While stationed at Fortress Monroe, General Benjamin Butler commanded a joint army-navy expedition to capture Confederate Forts Hatteras and Clark. In the ensuing Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries, a mixed amphibious force led by the 20th New York's commander, Colonel Max Weber, accepted the surrender of the two forts. The landing was a botched affair, in which high seas prevented the majority of the invasion force from landing and left a mere 318 men stranded on shore with inadequate provisions. The ensuing Union naval bombardment, however, forced the Confederate garrisons to surrender. The portion of the 20th which had taken part in the invasion remained in the vicinity of Forts Hatteras and Clark for several weeks, until reports reached Major General John Ellis Wool that soldiers from the regiment had committed "depredations and various outrages" on the inhabitants. Other sources suggest that the colonel of the 9th New York blamed the looting on the men of the 20th to protect the reputation of his own regiment, which had also participated.