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Sons of Confederate Veterans - Camp 1479 - Conroe, Texas - Granbury's Texas Brigade |
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Christmas at Fort Fishers
“Gibraltar of the Confederacy”
On Christmas Eve, 1864, Confederate Forces at Fort Fisher North Carolina received a massive fireworks display from more than
600 cannons abord the gunboats of the invaiding Union Fleet. Massive and powerful, Fort Fisher kept Federal blockade ships at a
distance from the Cape Fear River, saving Wilmington from attack and insuring relatively safe passage to Confederate naval travel.
Wilmington was the last major port open to the Confederacy.
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At the dawn of the American Civil War, the Confederacy took control of a neck of land in southern North Carolina
near the mouth of the Cape Fear River and constructed what was to become the largest and one of the most important earthwork
fortifications in the South.
Until the arrival of Colonel William Lamb in July, 1862, Fort Fisher was little more than several sand batteries mounting fewer
than two dozen guns. Under Colonel Lamb's direction and design, which was greatly influenced buy the Malakoff Tower (a Crimean War
fortification) in Sevastopol, Russia, expansion of the fortress began. By January, 1865, Fort Fisher embraced one mile of sea
defense and one-third mile of land defense. More than 500 Negroes, both slave and "free," worked with Confederate soldiers on
construction; occasionally, as many as one thousand men were working, although maintaining adequate labor was difficult.
Unlike older fortifications built of brick and mortar, Fort Fisher was made mostly of earth and sand, which was ideal for
absorbing the shock of heavy explosives. The sea face, equipped with 22 guns, consisted of a series of twelve foot high larger
batteries bounded on the south side by two larger batteries forty-five and sixty feet high. Of the smaller mounds one served as a
telegraph office and another was converted into a bombproof hospital. The land face was equipped with 25 guns distributed among
its fifteen mounds. Each mound was 32 feet high with interior rooms used as bombproofs or powder magazines and connected by an
underground passageway. Extending across the entire land face was a nine foot high palisade fence.
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In December 1864, Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler, together with the Expeditionary Corps of the Army of the James, was detached
from the Virginia theater for an amphibious mission to capture Fort Fisher. He was joined by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter
who commanded the Union naval force more than 60 ships including “Ironclads”.
After being informed about the large Union army heading toward Wilmington, General Lee ordered Major General Robert Hoke's
Division to Fort Fisher. Also, Hoke took total command of all Confederate forces in the Wilmington area.
The Union attack started on December 24, 1864, by means of Admiral Porter's naval bombardment. It was so effective that the
firepower of Fort Fisher was temporarily silenced because some of its gun positions exploded. This allowed the Navy to land the
Union infantry. The landing force was intercepted by the arrival of Hoke's troops. The Union attack was thus effectively thwarted,
and on December 27 Benjamin Butler ordered the withdrawal of his 1,000 soldiers who were still on the beach.
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