FT. FISHER FAILURE

Several factors made Wilmington, North Carolina, a valuable entry port for blockade running.  Wilmington was equidistant from the main smuggling bases in Nassau and Bermuda, with good rail connections inland.  Positioned 28 miles up the Cape Fear River, she was out of range of deep-water Union guns.  Entrance from the Atlantic could be afforded by either of two channels, and Union patrols had difficulty covering both.  In addition, the northern channel, New Inlet, was guarded by the 75 guns of the massive earthen-walled Fort Fisher.  Wilmington had been transformed by blockade running.  As the rest of the South crumbled toward the end of the war, the steady supply of life’s finery and the affluence of a high profit industry were a cultural boon to the Cape Fear region.  As well, success attracted the undesirable speculators, gamblers, and riff-raff.  Both Lee and Grant appreciated what Wilmington represented to the South’s war effort.  Thus, in late 1864, the capture of Wilmington became a priority for the new commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, RADM David Dixon Porter.

Porter’s first obstacle, Fort Fisher, was probably the Confederacy’s most impregnable fortification.  Located athwart a narrow spit of land running due south into the mouth of the Cape Fear River, laborers had worked unheeded for four years to perfect the works and extensive bombproofs.  The saw-toothed palisade was formidable, but in particular, the loose, sandy earth of the walls and floors swallowed cannonballs without damage.  Porter’s 55-ship Union Navy flotilla, the largest ever assembled to that day, arrived off Ft. Fisher on December 20^th.

Porter’s first attempt on the 23^rd was a bombship.  The sidewheel steamer LOUISIANA was laden with 350 tons of gunpowder and towed near the fort.  Her detonation that evening was impressive, but alas, ineffective.  Porter then rained upon Ft. Fisher an intensive two-day bombardment, at times reaching a rate of fire of 115 rounds per minute.  Assigned to Porter were 6500 Union Army troops under the dubiously capable MGEN Benjamin F. Butler, who had previously bungled an attack on Richmond.  On Christmas Day, 3000 of Butler’s troops were landed north of the fort for an assault.  But these troops were surprised to observe that Ft. Fisher had withstood two days of intensive bombardment with little visible damage.  Confederate commander COL William Lamb had lost fewer men than had been claimed by accidental explosions on the attacking Union ships!  He was able to man the palisade in force against the assault, pinning down Butler’s men through the day.  Unable to land more troops because of souring weather, Butler reembarked the stranded landing force.  Porter was furious, but his ships had exhausted their ammunition in the pre-Christmas bombardment, and he was forced to re-group.

Continued 15 JAN 2025…

Anderson, Bern.  By Sea and by River:  The Naval History of the Civil War.  New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1962, pp. 276-84.

Fowler, William M., Jr.  Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War.  New York, NY: Avon Books, 1990, pp. 263, 266-72.

Gragg, Rod.  Confederate Goliath:  The Battle of Fort Fisher.  Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1991.

Page, Dave.  Ships Versus Shore:  Civil War Engagements along Southern Shores and Rivers.  Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1994, pp. 82-102.

Reed, Michael and John T. Kuehn.  “Triumph of Civil War ‘Jointness.'”  Naval History, Vol 27 (6), December 2013, pp. 32-39.

Robinson, Charles M.  Hurricane of Fire:  The Union Assault on Fort Fisher.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1998.

Site visit, Fort Fisher State Park, Kure City, North Carolina, 8 December 2001.

The post Ft. Fisher Failure appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                   25 JUNE 1813

                                              BOMBSHIP EAGLE

Smarting from the British blockade of American seaports during the War of 1812, Congress turned for help to our private citizens.  Legislation was passed in March 1813 allowing a bounty equal to one-half the value of any British warship, its armament, and rigging, to be paid to any citizen who destroyed the ship.  It was called the “Torpedo Act,” a reference to the contemporary word for a static bomb.  It was hoped the Act would transform His Majesty’s blockading ships into targets for enterprising entrepreneurs.

Three months later, New York businessman John Scudder, Jr. completed a project in keeping with Congress’ Act.  Scudder gutted the civilian schooner Eagle, then re-constructed a large cask below decks.  This he filled with 40 ten-pound kegs of gunpowder packed in sulfur.  Large stones were piled loosely over the cask, and for extra measure, containers of turpentine were laid amongst the rocks.  Two musket flintlocks were rigged as triggers, with lines running through the deck to two innocent looking flour kegs topside.  Any movement of the kegs would trip the flintlocks.  New spools of line and other valuable ships stores were stacked about the deck as bait.  Scudder then hired a man history records only as “Captain Riker,” (probably a false name) to sail Eagle toward the British squadron at the mouth of Long Island Sound.

Riker knew well that the British made a habit of seizing any sizeable vessel operating in the Sound.  And as expected, on this morning a British officer and twenty sailors set out after Riker in a barge from the flagship HMS RAMILLIES, 74.  But instead of running, Riker and his crew dropped Eagle’s anchor and fled to shore.  As the British boarded the schooner, Riker and his men opened musket fire so intense the redcoats had to cut her anchor cable to move away.  Exactly according to Riker’s plan, Eagle was taken into the warship anchorage, where, lacking an anchor, she had to be tied off to another vessel.  But alas the tide and wind carried her far down range, where she was secured to another American sloop that had been captured a few days earlier.  A British detail began relieving the tempting “bait,” until about 1430, when some unlucky tar hoisted one of the flour barrels.  Eagle, the captured sloop, and eleven British sailors disappeared in a 900-foot column of smoke and flame.  Pitch and splinters rained onto RAMILLIES a mile away.

The British immediately suspected Stephen Decatur was behind this plot, another of his efforts to break out from New London where the British had him bottled-up.  But in truth, it was a bold act by private citizens for personal profit.  Had Ramillies been destroyed, Scudder stood to earn over $150,000.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 JUN 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

De Kay, James Tertius.  The Battle of Stonington: Torpedoes Submarines, and Rockets in the War of 1812.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1990, pp. 34-37.

Warren, ADM Sir John B.  letter to 1st Secretary of the Admiralty, dtd 22 July 1813.  IN:  Dudley, William S. (ed).  The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History  Vol II.  Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, Navy Historical Center, 1992, pp. 163-64.

The post Bombship EAGLE appeared first on Today in Naval History.