Customer Reviews

The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope

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Why can't more Civil War titles be written like this: an interesting and smooth flowing narrative, sufficient number of high quality maps, ample photographs, and anecdotes of officer and enlisted participants?

In my humble opinion, Fonvielle has written what I believe to be one of the best Civil War campaign studies, period! His narrative is simple without being simplistic, maps of outstanding quality and plenty of them, and ample illustrations and photos of the fort, participants, and the area around Wilmington NC.

Except for a few years living in Virginia while serving in the Air Force, I have spent my life in North Carolina and have often visited the Wilmington and Fort Fisher area. Fonvielle's title will serve as an excellent resource on my next visit and is invaluable to those who want to know more about what happened in the Wilmington area after the fall of Fort Fisher.

While reading both Fonvielle's and Gragg's accounts of Fort Fisher, I often pondered: what would have happened if General Bragg was more aggressive in his defense of Fort Fisher by ordering a larger portion of Hoke's division to defend the fort instead of staying put at Sugar Loaf? Indeed, this is often the true mark of an outstanding Civil War book: pondering the "what ifs" of the war and how a change in a decision could have affected the war's length or outcome.

Fonvielle's book has hit the mark and is highly recommended. Read and enjoy!

The Civil War had many campaigns, and numerous battles. Most of them have been chronicled at one time or another. The battle of Fort Fisher, in North Carolina near Wilmington, was wonderfully written about a decade ago in Confederate Goliath by noted historian Rod Gragg. Gragg's book however, finishes with the end of the battle, and has nothing or next to it to say about the ensuing campaign to capture the city of Wilmington itself. The campaign as a whole is the subject of Chris Fonvielle's book, which has a larger scope than Gragg's excellent work, and is equally skilled.

Fonvielle is a southerner, and was a resident of Wilmington at the time the book was written. Since I had just finished another book that was originally published by Savas publishing (Last Chance for Victory) and I had hacked it to pieces here as unreasonably pro-Confederate, I was somewhat apprehensive when I started this book. No worries, Fonvielle is balanced, forthright, and very careful with the issues and participants on both sides. The result is a wonderful depiction of the campaign and battle as they occurred, with a number of wonderful anecdotes. The author also does a masterful job of depicting the strategic context of the campaign and battle, and their impact on the war's last phase.

I've read a number of books on the Civil War. This one has excellent maps and illustrations, is well-thought-out and concise, without being either cursory or overly brief, and is well-documented. I would recommend this book to any Civil War buff.

This is history written right. From the details of the major battles for Fort Fisher, the defense of Fort Anderson, right down to the smaller actions around this important port city, the author covers all. Being a student of Maj. General W.H.C. Whiting, I was amazed to see the only known, full length photo of him, published for the first time. The maps are wonderful, especially the fold outs. Written portraits of all the players are included in the text, without bias. The author is a native of Wilmington, and his love for the area shows with this work. 130+ years after the final battles of the war were fought, Wilmington's story is told.

Chris Fonvielle has provided the definitive work on the Wilmington Campaign from beginning to end. "Last Rays of Departing Hope" is a model for how to properly cover such an extensive campaign. Every action of the campaign is covered. The maps are excellent and plentiful, and orders of battle are provided for all of the major actions. Gun emplacements are detailed. The naval vessels, commanders and gun counts are also provided. The writing is fluid and weaves in participant accounts. The author has maintained an objective tone throughout.

The major phases of combat covered are: 1st Fort Fisher, 2nd Fort Fisher, attempts at Sugar Loaf, Fort Anderson, Town Creek, and Forks Road. The powder boat experiment/fiasco is discussed in detail.

Wilmington was the premiere blockade running port of the Confederacy and was Lee's final source of supply. It was protected by a large and powerful earthen fort, Fort Fisher. The assaults on Fort Fisher provide fascinating examples of both how combined operations can succeed and how they can fail. In the first attack numerous problems plagued the Union assault: poor cooperation and lack of coordination by Butler and Porter, slow transport and bad weather that allowed the defenders to prepare for the onslaught, poor intelligence about the two sided nature of the structure, inexcusable inefficacy of the massive naval bombardment (shooting at flags instead of dismounting guns), as well as timid army commanders who failed to exploit Curtis' recognition of the fort's vulnerability. While Butler received most of the blame (deservedly in many instances), Porter's failures were as severe or even more detrimental to the enterprise.

CSA district commander Bragg had done little to aid the defense of the fort, and left it largely on its own. Fortunately for him, the attackers defeated themselves. Porter would learn from his mistakes, Bragg would not. For the next assault Porter cooperated fully with General Terry who replaced the disgraced Butler. The navy bombardment focused on the land face of the fort, disabling nearly every piece mounted along the parapet. Porter coordinated the end of the land face bombardment with the army assault and shifted his fire to the sea face. Even so the assault was a close run thing. Had Bragg provided prompt reinforcement, or attacked with Hoke's force to the north, then the initial assault would most likely have been repelled, resulting in difficult siege operations to reduce the fort.

Fortunately for the Federals, Bragg and Hoke did nothing of consequence to support the fort's defenders, instead remaining passive as the defenders were overrun. Union general Adelbert Ames' sulking timidity nearly snatched defeat from victory by failing to aggressively follow up the advantage that Col. Curtis had obtained. Commanding General Terry appreciated Curtis' correct judgement and supported Ames' subordinate at critical junctures. The heavily outnumbered defenders were defeated.

The narrative does not end here as the town was not yet taken. Schofield was assigned command of the new Federal district and brought his corps to bear on both sides of the river. Hoke was able to entrench on the east of the river and prevent assault from that direction. The Federals made a push on the west bank of the river. CSA Gen. Hagood at Fort Anderson failed to properly counter a flanking move and was forced to withdraw to save his command. U.S. Brig. Gen. Cox aggressively followed up and after yet another flanking maneuver at Town Creek drove Hagood back into Wilmington. The rebels were forced to abandon the defense of the city and withdraw.

Whiting, Lamb, Curtis, Terry, and Cox emerge as heroes for their respective causes; Bragg, Ames, Butler, Hoke (and perhaps Hagood) as goats. Porter spends time in both camps but ends his tour with resounding success.

This is not just the best single book in existence about the battles for Fort Fisher and the Wilmington Campaign. This is one of the best books in existence about the Civil War, period.

The book is an absolute masterpiece of narrative history, drawing from a broad base of sources which took an incredible amount of work to accumulate. The massive amount of sources allow this book to achieve the rare feat of making you feel like you are immersed in the battle. This is a rare achievement for a book written 132 years after the events it describes, when all living witnesses have long since died.

Truly a remarkable feat of historical scholarship.

very empelling book chris fonvielle is right on this one,the details and research he did on this book kept you
wanting more.

The battles for Wilmington are important, given the strategic importance of the area. Fort Fisher guarded the city and was a target for Union forces. This book does a nice job discussing the lead up to the battles; the volume also carefully explores what happened after Union forces captured the fort. Thus, the battles are put into a much broader context.

Note the plural here. The first struggle to capture the fort was seriocomic, with the attacking Union forces led by the inept General Ben Butler. He had one division of the XXIV Corps and most of a second division from the XXV Corps. There was also the naval force commanded by the redoubtable Admiral David Porter. The end result was an embarrassing defeat--from the failed effort to reduce the fort by a ship packed with explosive to the tentative amphibious landing and tepid assault on the fort.

However, there was a second battle, in January, 1865. Union forces this time were led by General Alfred Terry and, once more, Admiral David Porter. The General and Admiral worked well together. Sailors made an assault as did Army forces from a second direction. While the fighting was fierce3, the Union forces vastly outnumbered Confederates.

Follow up battles occurred, with additional fighting at Sugar Loaf, Fort Anderson, and Wilmington. Overall command of the Confederate forces was the luckless (and not very talented) Braxton Bragg. Suffice it to say that he was not at his best during the final stages of the campaign.

This is a fine book, outlining in considerable detail the campaigns for Wilmington's capture.

Closing the port of Wilmington cut-off the last viable supply route to General Lee's army invested in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg. The capture of Fort Fisher--the Gibraltar of the West made the capture of Wilmington inevitable and sealed the fate of the Confederacy. The largest amphibious assault launched by the United States up to 1865 and not bested until the D-Day invasion of Normandy in 1944--is almost unknown by the average American citizen. One of my ancestors fought at Fort Fisher and I have devoured every book I could find on the subject. This book is the hands-down the best. Well-written and comprehensive...the kind of book you find hard to put down.