aa ed at ol

228 NortH Caro.tina Troops, 1861-’65.

I ordered my aide, Lieutenant Charles H. Blocker, to
double-quick the Twenty-first and Twenty-fifth South Caro-
lina to reinforce Major James Reilly, whom I had put in com-
mand on the left, while I went to the northeast salient, which
I believed to be the vital point of the work and the one which
needed most protection. I rallied there the larger portion of
the garrison of the main work, putting 300 men on top of
the bastion and adjoining parapets and holding some 200
more in the adjoining batteries. About 250 remained for de-
fense on the left, to which I supposed the 350 South Caro-
linians would immediately be added, and these with the Na-
poleon and the torpedoes I felt sure would successfully defend
that portion of the work. The assaulting line on the right
was directed at the angle or point of the L, and consisted of
two thousand sailors and marines,* the greater portion of
whom had flanked my torpedo lines by keeping close to the
sea. Ordering the mound battery, and any other on the sea
face that could do so, to fire upon them, and the two Napo-
leons at the sally-port to join our Columbiad in pouring grape
and canister into their ranks, I held in reserve the infantry

fire. Whiting stood upon the brink of the parapet inspiring

those about him. The sailors and marines reached the berme
and some sprang up the slope, but a murderous fire greeted
them and swept them down. Volley after volley was poured
into their faltering ranks by cool, determined men, and in
half an hour several hundred dead and wounded lay at the
foot of the bastion. The bravery of the officers could not re-
strain their men from panic and retreat, and with small loss
to ourselves we witnessed what had never been seen before, a
disorderly rout of American sailors and marines. Had the
fleet helped their own column as they did afterward that of
the army, theirs would have been the glory of victory.

As our shouts of triumph went up I turned to look at the
western salient, and saw, to my astonishment, three Federal

*Secretary Welles, in his report of the Navy Department, 4 Decem-
ber, 1865, says: ‘Fourteen hundred sailors and marines were landed
and participated in the direct assault”; but Admiral, Porter in his report,
dated off Fort Fisher, 17 January, 1865, says: ‘I detailed 1,600 sailors
and 400 marines to accompany the troops in the assault—the sailors to
board tbe sea-face, while the troops assaulted the land side.’’—Eprror.

 

elit a

pia aS le i ptm

THe DeErence or Fort FisHer. 229

battle flags upon our ramparts. General Whiting saw them
at the same moment, and, calling on the men to pull down
those flags and drive the enemy from the work, rushed toward
them on the parapet. Among those who followed Whiting,
and who gave his young life upon those ramparts, I must
mention the brave Lieutenant Williford, who commanded
the Blakely Battery.

In order to make a careful reconnoissance of the position
of the enemy, I passed through the sally-port, and outside
of the work witnessed a savage hand-to-hand conflict for the
possession of the fourth gun-chamber from the left bastion.
My men, led by Whiting, had driven the standard-bearer
from the top of the traverse and the enemy from the parapet
in front. They had recovered the gun-chamber with great
slaughter, and on the parapet and on the long traverse of the
next gun-chamber the contestants were savagely firing into
each other’s faces, and in some cases clubbing their guns,
being too close to load and fire. Whiting had quickly been
wounded by two shots and had been carried to the hospital
bemb-proof. I saw that the Confederates were exposed not
only to the fire in front, but to a galling infantry fire from
the captured salient. I saw also a fresh force pouring into
the left of the work, now offering no resistance. I doubt if
ever before the commander of a work went outside of it and
looked back upon the conflict for its possession; but from the
peculiar construction of the works it was necessary to do so
in order to see the exact position of affairs. I was in front
of the sally-port and concealed from the army by a fragment
of the palisade.*

Ordering Captain Z. T. Adams to turn his Napoleons on
the column moving into the fort (the gallant Mayo had
already turned his Columbiad upon them), I returned into
the work, and, placing men behind every cover that could be
found, poured at close range a deadlier fire into the flank of

.

*I was told, several years after the war, by a United States marine
named Clark, that I was distinctly seen and recognized by a comrade
and himself who had feigned death in front of the north-east salient,
and that his comrade rose from his place of concealment to shoot
me, but before he could fire was shot inthe head by a soldier in the
fort. I never thought of danger from that direction.—W. L.