Chapter 80 - Page 2

the parapet was battered, and the large guns crushed as one
smashes a bottle with a stone. The garrison fled into the bomb-proofs
for protection. The troops, who had landed above the fort, moved up to
assail the land face, while a brigade of sailors and marines attacked the
sea face.

As the fleet had to cease firing to allow the charge, the Rebels ran out
of their casemates and, manning the parapet, opened such a fire of
musketry that the brigade from the fleet was driven back, but the
soldiers made a lodgment on the land face. Then began some beautiful
cooperative tactics between the Army and Navy, communication being kept
up with signal flags. Our men were on one side of the parapets and the
Rebels on the other, with the fighting almost hand-to-hand. The vessels
ranged out to where their guns would rake the Rebel line, and as their
shot tore down its length, the Rebels gave way, and falling back to the
next traverse, renewed the conflict there. Guided by the signals our
vessels changed their positions, so as to rake this line also, and so the
fight went on until twelve traverses had been carried, one after the
other, when the rebels surrendered.

The next day the Rebels abandoned Fort Caswell and other fortifications
in the immediate neighborhood, surrendered two gunboats, and fell back to
the lines at Fort Anderson. After Fort Fisher fell, several
blockade-runners were lured inside and captured.

Never before had there been such a demonstration of the power of heavy
artillery. Huge cannon were pounded into fragments, hills of sand ripped
open, deep crevasses blown in the ground by exploding shells, wooden
buildings reduced to kindling-wood, etc. The ground was literally paved
with fragments of shot and shell, which, now red with rust from the
corroding salt air, made the interior of the fort resemble what one of
our party likened it to "an old brickyard."

Whichever way we looked along the shores we saw abundant evidence of the
greatness of the business which gave the place its importance. In all
directions, as far as the eye could reach, the beach was dotted with the
bleaching skeletons of blockade-runners--some run ashore by their
mistaking the channel, more beached to escape the hot pursuit of our
blockaders.

Directly in front of the sea face of the fort, and not four hundred yards
from the savage mouths of the huge guns, the blackened timbers of a
burned blockade-runner showed above the water at low tide. Coming in
from Nassau with a cargo of priceless value to the gasping Confederacy,
she was observed and chased by one of our vessels, a swifter sailer,
even, than herself. The war ship closed rapidly upon her. She sought
the protection of the guns of Fort Fisher,