e 15th. The naval force had been already
assembled, or was assembling, but they were obliged to run into Beaufort
for munitions, coal, etc.; then, too, the powder-boat was not yet fully
prepared. The fleet was ready to proceed on the 18th; but Butler, who
had remained outside from the 15th up to that time, now found himself
out of coal, fresh water, etc., and had to put into Beaufort to
replenish. Another storm overtook him, and several days more were lost
before the army and navy were both ready at the same time to co-operate.

On the night of the 23d the powder-boat was towed in by a gunboat as
near to the fort as it was safe to run. She was then propelled by her
own machinery to within about five hundred yards of the shore. There
the clockwork, which was to explode her within a certain length of time,
was set and she was abandoned. Everybody left, and even the vessels put
out to sea to prevent the effect of the explosion upon them. At two
o'clock in the morning the explosion took place--and produced no more
effect on the fort, or anything else on land, than the bursting of a
boiler anywhere on the Atlantic Ocean would have done. Indeed when the
troops in Fort Fisher heard the explosion they supposed it was the
bursting of a boiler in one of the Yankee gunboats.

Fort Fisher was situated upon a low, flat peninsula north of Cape Fear
River. The soil is sandy. Back a little the peninsula is very heavily
wooded, and covered with fresh-water swamps. The fort ran across this
peninsula, about five hundred yards in width, and extended along the sea
coast about thirteen hundred yards. The fort had an armament of 21 guns
and 3 mortars on the land side, and 24 guns on the sea front. At that
time it was only garrisoned by four companies of infantry, one light
battery and the gunners at the heavy guns less than seven hundred men
with a reserve of less than a thousand men five miles up the peninsula.
General Whiting of the Confederate army was in command, and General
Bragg was in command of the force at Wilmington. Both commenced calling
for reinforcements the moment they saw our troops landing. The Governor
of North Carolina called for everybody who could stand behind a parapet
and shoot a gun, to join them. In this way they got two or three
hundred additional men into Fort Fisher; and Hoke's division, five or
six thousand strong, was sent down from Richmond. A few of these troops
arrived the very day that Butler