From the Raleigh Standard

Fort Macon- Its Defence, etc.

Mr. Editor: It is due to the State of N. Carolina, whose soldiers constituted the garrison, that some authentic account of the investment, siege, defence and surrender of Fort Macon, should be given to the public. Statements, prejudicial to the conduct of the garrison, have been made, and the impression sought to be created, that no necessity existed for the capitulation; but that the Fort could easily have been held, and the besiegers repulsed; while Mr. Pollard, in his history of “the first Year of the War,” thus curtly disposes of the whole subject:

“Another Confederate disaster on the coast shortly ensued, in the surrender of Fort Macon. This Fort, on the North Carolina coast, was surrendered on the 25^th of April, (this should be the 26^th), after the bombardment from the enemy’s land batteries of less than twelve hours. It commanded the entrance to Beaufort harbor, and was said to be the most formidable fortification on the North Carolina coast.

I have thought it my duty to give a plain statement of the facts, because the brave Commandant (Col. White, of Mississippi) is too far removed to hear the reflections upon his command, and because Captain Guion, the second in command, is prevented by disease.

Newbern was entered by the Federals under Gen. Burnside the 14^th of March, and immediate steps were taken to prevent any communication between Fort Macon and the Confederate authorities. A formal demand for the surrender of the Fort was made by Brig. General Parke, and refused by Col. White on the 23^rd; but it was not until the night of the 26^th, that the investment was completed, and the siege fairly begun. Watchful eyes upon the parapets that night beheld signal lights upon Bogue Banks, on board steamers in Bogue Sound, at Carolina City, Morehead and Beaufort, on steamer in Core Sound, on Shackelford’s Banks, and in the rigging of blockading squadron upon the bosom of the Atlantic, telling in unmistakable language that the folds of the Federal anaconda had encircled Fort Macon, and its small, but determined garrison. From this time till the 11^th of April, our pickets were in close proximity to the enemy, but no hostile demonstration was made.

On the 9^th of April Col. White determined to make an effort to communicate with Confederate authorities, and the night being dark, Lieut. Primrose of company F, was sent with a detachment of six men in open boat to sea. The night proved stormy, and the sea was exceedingly rough; but the boat succeeded in evading the enemy’s fleet, reached the Confederate lines in safety. (This we learned after surrender of the Fort.) Lieut. Primrose found it impossible to reach the Fort on his return and the Commandant was left without the advices and instruction so much desired.

To show the perfidy of the enemy, the following fact is added: On the morning of the 10^th of April, the writer, to whose company the entire picket duty of the garrison had been entrusted, found a note sticking in a plank in the vicinity of the most distant of our picket stations. Its orthography and punctuation are given precisely as written:

“We [unreadable paragraph]”; Lt. O. S. Rimington, 5^th Reg. R. L. V.

Notwithstanding this positive assurance, the very next morning two companies came down in force, and advancing as near to us as they thought prudent, signalled to one of the blockaders about a half mile off. The ship immediately opened fired upon our pickets with grape shot. The Federals on the beach advanced at double quick, and my men, four in number, as soon as they were within range fired upon them and fell back to our next station. After a skirmish of more than an hour our pickets were driven in, the enemy proceeded to make a reconnaissance of the positions ultimately chosen for the erection of their batteries. During the afternoon of the same day, acting under orders of Col. White, thirty men of company H, 10^th Reg’t. N. C. T., in command of Captain, occupied their old picket station- the enemy hanging back as, our pickets advanced. During the night all was quiet.

About 8 o’clock A. M. of the 12^th April, the enemy advanced in force (five companies) to take possession of points selected for their batteries. Their advance was resisted by our pickets, then under command of Lieut. Jos. P. Roberson, of company H. A skirmish of four hours duration ensued, our men stubbornly contesting every inch of ground, and only retreating when orders from the Fort to do so were received. Our loss was one man wounded. Theirs was fifteen killed and twenty-five wounded. (This we learned from one of the Northern journals after fall of the Fort.) During the afternoon of this day, Capt. Manney, of company G, was ordered to take fifty men of his company, reconnoiter the position of the enemy, and if possible, occupy the old picket stations. This was impossible. The enemy were found in force behind sand hills, fourteen hundred yards from the Fort. After a skirmish of some time, in which every advantage of position and numbers was with the enemy, Capt. Manney and Lt. Cogdell of company F, who had been dispatched with reinforcements to his assistance, were ordered to return. Capt. Guion, with a detachment of men from company B, performed picket duty during the night, within a short distance of the company’s lines. No further hostile demonstration was made, however, on this occasion by the enemy.

Each day of the succeeding twelve was passed in closely watching the movements of the enemy; firing upon their ships; dispersing with shot and shell from time to time, detachments of their forces who showed themselves out of cover of the sand hills, and in strengthening , as far as the means at our command would permit, our defences. The nights were passed in guarding against surprise. The labor of the garrison was incessant; and the night alarms being very frequent, it was impossible to obtain the needful rest.

Wednesday afternoon, the 23^rd of April, Gen. Burnside sent a flag of truce with a second demand for surrender, informing the Commandant that all his preparations for attack were completed. This demand was promptly refused, as was a third made the subsequent morning in a personal interview between Col. White and Gen. Burnside.

Having brought down the events of the siege to the morning of the bombardment it seemed to be improper to examine the extent of the enemy’s forces, and the means at our command to repel the impending attack. The Federals were commanded by Brig. Gen. J. G. Parke, and consisted of four regiments, one battalion of five companies, one company of U. S. Reg. Artillery, and a detachment of N. Y. Artillery. About 2500 of these troops were on Bogue Banks, and others at Carolina City, Morehead and Beaufort. In the Sound were four gunboats; outside the bar were three steamers and one sail ship. On the beach, twelve hundred yards from the Fort, was a battery of four 8-in. mortars; fourteen hundred yards from us were batteries of five rifled parrot guns; sixteen hundred yards another battery of four 10-in. mortars. To oppose this force, we had two hundred and sixty effective men and fifty one guns of calibre, varying from the 24-pounder to the 10-in. columbiad. It must be remembered, however, the Fort had been prepared principally to resist an attack from sea. The defences on the land side were inefficient, and the fall of Newbern, and the early investment of the Fort, rendered it impossible for the garrison to supply deficiencies, or to strengthen, to any great extent our defences on the land face. When the enemy opened fire upon us from their land batteries we were enabled to bring to bear against them from the lower parapet, one 8-in. columbiad; six smooth bored 24-pounders, and one 32-pounder; and six short 32-pounders taken a few days before from the caponiers, and hastily mounted, at an angle of 40 degrees to supply, to some extent the want of mortars; on the upper parapet, Capt. Guion was enabled to use one 10-in. columbiad at highest elevation with small charge as a mortar; besides this, only five smooth bored 32-pounders could be brought to bear, and one of these was rendered useless at the first fire. From their land batteries alone, the Federals were able, at each discharge, to hurl 700 pounds of shell against us, while our weight of metal, from every gun which we could bring to bear against them, was less than 600 pounds of shell.

At 10 minutes before six A. M. on the 26^th of April the enemy ____ ____ land batteries upon the fort. ____ ____, all was activity within the ____, and in less than one quarter of an hour every gun which could be brought to bear against the enemy was [__unreadable phrase__.] Company B, Capt. Guion, manned four 24-pounders on lower parapet, and 10-in. columbiad on upper parapet. Company H, Capt. Pool, and in charge ____ ____ ____ guns used as mortars and one 8-in. and one 10-in. columbiad on lower parapet.; the battery which had been assigned to company F, Lieut. Cogdell commanding, not bearing upon enemy’s works, this company was detailed to relieve Capt. Blount’s company of Confederate Artillery in charge of 32-pounders on upper parapet; company G, Capt. Manney, promptly sprang to their 24-pounders and one 32-pounder bearing upon enemy’s batteries. It is worthy of note, as some misapprehension seems to exist on this point, that all our guns were “barbette,” and that one only bearing on enemy, had the slightest protection of merlon or traverse.

The enemy’s fire, accurate from the beginning, was soon rendered with the utmost precision, signals having been made to them by their signal corps at Morehead and Beaufort whenever they failed in attaining the mark. For four hours the firing was rapid and the roar of artillery and the bursting of the enemy’s shells around us, were deafening. Gun after gun upon the Fort had been disabled; man after man had been conveyed to the surgery, or laid low in death. The men of the garrison continued to work coolly, cheerily, and without evident effect upon the rifled battery of the enemy, the fire from which had sensibly diminished.

A new adversary now appeared—the steamers and barque were nearing the Fort, and their guns in battery spoke plainly of a wish to engage in the destructive and death-dealing sport. Capt. Guion’s men sprang to his sea-face battery; Capt. Pool’s columbiads were turned from the land batteries, and with an additional one brought to bear upon the rapidly advancing ships. Capts. Manney, Blount and Cogdell continued their fire upon the ____. The scene was now exciting to the extreme. Seven of our heaviest guns were directed against the ships—there, skillfully manoeuvred, as one regiment approached and delivered their broadsides, then receded to reload and escape the heavy missiles sent from the Fort. Thus, the fight progressed until nearly noon—the boats in the Sound adding to the noise but doing no damage to anything except the treasury of Lincoln. The ships, all more or less damaged, now hauled off beyond the range of our guns. Immediately all our heavy guns, which could be, directed upon our enemy on land. Two of Capt. Manney’s guns, and two of Capt. Blount’s had been disabled, but coolly and deliberately their detachments were working those that remained, regardless of the shell exploding around them, and of the rifled shot tearing and crushing everything opposing their course.

About two P. M., the most serious and destructive disaster of the day occurred. Parrot guns, passing under the muzzle of the 8-in. columbiad of Capt. Pool’s battery, struck the elevating screw bed, and scattering its fragments in all directions, passed to cocentric wheel of the 10-in. columbiad, shattered it, and entirely disabled both guns. The “paul” of the 8-in. driven forward with irresistible fury, mortally wounded, the gunner who was standing upon the “chassis” in the act of giving the necessary elevation to his gun, passed on mortally wounding a cannoneer and the gunner of the 10-in. columbiad. A shell from mortar battery exploding in our midst, at the same moment, wounded four more men.

At three P. M. all the batteries on lower parapet of Fort were silenced, but the fire from upper parapet was continued till five P. M., at which hour a white flag was raised, a council of officers having determined that the time had come, when, if good terms could be procured for the garrison, it should be done.

Capts. Guion and Pool were sent by Col. White to meet Brig. Gen. Parke, and make propositions for the surrender of Fort Macon upon these terms:

All the public property, arms munitions of war, provisions, etc., to be surrendered, upon conditions that officers and men were to be paroled immediately and sent to their homes; all private property of officers and men, side arms, and all private arms of whatever kind, all company books and papers, to be respected and retained.

Gen. Parke peremptorily declined to accept any other than an unconditional surrender, but finding that we were determined, he referred our propositions with his answer to Gen. Burnside, by whom they were accepted next day, and after a ratification of the terms, the Fort was delivered to the Federal forces, and the officers and men composing the garrison were paroled and sent to their homes.

The extent of damage done to the Fort, and to its armament and garrison, was greater than could have been anticipated from the duration of the fight. This was owing, in part, to the character of the missiles sent, and to the short distance of the batteries from our walls. The enemy fired eleven hundred shot and shell from his land batteries; five hundred and fifty-nine of these exploded on parapets, in moat, or in parade ground, or struck such portions of the walls of the Fort as were exposed. About the same number of shot and shell was fired by steamers and gunboats, but one of which was known to strike fortification. Those portions of the walls of the Fort, which could be reached, were much damaged—fifteen of the guns were dismounted, or disabled—seven of the garrison were killed and sixteen wounded. We have no means to accurately [__unreadable phrase__.] ____ ____ ____ were injured, the rifle gun battery seriously damaged, three of their Parrot guns partially disabled, while many of their men were killed and wounded. The officers reported one killed and eleven wounded—the men stated their loss was between four and five hundred.

During the siege and on the day of the bombardment, the officers and men of the garrison, with a few dishonorable exceptions, behaved admirably. There were in all, fourteen desertions (seven from Co. H, four from Co. G, and three from Co. F), less probably than has been anywhere during the war, under circumstances so clearly hopeless, and where it was so easy to desert. From the first moment of the fight, the men were cool and determined, loading and firing with as much deliberation and precision, as though they were engaged at target practice. This is the concurrent testimony of the Commandant, and of every officer in command that day. Few better soldiers can be found, than those in Fort Macon on the 25^th April, 1862.

I might, in conclusion, Mr. Editor, state some of the causes which resulted in the fall of Fort Macon, but I shall not, my object being simply to vindicate the garrison, placing it in position, by a statement of facts, to receive the verdict of approval or condemnation of an enlightened public opinion. Nor is it necessary that I should state those causes. The reader can surely see them, and must know why they acted so disastrously along the entire coast of North Carolina.

STEPHEN D. POOL, Capt. Co H

10^th Reg’t. N. C. S. Troops