Fort Fisher NC014

supportedunresolved Butler says he sent the transports up the Potomac to be seen by Confederate scouts on the Northern Neck and learned from prisoners on the 25th that Kirkland's and Hagood's brigades of Hoke's division were within two miles. Whiting says he received notice on the 18th of the fleet's sailing, judged the enemy aware of the reduced garrisons but probably not of the approach of Lee's troops, and could only conjecture the landed force. NPS says Lee sent Hoke's division on learning that Union troops had embarked on December 13. In the January 1 addenda Bragg's adjutant says a sentence of Whiting's report credited Hoke with the message of the afternoon of the 26th; Hoke reached Sugar Loaf only about 8 p.m. (the day is not restated), nearly twelve hours after Kirkland had ordered the movement that opened communication, and the message was sent by the commanding general. The printed report reads 'the general commanding', the corrected wording.

Contemporary and retrospective statements of what commanders learned; report dates are not proof of when each learned it. The printed report already carries the correction. The January 1 addenda letter is Anderson's, written for Bragg, and conveys Bragg's headquarters' version; it is registered with Whiting's selection because it is printed as addenda to his report, and belongs to Bragg's family if that family is used for this record.

supportedunresolved Butler says the transport fleet was coaled and watered for ten days and had to go to Beaufort for coal and water during the December 20-23 gale; he had neither siege train nor supplies, and says the navy had exhausted its ammunition. Whiting says the fleet threw probably 10,000 projectiles on the point on the 24th and that the garrison expended 600 projectiles with forty-four guns on the day printed as the 21st (the compiler queries the 25th), two Brooke guns burst, and he doubted the fleet could have kept up its fire another day given its expenditure of ammunition; he credits the storms before the 24th with saving the fort.

Supply and weather statements from interested reports; no ship, ordnance or quartermaster return was inspected. Whiting's 10,000 is his estimate.

supportedunresolved Butler calls it the army portion of the conjoint expedition against Wilmington; he says landing troops to seize the point was essential if the navy would not run past the fort, urged Porter to run into the Cape Fear, and says his instructions did not contemplate a siege. NPS says the fort protected Wilmington, the last open Atlantic seaport. Whiting says that on the 24th no attempt, as far as known, was made to land above the forts or to pass the bar; on the 25th he says it appeared the fleet was about to try the entrance before its boats were driven off. He maintains the need for obstructions to hold a fleet under fire.

Stated aims and a disputed plan; Grant's indorsement disputing Butler's reading of his instructions was read but not selected. Porter's own statement of aims was not inspected.

disputedpost_outcome The frozen result is a Confederate victory. NPS says the Federal assault had already begun when Hoke approached, discouraging further attempts, and that Butler called off the expedition on December 27. Butler says he ordered that no assault be made, that his skirmish line came within seventy-five yards of the fort (his January 3 report, after Curtis pushed up his brigade; his December 27 telegram says Weitzel brought his picket line within fifty yards), and that about 300 men could not be re-embarked when the surf rose. Whiting says a grape and musketry fire checked the advance and that the enemy was seen for six hours taking off troops; he calls the land effort feeble. Butler's prisoner figures vary: about 300 men and 10 officers (December 27), 218 men and 10 officers of the Reserves taken by Ames's division, and 300 including 12 officers in all (January 3).

The NPS 'assault had already begun' and Butler's statement that no assault was ordered are kept as a disputed description of the same skirmish-line advance. Butler's two distances (fifty and seventy-five yards) and attributions (Weitzel, Curtis) differ and are both kept. The later withdrawal and the campaign that followed are different measures. Retain the original result and engagement interval; later movements and campaign contribution are different measures. No new probabilities or individual causal credit.

disputedpost_outcome The frozen casualty field reads 320 total; the live page reads zero. Butler's December 27 telegram gives the loss when he left as 12 wounded, 10 of them by the navy's shells; his January 3 report gives 1 drowned, 2 killed, 1 officer captured and 10 wounded. Whiting gives 1 mortally, 3 seriously and 10 slightly wounded on the 24th and 3 killed, 2 mortally, 7 severely and 26 slightly wounded (38) on the 25th, '61 in all' for both days; the components sum to 52 (a computation).

The frozen 320's basis is not established; it is not reconciled with Butler's losses, Whiting's garrison losses or the prisoners Butler reports. Whiting's printed total and his components differ and both are kept. Hébert's casualty list was read but not selected. Original casualty returns were not inspected; preserve totals, categories, cutoffs and differences. No canonical reconciliation or casualty-based opening count; related actions must not be added without resolving population overlap.

disputedunresolved The frozen commanders are Butler (Major General) and Porter (Rear Admiral) against Hoke (Major General); the live page lists Porter and Hoke only. Butler says Porter exploded the powder vessel and opened the attack without waiting for his return, that Weitzel reported an assault impossible, that the opinion coincided with his own, and that he ordered no assault and the re-embarkation. Whiting says Hoke sent Graham's regiment to the fort's support on the 27th, credits Lamb with the defense, and says he himself did not assume Lamb's command but acted as a witness; he says the advance of Hoke's division completed the enemy's discomfiture. The addenda credit Kirkland, not Hoke, with the movement that reopened communication. The frozen description and NPS say Butler 'was relieved of command of the Army of the James and assigned to lead' the expedition; his December 20 report is headed as commanding the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, and his January 3 report is dated from the headquarters of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, Army of the James. The NPS statement is recorded, not adopted.

Roles attributed by interested reports; Butler's and Porter's dispute over responsibility is represented here by Butler only. No listed commander receives automatic sole credit; Weitzel, Curtis, Lamb, Kirkland and Whiting are named as attributed actors, not rated.

unknownunresolved

No inspected return establishes matched personnel at a common opening boundary. The frozen side-specific numerical strength bounds are blank (missing_numeric_strength). No figure in this pass is adopted as a simultaneous opening force.

disputedunresolved The frozen force field names the Expeditionary Corps of the Army of the James against Hoke's division and the Fort Fisher garrison; the frozen bounds are blank and the live field reads zero. Butler says he moved about 6,500 effective men of Ames's and Paine's divisions on December 7, and that the Baltic stayed at the rendezvous with a brigade of 1,200. He says deserters and prisoners put fewer than 400 men in the garrison and fewer than 1,000 within twenty miles when the army arrived, that at least two brigades of Hoke's division had arrived, and that Hoke's division outside the works was larger than his force. Whiting says that by the morning of the 25th he threw 133 regulars and 300 Junior Reserves into the garrison, that the garrisons had been reduced one-half, and that three battalions of reserves reached the fort during the delay; on the 25th the fire came from over fifty ships.

Figures on different dates and bases: Butler's effective men at embarkation, his deserters' and prisoners' garrison figures for the army's arrival off Wilmington (December 15, by his account), Whiting's reinforcement counts: 133 regulars and 300 Junior Reserves thrown in during the night of December 24-25, and three battalions of reserves thrown in during the heavy-weather delay after the fleet appeared on the 20th and 21st; and a ship count. Butler's comparison with Hoke's division is his judgment. None is adopted as a matched opening strength; the live zeros are not measured absence.

supportedunresolved Butler describes a square bastioned work of high relief (about fifteen feet) with a wet ditch, a stockade from the fort to the sea and to the river marshes, and seventeen heavy guns bearing up the beach behind traverses eight or ten feet high; the beach was wide enough for an assault of only 1,000 men in line. He says no material damage had been done to the fort, and rising surf made further landing nearly impracticable. Whiting says the damage to the works beyond defacing the slope was nothing, credits the huge elevated traverses, and says the landing was made at the point he had reported as the true point of attack.

Butler's description is from a steamer a few hundred yards off and Weitzel's reconnaissance; Whiting was inside the fort. The works predate the attack; the phase is left unresolved.