Download or read book The Expeditions Against Fort Fisher and Wilmington (Classic Reprint) written by Edson J. Harkness and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Expeditions Against Fort Fisher and Wilmington An occurrence after the fall of Fort Fisher illustrates the difficulty of blockading. Two English boats arrived at night. Their commanders, unaware of the situation, worked their way through all our fleet and came into the river unobserved. They then announced, by signals, their arrival. A captured contraband understood the signals, and informed General Terry what reply would bring them in. The signal was given, and the officers came in, entirely unconscious they were falling among Federal forces. Even after they entered the fort, they enjoyed conversation for some time before suspecting that Union generals were their hosts. They were finally informed that their vessels and cargoes were prizes. Whoever held the shore north of New Inlet kept the key of this contraband mart. For more than twenty miles above its mouth, Cape Fear River flows nearly parallel with the coast, forming a peninsula twenty-three miles long, but of varying width. Its southeast end is Federal Point, the peninsula one mile northward being a mere beach, less than half a mile from sea to river, and entirely open to bombardment. Three miles northward the breadth is one mile, and the east bank is six feet high. At the fourth mile the width becomes one and a half miles. At the north end the peninsula is cleft by Mason boro Sound, extending sixteen miles south. The area between New Inlet, the river, the sound, and the Atlantic, is sandy; the ground never rises more than fifteen feet above high water, is heavily timbered in dry regions, and abounds in wooded and almost impassable swamps. The148 military essays and recollections. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.