'Romantic' War Also Fierce,
Bloody And Surprising
BY MARJORIE MEGIVERN
Take a tour of nearby historic
Fort Fisher today and see on
ly remnants of a once-proud
Civil War fortress, whose glory is
now reduced to museum relics. A
film in that museum documents the
battle of 1865 when this last conduit
for Confederate supplies fell to
Federal forces.
Fort Fisher was even less impres
sive some 35 years ago when Rod
Gragg played frequently as a child
on its beaches, long before the state
of North Carolina restored the site
10 reflect its historic importance.
Nevertheless, that little boy be
came so enamored of Civil War his
tory and the critical Fort Fisher bat
tle, he grew up to write about it with
accuracy and passion. Confederate
Goliath , just off the Harper Collins
presses, is Gragg's third Civil War
publication, the first that reads like
a novel while it informs as thor
oughly as a textbook.
The secret of success for this dra
matic account of Fort Fisher's fall is
Gragg's decision to make it a "peo
ple" book. When publishers dis
missed it as "too regional," he took
a fresh approach and focused on the
personalities behind the guns and
the strategy, even while maintaining
precision in facts and figures. There
is a dizzying succession of such
facts, from weather conditions to ar
mament and body counts, and one
would swear this writer stood at the
elbow of Confederate and Union
generals as they mapped out battle
plans.
, rirjipin Trrp , ? . _ - , PHOTO COURTESY HARPER CO
Ar 7 ?,/? 77/ ? CRITICAL battle , dismounted cannon are seen littering the rear of Shepherd's Battery.
Despite its suspenseful and de
tailed account of every maneuver
from Christmas Day of 1864 to
Federal victory on January 16,
1865, one cannot read Confederate
Goliath simply as a clinical battle
report Gragg does more by pulling
his readers into the private lives of
the men in uniform.
We get acquainted with such
heroic figures as Col. William
Lamb, charged with defending Fort
Fisher, and Gen. Alfred Terry, his
Union counterpart. We also meet
less admirable characters: "muddle
headed" Gen. Braxton Bragg, be
lieved by many to be responsible
for the fort's demise, and the con
troversial Gen. Benjamin Butler, de
spised all over the South.
More than a dozen participants in
the conflict are brought to life as
Gragg describes their families,
hometowns, careers and aspirations.
We care about them and follow their
fortunes attentively.
People, however, never take
precedence over political and mili
tary events and Fort Fisher's role in
the Confederate defense. As the
South's last surviving seaport, it
was the largest fortification along
the coast, the lifeline to Confederate
troops. Thus it became the target of
the most massive naval bombard
ment of the war, followed by a
Fierce, bloody ground attack that
left blue- and grey-clad bodies piled
in every direction.
To read of the violent Civil War
deaths and injuries met by 620,000
men, is to wonder that Americans
ever again considered war a solu
tion to any conflict. The brutality
and blood were all the more sicken
ing in light of the fact that brother
often fought against brother, friend
against friend.
This horror is vivid in Confeder
ate Goliath's depiction of just one
battle site. Gragg could write in
graphic detail of the Fort Fisher
campaigns because of the rich pri
mary research sources available to
him. Many officers involved kept
diaries or wrote memoirs; all of
them wrote descriptive letters home,
and all these, along with ships' logs
and newspaper accounts, resulted in
a personal, eye-witness tone of au
thenticity that permeates Gragg's
writing.
As a former journalist, his style is
concise yet colorful, economic but
comprehensive in telling the whole
story. There is no hint of partisan
ship, either, despite Gragg's south
ern upbringing.
Narration and personality sketch
es aside, there is much of strategic
interest in the book, even to readers
like this reviewer, who studiously
avoid books about war.
It is hard to resist the suspense of
that first campaign launched on
Christmas day, when, to all appear
ances, the taking of the fort by a
fleet of more than 50 Union vessels
would be a piece of cake. However,
the initial explosion of a powder
boat, intended to paralyze the garri
son, fizzled, leaving the fleet faced
with attacking an undamaged, arm
ed fortress.
Gragg's crisp, powerful prose
carries the story forward as over
whelming naval forces launch a
bombardment that fails, as did the
powder boat, to destroy the target.
The landing of ground forces that
follows leads to a horrible surprise
for Gen. Terry. The beach was soon
BOOK REVIEW
Confederate
Goliath
BY ROD GRAGG
strewn with bodies of Union sol
diers, whose superior numbers were
no match for the latest in military
technology employed by Rebels de
fending the fort.
A hiatus in the conflict was spent
in further strategizing on both sides,
Col. Lamb pleading continuously
with Gen. Braxton Bragg in Wil
mington to come to his aid with ad
ditional forces.
The expected counter-attack nev
er materialized, however, and soon
Terry's forces were ready for a sec
ond campaign. The hard-fought bat
Ue of mid-January spelled the end
of Fort Fisher as a Confederate
stronghold and ultimately the end of
the Confederacy.
This victory cost thousands of
lives, many of whom Gragg pre
sents in their tragic final moments:
Seaman James Flannigan, who
told his friend, "I am going ashore
with you tomorrow and will be
killed," was the first man felled by a
sharpshooter in the second cam
paign;
Ll Benjamin Porter, racing for
the fort's wall, took a Confederate
bullet square in the chest, killing
him instantly, and seconds later Ll
Samuel Preston pitched forward in
to the sand, struck in the groin with
the femoral artery severed. These
friends who had together endured
enemy prisons and escorted young
ladies in port now lay near each oth
er in death.
Assistant Surgeon William Long
shaw, toting instruments and tourni
quets among his fallen comrades,
was shot to death and fell upon the
body of the mortally wounded ma
rine he was tending.
Word pictures of these individual
lives and deaths are matched by de
scriptions of the ghastly scene of
battle: "Dead lay in all directions
and positions," a sailor wrote home.
"It was a horrid sight to look at,
some mangled terrible. The beach
for 1 ,000 acres is covered with shot
and broken shell."
Gragg has, however, balanced the
horrors of war with its other as
pects: both heroism and cowardice
among the men, cosily mistakes on
both sides, faulty equipment, inter
fering weather changes, and men
who found the whole thing an in
vigorating adventure.
Fort Fisher feii on January 16,
and shortly after, Wilmington sur
rendered. This was the final act in
the wartime saga of a fort whose
name would pass from the recollec
tions of most some 120 years later.
Those publishers who "never heard
of' Fort Fisher will now find their
memories painfully jogged by this
powerful book with its fresh per
spective on America's first modern
war. Undoubtedly they will wish
this title could be among their pub
lications of 1991, when war is very
much an American obsession once
again.
Complementing the words are
dozens of photographs of key men
in uniform, scenes of battle, the
Union's impressive flotilla, and Fort
Fisher's mighty ramparts
With Confederate Goliath, Gragg
has done a great service to the Blue
and the Gray in recounting their
valor and their agony with such ob
jectivity, clarity and warmth.
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