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STEPHEN Bo WEEKS 
 
 CLASS OF 1886: PUD. THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSfTY 
 
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From Utica Morning Herald, Dec. 15, 1897. 
 
 IHERO OF FORT FISHER 
 
 [General Curtis' Address Before ihe 
 Historical Society. 
 
 SUBJECT WAS 'FORT FISHER.' 
 
 [Many Grand Army Men and Histor- 
 ical Members Hear the General on 
 a Subject on Which He is Well 
 Qualified to Speak — Extracts From 
 Official Documents. 
 
 General N. M. Curtis of Washington 
 ! lectured before the Oneida historical so- 
 | ciety last evening on a subject of which 
 I he is eminently qualified to speak, "Fort 
 Fisher." The auditorium of the Mun- 
 sdn-Williams memorial was filled with 
 gfand army men and their wives, and 
 members of the society. General Curtis 
 was greeted with hearty applause as he 
 [entered the hall with Thomas R. Proc- 
 jtor, the vice president of the society. 
 Mr. Proctor introduced General Curtis 
 with these words: "Ladies and Gentle- 
 men — It requires but four words to in- 
 troduce the lecturer of this evening, 
 1'the hero of Fort Fisher.' " 
 
 General Curtis spoke for an hour and 
 half, illustrating his lecture by a large 
 Iwall map. Hfs graphic story of the bat- 
 Jtle in which he bore so prominent a part 
 [aroused the patriotism of his audience. 
 [He said: 
 
 At the first interview between General 
 
 I Grant and Admiral Porter, the admiral ob- 
 jected to the selection of General Butler to 
 command the army forces. At this interview 
 Weitzel was agreed upon. General Grant di- 
 rected General Butler to send General Weit- 
 zel down to reconnoirter Port Fisher. Gen- 
 eral Grant states in forwarding Butler's re- 
 
 • port of Jan. 3, 1865, that "my orders to Gen- 
 eral Butler to prepare it were given verbally, 
 
 ! to avoid publicity of the time of sailing and 
 destination." Dec. 6, 1864, in writing instruc- 
 
 I tio-ns to General Butler General Grant stated: 
 "The first object of the expedition under Gen- 
 eral Weitzel is to close to the enemy the port 
 of Wilmington. * * *• The object of the 
 expedition will be gained by effecting a land- 
 ing on the mainland between Gape Fear riv- 
 er and the Atlantic north of the north en- 
 trance to the river. Should such landing»be 
 effected whilst the enemy still hold Fort 
 Fisher and the batteries guarding the en- 
 trance to the river, then the troops should 
 entrench themselves and by co-operating with 
 
 the navy effect the reduction and capture of 
 those pieces." General Butler, at 10 p. m., 
 Dec. 24, 1864, wrote Admiral Porter: 
 
 "We will endeavor to effect a landing above 
 Flag Pond hill battery, between that ana 
 Half Moon, at such an hour as may be fixed 
 upon by consultation between yourself and 
 General Weitzel, who will have command of 
 the troops, and who will meet you at any 
 hour you choose to arrange details. * * * 
 I design, in the first place, to send on shore 
 a party of reconnoissanee sufficiently strong 
 to hold the landing if we gain a good hold, 
 and then to land as rapidly as possible our 
 whole force, and if from the reconnoissanee 
 it is deemed practicable to attempt an as- 
 sault ou Fort Fisher the assault will be 
 made." 
 
 Under the plans agreed upon between Gen- 
 eral Weitzel and Admiral Porter, I was de- 
 tailed to land with 500 of my brigade, by row 
 boats supplied by the navy in charge of Lieu- 
 tenant (now commodore) Farquier. Having 
 got my men in the boats formed in line with 
 a launch carrying a howitzer on each flank, I 
 directed them to maintain their alignment 
 and reach the shore as soon as possible; at 
 the same time requesting the lieutenant to 
 put me on the beach in advance of the line. 
 About this time I saw a boat pass the right 
 of my line headed for the shore. I asked that 
 I be landed first. My crew were the better 
 oarsmen and I landed and carried Captain 
 Glisson's flag, taken from the gig, to the sand 
 dunes before our competitors reached the 
 shore. The boat brought General Weitzel. 
 He congratulated me on winning the race and 
 said, "I had offered $1,000 to beat your boat." 
 I said the difference between a boat crew 
 from a transport and one from a United States 
 man-of-war was more than one thousand dol- 
 lars, and that all I had to do was to request 
 the officer in charge to land me first. As 
 soon as the troops landed and formed in line, 
 pickets were thrown out to> the north and 
 west, and flankers as we moved down the 
 beach. Soon after we started Captain Koonts, 
 company A, 42d North Carolina infantry, oc- 
 cupying Flag Pond battery, half a mile south 
 of our landing, raised a white flag, indicating 
 his desire to surrender, and his command of 
 67 men and officers were taken off by boats 
 from the naval vessels. The log book of the 
 Santiago de Cuba, of Dec. 25, 1864, states 
 that we took possession of Flag Pond battery 
 at 3 p. m. We then marched down the beach 
 about one mile south of Flag Pond battery, 
 and halted. General Weitzel made a careful 
 examination of Fort Fisher and its surround- 
 ings and stated the fort was not injured by 
 the navy fire— only one gun displaced— and re- 
 quested me to take his glass and report how 
 I found it. I looked and agreed with him as 
 to the physical condition of the work. We 
 were at that time about one and a half miles 
 north of Fort Fisher. General Weitzel says in 
 his report: "I proceeded in person, accom* 
 panying the 142d New York, to within about 
 800 yards of Fort Fisher, a point from which 
 I had a good view of the work. From what 
 I saw there and before that time, and from 
 what I had heard from what I considered re- 
 liable sources, I believe the work to be a 
 square bastioned work; it has a high relief, 
 a wide and deep ditch, excepting on the sea 
 front, a glacis, has casemates and bornb- 
 
 'proofs sufficiently 'arge to hold its garrison. 
 * * * I returned, as directed, to the majo^ 
 general commanding, found him on the gun- 
 boat Chamberlain within easy range and 
 
 'good view of the work, and frankly reported 
 
to him that it would be butchery to order an 
 assault on that work under the circumstances. 
 After examining it himself carefully, he came 
 to the same conclusion, and directed the 
 troops to be re-embarked." 
 
 General Weitzel makes no mention of the 
 orders given me when he left to report to 
 General But'er, but in his testimony before 
 committee on the conduct of the war, page 
 76, he says: "After I had made a reconnois- 
 sance, I returned, as I had been directed, to 
 General Butler, to make my report. I di- 
 rected General Curtis to remain in command, 
 and to push on towards the work until he 
 was stopped, and to find out what was there; 
 and if he discovered anything new to imme- 
 diately report it to General Butler, and I left 
 a signal sergeant with him for that purpose." 
 
 It was probably about 3:20 p. m. when 
 General We ; tzel left me to report to Gen- 
 eral Butler. The signal sergeant did not re- 
 main with me. In General Butler's testimony 
 before the committee on the conduct of the 
 war, page 23, he says: "General Weitzel 
 stated that he thought it was impossible to 
 assault the fort successfully. Being unwill- 
 ing to leave the matter without trying, and 
 seeing from the state of the weather that it 
 must be an assault or nothing, I said to Col- 
 onel Comstock, who was on board with me, 
 'Jump into a boat with General Weitzel, (Col- 
 onel R. H. Jackson, not General Weitzel, 
 went with Colonel Comstock.) pull ashore, 
 and examine with General Weitzel, (Colonel 
 Jackson;) and report to me if an assault is 
 feasible: to me it does not look possible, but 
 I am unwilling to give up.' I had a vivid 
 perception of the future which has overtaken 
 me. They went on shore. The surf had be- 
 gun to rise, so that they got very wet in 
 landing. At the same time General Graham 
 reported to me. He said, 'General, you have 
 got either to provide for those troops to-night 
 on shore some way, or get them off, because 
 it is getting so rough that we can not land 
 much longer.' * * * Considering a few 
 moments, I determined the course of action 
 that should govern me." 
 
 Aill this must have occurred before 4 p. m. 
 Captain James Alden, commanding the Brook- 
 lyn, reports: * * * "At 4 o'clock, just 
 two hours after the landing commenced, the 
 general commanding came alongside of this 
 ship and said: 'It has become necessary to 
 re-embark the troops; will you send your boats 
 to assist?' You can judge of my surprise at 
 the turn affairs had taken, for at that mo- 
 ment everything seemed propitious, the bom- 
 bardment was at its hight, little or no surf 
 on the beach, and no serious indications of 
 -bad weather." 
 
 The reconnoitering party effected a landing 
 at 2:10 p. m., and was followed by all the 
 second division and one regiment of colored 
 troops, (about 4,000 men,) before the order to 
 re-embark was given by General Butler. All 
 remained on the beach near the point of land- 
 ing excepting a portion of the first brigade. 
 At four o'clock, when the order was given to 
 re-embark a detachment of the reconnoitering 
 party had reached Craig's Landing, and Lieu- 
 tenant Simpson cut the telegraph wire, thus 
 breaking communication between the fort and 
 Wilmington. The skirmish line was ap- 
 proaching the fort, and less than half a mile 
 away. At 4:20, when a navy shot cut the 
 garrison flagstaff, the skirmishers were at the 
 stockade, and Lieutenant Walling in com- 
 mand, went thro the ditch, stockade, up the 
 parapet, and brought the flag away. He pre- 
 sented it to me at the bank of the ditch. I 
 
 immediately sent an officer to the reserve and 
 directed them to immediately come down to 
 the earthwork at Cape Fear river about 800 
 yards north of the flank of the fort, and then 
 go up the beach and report to General But- 
 ler that we had cut the telegraph line, break- 
 ing communication with Wilmington, and 
 captured the garrison flag, which I was about 
 to take to the beach and exhibit to the navy 
 that they might direct their fire in support of 
 any subsequent movements we should make. 
 Two musket shots were directed at the party 
 carrying the flag to the beach. They went 
 over us. Quite high shots yon can see, in or- 
 der to go over the head of one of the party. 
 After reaching the beach, and seeing no move- 
 ment on the part of the reserve, I went up to 
 ascertain the failure to comnly with my or- 
 der to advance, and was then informed that 
 a short time before the receipt of my orde* 
 an order had been received from the com- 
 manding general to retire up the beach, and 
 that it had been sent to me at the western 
 end of the line, and in view of the fact that 
 it was an order from my superior, my own 
 order, being directly contrary to that from 
 headquarters, had been held in abeyance un- 
 til I should be made aware of the nature of 
 the order of the commanding general. This 
 order was probably received about the time 
 that the flag was captured. Notwithstanding 
 the order to retire, I took such of my brigade 
 as had come up. and moved down to the earth- 
 work before mentioned, some 800 yards from 
 the fort, sending the 117th regiment up the 
 Wilmington road running near the Cape Fear 
 river with orders to advance a mile if they 
 could do so without resistance from the ene- 
 my, and to establish a picket line to extend 
 from the Cape Fear river across the penin- 
 sula to the flankers we had already thrown 
 out when we marched down the beach. In 
 making this movement, Captain Stevens, with 
 two men, went in advance of the regiment as 
 skirmishers to prevent its falliiig into an am- 
 bush, and when they had advanced a little to 
 the north of Craig's Landing Major Reese of 
 the North Carolina junior reserves stepped in- 
 to the road, threw up his hands and surren- 
 dered before a shot had been fired or the reg- 
 iment had arrived in sight. A portion of his 
 command escaped, but some 200 and odd of- 
 ficers and men were brought in and finally 
 sent north. The regiment at the same time 
 captured two guns of a light battery and six 
 caissons. A courier carrying a message out 
 of the fort was shot and his horse taken only 
 a short distance from the parapet. At the 
 conclusion of these operations a second order 
 was received directing me to retire. To this 
 I sent in reply a communication stating what 
 had been accomplished subsequently to my 
 first report, stating there was no enemy in 
 sight and that no resistance had been of- 
 fered beyond the two musket shots fired at 
 the party carrying the flag to the beach, and 
 I should hold his order in obeyance until the 
 commanding general could become acquaint- 
 ed with the defenseless condition of the work. 
 Soon after this, at dark, Colonel Comstock 
 and Colonel Jackson came to this out-work, 
 closely followed by the division commander. 
 To them a detailed statement was made of 
 the operations of the reconnoitering party up 
 to the time of their arrival, and they were 
 requested to notify General Butler, that in my 
 opinion the fort could be successfully assault- 
 ed the next morning, one hour after the navy 
 should, open fire. Neither of these officers 
 would assume, any responsibility as to> my 
 failure to comply with the orders to retire, 
 
but General Ames stated, "If I felt confident 
 that I could capture the fort I ought to make 
 the attempt with the men I had at my dis- 
 posal.." I stated that it was then dark and 
 the navy was retiring, and as it retired the 
 enemy would come out from their bombproofs 
 and man their guns and would slaughter me 
 should I then attempt an assault without the 
 protection of the naval fire, and that I could 
 not assault until after daylight and the navy 
 should keep the enemy in their bombproofs. 
 These officers returned. Colonel Comstock, 
 as I believed from what he said, intended to 
 advise General Butler to prepare for an as* 
 sault the next morning. One hour after this 
 I received the third order to retire, which 1 
 complied with by withdrawing my skirmish- 
 ers from the fort and' pickets from the Wil- 
 mington road, and with our prisoners marched 
 up the beach to. the point of debarkation. 
 There I found that the troops which had 
 landed and remained on the beach in that vi- 
 cinity had all re-embarked. I got off a por- 
 tion of my command and the commissioned 
 confederate officers, when the surf became so 
 high the boats could not live, as stated by 
 those in command of them. Between six and 
 seven hundred of my command and two hun- 
 dred and thirty prisoners remained on shore 
 until we were taken off on the following Tues- 
 day afternoon. 
 
 From an examination of the chronological 
 order of events, as they transpired from 2:10 
 p. m. until 4 p. m., it will be seen that about 
 two-thirds of General Butler's command ef- 
 fected a landing on the beach, and that no 
 report from the reconnoitering party, which 
 had been sent to the front with orders "to 
 report anything that might be discovered to 
 General Butler," had been received by him. 
 He had acted solely on his own judgment and 
 the advice of General Weitzel not to assault 
 based on the information obtained from the 
 observation made of the fort at a distance 
 of a mile and a half — a distance so great t hat 
 he could not see its formation, as is evidenced 
 by his report, in which he states that "it was 
 a square bastioned fort, with casemate and 
 a glacis." It really had one bastion, no case- 
 mate and no glacis. General Butler did not 
 wait to receive a report of the discoveries 
 made by the reconnoitering party, and failed 
 to wait for a report from Colonel Comstock 
 and Colonel Jackson, who were sent ashore to 
 specially ascertain if in their opinion "an as- 
 assault was feasible." The opinion of Gen- 
 eral Weitzel not to assault the work was made 
 in absolute ignorance of the orders to Gen- 
 eral Butler, wherein it was stated "the ob- 
 ject of the expedition will be gained by ef- 
 fecting a landing on the mainland between 
 Cape Fear river and the Atlantic north of the 
 north entrance to the river." 
 
 General Butler telegraphed at 8 p. m., Dec. 
 27, 1864, to General Grant, announcing the re- 
 turn of the expedition to Fortress Monroe, 
 and gave a brief summary of the events at- 
 tending it. At 5:30 p. m., Dec. 28, President 
 Dincolh telegraphed General Grant as follows: 
 
 "If there be no objections, please tell me 
 what you now understand of the Wilmington 
 expedition, present and prospective." To 
 which General Grant replied, at 8:30 p. m. : 
 "The Wilmington expedition has proven a 
 gross and culpable failure. Many of the 
 troops are now back here. Delays and free 
 talk of the object of the expedition enabled 
 the enemy to move troops to Wilmington to 
 defeat it. After the expedition sailed from 
 Fortress Monroe three days of fine weather 
 was squandered, during which the enemy was 
 
 without a force to protect himself. Who is 
 to blame I hope will be known." 
 
 The morning of the 29th of December, the 
 transport upon which I returned from Fort 
 Fisher dropped anchor in Hampton Roads. 
 I went on shore for breakfast and was sent 
 for by General Grant and questioned as to 
 what I saw and did after landing at Fort 
 Fisher. I gave him a detailed account of the 
 operations of my command while on shore, 
 and a description of the fort. He stated that 
 my description differed from that of other of- 
 ficers, who reported "it as a square bastioned 
 •work with casemates and glacis, and its ex- 
 terior sides averaging about 200 yards." I 
 replied that I had been within a few yards 
 of it and knew it had no casemates, no glacis 
 and only one bastioned angle, and that its 
 land face was about half a mile long, and its 
 sea face over a mile long; no parapet on the 
 south or west. He said the expedition ought 
 not to have failed and that he might desire 
 to hear further from me. I returned to my 
 ship to wait for other transports to come in 
 before we should proceed up the river. 
 
 In a few hours after I left General Grant 
 I received a telegram from General Weitzel 
 to report at once to his headquarters. I went 
 up in advance of my troops, and when I 
 reached General Weitzel's headquarters he 
 said he had sent for me in obedience to a 
 telegram from General Grant, who wanted a 
 detailed account of what I and the officers of 
 my command who were nearest the fort had 
 seen. I sent for Captain Walling, 142d New 
 York, who brought the garrison flag from the 
 fort, Lieutenant George Simpson, 142d New 
 York, who cut the telegraph wire, and Lieu- 
 tenant G. W. Reese, 117th New York, John 
 W. White, James Spring and Henry Blair of 
 the 142d New York volunteers, who were on 
 on the skirmish line. The statements of 
 thesja officers and men were taken down and 
 sent to General Grant, thro Colonel Comstock. 
 General Grant forwarded them to the secre- 
 tary of war "with the request that these pa- 
 pers be filed with Major General Butler's re- 
 port of the expedition against Fort Fisher, 
 N. C, as statements appended to said report 
 by me. I should have appended them when 
 I forwarded the report, but Lieutenant Colo- 
 nel Comstock, aide-de-camp, to whom they 
 were made, was absent on the second expe- 
 dition against the fort and had them with 
 him. These statements of the officers and 
 men named were reduced to writing imme- 
 diately after the return of the unsuccessful 
 expedition against Fort Fisher, and were 
 handed to Colonel Comstock about the 2d day 
 of January, 1865. General Butler, before or. 
 dering the re-embarkation and return of the 
 expedition he assumed to command, might 
 have had within information, and it was his 
 duty, before giving such orders, to have 
 known the results of the reconnoissance. 
 which could have been most satisfactorily 
 learned from those most in advance." 
 
 These quotations from the official records 
 plainly show who it was that disregarded the 
 instructions of General Grant and was re- 
 sponsible for the failure of the first expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 Some careless readers have asserted that 
 the inquiry ordered by the senate, Jan. 12, 
 1865, "Resolved, That the committee on the 
 conduct of the war be directed to inquire into 
 the causes of the failure of the late expedi- 
 tion against Wilmington, North Carolina, an<2 
 to report the facts to the senate." fully ac- 
 quits General Butler of the responsibility 
 charged by General Grant. 
 
A careful reading of the evidence taken by 
 that committee will show that the order of 
 ?tbe senate was not complied with. The in- 
 quiry was made not to ascertain the causes 
 of the failure, but as to the propriety of as- 
 saulting the fort, as the findings of the com- 
 mittee clearly show: "In conclusion, your 
 committee would say, from all the testimony 
 before them, that the determination of Gen- 
 eral Butler not to assault the fort seems to 
 have been fully justified by all the facts and 
 circumstances then known or afterwards as- 
 certained." 
 
 The result of the second expedition fully 
 corroborates the correctness of the description 
 of the works on Federal Point given by my- 
 self and members of my command, who were 
 the only persons within 800 yards of the main 
 work, and justified our opinion that the fort 
 could have been captured on the first expe- 
 dition had the commanding general complied 
 with General Grant's orders and intelligently 
 attempted to have carried out the plans he 
 
 announced to Admiral Porter the night before 
 the landing. The reasons given for refusing 
 to carry out those plans were not justified 
 by the circumstances and conditions then ex- 
 isting. To the first claim that the troops on 
 shore were without provisions or ammunition, 
 it needs only to be stated that ample sup- 
 plies of both for thirty days could have been 
 landed in one-half the time given to re-em- 
 barking the troops— about 3,500 — which were 
 taken off that night. To the claim that the 
 troops on shore could not maintain their po- 
 sition against the large force of the enemy in 
 their front, he had the assurance of Admiral 
 Porter that the fleet could hold the poisition 
 and give them complete protection. The opin. 
 ion of Admiral Porter was supported by the 
 fact that not one of the naval vessels left 
 the station, nor did one of the frail transports 
 waiting to carry the troops north leave- It* 
 anchorage in front of the beach until all the 
 stranded troops were taken on board Tues- 
 day afternoon. 
 
■MM im SITY 0F NC - AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
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 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION