The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-07 00:00:00

THE CONFEDERATE STATES.

THE FIRST BOMBARDMENT OF WILMINGTON.

(From the Times' Special Correspondent)
WILMINGTON, NORTH CAROLINA,
Dec. 27, 1864.

.....Those of your readers who take interest in Ame-
rican affairs have long been aware of the alleged
importance to the Confederates of the retention of
Wihnington. In spite of much pretended mystery
in Richmond about the incomings and outgoings of
blockade-defying vessels connected with this port,
I have reason to know that the fullest and most
accurate information is week after week in the pos-
session of Mr. Lincoln and of his navy about every
vessel which leaves or enters Wilmington, about the
names and circumstances of every English or Con-
federate merchant or company connected with
blockade-running ventures, and about the senti-
ments which prevail in the streets of this filthy little
entrepot. In regard to the tone and sentiment of
most of the population which has been attracted to
Wilmington as vultures to the carcase it is not ne-
cessary for me now to say more than that it is
widely different from that which animates General
Lee and his noble army. But I may be permitted to
express a passing opinion that if the abundant in-
ternal resources of the Confederacy were available
wherever they are wanted—in other words, if the
railroad transportation between Georgia and Vir-
ginia was as ample and well regulated as between
Illinois and Washington—it would be rather a bles-
sing than otherwise to the Confederates if the port
of Wilmington were shortly closed. So long as the
war continues there will be a demand for muskets,
nitre, medicines, blankets, army clothing, and shoes,
notwithstanding the abundant introduction of
those articles which has already taken place ; but
it is doubtful whether a sufficient supply could
- not be sucked in through the numberless creeks
and rivers which intersect the 3,000 or 4,000
miles of seacoast between the Rio Grande and
Chesapeake Bay. These rivers are now becom-
ing:well known to the blockade-running captains,
and, come what may, whether Wilmington or
Charleston fall or not, it is absurd to think that the
coast of Secessia can ever be hermetically sealed.
But in the existing decline of Confederate virtue,
and under the painfulness and weary exhaustion of
this strife, could the Confederates stand the moral
discouragement entailed by the loss of Wilmington?
Your readers may answer the question for them-
selves, but if Confederate virtue and stanchness,
like that of General Lee, were equal to the shock, I
believe that before six months had passed it would
be found in a dozen ways that the loss of Wilming-
ton was a blessing in disguise. _

It is necessary I should premise that the little
town of Wilmington lies on the east bank of the
Cape Fear river, which, running from north to
south, debouches into the sea 22 miles below the
town. Opposite the mouth of the river lies Smith's
Island, shaped in the form of an acute-angled tri-
angle, with the apex pointing out to sea. The river
being about two miles wide at its mouth, forces its
way to sea through two channels, one to the east
and the other to the west of Smith's Island, of
which the easier and more frequented channel is
called the New Inlet, whereas the other is known
by the name of the Western Bar. Smith's Is-
land is surrounded by dangerous shoals and reefs,
and the stations occupied by the Federal vessels
which endeavour to blockade these two channels
are more than forty miles apart. The consequent
difficulty of closing the mouths of the Cape Fear
river is well pointed out in Mr. Welles's recent re-
port to. the Washington Congress. Add to this that
the North Carolina coast is lashed, especially in
winter, by one of the most capricious and boisterous
of seas, and by a surf which,. under the impulse of a
south-east wind, is scarcely inferior in fury to that
which has made the coast of Madras a terror to

navigators.
The attack of the 24th and 25th inst. was directed
only against the works which protected the newinlet.
Your readers must understand that the tongue of
land between the east bank of the Cape Fear river
during the last 30 miles of the course and the sea is
in the shape of the letter V. The new inlet channel
runs for several miles parallel to the coast, and its
last five miles are protected by Confederate bat-
teries scattered along the beach, and which termi-
nate at the latter point of the V in a large work
called Fort Fisher. This work, which is of an
irregular shape, and which was commenced before
General Whiting took charge of the defences of
Wilmington, consists strictly of three distinct com-
partments. First, upon the river—that is to say, at
the lower end of the left stroke of the V, stands a
strong naval battery called Fort Buchanan, named
after the distinguished Confederate admiral of
Merrimac and Mobile celebrity. Secondly, at the
point of the V stands a pyramidal mound, a mo-
nument of the energy and persistency of Colonel
Lamb, wh4s has long been in command of Fort
Eisher. -The mound in question was commenced in
1862 by Colonel Lamb upon a bare and exposed
spit of sand, and was long regarded as such a hope-
less undertaking that it went by the name of Lamb's
Folly. But gradually, and little by little, chiefly
by the slow agency of spade labour, the mound
crept upwards until it had attained an elevation of
60 feet. Its sides are knit together and clothed by
the long sea grass which grows on this coast, and
upon the summit, in addition to two heavy guns, is
placed the Fresnel light, which is such a guide and
assistance to incoming vessels. Thirdly, comes Fort
Fisher proper, named after a North Carolina colonel
killed at the battle of Bull Run. Its sea face com-
mences about a quarter of a mile from Lamb's
Motitict, and running upwards for nearly half a mile
along the right stroke of the V connects with a long
curtain which stretches across from the sea to the
river, and which runs at right angles to the sea face
of the fort. Few works of more interest to the
military engineer than this scientific row of sand-
hills have ever been constructed, nor can it be
douhtetithat Fort Fisher reflects the highest credit
upontie ability of General Whiting, its constructor.
The pfatforms upon which the 50 guns of Fort
Fish= are mounted stands at an elevation of about
40f t. above the beach ; but at the end of the sea
face, which is nearest to Lamb's Mound, there is a
Columbiad battery, at a lower elevation, in which,
during the bombardment, the men suffered more
heavily than in any other portion of the work.
-Each. gun is protected and divided from its neigh-
bour by a lofty sand traverse, and under each tra-
verse is alternately a bombproof (or shelter-cham-
ber for part of the garrison) and a magazine.
Through these traverses runs a continuous covered
passage. The whole work involves an immense
expenditure of labour, and evinces an amount of
energy highly-creditable to its artificers.
Upon the evening of the 19th the inhabitants of
Wilmington were startled by the tidings that a huge
Yankee flotilla, variously estimated at from 50 to
~150 sail, was off the coast, and apparently medta-
ling mischief. The excitement was scarcely less
foierish than on the occasion when there was a cry
of the Spanish Armada as being off the Cornish
coast---a cry which roughly interrupted the memo-
rable game of bowls' in which Drake and Hawkins
and Frobisher were engaged on the Hoe at Ply-
m. on_ th. No longer by beacon light from headland
to headland, but upon the
w lightningbreath of elec-
tricity the news
Richmond
told the great and wafted to ,
grave soldier who has so long
barred its entrance
/lank
was
nae ced.against the Federals that his
Quickly responding to the
challenge, Gen. Lee detached a body of troops amply
sufficient to meet the emergency,but such was the
maladministration of therail, especially over the
48 miles which divide Danville from Greensborough,
that, but for a providential incident, the
Fier would
troops sent
Fisher
to cover the land approach to
have been too late. Upon thethe 20th
set
2Oth
night ofh
conceived
galetii
and during the whole of the 21st a
in from the north-west. It may
be violent
such a composite flotilla of transports, gunboats,
ironclads, frigates, sloops of war, and ferry boats as
the Federals had at sea Must have suffered cruelly,
and there are stories here of a regiment of United
States' regulars, of part of a negro brigade, and of
many hundred horses having been lost ; but your
readers will have gathered from the New York
press a nearer approach to truth than the idle
speculations of the North Carolinians. The storm
delayed the attack upon Fort Fisher until the 24th,