Fort Fisher is located on a narrow strip of land on Pleasure Island south of Wilmington, NC. It was situated so that to could fire on ship coming down the cost of NC as well as any ships trying to sail up the Cape Fear River. This also protected the fort from a land attack on two sides as well as forced the enemy to attack along a narrow front. Because of the roughness of the seas in the area it was known as the Southern Gibraltar.
The Federal forces attacked Fort Fisher twice during the Civil War.
For their actions during the Battle of Fort Fisher, fifty-one soldiers, sailors and Marines were awarded the Medal of Honor.
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First Battle of Fort Fisher
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The First Battle of Fort Fisher, fought from December 7 to December 27, 1864, was a failed attempt by Union forces to capture the fort guarding Wilmington, North Carolina, the South's last major port on the Atlantic Ocean.
After the failed Bermuda Hundred Campaign, Major General Benjamin Butler and his Army of the James were assigned to an amphibious expedition against Fort Fisher. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant had originally designated one of Butler's subordinates, Major General Godfrey Weitzel, to lead the expedition, but Butler, the senior major general of volunteers in the Army, demanded that he lead the troops himself and Grant acquiesced.
Fort Fisher, on Confederate Point, nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy", was a formidable target commanding the Cape Fear River. It encompassed 14,500 ft.² and was surrounded by a 10-foot parapet and a network of bombproofs, most of which were 30 feet high. Many obstructions were laid around it, including land mines (called torpedoes in this era), abatis, and deep ditches. There were more than 50 heavy cannon, including 15 Columbiads and a 150-pounder Armstrong gun, behind a 60-foot mound of earth near the sea, named the Mound Battery. The fort's garrison of 1,400 men was commanded by Colonel William Lamb. Additional reinforcements were available from General Braxton Bragg at Sugar Loaf, 4 miles away.
The Union naval expedition under Rear Admiral David D. Porter comprised the largest fleet of the war, nearly 60 warships plus troop transports for 6,500 soldiers. Learning that the Union troops had embarked from Hampton Roads on December 13, Confederate General Robert E. Lee dispatched a division under Major General Robert F. Hoke to reinforce Lamb.
Butler did not coordinate the timing with Porter adequately, so that when his troops departed reinforcements discouraged further Union attempts. Despite explicit orders from Grant that he was to besiege the fort if he could not seize it, Butler called off the expedition on December 27 and returned to Fort Monroe.
The fiasco at Fort Fisher, specifically Butler's disobeyance of his direct orders—orders which Butler failed to communicate either to Porter or to Weitzel—gave Grant an excuse to relieve Butler, replacing him in command of the Army of the James by Major General Edward Ord. President Abraham Lincoln, recently reelected, no longer needed to keep the prominent Republican in the Army and he was relieved on January 8, 1865.
Second Battle of Fort Fisher
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Alfred Terry had previously commanded troops during the Siege of Charleston Harbor and understood the importance of coordinating with the Union Navy. He and Admiral Porter made well laid out plans for the joint attack. Terry would send one division of United States Colored Troops under Charles J. Paine to hold off Hoke's division on the peninsula. Terry's other division under Adelbert Ames, supported by an independent brigade under Col. Joseph Carter Abbott, would move down the peninsula and attack the fort from the land face, striking the landward wall on the river side of the peninsula. Porter organized a landing force of 2,000 sailors and marines to land and attack the fort's sea face, on the seaward end of the same wall.
On January 13, Terry landed his troops in between Hoke and Fort Fisher. Hoke was unwilling to risk opening the route to Wilmington and remained unengaged while the entire Union force landed safely ashore. The next day Terry moved south towards the fort to reconnoiter the fort and decided that an infantry assault would succeed.
On January 15, Porter's gunboats opened fire on the sea face of the fort and by noon they succeeded in silencing all but two guns. During this bombardment Hoke sent about 1,000 troops from his line to Fort Fisher, however only about 400 were able to land and make it into the defense while the others were forced to turn back. About this time the sailors and marines, led by Lt. Commander Kidder Breese, landed and moved against the point where the fort's land and sea faces met, a feature known as "the Pulpit." The attack was a disaster. The marines were supposed to provide covering fire for the charging sailors, armed with revolvers and cutlasses; instead, the assault went forward in an unorganized mass. General Whiting personally led the defense and routed the assault.
The attack, however, drew Confederate attention away from the river gate, where General Ames prepared to launch his attack. At 2:00 in the afternoon he sent forward his first brigade, under the command of Brevet Brig. Gen. Newton Martin Curtis, as Ames waited with the brigades of Colonels Galusha Pennypacker and Louis Bell. An advance guard from Curtis's brigade used axes to cut through the palisades and abatis. Curtis's brigade took heavy casualties as it overran the outer works and stormed the first traverse. At this point Ames ordered Pennypacker's brigade forward, which he accompanied into the fort. As Ames marched forward, Confederate snipers zeroed in on his party, and cut down a number of his aides around him. Pennypacker's men fought their way through the river side gate, and General Ames ordered a portion of his men to fortify a position within the interior of the fort. Meanwhile the Confederates turned the cannons in Battery Buchanan at the southern tip of the peninsula and fired on the northern wall as it fell into Union hands. Ames observed that Curtis's lead units had become stalled at the fourth traverse, and he ordered forward Bell's brigade, but Bell was killed by sharpshooters before ever reaching the fort. Seeing the Union attackers crowd into the breach and interior, General Whiting took the opportunity to personally lead a counterattack. Charging into the Union soldiers, Whiting received multiple demands to surrender, and when he refused he was shot down, mortally wounded.
Porter's gunboats helped maintain the Federal momentum. His gunners' aim proved to be deadly accurate and began clearing out the defenders as the Union troops approached the sea wall. Curtis's troops gained the heavily contested 4th traverse. Colonel Lamb began gathering up every last soldier in the fort, including sick and wounded from the hospital, for a last ditch counterattack. Just as he was about to order a charge, he fell severely wounded and was brought next to General Whiting in the fort's hospital. General Ames made a suggestion for the Union troops to entrench in their current positions. Upon hearing this notion, a frenzied Curtis grabbed a spade and threw it over Confederate trenches and shouted, "Dig Johnnies, for I'm coming for you." About an hour into the battle, Curtis fell wounded while going back to confer with Ames. Colonel Pennypacker also fell wounded before the battle ended.
The grueling battle lasted for hours, long after dark, as shells plunged in from the sea and General Ames struggled with a division that became increasingly disorganized as his regimental leaders and all of his brigade commanders fell dead or wounded. General Terry sent forward Abbott's brigade to reinforce the attack, then joined Ames in the interior of the fortress. Meanwhile in Fort Fisher's hospital Colonel Lamb turned over command to Major James Reilly and General Whiting sent one last plea to General Bragg to send reinforcements. Still believing the situation in Fort Fisher was under control and tired of Whiting's demands, Bragg instead dispatched General Alfred H. Colquitt to relieve Whiting and assume command at Fort Fisher. At 9:30p.m. Colquitt landed at the southern base of the fort just as Lamb, Whiting and the Confederate wounded were being evacuated to Battery Buchanan.
At this point, the Confederate hold on Fort Fisher was untenable. The seaward batteries had been silenced, almost all of the north wall had been captured, and Ames had fortified a bastion within the interior. Terry, however, had concluded to finish the battle that night. Ames, ordered to maintain the offensive, organized a flanking maneuver, sending some of his men to advance outside the land wall, and come up behind the Confederate defenders of the last traverse. Within a few minutes the Confederate defeat was unmistakable. Colquitt and his staff rushed back to their rowboats just moments before Abbott's men seized the wharf. Major Reilly held up a white flag and walked into the Union lines to announce the fort would surrender. Just before 10 p.m. General Terry rode to Battery Buchanan to receive the official surrender of the fort from General Whiting.