The Federal siege of Petersburg VA during the Civil War was a key event that led directly to Robert E Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Less well-known, however, is the joint Union Army-Navy amphibious landing at Fort Fisher, near Wilmington NC, which completed Lee’s encirclement.
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During the siege of Petersburg, General Robert E Lee’s lifeline was the port of Wilmington NC, one of the only remaining Confederate ports that had not already been closed down by the Federal blockades. Supplies from the port were carried along several railroad lines to Richmond and Petersburg and provided the vital link that kept Lee’s army in the field.
The critical harbor was protected by Fort Fisher, one of the strongest citadels in the entire South. In the summer of 1862, as the Union Navy began imposing its Anaconda blockade along the Atlantic, Col. William Lamb arrived in Wilmington NC and, recognizing the importance of the port, supervised construction of a massive defensive fort at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Since traditional brick and mortar forts had already demonstrated their vulnerability to rifled cannon fire, Lamb built Fort Fisher using earth and sand instead, which could absorb the impact of even the largest explosive shells. The seaward side of the fortress was protected by 22 cannons, while the landward side bristled with 25. Inside each earthen mound was a reinforced chamber for ammunition and bombproof shelters, connected to the others by underground tunnels. The fort was virtually impregnable, and under its guns the Confederates were able to keep the port open for a fleet of blockade runners who delivered vital supplies imported from the Caribbean. It became known as “The Gibraltar of the South”.
When Lee and the Army of Virginia became holed up at Petersburg, Wilmington turned into his lifeline. During the siege, General Ulysses S Grant expended considerable effort towards cutting the railroad tracks and interrupting the flow of Confederate supplies, but at first he was simply not strong enough to strike at the port itself and close off the source of Lee’s lifeblood.
It wasn’t until December 1864 that Grant felt himself at enough of an advantage to spare the resources for an attack on Wilmington. Mobile Bay had just been captured and that freed up a significant Federal naval force, and the Confederate General Braxton Bragg had left Wilmington to join General Joseph Johnston’s army in Georgia against Union General William T Sherman’s march across Georgia, taking 2,000 troops with him and thereby weakening Fort Fisher’s garrison. Only about 2,000 Confederates remained.
Grant decided to take the opportunity. A joint army and navy expedition was assembled under General Benjamin Butler and Admiral David Porter to attack and capture Wilmington. In Richmond, General Lee learned of the impending attack and sent 6,000 troops under General Robert Hoke to reinforce Fort Fisher.
The Federals arrived on Christmas Eve and opened up a massive naval bombardment. Although they managed to blow up an ammunition reserve and destroy several guns, most of the shells either missed their target or were absorbed by the earthen walls. Around 1,000 Union troops were then landed as an advance force, but they were stopped by Hoke’s Confederates.
With his attack stalled, Butler concluded that the Fort was too strong to attack, and on December 27 he pulled his soldiers off the beach and back to the boats, then withdrew the fleet. This was contrary to the instructions he had received from Grant, who had told him to lay siege to the Fort if the assault failed.
When Grant learned that his orders had been disobeyed, he angrily relieved Butler of command, placed General Alfred Terry in charge, and planned a second assault. On January 12, 1865, Admiral Porter began a naval bombardment with 56 ships, which continued for three days. During this time, 8,000 Federals, including a division of US Colored Troops, landed north of the Fort, intending to attack the landward side; at the same time, another force of 1600 armed sailors and 400 Marines landed at the seaward side as a diversion.
After six hours of fierce fighting, the Federals managed to break into the Fort at Shepherd Battery, and the Confederates retreated to Battery Buchanan on the other side of the parade ground. But the Union troops moved outside the Fort and around its walls to attack Battery Buchanan from the rear. At 10:00pm the Confederates surrendered.
Elated by their victory, the Federal troops began a drunken celebration that lasted all night. But it had a tragic ending: around dawn, someone, probably a drunken Union trooper, accidentally set off an explosion in one of the powder magazines which demolished a portion of the Fort and killed over 200 Federal soldiers and Confederate prisoners.
The loss of Fort Fisher was a crippling blow to General Lee at Petersburg, who was now forced to move whatever supplies he could from the railroad center at Danville VA. It was not enough. Within two months, the Union Army would seize his last remaining railroad supply line, and force the Confederates to withdraw from Petersburg and abandon Richmond.
Today, most of the original Fort Fisher has been lost. During the Second World War a grass airfield was built on the Fort’s location, used by coastal patrol airplanes. Later, US Highway 421 was constructed through the location. By the time the Fort was declared a National Historical Landmark in 1960, only about ten percent of the original sand berms and wooden walls remained. In 1999 a seawall was put up to help control wave erosion at the Fort’s location.
The 300 acres surrounding the Fort are now protected in the Fort Fisher State Recreation Area. The remaining portion of the Fort itself is included in the Fort Fisher State Historic Site. There is a Visitors Center with maps and displays, and a walking trail that winds through some of the original sand berms and a reconstructed portion of palisade wall. A reconstruction of Shepherd Battery contains a replica 32-pound sea gun.
The North Carolina Underwater Archaeology department, which has carried out excavations offshore, has its headquarters at the Fort site, and some of the exhibits in the museum display artifacts recovered from wrecked Civil War warships and blockade runners. The Cape Fear Museum in Wilmington also has an interpretive exhibit about the fighting at Fort Fisher, with a display of artifacts and dioramas.
Some photos from a visit.
