Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1865-01-28
Losses at Fort Fisher.

loss Of upward Of Two hundred lives
This confession the usual dishonesty char.
acterstic Of Federal accounts leads us 10
conclude is much below the truth. Two
hundred being, however, the minimum
number which the explosion killed, how
large may We not suppose the number OF
those whom it has wounded
The naval attack on the sea face of Fort
Fisher appears to have been carried out
10 utter recklesspess. The mcu who we're
sent to assault that side ofthe wall appear
to have been led forward as though about
to spring to close quarters by the simple
operation of jumping on board an enemy's
ship! They were armed, accounts admit,
with but cutlassss and pistols For a
while they moved along the naked beach.
exposed evey step Of the way to FIRE from
Fort Fisher in front ,aDd from Mound
Battery in flank Corpses dropped from
their ranks into the surfs that dashed up.
on the beach, Death having marked thus,
their point Of departufe,lt also strewed the
whole length of their track.
The ditch of The fort gained they Aoun
dered n its loose sand as in slough of
despond. A teadly fire swept through
them, and they fell by dozens, helpless as
sheep in the shamblcs. Under grape can
lister, mimic ball and shells,a large number
of the survivors rushed out of that mur-
derous ditch toward the beach, marking
their retreat, as they did their advance,
with the corpscs of its bloody violims.-
The remnant, quailiDg before the terrors
of that dreadful fight, remained in the
ditch, sheltered by screens Of sand but
whenever any of their numbers raised bis
head, he fell forward, under the Coufcds-
rate rife, q stiffened corpse! Fourteen
hundred, or, as some Of the accounts, say,
two thousand, even, having been engaged
in that operation Of the navy, it is the
sheerest folly to ask the country to be-
lieve the statements which set down the
losses on the occasion at lut two hundred
The surprise alleged in explanation of
the capture of the western salient OF Fort
Fisher appears to US highly Improbable
A terrible sacrifice of life may in that way
have been avoided, but the fighting subse-
quently in confessed 10 have been exceed
ingly stubborn. The dofenses of the fort
consisted of series of travcrses, and
therefore took the form Of succession OF
formidable breastoorks. The garrison
resisted sternly at every one Of these, and
therefore fought from the time of Terry's
first footing upon the parapet until the
close OF the struggle, behind works. For
six or seven hours the battle ragged under
circumstances so appallpgly uuequal.-
The original force engaged in the attack
was. early in the evening, nearly crushed
An additional brigade having been brought
up from the rear, ,be fighting wa, main
tanned with removed vgor but inasmucl
as the contest was about to be suspen dec
for the night when the Confederates evac
uated the place, even the re enforcement!
of the original assailauts must have beer
very nearly shattered to pieces. Four OF
five thousand men, exposed for so many
hours to fire from behind breastworks
must have suffered terribly and thi, gen
eral fact must, apart from the evidence
otherwise showing that ii had been para
lyzed, satisfy every one that its losses ar
not stated truly in the reports which SO
, them down at nine hundred
The navy must have lost in killed an,
o wounded twenty five per cent. Of its at
tackipg force. This would fix its casual
ties on the occasion at between three hun
dred and fifty and five hundred. A high
er proportion may, we think, be suppose,
fairly to have fallen in the series OF blood
attacks by which the work has been car
ried and, in consideration of the fore
:, employed in these, lead to the conclusio
, that the losses of the army must amour
10 at least thirteen or fourteen hundred. -
The two hundred deaths confessed to hay
q resulted from the explosion of the mags
h zine of For! Fisher, point to the suppos
ton that the number of wounded woul
:, swell the list OF casualties on that occasio
to eight or ten hundred. The cost of tn
capture of Fort Fisher in men, can Gel
talnly not be estimated by one who wishe
to look at things as they really are, ,at LEI
than five hundred killed and two thousar
to Two thousand five hundred wounded =
:, What sacrifice to the impossible !
- Whom the Gods wish toy destroy the fir
set mad