From the January 15, 2011, Naval History Blog.
It is amazing how many future admirals and high-rank officers participated in the attacks on Fort Fisher and this is the start of one of them.
"Fighting Bob" Evans is best remembered as the admiral who commanded the Great White Fleet in 1907 that circumnavigated the globe. He earned his nickname while commanding the gunboat USS Yorktown off Chilean waters while protecting American interests after the deaths of two American sailors in Valparaiso on October 16, 1891.
But that tendency to fight was already evident at Fort Fisher back during the Civil War.
There, Admiral David D. Porter called for volunteers to form a 2,000 man Naval Brigade to assist the Army in storming the fort. Civil War sailors regularly trained for landing parties. Porter received an overwhelming response from the fleet and had to turn away hundreds.
Shortly after noon on Jan. 15, 1865, 1600 sailors armed with revolvers and cutlasses along with 400 Marines landed a mile and a half north of Fort Fisher and formed three divisions to attack the northeast bastion (probably the strongest part of the fort).
A Charge for the Ages. --Old B-Runner
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