houses, the large magazine, and by traverses, behind which they stubbornly resisted our advance. Hand-to-hand fighting of the most desperate character ensued, the huge traverses of the land-face being used successively by the enemy as breastworks, over the tops of which the contending parties fired in each other's faces. Nine of these were carried one after the other by our men.

When Bell's brigade was ordered into action I foresaw that more troops would probably be needed, and sent an order for Abbott's brigade to move down from the north line, at the same time requesting Captain Breese to replace them with his sailors and marines. I also directed General Paine to send me one of the strongest | regiments of his own division; these troops arrived at dusk and reported to General Ames. At six o'clock Abbott's brigade went into the fort; the regiment from Paine's division-the Twenty-seventh United States colored troops, Brevet Brigadier-General A. M. Blackman commanding-was brought up to the rear of the work, where it remained under fire for some time, and was then withdrawn. Until six o'clock the fire of the navy continued upon that portion of the work not occupied by us; after that time it was directed on the beach, to prevent the coming up of reinforcements, which it was thought might possibly be thrown over from the right bank of the river to Battery BuchanThe fighting for the traverses continued till nearly nine o'clock, two more of them being carried; then a portion of Abbott's brigade drove the enemy from their last remaining strongholds, and the occupation of the work was completed.

an.

The same brigade, with General Blackman's regiment, were immediately pushed down the Point to Battery Buchanan, whither many of the garrison had fled. On reaching the battery all of the enemy who had not been previously captured were made prisoners. Among them were Major-General Whiting, and Colonel Lamb, the commandant of the fort.

arms; considerable quantities of commissary stores, and full supplies of ammunition. Our prisoners numbered one hundred and twelve commissioned officers and one thousand nine hundred and seventy-one enlisted men.

I have no words to do justice to the behavior of both officers and men on this occasion; all that men could do they did. Better soldiers never fought. Of General Ames I have already spoken in a letter recommending his promotion. He commanded all the troops engaged, and was constantly under fire. His great coolness, good judgment, and skill were never more conspicuous than on this assault. Brigadier-General Curtis and Colonels Pennypacker, Bell and Abbott-the brigade commanders-led them with the utmost gallantry. Curtis was wounded, after fighting in the front rank, rifle in hand; Pennypacker, while carrying the standard of one of the regiments, the first man in a charge over the traverse. Bell was mortally wounded near the palisades.

Brigadier-General Paine deserves high praise for the zeal and energy displayed by him in constructing our defensive line, a work absolutely essential to our success.

Brevet Brigadier-General Blackman deserves mention for the prompt manner in which he brought his regiment up to the work, and afterward followed up the retreating enemy.

To Brevet Brigadier-General C. B. Comstock, aid-de-camp on the staff of the Lieutenant-General, I am under the deepest obligations. At every step of our progress I received from him the most valuable assistance. For the final success of our part of the operations the country is more indebted to him than to me.

Colonel George S. Dodge, Chief Quartermaster of the Army of the James, accompanied me as Chief Quartermaster of the forces under my command. His able and energetic performance of his multifarious duties was all that could be wished for, and reflected the highest honor upon him.

During the day Brevet Brigadier-General H. L. Abbott, Chief of Artillery, was busily engaged in landing artillery and ammunition, so that if the assault failed, siege operations might at once be commenced.

Consequent to the fall of Fisher, the enemy, during the nights of the sixteenth and seventeenth, blew up Fort Caswell, and abandoned both it and their very extensive works on Smith's island, at Smithville and Reeve's Point, thus placing in our hands all the works erected to defend the mouth of the Cape Fear river.

In all the works were found one hundred and sixty-nine pieces of artillery, nearly all of which are heavy; over two thousand stands of small

I shall have the honor to submit a supplemental report in reference to those subordinate officers and enlisted men who distinguished themselves on the occasion.

I should signally fail to do my duty were I to omit to speak in terms of the highest admiration of the part borne by the navy in our operations. In all ranks, from Admiral Porter to his seamen, there was the utmost desire not only to do their proper work, but to facilitate in every possible manner the operations of the land forces. To him and to the untiring efforts of

his officers and men are we indebted that our men, stores, tools, and ammunition were safely and expeditiously landed, and that our wounded and prisoners were embarked for transportation to the North; to the great accuracy and power of their fire it is owing that we had not to confront a formidable artillery in the assault; and that we were able, with but little loss to push forward the men, preparatory to it, to a point nearly as favorable for it as the one they would have occupied had siege operations been undertaken and the work systematically approached. The assault of the sailors and marines, although it failed, undoubtedly contributed somewhat to our success, and certainly nothing could surpass the perfect skill with which the fleet was handled by its commander. Every request which I made to Admiral Porter was most cheerfully complied with, and the utmost harmony has existed between, us from the outset to the present time.

I forward herewith General Ames' report. I have the honor to be, General, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

ALFRED H. TERRY,

Brigadier-General J. A. RAWLINS,

Major-General,

Chief of Staff, City Point, Virginia.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL COMSTOCK'S REPORT.

HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES FORCES, FORT FISHER,
NORTH CAROLINA, January 27, 1865.

SIR: I have the honor to submit the following report of engineer operations in connection with the capture of Fort Fisher, together with a sketch of that work and another of the country in the vicinity. Fort Fisher is situated on the peninsula between the Cape Fear river and the Atlantic ocean, about a mile and a half north-east of Federal Point. For five miles north of Federal Point this peninsula is sandy and low, not rising more than fifteen feet above high tide, the interior abounding in fresh-water swamps, often wooded and almost impassable, while much of the dry land, till one gets within half a mile of Fort Fisher, is covered with wood or low undergrowth, except a strip about three hundred yards wide along the sea-shore. The landing of the troops composing the expedition was effected on the sea-beach about five miles north of Fort Fisher, on January twelve, and Paine's division was at once pushed across to Cape Fear river, with instructions to take up a line to be held against any attack from the direction of Wilmington. This line, on the morning of January thirteen, was already defensible, and was further strengthened during the day,while on the fourteenth a second line was laid out and begun under charge of Lieutenant J. H. Price, in rear of its left. Pioneer companies were organized in Ames' and Paine's divisions, and, as during the fourteenth the fire of the rebel gunboat Chickamauga killed and wounded a number of our men, Lieutenant O'Keeffe, with his company of the Fifteenth regiment New York volunteer engineers, was directed to build a battery for

two thirty-pounder Parrotts on the bank of the river, to keep her off.

On the afternoon of January fourteenth a reconnoissance was pushed under the direction of the Major-General commanding to within five hundred yards of Fort Fisher, a small advanced work being taken possession of. This was at once turned into a defensive line, to be held against any attempt from Fort Fisher. The reconnoissance showed that the palisading in front of the work had been seriously injured by the navy fire; only nine guns could be seen on the land-front where sixteen had been counted on Christmas day; the steady, though not rapid fire of the navy prevented the enemy from using either artillery or musketry on the reconnoitring party; it seemed probable that troops could be got within two hundred yards of the work without serious loss, and it was a matter of great doubt whether the necessary ammunition could be supplied by the open beach, if regular approaches were determined on. It was decided to assault, and the assault was made on the fifteenth, at three and a half P. M., after three hours' of heavy navy fire, by three deployed brigades, following one another at intervals of about three hundred yards, and each making its final rush for the west end of the land-face, from a rough rifle-pit about three hundred yards from the work.

At the point attacked the palisading was less injured than elsewhere, it being partially hidden, and it was necessary to use axes to cut and timbers to batter it down, in order that the troops might pass rapidly through it. Powdersacks, for blowing these palisades down had been prepared, but were not used.

After seven hours' fighting, gaining traverse by traverse, the work was won.

Fort Fisher consists of two fronts-the first, or land-front, running across the peninsula at this point, seven hundred yards wide, is four hundred and eighty yards in length, while the second or sea-front runs from the right of the first parallel to the beach to the mound battery, a distance of thirteen hundred yards. The landfront is intended to resist any attack from the north, the sea-front to prevent any of our naval vessels from running through New Inlet or landing troops on Federal Point.

1. Land-Front.-This front consists of a half bastion on the left or Cape Fear river side, connected by a curtain with a bastion on the ocean side. The parapet is twenty-five feet thick, averages twenty feet in height, with traverses rising ten feet above it, and running back on their tops, which were from eight to twelve feet in thickness, to a distance of from thirty to forty feet from the interior crest. The traverses on the left half bastion were about twenty-five feet in length on top.

The earth for this heavy parapet and the enormous traverses at their inner ends, more than thirty feet in height, was obtained partly from a shallow exterior ditch, but mainly from the interior of the work. Between each pair of

traverses there was one or two guns. The traverses on the right of this front were only partially completed. A palisade, which is loopholed and has a banquette, runs in front of this face at a distance of about fifty feet in front of the foot of the exterior slope from the Cape Fear river to the ocean, with a position for a gun on the left of the front and the river, and another between the right of the front and the ocean. Through the middle traverse on the curtain was a bomb-proof postern, whose exterior opening was covered by a small redan for two field-pieces, to give flank fire along the curtain. The traverses were generally bombproofed for men or magazines. The slopes of the work appeared to have been revetted with marsh sod, or covered with grass, and to have had an inclination of forty-five degrees, or a little less. On those slopes most exposed to navy fire the revetment or grassing has been entirely destroyed, and the inclination reduced to thirty degrees.

The ends of traverses as they rise above the parapet are very ragged. Still all damage done to the earthwork can be readily repaired, its strength being about the same as before the bombardment. The damage done by the navy fire was, first to the palisades, which were so injured as in most places to be little obstacle to assaulting troops; second, to guns and carriages. There were originally on the front twenty-one guns and three mortars. Of these three fourths were rendered unserviceable by injuries to either gun or carriage. The gun in the right bastion, the field-pieces in front of the postern, and one or two mortars, were used against the assaulting troops.

There was a formidable system of torpedoes two hundred yards in advance of this front, the torpedoes being about eighty feet apart, and each containing about one hundred pounds of powder. They were connected with the fort by three sets of wires; fortunately the sets leading directly to those over which the army and navy columns moved had been cut by shells and no torpedo was exploded.

2. Sea-Front. This front consists of a series of batteries mounting in all twenty-four guns, the different batteries being connected by a strong infantry parapet, so as to form a continuous line. The same system of heavy traverses for the protection of the guns is used as on the land-front, and these traverses are also generally bomb-proofed.

Captain N. Adams, Fourth New Hampshire volunteers, and First Lieutenant J. H. Price, Fourth United States colored troops, commanding pioneer companies of Ames' and Paine's divisions, and First Lieutenant K. S. O'Keeffe, commanding company of Fifteenth New York volunteer engineers, have, with their commands, been of great service in the construction of batteries and defensive works. First Lieutenant A. H. Knowlton, Fourth New Hampshire volunteers, has rendered valuable assistance in making

On the night of the second the division, which had just returned to its camp from a demonstration against this point, received orders to prepare for a second expedition. It left camp on the third, and embarked on ocean transports at Ber muda Hundred, between the hours of seven and nine P. M., on the fourth instant.

The transport fleet sailed from Fortress Mon roe on the morning of the sixth, and the troops disembarked some four miles north of Fort Fisher on the thirteenth instant.

At three o'clock P. M. on the fifteenth we stormed Fort Fisher. Brevet Brigadier-General N. M. Curtis' brigade (the First) made a lodgement on the north-west angle of the fort. I immediately ordered up Colonel G. A. Pennypacker's brigade (the Second). The enemy was at once driven from behind the palisading extending from the fort to the river, and about one third of the work, its north-west angle, occupied by us. I then ordered up Colonel Bell's brigade (the Third), and moved it forward against and in rear of the sea-face of the work, the ground being much obstructed by the ruins of the barracks, lumber, and other rubbish; the enemy being protected by traverses, and taking advantage of the cover afforded by magazines, &c., checked our advance.

Fighting of a most obstinate character continued till after dark, during which time we made considerable advancement on the left, and captured about four hundred prisoners.

About eight o'clock P. M., Colonel Abbott with his brigade completed the occupation of the face of the work, extending from the ocean to the river. A general advance was now made, and the fort occupied without opposition.

The conduct of the officers and men of this division was most gallant. Aided by the fire of the navy and an attacking column of sailors and marines along the sea beach, we were able to pass over the open ground in front of the fort, through the gaps in the palisading in the