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218 Norra Carorina Troops, 186165.

more unfortunate ones that had been chased ashore. About
half a mile north of the fort there was a rise in the plain form-
ing a hill some twenty feet above the tide on the river side,
and on this was a redoubt commanding the approach to the
fort by the river road. Thus Nature, assisted by some slight
engineering work, had given a defense to Confederate Point
which would have enabled an efficient commander at the in-
trenched camp, co-operating with the garrison of Fort Fisher,
to have rendered the Point untenable for a largely superior
force at night when the covering fire of the Federal navy
could not distinguish between friend and foe. 3

At the land face of Fort Fisher, five miles from the in-
trenched camp, the peninsula was about half a mile wide.
This face commenced about a hundred feet from the river
with a half bastion, and extended with a heavy curtain to a
full bastion on the ocean side, where it joined the sea face.*

The work was built to withstand the heaviest artillery fire.
There was no moat with searp and counterscarp, so essential
for defense against storming parties, the shifting sands ren-
dering its construction impossible with the material availa-
ble. The outer slope was 20 feet high from the berme to the
top of the parapet, at an angle of 45 degrees, and was sodded
with marsh grass, which grew luxuriantly. The parapet was
not less than twenty-five feet thick, with an inclination of only
one foot. The revetment was five feet nine inches high from
the floor of the gun chambers, and these were some twelve
feet or more from the interior plane. The guns were all
mounted en barbette, on Columbiad carriages; there was not
a single casemated gun in the fort. Experience had taught
that casemates of timber and sand bags were a delusion and a

*When I assumed command of Fort Fisher, 4 July, 1862, it was
composed of several detached earth-works, with a casemated battery of
sand and palmetto logs, mounting four guns and with only one heavy
gun in the works. The frigate Minnesota could have destroyed the
works and driven us out in a few hours. I immediately went to work,
and with 500 colored laborers, assisted by the garrison, constructed the
largest earth-work in the Southern Confederacy, of heavy timbers cov-
ered by sand from 15 to 20 feet deep and sodded with turf. The fort
was far from complete when it was attacked, especially as against an as-
sault by land ; the sides exposed to the sea being first constructed, on
the theory that the Army of Wilmington would prevent an investment.

—W. L.

® eae

rela rl

Tue Derence oF Fort FIsHEr. 219

snare against heavy projectiles; and there was no iron to
construct them with. Between the gun-chambers, containing
one or two gmns each (there were twenty heavy guns on the
land face), there were heavy traverses, exceeding in size any
known to engineers, to protect from an enfilading fire. They
extended out some twelve feet on the parapet, and were twelve
feet or more in height above the parapet, running back thirty
feet or more. The gun-chambers were reached from the rear
by steps. In each traverse was an alternate magazine or
bomb-proof, the latter ventilated by an air chamber. Pas-
sageways penetrated the traverses in the interior of the work,
forming additional bomb-proofs for the reliefs for the guns.
The sea face for a hundred yards from the northern bastion
was of the same massive character as the land face. A cres-
cent battery intended for four guns, joined this. It had
been originally built of palmetto logs and tarred sand-bags and
sand revetted with sod; but the logs had decayed, and it was
converted into a hospital bomb-proof. In its rear a heavy
curtain was thrown up to protect the chambers from frag-
ments of shells. From this bomb-proof a series of batteries
extended for three-quarters of a mile along the sea, connected
by an infantry curtain. These batteries had heavy traverses,
but were not more than ten or twelve feet high to the top of
the parapets, and were built for rivuchet firing. On this.
line was a bomb-proof electric battery connected with a sys-
tem of submarine torpedoes. Farther along, where the chan-
nel ran close to the beach, inside the bar, a mound battery 60
feet high was erected, with two heavy guns, which had a
plunging fire on the channel; this was connected with the bat-
tery north of it by a light curtain. Following the line of the
works, it was over one mile from the mound to the northeast
bastion at the angle of the sea and land faces, and upon this
h guns were mounted. From the mound
for nearly a mile to the end of the point was a level sand plain
searcely three feet above high tide, and much of it was sub-
merged during gales. At the point was Battery Buchanan,

four guns, in the shape of an ellipse, commanding the inlet,
ing the approach by land. It was

its two 11-inch guns coverl
garrisoned by a detachment from the Confederate States navy.

line twenty-four heavy