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The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays Of Departing Hope
The Wilmington Campaign: "Last Rays of Departing Hope" is the first study to examine, in sweeping detail, the entire campaign designed to capture one of the Confederacy's most important and heavily defended seaports. Prior books and articles have focused solely on the epic struggles for Fort Fisher, leading many students of the war to conclude that the campaign ended when that mighty bastion fell in January of 1865. In many respects, the campaign was just beginning.
Author Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr., a native and resident of Wilmington, North Carolina, has spent decades studying this complex campaign and walking its terrain. His research has uncovered a vast array of previously unused battle reports, correspondence, diaries, and journals. The entire saga is told largely through the eyes of the fascinating personalities involved.
Abounding with colorful characters and full of vivid battlefield detail, Fonvielle's definitive study in military history at its finest. The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope proves yet again that there is still much to be learned about the American Civil War.
Author Chris E. Fonvielle, Jr., a native and resident of Wilmington, North Carolina, has spent decades studying this complex campaign and walking its terrain. His research has uncovered a vast array of previously unused battle reports, correspondence, diaries, and journals. The entire saga is told largely through the eyes of the fascinating personalities involved.
Abounding with colorful characters and full of vivid battlefield detail, Fonvielle's definitive study in military history at its finest. The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope proves yet again that there is still much to be learned about the American Civil War.
623 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
54 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
January 22, 2024
“And then the dead! Men in all postures, mangled in the head and body, with brains out, but with perfect features, covered with sand and grimed with powder. Arms, legs, hands, faces distorted, swollen, all in the traverses, in the trenches, in green water pools, in the bombproofs, upon the parapet, down the embankments, here, there, everywhere. Piles of dead men upon which the victorious soldiers were partaking lunch, while, in another place, the same ghastly table was made for the convenience of the euchre players.” — From a Union naval officer in The Wilmington Campaign
Even for frequent readers of Civil War history, a study of the Wilmington Campaign can provide something different. Or, more to the point, brings a little bit of everything. A land campaign, sea battles, combined land and sea battles, all taking place not in over-studied Gettysburg or the sometimes overemphasized Virginia battles. The Union’s late 1864/early 1865 campaign to finally close up the Confederacy’s leading blockade-running port in North Carolina is a fascinating tale and one not often told. And it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a much better job than Chris Fonvielle Jr. does here.
At the heart of the story is the fight to capture Fort Fisher, a seemingly indestructible sand fort that guarded the entrance to the Cape Fear River and which, still in Confederate hands, allowed the South to continue its illegal (as the United States saw it), trade with Great Britain — those ships that could get through the Union blockade, anyway.
It took the Union two cracks at it to take Fort Fisher, starting with a late December effort (“While Union cannonballs tore into the boy soldiers near Battery Buchanan, boys and girls were tearing into paper-wrapped presents found underneath Christmas trees in Wilmington”) in which the navy took the novel tack of trying to destroy the seaside fort by exploding a barge — laden with 430,000 pounds of gunpowder — that was floated toward the fort in early-morning darkness. After that fascinating failure came a second attack on Fort Fisher in January 1865, a much more coordinated army/navy cooperative that finally led to the taking of Fort Fisher and the eventual occupation of Wilmington upriver.
Fonvielle is an excellent guide through this rather under-the-radar-important campaign. The Wilmington Campaign comes with generally excellent maps, including an unusual, double-sided, fold-out map of this long, narrow geographical area of contention. Though there are 30 maps, there are a couple of occasions in which I expected one that never appeared, or one came a few pages too late. Another small but nagging detail is the presence of a few too many typos.
Fonvielle’s presentation is generally very clear, as complex Civil War campaign histories go, though muddiest when the Union soldiers are overrunning the fort yard by yard at last; sometimes I couldn’t tell whether Fonvielle was describing actions inside or outside Fort Fisher.
But in bringing us every angle, the author doesn’t seem to miss a trick. Starting with a vital but perhaps too-long history of the area and the importance of Wilmington, Fonvielle goes frequently from the sweeping to the specific, including a Confederate soldier trying to keep safe during battle a five-pound bucket of butter he’d just received from his girlfriend, and the touching story of two North Carolina brothers on opposite sides in the fighting, both stopping by to visit their mother a day apart as they marched past their old home on the road to Wilmington. Most superbly, Fonvielle resists the temptation to end the narrative at the occupation of Wilmington, instead providing 30-plus pages of the aftermath: Union occupation; starvation; a devastated city trying to survive while unable to conduct trade and with virtually nonexistent jobs and worthless or unavailable currency; inhabitants divided (but mostly welcoming) about their occupiers; an enormous influx of paroled or escaped Yankee prisoners; refugees including liberated slaves and disaffected whites who had attached themselves to General Sherman’s army, a force whose march into North Carolina was made easier by the capture of Wilmington. Fonvielle really shines here, getting to the heart of what happens after an army’s basic goal is achieved but there's so much more to do, life to live (if you've survived).
The Wilmington Campaign is fascinating stuff. As mentioned, that joint army/navy cooperation wasn’t often seen in the Civil War on this scale, at least not on the Eastern Seaboard; neither was hand-to-hand fighting — of which there was a great deal as the Federals entered Fort Fisher — very frequent in the war. An interesting story and well told, The Wilmington Campaign, while not absolutely great, should be required reading for anyone wanting a deeper, more geographically inclusive understanding of the Civil War.
Even for frequent readers of Civil War history, a study of the Wilmington Campaign can provide something different. Or, more to the point, brings a little bit of everything. A land campaign, sea battles, combined land and sea battles, all taking place not in over-studied Gettysburg or the sometimes overemphasized Virginia battles. The Union’s late 1864/early 1865 campaign to finally close up the Confederacy’s leading blockade-running port in North Carolina is a fascinating tale and one not often told. And it’s hard to imagine anyone doing a much better job than Chris Fonvielle Jr. does here.
At the heart of the story is the fight to capture Fort Fisher, a seemingly indestructible sand fort that guarded the entrance to the Cape Fear River and which, still in Confederate hands, allowed the South to continue its illegal (as the United States saw it), trade with Great Britain — those ships that could get through the Union blockade, anyway.
It took the Union two cracks at it to take Fort Fisher, starting with a late December effort (“While Union cannonballs tore into the boy soldiers near Battery Buchanan, boys and girls were tearing into paper-wrapped presents found underneath Christmas trees in Wilmington”) in which the navy took the novel tack of trying to destroy the seaside fort by exploding a barge — laden with 430,000 pounds of gunpowder — that was floated toward the fort in early-morning darkness. After that fascinating failure came a second attack on Fort Fisher in January 1865, a much more coordinated army/navy cooperative that finally led to the taking of Fort Fisher and the eventual occupation of Wilmington upriver.
Fonvielle is an excellent guide through this rather under-the-radar-important campaign. The Wilmington Campaign comes with generally excellent maps, including an unusual, double-sided, fold-out map of this long, narrow geographical area of contention. Though there are 30 maps, there are a couple of occasions in which I expected one that never appeared, or one came a few pages too late. Another small but nagging detail is the presence of a few too many typos.
Fonvielle’s presentation is generally very clear, as complex Civil War campaign histories go, though muddiest when the Union soldiers are overrunning the fort yard by yard at last; sometimes I couldn’t tell whether Fonvielle was describing actions inside or outside Fort Fisher.
But in bringing us every angle, the author doesn’t seem to miss a trick. Starting with a vital but perhaps too-long history of the area and the importance of Wilmington, Fonvielle goes frequently from the sweeping to the specific, including a Confederate soldier trying to keep safe during battle a five-pound bucket of butter he’d just received from his girlfriend, and the touching story of two North Carolina brothers on opposite sides in the fighting, both stopping by to visit their mother a day apart as they marched past their old home on the road to Wilmington. Most superbly, Fonvielle resists the temptation to end the narrative at the occupation of Wilmington, instead providing 30-plus pages of the aftermath: Union occupation; starvation; a devastated city trying to survive while unable to conduct trade and with virtually nonexistent jobs and worthless or unavailable currency; inhabitants divided (but mostly welcoming) about their occupiers; an enormous influx of paroled or escaped Yankee prisoners; refugees including liberated slaves and disaffected whites who had attached themselves to General Sherman’s army, a force whose march into North Carolina was made easier by the capture of Wilmington. Fonvielle really shines here, getting to the heart of what happens after an army’s basic goal is achieved but there's so much more to do, life to live (if you've survived).
The Wilmington Campaign is fascinating stuff. As mentioned, that joint army/navy cooperation wasn’t often seen in the Civil War on this scale, at least not on the Eastern Seaboard; neither was hand-to-hand fighting — of which there was a great deal as the Federals entered Fort Fisher — very frequent in the war. An interesting story and well told, The Wilmington Campaign, while not absolutely great, should be required reading for anyone wanting a deeper, more geographically inclusive understanding of the Civil War.
February 3, 2021
This should certainly stand as the definitive history of the Union effort to capture the last major blockade-running port of the Confederacy. Not sure it could be done better, and also has some of the finest cartography I have seen in a military history book, and I have read many. It is an interesting narrative, with full orders of battle, highly referenced, and with informative notes and many interesting (and some rare) photographs. The book covers the entire Wilmington campaign not just the battles for Fort Fisher which were the subject of a well-regarded history by Rod Gragg. But the battles for the fort were certainly the highlight, with what was at the time the greatest naval bombardment in history, twice! Not sure why I don't say 5-stars, for its genre it merits that. You kind of wonder what a guy like Fonvielle (a Wilmington native and professor at UNCW) could follow up with as this was obviously his lifelong passion (as he states in the introduction). Apparently he has written few more but this is his magnum opus. If you are ever planning a trip to Wilmington (as I hope to) this would be an excellent read.
February 15, 2015
Wilmington north Carolina was the most important seaport in the Confederacy. Blockade runners delivered needed supplies from Europe through the port facilities, and despite the best efforts of the US Navy, the blockade simply couldn't cut off, entirely, the flow of supplies into the South. This, combined with the Souths' own amazing efforts at wartime industrialization, ensured that, despite all the statistics that might indicate otherwise, the Rebel armies had all the supplies they needed, even if their logistics were bare bones compared to the Federals, to wage war. And protecting the port from the wrath of the Federal government was Fort Fisher, the 'Goliath of the Confederacy'.
This book tells of the early 1865 combined Army-Navy operation to first destroy Fort Fisher and then seize Wilmington itself in order to, finally, cut the Southern Confederacy off from the outside world. The Battle of Fort Fisher, a massive assault utilizing regular Army units, the United States Colored Troops (USCT), and Sailors and Marines from the fleet was one of the last great bloodbaths of the war. And when the Fort was secured in Federal hands, despite severe losses, that in killed and wounded were three times those of the Rebels, the fall of Wilmington was assured.
The rest of the campaign was extremely anti-climatic. The Confederates, unable to properly unify their command authority under one overall leader, (Braxton Bragg was a near absent commander commander at best) the Federal forces, eight times the strength of the Rebels, forced them to evacuate Wilmington and retreat inland into North Carolina where they joined a gathering Rebel force under Joe Johnston who hoped to block Sherman's advancing forces before he could emerge in Lee's rear in Virginia. There was sharp skirmishing, however, before the city fell, and the USCT bore the brunt of the fighting upon the Union side, showcasing their worth as soldiers and men of war.
The book ends with a brief account of the post war occupation, even going into disturbing detail how the race relations between white and black Union soldiers began to fray following the war with several murders and reprisals taking place. A sad portent for the nation at large, and an issue that has never been truly solved.
All in all this is an excellent book about a seriously misrepresented campaign, a vital one, in the closing days of the War Between the States. Highly recommended.
This book tells of the early 1865 combined Army-Navy operation to first destroy Fort Fisher and then seize Wilmington itself in order to, finally, cut the Southern Confederacy off from the outside world. The Battle of Fort Fisher, a massive assault utilizing regular Army units, the United States Colored Troops (USCT), and Sailors and Marines from the fleet was one of the last great bloodbaths of the war. And when the Fort was secured in Federal hands, despite severe losses, that in killed and wounded were three times those of the Rebels, the fall of Wilmington was assured.
The rest of the campaign was extremely anti-climatic. The Confederates, unable to properly unify their command authority under one overall leader, (Braxton Bragg was a near absent commander commander at best) the Federal forces, eight times the strength of the Rebels, forced them to evacuate Wilmington and retreat inland into North Carolina where they joined a gathering Rebel force under Joe Johnston who hoped to block Sherman's advancing forces before he could emerge in Lee's rear in Virginia. There was sharp skirmishing, however, before the city fell, and the USCT bore the brunt of the fighting upon the Union side, showcasing their worth as soldiers and men of war.
The book ends with a brief account of the post war occupation, even going into disturbing detail how the race relations between white and black Union soldiers began to fray following the war with several murders and reprisals taking place. A sad portent for the nation at large, and an issue that has never been truly solved.
All in all this is an excellent book about a seriously misrepresented campaign, a vital one, in the closing days of the War Between the States. Highly recommended.
October 10, 2009
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 fierce, 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.
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 fierce, 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.
April 18, 2023
This single book length account of the whole Wilmington, NC Campaign is the definitive account! The author tracks the campaign from it hesitant concept to its final struggles of the captured city. The author admits that his is not the one account of the battle of Fort Fisher (his good friend Rod Gregg has written a very good one), this covers a lot more subject material. The text is interspersed with numerous pictures and the maps cover the actions very well. This is a great recommendation to anyone interested in the campaign and another example of General Bragg's incompetence!!!!!
February 16, 2023
I read a lot of Civil War history and while rewarding, the books are not always easy reads. I wish all Civil War books were like this 1. Very informative about a subject I knew little about and enjoyable to read.
August 7, 2023
A great revealing examination of a very important but little known or studied aspect of the Civil War. The book makes a strong case for the vital importance to the Confederacy of keeping the Wilmington port open.
December 24, 2018
Great Civil War history!!
May 21, 2019
The writing is well done and flows from one incident to another. As I read it, I imagined my ancestor's experience at Fort Fisher.
February 16, 2015
Thorough account of the Wilmington Campaign describing Confederate and Union military and political reasons for making the lower Cape Fear River the focal point of the continent in late 1864 and early 1865. Fonvielle makes a complicated subject - with many moving parts - easy to visualize and digest.
June 24, 2010
If you're into history this is a GREAT read. This needs to be made into a movie!!!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews