally one of the wonders of the engineering art, impregnable against naval attack alone, and only to be taken by a combination of the greatest fleet ever gathered up to that period in warfare, and a land force five times its garrison, and after the assailants had lost nearly as many as the entire Confederate garrison, and not a shot was left to continue the defence. As the second volume may not be in the hands of the read- er, it may be permitted to add in the words of its supervising genius, what the fort had become when assailed on Christmas eve of 1864. Hesays: “At this time Fort Fisher extended across the peninsula 682 yards, a continuous work, mounting twenty heavy guns and having two mortars and four pieces of light artillery, and a sea face of 1,898 yards in length, con- sisting of batteries connected by a heavy curtain and ending in the Mound battery sixty feet high, mounting twenty-four guns, including one 170-pound Blakely rifle gun, and one 130-pound ‘Armstrong rifle gun. At the extreme end of the point at the entrance to the Cape Fear river was Battery Buchanan, a naval command with four heavy guns.”