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a peculiar affection for the city. Even when Gen. Beauregard directed the evacuation of the city, so as to provide a force with which to fall upon Sherman, the President wrote such a despatch to Gen. Hardee, commanding in Charleston, as led him to suspend the evacuation, and obliged Beauregard to assume command, and to direct imperatively the measure to be completed.

ruary.

Gen. Hardee completed the evacuation of the city on the 17th FebHe destroyed the cotton warehouses, arsenals, two iron-clads, and some vessels in the ship-yard; but he was compelled to leave to the enemy all the heavy ordnance that could not be brought off, including two hundred pieces of artillery, which could only be spiked and temporarily disabled. A terrible incident of the evacuation, was an accidental explosion of powder in the large building at the depot of the Northwestern railroad, destroying several hundred lives. The building was blown into the air a whirling mass of ruins. From the depot the fire spread rapidly, and, communicating with the adjoining buildings, threatened destruction to that part of the city. Four squares, embracing the area bounded by Chapel, Alexander, Charlotte and Washington streets, were consumed before the conflagration was subdued.

Charleston came into the enemy's possession a scarred and mutilated city. It had made a heroic defence for nearly four years; for blocks not a building could be found that was exempt from the marks of shot and shell; what were once fine houses, presented great gaping holes in the sides and roof, or were blackened by fire; at almost every step were to be found evidences of destruction and ruin wrought by the enemy. After a display of heroism and sacrifice unexcelled in the war, this most famous city of the South fell, not by assault, or dramatic catastrophe, but in consequence of the stratagem of a march many miles away from it.

The evacuation of Charleston having been successfully accomplished, Hardee and Beauregard retired to Charlotte, whither Cheatham was making his way from Augusta to join them.

CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER-FALL OF WILMINGTON.

An important branch of Sherman's expedition through the Carolinas led from Wilmington. It was proposed by Gen. Grant to open still another base of operations towards Richmond, and with the capture of Wilmington, to effect an early communication with Sherman, and to sustain his march north by a co-operating column. Besides, it was important to get possession of Wilmington, as the most important sea-coast port left to the Confederates, through which to get supplies from abroad, and send cotton and other products out by blockade-runners. The Federal navy

had been unable to seal the harbour, and Secretary Welles had been forced to confess, that fifty fast Federal steamers had been quite unable to maintain the blockade here. The theory of the enemy was that the nature of the outlet of Cape Fear River was such that it required watching for sc great a distance, that without possession of the land north of New Inlet, or Fort Fisher, it was impossible for the navy to entirely close the harbor against the entrance of blockade runners.

An expedition directed by Gen. Grant, in the close of December, 1864, to capture Fort Fisher, had failed of success. For this expedition there had been assembled in Hampton Roads, under command of Admiral Porter, what Gen. Grant designated as "the most formidable armada ever collected for concentration upon one given point." The co-operating land force consisted of sixty-five hundred men, detached from Gen. Butler's command before Richmond. The expedition got off on the 13th December. Accompanying it was a vessel loaded with a large quantity of powder, to be exploded as near the fort as possible; Gen. Butler having obtained the singular idea of levelling the fort, or demoralizing the garrison by the shock of the explosion. The boat was blown up in the night of the 24th December, and attracted such little attention that the Confederates supposed it to be nothing more than the bursting of one of the enemy's guns, and were never enlightened as to the object of the explosion until informed of it by Northern newspapers.

Porter's fleet had already commenced a bombardment of the fort; and on the 25th December, under cover of this fire, a landing was effected by the enemy without opposition, and a reconnoissance pushed up towards the fort. The result of the reconnoissance was that Gen. Butler declined to attack, and very suddenly ordered the re-embarkation of the troops and the return of the expedition. This conduct of Butler was the occasion of his removal from command, and of a sharp recrimination which ran through official documents, newspapers, and even the lowest forms of personal controversy between himself and Gen. Grant. In a letter published in a Northern journal, Gen. Butler congratulated himelf that he had retired from command, without having on his skirts the blood of his soldiers needlessly sacrificed-referring to Grant's list of butcheries and utter disregard of life in the Virginia campaign; and it could be said, if his powder ship had proved a ridiculous toy, it was at least not so expensive as Grant's experiment with the mine at Petersburg.

The fleet did not follow Butler's transports, and the persistence of Porter encouraged Grant to make another attempt to take Fort Fisher and secure Wilmington. He selected Gen. Terry to command the second expedition. The troops composing it consisted of the same that composed the former, with the addition of a small brigade numbering about fifteen hundred men, and a small siege train. The expedition sailed from Fortress

GEN. BRAGG'S MISFORTUNE.

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Monroe on the 6th January, 1865, but, owing to the difficulties of the weather, did not reach its destination until the 12th.

Gen. Braxton S. Bragg appeared again on the military stage, thrust there by President Davis, in the second defence of Wilmington. A Virginia newspaper announced the event irreverently, as follows: "Gen. Bragg has been appointed to command at Wilmington: Goodbye Wilmington!" There was no confidence in this Confederate commander; and although Fort Fisher had held out against a naval bom. bardment, and its garrison was largely increased when Bragg took command, it was very much feared that the enemy would obtain with him some new advantage, would effect some surprise, or succeed by some untoward event.

These fears were to be exactly realized. Fort Fisher consisted of two fronts the first, or land front, running across the peninsula, at this point seven hundred yards wide, was four hundred and eighty yards in length, while the second, or sea front, ran from the right of the first parallel to the beach, to the Mound Battery-a distance of thirteen hundred yards. The land front was intended to resist any attack from the north; the sea front to prevent any of the enemy's vessels from running through New Inlet, or landing troops on Federal Point.

It was evidently the important concern to prevent a landing of the enemy's troops, or to dislodge them as soon as they got ashore; and Bragg's forces were disposed with that view, Gen. Hoke holding a line north of Fort Fisher. On the 13th January, Terry succeeded, under a heavy fire from the fleet, in landing several thousand troops on the seabeach, some five or six miles above Fort Fisher. The place of landing was admirably selected; the troops being disembarked just above the neck of the sound, interposing a small surface of water between them and an attacking force, or compelling such force to work around the lower extreme of the sound-either of which movements would have to be executed under the fire of the whole fleet.

It was the purpose of Hoke to attack the enemy as soon as he advanced, and his cavalry was thrown out on his right flank, to observe the movements of the enemy, and report his first step towards establishing a line across the neck of land to the river. But it was found the next morning, that through the imperfect vigilance of the Confederates, the enemy had laid out a second line. During the night his troops, passing between Hoke's cavalry, and threading their way through the thick marshy undergrowth, made their way to the river, and next morning held an intrenched line on Hoke's right flank, extending nearly across the peninsula. Gen. Bragg at first gave the order to charge the enemy in his works, but after a close reconnoissance which discovered his force and position, determined to withdraw after reinforcing the fort, which was held by Gen. Whiting,

with a garrison increased to about twenty-five hundred men. In the afternoon the enemy pushed a reconnoissance within five hundred yards of the fort. It seemed probable that troops could be got within two hundred yards of the work without serious loss; and it was a matter of doubt with the enemy, whether the necessary ammunition could be supplied by the open beach, if regular approaches were determined on. It was decided to assault the next day.

While these movements on land were taking place, the enemy's fleet had held Fort Fisher enveloped in a terrific fire for three days. More than four hundred guns poured torrents of shells and missiles on every spot. There were three divisions of the fleet-the first, led by the "Brooklyn," numbered one hundred and sixteen guns; the second, by the "Minnesota," one hundred and seventy-six guns; and the third, composed of gunboats, with one hundred and twenty-three guns. During the afternoon of the 15th January-the day appointed for the assault-this immense armament poured in a concentric fire upon the fort; and while the tossing clouds of smoke incessantly rolled up from the water, Terry organized his force for the assault-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 of the fort.

The rapid fire from the water prevented the Confederates from using either artillery or musketry, on the advancing lines of the enemy, until they had got within sixty yards of the fort, when the fire of the fleet lifted so as not to involve the assaulting column. The Confederates were brought to the charge after having been packed in the bomb-proofs for fifty-six hours, many of them benumbed and exhausted. Capt. Braddy's company guarding the sally-port gave way. From seven to about ten o'clock at night, the fighting went on from traverse to traverse; it was a hand-to-hand fight, a heroic defence, in which bravery, endurance and devotion failed to overcome numbers. The enemy had not lost a man until he entered the fort, and the loss that he confessed to in the entire affair of seven or eight hundred killed and wounded, must have taken place within its inclosures. The garrison at last driven from the fort, retreated down the peninsula to the cover of some works near the inlet. But further resistance was useless; and about midnight, Gen. Whiting surrendered himself and men as prisoners of war, numbering over eighteen hundred, the remainder of his force being killed or wounded.

The fall of Fort Fisher ultimately decided the fate of Wilmington. It was followed by the blowing up of Fort Caswell, and the abandonment of the works on Smith's Island, which gave the enemy entire control of the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Fort Anderson, the main defence on the west bank of the river, was evacuated on the 19th February, on the appearance of Porter's fleet before it, in conjunction with a land force under

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Schofield moving up both sides of the river. Wilmington was occupied without resistance; and the command of Gen. Bragg, which had remained idle there for more than a month (despite the earnest protest of Gen. Beauregard, who in vain had represented to President Davis that with the fall of Fort Fisher Wilmington became useless, and that the command there should be used at the earliest possible moment in the field against Sherman), was at last moved to what had now become the dominant theatre of hostilities in the Carolinas.

The new base which the enemy had now opened, was well defined by Gen. Grant as auxiliary to Sherman. The State of North Carolina, was constituted into a new military department, and Gen. Schofield, whose corps had been transferred here from the Tennessee lines, was assigned to command. The following instructions were given him by Gen. Grant :

"CITY POINT, VA., January 31, 1865. General: Your movements are intended as co-operative with Sherman's through the States of South and North Carolina. The first point to be attained is to secure Wilmington. Goldsboro will then be your objective point, moving either from Wilmington or Newbern, or both, as you deem best. Should you not be able to reach Goldsboro, you will advance on the line or lines of railway connecting that place with the sea-coast-as near to it as you can, building the road behind you. The enterprise under you has two objects: the first is to give Gen. Sherman material aid, if needed, in his march north: the second, to open a base of suppiles for him on his line of march. As soon, therefore, as you can determine which of the two points, Wilmington or Newbern, you can best use for throwing supplies to the interiour, you will commence the accumulation of twenty days' rations and forage for sixty thousand men and twenty thousand animals. You will get of these as many as you can house and protect to such point in the interiour as you may be able to occupy.

* * *

THE CAMPAIGN IN NORTH CAROLINA.

When Sherman left behind him the smoking ruins of Columbia, it was thought by the Confederates that he would move towards Charlotte, where all the rolling stock of the railroads destroyed had been run, and from which it could not be removed, on account of the railroad beyond that being of a different gauge. On the 21st February, Sherman passed through Winnsboro on the road to Charlotte; but on the 23d, his army suddenly swung on a grand right wheel, and moved rapidly off towards Fayetteville. On the 12th March, it reached Fayetteville. Meanwhile preparations had been made by the enemy on the coast, for a movement on Goldsboro in two columns-one from Wilmington, and the other from Newbern-and to repair the railroad leading there from each place, as well as to supply Sherman by Cape Fear River toward Fayetteville, if it became necessary. The column from Newbern was attacked on the 8th March, near Kinstor,