234 Norra Carotina Troops, 1861-65.

from the remainder of the land face. Major Reilly had —
General Whiting and myself hurriedly removed on stretchers
to Battery Buchanan, where he purposed to make a stand.
When we left the hospital the men were fighting over the ad-
joining traverse and the spent balls fell like hail-stones
around us. The garrison then fell back in an orderly retreat
along the sea face, the rear-guard keeping the enemy engaged
as they advanced slowly and cautiously in the darkness as
far as the Mound Battery, where they halted. Some of the
men, cut.off from the main body, had to retreat as best they
could over the river marsh, while some few unarmed artil-
lerists barely eluded the enemy by following the seashore.
When we reached Battery Buchanan there was a mile of level
beach between us and our pursuers, swept by two 11-inch
guns and a 24-pounder, and in close proximity to the battery,
a commodious wharf where transports could have come. to
carry the men off. We expected to cover with this battery
the retreat of the remnant of the garrison, but we found the
guns spiked, and every means of transportation, even the
barge and crew of the colonel commanding, taken by Cap-
tain R. F. Chapman, of our navy, who following the example
of General Bragg, had abandoned us to our fate. None of
the guns of Fort Fisher were spiked, the men fighting them
until they were destroyed or their defenders were killed,
wounded, or driven out of the batteries by overwhelming
numbers. The enemy threw out a heavy skirmish line and
sent their fourth brigade to Battery Buchanan, where it ar-
rived about 10 p. m., and received the surrender of the gar-
rison from Major James H. Hill and Lieutenant George D.
Parker. Some fifteen minutes or more before the surrender,
while lying on a stretcher near General Whiting in front of
the battery, and witnessing the grand pyrotechnic display of
the fleet over the capture of Fort Fisher, I was accosted by
General A. H. Colquitt, who had been ordered to the fort to
take command. I had a few moments’ hurried conversation
with him, informed him of the assault, of the early loss of
a portion of the work and garrison, and that when I fell it
had for a time demoralized the men, but that the enemy was
equally demoralized by our unexpected resistance; and I as-