1864.] FORT FISHER. 493 had been in the West, out of reach of the politicians who had been so successful in breaking down McClellan and other able generals whose popularity had aroused their jealousy. Sherman soon saw his danger, and was anxious to get away into the pine woods again, where he would be free from political tricksters and from the crowd of cotton-buyers and traders who were daily flocking into Savannah. General Grant wished Sherman to take his army by sea to the James River to aid him against Richmond; but Sherman's plan was to march northward through South Carolina and North Carolina, and Grant finally consented to it. But it was determined to make an attempt first to capture Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, in North Carolina, which was then the only port remaining to the Confederacy. The navy had tried hard to close it; but Fort Fisher, its chief defence, was very strong, and blockade-runners could not be kept from entering the port while it was in possession of the enemy. A great fleet of war-vessels under Admiral Porter was therefore collected at Fortress Monroe, as well as many transports for carrying the troops, which were to be commanded by General Godfrey Weitzel. The whole expedition was under General Butler. Fort Fisher was near the end of a narrow peninsula which separates Cape Fear River from the Atlantic Ocean. Butler had formed a plan of loading a vessel with gunpowder, running it ashore near the fort, and exploding it, believing that it would either destroy the work altogether or so paralyze the garrison that the troops could easily take it. The powder-boat was prepared and stored with two hundred and fifteen tons of gunpowder. The expedition started on the 13th of December, but a violent storm caused much delay, and it was not until the night of the 23d when the powder-boat was anchored about three hundred yards from the fort. The vessel was disguised as a blockade-runner, and the fort therefore did not fire upon her. When the crew left her they set fire to a pile of pine wood in her cabin, lighted some candles which were so prepared as to light fuses when they burned down to a certain. length, and set going some clock-work fitted to explode a percussion-cap in a given time. The explosion took place in an hour and fifty-two minutes afterward, and although it was felt seventy miles away on land, and broke window-glasses in vessels CHAPTER XXXIX. SAVANNAH TO GOLDSBORO. SECRETARY STANTON IN SAVANNAH.-POLITICS.-SHERMAN DISGUSTED.-EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT FISHER.-BUTLER'S POWDER-BOAT.-HEAVY BOMBARDMENT.-GENERAL TERRY SUCCEEDS BUTLER.-BRAGG AGAIN.-GOOD-BY, WILMINGTON !-CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER.— GENERAL SCHOFIELD.-WILMINGTON TAKEN.-GOLDSBORO ENTERED.-SHERMAN'S MARCH FROM SAVANNAH.-WHEELER AND HAMPTON.-FLOODS.-THE SALKEHATCHIE.-HORRORS OF WAR.-SOUTH CAROLINA PUNISHED.-COTTON BURNING.-COLUMBIA SURRENDERED — BURNING OF THE CITY.-CONFEDERATE MONEY.-HARDEE EVACUATES CHARLESTON.-THE CITY IN FLAMES.-DESOLATION.-SUMTER AND THE FLAG.-JUS' LOOK AT HIS Hoss.CHERAW.-JOHNSTON AGAIN IN COMMAND.-HAMPTON AND KILPATRICK.-FAYETTEVILLE,— AVERYSBORO.-BATTLE OF BENTONSVILLE.-GOLDSBORO.-SHERMAN VISITS GRANT.-PRESIDENT LINCOLN.-SHERMAN RETURNS TO GOLDSboro. ENERAL SHERMAN had scarcely settled himself in his quarters in Savannah before politicians from Washington began to flock thither to see what they could make out of the situation. Mr. Stanton, the Secretary of War, was among the first of these. He stayed in the city several days, asked General Sherman many questions about the negroes, and even had interviews with their preachers, and inquired what they thought of Sherman. The question of giving votes to the negroes had even then begun to be discussed, and Mr. Stanton was anxious to find out whether General Sherman was favorable to the plans of the party in power. General Sherman thought it very strange that one of the heads of the Government should question "negroes concerning the character of a general who had commanded a hundred thousand men in battle, had captured cities, conducted sixty-five thousand men successfully across four hundred miles of hostile territory, and had just brought tens of thousands of freedmen to a place of security." But Sherman was a plain, straightforward soldier, whose aim was, as he himself says, "to whip the rebels." He had much sympathy for the negroes, and he had done all he could to aid them, but he had no interest in the attempt to use them as a political machine. It is not therefore wonderful that he should have been surprised at Mr. Stanton's course, nor that he should have made up his mind that the Secretary's solicitude for the blacks was prompted not by humanity but by politics. It was perhaps fortunate for General Sherman that his field of service 1864.] FORT FISHER. 493 had been in the West, out of reach of the politicians who had been so successful in breaking down McClellan and other able generals whose popularity had aroused their jealousy. Sherman soon saw his danger, and was anxious to get away into the pine woods again, where he would be free from political tricksters and from the crowd of cotton-buyers and traders who were daily flocking into Savannah. General Grant wished Sherman to take his army by sea to the James River to aid him against Richmond; but Sherman's plan was to march northward through South Carolina and North Carolina, and Grant finally consented to it. But it was determined to make an attempt first to capture Wilmington, on the Cape Fear River, in North Carolina, which was then the only port remaining to the Confederacy. The navy had tried hard to close it, but Fort Fisher, its chief defence, was very strong, and blockade-runners could not be kept from entering the port while it was in possession of the enemy. A great fleet of war-vessels under Admiral Porter was therefore collected at Fortress Monroe, as well as many transports for carrying the troops, which were to be commanded by General Godfrey Weitzel. The whole expedition was under General Butler. Fort Fisher was near the end of a narrow peninsula which separates Cape Fear River from the Atlantic Ocean. Butler had formed a plan of loading a vessel with gunpowder, running it ashore near the fort, and exploding it, believing that it would either destroy the work altogether or so paralyze the garrison that the troops could easily take it. The powder-boat was prepared and stored with two hundred and fifteen tons of gunpowder. The expedition started on the 13th of December, but a violent storm caused much delay, and it was not until the night of the 23d when the powder-boat was anchored about three hundred yards from the fort. The vessel was disguised as a blockade-runner, and the fort therefore did not fire upon her. When the crew left her they set fire to a pile of pine. wood in her cabin, lighted some candles which were so prepared as to light fuses when they burned down to a certain length, and set going some clock-work fitted to explode a percussion-cap in a given time. The explosion took place in an hour and fifty-two minutes afterward, and although it was felt seventy miles away on land, and broke window-glasses in vessels twelve miles distant at sea, it did no harm to the fort. It is said that not even the grass near it was injured, and that it attracted so little attention in the fort that the Confederates thought it was only the bursting of a gun. The fleet, which was one of the largest ever afloat, consisting of nearly sixty vessels, several of which were monitors, then bombarded the fort. The firing is said to have been magnificent and very accurate. The guns of the fort were soon silenced and two magazines were blown up. On the 25th Butler landed some troops, which went nearly up to the fort, but Butler recalled them and ordered the expedition to be given up. His conduct caused his removal from command by General Grant. Admiral Porter, who remained behind with the fleet, wrote to Grant that Fort Fisher could be taken by a proper commander. In consequence of this Grant sent back the troops, with General Alfred H. Terry as their leader. This expedition reached its destination on the 12th of January. In the mean time President Davis had sent General Bragg to take command in Wilmington. This officer, it will be remembered, was very unpopular after Chattanooga, and a Virginia newspaper showed the feeling against him in the Confederacy when it announced: "General Bragg has been appointed to command at Wilmington. Good-by, Wilmington!" The troops were landed (Jan. 13) some distance above the fort, under cover of the guns of the fleet, which kept up such a heavy fire that the garrison had to seek safety in the bombproofs. Fort Fisher mounted about seventy-five heavy guns, while the fleet carried five hundred, some of which were the largest in the world. The bombardment was kept up all the next day and until three o'clock in the afternoon of the 15th, when the signal was given for the assault by the blowing of the steam-whistles of the fleet. General Terry's troops had worked their way up by digging trenches to within about two hundred yards of the fort. As the rapid firing from the ships had prevented the Confederates from manning their guns or even using muskets, the Union troops advanced to within sixty yards before they were fired on. The bombardment had then to stop, for fear of hitting the Union soldiers, and the Confederates rushed out of their bomb-proofs, where they had lain for two days, and prepared to repel the assault. There was a pali 1865.] WILMINGTON TAKEN. 495 sade around the fort, but it had been much damaged by shot and shell, and the Union axemen soon opened a passage wide enough for the troops to pass through. The Confederates gave way at the gate, and the troops poured in, but there were several traverses or cross-walls in the fort, and the garrison fought from one to another of these with the greatest bravery. For five or six hours there was a desperate hand-to-hand struggle. The Confederates made a most heroic defence, but the traverses were taken one after the other, and about nine o'clock the fort was won. The garrison retreated to some other works near the end of the peninsula, but the commandant, General Whiting, seeing that further resistance was useless, surrendered with about eighteen hundred men, all that were left of the twenty-five hundred defenders of the fort. The Union loss in this dreadful struggle was nearly seven hundred. Unfortunately there was a further loss the next morning, the magazine of the fort exploding when the works were full of Union soldiers and sailors, whom curiosity had drawn thither, and killing and wounding three hundred more. Meanwhile General Bragg at Wilmington had ordered General Hoke to attack Terry, but the quick movements of the latter general had foiled him. The fall of Fort Fisher was followed by the blowing up by the Confederates of Fort Caswell and some other works, which gave the Union fleet command of the mouth of Cape Fear River and shut out all blockade-runners. In the early part of February General Schofield, who had been ordered East with his corps after the defeat of Hood at Nashville, arrived at Fort Fisher and took command, under the orders of General Sherman, of the Department of North Carolina. Schofield at once advanced on both sides of Cape Fear River toward Wilmington, which is about thirty. miles from its mouth, Porter's fleet at the same time moving up the river. Fort Anderson, its principal defence, was occupied in the morning of February 19, Hoke and his men having evacuated it, and on the 22d Wilmington was entered without resistance. This expedition was intended to aid Sherman in his march northward from Savannah, for Schofield was ordered by Grant to advance northward, after taking Wilmington, to Goldsboro, on the Neuse River, repairing the railroad behind him, and to establish there a depot of supplies large enough for |