The above picture and article were transcribed from Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, dated January 18,

          1865:

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The Capture of Fort Fisher

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          After the failure of the first attempt against Fort Fisher in December, the fleet returned to Beaufort to await further order from the President and Secretary of the Navy. Admiral Porter still remained confident that a persistent effort to capture the fort would succeed. The reports obtained from prisoners indicated that in case an assault had been ventured by General Butler it would have been success. How far Lieutenant General Grant coincided with this opinion we do not know. But he was so far dissatisfied with Butler's conduct of the expedition that at his suggestion that officer was removed. General Grant certainly believed that if the fort could not be taken by assault, there were other means which would insure its capture. It was unlike him to give the expedition up after having once undertaken it. And what was of still greater importance, Wilmington must be taken in order to secure for General Sherman a convenient water base in North Carolina for co-operation with the armies about Richmond. General Grant's plan for the next campaign is a comprehensive one, and the capture of Fort Fisher was an essential preliminary upon which many minor details of that campaign depend. In one way or another the capture must be accomplished, and the sooner the better.

          It was taken for granted by the rebels that the attempt would not be repeated -- at least not in connection with a land force. Hoke's rebel division was there fore withdrawn from Federal Point. This conviction of security was doubtless increased by the opinion publicly expressed by General Weitzel that the rebel work was impregnable by assault. The result also of the first bombardment, though it was pronounced terrific, was not such as to give a merely naval attack any hope of success.

          In the mean time the military division of the expedition was considerably reinforced. General Butler's force had numbered 6500. To these another brigade was added, and to General Terry was given the command of the division.

          Orders to move from Beaufort were received January 11. No warning was given to the enemy by delay, and the weather favored a prompt movement. The fleet arrived off Federal Point on the morning of the 13th, and the troops were landed with twelve days' provisions in the afternoon. The naval engagement commenced at 7:30am. Admiral Porter sent in the New Ironsides, in whose lead followed for Monitors -- the Saugus, Canonicus, Monadnock, and Mahopac. These cam with in a thousand yards of the fort, and drew its fire in order to ascertain the position of its guns as a guide to their own fire. This bombardment began to tell soon upon the southern angle of Fort Fisher. The traverses began to disappear, and one after another the guns were silenced. "By way of letting the enemy know that we did not intend to take any unfair advantage of him by using the iron vessels alone," Porter ordered the wooden ships, led by the Brooklyn, to advance to attack. Those performed their part "in the handsomest manner; a mistake was committed except firing too rapidly and making too much smoke." At night the wooden vessels retired , and the iron-clads fired irregularly all night. A good portion of the troops were landed, and were within a mile and a half of the the fort, occupying a line along the entire width of the peninsula. A 15-inch gun burst during the day on the Mahopac, wounding three persons, two of whom were officers. 

          On the 14th , Saturday, the bombardment was renewed and kept up till sunset, when, says Admiral Porter, "the fort was reduced to a pulp." During the day a careful reconnoissance was made by General Terry, who determined to risk an assault on the following day.

          On the 15th, arrangements having been made between the naval and military commanders for the proposed assault, all the vessels of the fleet united in a heavy fire, which was kept up until 3 o'clock pm. This was the time fixed upon for the assault. Terry had placed Paine's Division of colored soldiers along the line facing Wilmington, while Ames's Division, supported by fourteen hundred marines, advanced to the assault. The naval brigade was under the command of Commander K. R. Breese. Lieutenant Cushing was one of the company commanders. This column advanced against the seaward front of the fort on the left. During the past hour or two the bombardment had been unusually terrific, the sailors in the mean while having laid down behind partial breast-works. But the moment the fleet ceased firing and the marines rose to the feet the garrison of the fort, numbering over two thousand, appeared on the parapet. This was evidently thought by the rebels to be the main column of the assault, and the whole available force of the fort was turned against them. Before this fire the troops began at length to waver. The men fell thick and fast, some of them being rolled by the surf into the water. Here the brave Lieutenants Preston and Porter fell. This column was repulsed amidst the cheers of the rebel garrison. This repulse was owing to lack of organization among the marines. It was intended that the party boarding the parapet should be covered by marines and sharp-shooters in the trenches which had been dug withing 200 yards of the fort. No such support was given, and assault failed.

          In the mean time Ames's Division had already approached the western side of the fort. The garrison had been aware of their presence in the woods, but supposed that they were intended to reinforce the naval column. The movement which was really made had the effect of a surprise. The naval brigade had only been in action a few minutes when Ames's column, from Cape Fear River side, entered the fort at the west end through the sally-port. The abbatis was sealed, and the flags of the One Hundred and Seventeenth New York and the Thirteenth Indiana, of General Curtis's Brigade, were quickly planted on the fifth and sixth traverse the enemy made a stand, but a bold bayonet charge drove them to the seventh. The top of the eighth  had been gained when the assailants were driven back into the seventh, where the fighting lasted over an hour, when, at a given signal, Porter aided the troops  by bombarding the eastern portion of the fort. It was a smooth sea, and such accuracy was obtained in the firing from the fleet that only two or three shells fell among our own force, while they produced considerable effect on the enemy.

          "These traverses," says Admiral Porter, "are immense bomb-proofs, about sixty feet long, fifty feet wide, and twenty feet high -- seventeen of them in all -- being on the northeast face. Between each traverse or bomb-proof are one or two heavy guns. The fighting lasted until ten o'clock at night, the Ironsides and Monitors firing through the traverses in advance of our troops, and the level strips of land called Federal Point being enfiladed by the ships to prevent reinforcements reaching the rebels."

          At four o'clock one half the fort was in our possession. This position was maintained until the arrival of reinforcements, when another charge was made at nine o'clock. This drove the garrison toward the end of the Point, making here and there a stand at the water-batteries, until they were pushed to the extremity, when they surrendered. At the time both General Whiting and Colonel Lamb, who conducted the defense of the fort, were lying wounded in one of the bomb-proofs of the water-batteries. Our losses had been great -- how great it is impossible now to say with accuracy. It has been estimated at 900, but this includes the naval loss also, as well as the casualties from the explosion of the magazine the next morning. The naval brigade lost one hundred and seventy men. In the military division every one of the three commanders of the brigades engaged in the assault -- Curtis, Pennybacker, and Bell -- were wounded. The last of these has died.

          The scene which followed upon the surrender was brilliant beyound description. The hearty cheer from the captured fort was echoed from the entire fleet. From every vessel rockets ere thrown up into the air, filling the sky with brightness. No one had escaped from the fort to tell the tale of disaster. Nineteen hundred prisoners were taken and seventy-two guns. The fort had been manned with 2300 men. 400 of whom were killed or wounded. 

          The next morning after the capture of the fort a terrible accident occurred, which somewhat marred the cheer of victory. By some most culpable negligence the soldiers were allowed to approach the magazine of the fort with lighted candles. This occasioned an explosion at 8 o'clock am., which resulted in a loss of about 200 men. This loss fell chiefly upon three regiments -- the One Hundred New York, and the Fourth New Hampshire, Colonel Alonzo Alden, of the One Hundred and Sixty-ninth, had both his legs broken, and is reported dead.

          Later advices from Admiral Porter confirm that Fort Caswell, on Oak Island, ahd been blown up the the enemy. This work commanded the Old Inlet, was built of granite, and mounted a large number of guns. The rebel steamers Tallahasee and Chickamauga had also been blown up. Admiral Porter states his lose at 21 officers killed and wounded and 309 men.

          In his report the Admiral says: "I have since visited Fort Fisher and its adjoining works, and find their strength greatly beyond what I had conceived. An engineer might be excusable in saying they could not be captured except by regular siege. I wonder even now how it was done. The work as I said before, is really stronger than the Malakoff Tower, which defied so long the combine power of France and England; and yet it is captured by a handful of men, under the fire of the guns of the fleet, and in seven hours after the attack commenced in earnest.

​          "The success," he adds, "is so great that we should not complain. Men, it seems, must die that this Union may live; and the Constitution under which we have gained our prosperity must be maintained. We regret our companions in arms, and shed a tear over their remains; but if these rebels should succeed  we would have nothing but regret left us, and our lives would be spent in terror and sorrow."

          General Terry has added another to his laurels by the success of his assault on Fort Fisher. At the capture of Fort Pulaski, at the battle of Pocotaligo, in the operations which led to the capture of Morris Island and Fort Wagner, in the tedious campaign of last summer upon the James, he has taken a distinguished part. And now the country resounds over his last and most brilliant achievement at Fort Fisher. Although not a graduate of West Point, he was in youth a military student, and entered the war with as much thorough knowledge of the art of war as his peers from West Point. He is about six feet and two inches high, slender, with bright hair and blue eyes, and a grave but gentle expression of countenance. As modest as he is brave, he well merits Admiral Porter's enthusiastic praise as "the beau-ideal of a soldier and a general." Connecticut has given to the war Lyon, Sedgwick, Mansfield, Foote and Winthrop, but none may be more justly proud than of the hero of Fort Fisher.

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