The Portland daily press., 1890-01-21
The Fort Fisher Failure.


The recent controversy between Gen. But-
Ter and Admiral Porter has added nothing to
the history of tho Fort Fisher failure. Dur
ing the action Admiral Porter was putting
his complaints on record. On Dec %, when
the Union troops were near the fort, Porter,
on his flagship, called out to Butler: "There Is
not Confederate within five miles Of the fort.
You have nothing to do but to march in and
take it." Two days later he wrote to the sec
rotary of the navy, and spoke Of his "disap-
pointment at the conduct of the army authori-
ties in not attempting to take possession of the
forts, which had been so completely silenced
by our guns. They were so blown up, burst
up and torn up that the people inside had no
intention of fighting any longer. Had the
army made a show of surrounding it, it
would have been ours; but nothing of the kind
was done.n Further on he declared in his
communication, There never was fort that
invited soldiers to walk in and take it more
plainly than Fort Fisher. We ST.
fenced the guns in one hours time"
The gist Of Porter's claim twenty-five years
ago and now is that his bombardment effect
ually silenced the fort, and had the comman.
der of the Union land forces put his men in,
the work must have fallen on Christmas day.
Gen. Buffers case goes back to the stage of
preparation, and shows that his transport
fleet with troops was ready to start on the
expedition on Dec Q, and that the navy was
not ready, and Porter named the 18th as the
day of sailing from Fort Monroe. The 18th
was fixed for the day of sailing, but the
armed fleet had to go to Beaufort harbor for
ammunition. Butler was at the rendezvous
off Fort Fisher on the 18th, but the navy had
not returned from Beaufort. Three days
more were lost in waiting for the navy, and
by that time, the 18th, Buffers transport
feet needed coal and water, having been on
the sea for ten days, the full time for which
the vessels were supplied. These vessels now
had to go to Beaufort, seventy miles distant,
to get the supplies needed. Before he got
back to the rendezvous Butler learned that
the navy had gone forward to the attack
without him, and that the powder ship, upon
which so much had been staked, had been
exploded while the army was far out Of
reach.
The charges by Admiral Porter having
been made public property at the time, Gen.
Butler, who was Immediately superseded in
the command of the North Carolina depart
ment, began search for evidence to refute
the admirals claims Gen. Whiting, the
Confederate commander at that point, soon
became Union prisoner, and was confined at
Fort Columbus, New York harbor, for sew
months. Gen. Butler prepared long list of
questions concerning the defenses of Fort
Fisher and the situation there during the
attack. Gen. Whiting replied to the ques-
tons in detail, and showed that there were
nineteen guns in position on the land face
ready to meet any land force such as Admiral
Porter protested could have advanced on that
side. Col Lamb, the commandant of the
fort, stated that had he opened his guns not a
man could have lived there. 1t was also
shown that the bombardment by Porter's
vessels was general and effected no particu-
lar damage. Gen. Whiting said: "The gar
rison was at no time driven from their guns,
and fired in return, according to orders
slowly and deliberately, six hundred and
sixty-two shot and SHELF