University of Virginia Library

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333

LINES BELOW WILMINGTON.

Battery Buchanan, on the extremity of Federal Point, was
captured with its garrison of artillerists the night Fort Fisher
fell. Hoke continued to hold the entrenched lines above, running
from Sugar Loaf, a promontory on the Cape Fear river to the
head of Masonboro Sound. On the right bank of the river, in the
next few days, Fort Caswell and the other defences were abandoned
as high up as Fort Anderson near Orton Point, and the
Confederates withdrew to the previously entrenched lines at this
place. Fort Anderson was opposite Sugar Loaf, and the lines
ran from this work to Orton Pond which stretches out in a southwesterly
direction seven miles from the river in an air line, and
nine or ten as the road ran. On the left bank of the river the
Sugar Loaf lines were enfiladed or taken in reverse at will by
the enemy's fleet outside, the concealment of the forest alone rendering
them tenable, and they were liable to be turned by a landing
from the sea behind them. On the right bank the line was
short and strong enough against a direct attack. It could be
turned by the head of Orton Pond.

The river channel ran close under Fort Anderson and was not
in all over six or eight hundred yards wide, though the whole
river was at this point three miles in width. The fort, however,
had only nine (9) guns, all 32 drs., two of which were rifled but
not banded. These with their carriages were old and worn, and
bore across and down the river. No gun could be brought to bear
up the river, and consequently if any portion of the fleet should
have passed the fort we would have had no fire upon it, while it
would have taken nearly every gun in reverse. Torpedoes in the
river completed the defensive arrangements. There were obstructions
in the river eight or nine miles above Fort Anderson, and
there was no communication between the Sugar Loaf and Fort
Anderson lines, except through Wilmington, fifteen miles above.
They were thus practically thirty miles apart, while, with his
abundant steam transportation in the river, to the enemy they
were not wider apart than five miles march.