First Battle of Fort Fisher

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First Battle of Fort Fisher
Part of the American Civil War

Capture of Fort Fisher by Kurz and Allison, 1890.
Date December 7 – December 27, 1864
Location New Hanover County, North Carolina
Result Confederate victory
Combatants
United States of America Confederate States of America
Commanders
Benjamin Butler (army)
David D. Porter (navy)		 Braxton Bragg
William Lamb
Strength
Expeditionary Corps, Army of the James District of the Cape Fear
Fort Fisher Garrison
Casualties
320 (US and CS) 320 (US and CS)
Operations Against Fort Fisher and Wilmington
1st Fort Fisher – 2nd Fort Fisher – Wilmington

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, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler and his Army of the James were assigned to an amphibious expedition against Fort Fisher. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had originally designated one of Butler's subordinates, Maj. Gen. Godfrey Weitzel, to lead the expedition, but Butler, the seniormost major general of volunteers in the Army, demanded to 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 Col. William Lamb. Additional reinforcements were available from General Braxton Bragg at Sugar Loaf, 4 miles away.

The Union naval expedition under Rear Adm. David D. Porter comprised the largest fleet of the war, nearly 60 warships plus troop transports to carry 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 Maj. Gen. Robert F. Hoke to reinforce Lamb.

Butler did not coordinate the timing with Porter adequately, so that when his troops departed Fort Monroe and arrived in North Carolina, the Navy had not arrived. When they did arrive from their base in Beaufort, South Carolina, the Army troops were so seasick and low on supplies that the expedition had to be reorganized at Beaufort. On December 24, the Union fleet began shelling the fort. Butler conceived a plan to load an old ship with 215 tons of gunpowder and explode it in the shallows near the fort, expecting that the blast would damage the fort and stun its garrison. The explosion was ineffectual, merely raining sand on everything.

After a 12-hour naval bombardment, 2,200 men disembarked from transports at 2 p.m. on December 25 to storm the fort. The advanced guard, a brigade under Col. N. Martin Curtis, captured a 300-man unit of young boys outside of the parapets, but had to fall back under heavy cannon and small-arms fire from the garrison. The arrival of Hoke's reinforcements discouraged further Union attempts. Despite orders 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 gave Grant an excuse to relieve Butler, replacing him in command of the Army of the James by Maj. Gen. Edward Ord. President Abraham Lincoln, recently reelected, no longer needed to keep the prominent Democrat in the Army and he was relieved on January 8, 1865.

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