Identifier: marchtoseafrankl00coxj (find matches)
Title: The march to the sea : Franklin and Nashville
Year: 1882 (1880s)
Authors: Cox, Jacob D. (Jacob Dolson), 1828-1900
Subjects: Sherman's March to the Sea Franklin, Battle of, Franklin, Tenn., 1864 Nashville, Battle of, Nashville, Tenn., 1864
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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nel. Avillage of pilots and fishermen, called Smithville, lay underthe guns of Fort Johnson, a quaint little place emboweredin live-oaks, where the daring men lived who chose thestormiest nights and the foggiest days for piloting in theblockade runners upon which the South was dependent forits commerce. Fort Fisher not only commanded New Inlet where theturns of the channel brought every entering vessel underits guns, but the narrowness of Federal Point gave it con-trol of the river also; and when it should once be in ourpossession the port would be closed. It had been con-structed in accordance with its situation and use, with thetwo long faces described, but open at the back upon theriver and having only a light rifle trench extending from themound battery to the river, facing Fort Buchanan. As anymilitary force intending to attack the place would neces-sarily land out of cannon range to the northward, the landface of the fort was the most elaborately built. Starting FORT FISHER. 139
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Fort Fisher and Wilmington, N. C. 140 FRANKLIN AND NASHVILLE. from a half bastion on the river, a curtain ran to the bastionat the angle on the sea. The parapet was aboitt twentyfeet high, with a shallow ditch, most of the sand for thework being taken from the interior. Midway the curtainwas a small outwork covering an entrance to the fort. Twofield-pieces in this gave a flanking fire upon the ditch andassisted the guns in the bastions in sweeping the front. Aheavy loopholed palisade was before the ditch and aboutfifty feet from the foot of the slope. This front was armedwith twenty-one heavy guns and three mortars. A formida-ble system of torpedoes had been planted beyond the pali-sade, to be discharged by electricity from within the fort.To protect the guns from an enfilading naval fire, very heavytraverses had been built, about a dozen in number, at rightangles to the parapet, from twenty-five to forty feet long,and rising ten feet above the gunners heads. These werestrongly built,

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