Fort Fisher NC015

disputedunresolved Terry says he learned only on the way down that Fort Fisher was the objective, and from prisoners on landing that Hoke's division was still there. Bragg says his cavalry failed to report the night move of the Union line, that he had learned 'with certainty' that the enemy had landed neither horses nor artillery (Terry reports the light guns landed on the 14th), and that, confident of reinforcing the garrison that night, his apprehension at rumors about 4.30 p.m. on the 15th was dispelled by dispatches received at 7.30 and 10 p.m. saying the fort still held but was sorely pressed.

Contemporary claims of what commanders knew; Bragg's 'certainty' about artillery is contradicted by Terry and kept as a dispute.

supportedunresolved Terry says the troops carried four days' rations and forty rounds with no horses, wagons or ambulances, that a siege train followed, and that nearly 200 navy boats landed the men, six days' hard bread and 300,000 extra rounds on the 13th, some rations and ammunition being ruined in the surf; the light guns were landed on the 14th. Bragg says 1,100 reinforcing infantry were delayed when their steamer grounded, and that communication with the fort by water at night could not be cut unless the fleet forced the river.

Movement and supply statements from interested reports; no quartermaster or ordnance return was inspected.

supportedunresolved Terry says his first object was a defensive line across the peninsula facing Wilmington, and that after reconnaissance he decided to assault on the 15th if the navy's fire opened the palisades, the army against the western half of the land face and sailors and marines against the northeast bastion. Bragg says that to assault Terry's entrenchments with inferior numbers would have exhausted his means to aid the fort, and that making Terry the assaulting party seemed the only policy.

Stated plans and a stated policy from opposing interested reports.

disputedpost_outcome The frozen result is a Union victory, and NPS says a late-afternoon attack carried the parapet after the naval landing party was repulsed. Terry says the sailors and marines could not get up the parapet, that the traverses were carried in hand-to-hand fighting until nearly 9 p.m., and that Whiting and Lamb were among those captured at Battery Buchanan. Bragg says the naval assault was handsomely repulsed, but the army column entered the work on the river flank 'almost unopposed' and was then desperately resisted. Terry reports 169 pieces of artillery found in all the works and prisoners of 112 officers and 1,971 men (January 25); his January 20 report gives 96 officers and 1,164 men unhurt and 8 officers and 278 men wounded.

The entry is described differently by the two sides. Terry's two prisoner counts differ and are kept; the January 25 count may include other works. 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 2,000 total; the live page reads 3642 total (US 1059; CS 2583). Terry's January 20 report gives the assault loss as 12 officers and 107 men killed and 45 officers and 495 men wounded (659, a computation), and separately about 130 killed and wounded in the magazine explosion of the 16th. Bragg says the loss reported up to 1.30 p.m. on the 15th was 3 killed and 32 wounded, and about 500 killed and wounded in the struggle after the enemy entered.

Terry's figures cover the army only (the naval column's loss is not given), and the explosion is outside the frozen interval. Bragg's figures are reported, not returns. The compiled Union return (No. 3) is garbled in OCR and was not selected. The frozen and live totals are not reconciled with these components or with the prisoners. 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.

supportedunresolved The frozen commanders are Terry (Major General) and Porter (Rear Admiral) against Bragg (General), Hoke (Major General) and Lamb (Colonel); the live page lists only Porter and Bragg and gives 'Major General Braxton Bragg', and the frozen ranks are kept. Terry arranged the bombardment and assault with Porter, selected Ames's division, which Ames commanded in the assault, and credits Comstock above himself. Bragg approved Hoke's dispositions, suspended the order to attack on the 14th after joining Hoke's reconnaissance, and ordered Colquitt to the fort; he says Hoke went forward with his skirmish line on the 15th. Terry says Hoke advanced about 4 p.m. and abandoned any attack after a skirmish. Both name Lamb as the fort's commander; Bragg credits Whiting and Lamb with the resistance and declines to say how the misfortune came about.

Roles attributed by opposing interested reports. No listed commander receives automatic sole credit; Ames, Curtis, Comstock, Breese, Colquitt, Whiting and Lamb are named as attributed actors, not rated. The frozen commander row reads 'Charles Lamb'; the selections for this record name only 'Colonel Lamb', while Whiting's December 30, 1864 report cited in NC014 names 'Col. William Lamb, of the Thirty-sixth North Carolina'. The discrepancy is recorded; the frozen row is unchanged.

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. Terry says his orders gave him 3,300 picked men from Ames's division, the same number from Paine's, 1,400 from Abbott's brigade and two batteries, and that nearly 8,000 men were landed by 3 p.m. on the 13th. NPS says a naval force of nearly 60 vessels supported him; Bragg says about 70 vessels carrying at least 600 guns. Bragg gives the garrison as 1,200 strong before Whiting called in men from the adjacent forts (read 'about 000' in OCR), 'fully 2,300 arms-bearing men' after manning all the artillery, once 500 of 1,100 reinforcing infantry had arrived on the night of the 14th, and, as the garrison's composition (no date given; stated after his account of the final struggle), about 110 officers and 2,400 or 2,500 men; Hoke's movable force was about 6,000 effectives including reserves and cavalry.

Figures on different dates, bases and scopes: Terry's ordered detachments and landed total for January 13, Bragg's garrison figures for January 13-15 and Hoke's effectives, and two fleet counts. Terry's January 20 figure of about 7,500 infantry for duty is after the assault and outside the interval. None is adopted as a matched opening strength; the live zeros are not measured absence.

supportedunresolved Terry says Myrtle Sound was separated from the ocean by a sand spit about 100 yards wide and too shallow above its head to cover a line, that the mapped 'pond' was a sand flat, and that his line was finally drawn about two miles from the works; inside the fort the huge traverses of the land face were used successively as breastworks. Bragg says the land front was 450 yards long, with a parapet fifteen or twenty feet high, a ditch flooded according to tide and a line of palisades ten or twelve feet high, and that swamp and sound prevented any attack on the landing.

Ground and works described by opposing commanders; no map verification. The works predate the operation; phase left unresolved.