THE NAVAL CHARGE
Lt. Roswell Lamson led 70 sailors and marines from the USS Gettysburg in the Naval Column which attacked the northeast salient of Fort Fisher. The sailors were armed with pistols and cutlasses and were ordered to "board" the fort in a sailorly manner. The marines had rifles to provide covering fire.
All officers were in full dress uniforms. Lt. Preston led a group from the USS Malvern.
Sailors were not trained for this sort of action and the attack soon became disorganized, even more so when the Confederate defenders climbed out of their bomb proofs when the fleet stopped the bombardment and opened a withering fire on the Federals. Most of the 2,000 soon broke and retreated back across the beach. Only some 200 made it up close to Fisher's walls, but that was as far as they got.
Officers in those uniforms became special targets for the Confederates. Lt. Preston, running alongside Lamson was shot in the groin and went down. twenty steps later, Lamson was hit in the left shoulder and arm and went down himself. He crawled back to Preston and found that a musket ball had severed his friend's femoral artery in his left thigh and he had bled to death immediately.
One Bloody mess. --Old B-Runner
No comments:
Post a Comment