Porter, reached Savannah, bringing
the first news of General Butler's failure at Fort Fisher, and that
the general had returned to James River with his land-forces,
leaving Admiral Porter's fleet anchored off Cape Fear, in that
tempestuous season. Captain Breese brought me a letter from the
admiral, dated December 29th, asking me to send him from Savannah
one of my old divisions, with which he said he would make short
work of Fort Fisher; that he had already bombarded and silenced its
guns, and that General Butler had failed because he was afraid to
attack, or even give the order to attack, after (as Porter
insisted) the guns of Fort Fisher had been actually silenced by the
navy.

I answered him promptly on the 31st of December, that I proposed to
march north inland, and that I would prefer to leave the rebel
garrisons on the coast, instead of dislodging and piling them up in
my front as we progressed. From the chances, as I then understood
them, I supposed that Fort Fisher was garrisoned by a comparatively
small force, while the whole division of General Hoke remained
about the city of Wilmington; and that, if Fort Fisher were
captured, it would leave General Hoke free to join the larger force
that would naturally be collected to oppose my progress northward.
I accordingly answered Admiral Porter to this effect, declining to
loan him the use of one of my divisions. It subsequently
transpired, however, that, as soon as General Butler reached City
Point, General Grant was unwilling to rest under a sense of
failure, and accordingly dispatched back the same troops,
reenforced and commanded by General A. H. Terry, who, on the 15th
day of January, successfully assaulted and captured Fort Fisher,
with its entire garrison. After the war was over, about the 20th
of May, when I was giving my testimony before the Congressional
Committee on the Conduct of the War, the chairman of the committee,
Senator B. F. Wade, of Ohio, told me that General Butler had been
summoned before that committee during the previous January, and had
just finished his demonstration to their entire satisfaction that
Fort Fisher could not be carried by assault, when they heard the
newsboy in the hall crying out an "extra" Calling him in, they
inquired the news, and he answered, "Fort Fisher done took!" Of
course, they all laughed, and none more heartily than General
Butler himself.

On the 11th of January there arrived at Savannah a revenue-cutte